THE TITLE-DEED OF THE SWORD.
“Ruari!”
It was the soft note of Eva O’Malley, calling to me as I came within
the gate of Carrickahooley Castle, whither Grace O’Malley, our
mistress, had come to fulfil her period of mourning for her father.
I had just crossed over from Clare Island on a small sailing vessel,
which now lay in the little harbour under the west wall.
“Ruari!”
It was ever a sound of gladness to me, that sweet voice; and looking up
to the chambers of the women, half-way up the front of the great square
tower, I beheld the fair face, framed in its pale-gold curls, against
the darkness of the embrasure of her window. My heart gave a quick
bound of pleasure, and then I grew hot and cold by turns.
For I loved her, and the fear that is born of love made my strength
turn to weakness when I gazed upon her. Yet was I resolved to win her,
though in what way I knew not. Neither did I hope overmuch up to that
time that I understood her, for her manner was a riddle to me.
And here let me set down what were then my relations with these two
women, or, rather, what was their attitude to me.
Grace O’Malley clearly regarded me as a younger brother, and never
lost a certain air of protection in her dealings with me. To her I
remained always in some sort “a little boy, a child,” whose life she
had saved--although I was one of the biggest men in Ireland.
Eva O’Malley, who was two years younger than I, had tyrannised over me
when I was a lad, and now that I was a man she mocked at and flouted
me, dubbing me “Giant Greathead”--I say “Greathead,” but in our
language Greathead and Thickhead are the same--and otherwise amusing
herself at my expense. But in her griefs and troubles it was to me she
came, and not to Grace, as might have seemed more natural.
“Ruari!” she called, and I waved my hand to her in greeting. As I went
into the hall she met me.
“I was waiting for you,” she said, “for I wished to speak to you before
you saw Grace.”
“Yes?” I asked, and as I noticed the freshness of the roseleaf face I
marvelled at it for the hundredth time.
“Grace has made an end of her mourning,” she went on, “and her purpose
now is to go to Galway to see the Lord Deputy, if he be there, as it is
said he is, or, if he be not, then Sir Nicholas Malby, the Colonel of
Connaught.”
I could have shouted for joy, for I was weary of forced inaction while
the fine weather was passing us by, and all the harvest of the sea was
waiting to be gathered in by ready hands like ours.
“Glad am I, in truth, to hear it,” said I heartily. I was not fond of
Galway, but I was anxious to be again on the waters, and who could tell
what might not happen then? There had been no fighting for a long time,
and the men were lusting for it, hungering and thirsting for it--only
biding, like dogs in the leash, for the word. And I was of the same
mind.
“But listen, Ruari,” said Eva. “Is it well that she should go to
Galway? To my thinking there is a very good reason against it.”
“Indeed,” said I, surprised. “What is it?” As I have declared already,
I had no special liking for Galway--and the sea is wide.
“By going to Galway,” said she, “does she not run the chance of putting
herself in the power of the English? Is it not to thrust one’s head
into the very jaws of the lion? The English never loved her father,
Owen O’Malley, and the merchants of Galway were never done accusing
him of supplying himself from their ships at his good pleasure without
asking permission from them.”
I smiled, for what she said about the dead chief was true.
“’Tis not well to smile,” said Eva, frowning.
“There is wisdom in your words,” I replied, becoming instantly grave
at her rebuke. “But why not say to Grace herself what you have said to
me?”
“Oh, you mountain of a man,” she said, “to be so big and to be so----”
and she stopped, but I could fill up the gap for myself.
“What have I said?” demanded I, still more abashed.
“Think you not that I have already spoken to her?” she asked. “But she
will not hearken.”
“Why should she,” said I, “care for my opinion?”
“You know she does care,” she said testily. “But there is more to tell
you.”
“More?” I asked.
Her manner now showed the utmost dejection. Her eyes were downcast, and
as I regarded her I asked myself why it was that one so fair should
have dark, almost black eyelashes--eyelashes which gave a strange
shadow to her eyes. Her next words brought me quickly out of this
musing.
“The ’WISE MAN’” said she, “is set against her going. His words are
of darkness and blood, and he declares that he sees danger for us all
in the near future. I’m afraid--you know he sees with other eyes than
ours.”
And she said this with such evident terror that inwardly, but not
without some dread, I cursed the “Wise Man,”--a certain Teige O’Toole,
called “Teige of the Open Vision” by the people, who counted him to be
a seer and a prophet. He was certainly skilled in many things, and his
knowledge was not as the knowledge of other men.
As she stood beside me, wistfully, entreatingly, and fearfully, I
pondered for a brief space and then I said--
“I will go and speak with Teige O’Toole, and will return anon,” and
forthwith went in search of him.
I found him sitting on a rock, looking out to sea, murmuring
disconsolately to himself. Straightway I asked him what it was that he
had to say against Grace O’Malley’s intended visit to Galway, but he
would vouchsafe no reply other than the awesome words which he kept on
repeating and repeating--
“Darkness and blood; then a little light; blood and darkness, then
again light--but darkness were better.”
Whereat I shuddered, feeling an inward chill; yet I begged of him not
once, nor twice, to make plain his meaning to me. He would not answer,
so that I lost patience with him, and had he not been an aged man and
an uncanny I would have shaken the explanation of his mysterious words
out of his lips, and, as it was, was near doing so.
Rising quickly from the stone whereon he had been sitting, he moved
away with incredible swiftness as if he had read my thoughts, leaving
me staring blankly after him.
What was it he had said?
“Darkness and blood; and then a little light!”
Well, darkness and blood were no strangers to me.
“Blood and darkness; then again light--but darkness were better!”
I could make no manner of sense of it at all; but I saw the meaning of
it plainly enough in the years that followed.
I felt a gentle touch upon my arm, and Eva was by my side.
“Grace wishes you to go to her at once,” she said. “O Ruari, Ruari,
dissuade her from going.”
“I will do what I can,” I replied; but I knew beforehand that if Grace
O’Malley had settled what she was to do, nothing I could urge was
likely to change her purpose.
Slowly I went into her presence.
“Eva has told you,” she said, “that we set out at once for Galway.”
“Yes,” I answered, “but I pray you to consider the matter well.”
“I have considered it well,” she replied; “but say on.”
“Is it a necessity,” I asked, “that you should go to Galway? Are there
not many more places in Ireland for us to go to? Is not the north open
to us, and the west, with plenty of Spanish merchantmen and English
trading on the broad waters?”
“All in good time,” said she, smiling at my eloquence.
“Here,” said I, emboldened to proceed, “here you are among your own
people, on your own land, and no one will seek to molest us. But in
Galway--everything is different.”
“That is it,” she said earnestly. “That is the very reason--everything
is different there.”
She stopped as if in thought.
“Listen, Ruari! My mind,” said she, “is made up to go to Galway to talk
over our affairs with the English governor.”
So this was the reason.
“You say I am safe here,” she continued, “but am I? Word was brought
me only yesterday by a trusty messenger from Richard Burke, the
MacWilliam, that my father’s old-time enemy, Murrough O’Flaherty,
is whispering in the ear of Sir Nicholas Malby, the Colonel of
Connaught--perhaps into the ear of the Lord Deputy himself, for I hear
he is expected about this time in the city--that my father was an enemy
of the Queen, Elizabeth, and that I, his daughter, am sure to follow in
his steps.”
“Murrough O’Flaherty!” cried I, “is he not content with his own wide
lands of Aughnanure?”
“Content,” said she. “Such a man is never content! Then this insidious
whisperer goes on to hint that I am only a young woman, and that my
father has left no heir. It is plain enough, is it not, what he means?”
“Sir Nicholas Malby,” said I, “is reputed to be a just man and a good
soldier.”
“A just man--perhaps, who knows! That is why I am going to Galway. I
must make clear my right and title to my father’s possessions.”
“Right and title,” I exclaimed, and unconsciously I placed my hand on
the hilt of my sword.
She saw and interpreted the action.
“Our title-deed,” said she, “has been that of the sword----”
“And so shall it always be,” I broke in.
“In one sense, yes,” she assented; “but we live in times of change, and
things are not as they were. All the chiefs and lords of Ireland are
now getting a title for their lands from the queen. Even my father did
something of the sort. If I go not to Galway to put forward my claims
it will be said that I am disloyal and a traitress.”
“So,” I said, “it may be an evil to go, but it is a worse thing to stay
here.”
“Yes,” she answered; “but I have other reasons. It is not that I put
so much trust in a piece of parchment, signed and sealed, although I
see no harm in getting it. Ruari, I have purposes that reach far beyond
Galway, and Connaught even, and for the present I deem it not well
openly to incur the enmity of the English.”
This speech was beyond me, so I held my peace until I remembered what
the “Wise Man” had said; but when I mentioned it she replied that
she knew of the matter, and though it troubled her, it would make no
difference to her plans.
Then she fell to brooding and thinking, as was her way, whereupon I
left her to get the ships ready for sea even as she wished.
So, before another day was passed, the three great galleys drew away
from the shelter of Clare Island, and, speeding before a fair wind,
made for the south. Grace and Eva O’Malley were on _The Grey Wolf_,
Tibbot, the pilot, was in command of his dead master’s ship, _The
Winged Horse_, while I was on my own vessel, _The Cross of Blood_.
We took a great company with us of nearly one hundred and fifty men,
including a band of arquebusiers, besides bards and pipers, and
a priest on each ship. The priests were not much to my liking on
shipboard, but Grace would have them. Both Grace and Eva brought of the
finest of their garments, all made of rich Spanish stuffs, so that they
might appear before the Governor as befitted their rank. I myself took
with me two full suits, also of Spanish make, and such as were worn at
courts, that I might not appear unworthy of my mistress.
As the wind was steady, the black cliffs of Achill, with the mass of
Cushcamcarragh and the dome of Nephin behind them, soon grew distant in
our wake. The glowing cone of the Holy Hill of St. Patrick, a wonder of
light and shade as beam of sun or shadow of cloud fell upon it, sank
behind us.
And on we went through a sea of silence, whereon we saw never another
ship; on past the grey or green islands off the coast, until the wind
dropped at sunset. Then the rowers bent their backs and knotted their
muscles over the oars, and so drove the galleys up the long, narrow arm
that is called the Bay of Killery, until we found anchorage under the
mighty shoulders of that king of mountains, the lonely Muilrea.
At early morn, before the sun was up, albeit a far-off tender flush had
sprung up, like something magical, upon the western rim of the world,
the dirl, dirl, dirl, and the clamp, clamp, clamp, of the oars, as
they smote the groaning pivots on which they swung, was heard, and the
galleys went foaming out from the bay, the spray rising like a fine
dust of gems from under the forefeet of the ships. Then we caught a
breeze, and the sails swelled and drew, while the sailors gat them to
their places with shouts and laughter.
Is there any coast in the four quarters of the globe where you will
find more splendid havens than in the portion of Ireland lying between
the Bay of Killery and the Bay of Galway? Well has that land been named
Connemara--that is, the “Bays of the Ocean.” The rugged cliffs, whereon
the weather and the wave have combined to throw all manner of cunning
colours far beyond power of painter to copy, still less devise, are
everywhere broken by inlets, in many of which all the fleets of Spain
and of England together might have ridden safely--hardly one of these
bays but has its island breakwater in front of it for its protection
from the storm and tempest.
’Tis a rare home for seamen!
As the day wore on we fell in with a Scottish ship hailing from
Wigtonshire, called _The Lass of Carrick_, going to Galway like
ourselves. But Grace O’Malley had given command that until her business
was finished with the Governor, we were to continue peacefully on our
course, so we left her without scathe, whereat our men were in no way
offended, there being but little profit to be got out of a ship coming
from Scotland.
A vessel going back from Galway to Scotland was another thing, for she
generally carried a cargo of wines of divers sorts, to say nothing of
silks and other valuable materials. Therefore made I a note in my mind
to watch _The Lass of Carrick_ when we were come to Galway, and to
observe what she took away in that broad, ill-built hulk of hers when
she left the port.
That night the galleys put in to the Bay of Caslah, the most eastern
harbour on that coast, and the following day, without adventure of any
sort--so calm a beginning might well have told me what storms there
would be before the end--we made Galway.
As had been arranged between us, _The Cross of Blood_, my ship, let
go her anchor in the harbour between the mole and the bridge by which
the city is entered on that side, while the other galleys stood out
some distance in the bay. Sending a messenger ashore, I made known
the errand upon which we were come, and, after waiting a long time,
received answer that the Lord Deputy was not yet come to Galway, but
that Sir Nicholas Malby would see Grace O’Malley, and would give a
safe-conduct to her and her guard.
It was now too late for our landing that day, so we remained where we
were all that night. Next morning the three galleys rode within the
harbour of the city, and not far from us were _The Lass of Carrick_ and
several other vessels, all come for the wines and the other merchandise
of the great and famous city of Galway.