For some time Johnny Quin of Letterard had been looking over the low
stone wall at his bit of young oats, which you could almost see grow in
the midsummer sunshine, when he was pulled by the sleeve, and, turning
round, beheld little Joe O’Hea with a grey kid tugging at the other end
of a string.
“Johnny, man,” said Joe, “couldn’t you take and give the baste a
lift up there for me? She’d get grand grazin’ on it.” Joe spoke
remonstrantly, as if Johnny had been neglecting an obvious duty; and he
pointed to the roof of Felix Moriarty’s cabin, which stood just across
the lane.
The cabin was very small, with one tiny window-pane in its mud-walls,
which were deeply weather-stained under the eaves, and from which the
whitewash had worn off, leaving large brown patches. But its worst
point, considering it as a dwelling-house, was the roof, for the thatch
undulated in hillocks and hollows, and also bore a luxuriant crop of
grass, almost as long and thick and green as the thriving oats over the
way. This seemed to little Joe a desirable pasture for his kid, whose
browsings along the stone-dyked lane were but scanty, and hence his
appeal to his taller friend.
Johnny, however, was of a different opinion, and replied: “Sure not at
all. The crathur’s over small sized to be cockin’ up that height off
the ground. It’s breakin’ her four legs she’s apt to be before you’d
get her down safe. Or belike she’d be losin’ herself in the long grass.
Or maybe it’s puttin’ his roof up for a meadow Moriarty is all the
while. Ay, bedad, you may depind that’s what he’s doin’. So just keep
along the road wid her steady, me son, and niver mind anythin’ growin’
where she’s no call to be trespassin’.” Accordingly Joe and the kid
sauntered on, leaving Johnny to his oats.
But Johnny’s attention had caught on Felix Moriarty’s thatch, and did
not disengage itself quickly. His own pleasantry, too, about Moriarty’s
meadow had taken his fancy, and he continued to repeat and elaborate
it in his thoughts. At last, the forenoon being long and employment
scarce, he actually went so far as to climb, sickle in hand, up on the
waving roof, where he was presently slashing vigorously.
“Bedad now,” he said, surveying the tufts which had fallen round him,
“I’m after knockin’ that same down in fine style: I did so, and wasn’t
long about it either.” Nor did he stop here.
Having raked together the crop, and added a few bundles of grass from
the bank, he carefully built up on an inconveniently sloping base a
symmetrical little cock. This he secured with a rope scientifically
twisted of the withered bents along the border of his oats, and then,
jumping down noisily into the lane, contemplated his handiwork with
complacent pride. Only one element was wanting in his satisfaction with
it. There were no spectators to share his amusement and admire his
wit. The key of the locked cabin door lurked hidden in some crevice of
the thatch, for Felix Moriarty was away at the haymaking in a district
where work seemed less slack. Nobody was about in the neighbouring
fields. Even Joe O’Hea and the kid were out of sight round the corner.
“Sure now it’s a grand joke,” Johnny repeated to himself more than
once, “and it looks as comical as anythin’ sittin’ there up over the
man’s door as if it consaited it was in the middle of a sivin-acre
field. Anybody ’ud be laughin’ at it that seen it, passin’ by.”
But of passers-by there appeared to be small prospect, as this lonely
upland lane led no-whither in particular, and the nearest dwelling was
merely his own cottage, the topmost thatch of which peered just visibly
over the edge of a long slope.
“It ’ill be twinty pities,” Johnny declared, “twinty pities and a half
if nobody sees it before it’s blew away wid the win’.” At that moment
all these pities sadly threatened to come about.
Still Johnny had a daring and ingenious turn of mind. Early the next
morning, in Rathbeg, a village some few miles from Letterard, much
excitement was awakened by the discovery of certain handbills which
had been posted up on walls and doors in several conspicuous places.
They were white foolscap sheets, written upon in a large round hand to
the following effect:--
_Men of Rathbeg! Assemble in your Thousands this Saturday evening to
Mow the Meadow of the evicted Tenant, Felix Moriarty, on the Town-land
of Gortramakilleen at Letterard. Down with Tyrants!_
These placards must have been affixed during the night, and nobody
in Rathbeg knew anything about the matter, a secrecy which, together
with the shortness of the notice given, suggested that some peculiar
urgency in Felix Moriarty’s affairs made it expedient to render
him the required assistance without incurring the observation of
the constabulary. Such a state of things was not by any means
unprecedented, and would in itself strongly dispose the men of Rathbeg
to be active on his behalf, although none of them were acquainted
with Moriarty except vaguely by name, or indeed knew much more about
little, out-of-the-way Letterard than that it had for proprietor an
ill-reputed landowner. On the other hand most people were just then
too busy getting in their hay to spare easily even the fag-end of the
lingering daylight, especially as the unsettled aspect of the weather
made every dry hour doubly precious. And to be sure, it was a long step
from Rathbeg to Letterard. Hence there were abundant materials, for
the debate which was carried on in and about Finucane’s public for a
considerable time after the finding of the summons.
Theig Ahern, the village orator, urged eloquently that it would be a
good job to lend anybody a helping hand “against the likes of such a
notorious, ould, black-hearted, naygurly, exterminatin’, widow-robbin’,
childer-starvin’ miscreant of a land-grabber as ould Warden, himself
and his sheriff’s writs.” But then Timothy Dolan argued briefly, yet
effectively, that there were plenty of as good jobs, and better, to be
done in their own bits of fields, without tramping half a dozen miles
over the country after them. The hearers who said “Ay, bedad,” and
“Thrue for you,” to this sentiment seemed nearly as numerous as those
who received it with murmurs of “mane-spirited” and “unmanly.” So the
issue remained doubtful.
Meanwhile, the originator of the discussion, seated at his favourite
post on the wall of his Letterard oat-field, was speculating about the
result. Not many hours had passed since Johnny Quin had made his way
home under the waning moonlight, through dewy fields, from his stealthy
bill-sticking at Rathbeg. He had himself composed and written and
copied the notices over-night in the emptied National schoolroom, with
some assistance from his old friend, Peter Cleary, the teacher, to whom
he did not communicate their contents. Mr Cleary, however, though he
preferred to be discreetly ignorant, may have guessed at their purport
from the words which he was occasionally called upon to spell. “Och
not at all, Johnny. There does be but one _r_ in ‘tyrant,’ and all the
_i’s_ you have is a _y_ and an _a_. You always made an oncommon bad
offer at the orthography.”
And now Johnny, blinking half-drowsily in the sunshine, spent most
of the day in looking forward hopefully to the success of his plot.
It had occurred to him yesterday, when enjoying his own wittiness
embodied in the absurd haycock, and feeling how much that enjoyment
would be enhanced by the presence of spectators. To assemble these by
a stratagem which would “raise the laugh on them” for coming was a
project with a twofold charm, and it fully occupied his mind from the
moment of its first conception until he had evolved and, so far as lay
in his power, carried out all the details.
If he had been asked what he expected to gain in case things happened
as he hoped, he might have truthfully replied, a fine shindy entirely,
for that outcome was undoubtedly uppermost in his anticipations.
Suppose that a dozen or so of the Rathbeg men were moved by his bogus
summons to tramp over with their scythes in the evening, and, upon
arriving, found their job was nothing more than simply the removal
of the pygmy cock from its ridiculous site. “Bejabers, it’s ragin’
mad they all ’ill be as sure as sure,” Johnny said, chuckling as he
rehearsed the scene. “‘Where’s Moriarty’s meadow that’s evicted?’ says
they, ‘and that we’re come to mow for?’ ‘Is it, where is it?’ says I.
‘Musha, where else but here,’ I says--for on the roof I’ll be--‘up over
your fools’ heads. And I’ll bet me brogues it’s the quarest little
meadow ever a man was evicted out of,’ says I. Leppin’ they’ll be.”
About the incidents of this promising fray Johnny felt no anxiety
at all. He did not, of course, propose to encounter the exasperated
visitors quite single-handed. The stir of their advent would, he knew,
bring plenty of the neighbours flocking to see what was up, and there
would be no lack of Letterard lads to side with him. What did cause
him some uneasiness was the doubt whether any party would actually
come. His appeal might have been disregarded. The Rathbeg farmers
might be too busy for such expeditions; or they might know enough
about Letterard affairs to be aware that there was in reality no talk
of evicting Felix Moriarty, and so perceive the hoax. For this reason
Johnny kept his own council, lest the failure of his joke should “raise
the laugh” on _him_.
But while the sunset was still unfurling in the west a wide fan of
pink-flushed feathery cloudlets, which seemed to be waving off a misty
little moon, like a white rose-leaf, fluttering up out of the faint
green east, Johnny’s fears were dispersed by what he deemed a very
joyful sight. From his coign of vantage he espied coming up the lane
something which he presently ascertained to be a troop of men, several
among whom carried scythes or sickles. And, more than this, along with
them moved a brilliant blue and scarlet object, drawn by a pair of
horses.
“Glory be! if it isn’t a mowin’-machine they’re after bringin’!” he
said in high delight. “Well now, that bangs Banagher.” And he laughed
so uncircumspectly that he almost lost his footing on the slope of
Moriarty’s thatch, to which he had mounted. A mowing-machine it was,
the fact being that Theig Ahern, the orator, in the absence of his
elder brother, a well-to-do farmer, had taken upon himself, contrary to
advice, to borrow it for the demonstration against the evictors.
With his torn straw hat flapping in the gusty breeze, Johnny stood
up tall beside his dumpy haycock, and surveyed the approach of the
cavalcade, smiling his broadest smile. But there were no smiles on
the faces that looked up at him. The party from Rathbeg were by this
time distinctly out of humour. They had failed to get any satisfactory
information about Moriarty’s meadow from the following of unoccupied
gossoons whom their progress had attracted, and this led them to
apprehend that they had somehow blundered about the road. No suspicion
of a trick had as yet occurred to them; but they were not by any means
in a mood to take one in good part.
Therefore when Johnny, grinning more broadly than ever, replied to
inquiries: “Is it Moriarty’s meadow you was lookin’ for? Sure amn’t I
meself standin’ on it before your eyes? And a grand big one it is.
Only I dunno will yous find it very handy drivin’ your pair-horse yoke
into it. Maybe it’s lucky I done the mowin’ meself,” his answer evoked
looks and language sufficiently threatening to make him glance round
rapidly, singling out the friendly faces, as he took a firmer grip
of the sturdy blackthorn, which he had providently hidden behind the
haycock.
An excited parley ensued, growing momentarily angrier and louder, while
Farmer Ahern’s fiery chestnuts fumed and fidgeted, spurning the rough
road, and flashing the set blades of their machine in restless starts
to and fro. Then on a brief pause a voice rose clear and shrill. It
proceeded from little Dan Molloy, who had perched himself on a wall
adjoining the cabin, and it said,--
“Sure, now, if _he’s_ so fond of mowin’”--Dan pointed to
Johnny--“mightn’t you take your fine yoke in there”--he pointed across
to the open gate of Johnny’s oat-field--“and give it a turn through his
bit of oats?”
This suggestion, which was received with an assenting laugh, roused
acute horror in Johnny, such peril did it threaten to his thriving
crop, the very core of his hope and pride. Down he hurled himself
with a clatter to prevent the outrage, aiming, as he passed, at the
mischievous visage of Dan Molloy a resentful cuff, which Dan adroitly
ducked. But Johnny’s action only precipitated the event he was
dreading. For the restless horses, scared by his abrupt rush towards
their heads, broke away from all control and bolted straight into the
field.
Alas for the lovely young oats as four pairs of galloping hoofs and a
pair of wide-rimmed iron wheels burst wildly into them, followed by
a throng of trampling feet which wrought hardly less grievous havoc.
Every moment was destroying among the soft green blades and haulms
with their silken ears the work of many days’ sunshine and dewy air,
when suddenly, before the careering runaways had been brought to a
standstill, another yet more alarming object diverted the attention of
their pursuers.
Johnny’s reserve on the subject of his jest had known one exception,
very unfortunately for his confidante’s peace of mind. She was his
mother, a little old widow woman, prematurely aged and crippled by
rheumatism, so that she had to be carried to and fro between her bed
and her armchair, her only journeys. Her son Johnny was most kind to
her. It had been with the best intentions that he enlivened their
morning meal by telling her all about the grand trick he had just
played on the Rathbeg lads, and how infuriated they would be when they
landed over with their scythes to cut nothing good or bad, and what
a laugh it would raise on them, and what a splendid row was certain
to follow. “It’s much,” he said, “if somebody’s head isn’t broke over
it.” And then he had gone off whistling in the highest spirits, leaving
little Mrs Quin a prey to the blackest forebodings.
All the long, lonely day she brooded uninterruptedly upon the dreadful
possibilities of the coming encounter, in which crooked, shining
scythe-blades, wielded by rash and wrathful hands, might play a
part as fatal as if they were flashes from a murky cloud. “They’ll
be murdherin’ one another up there,” she said to herself, “and me
sittin’ here all the while like an ould tabby-cat in comfort by the
chimney-corner, and no abler to do a hand’s turn agin’ it.”
Johnny’s fear that nobody might come formed her sole hope, and of
that she was bereft about the pink sunset time, when little Joe O’Hea
ran in to her with a jug of sour milk and the news that he had just
seen a great lot of men carrying scythes, and a quare big yoke of a
mowin’-machine going along up the lane towards Felix Moriarty’s. At
these tidings Mrs Quin’s heart sank. Then her mind swiftly caught at
and grasped a desperate resolution. “Joe, sonny,” she said to Joe,
who was on the point of racing off for another view of the remarkable
machine, “do you see that bucket of wather?” It was a zinc bucket set
brimful near the door. “I want you,” she continued, “to take a couple
of standin’ leps in the middle of it.”
“But sure, ma’am, wouldn’t I be splashin’ it all over the floor and
dhrowndin’ everythin’?” Joe objected, amazed.
“Never you mind, sonny; do as I bid you like a good boy. Lep away, and
I’ll give you a penny,” said Mrs Quin. Whereupon Joe, although still
puzzled, by no means loth, did jump so energetically that the contents
of the bucket were speedily dispersed in sparkling showers, a bountiful
share of which thoroughly drenched his own garments.
“That’s an iligant child,” Mrs Quin said approvingly, “ne’er a dhry
stitch there’s on you at all. Now come here till I tell you what else
I’m wantin’ you to do. You know, Joey, it’s a terrible wicked thing,”
she went on impressively, as he stood by her, dripping and expectant,
“it’s a terrible wicked, dangerous thing for childer to get meddlin’
wid the fire.”
“_I_ don’t ever meddle wid it,” Joe hastened to protest. “Biddy and
Paddy does be at it of an odd while, and I do be biddin’ them let it
alone and not be burnin’ themselves up.”
“To be sure, avic, to be sure, so you would. But now, just for this
very once, and you’re to not ever go do such a thing again _at all_
in the len’th of your life’s days, I want you--may goodness forgive
me--to take the little matchbox you’ll find behind the blue jug on the
dresser, and run out to the back of the house, where you can aisy raich
to the thatch from the high bank of the field, and strike a few of the
blue heads of the matches, jewel, on the rough side of the box--och but
I’m the ould sinner!--and stick them lightin’ into the thatch here and
there, as if you was stickin’ pins in a pincushion, and you’ll see the
fine flare-up there’ll be directly. It’s as dry as tinder.”
This commission was surprisingly to the taste of six-year-old Joe.
“And what more’ll I do after that, ma’am?” he said, eager for further
agreeable instructions. “There’s the pigsty--”
“Sure, then, you might be runnin’ up the field and screechin’ fire and
thieves and all manner,” said Mrs Quin; “it’s a sort of game, you see.”
But as Joe gleefully darted out, armed with the small yellow box, she
shook her head stiffly. “Och now meself’s the wicked ould woman. But
deed it’s murdherin’ themselves they’d be--and Johnny. And if I sent
them only a message,” she argued, “sure they might be apt to think
the crathur was romancin’, and just keep on fightin’; but seein’s
believin’. And the child’s drippin’ wet, forby his clothes bein’
woollen every thread. He couldn’t set himself alight anyhow. May
goodness forgive me. It’s killin’ me his poor mother had a right to be
for puttin’ such divilment in the crathur’s head.”
So we can easily understand how it came to pass that in the midst of
chasing the driverless mowing-machine several people became aware of a
thick smoke column rising on the edge of the slope below them, and of
red flames shooting up through the blue cloud, growing rapidly stronger
and brighter in the faded daylight. At the same time they observed a
small figure rushing about with shrill shrieks in the adjacent field.
Joe, in fact, had been so much scared by the sudden huge blaze of the
dry thatch that he performed his screaming lustily.
Among the first to see was Johnny Quin. “Mercy around!” he said,
“there’s our house blazin’ wild, and Herself inside it.”
He outstripped all the others in their rush down-hill, and reached
the scene of the conflagration none too soon, for the kitchen was a
smother of smoke, through which wisps of fiery straw had already begun
to drop fiercely about the helpless old woman as she sat distracted by
conflicting terrors. She could hardly realise her relief when she found
herself where she could breathe and see, and in the arms of her Johnny
safe and sound.
Nevertheless the mother and son spent that night uncomfortably enough,
huddled in a corner of their devastated dwelling, under an extemporised
shelter of potato-sacks, while all around them hummed and plashed
through their charred rafters the drops of a downpour which had arrived
just too late to save their roof. Johnny sat in mournful meditation.
“Well now,” he said at last, “it’s quare bad luck. There’s me oats
destroyed, that was grand, and the machine smashed, and the horse’s leg
cut woeful, and our bit of good thatch ruinated over our heads--and all
wid intendin’ a joke.”
“It’s on your knees you ought to be, me lad,” said Mrs Quin, the
incendiary, “thankin’ goodness that the feet of you aren’t raped off
wid them hijjis slashin’ scythes, and meself not burned into ashes and
cinders schemin’ to purvint yous doin’ murdher, instead of talkin’
about bad luck.”
But Johnny’s gratitude remained undemonstrative. “I’m thinkin’,” he
said, “it’s a fool’s work to be raisin’ a laugh on any people. For you
never can rightly tell what else mayn’t take and rise up along wid it.
Ay, bedad--and apter than not somethin’ you won’t like.”