you?” shouted a voice reassuringly familiar and irate. It was young
Larry Sullivan, who had slipped out through the back door a few
minutes before, and whose impatience at being kept waiting had
nothing supernatural about it. Despite Peter’s remonstrances, the
door was thrown open, and disclosed Larry, standing tall against a
background of glimmering white, in a gloom which, when you looked
into it anywhere steadily, grew full of wandering flakes like
scattered bread-crumbs. Beside him appeared a smaller figure, whom
he pulled indoors along with him before anybody well had time for
terrific surmises, and whom the firelight showed to be a little old
woman, wrapped up in a powdered brown shawl. She was breathless and
bewildered and forlorn-looking, as she peered round from face to
face, all strange, all comfortless—but no! for the moment Bridget
Doran set eyes on her she sprang at her and caught her in a great hug—
“Why, granny darlint, and is it yourself?” she said. “And how at all
did you come this night in the snow? It’s kilt you are entirely. You
can’t ever ha’ come wid ould Bill Molloy?”
“Ah, honey, I thramped it,” said old Mrs Doran. “Sure I couldn’t rest
aisy, thinkin’ me little Biddy was took that bad away all her lone
among the strange people. But finely you’re looking, glory be to
goodness. ’Deed now me heart’s been fit to break frettin’ ever since
I got the letter this mornin’, sayin’ that belike you wouldn’t get
over it.”
“An’ I to be dancin’ round like a zany bewitched, and you all the
while streelin’ through the snow,” said Bridget, with acute remorse.
“It’s sorry I am that I let anybody send you such owld lies.
But”—looking indignantly at Rose—“I only said to say that I had a
cowld.”
“And I lost me way in the dark,” went on Mrs Doran plaintively, “and
what at all I’d ha’ done I dunno, on’y for the dacint boy coming by,
for nought else the other two’d do but let yells at me, and run away
like scared turkeys.”
“Creepin’ along under the high bank she was, the crathur, when I met
her,” Larry meanwhile was telling the others, “and scarce able to
contind wid the blasts of the win’. And sez she to me, ‘For the love
of God, just stop to tell me am I anywhere near the Casey’s house?’
And sez I to her, ‘Is it the Quarry Farm you’re wantin’?’ And sez
she to me, ‘Ay, it’s where my poor Katey’s little daughter Bridget
Doran’s in service, and dyin’ wid some manner of outlandish sickness:
It’s to her, I’m goin’,’ sez she. So sez I to her, if it was Bridget
Doran she was wantin’, I’d seen the girl three minyits ago, and ne’er
a sign of dyin’ on her whatsome’er, and I just brought her along
here. It’s perished and stupid the crathur is wid the cowld. You’d a
right to get her a cup of hot tay, and a warm at the fire,” concluded
Larry, thereupon bestirring himself to superintend the carrying out
of this prescription. And a little later he prompted his mother to
offer Mrs Doran a night’s lodging at their house close by, thus
entailing upon themselves more hospitality than they had foreseen.
For of the Surree at Mahon’s all’s well that ends well could not
quite be said, as some of the guests were disposed to say prematurely
when the assembly was breaking up. To begin with, old Mrs Doran had
caught a very bad chill during her snowy wanderings, and now had a
severe illness which endangered her life, and obliged Bridget to
pay many an anxious and conscience-stricken hour as a fee for her
deceptive letter, while a difference which she had next morning with
Rose Casey about the unauthorised mendacity of its contents led to
a permanent cooling down of their friendship. Moreover, Rose, on
the very same day, spoke in such scathing terms to Peter O’Donoghue
with reference to his panic on the night before, that even his
impenetrable self-satisfaction was touched, and a violent falling out
ensued. The consequence was that no wedding took place at Shrovetide;
and the last time I had news from Killymeen “there was no talk of
it at all, at all,” so the breach may be considered final. In fact,
it is commonly supposed that he has some notion of transferring his
attentions to Bridget Doran. But I happen to know that the only
one among the boys she thinks anything of is Larry Sullivan, whom
she always remembers gratefully as the rescuer of her grandmother.
Whereas, if Larry fancies anyone, it is Kate Duffy.
Whence it appears that some rather complicated cross currents in
the stream of life flowing through Killymeen have started from this
Surree at Mahon’s.
THE SHORTEST WAY
THE SHORTEST WAY
District-Inspector Rochfort had risen very early on that wet August
morning, to go trout-fishing along the Feltragh River. He hoped to
get a couple of hours at it before breakfast; so he was not best
pleased when Hugh Christie accosted him as he crossed the Ivy Bridge.
Hugh was looking over the wreathed parapet up the river, and did not
take his eyes off it; only put out a hand as Mr Rochfort passed, and
stopped him with a touch on the arm. Undoubtedly Hugh had queer ways.
His neighbours pronounced him to be “not all there,” which seemed an
inappropriate description of his peculiarities, as rather there was
more of him than of other people. But the more was something uncanny.
He now said, still watching the water: “I was thinkin’ the Sargint
might come by; howsome’er, sir, you’ll do as well.”
“That I won’t, my man,” said Mr Rochfort, “unless it can be done
uncommonly smart, for I’ve no time to waste.”
“It’s as short as it’s long,” said Hugh. “But you needn’t mind about
_thim_”—he pointed to the young man’s rod and creel—“there’ll be none
of that work till it’s gone down, and risin’ it’ll be yet awhile.”
Mr Rochfort looked where Hugh was looking, and had reluctantly to
admit the truth of this. The river ran far below them, down in a
narrow steep-walled little glen, one of the many cracks that fissure
Lisvaughan’s wind-swept, limestone plain. Almost each of these
ravines has a stream in it, with a remnant of trees huddled together
for shelter from the storms, whose stress they dare not meet in the
open, and with ferns venturing out of the rock-clefts to droop ample
fronds over the boulders on the margin. It is thus with Feltragh
River, which rises in the moorland towards Shrole, and here, at the
Ivy Bridge, comes round a sharp turn down a very stony stair. On the
other side of the arch it broadens slightly, and a somewhat longer
reach of it is in view; but Hugh Christie was staring up-stream,
where the water rushed into sight abruptly within a pebble’s cast of
his station. Swirling and tumbling it came, thrusting thick glassy
strands between the boulders, or seething over the tallest of them
in creamy fleeces. A roar ascended from those rapids hollowly and
fitfully, so that the District-Inspector looked up and down the road
occasionally, thinking a heavy cart must be lumbering along.
“There’s a strong current in it now,” said Hugh. “Man nor mortal
couldn’t stand agin it. ’Twould lift a dead cow, let alone—anything
else.”
“You’ve chosen a good place for a drenching,” said the
District-Inspector, for the wind was driving its cold spray into
their faces; “but I don’t see what else is to be got by staying in
it.” And he was moving on, when Hugh said—
“Just wait a bit, till I tell you.”
Hugh’s clothes had a sodden appearance, as if they had given up
trying to get any wetter, and his brown beard was all in a silvery
mist of tiny drops; therefore he was not sensitive about the dampness
of the weather. But what he said, though the District-Inspector did
wait, was nothing more to the purpose than: “Last night was powerful
dark; but it didn’t settle to rain till goin’ on for one o’clock—not
to spake of, any way.”
“Well, it’s making up for lost time now, at all events,” said the
District-Inspector, and had to be stopped again.
“See here, Mr Rochfort, you’re newish to the place; but ax anybody—ax
his Riverence, or Mr Lennon at the public, or Sargint Moore—and every
one of them’ll say I was niver known to raise a hand to do murdher on
man or woman—or I might say child,” Hugh added after a pause, as if
he felt that he was making large demands upon credulity.
“If I were you, Christie, I’d go home, out of the rain,” replied the
District-Inspector.
“Och, no matther for that. I was goin’ to ax you, sir, did you
remember the McAuliffes—the widdy and her daughter: that was all of
them was in it, ever since you come to Lisvaughan.”
“Who lived at Brierly’s cottages over yonder?” the District-Inspector
said, pointing towards the smooth-faced crag whose jut prevented
them from seeing any farther up the Feltragh River. “I believe I do
remember the old woman creeping to Mass—a little lame body; didn’t
she die the other day?”
“Ay did she, last Friday week in Shrole Union; for the daughter that
kep’ her out of it went wid the fever in the spring, and her son
Dan that ped their rint in ’Sthralia, was niver sendin’ her a word
iver since. So she made up her mind he was dead too, and she didn’t
care what become of her after that; and she broke her heart fretting
in the Infirm’ry. But last night Dan landed home lookin’ for her, as
plased as anythin’.”
“The unlucky devil,” said the District-Inspector.
“You may say that,” said Hugh; “but there’s unluckier. Sure it was
meself met him a trifle down the road, and on’y for that, ’twould ha’
been nobody’s doin’, and done all the same. And if it hadn’t been
that outrageous dark, I’d never ha’ seen a sight of him. But sure
up agin ourselves we foosthered on the path, and I wasn’t long then
doubtin’ who had the discourse out of him about the Divil and such.
So: ‘Is it after desthroyin’ you, I am, Dan?’ sez I. And sez he, ‘To
your sowl, if it’s yourself, Hughey Christie,’ he sez, for he and I
did be as thick as thieves in the ould times. And ‘Come a step along
wid me,’ sez he, ‘for I can’t be delayin’.’ ‘Sure where’s the hurry
at all?’ sez I, misdoubtin’ what might be in his mind, if he knew
no betther or worser. ‘Why, man,’ sez he, ‘isn’t it goin’ on for ten
year since I was at home? And like a living dhrame to me now I’m
thinkin’ I’m that near her agin.’ So sez I to myself, ‘The Divil’s
in it’; and sez I to himself, ‘Take care it isn’t too soon you’ll be
gettin’ there, since you couldn’t conthrive it any sooner.’ Sure now,
you’d ha’ supposed he’d ha’ had the wit to git a fright at that. But
all he said was, ‘Ah,—the sisther, poor Lizzie, the crathur; ’deed,
then, that was the great pity entirely, and a cruel loss to her for
sartin. But sure that’s the raisin of me comin’ home at all, thinkin’
me mother’d be left too lonesome altogether. And what wid th’ ould
stame-boat bustin’ up in her ingines,’ sez he, ‘and meself takin’ bad
where they stopped for repeers, I’ve been twyste the time I’d a right
to on the way. She’ll be in dhread there’s somethin’ happint me.
Howane’er, sorra a much fear of that is there now, Hughey man, and
me, so to spake, at the door goin’ in to her, thanks be to goodness,’
sez he.
“And niver a word out of me head to that. But I declare to you,
sir, you might ha’ thought the river itself, that’s a dumb crathur,
was thryin’ its best to tell him, accordin’ to the quare mutterin’
like it kep’ on wid down below. For stumpin’ up the Quarry Lane he
was, that’s the nearest road to his house; ’twas just turnin’ into
it I met him. Nor aisy it wouldn’t ha’ been any ways to git a word
into the talk he had, and it mostly all about what he’d saved in
’Sthralia, and the fine counthry it was, and the grand thing to ha’
got away out of it. ‘But,’ sez he, ‘maybe I’d ha’ sted in it a while
longer, if I hadn’t been afeard me ould woman here’d get mopin’ and
frettin’ left all to herself, which I couldn’t abide the thoughts
of. For right well I was doin’ out there,’ sez he, ‘and in another
couple of years I’d ha’ had a goodish bit more to be bringin’ home
wid me.’ And, bedad, you could see the truth of that, because every
glimmer of light in the black of the night was shinin’ on the len’ths
of the gould watch-chain he had wearin’ on his weskit. ‘Howiver,’ he
sez, ‘I’ve plinty to be keepin’ her iligant, and what great matther
about anythin’ more, when herself’s the on’y mortal crathur I have
belongin’ to me in the width of the world? Sure, if I hadn’t her to
be spendin’ it on,’ sez he, ‘I’d as lief be slingin’ ivery blamed
ould pinny I own over the bank there into the rowlin’ river, and
meself after it—faix would I, the Lord knows.’
“Well now, sir, after his sayin’ that, wouldn’t tellin’ him ha’ been
as good as biddin’ him go dhrownd himself? I put it to you: wouldn’t
it now?”
“It’s hard to say,” said the District-Inspector: “but what _did_ you
do?”
“Stumpin’ along wid him I was, lettin’ on I was listenin’ to him, and
all the while I was makin’ no more sinse of it than if he’d been a
bullock I had dhrivin’ to market, that would be lettin’ a roar now
and agin, at the mischief knows what. For thinkin’ to meself I was
that unless I quitted foolin’ him, he’d be very prisintly walkin’ up
to his door, and one of the Duggans, that he niver set eyes on in his
life, shoutin’ to know who he was, and what he wanted, and tellin’
him the Union was after buryin’ his mother on him. So at last I’d
twisted up me mind wid the notion I’d spake out the next time he said
anythin’, and if I did, that minyit he hit me a clout on the back,
and, ‘Och, Hughey, you bosthoon,’ sez he, ‘herself’ll be sittin’ this
instiant of time be the fire in there, and niver thinkin’ I’m comin’
along a few perch down the ould road.’
“And sez I, ‘Tubbe sure, Dan, she’s thinkin’ no such thing at all’;
and, for that matther, what truer could I ha’ said? And as sure as
I’m alive, I’d ha’ gone on wid it, I would so, on’y ’twas just then
we come round the turn opposite them Brierly Cottages. You know,
sir, where they’re cocked up, across the river, fornint Fitzsimmons’
lime-kiln, wid ne’er a handy way of gittin’ at them except be the
bridge; the next one above this it is—a wooden fut-bridge wid a
hand-rail. But not a sight of it could we see in the dark, or
anythin’ else, on’y the light burnin’ in the Duggans’ windy, the way
it used to be afore they come there.
“And when Dan seen that, he let a sort of yell, and sez he, ‘There it
is—there’s her ould bit of a lamp lightin’ the same as it was ever,
and meself beholdin’ it agin—_glory be to God_.’ The Divil’s in it,”
Hugh said, with a fierce clutch at the dripping ivy-sprays. “If the
crathur hadn’t been so ready to be gloryin’ God, I’d ha’ found it
in me heart to ha’ tould him the whole thing straight out—goodness
help him!—but instead of that, I thought to be comin’ at it gradial.
So I sez to him, lettin’ on I wasn’t mindin’ what he’d said, ‘Is
it a star you’re lookin’ at?’ And sez he to me, ‘Musha, not at all,
man; it’s somethin’ a dale nearer than a one of thim.’ And, ‘There’s
things farther off than stars,’ sez I; and, ‘Belike there is,’ sez
he, ‘but I’m not apt to be throublin’ me head about them when me ould
woman’s waitin’ for me unbeknownst just across the sthrame. So I’ll
be sayin’ good-night to you kindly, Hughey, and skytin’ over. Where
at all’s the bridge? I can’t make out a stim before me. Ah, here it
is!’ sez he, ‘right enough in its own place.’
“And it’s the truth I’m tellin’ you, Mr Rochfort, the truth I’m
tellin’ you: not till the man was grabbin’ the rail wid one hand and
mine wid the other, biddin’ me good-night, did the recollection come
into me mind of anythin’ amiss. And then I dunno rightly how it was,
but the same time I got considherin’ the way ’twould be, supposin’
I held me tongue for that minyit. For if I didn’t tell him the one
thing, nobody’d ever tell him the other, and ’twould save throuble in
a manner. Och, I dunno what come over me, but in the end all I sez to
him was, ‘You’ll have to be walkin’ cautious, Dan,’—God forgive me,
but for sure He won’t: that was every word I said.”
“But why should you have said more?” asked the District-Inspector.
“The bridge is safe enough. Wasn’t the man sober?”
“Safe enough, begorra!” said Hugh. “If there warn’t six fut smashed
slap out of the middle of it wid the big ash-tree buttin’ its head
through it, that was blown off the top of the bank in the storm the
night before last. Six fut clever and clane, and maybe six times six
fut under it to drop down on the river and the rocks.”
“And you sent him over that in the dark?” said the
District-Inspector. “What on earth possessed you?” This question,
however, was merely a phrase, for he seemed to know the reason very
well. “Was he killed?” he demanded, with the inquest in his mind.
“Where’s the body lying?”
“It’s that I’m watchin’ for,” said Hugh, his eyes still following
the rough white race below, “ever since I had light to see. He might
be comin’ by any minyit now. But until the river riz wid the rain a
couple of hours back, I doubt was there water enough to bring him;
there was no very great dale runnin’ in it before then. So I wouldn’t
think he could ha’ slipped past, and I not to notice.”
“Do you mean to say,” said the District-Inspector, “that you went off
and left the unfortunate man there, without so much as ascertaining
whether he was dead or alive?”
“Alive is it?” said Hugh. “Sure the wooden bridge is a good bit
higher than this one; but if I tuk a standin’ lep off of the ledge
here, it’s breakin’ me neck I’d be afore I knew where I was. And
the jagged lumps of big stones is terrible; he might be wedged in
between two of them. Och, no! for all the life’s left in him, poor
Dan’ll ha’ had a paicibler night of it up there than meself had here,
considherin’ quare things in the dark this long while. Ay will he,
for the sort of moanin’ and screeches there was in it now and again
was nothin’ on’y the win’, and the rain polthoguin’, I very well
know.”
“And are you certain that the bridge hadn’t been mended?” said the
District-Inspector.
“How could I help bein’ sartin sure? And I goin’ by it on’y a while
before, in the grey of the light, and Mrs Duggan herself bawlin’
across to me that they were kilt thrampin’ half-a-mile or so afore
they could git over anywheres.”
“But if you didn’t wait, how do you know that he mayn’t have turned
back?”
“Wait? Bedad no, it’s runnin’ away down here I was, as fast as I
could pelt. But what was to turn him back, and he flourishin’ off wid
himself in the greatest hurry at all? You might ha’ thought it was
ten fine fortin’s he was goin’ after; and not a stim to see a step
before him wid. So if it isn’t a murdher, get me one. And that’s the
raison I was thinkin’ I’d a right to be mentionin’ it to yourself,
sir, or the Sargint.”
“It’s a very curious case,” said the District-Inspector, beginning
instinctively to grope about for precedents, and finding none.
“But murdher or no,” said Hugh, “I do be thinkin’ diff’rent ways
of it, and some of them’s bad. For I sez to meself, ‘In a fine
disthraction poor Dan’d ha’ been, when he heard tell of th’ ould
crathur breakin’ her heart in the House.’ And then again I sez to
meself, ‘And supposin’? Many’s the fine disthraction you’ve been in
yourself, me man, and niver tuk a lep into the river out of it.’ And
arter that agin sez I to meself, ‘But sure, if some one’d ha’ up and
shoved me over unbeknownst, so to spake, sorra the blame I’d ha’
blamed him.’ However, since the day’s light’nin’ overhead, little
doubt I’ve had in me mind but that I’d liefer see him comin’ along
the road on his feet, disthracted or not disthracted; and that’s what
I’ll niver behould, if it was twyste as clear. Terrible clear it is
gettin’,” he said, glancing furtively up.
The sky was all one floating, drifting greyness, dim and impenetrable
even in a place rather low on the east, where many invisible hands
seemed to be straining the vast web in devious directions, so that it
thinned and paled. But at this moment it rent there right through,
leaving a rift filled strangely with a liquid radiance of silver
light glowing into amber, which suddenly darted into the eyes of the
two men, and threw their shadows across the wet road, and set the
puddles on fire.
“Look,” said Hugh excitedly, standing up straight and pointing
towards the water.
A wave wider and wilder than the others was coming down the river,
with something lapt round in it that made a dark core to its turbid
brown. But this was borne along no farther than to the first ridged
step in the fleeting rapids. There it halted and lay still, while
the turmoil of water and foam fell away from about it in a flurry,
draining off through the interstices of the boulders, or pouring
over their veiled crests. It was the body of a man. One arm hung
down against the straight rock-ledge, and the face looked up to the
sun-gleam so naturally that when the next wave rushed by, weltering
on and on and on interminably over it, the District-Inspector gave a
gasp as if something had been taking his own breath.
“There he is, the very way I tould you,” said Hugh. At the sound of
his voice the District-Inspector turned quickly, and, seeing that he
had stepped up on to the low, ivied parapet, made a grasp at him, but
was not in time to reach him. “Stop where you are, Dan, one instiant
yet,” Hugh shouted: “for here I am, too!”
THE STAY-AT-HOMES
THE STAY-AT-HOMES
On the 1st of March, last year, it might have been noticed that
people were continually going in and out of Letterowen Railway
Station; yet the number of passengers who arrived and departed by
train was certainly no larger than usual. The station is rather a new
feature in the village, children of smallish growth remembering a
time when its fine pink-washed gables, and brilliant flower-borders,
and curious turnstile did not exist; still it had been there long
enough for the charm of novelty to have been worn off, and that
was not the _comether_ which on this dusty-grey, east-windy March
Sunday drew thither so many visitors, who had no tickets to buy, nor
other official business to transact. What they dropped in to look
at was placarded upon the walls of the bare little waiting-rooms,
where Jim Neligan, the porter, had been busy with a paste brush the
evening before—so excessively so, indeed, being new to his post and
zealous, that the station-master had inquired sarcastically whether
he intended to paper the whole place over entirely, and if he didn’t
think he might as well stick on another layer atop of the first. But
the result of Jim’s lavishness was that wherever you turned there
were the thick black letters announcing a special cheap excursion
to Dublin on next Tuesday fortnight, which, as everybody well knew,
would be St Patrick’s Day. Peter Carroll, who helped to clean lamps
at the station, and his mother, who scrubbed floors there, had
spread the report of the advertisement overnight, and it sounded so
very remarkable that more people than not twirled the turnstile in
the course of the morning and came down the zig-zag path to see for
themselves.