The next morning, which was the last one of an inclement February,
wore so murky and menacing an aspect that Biddy Moriarty decided
upon walking over very early to the MacNees, lest if she waited till
towards evening the threatened _polthogues_ of rain should catch her
in her “good things.” She started in her best humour too, for Jim had
just presented her with a grand blue silk scarf, and moreover, to her
delighted exclamation that it was “the very same colour as the one
looked so iligant on Lizzie MacNee,” had replied: “Bedad now, Biddy,
you’d be twice as purty a girl as any MacNee if you done your hair a
trifle tidier.” This qualified compliment was no more than the truth;
but compliments of any sort had so rarely been her portion that it
elated her exceedingly. Passing the turf-stack she saw Andy lounging
against it, and accosted him with: “Well, Andy, do you know what Jim’s
after sayin’ to me?” Andy, however, kicked over a zinc bucket which
lay near, and growled amid its clatter: “Och, go to the mischief. What
the divil do I care what the bosthoon’s after sayin’ to anybody?”
So, inferring his mood to be unsympathetic, she huffily went her way
with her news untold. Jim, who had thought of entrusting her with the
surreptitious cup, which he had successfully matched, saw that she was
bundle-laden, and resolved to row himself over with it at a reasonably
early hour.
But by the time that it seemed late enough to set off the weather
had altered seriously for the worse. Not only was the wind rising in
fitful squalls, but through the nearest gap in the hills a procession
of low-trailing clouds came on interminably, with the gait of winged
things that chose to creep, and in a lull about noon one of these lit
like an immense white moth on Beltranagh Farm, blotting out its world
with blurs of blank fog. “It might take off wid itself in a couple of
hours, if the wind got up agin, or it might settle down for the divil
knows how long,” was Andy’s forecast when he came gloomily groping
indoors and was rather anxiously consulted by Jim. “And what odds does
it make one way or the other?”
“I was thinkin’ of gettin’ over to the MacNees,” said Jim.
“Then you might as well be thinkin’ of breakin’ your fool’s neck
while you’re about it, steppin’ into some hole--and welcome,” said
Andy, dumping himself down into the hearth corner. He had brought
home yesterday, instead of one fairing that he had changed his mind
about getting, a bottle of new whisky, and to-day’s evil humour was
aggravated by its contents. Jim perceived that Andy did not propose
to accompany him, which was inconvenient, inasmuch as an experienced
guide would have been useful, sullen or no. However, he reflected that
morose society might be better than none for Jack, whose cold forbade
stravading about in the chilly fog. So he tied up his teacup in a
large red cotton handkerchief and went out, uncertain whether to make
his way by land or by lough. This question soon seemed to be decided
for him by his losing himself with a thoroughness which he would
have thought impossible upon a strip of ground nowhere many perches
wide. The fog pressed on him so impenetrably that he could not see a
hand, much less a foot, before his face, and in skirting rough, tall
boulders and crossing little creeks he lost his bearings completely
and irretrievably. To and fro he circuitously strayed, until he would
have abandoned his expedition in despair had not home become as
unapproachable as any other place.
Then at length he stumbled against something and discovered that it
was the small boat in which he had made his last voyage up the lough.
She was lying as usual on the little sandy patch close to the water,
which he heard lapping unseen; and he forthwith felt assured that his
plan could be carried out after all. He generally disliked giving up
a plan, and particularly wished the teacup to arrive in good time. As
he faced the water a cold blast blew steadily in his back, and he said
to himself: “More power to it! That win’ ill soon raise the fog, and
’twill give me a fine lift up the lough. Me arm’s right enough anyhow
for rowin’ that far; I needn’t put up the sail while it’s so thick.”
He launched the boat easily, with his bundle stowed carefully under
a bench, and was just pushing off when somebody chuckled startlingly
close by. The fog was lightening, for he could almost imagine that he
saw the outline of the somebody seated on a boulder. “Is it fishin’
you’re a-goin’ this fine evenin’?” said Andy, and laughed derisively.
“To be sure I am, all the way up to Mrs MacNee’s. Are you comin’
along?” Jim replied, choosing to assume that Andy’s sarcasm was
amicably meant, but not by any means supposing that the invitation
would be accepted. Andy in fact did reply: “Am I goin’ to blazes wid
me great-grandmother’s cat?” But the next moment he jumped up, saying:
“Och, bedad, I might as well,” and suddenly had one foot at sea.
“If you’ve drink taken, you’d a right to stop on shore,” said Jim, to
whom this infirmness of purpose looked suspicious. But Andy only said:
“Drink away, boys,” and swung himself on to a bench. His embarkation
was immediately followed by another, which sought, and failed to be
unobserved. “What’s that clattering?” said Jim. “Och to goodness is it
Jack?” It was Jack, who had furtively attended Andy when he sauntered
out. “Git along wid yourself home, you young rapscallion,” Andy said,
making a grab at him, whereupon Jim shoved the child out of reach
behind him into the bows. “He’d better stop as he’s come,” said Jim.
“He might be all night findin’ the house agin.”
“Och, have it your own way,” said Andy, with another laugh, taking an
oar. Jim also began to row, not rejoicing in either of his companions.
For some time he pulled on silently and gave no signs that he was
growing puzzled: their progress seemed to him so inexplicably slow. The
high wind certainly was with them, yet they made little way, and as if
against a strong current. The blinding white fog had thinned somewhat,
and lifted, but nothing came into view except dull green water, and
that was strangely turbulent. “Begorra, there’s no end to it,” said
Jim, at last, or rather shouted, the noisy wind prescribing loud and
laconic speech. “We should ha’ been past the narrows long ago, but
ne’er a sign of them; and its wilder the wather’s gettin’ on us instead
of smoother.”
“Sure, now, yourself’s the quare man,” Andy shouted back. “Thinkin’ to
be in the town of New York by tay-time. If you get your breakfast there
you’ll be doin’ right well.”
“What at all are you romancin’ about?”
“Where else are you expectin’ to get it--and yourself rowin’ out to say
as hard as you can pelt for the last half-hour or more? We’ll be off
Inish Arbeen by now.”
“It’s a lie you’re tellin’. Sure, I knew you were demented wid the
drink.”
“Take a sup yourself, then, boyo, of wather, and you’ll aisy see if
e’er a drop like it’s in Lough Orren to wet Lizzie MacNee’s tay,” Andy
yelled hoarsely, hindered by his own passion as well as the rising
storm’s; and Jim involuntarily obeyed the injunctions as a splash of
scudding spray was slung across his face. Tasting the sharp Atlantic
brine, he was convinced that Andy, drunk or sober, had spoken the truth.
“Then I turned the wrong way and you never tould me. Of all the bedlam
tricks,” he said. “But we must be gettin’ back out of this the quickest
road we can, and it’s as much as we’ll do.” He stopped rowing and held
water, so that as Andy continued to pull, the boat swung round with her
broadside to a wave, which swooping by almost swamped them.
“Quit them fool’s antics,” commanded Andy. “We couldn’t make an offer
to git back agin’ that win’, and if we could we’d only be bet to
sticks on the shingle. What we’ve a right to do is thry run in under
the lee of Arbween Headland over yonder.” He pointed across a field of
mounded foam to where, on the more stable-seeming vapour, quivered a
dim outline, showing the soft curves of silvery flower-petals, but in
reality representing a bastion of black rock reared above buttresses
shagged with murky weed, and hung with seething white fleeces. “It’s
our best chance,” he said, “and a bad one.”
“Thry anythin’ you can; I’m a land-lubber to you,” said Jim. It was
indeed no time for self-assertion. The wind was raving in a full gale
as they began to struggle towards their refuge, awfully distant beyond
whirling chasms and drifting cataracts. No conversation was possible,
save the argument between the powers of the waters and the air, carried
on with skirling shriek and moaning bellow. At last, in a brief pause,
a human voice, small and futile, made itself heard. It was Jack, whose
hitherto implicit faith in his elders’ capacity for managing affairs
had been shaken by the fiercer plunging and battering, and who now
inquired breathlessly: “Is there e’er a chance--of us goin’ down--the
way the Mulhalls’ boat done wid them before Christmas?”
“The divil recaive the chance there is of any such a thing, sonny,
sorra a one at all,” said Jim, with a vivid recollection of how he had
decreed the child’s fate. “Take the cup out of the handkerchief there
beside you, avic--’twould ha’ been in smithereens if you hadn’t kep’
a hold on it--and bale away wid it like a Trojan.” He set Jack this
task as he might have blindfolded a frightened horse. But when Andy saw
the cup unwrapped, his eyes glared in the black and white of his drawn
face. “It’s not drinkin’ tay out of that Lizzie MacNee ’ill be this
night, nor e’er another night she won’t be, I’m thinkin’, for all the
fine hurry you were in takin’ off wid it to her,” he said triumphantly.
“What blatherin’ have you about Lizzie MacNee?” Jim answered. “’Twas a
cup I was bringin’ her mother in place of one I broke on her.”
“And I didn’t see you colloguin’ wid Lizzie yisterday at the Fair, and
she so took up wid you she couldn’t look the way anybody else was?”
“Lizzie MacNee’s nothin’ to me, alive or dead, or meself to Lizzie,
there’s the whole of it. And that’s what you’ve dhrownded the three of
us for--you mad divil.”
“We’re not dhrownded yit. Forby, how could I tell it was goin’ to
blow a gale?” Andy rejoined half apologetically, after one more
hopeless wrestle. “It’s just a quare bit of bad luck all round. Faix,
there’s an end of that anyway.” For at this moment the cup, slipping
from Jack’s hand, broke in two. The mishap made him look up with an
apprehensiveness that in the circumstances struck Jim as singularly
piteous. “Never mind, Jack, me man,” he hastened to say, “sure what
matter at all? ’Twas the unlucky ould cup, and we’ll do as well widout
it every atom.” He was thinking to himself: “If I could be sartin ’twas
an aisier way than dhrowndin’, I’d knock him on the head wid the oar--I
would so.”
Andy spoke his thoughts aloud: “I hope Biddy’ll be stoppin’ the night
at the MacNees. What I do be thinkin’ worst of is her comin’ home, the
crathur, to the empty house. She and Lizzie was great friends ever;
Lizzie ’ud be very apt to keep her.” For further reflections they had
no time. A vast wave, sweeping along to hurl itself against the cliffs,
was caught and swirled round close by in a boiling crater, whence it
broke forth through a flurry of smotherin’ foam, and rising higher and
higher poised itself over the huddled heads in the little boat. Another
instant and it fell sheer upon them, as a rearing horse falls back to
crush his rider.
At this time, which was about sunset, the MacNees, in their fire-lit
kitchen away at the head of the lough, made up their minds that it
would be ridiculous to expect any guests on such a wild wet evening,
and had begun to prepare tea. “Your brothers might be lookin’ in a bit
later, when the win’ goes down,” Lizzie said to Biddy. “I wouldn’t
wonder if Jim did anyway.”
“If they’d be ruled by me they’d keep off the lough after dark,” said
Mrs MacNee. “The dear knows what else might be out and about on it this
minyit.”
“Ah, sure, they’ll do well enough so long as they meet nothin’ worse
than mother’s ould ghosts,” said Lizzie.
“They’ll maybe have little Jack along wid them,” said Maria. “And a
child’s a grand thing, folk say, for keepin’ away any such. We mustn’t
forget the sugar-sticks we have for him.”
“Yis, mother, I’m just puttin’ out the common cups,” said Lizzie. “What
need is there to be usin’ Paddy’s good one when nobody--”
“Whisht,” Biddy interrupted, “isn’t that them outside?” She listened
for a moment, and then: “I thought I heard Andy’s voice callin’,” she
said, “but it must ha’ been only the howlin’ win’.”