Our Casualty, and Other Stories Part 28

"Once Anthony had seen them," he said, "he couldn't rest content without he'd be going to see them again. Many a night he went and saw neither sight nor light of them, for it was only at spring tides that they'd be there, on account of the rocks not being uncovered any other time.

But at the bottom of the low springs they were there right enough, and sometimes they'd be swimming in the sea and sometimes they'd be sitting on the rocks. It was wonderful the songs they'd sing--like the sound of the sea set to music was what my mother told me, and she was told by them that knew. The people did be wondering what had come over Anthony, for he was different like from what he had been, and n.o.body knew what took him out of his house in the middle of the night at the spring tides. There was a girl that they had laid down for him to marry, and Anthony had no objection to her before he seen them ones; but after he had seen them he wouldn't look at the girl. She had a middling good fortune too but sure he didn't care about that."

I could understand Anthony's feelings. The air of wind which Peter had promised, drawn from its cave by the lure of the departing sun, was filling our head-sails. I hauled in the main-sheet gently hand over hand and belayed it The boat slipped quietly along close-hauled. The long line of islands which guards the entrance of our bay lay dim before use.

Over the shoulder of one of them I could see the lighthouse, still a distinguishable patch of white against the looming grey of the land. The water rippled mournfully under our bows and a long pale wake stretched astern from our counter. "Fortune," banked money, good heifers and even enduringly fruitful fields seemed very little matters to me then. They must have seemed still less, far less, to Anthony O'Flaherty after he had seen those white sea-maidens with their green-black hair.

"There was a woman on the island in those times," said Peter, "a very aged woman, and she had a kind of plaster which she made which cured the cancer, drawing it out by the roots, and she could tell what was good for the chin cough, and the women did like to have her with them when their children was born, she being knowledgable in them matters. I'm told the priests didn't like her, for there was things she knew which it mightn't be right that anyone would know, things that's better left to the clergy. Whether she guessed what was the matter with Anthony, or whether he up and told her straight my mother never heard. It could be that he told her, for many a one used to go to her for a charm when the b.u.t.ter wouldn't come, or a cow, maybe, was pining; so it wouldn't surprise me if Anthony went to her."

Peter crept aft He took a pull on the jib-sheet and belayed it again; but I do not believe that he really cared much about the set of the sail. That was his excuse. He wanted to be nearer to me. There is something in stories like this, told in dim twilight, with dark waters sighing near at hand, which makes men feel the need of close human companionship. Peter seated himself on the floorboards at my feet, and I felt a certain comfort in the touch of his arm on my leg.

"Well," he went on, "according to the old hag--and what she said was true enough, however she learnt it--them ones doesn't go naked all the time, but only when they're playing themselves on the rocks at low tide, the way Anthony seen them. Mostly they have a kind of cloak that they wear, and they take the same cloaks off of them when they're up above the water and they lay them down on the rocks. If so be that a man could pat his hand on e'er a cloak, the one that owned it would have to follow him whether she wanted to or not. If it was to the end of the world she'd have to follow him, or to Spain, or to America, or wherever he might go. And what's more, she'd have to do what he bid her, be the same good or bad, and be with him if he wanted her, so long as he kept the cloak from her. That's what the old woman told Anthony, and she was a skilful woman, well knowing the nature of beasts and men, and of them that's neither beasts nor men. You'll believe me now that Anthony wasn't altogether the same as other men when I tell you that he laid his mind down to get his hand down on one of the cloaks. He was a good swimmer, so he was, which is what few men on the island can do, and he knew that he'd be able to fetch out to the rock where them ones played themselves."

I was quite prepared to believe that Anthony was inspired by a pa.s.sion far out of the common. I know nothing more terrifying than the chill embrace of the sea at night-time. To strike out through the slimy weeds which lie close along the surface at the ebb point of a spring tide, to clamber on low rocks, half awash for an h.o.a.r or two at midnight, these are things which I would not willingly do.

"The first time he went for to try it," said Peter, "he felt a bit queer in himself and he thought it would do him no harm if he was to bless himself. So he did, just as he was stepping off the sh.o.r.e into the water. Well, it might as well have been a shot he fired, for the minute he did it they were off and their cloaks along with them; and Anthony was left there. It was the sign of the cross had them frightened, for that same is what they can't stand, not having souls that religion would be any use to. It was the old woman told Anthony that after, and you'd think it would have been a warning to him not to make or meddle with the like of them any more. But it only made him the more determined. He went about without speaking to man or woman, and if anybody spoke to him he'd curse terrible, till the time of the next spring tide. Then he was off to the bay again, and sure enough them ones was there. The water was middling rough that night, but it didn't daunt Anthony. It pleased him, for he thought he'd have a better chance of getting to the rocks without them taking notice of him if there was some noise loud enough to drown the noise he'd be making himself. So he crept out to the point of the cliff on the south side of the bay, which is as near as he could get to the rocks. You remember that?"

I did. On the night when we beat out of the bay against a rising westerly wind we went about once under the shadow of the cliff, and, almost before we had full way on the boat, stayed her again beside the rocks. Anthony's swim, though terrifying, was short.

"That time he neither blessed himself nor said a prayer, but slipped into the water, and off with him, swimming with all his strength. They didn't see him, for they were too busy with their playing to take much notice, and of course they couldn't be expecting a man to be there.

Without Anthony had shouted they wouldn't have heard him, for the sea was loud on the rocks and their own singing was louder. So Anthony got there and he crept up on the rock behind them, and the first thing his hand touched was one of the cloaks. He didn't know which of them it belonged to, and he didn't care. It wasn't any one of the three in particular he wanted, for they were all much about the same to look at, only finer than any woman ever was seen. So he rolled the cloak round his neck, the way he'd have his arms free for swimming, and back with him into the water, heading for sh.o.r.e as fast as he was able."

"And she followed him?" I asked.

"She did so. From that day till the day she left him she followed him, and she did what she was bid, only for one thing. She wouldn't go to ma.s.s, and when the chapel bell rang she'd hide herself. The sound of it was what she couldn't bear. The people thought that queer, and there was a deal of talk about it in the bland, some saying she must be a Protestant, and more thinking that she might be something worse. But n.o.body had a word to say against her any other way. She was a good enough housekeeper, washing and making and mending for Anthony, and minding the children. Seven of them there was, and all boys."

The easterly breeze freshened as the night fell I could see the great eye of the lighthouse blinking at me on the weather side of the boat.

It became necessary to go about, but I gave the order to Peter very reluctantly. He handled the head-sheets, and then, instead of settling down in his old place, leaned his elbows on the coaming and stared into the sea. We were steadily approaching the lighthouse. I felt that I must run the risk of asking him a question.

"What happened in the end?" I asked.

"The end, is it? Well, in the latter end she left him. But there was things happened before that. Whether it was the way the priests talked to him about her--there was a priest in it them times that was too fond of interfering, and that's what some of them are--or whether there was goings-on within in the inside of the house that n.o.body knew anything about--and there might have been, for you couldn't tell what one of them ones might do or mightn't Whatever way it was, Anthony took to drinking more than he ought. There was poteen made on the island then, and whisky was easy come by if a man wanted it, and Anthony took too much of it."

Peter paused and then pa.s.sed judgment, charitably, on Anthony's conduct "I wouldn't be too hard on a man for taking a drop an odd time."

I was glad to hear Peter say that I myself had found it necessary from time to time, for the sake of an old friendship, not to be too hard on Peter.

"n.o.body would have blamed him," Peter went on, "if he had behaved himself when he had a drop taken; but that's what he didn't seem able to do. He bet her. Sore and heavy he bet her, and that's what no woman, whether she was a natural woman or one of the other kind, could be expected to put up with. Not that she said a word. She didn't. Nor n.o.body would have known that he bet her if he hadn't token to beating the young lads along with her. It was them told what was going on.

But there wasn't one on the island would interfere. The people did be wondering that she didn't put the fear of G.o.d into Anthony; but of course that's what she couldn't do on account of his having the cloak hid away from her. So long as he had that she was bound to put up with whatever he did. But it wasn't for ever.

"The house was going to rack and ruin with the way Anthony wouldn't mind it on account of his being three-parts drunk most of the time. At last the rain was coming in through the roof. When Anthony saw that he came to himself a bit and sent for my grandfather and settled with him to put a few patches of new thatch on the worst places. My grandfather was the best man at thatching that there was in the island in them days, and he took the job though he mis...o...b..ed whether he'd ever be paid for it.

Anthony never came next or nigh him when he was working, which shows that he hadn't got his senses rightly. If he had he'd have kept an eye on what my grandfather was doing, knowing what he knew, though of course my grandfather didn't know. Well, one day my grandfather was dragging off the old thatch near the chimney. It was middling late in the evening, as it might be six or seven o'clock, and he was thinking of stopping his work when all of a sudden he came on what he thought might be an old petticoat bundled away in the thatch. It was red, he said, but when he put his hand on it he knew it wasn't flannel, nor it wasn't cloth, nor it wasn't like anything he'd ever felt before in all his life. There was a hole in the roof where my grandfather had the thatch stripped, and he could see down into the kitchen. Anthony's wife was there with the youngest of the boys in her arms. My grandfather was as much in dread of her as every other one, but he thought it would be no more than civil to tell her what he'd found.

"'Begging your pardon, ma'am,' he said, 'but I'm after finding what maybe belongs to you hid away in the thatch.'

"With that he threw down the red cloak, for it was a red cloak he had in his hand. She didn't speak a word, but she laid down the baby out of her arms and she walked out of the house. That was the last my father seen of her. And that was the last anyone on the island seen of her, unless maybe Anthony. n.o.body knows what he saw. He stopped off the drink from that day; but it wasn't much use his stopping it. He used to go round at spring tides to the bay where he had seen her first He did that five times, or maybe six. After that he took to his bed and died. It could be that his heart was broke."

We slipped past the point of the pier. Peter crept forward and crouched on the deck in front of the mast I peered into the gloom to catch sight of our mooring-buoy.

"Let her away a bit yet," said Peter. "Now luff her, luff her all you can."

The boat edged up into the wind. Peter, flat on his stomach, grasped the buoy and hauled it on board. The fore-sheets beat their tattoo on the deck. The boom swung sharply across the boat.

Ten minutes later we were leaning together across the boom gathering in the mainsail.

"What became of the boys?" I asked.

"Is it Anthony O'Flaherty's boys? The last of them went to America twenty years ago. But sure that was before you came to these parts."

XVI -- AN UPRIGHT JUDGE

No one knows how the quarrel between Peter Joyce and Patrick Joseph Flanagan began. It had been smouldering for years, a steady-going feud, before it reached its crisis last June.

The Joyces and Flanagans were neighbours, occupying farms of very poor land on the side of Letterbrack, a damp and lonely hill some miles from the nearest market town. This fact explains the persistence of the feud.

It is not easy to keep up a quarrel with a man whom you only see once a month or so. Nor is it possible to concentrate the mind on one particular enemy if you live in a crowded place. Joyce and Flanagan saw each other every day. They could not help seeing each other, for their farms were small. They scarcely ever saw anyone else, because there were no other farms on the side of the hill. And the feud was a family affair. Mrs. Joyce and Mrs. Flanagan disliked each other heartily and never met without using language calculated to embitter the feeling between them. The young Joyces and the young Flanagans fought fiercely on their way to and from school.

The war, which has turned Europe upside down and dragged most things from their familiar moorings, had its effect on the lives of the two farmers on the side of Letterbrack. They became better off than they had ever been before. It must not be supposed that they grew rich. According to the standard of English working men they had always been wretchedly poor. All that the war did for them was to put a little, a very little, more money into their pockets. They themselves did not connect their new prosperity with the war. They did not, indeed, think about the war at all, bring fully occupied with their work and their private quarrel.

They noticed, without inquiring into causes, that the prices of the things they sold went up steadily. A lean bullock fetched an amazing sum at a fair. Young pigs proved unexpectedly profitable. The eggs which the women carried into town on market days could be exchanged for unusual quant.i.ties of tea. And the rise in prices was almost pure gain to these farmers. They lived for the most part on the produce of their own land and bought very little in shops. There came a time when Peter Joyce had a comfortable sum, about 20 in all, laid by after making provision for his rent and taxes. He felt ent.i.tled to some little indulgence.

An Englishman, when he finds himself in possession of spare cash spends it on material luxuries for himself and, if he is a good man, for his family. He buys better food, better clothes, and furniture of a kind not absolutely necessary, like pianos. An Irishman, in a similar agreeable position, prefers pleasures of a more spiritual kind. Peter Joyce was perfectly content to wear a "bawneen" of homemade flannel and a pair of ragged trousers. He did not want anything better for dinner than boiled potatoes and fried slices of bacon. He had not the smallest desire to possess a piano or even an armchair. But he intended, in his own way, to get solid enjoyment out of his 20.

It was after the children had gone to bed one evening that he discussed the matter with his wife.

"I'm not sure," he said, "but it might be as well to settle things up one way or another with that old reprobate Patrick Joseph Flanagan. It's what I'll have to do sooner or later."

"Them Flanagans," said Mrs. Joyce, "is the devil. There isn't a day pa.s.ses but one or other of them has me tormented. If it isn't her it's one of the children, and if, by the grace of G.o.d, it isn't the children it's herself."

"What I'm thinking of," said Joyce, "is taking the law of him."

"It'll cost you something to do that," said Mrs. Joyce cautiously.

"And if it does, what matter? Haven't I the money to pay for it?"

"You have," said Mrs. Joyce. "You have surely. And Flanagan deserves it, so he does. It's not once nor twice, but it's every day I do be saying there's something should be done to them Flanagans."

"There's more will be done to him than he cares for," said Joyce grimly.

"Wait till the County Court Judge gets at him. Believe me he'll be sorry for himself then."

Peter Joyce started early next morning. He had an eight-mile walk before him and he wished to reach the town in good time, being anxious to put his case into the hands of Mr. Madden, the solicitor, before Mr.

Madden became absorbed in the business of the day. Mr. Madden had the reputation of being the smartest lawyer in Connaught, and his time was very fully occupied.

It took Joyce nearly three hours to reach the town and he had ample time to prepare his case against Flanagan as he went There was no lack of material for the lawsuit A feud of years' standing provides many grievances which can fairly be brought into court. Joyce's difficulty was to make a choice. He pondered deeply as he walked along the bare road across the bog. When he reached the door of Mr. Madden's office he had a tale of injuries suffered at the hands of the Flanagans which would, he felt sure, move the judge to vindictive fury.

Mr. Madden was already busy when Joyce was shown unto his room.

"Well," he said, "who are you and what do you want?"