“There were some Presbyterians among them?”
“The lady’s axin’ if there wasn’t Presbyterians wi’ the United Men, father,” said his daughter.
“Troth, was there, ma’am! it was allowed that there was ministers an’ farmers an’ shopkeepers o’ them. Jack was a Presbyterian himsel’.”
“I dinna just mind, but I think it was at a meeting they had at a house in Feeny. The alarm was given that the soldiers was coming, and all fled an’ got away but Jack. He was a fine boy of nineteen years of age, the support o’ his mother. He was stiff in his turn, too, far stiffer nor I could ha’ been, for he swore he’d die afore he’d tell upon his comrades. Ay, he was stiffer nor me.”
“True for you, father,” laughed the old woman, leaning over Paddy’s chair; “you’d ha’ told sooner nor be scourged.”
We recalled Paddy’s naïve history of his flight from the pass on the White Mountain and mentally agreed with her. Paddy, however, was an Irishman pure, while Jack McSparron was descended from the Scottish Covenanters, and had inherited from them the fortitude of an Ephraim MacBriar.
“Go on, Paddy; your story is most interesting.”
The old man smiled, but he was hardly thinking of his visitors, the picture brought back by memory so engrossed him.
“Jack wouldna’ gie the names o’ his comrades, an’ he was sentenced to be flogged till he would tell. I mind Niel Sweenie, that was a comrade boy o’ mine, an’ me went to Dungiven to see the flogging. We seen Jack in a cart an’ his mother wi’ him, an’ all the way along the road she was laying her commands upon him to die before he’d betray his comrades. The army was marching all round the cart, an’ people frae all the farmhouses an’ cottierhouses was following. Then we got into Dungiven. I mind the crowds that was looking on, an’ me an’ Niel among them.
“Jack got so many lashes, an’ then they’d stop an’ the officer would ax him if he would tell now, an’ the old woman would call out, ‘Dinna give in, Jack. Die like a man, my son. Think o’ the curses o’ the widows an’ orphans that wad follow you;’ an’ the poor boy would make answer, ‘Ay, mother, I’ll die before I tell.’”
“Dear, dear, but that mother was the hard-hearted woman!” interrupted Paddy’s daughter, glancing at her grandson, who happened to pass the door at that moment with a creel of turf on his back.