But the incident left its permanent mark upon Trevor. He was too soft-fibred to pass through such a fiery ordeal unscathed. Added to the fact of having a fellow-creature's life upon his hands, a man of his inoffensive type could not feel a whole community thirsting for his blood and show no sign thereafter. From that day he retired completely into himself, holding aloof from his neighbors, and within a few months had grown old and broken down before his time.
'For God's sake give me a drink of whisky and soda to wash my heart down; it's been in my mouth all day,' said Fitzgerald, clattering into the room in his war panoply, his sword clanking against his spurs, and throwing himself into my favorite easy chair.
'What's the matter?' I asked, as I filled him a three-finger drink and put the decanter and siphon beside him.
'What! Haven't you heard the news, you benighted heathen? Why, the whole country's ringing with it.'
'Cease to praise your own exploits, and trot out your story,' I said firmly, 'or I'll take away the whisky.'
'Well,' he began, after draining his glass at a draught, 'from information received, as they say in the force, I learnt yesterday that there had been the beginnings of a pretty little fight up in the near end of Robertson's district. And I knew that he was due at the Assizes at the other end of the County to-day, so I thought I'd keep my eye on the case for him.
'It seems that up in that part there is a spot where the two counties meet and also the boundaries of two large properties. By a mistake in the survey at some time a strip of field just there was omitted: the county line runs down the middle of it, but it is claimed by neither of the landowners. It is mere rushy land, not worth ten shillings an acre, and of no account to a rich man, but to the half-starved peasant of these parts even that much grass is a perfect treasure-trove.
'Under these circumstances the tenants of the two nearest cabins on either side of the field have been accustomed by tacit agreement to look upon this strip as their own property. Each took the county line as the boundary or marin of his claim, and each mowed his own half. But the one that came first generally encroached a little, and stole as much of his neighbor's grass as he thought he could with safety. Of recent years this habit had increased, and led to considerable jealousy between the two men; and as the land belonged to nobody except by prescriptive right, it became more or less of a public question in the district, and the men of each county espoused the cause of their respective champions.
'Well, yesterday morning, as luck would have it, both men took it into their heads to mow their piece on the same day, and both arrived on the ground together. They eyed each other suspiciously: then they started mowing at the two extremities opposite each other and began to race for the middle of the field, each determined to see that the other did not trespass on his portion.
'The faster mower arrived first, and in his haste appropriated a scytheful of his neighbor's grass, which was easy to do, as nothing but an imaginary line divided the two halves of the field.
'Directly afterwards the other man came opposite him and saw what had occurred, and a black scowl gathered upon his face. He stooped down and picked up a stone against which his scythe-blade had just rasped: he spat on it and put it carefully upon the middle of the imaginary line, then he said:
'"That's the marin, Larry Scanlan, and that's my mark. Stir a fut acrost it agin, if ye darr, an' I'll stretch ye as dacint a corp as ever ye seen."
'"Ah," replied the other, roused by this insult, "give me any more ov yer lip, Con Doherty, an I'll jist dhraw me han' an' hit yous a skelp that ull knock ye endways from here to Ameriky."
'They glared fiercely at each other, and having thus crowed their mutual defiance, there seemed nothing left to do but to fight.
'But each looked at the scythe in the hands of the other, and hesitated to begin the fray. The ideal scythe-blade is not smooth and sharp: such would soon lose its edge and be a cause of bad language to its owner. But the scythe that delights the mower's heart has a ripple like the teeth of a saw ground down, that grips the grass-stalks and shears straight through them. A heavy blade like this would drive through cloth and flesh and bone, and lop off limbs as a pruning-knife lops twigs. It is a formidable weapon in a row. Each man pondered the unknown quantity of how far his neighbor would be prepared to go if his blood were up. Meanwhile the situation lagged.
'Doherty was the smaller man and already regretted his rash procedure. As he gazed round to the earth and sky for inspiration his eye lit upon his brother digging potatoes in the adjoining field, and thoughts of reinforcements came to him.
'"Come over here a minute, Roger," he shouted, "I want ye."
'Roger came with his spade. And a neighbor that was passing by sat upon the wall to watch the fight.
'"Now," said Con triumphantly, "quit the groun', or we'll scarify ye."
'But Scanlan scented an opportunity to base his private quarrel on the grounds of public principle, and said to the neighbor, who fortunately lived on the same side of the marin as himself:
'"Shure now, Father, ye wudn't stan' by an say a man av yer own county putt upon by them dhirty land-grabbin' furriners."
'Peter looked at the group and saw that Larry was the biggest of the three. He was not above having "a bit ov fun," so long as he was likely to be on the winning side. He had his spade with him also. So he spat on his hands, grasped the handle, and ranged himself on the side of his county, saying briefly:
'"I'll stan' by ye, Larry."
'So once more the situation had arrived at a deadlock. The advantage lay with neither side. But the delay had allowed the blood of the two original combatants to cool, and their thoughts turned upon strategy. After a few more mutual recriminations they separated by tacit consent, and each went his way, muttering darkly to himself:
'"Wait till the morra, an' we'll see what yous ull luke like thin."
'But when two men hit upon a plan, whose methods of life and grooves of thought have been the same from their birth upward, it is likely that the ideas of both will be very similar. So that night the fiery cross, as it were, ran through the surrounding district on both sides of the border ... This morning at the hush of dawn a murmur arose on each side of the field in dispute. And the sun shed its first rays upon a hundred men sitting upon the stone ditch on one side of the field, and a hundred upon the other. Each side gazed in blank surprise to find its idea anticipated. And all through the forenoon men came dropping in by twos and threes, armed with their scythes, to reinforce their own party and reap the grass for their county.
'About twelve o'clock two boys came to me within a few minutes of each other with a message to "Come up to Doherty's marin at wanst, or there'll be could murther done."
'I thought two messengers argued great urgency, and set off in hot haste with my four-and-twenty policemen. When we arrived upon the ground we found a full couple of thousand men sitting on each ditch facing each other. I drew up my forces in the middle of the field between them, facing both ways, felt like Leonidas, and wished myself somewhere else.
'But neither party took the slightest notice of our presence. They sat on their respective walls and went on shouting their challenges across our heads as though we did not exist. One man would shout:
'"Ah, come over here, Tim Daly, an' I'll put a face on ye that yer own mother wudn't know ye."
'And the other side would reply:
'"Wait till I come te you, ye yelpin' cub, an' I'll stritch yer mouth both ways roun' yer head."
'Both parties waited and nothing occurred.
'At last the situation began to dawn upon me. Neither of them cared a damn for me and my policemen, but each faction had too healthy a respect for the strength of the other to take the first step. And then the meaning of the two messengers also became plain—one had been despatched by either side at the same time both desiring an honorable retreat from the difficult position into which they had got themselves. For nowadays even Irishmen are not used to a faction fight in which the combatants upon either side number two thousand strong and are armed with scythes. The situation was too big for their stomachs, and each man said to himself, as he gazed upon the black mass gathered at the other side of the field, "This job is a bit too thick. I wish I was safe at home."
'Now a novice, as soon as he discovered the position of affairs, would have thought everything quite safe, and would consequently have made a mess of it. But I know these people thoroughly: I have lived—'
'Cut the cackle,' I said, 'and continue the story. We'll take all your perfections as read.'
'Well, as I was saying, when you interrupted me so rudely, I knew that because I had fathomed the situation we were not necessarily safe out of it. If but a spark were added to their combativeness, we were in for the biggest fight that I had seen in my time, and between the two we police would be the first to suffer.
'So I walked warily. I waited until one of the men came to a well near us for a drink of water. Then I called him, and after several other questions about the condition of affairs, I asked him the name of the leader upon the other side.
'Directly he had gone back to his fellows, I walked towards the opposite crowd and asked for Larry Scanlan.
'He came out to meet me, and I said to him,
'"I've done my best, but Doherty's men are simply raging for a fight, and I can't keep them in hand a minute longer. For God's sake, draw off your party, or I won't answer for the consequences: they'll eat you up body and bones."
'The man went a grayish green, shaking with terror, and said, "For the luv of Mary, sir, don't let us be murthered. What will we do at ahl?"
'Then I said that if they were out of sight of their opponents my task would be easier: if they withdrew in a body to the next ditch when I waved my handkerchief I would reason with Doherty's men, and would be able to bring him their proposals for an agreement.
'Scanlan consented, and I went over to the opposite side, drew an equally terrifying picture of the bloodthirsty eagerness of their adversaries, and made the same arrangement.
'Then I returned to my devoted corps, waved my handkerchief, and Hey, Presto! not a man was to be seen anywhere.
'I waited patiently for five minutes, and then sent a couple of my men to reconnoitre. They returned and reported that when they arrived at the second ditch in each direction not a figure was to be seen on the whole countryside. As soon as they had got out of sight of the enemy both armies had fled swiftly, every man to his own home.
'Well, I wasn't going to leave the occasion of offence behind me, so I drew a line down the centre of the field from marin stone to marin stone, sent into the surrounding parts and hired a dozen mowers, and in three hours I had that field mown and the grass gathered upon either hand with a space of twelve yards between; and if they like to go back and fight over it now, they can fight: for I'm not going to interfere again. I've had enough of them.'
'And what are you going to get out of all this heroism and astuteness?' I asked.
'I? Oh if it ever comes to the ears of the authorities, I shall get a slating for interfering outside my own district, and I consider I richly deserve it. As it is I have already got out of it a beautiful thirst, that I wouldn't sell for half-a-crown. Give us another drink, old man.'
'And how much of that story is true?' I asked, 'and how much is your tropical imagination?'
'That,' said he, 'is for you to decide, my boy,' and he deliberately winked his left eye at me.
'No, I like you very much, but there can never be anything of that kind between us.'
'I expected this. But I think you are very foolish,' replied the young man slowly, twisting his moustache.
The girl was too astonished at this superior way of taking a rejection to say anything. It was beyond her experience entirely.
'Of course,' he continued, 'Elsie—Miss Derwent, I have seen that you do not love me as I love you, I have only opened the subject to set my case before you. You know me very well, and you say that you like me. You are quite aware that I have been in love with you for the last five years, though I have not spoken until I had a position to offer you. That position I have made for myself. You were my guiding star. All the hours that I have labored, till my work tasted bitter in my mouth, it was for the hope of you I persevered. And now I am not to be lightly cheated of my reward. It is best that most of the love should be on the man's side, and I am content to wait for your love till after marriage. I know that I can win it. You are a woman and no longer a girl, so you should be above romantic notions on the subject.'
She flushed, and he saw immediately that he had made a false move. By those last few words he had lost all the ground that he had won. So he began over again.
'You know my family, too, and like them. And you must see, though I say it, who shouldn't, that my two sisters idolize me. The man who makes a good brother or son is likely to make a good husband. I would make you a good husband, the best you are ever likely to get. You will never find any one who will understand you so thoroughly as I do after all these years, any one with so many tastes in common, or who will love you so entirely for your real self, and not for any impossible ideal of womanhood you may represent to the imagination.'
'You can blow your own trumpet well, at any rate,' she said with a smile.
'Why not? If I don't blow it myself nobody else is likely to do so for me. Shakespeare says something somewhere to the effect that a man is a poor creature who can't persuade a woman to love him. I think it runs:
"That man that hath a tongue, I say is no man,If with his tongue he cannot win a woman."
And I quite agree with him. I am not going to risk my life's happiness now for the sake of a few scruples of delicacy. I am no braggart. Ask any of my men friends, and they will tell you, that they have never known me to boast. But I will boast now—I am not a coward, and I tell you I would lay down my life for your sake. I only wish the occasion might occur, that I might prove my words.'
'The occasion never does occur nowadays. The age of knight-errantry is past. And in any case it is a very poor thing to do. To die only requires a moment's resolution after all. What we women want is, not a man who will die for us, but one who will live for us.'
'Well, there too I am ready to fulfil your wants. You have lived for the last month in the same house with me, and tell me if I have ever been anything but charming. The man whose temper can stand the ordeal of continual companionship for a month in a country-house in this God-forsaken place, can stand anything. Therefore marry me. Is not that common-sense?'
'Yes,' she said with a little spite, feeling that she was illogical. 'That is just what I object to. You are so sensible, so horridly, vulgarly successful, self-confident, good-natured, and altogether admirable. You are too perfect. If I ought not to admire you so much, I might perhaps—like you more.'
'You are frank at any rate,' said he ruefully.
'Yes. It will do you good to hear for once in a way, that you are too conceited and philosophical. You have too much common-sense. What business has a lover to talk common-sense, I should like to know. Any one can do that. However it is useless to argue any further, Mr. Travers. My mind is made up. I will never marry a man I do not love. And I do not—care for you, as you would have me.'
'But will you not try and love me?'
'Love does not come by trying,' quoth the maiden sententiously.
'Nevertheless I will not despair. But meanwhile I hope you will not let this interfere with our arrangements for this last day, or with your stay here. I cannot get a telegram summoning me on urgent business till the morning. But I will go then. This afternoon you know you promised to come on an expedition to see our Donegal cliffs, and the Pigeons' Cave especially; while I am to get you those cormorant's eggs you wished for.'
'Very well, I will go.'
At the appointed time they set out on an Irish car. In the well Travers, who was driving, took a stake with a pulley at the end and a coil of rope, a relic of his boyhood's days, when he used to be great at bird's-nesting. The party consisted to all intents and purposes of himself and Miss Derwent. The other three, two men and a girl, were mere nonentities, who had been invited as make-weights. Travers, with still unsubdued pride of intellect, had christened them in his own mind as the Fool, the Idiot, and the Inane Girl.
When they arrived at Kilcross, the other four went down a winding path on the side of the cliff, and proceeded along the shore in the direction of the Pigeons' Cave. Travers went across the headlands to the same spot, and fixed his stake in the turf above some crevices in the rock, where he knew of old he would find the cormorant's eggs he was in search of. He would first join the rest of the party, he thought, in their sight-seeing. Afterwards they would all come up to the top and lower him down in search of his prey.
By the time he had finished arranging the stake, the others were underneath him. So he shouted to them he would come the shortest way down. Lowering the rope until the bight at the end touched the rocks below, he fastened the upper end by twisting it a couple of times round the stake, and thrusting the slack carelessly, as he afterwards remembered, under the part of the rope between the top round and the pulley. There would only be a very slight strain for a few moments in sliding down, and he had often before descended a rope fastened like that.
He lowered himself gently over the edge of the cliff, and this time, as usual, slid safely down, landing at the feet of the four below.
'How quickly you came down, Mr. Travers,' simpered the Inane Girl.
'Oh! I'm used to climbing, and it comes as naturally to me as sliding down the banisters did to you, when you were a small girl.'
'I never slid down banisters,' she replied austerely.
'The Queen of Spain has no legs,' quoted Travers to himself.
Then they went on to the Pigeons' Cave, which was close at hand. As they reached the entrance, Travers said:
'Take care you don't fall into that pool, ladies, this green seaweed is very slippery.'
Once inside they found themselves in a huge rock cavern of a hard yellow stone, which was formed by petrifaction, and which was still in process of growth around them. The sides were covered with moisture which was gradually turning into stone. From the roof depended clusters of giant stalactites, formed by the ceaseless drip of ages, giving the cave the appearance of the fretted aisles of some huge cathedral. From these festooned arches there flew forth at the clapping of their hands a blue cloud of rock-pigeons, flitting like shadows, or like 'squealing bats,' in the dusky twilight of the cavern, till for a moment they obscured the daylight at the entrance. These made their nests in the lofty roof, and gave the cave its name.
Travers, laughing, regretted he could not get some of their eggs too. But that could not be done by any means short of bringing a fire-escape upon the scene.
'But come along to the inner end of the cave, girls, and I'll give you a drink from the Wishing Well,' he said. 'As its name implies, it has power to ensure you anything you may desire as you drink its waters, from your lover's fidelity to the quenching of your thirst.'
So saying he got the other two men to hoist him up to a ledge which he could just reach with his hands; then drawing himself up onto it, he filled the silver cup of his flask from a recess at the back, and handed it down to the ladies.
'It's very nice and cool,' said the Inane Girl, 'but how does it come up there?'
'I believe it is merely the drippings from the rock collected in a small hollow. It is to be hoped it won't petrify inside you.'
'Oh! yes,' said she, 'I hear it dripping, now you mention it. Why, it's trickling quite fast.'
'Trickling! Good heavens! We must get out of this at once. Quick! Help me down.'
'Why, what's the matter? Anything wrong?' they all chorussed.
'Yes, everything. That trickling is the tide coming into the pool at the mouth of the cave, and it will soon be too late for us to escape, if it is not already.'
When they reached the mouth of the cave, one glance was sufficient. The breakers were already beating against the rocks at the extremity of either horn of the bay. No one would round those corners until the next tide.
The others wished to run and see if escape was hopeless. But Travers prevented them. It would only be waste of time and energy.
'Then I suppose we must just wait in the cave till the tide goes down again,' said Miss Derwent, while the Inane Girl bleated, 'Oh! we'll all be drowned, I'm sure we will.'
'No,' said Travers sternly; 'we cannot remain in the cave. The tide washes right up to the end of it. I have got you into this scrape, and I'm bound to get you out of it.' He spoke to the other girl but he looked at Miss Derwent.
'The ledge,' he continued, 'where the Wishing Well is situated is above high-water mark, but I doubt whether you could get up to it, and in any case it would only hold one. Then it is a mile and a half to swim round those rocks to any landing-place, and by the time I could return with a boat, you would be past praying for. No! I see nothing for it but the rope.'
'The rope? What do you mean?'
'The rope here that I came down by. I will climb up it, and then haul you up after me one by one. Fortunately it swings clear of the cliff the whole way up.'
'Isn't it very dangerous?' said the Inane Girl.
'Oh! not at all. It's only a hundred feet or so. I'm used to gymnastics, and have always been fond of climbing. So it will be all right.'
'Oh! I wasn't thinking of you,' she replied. 'I was thinking I shouldn't like to be pulled up all that way by a rope.'
'You'll be lucky if you get the chance,' growled Travers grimly to himself. 'And now girls, I must trouble you to go into the cave again for a minute, as I have to take off some of my clothes. Keep them there as long as you can', he whispered to one of the men. 'I don't want to have them underneath when I'm going up.'
'Do you think you can do it?' said the other man, who remained behind with him.
'I'm sure I don't know. It's a good two hundred feet, and I have never done so much before. Then this rope is very thin for climbing. But what troubles me most—but there, it's no good talking about it. I must do it. Say good-bye to them for me if I don't come back—or rather, if I do, as I suppose you can hardly spread a blanket to catch me by yourself. In that case the only thing to do is to go back into the cave as far as possible, and pray that it may not be a high tide.'
He stripped to his knickerbockers and stockings, for every ounce would tell against him in the struggle before him, tied a handkerchief round his waist and began the ascent slowly, hand over hand, the muscles standing out like cords on his uncovered arms and chest.
When half the distance was done, he stopped for a rest. Half the remainder, and once again he paused. Soon after the terrible doubt, that he had hinted at, recurred to his mind with fresh force. He was not progressing as fast as he ought. The rope must be slipping off the stake. He stopped again, and watched the cliff opposite him. No, it was only his imagination. He was quite steady. The last few yards were a terrible struggle, but he managed them somehow, and, reaching the top, dropped upon the turf, his head swimming, his limbs trembling, and his muscles twitching with the prolonged tension they had undergone.
After a time he rose and went to the stake, when he received a shock which made him feel sick and faint with fear, unnerving him even more than his climb itself. A cold sweat broke out all over him. His throat grew dry and parched, and a scum gathered on his lips and the roof of his mouth. When he tied the rope originally there were several yards over. Now there was only a single foot left protruding. As he had thought at the time, the rope had been gradually unreeling itself from the stake, all the while he was ascending. When he remained still, the steady strain did not affect it. But the post being of polished wood, the movement he made in climbing caused the rope to slip round its smooth surface in jerks. Another dozen jerks and he would have been dashed to pieces on the rocks below.
He nearly fainted at the thought. But the recollection of those below came to him and revived him. He could not afford to give way just yet. But when he had hauled one of the other men up and asked him to do the same by the rest, he lay down again on the grass, and when Miss Derwent came up, she found that the strong man had swooned away.
When Travers regained consciousness his head was lying on her lap, and she was forcing some brandy between his teeth.
'You are safe, then,' he said, 'so I did not fall after all.'
When he had dressed himself they all went back to the car. But Travers said he was too unnerved to drive, and asked the Idiot, though he called him so no longer even in his own mind, to take the reins and his seat in the middle. The other man and the girl had already taken their places on one side. So that left the remaining side to him and Miss Derwent.
She will never forget that drive to her dying day.
She had him practically to herself, for the others' backs were all turned upon them. For a good opportunity for love-making commend me to an Irish outside car. It is solitude in the midst of a crowd.
But they were not thinking of love-making now. At first Travers made a few disjointed remarks, but gradually he became silent. She saw the white dazed look stealing over his face, which she had first noticed at the top of the cliff. He began muttering to himself. Then suddenly he burst out:—
'That's half-way, only a hundred feet more.' It was evident that he was living over again that terrible climb of his. But this time he was conscious of his danger. She listened spellbound.
'I wonder if I can last it out. I must. Those rocks looked very hard. Fifty feet more. My God! The rope is slipping. No, it is only my imagination. The cliff opposite me is quite still. Twenty feet more. I must pass that tuft of grass. I didn't reach it as quick as I ought. The ropeisslipping. Every jerk brings me nearer to destruction. It is cutting into my hands. My arms are coming out of their sockets. My legs are numbed. I must let go. Only two yards more. For her sake! I wonder if she is watching me. I must look down and see. Oh! it has come away in my hand. I am falling, falling through the air. There is nothing to catch hold of. G—r—r—r! Keep her away, you fool. Why did you let her see such a mess as that?'
As in a nightmare she listened to the slow progress of that horrible struggle. The sentences were jerked one by one from his tongue, as from the tongue of the mesmerized dead man in Poe's terrible story. There was a pause between each. He drew his breath in gasps, as though in mortal conflict. His face became more and more drawn and ghastly, and drooped till it was completely hidden from her sight. His body grew limp. At every jolt of the car it sagged further downwards, as though about to dive into the road at their feet.
Terrified, she shook him, screamed 'Percy' in his ear; but he did not hear. Then in desperation she softly nipped the fleshy part of his arm. The pain brought him to himself. He sat bolt upright with a start, like one that has been nodding, and is suddenly awakened.
'Have I been saying anything?' he inquired, anxiously.
'Ah! I am glad. I thought perhaps I might have been talking nonsense.' They did not speak again for the remainder of the drive. The others had noticed nothing,—all their attention was taken up with the perennial Irish rain, which was driving in their faces.
The next morning he was ill, and unable to leave his room. But when they met in the afternoon, he said with a wan smile, 'I am sorry to have broken my promise. And I am afraid I must ask you to excuse my presence here this evening as well. I have lost my nerve. I daren't travel in a train. I am afraid.' He made the confession with a burst, as though it were wrung from him.
'If you like, I will go away instead,' she replied slowly, drooping her head.
'No, please don't,' he said imploringly. 'I feel safer when you are near me.'
The boyish pathos and abandonment of his tone joined to his utter weakness and prostration did for him what his previous confident strength, and even the fact of his having risked his life for hers, had failed to effect. Her experience of the day before upon the car had shown her what he had gone through to thus jangle his nerves. It was in her service this stroke had come upon him. She could not blame him for it, nor to her could it bear the aspect of cowardice. For no woman can forgive that. Her woman's heart was melted. The requisite touch of tenderness was added to her feeling for him. The tears gushed to her eyes.
'You know I said yesterday, you were too perfect,' she murmured.
'Yes, well?'
'I don't think you so perfect now.'
'My darling.'
They kissed each other passionately.
Under her care Travers' nerves soon recovered their normal tone. But since that day he has never boasted again of his courage. His wife says, that the next lover she has shall be philosophical too. For that kind make the best husbands after all.
PART I
THE LOVERS
A group of peasants were straggling along the hilly road returning from the fair in the summer twilight. It was composed of about an equal number of men and women; the women trudged along on their naked feet, with their heavy market-baskets over one arm, and their boots slung by the laces over the other; the men lazily dragged their heavily shod feet after them, with the trailing gait born of much walking in ploughed fields and clinging soil, they carried one hand in their trousers' pocket, the other twirling an ash plant, with which they switched off the heads of all the thistles they met.
In front of them wandered a few young bullocks, badly bred and unkempt, mooing pitifully from time to time. In their midst was a donkey-cart with four sheep and a couple of pigs confined between its cribs; the sheep were tied together in pairs with twisted hay-bands round their necks, their legs also were hobbled with hay-bands; the pigs ran about loose and routed ceaselessly among the straw at the bottom of the cart. The donkey plodded patiently along by himself, for the most part unnoticed; but when it was necessary to turn aside into a by-road or avoid one of the huge stones that had tumbled off a neighboring ditch, one of the men guided him by the simple but effective means of seizing the tail-pieces and levering round both cart and staggering donkey together.
'A bad fair agin the day,' said one of the elder men in a high querulous tone, directed impartially to the group at large.
'Ay, deed so,' replied another, 'times is main bad the now. Bastes is gone clane to nothin'; two pun I was bid the day for a year-ould heifer; that's her runnin' in front wi' the white patch 'roun' her tail; I min' the time when I wouldn't have luked at sivin for her; two pun, min' that now,' and he spat disgustedly. 'Pigs is the on'y thing as fetches any price at ahl, an' who's to be at the cost of fattenin' thim?'
'Michael Dolan wudn't be overly well plazed at yon sight,' interjected the first speaker, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the hindmost of the group.
The couple thus alluded to were the youngest of those present. They were in the stage known as 'coortin',' and ever since leaving town some half hour before they had been unobtrusively dropping in the rear of their party. They were walking along with their arms round each other's waists, and her head drooped upon his shoulder. Contrary to the rule among the Northern peasantry, who are for the most part hard-featured and uncomely, perhaps owing to the admixture of Scotch blood in their veins, the girl had the true Celtic type of beauty, straight features with black hair, and large blue eyes fringed with dark lashes, a tall figure, and a firm and well-developed bust. But the young man beside her overtopped her by a head, straight-limbed, with a broad sun-tanned face and a wide laughing mouth; the damp of the plough-land had not yet got into his bones nor the bend of the scythe into his knee-joints. They walked in silence, content to be together; your rustic has not too many words to spare to waste any even in his courting. But the blood coursed none the less hotly in the veins of both.
The rich, who have more room in their houses, and fewer constraints to trouble them, do most of their love-making indoors. The poor have to do theirs in the open air, chiefly, as now, in the long evenings coming home together from market. The middle classes are more restricted by space and convention on both these sides, which perhaps partly accounts for their higher morality.
An Irish laborer's cottage of two rooms has to accommodate a whole family, the younger children often sleeping in the same bed with their parents. From thus herding together, and from the necessities of country life in connection with animals, the children are brought up in familiarity with aspects of life which never come under the notice of those bred in towns. And yet the Irish women have a high reputation for chastity; and justly, for they rarely take a lover outside of their own class. Within that class they are protected by their religion; if anything goes wrong between a man and a maid, the priest always hears of it, and marries them on the spot before worse can happen. Generations of this restraint have bred an ingrained habit of continence among the people, so that now in the Roman Catholic districts of Northern Ireland an illegitimate child is an almost unknown disgrace.
'What did ye buy in town the day, Paddy?' asked the girl, with the intonation of a tender speech. The limits of her vocabulary did not admit of a nearer approach to lovers' talk than the practical details of housekeeping that bore on their projected marriage.
'Them two pigs in the ass-cart, an' the Saints alone knows whether I'll be fit to kape thim through the winter. A shillin' a day, an' not ivery day at that, isn't enough to kape a man, let alone a wife an' two suckin' pigs. I only git two shillin' when I'm ploughin' or mowin', an' them machines is cuttin' us all out; they git all the wurruk these times. I'm thinkin' I'll jine to larn the use av them be next year; there's no man hereabouts as knows the thrick av it, an' I've a consate that siveral av the farmers would jine an' buy a mowin' machine right out instead av hirin' them thramp wans, av they had a man as cud use it.'
'But yous is the boy as has the head,' said the girl admiringly. 'I'm glad I'm to be married to yous. I'll niver want for bit nor sup, I'll hold ye.'
'It's that same that's botherin' me this minit, Norah darlin'. Whin are we to be married? It ud be ahl right wi' the house an' the wee bit farrum; but me brother Mick is that set agin you I don't know what's kim over him. An' I'd as lave not ang-er him. For Mick's right fond av me the whole time, whin ahl's said an' done.'
'Ay, troth is he; he thinks the sun rises an' sets an yer elbow whin yous is not by.'
'I'm clane moidhered what to do. What did you buy, swateheart?'
'I'm worse agin nor yous. I on'y got five shillin' for spriggin' an' stockins as tuk me a fair fortnight. But I scraped enough ha'pence together for a churn; an' I said as how yous wud bring it home the nixt time ye had the ass-cart in town.'
In these marriages it is the woman's part, where possible, to supply the household utensils necessary to set up house together, the man's to find the live-stock and keep a roof over their heads by his labor.
'It's comin' on saft, let's take shelther,' said Paddy presently.
'Ah, what signifies that dhrap? It'll on'y be a shower.'
'An' yous in yer new jacket an' hat wi' the red feather till it; it'll be ahl shpoilt. As it isn't goin' to last, it's ahl the more raison not to git wet to the pelt for nothin'. Let's git in behin' this ould wall for a wee taste; it's gran' shelther, an' the brackens right saft to set an.'
The girl resisted for a time, but finally, when she felt a large drop splash on her nose, her fears for her finery triumphed over her native modesty, and she let herself be persuaded against her will. Paddy calmly 'tossed' the loose stone wall, making a gap of a height sufficient to let her pass over it, and they took refuge under the ruined gable of an old church beside the road. The bracken grew thickly up to the foot of the crumbling wall; the overhanging ivy cast them into deep shadow.
'Ah, quit,' exclaimed the girl presently, in a tone half-angry, half-alarmed. 'Quit now, I'm tellin' ye. What for are ye squeezin' me so tight? For the love av Mary, Paddy darlin,' what are ye doin'? I didn't think it av ye,' and her voice died away in a murmur of passion.
When the shower was over, they rose and resumed their journey in silence, walking apart, one on the grass on either side, with the roadway between them.
When they had thus travelled a mile, the girl said timidly,—
'Pathrick.'
'Ay.'
'It's my turn to confess to Father Brady come Sunday.'
For another five minutes there was a silence, then the man said shamefacedly,—
'Norah.'
'Ay.'
'There's no call to say nothin' to the praste about yon. I'll tell him to call us for the first time in chapel on Sunday. Come an' giv us a kiss, darlin', an' make frinds agin. Troth it's all wan, whin we jine to be married so soon.'
PART II
THE BROTHERS
'Thramp it out, Paddy, thramp it out, ye scutt ye. D'ye call that buildin' a haycock? Putt a good head ahn it. Av ye lave the hay loose yon road at the edges, the first skift av rain will get in ondher it, an' go right to the heart av it, an' ye'll be havin' the whole clamjaffrey hatin' on us.'
'Ah! houl yer whisht, ye long-tongued divil, Mick. Give us a dacent lock at a time, an' don't go pokin' the fork in me eye. Ye nearly had me desthroyed yon time.'
'Fwhat for are ye buildin' it ahl crucked now? Ye've guv it a tilt to the North like a thrawler in a shkite av wund or a load of turf in a shough.'
'An' why for no, ye cantankerous owl' shkibareen. I done it for purpose, the way it might lane agin the blast that comes up them hollys. Av ye put a prop or two ondher it, it'll be as firrum as a house.'
'To blazes wi' ye, Paddy; ye've got too many consates in yer head ahlthegither. Make the butt livil and stiddy an' the top straight an' ye can't betther it. It's temptin' Providence ye are to send a lock of wund from behin' an' toss it on us.'
'Providence is it? Gahn! kape a civil tongue betune yer teeth. Ye have too much to say for yerself be half. Build a cock is it? Yous as can hardly tell a cock from a bull's fut. Stan' from ondher till I slither down.'
'Where's the ropes now? I'll hold ye that ye niver twisted them, an' divil a thrahook on the groun' to do it wid, nor so much as a sally rod to make wan.'
'Now ye're too fast enthirely, Mick. The ropes is ondher the wee grass cock at yer fut. Go to the other side an' catch a hoult av the ind when I toss it to ye. Are ye ready? Make it tight. Ah! lift man, can't ye? Put yer shouldher into it. An' now agin for the other wan. That's well done anyway.'
'What matther to have yon wee taste saved, when there's half av an acre shuck out, an' a whole wan in the swathe, an' it lukin' like a shtorrum av rain ev'ry minute.'
'Now quit lamentin'. God sees ahl, an' it's time to knock aff for dinner. It must be well ahn to one o'clock, the sun's straight over the tower an' the hill. Shtrike yer graip in the groun' an' come an' down to the well.'
'It's well ye minded to bring the dinner itself. I wouldn't putt it past ye to forgit even that. Where war ye last night? At the spriggin' camp, I'll be boun', stravaguin' about afther them girls.'
'Ay, divil a where else. But I'll be accountable to no man for me goin's.'
'There's no call to flare up now. It only shows ye've bin coortin' that Norah Sheehan agin, an' afther I've towl ye times out av' min' I won't have it. Maybe ye'll tell me where ye intind to putt her whin ye've got her.'
'You to hell with yer havin's. There's room in the house for ahl, an' I can arn bread for both av us. We're to be called in chapel come Sunday, so there.'
'Room in my house, divil a hate! An' where ud I be, I'd like to know?'
'Your house—I like that whin me father lift it betune us on his last deathbed. An' who's got a better right to live in it than me own wife an' no beholdin' to yous?'
'Ay, that's right enough betwixt us two, but not when other folks is by. Ye've got to prove it. I'm yer eldher brother, an' it's ahl mine be rights. Where's the paper ye have to show for it? an' my wurrud's as good as yours an' betther, so putt that in yer pipe an' smoke it.'
'You chatin' hound, you thry to best me out av me fair rights, an' I'll be the death av ye, so I will.'
'Them's nice wurruds to use to yer eldher brother, ye onnathural young limb. Though I wouldn't put it past ye to murdher me; ye've thried it before now. D'ye mind the day ye threw me aff of the cliff? But whether or no, divil a fut will that girl putt in my house. It's bin a respectable house up to now; an' if ye thry to bring her to it, out ye'll both go, you an' your trollope.'
'Say that wurrud agin, ye scutt. Say it agin, I darr you.'
'Ay, I'll say it as aften as I like, an' I say agin now to yer face, that neither you nor yer trollope will ever set fut on flure of mine from this out.'
'Then take that, ye ignorant fule. Ye wud have it. Maybe it'll larn ye to kape a still tongue in yer head,' shouted Paddy. In his rage the landscape swam blood-red before his gaze, he plucked the hay-fork from the ground behind him, and plunged it into his brother's chest. The sharp steel prongs drove through bone and muscle with a grinding sound, and stood out a handsbreadth behind his back. The base stopped with a thud against the breast-bone. There was a shrill scream, the scream with which the strong man's soul rends itself apart from the body; he rocked and swayed for a moment, and fell stiffly upon his back, his arms outspread. The handle of the fork stood erect, vibrating in the dead man's chest.
The young man put out his hand to grasp it, but it started away from him with a tremor, and he leaped backward, thinking it had come to life. What was that word? Murder. It appeared to be written in letters of brass across the heavens, and all the hills around were thundering it in his ears. For a long time he stood there with his eyes fixed straight in front of him, and the perspiration pouring in streams from his body.
'He dhruv me to it,' he muttered; 'he dhruv me to it.'
It had been coming to this for a long time between the brothers, though neither of them had seen it. The nagging tongue of the elder and the uncontrolled temper of the younger made them an ill-assorted pair. Once in boyhood Paddy, in a fit of anger, had pushed his brother off a cliff into the sea, and in an agony of contrition had leapt off after him. Neither was hurt by the fall, and they swam contentedly together to land, and there fought till neither of them could stand. Since then it had gradually been getting worse. A word and a blow was a daily occurrence between them, and latterly the blow was dealt with whatever instrument came handy. It had come to be only a question of sufficient provocation and a deadly enough weapon, and that was bound to happen which had now happened. This time no remorse would avail. His brother had gone where he could not follow him.
As the young man stood there beside his dead brother, a dull strange sense of the injustice of it all began to rise and swell in his bosom. He couldn't understand it. An ordinary quarrel, resulting in not quite the ordinary way, and two lives were sacrificed and a third ruined forever. God help poor Norah! It was not fair. What good did it do to any one? and why had he and Norah been selected for this thing to happen to?
After a long time he woke from his trance with a start, and keeping his eyes carefully turned from the pool of blood that was slowly drying in front of him, he ran swiftly to the house, as though to escape some temptation that was behind him. Quickly he put the horse in the cart, and standing up in it, drove at full speed to the town. Down the hill of the main street he rattled, as one of the neighbors said, 'as if the devil was behind him,' and pulled up with a jerk at the doctor's door.
'Docther dear, hurry for the love av God,' he said; 'ye're wanted badly out at Michaelstown, there's a man kilt.'
Then he walked across the road to the police station opposite, and said to the sergeant in charge, 'Me an' me brother was havin' wurruds in the three-cornered field behind the house, an' I've shtuck the graip into him. I'm thinkin' it's kilt him I have, an' I've come to giv' meself up.'
The crowd surged and muttered. It was extraordinarily still for an Irish mob. No man spoke to his neighbor, but all kept their eyes steadfastly fixed on the vanishing lines of the railway; nevertheless, through the whole mass there ran the troubled undertone, the uneasy stir of a ground-swell in the Atlantic. Every minute men came dropping in by twos and threes and took their places in the serried ranks, till the cut leading to the railway station of Lisnamore was packed from end to end with two banks of solid humanity, leaving a broad avenue down the middle. Each man, as he fell into his place, bent his eyes upon the horizon, and assumed the same attitude of tense and feverish expectation.
It was the twelfth of July, the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne. The manufacturers of the distant town of Belrush had selected the Northern day of rejoicing to give a holiday to their mill-hands, and by some unlucky chance the workmen had chosen to spend the day by the seaside at Lisnamore. Two train-loads of them were coming—six hundred Catholics and six hundred Protestants. So the Catholics of Lisnamore and the surrounding districts were now assembled in their thousands to express their disapprobation of the indecent presence of Orangemen in their town upon that day. Every fist held an ash-plant or a blackthorn stick, and every pocket was filled with jagged pieces of limestone.
Suddenly a rumor—a whisper—flashed down the ranks and died out like a sigh: 'The polis.'
The rhythm of disciplined feet crept upon the ear; and the dark-green tunics and brown rifle-barrels of the Royal Irish Constabulary rounded the corner and came into view. Amid a silence of death they marched steadily up the centre of the avenue—twenty-four stalwart men and their officer—and behind them rode the resident magistrate on his big roan horse.
Straight up the cut they strode, until they reached the mouth of the station-yard, and then came the order sharp and decisive,—
'Right wheel!—Halt!—Front turn!—'Tention!—Ready!—Fix swords!—With buckshot—Load!'
The policemen were now between the crowd and their approaching victims. The two lines of glittering bayonets rose aloft in the sunlight; and as the snap of the rifle breeches ceased upon the sullen air, the magistrate raised his voice and said in a dry, official tone,—
'I call upon this meeting to disperse.'
No one moved.
The magistrate then took off his hat, and, looking intently into the crown of it, proceeded to read the Riot Act, which he had printed on the lining. He gabbled through his duty with a meaninglessness born of frequent repetition.
When he had ended, the crowd laughed. But it was an ugly laugh, with the sough of a winter storm through it.
Fitzgerald, swift to recognize the temper of a mob, and loth to begin a conflict which, once started, no man might say how it would end, glanced hastily round him.
His eyes were attracted by an unexpected sight, and remained fixed. Round the corner of the road furthest from the station came a pair of horse's ears, and they were decked with orange lilies.
A big man standing opposite Fitzgerald in the crowd, the centre of a group of men in dark-blue jerseys, who looked like fishermen, followed the direction of his gaze, and exclaimed,—
'Troth, I wudn't be the man what's behin' them orange lilies for somethin'. The boys will tear him limb from limb.'
Slowly the ears lengthened into the shape of a fat cob, foreshortened by the turn, which paced sleepily along regardless of the throng; he drooped his head, overcome by the noon-day heat, and shook it from time to time at the flies, with a rattle of his bit. Behind the cob came a small phaeton, and in the phaeton was sitting a young girl; she carried a knot of orange ribbons on her whip, and in her breast a cluster of the lilies.
As the girl drove deliberately forward, she flashed indignant glances from side to side. Abreast of her, along the face of the rows, there wavered a ripple, as though each man had a mind to hide himself behind his neighbor's back.
'Holy Mother! it's Miss Kitty,' ejaculated the big man.
'Miss Desmond,' said Fitzgerald, with a gasp of relief.
Kitty Desmond was the daughter of the vicar of the town, and in spite of being a Protestant, was beloved by the peasantry for miles around. Even more than by the assistance she was always the first to render them and their wives, she was endeared to the men by her beauty, her high spirits, and her winning manner. She knew every man, woman, and child by name upon the countryside, and always had a friendly word and a cheerful smile for them. She was loved by the women, but the men worshipped her. She had an absolute recklessness and abandonment of temperament which dominated them. For, except when supported by others, your peasant is prone to be cautious. She was the only soul in the town that thoroughly knew them, and the only one that dared to cross them in their blackest moods. In fact, she was at heart a coquette, with the fearlessness of a coquette. She did not disdain to practise her fascinations upon the meanest of them all. She knew her power and enjoyed it, and they enjoyed it too.
She halted her pony now opposite the police force, and, standing up in the carriage, addressed the mob in her cheerful, audacious tones.
'Now, then, boys, you needn't think that I don't know what you are doing here; for I do. And what you've got to do is to go straight home. So, go!'
There was an automatic movement in the crowd, as the habit of obedience to her asserted itself, and for a moment the meeting was on the point of dissolving. But then the sullenness of their temper returned upon them: the men stood fast, shuffled their feet doggedly, and upon their brows gathered the brooding obstinacy of the Celtic character.
Kitty watched the success of her experiment flicker and die out. Then the blood surged hotly over her face and neck. She was not used to having her influence questioned, and here where it was needed, as it had never been needed before, it had failed. She was General enough to recognize that her best chance lay in a direct command. She had staked all upon a single throw—and lost.
She knew better than anybody there, even than Fitzgerald himself, the danger of the mood that could make these men resist her, and she grew sick with apprehension. For she could see no possibility now of averting a great riot, in which probably many lives would be sacrificed. For herself, she did not stop to fear, and at least she would utilize her woman's privilege and give them a piece of her mind.
As these thoughts flashed through her brain, she stood upright, still leaning upon her whip; then she began to speak again, but this time her voice was cutting, and her face was white and scornful,—
'And you call yourselves men?' she said; 'you gather here with sticks and stones, and lie in wait for unarmed and unsuspecting holiday-makers. If they were as many as you are, you wouldn't dare to touch them. You never have the pluck to fight unless you are two to one, or get the chance of kicking a man when he is down. If you want to fight fairly, why don't you throw away those sticks and stones, and use your fists like men? But you don't want a fair fight, not you. Shall I tell you what I think of you? I think you are mean, cowardly savages!'
She left off, gasping, with the tears of indignation in her throat, and a hoarse threatening murmur rose vaguely round her.
'Oh, you needn't think I am afraid of you, you miserable idiots,' she said, with infinite scorn. 'I only hope they'll—they'll knock hell out of you,' and she stamped her foot viciously.
'Ah, be aisy now, Miss Kitty,' implored the big man; 'shure, the boys are only afther a bit ov fun.'
'And is that you, Dan Murphy? You hulking scoundrel, and you dare to look me in the face? What business have you here, I should like to know?'
'Troth, Miss, I'd like nahthin' better nor to be ahlways lookin' you in the face. For it's fine an' purthy,' declared the giant, skilfully turning her flank.
Kitty's heart was softened by the blarney of the good-natured fisherman amid the prevailing rebellion of her subjects; she got out of the phaeton, and walking up to him, laid her hand upon his sleeve, and said,—
'Now, Dan, dear Dan, you'll get them to go away, won't you, for my sake?'
She looked up at him with a pleading gaze in the violet eyes beneath their fringe of long, dark lashes, eyes that had melted many a stouter heart than poor Dan Murphy's.
'Ah, now, Miss Kitty darlin',' he stammered, 'ye know that it's yersilf can do more wid the boys than any wan bar the praste, an' he's not here the day; foreby, he's backin' them up. Divil a hate wud they heed me. They'd as soon ate me as luke at me if I crossed them.'
'Dan, you're just a soft lump,' she spat the words at him spitefully, and returned to her seat.
Seeing that her mediation had failed, Fitzgerald now came forward and said, 'I am afraid this is no place for you, Miss Desmond, and I shall have to ask you to go home, if you don't mind.'
'But I do mind,' she replied pettishly; 'I'm going to stop here.'
'But,' said the D. I. perplexed, 'you can't. You forget what a difficult position you are putting me in. If any harm happens to you, your father will hold me responsible. And your presence here hampers me in the performance of my duty. For God's sake, be reasonable,' he concluded in despair.
'I am reasonable,' she replied in a defiant voice, 'perfectly reasonable. I don't stir afoot from here. If those brutes want to throw stones, they must stone me too. And if you want to shoot them, you must shoot me too.'
'But this is absurd,' replied the officer, angrily taking hold of her horse's head to turn it; 'I insist upon your leaving this at once.'
At his action a murmur arose from the listening crowd, and two or three voices cried menacingly,—
'Quit a hoult ov her, or we'll make yous. Ye can just let her be.'
She was their idol, and though, like all savage worshippers, they might trample her under foot themselves in the heat of their fury, meanwhile they would let no one else touch her.
Fitzgerald turned his eyes upon them, and regarded them tranquilly; it was no part of his policy to precipitate a conflict before it was absolutely necessary. Once it began, he knew that his handful of men would be immediately swamped. Meanwhile there were all the chances of the fickleness of an Irish mob, and every chance counted. But, on the other hand, it would be absolutely fatal to let them imagine he was afraid of them. He said to Kitty disgustedly,—
'Very well, I wash my hands of you entirely,' and strode gloomily back to his men. Then he drew his forces a little further off. She would be safer by herself.
Once more every one settled down to wait. A strained hush prevailed. The midges buzzed round the horse's ears. No sound broke the stillness but the rattle of a bit, the clink of a cleaning-rod, or the grinding of a rifle-stock in the roadway as a policeman shifted his position, except the vague rustle that is inseparable from the breathing of a great multitude of men. The white limestone dust, ground into powder beneath so many feet, hung in a halo about their heads; throats grew dry and parched; and close packed beneath the sweltering heat of the sun the crowd began to give up the strong odor of humanity. And still the train tarried.
At last it was more than ten minutes late, and a faint sprout of hope began to push its head into Fitzgerald's thoughts. He had telegraphed to the excursionists at the junction that the town was up, and advised them to return home. Perhaps they had taken his advice.
Hardly was the hope born before it was destroyed. A jet of smoke spouted upon the horizon; a cry went up of 'Here she comes;' and the grip upon ash-plants and blackthorns tightened.
'Mother av Moses,' said Dan, 'but yon's a powerful long thrain. There's two injins till it, wan in the middle. Av them's ahl Orangemin we'll cop a most thremenjeous hammerin'.'
The train steamed deliberately into the station, and behind the gates of the barrier there rose the clamor of many voices, and the tread of innumerable feet. Gradually the confusion died down, words of command could be heard, and the procession could be felt arranging its order.
Outside every man held his breath. There was only one question now left to decide. Would this first train contain the Protestant or the Catholic contingent?
Every mouth was opened, and every arm was raised—to shout if the green banner came forth, to cast if it were orange.
The gates were thrown open wide. And out of them came two banners. And one of them was green, and one was orange.
In the silence the clash of teeth could be heard, as the jaws of the crowd snapped with disappointment. But the arms still remained threateningly aloft.
Kitty drew her pony to one side, and the ranks of police parted in the midst and fell back upon either hand.
Down the centre of the avenue the bearers of the green and orange banners marched shoulder to shoulder, their eyes fixed vacantly on the horizon. Behind them came eight fife players; every alternate man had a green favor on his breast, and every alternate man an orange favor; they looked steadfastly in front of them, and strode forward with their heads on one side tootling for all they were worth. Next came two big drums; and one was decked with orange streamers, and one with green; the drummers walked side by side, and banged each more lustily than the other. Then more fifes and kettledrums, and lastly came the procession. Twelve men abreast with linked arms, green alternating with orange, with the even tramp of an army they marched resolutely forward, and looked neither to the right hand nor to the left.
The feeling of townsmanship had triumphed over religious difference; the two trains had joined; and the two processions had come forth mingled in one. To harm the Protestants now it would be necessary to attack the Catholics; and the two together made a formidable mouthful.
Still in dead silence down the centre of the avenue they went. And the mood of the crowd wavered to this side and to that. But when the banners had nearly reached the head of the cut, that sense of humor which is never far distant from an Irish mob rose to the surface, and a great wave of laughter broke and surged down the banks of men.
High above the tumult rose the roar of Dan's great bass,—
'Troth, they have the laugh ov us this time anyway. Three cheers for the Belrush boys.'
The crowd yelled, then broke and rushed in upon the procession, and smote the band upon the back until it had no breath left in it, and carried it away to have a drink. And they all trooped off to the shebeens and public-houses, orange and green together, and got royally drunk after their kind.
But now that the crisis was safely past, Kitty sat in her phaeton and wept as though her heart would break.
'There's Andy Kerrigan, the crathur, in the yard,' said Anne the cook. 'He lukes just starved wid the could, an' it an Aist wind that ud cut ye in two, an' him just afther buryin' his wife the day.'
'Well, take him into the kitchen and give him some dinner,' said I, seeing what was expected of me.
'Did ye ever hear him tell how he come to jine an' marry her?' she asked, lingering at the door.
'No.'
'Thin ax him to tell yous. It's worth hearin'. For he's a cure all out, so he is,' and she departed.
Andy Kerrigan was a half-witted creature, a kind of handy man about town. He hung about the steps of the hotel, and did odd jobs, cleaned cars, and drove them occasionally when he got any one to trust him with a horse. Before her death his wife had taken in washing, and they rubbed along together in a hand-to-mouth style, which is not uncommon in Ireland, by the help of a little charity and an occasional relapse upon the 'Poor-house' when times were hard.
When I entered the kitchen a quarter of an hour later, I found Andy just finishing his dinner. He had a large bag of Indian meal beside him, and was sitting on a three-legged stool inside the wide open chimney-place in front of the turf fire upon the hearth; the hard black turves standing perpendicularly in serried rows sent forth a grateful heat.
'A power ov thanks to ye, sirr,' he said, 'for as good a male as iver I ate, an' may ye niver come to want yersilf. Your wans was always kind to the poor: many's the dinner I've had in this same kitchen, an' many's the day's whitewashin' I done till it,' he added, looking significantly at the smoke-blackened walls. For your Irish peasant never misses the opportunity of a stroke of business.
'Here's some tobacco for you,' I said hastily, to turn the subject, handing him a plug of Irish twist.
'Thank ye kindly,' said Andy, and at once bit a corner of it off and shoved it in his cheek.
'Don't you smoke?' I inquired.
'I do, I smokes an' I chaws. But chawin''s best. It's both smoke an' mate; a taste o' tabacca stays the stummick more nor anythin' else ye cud mintion. Many's the long day's wurrk I done on a plug o' that same twist.'
'And where did you get the bag of meal, Andy?'
'Ah, that, is it? Troth the Crowner gave it to me. Ye see it was this road. Me an' Mary Anne, that's my wife, was a wee bit happy-'like 't is a fortnight come Sathurday, an' we come to wurrds, an' I just putt her out av the dure an' left her there, an' it sames she caught a could an' niver rightly got the betther ov it. For she died o' Monday. An' the Crowner's jury they sat on her, an' tould me I was a crool husband; but I niver mint no harrum, it was just a bit ov fun. But the Crowner he sint me the bag o' male afther the funeral the day. They-do be say in' that in his house the gray mare's the betther harse, but I know nahthin' about that. On'y he sent me the bag o' male, so he did.'
'Yes, I heard you had lost your wife. That's sad news. You'll miss her greatly, I'm afraid,' I said, seeing that my scruples were wasted, and I needn't trouble to avoid the subject. The poor like to dilate upon their woes.
'Troth will I,' replied Andy with a heavy sigh, 'I don't know what I'll do widout her. She cud boil spuds wid any wumman I iver seen, cud she. An' there's more nor me that will miss her, now I'm tellin' ye; the town will be hard put to it for their washin', I'm thinkin'. Oh deary me, I'll niver git anuther wumman to come up to her, I'll niver git another Mary Anne.'
'I'm afraid not,' I assented, looking at the bent and wizened figure of the old man; then I continued, 'But I hear there's a story about your marriage. What is it?'
'Ah, there's none ava,' he protested, evidently pleased; 'it's nahthin' whatever, but I'll tell it ye. It was in the days when I was young an' soople. Ah, the days whin we was young, the days whin we was young, there's nahthin' to aqual thim. I'd just got me discharge from the militia at Lifford, an' I came prancin' into town fit for anythin' from murther to chuck-farthin'; there was nahthin' I cudn't do. I had a whole pun note in me fist, an' a consate of mesilf that I wudn't ha called the Quane me ant.
'Well, I come clattherin' down the Back Street goin' to buy the town wid me pun note, whin who did I see but Mary Anne Murphy drivin' the cows out ov Mrs. Flanigan's byre. She had no shawl to her head, an' her feet was as bare as the day she was born, an' I won't be sayin',' he added, with a reminiscent twinkle in his eye, 'that she was overly an' above clane. But the red hair of her—Ah, man, it blazed like the whins on all the hills on Bonfire Night!
'An' the notion just tuk me, an' I says to her, says I, "Good morra to ye, Mary Anne Murphy, will ye marry me?"
'"Do ye mane it?" she said.
'"To be sure I do," says I. "Why for no?"
'"Sartin sure I will," she says, says she.
'So she sput in her han' an' hel' it out to me, an' aff we wint togither to find the praste, an' left the cows to stravague aff to the field their own swate way.
'Father O'Flatherty he was havin' his breakfast whin we come in, an' I says to him, "Good-morra to you, Father, we're come to be marrit."
'"Marrit," he says; he was takin' a drink ov tay at the time, an' he splutthers it ahl over the flure. "Git out wid yer practical jokin' makin' me choke over me tay. Git out ov my house before I take me horsewhip to ye both."
'"Ah be aisy now, Father," says I, "it's not jokin' we are. We're in sober arnest."
'"Is it argy wid me, yer own parish praste, ye wud, ye onnathral varmint. I tell ye, I'll not marry ye, an' that's flat."
'"Thin be the powers," says I, "marrit or not marrit, I'll live wid Mary Anne, an' she'll live wid me, an' you'll be the cause of immorality an' scandal in the parish. Ye wull, won't you, Mary Anne?" says I.
'"I wull," says she, grinnin' ahl roun' her head.
'"Ye two divils," says the praste girnin' at us, "for that's just what ye are. Ye'll be sorry for this day, I promise you. I'll marry you, an' I cudn't wish worse to neither of you, for I don't know which is the warst. Ye're both as mad as leppin' sterks, but it's betther maybe to mix the blood nor spoil two dacint stocks. The Lord sind ye won't have no childher," says he, the ould haythin, an' we niver did to this day.