O'Brien and O'Hanlon gained the top of the cliff, and reached the car waiting on the road without saying anything further. The former was busy with his thoughts; the latter, after O'Brien's word "Wait," sank into indifference.
"I'm ashamed of two sensible men such as you," said the driver, in a southern brogue, "going down there on an uncertain season like this, and at the end of daylight. It's a mercy you ever got back alive."
"Or dead," said O'Brien, with a laugh.
"Never mind, Terry; we're none the worse for it. Now, drive on to Kilcash, and pull up at the Strand Hotel."
The driver whipped his horse, and the remainder of the journey was accomplished in silence.
Kilcash is a small, straggling village, built on the slopes of the cliffs surrounding Kilcash Bay, and on the low ground lying in front of the bay. In summer it is usually pretty full of people, for although no railway has yet reached it, hundreds of families live in the neighbourhood, and many who dwell at a distance use it as a holiday resort. In winter it is dreary, deserted, dead. The closed-up lodging-houses and cottages which, under the influence of the summer sun, grow bright and cheerful with flowers and the faces of children, in winter stare with blank window eyes at the cold gray sky and monotonous level of the sea. It was difficult to say who governed Kilcash--five policemen and seven coastguardsmen, possibly; for there was no other sign of official life.
There was no Corporation, no Commissioners under the Towns Improvement Act, no gas-house, no water-works, no sanitary board, no guardians of the poor, no bellman, no watering-carts, no workhouse, no police-court, no tax or rate collector, no exciseman, no soldier, no lawyer. There were only three institutions, and these were curative--namely, two houses of worship of different denominations, and a dispensary.
Indirect taxation reached the people occultly; of direct taxation they knew nothing. No doubt some one paid for mending their sewer when the rain-water of winter burst it. No doubt some one paid for putting metal on the roads when the ruts became absolutely dangerous. No doubt some one paid the men who built up the breach in the Storm Wall.
There was a slumbering belief that the police had powers, and the coastguards functions. For instance, the police fished a good deal, smoked fairly well, and were respectable with haughtiness. The coastguards had a boat. In the eyes of Kilcash the possession of a boat was sufficient to account for anything in the world. The coastguards went out in their boat only in fine weather, which gave them the aspect of gentlemen. They kept their boat scrupulously mopped and painted--painted, not tarred; which was foppish, and a little weak-minded. They carefully displayed in the station on the hill, carbines and cutlasses of which Kilcash stood in no more awe than it did of the bulrushes in the bog at the back of the village. To be sure, there was a theory that upon occasion the police might call on the coastguards to come out and assist them. But what this occasion was no one knew. Sergeant Mahony had been heard to hint broadly that in such a dire extremity--which would not, he said, curdle his blood in the least--the chief command would devolve on him. Although nothing was known for certain as to the exigency which might place the whole offensive and defensive forces of the village under the command of Mahony, Tim Curran had, when going home late of an evening, said he supposed the landing of the French in Dublin Bay would lead to that extraordinary act of power. Tim had been in Dublin for three days, and was believed to be infallible on all matters connected, or that might ever be connected, with the bay--from herrings to the French Fleet. It must not be deduced from this that Kilcash assumed a very servile attitude towards Dublin; for if Dublin had a bay, so likewise had Kilcash.
In the village there was one secret held by all, known by all, but scarcely once in a lifetime spoken of by one neighbour to another. It is more than likely that this secret would never have been dreamed of only for a fool once famous in the village, now long since dead. And even this fool told the secret to but few. For a reason lost in the obscurity of local dulness, this fool was named "The Prince of Orange." He went about barefooted, in the most gaudy raiment he could beg. He preferred a soldiers or a huntsman's cast-off coat to any other, and if he was fortunate enough to get such a garment, he stitched to it all the blue, yellow, and green ribbons he could lay hands on. He was one of the villagers killed by the monster of the Black Rock. On the outer face of it the fishing was generally good for long lines, and one day, while making believe to fish there with an old brace and a piece of tattered ribbon tied together, he was surprised and overwhelmed.
The great secret of the people of Kilcash was that no man, woman, or child of the whole village could understand why people came there in summer. Of course the advent of the visitors filled the pockets of the inhabitants, which was no more than the inhabitants were entitled to expect, which was no more than natural, since it has been so for generations. But why should people come to Kilcash in the summer months? It was said they came to the sea. But why?
Supposing a sailor had been at sea for three years and then came home to Kilcash, did he want to look at the land? Did any one in the world ever want to see the land? These people who came with the long, hot days had near their own homes lakes or rivers, or pools or wells. All these were water--nothing but water. There was salt in one, and not in the other--that was all the difference. Put a bucket of sea-water beside a bucket of fresh, and who could tell the difference without tasting or smelling?
When a man came back from a three years' cruise, did he go straight off into the country and stand or lie staring at the fields and haystacks? Not he. Either he came home to Kilcash, or went to a big town where he could see strange sights and buy fine things with his wages. Some came to fish. To fish! Why, every gurnet they caught cost them about a pound of money. The doctors told them to come for health. Health! What did they think of rheumatism, and fever, and bronchitis, and pleurisy, and lumbago, and other diseases, a thousand times worse at the sea than inland? Did any one ever know the land to kill a man? How many thousands a year did the sea kill? In the heat of summer it was all very well to bathe, and swim, and lie about on the sands and rocks, to wade and tumble into pools and get drenched with spray. But wait until the winter comes. Wait until they get the wages of their summer folly. Wait until they are racked by pains, and choked with a cough, and crippled with stiff joints. When they feel the penalties they are far from the place where they incurred them, and the fools of doctors tell them they must go back to the sea next summer in order to get finally rid of their maladies! Rubbish. In reality they come to the sea to drive in the few nails still wanting in their coffins.
This secret made the people of Kilcash conscious of being hypocrites, and accounted for the forced smile with which they greeted visitors in summer, and the night of leaden gloom which descended on them when the visitors departed for the year. The inhabitants of Kilcash never smiled in winter. To laugh in winter would have sounded like a pæan over their miserable, misguided visitors. It would have indicated a heartless and brutal nature.
O'Brien and O'Hanlon alighted at the "Strand Hotel," and ordered dinner and beds. During dinner, O'Hanlon made two ineffectual attempts to extract O'Brien's idea from him, but the latter would not speak. He smiled, and repeated his former word "Wait." O'Brien in his turn tried to induce O'Hanlon to talk, but the latter answered in the briefest and most apathetic way. The dinner was finished in absolute silence.
When it was over, O'Brien rose and said:
"You won't mind my going out for an hour or so?"
"Going out!" cried O'Hanlon, rousing up. "Where on earth are you going at such an hour, in such a place? Not to that accursed Black Rock?"
"No, no," said O'Brien. "Only I'm quite sure you would never dream of entering such a place, I would ask you to come with me."
"What place?"
"Oh, you're too respectable for it, I assure you."
"Nonsense! I'll go with you."
"I'll lay you a sovereign you don't."
"Done!"
"Done! I'm going to the 'Blue Anchor' to drink a pint of beer and smoke a pipe of tobacco. Hand over the money."
"The 'Blue Anchor'--the Blue 'Anchor!' Areyouout of your mind too, or are you joking? Oh, I know! You want to get rid of me for an hour, but don't like to say so."
"I have a bet of a sovereign on it, and I'll take the money now, if you like. Will that convince you?"
"No; I'll pay when you come back and tell me you have been there. But if you really are going to that low beershop, tell me what you are going there for."
"Amusement. I find you dull."
O'Hanlon screwed up his eyes and regarded O'Brien closely.
"What is it?" he asked.
He knew O'Brien much too well to think he meant to be offensive, or even smart at the expense of an old friend without good reason. He suspected O'Brien was waiving a direct answer, which might cause pain to his hearer.
"It's something you suspect, and don't like to tell me. You're not going over to the dispensary to ask Dr. Flynn to drop in presently, as though by accident, and find me here, and make an informal examination?"
This was said half-playfully.
"Take care," said O'Brien, as he buttoned on his overcoat. "If you don't knock off talking about your infernal sanity, you'll drivememad; and won't that be a nice kettle of fish? Now look here: Are you, or are you not, coming with me to the 'Blue Anchor' to smoke a frugal pipe and drink a frugal pint of beer--or, more correctly, a pint of frugal beer? Yes or no?"
"No," answered O'Hanlon, sinking back hopelessly on the chair from which he had risen. "It would be as much as my professional position is worth."
"All right, then; I'm off. I'll be back within an hour. Don't forget you owe me a sovereign;" and he left the room.
The "Blue Anchor" was certainly not a place suited to the leisure moments of a respectable solicitor enjoying first-rate practice in an important town. It was small, low, dingy, blear-windowed, dilapidated. It stood in a little by-street, if a place like Kilcash can be said to have a by-street, since it has no main street or streets, all streets being in some way or another intimately connected with the Storm Wall, as the road inside that work was called.
The "Blue Anchor" has no pretensions to a "front." On one side of the door is a small, square window filled with small panes of unclean glass. The house is two storeys high; the ground-floor consists of three rooms--namely, the bar, tap-room, and kitchen. The floors of these three rooms are formed of beaten clay, and boast of neither straw nor sand.
Within the bar are a plain deal table and four chairs. By means of these, the bar is, for the sake of gentility, used as the family refectory, for people of any pretensions know that dining in the kitchen is a sign of low origin. Opposite the counter of the bar stands the door into the tap-room. Folk who are in haste can be served at the bar, but most of the customers of the "Blue Anchor" are strangers to haste, and take their liquor seated in the tap-room--or tap, as it is familiarly and affectionately called by those who are familiar with the place. It is about twelve feet square, with a large deal table in the middle, and a bench on each side of the table. At the upper end is a hearth, on which smoulders a good peat fire, the smoke from which goes up a large flue that comes down to within five feet of the floor like a huge funnel. Two short pieces of logs, the spoil of some wreck, serve as chimney-seats. The benches are of home-make, and very unsteady on their legs. The continual presence of beer seems to have muddled them as to the exact position of their centre of gravity; and this condition, combined with the deplorable unevenness of the floor, has made them despair of ever being able to find it out.
But the table is as firm as the Black Rock itself John Tobin, the landlord--an enormously fat man, in gaiters, knee-breeches, and a cutaway-coat--takes great pride in the invincible stability of that table. Whenever he is angered by anything, he goes into the tap-room, places his hands flat on the middle of the table, and gives two, three, or four shakes, according to the agitation of his feelings. Then he goes out to the front door, looks critically at the sky to seaward, comes back to the bar, and, having mopped his forehead, sighs, and is once more calm.
The wonder of every one in the village is how the "Blue Anchor" manages to live, and support John, his wife, and daughter. In summer the men are too busy to go often, except for a pint or two before retiring for the night; and in winter the men have very little or no money to spend.
When Jerry O'Brien reached the "Blue Anchor" he spoke a few cheerful words to John Tobin, whom every frequenter of Kilcash knew, told him he had run out from Kilbarry for the evening, with a view to seeing how things were in the village, and how things were likely to be there in the coming season. Jerry did not know exactly what the latter phrase could mean, but it sounded friendly, as though he took an interest in the place.
Old John instantly attached a definite meaning to his words, and said, with a smile:
"Ah, sir, glad to hear it. Going to marry, sir, and settle down and take a house here for the season?"
Jerry started a little, coloured a little, and then said gaily:
"No such luck, John--no such luck! I meant about the fishing, you know. I'll go in and smoke a pipe for a bit."
"And welcome, sir," said the fat old man, steering himself around the end of the counter, and bringing his vast stomach safely into view, with watch-chain, watch-key, and seals swaying giddily from his overhanging fob.
There were only two guests in the "Blue Anchor." Both were smoking short clay pipes; each had a pint pewter pot before him. Jerry nodded to each and said "Good evening" before sitting down. He called for a pipe and tobacco for himself, and then asked if all, John Tobin included, would have a drink, "because, you know," said he, "as I never have been here before, it is only fair I should pay my footing," a speech which was very cordially received. A wish was expressed by John Tobin that since it was the first time he hoped it wouldn't be the last. Upon which the two fishermen applauded and cleared their throats in anticipation of beer.
For a while O'Brien led the men to speak of the prospects of the next season's fishing, and the chances of its being a good one. By the end of half-an-hour they were ready for more beer. Then he ceased to ask questions, and began to talk:
"As I was coming along from Kilbarry to-day, I told Tim to stop opposite the Black Rock, and I and Mr. O'Hanlon, who was with me, got down and went out on it. I haven't been on it for I don't know how long. Horrible place! I suppose very few people go over from the village this time of year?"
"Very few. Only for the good fishing there's off the tail of it, no one out of the village would ever go there. It's a cursed spot. I wonder you weren't afraid to go down, sir, at such a time of year. Ah, but when you were passing it was no more than about half flood. There's not so much danger at half flood as at full. Were you to the southward of the Hole, sir?" said one of the fishermen.
"No. I took care of that. I may be a fool, but I'm not such a fool as that. I was curious to see the place because of the death of Mr. Davenport."
"Ah, yes," said John Tobin. "He's gone."
There was neither joy nor sorrow in Tobin's voice, and that tone expressed the general feeling of Kilcash towards the event. It was nothing to the village, neither good nor harm. He had been little more than a name to them.
"Well, you all remember an unfortunate fellow named Fahey--Mike Fahey, wasn't it?--who went down the Hole of his own free will, or, rather, when he was chased by the police, ten or eleven years ago. Of course you all remember him?"
"Oh, yes"--they all remembered him.
"Well, the affair of Mr. Davenport's death put him in my mind, and I thought we'd go and look at the place where he took his awful leap. It nearly made me giddy to look down, and sick to think of his awful end."
"And he wasn't in the wrong, after all!" said John Tobin. "Mr. Davenport, I will say, afterwards cleared the man's character. That was good of Mr. Davenport, wasn't it?"
"Yes," said O'Brien; "but why did he make away with himself? If a man knows he's innocent, he needn't run off and drown himself. He must have remembered Mr. Davenport gave him the money. Why didn't he trust Mr. Davenport to clear him?"
The three men shook their heads.
"That's what puzzles me," said O'Brien. "This unfortunate man was fond of fishing."
"And little's the good he got by it," said one of the fishermen. "He had a miserable cockleshell of a punt, and it was the wonder of every one he wasn't drowned seven days in the week. Nothing would satisfy him but to keep dodging about that Black Rock in his tub of a punt, all by himself, and he not able to swim a stroke. If he hadn't gone down the Hole of his own will, he'd have been drowned by his own foolishness some day."
"How used he to manage that boat? With a sail?"
"Sail! No, sculls."
"Did he pull well?"
"Not particularly well. Well enough, though, for a raw-boned chap like him. Now that I remember it, I think he was pretty handy with the oars--for a spell, you know. He'd be dead beat in a jim-crack with a heavy oar in a yawl, but he could fiddle pretty fairly with the oars he carried."
"Did you ever see him scull from the notch?"
"Ay, I have, sir."
"And was he handy from the notch, too?"
"Yes, in a hop-o'-my-thumb cockleshell like his. Why, you could twist her round your finger in a mill-race. But as far as I can remember, he could handle an oar aft as well as most of those that weren't brought up to the work from boys."
"And what happened to this miserable punt of his?"
"Well, I don't think, sir, I can remember that. I know he lost it in some kind of way or other--west, I think he said. Anyway, whether he said so or not, it must have been west somewhere, for if anything happened to the punt on the east shore he'd never come back to tell what it was, for there isn't a landing-place there for anything from the sea but gulls and curlews; and even if he was the strongest swimmer in the barony his swimming would be no use to him, for he could never get into Kilcash Bay--never get round the head."
"Although, as you say, the east is much more dangerous than the west, isn't it strange he should have lost his boat on the west side?"
"Well, sir, it may and may not be strange. You see the western coast is more broken up, and there are more coves, and little bays, and little strands, and sharp rocks half covered, and so on, so that he might stave her in there, and yet manage to get ashore. I'm very sorry I can't remember what became of the punt."
"Never mind," said O'Brien. "Now, do you know the exact rise and fall of a neap tide at the Black Rock?"
"The exact rise and fall?"
"Yes; the exact rise of a neap tide from dead low water to the top of high water."
"I could not say to the inch, Mr. O'Brien."
"Well, to the foot. I don't want it to the inch; the foot will do."
The fisherman consulted his companion, who had not yet opened his mouth. After a muttered talk, the spokesman said:
"We wouldn't say to a foot, sir, if anything of consequence depended upon it."
"Fill up the measures again, John," said O'Brien, whose pint stood before him untasted. "There's no bet on it; you needn't be afraid. I'm only asking for information. I may be coming round here for the summer, and I just want to find out all I can. How much do you think?"
"Fourteen to sixteen feet."
"You don't think fifteen feet six would be far out?"
"No, sir. That's as near as can be. But there's the wind to be taken into account when you come to inches."
"How near were you ever to the Whale's Mouth--I mean, what was the nearest?"
"As close as that," he answered, stretching out his hand at arm's length. He added significantly--"On the ebb."
"How wide is the Mouth?"
"I couldn't say exactly, sir. It's a place we're rather shy of, as you know. I dare say it's as big as this room."
"You couldn't pull a yawl into it?"
"God forbid!" said the man devoutly. "Two did go in, and one was swallowed up into the bowels of the land, and the other was broken into ten thousand splinters. Pull a yawl in there! I'd go to the Canary Islands for life first."
"I don't mean to saywouldyou, butcouldyou?"
"No."
"Why?"
"For two reasons. In the first place, there isn't room for the yawl and the oars; and in the other place, I'd drop dead with the fright. Heaven be between us and all harm!"
"Is the Mouth much too narrow to allow a yawl to pull in?"
"Mr. O'Brien, I and every one in Kilcash have a great wish for you, sir; and if you're asking me these questions with the intention of going into the Whale's Mouth, I'll not answer another one."
"Upon my word and honour, Phelan. I haven't the least intention of making away with myself, or with anybody else, by means of the Whale's Mouth. I am inquiring simply for information, and perhaps if I come here in the summer, I may ask you to take care of me while I am having a look for myself; but just at present I want you to give me the benefit of what you know. How much too small is it for a yawl to pull in?"
"I couldn't say how many feet, but some feet."
"Ten?"
"Hardly so many as that, but thereabouts."
O'Brien was silent for a while. He looked down at the table, and made some figures on it with his finger. The other men talked together. At last he looked up and said:
"Tell me, Phelan, did you, in looking into the Whale's Mouth, notice whether it was straight, or inclined to the right or the left?"
"It's quite straight, as far as you can see."
"Are you quite sure of that?"
"Certain."
O'Brien then turned the conversation back into local channels again. Soon after he took his leave, having by some strange freak of preoccupation forgotten to drink his beer, although he had smoked his pipe like a man.
It was pitch dark. There was not a star in the heavens; no lights in the village, save here and there the thin ray of a rushlight shining through the wet window of some cottage. No phosphorescent gleam came from the sea, but a mournful, ghostly sound of wailing, as its waves, reduced by their passage up the bay, broke in diminished force against the flat, uneventful sand. Here were none of the grand organ tones heard near the lonely Black Rock, with its deadly legends, hideous Hole, and irresistible monster.
But O'Brien did not want to hear the sea now, either in its tame and civilised musing or in its insane roar when it flung itself unimpeded against the barriers of its dominions. He was thinking of the Black Rock, and of his sick friend, Alfred Paulton; and of O'Hanlon, and of the fate of Mike Fahey, and of Mr. Davenport, and of Tom Blake, and of--of Madge--his Madge, as he called her to himself, now that it was dark and no one was near. His Madge!
All around him was dark, cold, vacuous; all within him was full of light and warmth, and rich with figures in motion. He could not keep his great company of players in order at first. They hustled and jostled one another in his mind--all except Madge--his Madge! She moved apart from all the others, and the moment she appeared all the others fled as though abashed before her unstudied perfections.
Up to this he had never seriously concerned himself about anything. He had always been in fairly comfortable circumstances, although never rich. He had been brought up in the belief that he need never take much more trouble about the present or the future than an occasional glance at his salmon weirs on the river, and here he was now threatened with the loss of those weirs, which formed the backbone of his income--at a time, too, when this income meant the one thing he held dearest in the future--Madge! He had never been really in love before; there had been a few trifling affairs, but up to this he had never made up his mind to marry. That was the great test. Then look at the way he was mixed up in the Paulton and Davenport affair! Alfred, Madge's brother, succours Mrs. Davenport, and falls in love with the widow. He, Jerry O'Brien, causes a relapse in Alfred's case by some indiscreet words spoken by him of Mrs. Davenport. Then the Fishery Commissioners (whom may perdition lay hold of and keep for ever!) come howling to him about those weirs, and O'Hanlon tells him he must come over to Ireland post-haste, or he'll be picked dry as a bone by the Fishery Commissioners (whom may perdition--as before!); and no sooner does he set his foot in Kilbarry than O'Hanlon placidly confesses there is not so much need for haste for a day or two, or perhaps more, and that his (O'Hanlon's) real reason for sending for him was because of the ghost, or the ghost of a ghost, of one Mike Fahey, who had been connected with the Davenports ten or eleven years ago, and had jumped into the Hole in the Black Rock. A pretty complication, truly, for a man to get into in a fortnight or three weeks!
A pretty complication to get into, no doubt; but how would it all end? Except for poor Alfred's illness and the Fishery Commissioners (whom-- as before!), upon the whole he rather liked it.
And now he must go back to O'Hanlon, who would think him lost.
"I say, O'Hanlon," he said, cheerfully, as he got back to the coffee-room, "you've won that sovereign, not I."
"Did you go?"
"Yes. I went and ordered the beer; but, I'm blowed, I was so much amused that I came away and left it undrunk."
"Amused! What in the name of all that is wonderful could amuse you at that wretched beer-shop?"
"I was only picking up some facts about your old friend, Mike Fahey."
"Well, has any one seen him?"
"I met three men, and they had all seen him."
"In the name of heaven, when?"
"Ten or twelve years ago."
"Oh!" groaned O'Hanlon. "And not since?"
"No."
"That's not much good for me, is it?"
"Is it the fact that they have not seen the ghost which strikes you as being bad for you?"
"Yes, O'Brien. You know something."
"No, I do not; but I hope to know. I have learned something. But still--wait."
Next morning O'Hanlon went back by himself to Kilbarry. Jerry O'Brien made up his mind to stay a few days at Kilcash. His last words to the perturbed attorney were encouraging, reassuring. He would divulge nothing, nor indicate the nature of his hopes; but he told O'Hanlon in a confident manner that he might dismiss all thought of his brain being affected. "I now," he said, "verily believe you saw a ghost, the ghost of Mike Fahey, on the Black Rock within the past month. Will that satisfy you?"
O'Hanlon shook his head.
"I'm in the old fix still. I don't believe in ghosts; neither do you, I am sure. You are saying this merely to quiet my fears."
"You may trust me, I assure you. I am not saying anything out of a desire to quiet your fears. If I do not tell you all, I am prevented from doing so only by the want of conclusive evidence. I shall hang about here until some more evidence turns up. I really believe what you saw was no figment of your own brain."
They parted thus. O'Hanlon was little satisfied, still he had no resource but to endure. His faith in O'Brien was great in everything save this one subject, which so unpleasantly and threateningly engrossed his thoughts. He was a man of sanguine temperament, and now the strength and impetuosity of his mind was turned inward and preyed on his peace.
O'Brien had little or nothing to do. His curiosity was strongly excited. Owing to the uncertainty of the movements of the Fishery Commissioners he could not leave the country. His heart was in London; no hour went over his head that he did not think of his friends there. He wrote to Mr. Paulton, and to his great relief heard that Alfred was gradually recovering, and that Dr. Santley hoped to have his patient up and about in a short time, his youth and good constitution favouring rapid convalescence now that the acute stage of the disease was passed. All at Carlingford House were well, and joined in sending kindest regards to him, and hoped he would soon get rid of his troublesome business, and run back to them. There was a postscript to the effect that Dr. Santley had just that moment pronounced Alfred out of danger, and said that he hoped in a fortnight or three weeks the invalid would be able to seek change of air and scene--the two things which would then be sufficient to ensure his restoration.
O'Brien, upon reading this, struck the table with his hand, and cried out:
"Capital!--capital! Nothing could be better! This is the mildest climate in all Europe. He shall come here. I'll run over for him if all the Fishery Commissioners whom Satan can spare were to try and bar my way. The least I may do after causing that relapse is to nurse him for a while."
O'Brien had little or nothing to do in Kilcash. No newspapers came to him from London or Dublin. After luncheon he walked every day along the downs as far as the Black Rock. There, when the weather was fine, he lounged for an hour or so, and then strolled back to the hotel, where he read some book until dinner.
The "Strand Hotel" was of course deserted. He was the only guest, and the staff had been reduced to one maid-of-all-work.
"If Alfred wants quiet," thought Jerry, grimly, "he can have it here with a vengeance. As long as those wretched Commissioners are about, I could not stand Kilbarry. I'd be an object of commiseration there, and I can't bear commiseration. If I only had Alfred here I'd be as happy as a king. But until he comes I must try and keep up an interest in O'Hanlon's ghost. I begin now to think O'Hanlon is going mad, after all; for I can neither hear nor see anything of the late Mr. Fahey. It wouldn't do to tell my misgivings to O'Hanlon. He really is cut up about that spectre, and the only way to keep his spirits up is by professing an unbounded belief in his phantom."
No doubt Kilcash was dull, and would have been found intolerable by any one not used to such a place at such a time. But O'Brien had been brought up close to the sea, and its winter aspect was as familiar to him as its summer glories.
In summer, the sun and the clouds and the genial warmth of the air take the mind off the sea, and reduce it to a mere accessory to the scene. It is only one of many things which claim attention. In winter the sea is absolute, dominant--master of the scene. In its presence there is nothing to take the mind away from it. The land and the air and the clouds have suffered change: the sea is alone immutable. It is not then the adjunct to a holiday. In winter and summer its colour is the result of reflection; but the dull, gloomy colours it reflects in winter seem more congenial to it than the vivid brightness of gayer skies.
From his childhood O'Brien had been familiar with every phase of change that possesses the watery waste. There was for him no loneliness by the shore. He was no poet in the ordinary sense of the word. He had never tried to string rhymes together. He considered that a man who deliberately sat down to write verses which were not intended purely to bring in money must be in a bad state of health. He never concerned himself with elaborate analysis of his feelings, or moaned because the destinies had not ordained splendours for his career. He wished the Commissioners would let his weirs alone, so that he might marry Madge Paulton. He wanted to lead a quiet, unromantic life. He felt much more relief in abusing the Commissioners than he should feel in writing a mournful ditty against fate.
But he was in love, and dwelling by the sea in winter. He had inadvertently caused his dearest friend a serious relapse in illness, and he was asked by another friend to help him over a horrible suspicion that this other friend had of his own sanity. Here surely was matter for abundance of thought. So that, on the whole, he had no moment of the day that was not filled with engrossing reflection of some kind or another.
He answered Mr. Paulton's letter at once. He was overjoyed to hear the good news of Alfred, and he had made up his mind beyond any chance of alteration that the finest place in the world for Alfred would be the south of Ireland, and that there was no spot in the south of Ireland at all equal to Kilcash for any one who needed recruiting. Then he sent his very kindest regards to each member of the family by name, and tried to write "Miss Paulton" like the rest of the letter, but failed, so that it was the most ill-written part of all. He had little hope of Alfred's coming.
To his astonishment he got a reply thanking him for his kind invitation, and saying that although Dr. Santley at first thought the south of Europe would be preferable, he had at length yielded to Alfred's earnest importunities to be sent to Ireland, where he could enjoy the society of his friend Jerry, which he was certain would tend more to his recovery than anything else in the world.
"I am astonished," thought O'Brien, "that he did not insist on going abroad, if it was only for the chance of meeting that siren who has bewitched him. There is one thing plain from this--he has not only got over his dangerous physical illness, but that much more dangerous affection of the heart from which he has been suffering. What a madness that was! I hope and trust, for his sake, that woman has married Blake by this time. But no--I do not. That would be too bad a fate to wish even to an enemy; and surely she has never done me harm."
O'Brien did not repeat his visit to the "Blue Anchor," but now and then he met burly Jim Phelan, the boatman, and talked to him about the Black Rock and the Whale's Mouth.
For the first week O'Brien was at Kilcash the weather had been singularly calm. It had rained nearly every day; nothing else was to be expected there at that time of the year. But scarcely a breath of wind touched the sea. The long even rollers slid into the bay, and burst upon the sands in front of the village. They flung themselves wearily, carelessly against the cliffs without the bay, and after tossing their arms languidly a moment in the air, fell back exhausted into their foamy bed.
One morning, as O'Brien was walking on the strand after breakfast, he met Jim Phelan, and, as usual, got into talk with him. After a few sentences of ordinary interest, Jim said:
"The other night, sir, at the 'Blue Anchor,' you asked me a whole lot about the Black Rock and the Whale's Mouth. Did you ever see her spout?"
"No," answered O'Brien, looking at the south-western region of the sky. "I have often been here, winter and summer, but I have never been so fortunate. Do you think there's going to be a gale?"
"Yes, sir; there's going to be a heavy gale from the southward and westward, and it will be high water at about three. You can see the scuds flying aloft already, and I'm greatly mistaken if we haven't a whole gale before a couple of hours are over. That won't give much time for the sea to get up, but I am sure she'll spout to-day even before the top of high water. Anyway, if she doesn't, I'm greatly mistaken. Would you like to go over and see it, sir?"
"Yes, Jim. I have nothing particular to do to-day, and I certainly should like to see it."
"Very good, sir. I have nothing particular to do to-day either, and if you like I'll go over with you."
"I should be very glad. When shall we start?"
"Well, sir, if you are to see it you may as well be there at the beginning, so we'll be off at once. Did you feel that?"
"Yes."
A puff of warm wind touched the two men, and then the air was still again.
"Go on, then, sir, to the hotel and put on your oilskins. I'll run and get mine, and be back in a minute."
"But I haven't got oilskins!" said O'Brien, with a smile. "Will a mackintosh and gaiters do?"
The boatman looked long and fixedly into the south-west before he answered:
"No, sir; a mackintosh would not be any use out there against what's coming. This will be a whole gale, or I'm a Dutchman. It's been brewing a long time, and we're going to have it now, and no mistake. I'll get you a set of oilskins, and maybe if you went up to the hotel and put your flask in your pocket, it wouldn't be out of the way by-and-by. I'll bring the oilskins up to the hotel."
"All right," said O'Brien; and he set off.
In less than half-an-hour he found himself in a clumsy, ill-fitting set of oilskins a size too big. Jim had brought a sou'-wester also. He himself wore his own oilskins and his sou'-wester, and, so equipped, the two set out for the Black Rock.
As they reached the high ground of the downs, another gust of wind, stronger and of longer duration than the former one, struck them. Jim tied the strings of his sou'-wester under his chin, and O'Brien followed his example.
"It will be a sneezer," said the boatman, shaking himself loose in his over-alls, as if getting ready for action.
The sea was still unruffled. The two puffs of wind which had come as the advance guard of the storm had passed lightly and daintily over the sleeping ocean. The long clean-backed rollers swept slowly shoreward, staggering a little here and there when they passed over some sunken rock. Down in the south-west the sky was leaden-coloured, with long fangs of cloud stretching towards the land and gradually stealing upward and onward. An unnatural stillness filled the air. No wild bird of any kind was to be seen. The gulls had long ago sailed far inland. There were few sea birds here but gulls.
"We'll be there before the first puff," said Phelan, buttoning the lowest button of his coat. "She hasn't spouted now since a little after Christmas. In that southerly gale we had then she spouted fine."
"Did it come over the cliffs?"
"No, sir--not quite up to the cliffs. 'Twas a southerly gale, you know; and it takes a south-westerly gale to send it over the cliffs. Ah, that was a stiffer squall than the last! It's coming on. Heaven help the ship that makes this a lee shore for the next twenty-four hours!"
The prediction was verified, for a fierce gust had caught O'Brien in front and threatened to tear the strings out of his sou'-wester.
The two men turn and resume their way. The torn skirts of the south-western pall of cloud are now almost overheard. They are hurrying on at a dizzy rate. Out far upon the water under the lowering cloud a dulness has crept. The great mirror of the sea has been breathed upon and sullied by the wind. In shore, the waves rise and fall tranquilly.
The squalls now become frequent. Although the solid mass of the water beneath is still unchanged, when the gusts fly across the waves and strike the cliffs the foam is blown upward, hissing, and bursts into smoke against the crags. From under the broadening cloud a faint whispering sound comes, thin and shrill like a broadened whisper of the wind in grass.
"Do you think the storm will last so long as twenty-four hours?"
"Impossible to say, sir. But I think there's that much due to us. Turn your back to it, sir."
They draw near the Black Rock. Each man keeps his body bent to windward ready to meet the next onslaught of the gale. Now only a few seconds pass between each gust. Each gust is stronger and longer than the former one. When they are within a few hundred yards of the rock, when they can plainly see the outline of the little bay in which it is wedged, the storm bursts fully upon them. One blast strikes them, and lasts a minute. They are obliged to stand still, leaning against the gale. A lull of a few seconds follows, and then the broad, mighty torrent of the wind bursts upon them in its uninterrupted fury, and for a while it seems as if they must be swept away by its persistent, tremendous force.
At length they turn round, and, holding on their sou'-westers, gaze into the face of the wind. The sea is now boiling, churning, but not yet roused. Foam spurts aloft, where, before, the dull blue waters rose and fell unbroken. The spray crawls further and further upward against the red-brown cliffs. The roar and tumult of the wind is pressing against them. The roar and tumult of the waters have not yet begun.
At that moment Phelan catches O'Brien by the arm, and points towards the Black Rock. The figure of a man is seen clearly against the sky-line. It gradually sinks from view. It is descending the path to the Black Rock below.
"Let us run," shouts Phelan. "It is certain death if he goes down."
They run at the top of their speed in their clumsy oilskins. They reach the cliff directly over the fatal rock. They look down, around, at one another. Both start back with cries of surprise and horror.
No one is to be seen.