An Isle in the Water Part 4

Poor little Mauryeen! She was a child with social instincts, and often, often she used to wonder in those lonely hours why she might not be out with the other children, playing at shop in the crevices of the rocks, or wading for c.o.c.kles, or dancing round in a ring to the sing-song of 'Green Gravel,' or playing at 'High Gates.' Her mother coldly discouraged any friendship with the children of her foes; and little Mauryeen grew up a silent child, with something more delicate and refined about her than the other children,--with somehow the air of a little lady.

But Mauryeen was not her mother's child to be without a will of her own. As she grew from childhood to girlhood she began to a.s.sert herself, and though her mother tried hard to break her spirit she did not succeed. After a time she seemed to realise that here was something she had not counted upon, and to submit, since she could not hope to fight it. All the same she hated the girl whom she could not rule, hated her so furiously that the glitter of her eyes as she looked at her from the chimney-corner was oftentimes murderous. For, little by little Mauryeen grew to be friends with all the fishing village.

Even though she a.s.serted herself the girl did her duty bravely and humbly. Any mother of them all would have been proud to own Mauryeen.

When her mother had employment at the Hall Mauryeen took care of the house, and having cleaned and tidied to her heart's content, sat in the sun at her knitting till Ellen Daly came home to find a comfortable meal prepared for her. The woman's one good quality was that she had always been a good housewife, and the girl took after her. Then when her mother was at home Mauryeen went out sewing to the houses of the few gentry who lived on the hill; and the house was well kept and comfortable, though an unnatural hatred sat beside the hearth.

The neighbours pitied and praised Mauryeen all the more. They used to wonder how long it would last, the silent feud between mother and daughter, especially since Mauryeen was so capable and clever that she might for the asking join even Mrs. Wilkinson's chosen band of handmaidens.

The girl meanwhile throve as happily as though she lived in the very sunshine of love rather than in this malignant atmosphere. She saw little of her mother. The hours when they were under one roof were few; and across the threshold she found abundant kindness and praise.

Mauryeen was small and graceful, with the olive-tinted fairness which had been her mother's in her best days. But Mauryeen's blue eyes were kindly and her lips smiled, and her soft voice was gentle; she had a pretty way of decking herself which the fisher-girls could never come by. Mauryeen in a pink cotton frock, with a spray of brown seaweed in her belt, might have pa.s.sed for one of the young ladies who visited at the Hall. If the other girls copied her pretty tricks of decoration they carried the tame air of the mere copyist. But no one grudged Mauryeen her charm; she was so kind and gentle, and she had always the tragedy of that ghastly old mother of hers to stir pity for her. Then too she always seemed so anxious that the other girls should look well, and so willing to take trouble to this end, that no one could envy her her own prettiness.

There came a time when a young man of the Island, Randal Burke by name, declared to Mauryeen that her voice could coax the birds off the trees, and that her head when she listened was like the prettiest bird's head, all covered with golden feathers. She had indeed a very pretty way of listening, with her head on one side and her eyes bright and attentive. Mauryeen was used to compliments, and could usually hold her own in a bit of light love-making; but it was remarkable that at this speech of Randal Burke's she went pale. She always turned pale when another girl would have blushed.

Mauryeen's was a sudden and rapid wooing. The young fellow was fairly independent, possessing as he did a little bit of land with his cottage, as well as a boat. His mother was one of the most prosperous women of the Island, and had been in days gone by Ellen Daly's bitterest enemy. But for all that she welcomed Mauryeen tenderly as a daughter.

There was a terrible to-do when Mauryeen told her mother of her intentions. She turned so livid that Mauryeen for all her brave heart was frightened, and faltered. The old woman choked and gasped with the whirlwind of pa.s.sion that possessed her. As soon as she could speak she hissed out:--

'The day you marry him I curse you, and him, your house, your marriage, and every child born of you.'

Mauryeen's anger rose and shook her too like a whirlwind, but it drove out fear.

'And if you do, you wicked woman,' she said, 'it's not me it'll harm.

Do you think G.o.d will listen to the like of you or let harm befall me and mine because of your curse?'

For a day or two after Mauryeen's defiance her mother brooded in quietness, only now and again turning on her daughter those terrible green eyes. No word pa.s.sed between the two, and meanwhile Randal Burke was hastening the preparations for the marriage by every means in his power. Father Tiernay had 'called' them at the ma.s.s three Sunday mornings. The priest was greatly pleased with the marriage. Mauryeen was a pet lamb of his flock, and he deeply disliked and distrusted her mother.

It was the feast day of the year on the Island, a beautiful bright sunny June day. On a plateau the men played at the hurley and putting the stone; and there was a tug of war for married men and single, and after that for the women, amid much jollity and laughter. Above the plateau the hill sloped, and that long sunny slope was the place from which the girls and women looked on at the prowess of their male kind.

That day out of all the year there was a general picnic on the hill, and meals were eaten and the long day spent out of doors, till the dews came on the gra.s.s.

Now one of the events was a rowing contest, and the course was right under the hill-slope. Father Tiernay every year gave a money prize for the winner, and the distinction in itself was ardently coveted. Randal Burke was rowing against another young fisherman, and it was not easy to forecast the winner, both men were so strong, so practised, and so eager in the contest.

The race had begun, and the people on the hillside were standing up in their excitement watching the boats, which were nearly dead level.

Mauryeen stood by Randal's mother, with one hand thrust childishly within her arm, and the other shading her eyes from the bright sun.

Suddenly the people were startled by the sound of running feet, and all looking in one direction they saw Mauryeen's mother coming without bonnet or cloak, her face working with pa.s.sion and her hands clenched. The people fell back before her. She had an evil reputation, and for a minute or two they thought she had gone mad. Mauryeen, who did not fall back with the others, found herself standing in the centre of an empty s.p.a.ce, while her mother panted before her, struggling for words. All the women-folk behind pressed together and craned over each other's shoulders, half alarmed and half curious.

At last the woman found her breath. She pointed a yellow finger at the girl, who stood before her with her head proudly lifted, and her eyes amazed but fearless.

'Look at her,' shrieked the beldame, 'all of you, and you, Kate Burke, that boasts your family's the oldest on the Island. Look well at her!

Och, the good ould ancient blood! Look at _her_, for her blood's ancienter still. Do you see anything of Con Daly in her?'

The girl looked round with a forlorn sense of being held up to public scorn, but the women were huddling together, and the fear kept any one from coming to stand by her side.

'Look at her,' again shrieked the hoa.r.s.e voice. 'D'yez know where she gets her pride and the courage to dare me? She gets it from her father, th' ould lord. Con Daly had never act nor part in her.'

A scream, the like of which the Island had never heard, broke from Mauryeen's lips. It was such a cry as if body and soul were tearing asunder. With that scream she flung her arms above her head. The little group, closing round her awe-stricken, looked to see her fall face downward to the ground. But with a wild movement of her arms, as if she swept the whole world out of her path, she fled down the hill towards the village. Ellen Daly had vanished. No one had seen her go.

And down in the dancing bay at their feet Randal Burke proudly shot ahead of his opponent and won the race.

The girl meanwhile had fled on and on, with only the blind instinct to hide her disgrace. The village was empty of all but the sick and the bed-ridden. There was not an eye on Mauryeen Daly as she fled by the open doors. With a mechanical instinct she turned in at the door of her mother's house. The cool darkness of it after the glare outside was grateful to her. She closed the door and barred it. Then she turned into a room off the kitchen, her own little room, where there was a picture of the Mother of Sorrows with seven swords through her heart, and dropped on the floor before the picture with an inarticulate moaning.

She lay there half unconscious, and only feeling her misery dumbly. On the wall hung her blue cashmere dress, in which she was to have been married a day or two later. On the chest of drawers was a box containing the little wreath and veil her mother-in-law had presented her with. But she saw none of these things, with her mouth and eyes against the floor.

She came back to life presently, hearing her name called. The voice had called many times before she heard it. Now it was imperative, almost sharp in its eagerness. 'Open, acushla, open, or I burst the door.' It was Randal's voice; and she answered it, advancing a step or two, groping with outstretched hands, and a wild look of fear in her dilated eyes. Then she heard the door straining and creaking, and a man panting, striving outside. In a little while, almost before she had time to stand clear of it, the door rattled on the floor, and her lover leapt into the cabin.

She put out her hands to fence him off, swaying blindly towards the wall. He sprang to her with a murmur of pity, and was just in time to catch her as her senses left her, and she lay a limp and helpless thing in his arms.

Father Tiernay was standing at his window gazing over a surpa.s.singly fair plain of sea, dotted with silver green islands. He was glad the people had so fine a day for their sports. In the afternoon he would be with them to distribute the prizes and congratulate the winners, and to add to the general enjoyment by his presence; but this morning he was alone, except for his deaf old housekeeper, and Jim the sacristan, who was too dignified to be out on the Fair Hill with the others. The priest's look of perplexity deepened as he watched some one climbing the steep hill to his house. 'It looks like Cody's ghost carrying his wife's body,' he muttered to himself. The figure or figures came nearer. At last his Reverence took in what he saw, and made but one or two steps to the hall door. 'Come in here,' he said, asking no questions, like a practical man; and indeed for a few minutes the young fisherman was incapable of answering any. It was not until the priest had forced some brandy between the girl's lips, when they had laid her on a sofa, and her breath came fluttering back, that Father Tiernay drew the lover aside into the window recess and learnt in a few words what had happened.

'She's so proud, my little girl,' pleaded the lover. 'She won't live under the shame of it unless your Reverence 'ud help us out of it.

Couldn't your Reverence say the words over us? We've been called three times, and I've the ring in my pocket. Oh, 'twas well that unnatural woman calculated her time when our happiness was at the full. Couldn't your Reverence do it for us?' he said again in a wheedling tone.

His Reverence looked at him thoughtfully. Then he drew out his watch.

'Yes,' he said, 'there's time enough, and I think you're right, my lad. Just step outside while I speak to her, for I see she's coming to.'

The young man whispered: 'G.o.d bless you, Father! If I waited till to-morrow I'd never put the ring on her. I know the pride of her.' And then he went out obediently.

No one knew how Father Tiernay persuaded Mauryeen. But a little while later a very pale bride stood up at the altar of Columb Island Chapel, and was married, with Father Tiernay's housekeeper and the sacristan for witnesses.

When they were married Father Tiernay said to the bridegroom: 'Take her home by the back road. You won't meet a soul, and I'll tell the people when I join them what has been done. But above all, impress on her that the story is a wicked lie.'

So Mauryeen went home with her husband to his little cottage on the cliffs. And in the afternoon, when Father Tiernay came to distribute the prizes and to merry-make with his people, he raised his hand for silence and addressed them.

'Children,' he said, 'I hear there has been a grave scandal among you, and a great sin committed before you this day. The wicked sought to crush the innocent, as I believe, by bearing false witness, but the wicked has not triumphed. A few hours ago I made Randal Burke and Mauryeen Daly man and wife. And I give you solemn warning that the one who gives ear and belief to the story of the miserable woman who dishonoured herself to crush her innocent flesh and blood, shares in that unnatural guilt.'

So after a time Mauryeen crept back to the sunshine, and let herself be persuaded that her mother was mad. No one on the Island saw Ellen Daly again; they said she had crossed to the mainland by the afternoon ferry. She never came back, and there were some in the Island who believed she had sold her soul to the devil, and that he had claimed her fulfilment of the compact. But Mauryeen is an honest man's wife, and whatever people may conjecture in their inmost hearts as to the truth or falsity of her mother's tale, they say nothing, for did not Father Tiernay declare such gossip to be a sin? But for all that Mauryeen's ways are finer and gentler than those of any woman in the Island.

VII

A WRESTLING

Mike Sheehan tossed awake in the moonlight. The gulls were quiet, and there was no noise in the night save the sound that had rocked his cradle--the Atlantic foaming up the narrow ravine before his door, and withdrawing itself with a loud sucking noise. The cabin was perched on a bleached hillside. A stony, narrow path went by the door and climbed the ravine to the world; a bed of slaty rock slanted sheer below it to the white tossing water. A dangerous place for any one to pa.s.s unless he had his eyes and his wits well about him; but Mike Sheehan was such a one, for he had the eye of the eagle over Muckross, he could climb like the mountain goat, and could carry his drink so well that no man ever saw him less than clear-headed.

Mike, with his six-feet-six of manhood, was well in request at the country gatherings. But of late, said the folk, the man had turned queer: in that melancholy, stately country by the sea, madness--especially of the quiet, melancholic kind--is a thing very common. A year ago a wrestling match between him and Jack Kinsella had gathered two counties to see it. No man could say which was the champion. Now one was the victor, again the other. They kept steady pace in their victories. Jack was captain of the Kilsallagh team of hurlers, Mike of the Clonegall. No one could say which captain led his team oftenest to victory. The men had begun by being friends, and their equality at first had only made them genial laughter. The wrestling was on Sunday, after ma.s.s, in a quiet green place at the back of the churchyard. The backers of the two champions took fire at the rivalry long before the men themselves. That would be a great day for the men and women of his following, when either champion should decisively lead. But the day seemed ever receding in the future, and no one could say which was the better man. June came, when not only the hurling, but the wrestling, had its thin fringe of female spectators perched on the low wall of the churchyard--girls mainly, with little shawls over their soft hair, and their little bare feet tucked demurely under their petticoats.

The country people scarcely guessed at the time their two champions became enemies. Indeed, it was a secret locked in their own b.r.e.a.s.t.s, scarcely acknowledged even when in his most hidden moments each man looked at the desires of his heart. It only showed itself in a new fierceness and determination in their encounters. Each had sworn to himself to conquer the other. The soreness between them came about when by some sad mischance they fell in love with the same girl. Worse luck, she wanted neither of them, for she was vowed to the convent: the last feminine creature on earth for these two great fighters to think of, with her soft, pure eyes, her slender height, and her pale cheeks. Any girl in the country might have jumped at either man, and she, who wanted neither, had their hearts at her feet. She was shy and gentle, and never repelled them so decisively as to make them give up hope. In the long run one or the other might have tempted her to an earthly bridal; but she made no choice between them; and each man's chance seemed about equal when she slipped from them both into Kilbride churchyard. When she lay there neither man could say she had distinguished him by special kindness from the other. And their rivalry waxed more furious with the woman in her grave.

But six months later, and their battles still undecided, Jack Kinsella fell sick and followed Ellen to Kilbride. Then Mike Sheehan was without an equal for many miles. But little comfort it was to him, with the girl of his heart dead, and the one man he had desired to overthrow dead and unconquered. He secluded himself from the sports and pastimes, and lived lonely in his cabin among the gulls, eating out his unsatisfied heart. Somehow it seemed to him that at the last his rival had cheated him, slipping into the kingdom of souls hard on the track of those slender feet he had desired to make his own. At times he hated him because he had died unconquered; yet again, he had a hot desire upon him, not all ungenerous, for the old days when he met those great thews and sinews in heavy grips--when the mighty hands of the other had held him, the huge limbs embraced him; and his eyes would grow full of the pa.s.sion of fight and the desire of battle. None other would satisfy him to wrestle with but his dead rival, and indeed he in common with the country people thought that no other might be found fit for him to meet.

Kilbride churchyard is high on the mainland, and lies dark within its four stone walls. The road to it is by a tunnel of trees that make a shade velvety black even when the moon is turning all the sea silver.

The churchyard is very old, and has no monuments of importance: only green headstones bent sideways and sunk to their neck and shoulders in the earth. A postern gate, with a flight of stone steps, opens from Kilbride Lane. Here every night you may see the ghost of Cody the murderer, climbing those steps with a rigid burden hanging from his shoulder.

But as Mike Sheehan ascended the steps out of the midnight dark he felt no fear. He clanged the gate of the sacred quiet place in a way that set the silence echoing. The moon was high overhead, and was shining straight down on the square enclosure with its little heaped mounds and ancient stones. Some mad pa.s.sion was on Mike Sheehan surely, or he would not so have desecrated the quiet resting-place of the dead. There by the ruined gable of the old abbey was a fresh mound unusually great in size. Mike Sheehan paused by it. 'Jack!' he cried in a thunderous voice, hoa.r.s.e with its pa.s.sion. 'Come! let us once for all see which is the better man. Come and fight me, Jack, and if you throw me let Ellen be yours now and for ever!'

The blood was in his eyes, and the sea-mist curling in from sea. His challenge spoken, he swayed dizzily a moment. Then his eyes saw. The place seemed full of the sea-mist silvered through with the moon. As he looked to right and left substantial things vanished, but he saw all about him in a ring long rows of shadowy faces watching him. Many of them he knew. They were the boys and girls, the men and women, of his own village who had died in many years. Others were strange, but he guessed them ghosts from Kilsallagh, beyond Roscarbery, the village where Jack used to live. He looked eagerly among the folk he remembered for Ellen's face. There was one who might be she, the ghost of a woman veiled in her shadowy hair, whose eyes he could not see.

And then Jack was upon him.