An Isle in the Water Part 7

'Dear lad!' said O'Donnell. 'But now you must take your chance. If she chooses you rather than me--and, by heavens! I'm not sure that she won't--it will make no difference, I swear, between us. Which of us shall try our luck first?'

They ended by drawing lots, and it fell to O'Donnell to speak first. A night or two later he overtook James Rooney as the latter was on his way to Ellen's house. He put his arm through Rooney's and said, 'Well, old fellow, I've had my dismissal. I'm not going your way to-night, but I believe your chance is worth a good deal. Presently I shall be able to wish you joy, Jim.'

They walked on together in a silence more full of feeling than speech could be. At the boreen that turned up to the white house they parted with a hand-clasp that said their love was unchanging, no matter what happened. That night James Rooney got his chance and spoke. The girl heard him with a rapt, absent-minded look that chilled him as he went on. When he had done she answered him:--

'I can never be your wife, Jim. I have made my choice.'

'But----' stammered the lad.

'I know what you would say,' she answered quietly. 'I gave the same answer to Maurice O'Donnell. Why did two such men as you care for me?

I am not worth it, no girl is worth it. 'Tis the proud woman I ought to be and am, but I can't marry the two of you, and perhaps I can't choose.' She laughed half sadly. 'Put me out of your head, Jim, and forgive me. I'm away to the Convent at Lady Day.'

And from this resolve it was impossible to move her. Whether she had really resolved before on the conventual life, or whether she feared to separate the two friends, no one knew. From that time neither O'Donnell nor Jim Rooney was seen at the white house, and in the harvest-time Ellen, as she said she would, entered St. Mary's Convent.

Jim Rooney never loved another woman, and when, in the following year, Maurice O'Donnell went to New Orleans to take up a position as the editor of a newspaper, Jim Rooney said good-bye to friendship as lastingly as he had to love.

The old father died, and left what wealth he had to be divided between his two sons. For all the pinching and sc.r.a.ping it was not much; there seemed something unlucky about the farm, poor, damp, and unkindly as it was. Jim was a good brother to the young lad growing up. He kept him at a good school during his boyhood, and nursed his share of the inheritance more carefully than he did his own. They had the reputation of being far wealthier than they were, and many a girl would have been well pleased to make a match with Jim Rooney. But he turned his back on all social overtures, and by and by he got the name of being a sour old bachelor, 'a cold-hearted naygur,' going the way of his father before him. But the rule on the farm was very different, every one admitted; to his men James Rooney was not only just but generous.

Presently the young fellow came home from school, gay and light-hearted. He was a tall young giant, who presently developed a fine red moustache, and had a rollicking gait well in keeping with his bold blue eyes. He was soon as popular as James was the reverse, and his reputation of being 'a good match' made him welcome in many a house full of daughters.

One day the youth came to his brother with a plan for bettering himself. He wanted to draw out his share from the farm and to invest it in a general shop which was for sale in the country town, close by. Now Jim Rooney had a queer pride in him that made the thought of the shop very distasteful. The land was quite another thing, and farming, to his mind, as enn.o.bling an occupation as any under heaven.

But he quite understood that he could not shape the young fellow to his ways of thinking. He said, gently: 'And why, Patrick, are you bent on leaving the farm and bettering yourself?'

The young fellow scratched his head awkwardly, and gave one or two excuses, but finally the truth came out. He had a fancy for little Janie Hyland, and she had a fancy for him, but there was a richer man seeking her, and, said the young fellow simply, 'I'm thinking if the father knew how little came to my share he'd be showing me the door.'

'Does Janie know, Patrick?' asked the elder brother.

'Oh, divil a thing!' said the younger, with a half-shamed laugh. 'I don't trust women with too much; but if I had Grady's, I'd soon be a richer man than they think me. Old Grady cut up for a lot of money, and he was too old for business. It's a beautiful chance for a young man.'

'Well, Patrick,' said the other at last, with a sigh, 'your share won't buy Grady's, but yours and mine together will. I'll make it over to you, and you can keep your share in the farm too. I'll work the farm for you if you won't ask me to have anything to do with the shop.

Tut, tut, man!' he said, pushing away Patrick's secretly delighted protests, 'all I have would come to you one day, and why not now, when you think it will make you happy?'

So Patrick bought Grady's and brought home Janie Hyland. He has prospered exceedingly, and makes the lavish display of his wealth which is characteristic of the Irishman. They have added to the old house, thrown out wings and annexe, planted it about with shrubberies, and made a carriage drive. Young Patrick, growing up, is intended for the University and one of the learned professions, and Mrs. Patrick has ideas of a season in Dublin and invitations to the Castle. Her house is very finely furnished, with heavy pile carpets and many mirrors, and buhl and ormolu everywhere.

She feels her brother-in-law to be the one blot in all her splendour and well-being. When Patrick first brought her home, she took a vehement dislike to James, which has rather waxed than waned during the years. He minds her as little as may be, working on the farm during the day-time, and in the evening departing, with his slow, heavy step, to his sanctum upstairs, where he has his books, his carpenter's tools, and his telescope. Yet her words worry him like the stinging of gnats, and the nagging of years has made him bitter.

He turns out delightful bits of carving and cabinet-making from time to time, and he mends everything broken in the house with infinite painstaking. Up there in his garret-room the troubles fall away from him, and he forgets the lash of Mrs. Patrick's tongue. The hardest thing is that she discourages the children's friendship for him, and he would dearly love the children if only he might.

The other women are rather down on Mrs. Patrick about it; indeed, Mrs.

Gleeson told her one day that the creature was worth his keep if it was only for his handiness about the house. Patrick has grown used to his wife's gibes and flings, which at first used to make him red and uncomfortable. He has half come to believe in the secret h.o.a.rd his wife says old Jim is acc.u.mulating.

Meanwhile, the land is as poor as ever, for James has no money to spend in the necessary drainage that should make it dry and sweet. His share scarcely pays for his keep, and his money for clothes and books and tools is little indeed. His shabbiness is another offence to Mrs.

Patrick. She has declared to some of her intimates that she will force James yet to take his face out of her house, and go live on his money elsewhere. She expresses her contempt to her husband for his brother's selfishness in holding his share in the farm, when he must be already, as she puts it, 'rotten with money.' Patrick is too much afraid of his wife to tell her now what he has so long kept a secret from her.

But James, in his high attic, looks upon the mountains and the sky, and shakes off from him with a superb gesture the memory of her taunts.

XII

THE MAN WHO WAS HANGED

It was outside the town of Ballinscreen, on the country side of the bridge over the Maeve, that Mr. Ramsay-Stewart was shot at in the League days, and that the shot struck a decent boy, Larry Byrne, a widow's only son, and killed him stone dead. The man that fired the shot would rather have cut off his right hand than hurt an innocent creature like Larry,--but there, when you go meddling with sin and wickedness, as often as not you plunge deeper into it than you could ever have foreseen. Anyhow the old women, who turn out everything to show the Lord's goodness, said it was plain to see that Larry was fitter to go than his master, and that was why the shot glanced by Mr.

Stewart's ear to lodge in the poor coachman's brain as he leant forward, whipping up his horse with all his might, to get out of reach of that murderous shower of shot.

Now a few months later all you comfortable people that sit reading your newspapers by an English fire, and thinking what a terrible place Ireland must be to live in, were comforted by the news that the man who shot Larry Byrne was swinging for it in the county jail at Ballinscreen. But you never made such a mistake in your born lives.

That man was out on the mountains in the bleak, bitter winter weather, was in hiding all day in the caves up there in the clouds on top of Croghan, and by night was coming down to the lonely mountain farmhouses to beg what would keep the life in his big hungry body. The man that swung for the murder was as innocent as yourself, and more betoken, though he was great on war and revolutions, would no more fire on a man out of the dark night than you would yourself. He had little feeling for sin and crime, always barring the secret societies, by some considered a sin.

It was beautiful to hear Murty Meehan,--that was his name, G.o.d rest his soul!--having it out with old Father Phil on that same question.

Why, he told the priest that he himself belonged to a secret society, for the matter of that, and the most powerful secret society of them all. Father Phil used to end it up with a laugh, for he was fond of Murty. He nearly broke his heart over the man when he was in jail, waiting to go to the gallows, and wouldn't open his lips to clear himself. Murty had been in every 'movement' from the '48 onwards. But like all the other old Fenians, he thought worse of the League than Mr. Ramsay-Stewart himself. His ideas were high-flown ones, and he could put them in beautiful language, about freeing his country, and setting her in her rightful place among the nations. But not by the League methods. There was a bit of poetry of Davis he was fond of quoting:

For Freedom comes from G.o.d's right hand, And needs a G.o.dly train, And righteous men must make our land A Nation once again.

Many a time he hurled it at the Leaguers' heads, but they bore him no malice; the worst they did was to call him a crank. I often think that when Murty died on the gallows for a crime he hated, it was a sacrifice of more than his life. Well, G.o.d be good to him!

Murty hadn't a soul in the world belonging to him. His father and mother died in the black '47, and the little girl he had set his heart on sailed in a coffin-ship for New York with her father and mother in the same bitter year, and went down somewhere out on the unkindly ocean. She had hung round Murty's neck imploring him to go with her, but Murty was drilling for the rising of the following year, and could see no duty closer than his duty to his country. He promised to follow her and bring her back if there were happier days in Ireland, but the boat and its freight were never heard of after they left Queenstown quay in that September of blight and storm. And so Murty grew with the years into a pleasant, kindly old bachelor, very full of whimsies and dreams, and a prophet to the young fellows.

Now Mr. Ramsay-Stewart, though he kept himself and his tenants in hot water for a couple of years, wasn't a bad kind of gentleman, and now that things have settled down is well-esteemed and liked in the country. But when he came first he didn't understand the people nor they him, and there's no doubt he did some hard things as much out of pure ignorance, they say, as for any malice. He'd put his bit of money in the estate and meant to have it out of it, and he didn't like at all the easy-going ways he found there. The old Misses Conyers who preceded him were of a very ancient stock, and would rather turn out themselves than turn out a soul of their people. They had enough money to keep them while they lived; and 'pay when you can,' or 'when you like,' was the rule on the estate. Every man, woman and child was Paddy and Biddy and Judy to them. Oh, sure it was a bad day for the tenants when they went; and more betoken, they had laid up trouble for the man that was to succeed them.

The people never gave Mr. Ramsay-Stewart a chance when he came. They disliked him, and he was an upstart and a _gombeen_ man and a usurper, and such foolishness, in the mouths of every one of them. As if it was his fault, poor gentleman, that the Misses Conyers never married, and so let Coolacreva fall to strangers.

Now there was a widow and her daughter, Mrs. Murphy and little f.a.n.n.y, that had a big patch of land on the estate, and the memory of man couldn't tell when they'd paid a penny of rent for it. It was so overgrown with weeds and thistles, and so strewn with big boulders, that it was more like a boreen than decent fields. Well, it vexed Mr.

Ramsay-Stewart, who was accustomed to the tidy Scotch fields, amazingly, and he got on his high horse that the widow should pay or go.

She couldn't or wouldn't pay, and she wouldn't go. She never thought the crow-bar brigade would be set on her cabin; but, sure, the new landlord wasn't a man to stop short of his word, and one bleak, bitter November day he was out with the police and bailiffs. Before the League could put one foot before another the roof was off Mrs.

Murphy's cabin, the bits of furniture out in the road, and the pair of women standing over them shaking their fists at the Scotchman, and whimpering out the revenge they'd have, till Lanty Corcoran, a strong farmer, took them home, and set them up snug and easy in one of his outhouses.

f.a.n.n.y was a pretty little girl, a golden-ringleted, blue-eyed slip of a _colleen_, with a st.u.r.dy and independent will of her own, that belied the soft shy glances she could cast at a man. She was promised to a boy over the seas, who was making a home for her and her mother in America, and there was another boy in the parish, John Sullivan, or Shawn Dhuv, as they usually called him because of his dark complexion, was fairly mad about her. Shawn was well off. He was the cleverest farmer that side of the country, just the kind of man Mr.

Ramsay-Stewart wanted and was prepared to encourage when he got him.

His land was clean and well-tilled, and he had a fine stock of cattle as well as horses, and hay, and straw, and machines that had cost a handful of money, for he was quick to take up new-fangled notions.

People used to say Shawn would be a rich man one day, for he was prudent, drank little, and was a silent man, keeping himself to himself a good deal.

Well, little f.a.n.n.y had a hard time with the mother over her steady refusals to have anything to say to Black Shawn. She was an aggravating old woman, one of the whimpering sort; and sorely she must have tried poor f.a.n.n.y often with her coaxing and crying, but the little girl was as stout as a rock where her absent boy was concerned.

Shawn Dhuv heard in time of the eviction, and in a bad moment for himself thought he'd press his suit once more; he knew he had the old woman on his side, and he thought he might find the young one in such a humour that she'd be glad to accept his hand and heart, and the cover of his little farmhouse. He had an idea too that he'd only to ask Mr. Ramsay-Stewart for the Murphys' farm and he'd get it, and he thought this would be a fine lever to work with.

But he never made such a mistake, for little f.a.n.n.y turned on him like the veriest spitfire.

'You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Black Shawn,' she cried, with her eyes flashing, 'to keep persecuting a girl that's as good as wife to another man. Why, if he was never in the world, do you think I'd take one like you, that's plotting and planning to take our bit of land before the ashes of our roof-tree are gone gray? If he was here he'd know how to avenge us, and not till he had done it would he look the girl he loved in the face.'

She was holding forth like this, her words tripping each other up in her anger; but sure, the poor little girl didn't mean what she was saying about revenge; it was likely some hot words she'd picked up out of the newspapers that came into her head in her pa.s.sion, and tripped off her tongue without her knowing a word of what they meant.

But Black Shawn heard her, turning first the deep red with which one of his complexion blushes, and then falling off as gray as the dead.

Before she'd half said her say he took up his _caubeen_, put it on his head, and walked out of the place with an air as if he were dreaming.

Now he had an old carbine to frighten the crows, a crazy old thing that was as likely to hurt the man who fired it as the thing that was fired at. Black Shawn sat up all night cleaning it, and the grim mouth of the man never relaxed, nor did the colour come back to his ashy cheeks.

The next night he lay in wait for Mr. Ramsay-Stewart as he came home from the county club-house in Ballinscreen, and shot at him, killing poor Larry Byrne. It was only the length of the bridge from the police barracks, and as it was but nine o'clock at night, Ballinscreen people were up and about. So there wasn't much time for Black Shawn to see what mischief the blunderbuss had done. He saw at the first glance that one man was down in the dogcart, and another man swinging on by his arms to the mouth of the terrified horse. But already people were running across the bridge and shouting, and the dark quay seemed alive with lights.