It was the first time Tim and I had fallen out, and to this day I could
scarcely tell you how it arose.
We had gone out on to the headland to drive in the sheep; for the wind
was blowing up from seaward, and it was plain to tell that the night
would be a wild one. Father was away with the trawlers off Sheep Haven,
and would be ill pleased should he return to-morrow to find any of the
flock amissing. So, though mother lay sick in the cottage, with none to
tend her, Tim and I, because of the dread we had of our father's
displeasure, left her and went out to seek the sheep before the storm
broke.
It was no light task, for the dog was lame, and the wind carried back
our shouts into our very teeth. The flock had straggled far and wide in
search of the scanty grass, and neither Tim nor I had our hearts in the
work.
Presently Tim took a stone to dislodge one stubborn ewe, where it hid
beside a rock, and, as luck would have it, struck not her but my cheek,
which received a sharp cut.
"Faith, and you'll make a fine soldier when you're grown," said I, in a
temper, "if that's the best you can shoot."
Tim often said he would be a soldier when he came to be a man, and was
touchy on the point.
"Shoot, is it?" said he, picking up another stone; "you blackguard,
stand where ye are and I'll show yez."
And he let fly and struck me again on the self-same place; and I confess
I admired his skill more than his brotherly love.
I picked up the stone and flung it back. But the wind took it so that
it struck not Tim but the ewe. Whereat Tim laughed loudly and called me
a French spalpeen. That was more than I could bear.
"I'll fight you for that," said I, flinging my cap on the ground and
stamping a foot on it.
"Come on wid ye," retorted Tim, giving his buckle a hitch.
And there, on the lonely, wind-swept cliff, we two brothers stood up to
one another. Con, the dog, limped between us with a whine.
"You might tie the dog to the gate till we're done, Barry," said Tim.
"You're right, Tim," said I; "I will."
It took no long time, but 'twas long enough to cool my blood, and when I
returned to Tim I had less stomach for the fight than before.
"Was it 'Frenchman' you said?" asked I, hoping he might say no.
"Troth and I did," said he.
But it seemed to me he too was less fiery than when he spoke last.
So we fought. And I know not how it went. We were a fair match. What
I lacked in strength I made up for in quickness, and if Tim hit me hard
I hit him often.
But it was a miserable business, and our hearts were sorer than our
bodies. For we loved one another as we loved our own lives. And on a
day like this, when mother lay dying at home, and father was out with
the trawlers in the tempest, we lacked spirit to fight in earnest. Only
when Tim called me "Frenchman" it was not in me to stand meekly by.
I know that when it was over, and we parted sulky and bruised each his
own way, I flung myself on my face at the edge of the cliff and wished I
had never been born.
How long I lay I know not.
When I looked up the day was dark with tempest. The whistle of the wind
about my ears mingled with the hoarse thunder of the surf as it broke on
the beach, four hundred feet below me, and swept round the point into
the lough. The taste of brine was on my lips, and now and again flakes
of foam whirled past me far inland. From Dunaff to Malin the coast was
one long waste of white water. And already the great Atlantic rollers,
which for a day past had brought their solemn warning in from the open,
were breaking miles out at sea, and racing in on the shore like things
pursued.
As for me, my spirits rose as I looked out and saw it all. For I loved
the sea in its angry moods. And this promise of tempest seemed somehow
to accord with the storm that was raging in my own breast. It made me
forget Tim and the sheep, and even mother.
I tried to get up on my feet, but the wind buffeted me back before I
reached my knees, and I was fain to lie prone, with my nose to the
storm, blinking through half-closed eyes out to sea.
For a long time I lay thus. Then I seemed to descry at the point of the
bay windward a sail. It was a minute or more before I could be certain
I saw aright. Yes, it was a sail.
What craft could be mad enough in such weather to trust itself to the
mercies of the bay? Even my father, the most daring of helmsmen, would
give Fanad Head a wide berth before he put such a wind as this at his
back. This stranger must be either disabled or ignorant of the coast,
or she would never drive in thus towards a lee-shore like ours. Boy as
I was, I knew better seamanship than that.
Yet as I watched her, she seemed to me neither cripple nor fool. She
was a cutter-rigged craft, long and low in the water, under close
canvas, and to my thinking wonderfully light and handy in the heavy sea.
She did not belong to these parts--even I could tell that--and her
colours, if she had any, had gone with the wind.
The question was, would she on her present tack weather Fanad Head (on
which I lay) and win the lough? And if not, how could she escape the
rocks on which every moment she was closing?
At first it seemed that nothing could save her, for she broke off short
of the point, and drove in within half-a-mile of the rocks. Then, while
I waited to see the end of her, she suddenly wore round, and after
staggering a moment while the sea broke over her, hauled up to the wind,
and careening over, with her mainsail sweeping the water, started gaily
on the contrary tack.
It was so unlike anything any of our clumsy trawler boats were capable
of, that I was lost in admiration at the suddenness and daring of the
manoeuvre. But Fanad was still to be weathered, and close as she sailed
to the wind, it seemed hardly possible to gain sea-room to clear it.
Yet she cleared it, even though the black rocks frowned at her not a
cable's length from her lee-quarter, and the wind laid her over so that
her mast-head seemed almost to touch them as it passed. Then, once
clear, up went her helm as she turned again into the wind, and slipped,
with the point on her weather-quarter, into the safe waters of the
lough.
I was so delighted watching this adventure from my lonely perch that I
did not notice the October afternoon was nearly spent, and that the
light was beginning to fade. The storm gathered force every moment, so
that when at last I turned to go home I had to crawl a yard or two to
shelter before I could stand on my feet.
As for the sheep, unless Tim had driven them in, which was not likely,
they would have to shift for themselves for this night. It was too late
to see them, and Con, who limped at my heels, had not a yap left in him.
As I staggered home, leaning my back against the wind, I could not help
wondering what this strange boat might be, and why she should make for
the lough on so perilous a course. She might be a smuggler anxious to
avoid the observation of the revenue officers. If so, her cargo must be
precious indeed to make up for the risk she ran. Or she might be a
foreigner, driven in by one of the king's cruisers, which had not dared
to follow her into the bay.
Whatever she was, she was a pretty sailer, and prettily handled. I
wondered if ever I, when I grew to be a man, should be able to weather a
point as skilfully.
It was night before I reached our cabin, and all there was dark.
Neither Tim nor father was home, the fire was out on the hearth, and the
poor fevered sufferer lay tossing and breathing hard on the bed.
She was worse, far worse than when we left her in the morning; and I
could have died of shame when I came to think that all those hours she
had lain alone and untended. I struck a light and put it in the window.
"Is that Barry?" said she faintly.
"Ay, mother, it's Barry," said I, going to the bed and bending over her.
"Bring the light, and let me look at you," she said.
I obeyed. She scrutinised my face eagerly, and then turned her head
wearily on the pillow.
"Barry," said she presently.
"Well?" said I, as I took the hot worn hand in mine.
She lay silent a long while, so that I thought she had fallen asleep,
then she said,--
"Where is father?"
"Away with the boats."
"And Tim?"
"I can't say. Tim and I fought the day, and--"
"Fought? Ay, there'll be fighting enough before wrong's made right,
Barry. Listen! I'm dying, son, but I must see him before I go."
"Is it Tim?" said I.
"No." Then she lifted herself in her bed, and her face was wild and
excited as she clutched my hand. "Barry, it's Gorman I must see--
Maurice Gorman. Fetch him to me. Make him come. Tell him I'm a dying
woman, and must speak before I go. There's time yet--go, Barry!"
"Mr Gorman!" exclaimed I. What could my mother want with his honour
down at Knockowen?
"Ay, and quickly--or it will be too late."
Knockowen was across the lough, five miles up above Dunree. It would be
hours on a night like this before he could be here. But my mother
continued to moan, "Go, Barry--make haste." So, much against my will, I
put on my cap and prepared to leave her alone. At the door she called
me back.
"Kiss me, Barry," said she. Then before I could obey her she fell to
raving.
"Give me back the lassie," she cried, "dead or alive. She's more to me
than all Kilgorman! Trust me, Mr Maurice--I'll breathe never a word if
you'll but save Mike. It's false--he never had a hand in it! Some day
truth will out--if the lad's mine no harm shall come to him. I'll use
him against you, Mr Maurice. The truth's buried, but it's safe.
There's more than earth under a hearthstone." And she laughed in a
terrible way.
After a minute she opened her eyes again and saw me.
"Not gone, Barry? For pity's sake, fetch him, or I must go myself."
And she even tried to get up from her bed.
This settled it, and I rushed from the house, whimpering with misery and
terror.
What was it all about? Why did she send me away thus on a fool's
errand? For Mr Gorman was not likely to come out on a night like this
at the bidding of Mike Gallagher's English wife.
If there had only been some one I could have sent to mind her while I
was gone! But our cabin on the bleak headland was miles from a
neighbour--Knockowen, whither I was speeding, was indeed the nearest
place.
For a lad of twelve it was no easy task on a dark stormy night like this
to cross the lough. But I thought nothing of that. Most of my short
life I had spent afloat, and I knew every rock and creek along the
shores.
The boat lay tugging at her moorings when I got down to her, as if
impatient to be away. Luckily her mast was up. It would need but the
least taste of canvas to run her across. The business would be coming
back in the face of the wind.
Sure enough, when I cast off, she rushed through the water like
something mad. And again my spirits rose as I heard the hiss of the
foam at her bows, and felt her rear and plunge among the big boisterous
waves.
After a time I could catch the light at Knockowen as it flickered in the
wind, and put up my helm so as to clear the shoal. This would bring me
close under Kilgorman rock, whence I could drive before the wind as far
as Knockowen.
To my surprise, as I closed in on the shore I saw strange lights at the
water's edge, and casting my eyes up towards Kilgorman (which I never
did in those days without a qualm, because of the ghost that haunted it)
I seemed to see a moving light there also.
I said a hurried prayer, and put round my helm into the wind before my
time. Even the shoal, thought I, was less to fear than the unearthly
terrors of that awful deserted house.
By good luck the strong wind carried me in clear of the bank and so into
fairly still water, and in half-an-hour more I was in under the light of
Knockowen, mooring my boat in his honour's little harbour.
It must have been near midnight, and I was wondering how I should waken
the house and deliver my message, when a voice close beside me said,--
"Are the guns all landed and taken up to the house?"
It was his honour's voice. But I could not see him in the dark.
"I beg your pardon, your honour," said I, "it's me, Barry Gallagher."
A quick step came down to where I stood, and a hand was laid on my
shoulder.
"You! What do you here?" said his honour sharply, for he had evidently
expected some one else.
"If you please, sir, my mother's sick, and she sent me to bid you come
before she died."
He made a startled gesture, as I thought, and said, "What does she want
me for?"
"It's to tell your honour something. I couldn't rightly say what, for
she spoke strangely."
"I'll come in the morning if the weather mends," said he.
"I've the boat here for you, sir," I ventured to say, for I guessed the
morning would be too late.
"Leave her there, and go up to the house. You may sleep in the
kitchen."
What could I do? For the first time that night I knew for certain I
hated his honour. My mother's dying message was nothing to him. And
she, poor soul, lay in the cabin alone.
Knockowen was a poor shambling sort of house. Strangers wondered why
Maurice Gorman, who owned Kilgorman as well, chose to live in this place
instead of the fine mansion near the lough mouth. But to the country
people this was no mystery. Kilgorman had an evil name, and for twelve
years, since its late master died, had stood desolate and empty--
tenanted only, so it was said, by a wandering ghost, and no place for
decent Christian folk to dwell in.
As I lay curled up that stormy night in his honour's kitchen, I could
not help thinking of the strange lights I had seen as I rowed in by the
shore. Where did they come from, and what did they mean? I shuddered,
and said one prayer more as I thought of it.
Then my curiosity got the better of me, and I crept to the window and
looked out. The wind howled dismally, but the sky was clearing, and the
moon raced in and out among the clouds. Away down across the lough I
could see the dim outline of Fanad, below which was the little home
where, for all I knew, my mother at that moment lay dead. And opposite
it loomed out the grey bleak hill below which, even by this half light,
I fancied I could detect the black outline of Kilgorman standing grimly
in the moonlight.
It may have been fancy, but as I looked I even thought I could see once
more moving lights between the water's edge and the house, and I slunk
back to my corner by the fire with a shiver.
Presently, his honour came in with a candle. He had evidently been up
all night, and looked haggard and anxious.
"Get up," said he, "and make the boat ready."