TO IRELAND
“Be it granted me to behold you again in dying,
Hills of home.”
R. L. STEVENSON.
HOLYHEAD pier was in the state of wild turmoil that seethes between the
arrival of the mail and its transhipping to the Dublin boat. Passengers
ran hither and thither, distractedly seeking luggage, while stolid
English porters lent a deaf ear to their complainings or assured them
absent-mindedly that everything would be all right on the other side; an
assurance always given light-heartedly by the porter who is comfortably
certain of the fact that, whatever happens on the other side, he will
not be there. First and third class passengers mingled inextricably in
the luggage-hunt, with equal lack of success, and divided into two
streams when the whistle blew an impatient summons, seeking their
respective gangways under the guiding shouts of officials on the upper
deck. Through the crowd ploughed the mail trollies, regarding first and
third class travellers alike as mere obstructors of His Majesty’s
business, and asserting their right-of-way by sheer weight and impetus.
Overhead, a grey sky hung darkly, and was reflected in a grey,
white-flecked sea.
It was not the usual Ireland-bound crowd of early summer. Comparatively
few women were travelling, and except for a few elderly men, there was
an entire absence of the knickerbocker-suited, tweed-capped travellers,
with golf-clubs and rod-boxes, who make a yearly pilgrimage across the
Irish Sea. Most of them were in Flanders or Gallipoli now, and khaki had
replaced the rough tweeds; many would never come again. In their stead,
khaki sprinkled the crowd thickly. A big detachment of soldiers
returning after furlough, crowded the boat for’ard. Officers in heavy
great-coats were everywhere; one chubby subaltern in charge of a
regimental band, which had been assisting in a recruiting tour in Wales.
A small group surrounded a tall old general, whose great-coat showed the
crossed sword and baton, while his gold-laced and red-banded cap made
him the object of awed glances from junior officers, who forthwith put
as much of the ship as possible between themselves and his eagle eye.
Jim Linton and Wally Meadows were among the first out of the train. It
was Jim’s way to let a crowd disperse a little before he attempted to
reach a given point. “You get there just as quickly, and it saves an
awful lot of pushing and shoving,” he said. But Wally’s impatience never
brooked any such delay; at all times he found it difficult to sit still,
and once movement was permitted him, he was wont, as Jim further said,
“to run three ways at once.” Therefore, Jim being too peaceably inclined
to argue the matter, they made a hurried descent to the platform,
collected hand-luggage hastily, discovered a porter, assisted Mr. Linton
and Norah to alight, and had marshalled their forces on the upper deck
of the steamer while yet the main body of the passengers strove
agonizedly to find their belongings. Then Jim made a leisurely
inspection, discovered their heavy luggage in perfect safety, duly
embarked: and rejoined his party with the calm certainty of all being
right with the world.
People were disposing themselves after the varied fashion of
’cross-Channel passengers. Apprehensive ladies and a few men cast a
despondent look at the grey sea and the white horses tumbling off-shore,
and prudently sought the shelter of the cabins, hoping, by prompt lying
down, to cheat the demon of sea-sickness. More seasoned travellers
selected chairs on the main decks, pitched them where any gleams of sun
might reach them, and settled down, rolled in rugs, to read through the
boredom of the passage. On the railings, small boys perched themselves
with the fell determination of small boys all the world over, while
anxious mothers rent the air with fruitless appeals for them to come
down, and wrathful fathers emphasized the commands with blows, or else
smoked stolidly in the conviction that a small boy who was meant to fall
in the sea would certainly fall there, in spite of his parents. Babies
wailed dismally, until borne off to the cabin by mothers and nurses;
sirens rent the air with hoarse shrieks; cranes, loading luggage,
rattled and banged, and above their din rose the shouts of newsboys
hawking London and Dublin papers. Every hand on the ship was working
furiously, for the mail has no time to spare, and nothing matters to it
but the time-table.
They were off presently, slipping away almost imperceptibly from the
wharf, and nosing out to sea through the grey waves. The ship thrust her
bow into them doggedly. The mail-boat’s line is a straight line, and she
takes no account of the foaming billows and the anguish of passengers,
thrusting through everything from port to port. Several people who had
settled down on deck more in hope than certainty cast sad glances on the
sea, and disappeared hurriedly below.
Jim and Wally turned up their coat-collars as the breeze freshened, and
stood swaying easily to the motion of the ship. They still bore traces
of the ordeal they had undergone in the trenches; each was unnaturally
pale and heavy-eyed, and recurring attacks of throat-trouble had kept
them from regaining full strength. Wally’s eyes, too, were weak: he was
under orders to rest them altogether, and was therefore openly jubilant
because he could not read war news—which, as he said, was one of the
most wearying occupations, only you couldn’t cease doing it without a
decent excuse. “Vetted” by a Medical Board, the pair had been given six
weeks’ leave, at the end of which time they were to report progress.
Of the nerve-disorder which so frequently follows in the track of
gas-poisoning they were fortunately entirely free. Possibly their dose
had not been large enough: or their clean youth and perfect health had
helped them to throw off the effects felt heavily by older men. They
could joke about it now, and their longing to get “some of their own
back” was so keen as almost to discount an Irish holiday. Still, war was
likely to last long enough to give them all the fighting they needed:
there was, after all, no immediate hurry. And it was glorious to feel
strength returning: and the new fishing-rods and tackle bore fascinating
promise, while Ireland itself was a country of their dreams.
As for Mr. Linton and Norah, they looked after the boys unceasingly, fed
them at alarmingly short intervals, and in general manifested so
subservient a desire to run all their errands that the victims revolted,
declaring they were patients no longer, and threatening severe measures
if they were not restored to independence. Norah and her father
submitted unwillingly. To nurse trench-worn warriors had the double
effect of being in itself comforting, while, so long as the nursing
lasted, the warriors could not possibly consider returning to the
trenches.
They looked about them as the swift steamer raced westward. Soldiers,
soldiers everywhere; every likely youngster was in uniform, and there
were many older men whose keen, quiet faces bore the ineffaceable stamp
of the regular officer of the old Army—the old Army that was gone for
ever, only a fragment left after the first fierce onslaught of war. The
men for’ard were laughing and singing, just as they laughed and sang in
the trenches; a cornet-player belonging to the band had found his
instrument and was leading the tune. Near Norah, three or four nuns,
sweet-faced and grave, were seated, evidently enjoying the keen wind
that swept into their faces. There was the usual sprinkling of
passengers, some mere heaps of rugs in deck-chairs, others walking
briskly up and down. Somewhat apart, a tall old priest stood by the
rail, looking ahead: a gaunt old man with burning, dark eyes, that
searched the grey sea and sky wistfully, as if looking for the land to
which they were hastening. Jim, strolling backwards and forwards, came
presently to a standstill near him, and asked a question.
“Do you know what time we get in, sir?”
“’Tis about three hours, I believe—that or less,” said the old man,
courteously. He turned a steady glance on Jim, and apparently approved
of him, for he smiled. “Do you not know Ireland, then?”
Jim shook his head. “It’s my first visit.”
“So?” The old eyes looked ahead once more. “They take under three hours
now to cross; ’twas many more last time I came away—the bitter day!” he
added, half under his breath. “And that’s three-and-forty years ago, my
son!”
“What! and you’ve never been back, sir?”
“Never. I’ve been in America. A good country; but it never lets you go,
and it never gets to be home. All that three-and-forty years I’ve been
thinking of the day I’d be going back again.”
“And it’s come,” said Jim, his smile suddenly lighting his grey eyes.
The old man smiled back
“If you weren’t so young I’d say you knew what it was to be homesick,”
said he.
“I come from Australia,” said Jim, briefly.
“Well, well, well!” the priest said. “There’s another great
country—only so far away. There’s many a good Irishman there, they tell
me.”
“Any number of them,” said Jim. “We’ve got one of the best on our
place—Murty O’Toole. He taught me to ride.”
“Did he so? There were O’Tooles in Wicklow when I was a boy; but sure
and they’re all over the world. You’ll be glad to go back, when the time
comes?”
“Glad!” said Jim, explosively. He laughed. “It’s very jolly, of course,
to visit other places. But home’s home, isn’t it, sir?”
“Aye,” said the old man. He looked ahead, his eyes misty.
“Three-and-forty years I’ve dreamed of it; and now I’m waiting to see
the hills of Ireland coming out of the sea, and this last hour seems
longer than all the years. Well, well; and they’re all dead, all the
people I knew; and I going home to die, like a wornout old dog.”
“You’ll live in Ireland many a year yet, sir,” Jim told him, quickly.
“No, no; I’m done. ’Tis my heart, and it finished—sure, wouldn’t forty
years of work in New York finish any heart!” said the old man, laughing.
“But I’m lucky to be getting back to Ireland to die. Did you ever hear,
now, of the Sons of Tuireann?”
Jim shook his head. “I’m afraid not, sir.”
“They were great fighting men, and they had great hardship,” said the
priest: “and at the end of all things they were on the sea coming home,
dying. And one of them cried out that he saw the hills of home. And the
others said, ‘Raise up our heads on your breast till we see Ireland
again: and life or death will be the same to us after that.’ So they
died. That was a good ending. A man wouldn’t ask better. ’Tis a hard
thing, dying in a strange country, but you’d go very easy, once you got
home.” He spoke half to himself, so low that the boy hardly caught the
words. They stood silently for awhile, looking ahead across the tumbling
sea.
“I had no right to be talking to you about dying,” the old priest said
presently, turning to Jim with a smile that made his face
extraordinarily child-like. “Old men get foolish; and my heart’s too big
for my body this day, and I getting home. Tell me now—are ye Irish, at
all?”
“My mother was Irish,” Jim answered.
“I’d have said so. What part might she have come from?—and is she with
you?”
“She died when I was a kiddie,” Jim answered. “She came from Donegal.
Father says she always loved it.”
“Well, well! Wherever you’re born, you love that place. But I think the
love for Ireland is beyond most things. The people leave it because
there’s no room for them and no money; but no matter where they go they
leave the half of their hearts behind. And they put something of the
love into their children no matter where they’re born, so that they
always want to come and see Ireland: and when they come, ’tis no strange
place to them; they feel they’ve come home. You’ll feel it—for all that
you love that big young country of yours, and want to get back to her.
But every old ruin, and every bit of brown bog and heathery mountain,
and every little stony field, will say something to you that you will
not be able to put into words: and when you go back you will not forget.
There, there! I’m talking again!” said the old man; “and to a boy with
business of his own. Tell me, now, have you been out across yonder yet?”
He nodded in the direction of Flanders.
They talked of war, the priest nodding vehemently and punctuating Jim’s
brief sentences with exclamations of “Well, well!” The wistfulness
dropped from him suddenly; he was a fighting man, a Crusader—with a
young man’s burning desire to be out in the trenches, and a young man’s
keenness to hear details of battle. “There’s fifty thousand French
priests fighting for France,” he said, enviously: “none the worse
soldiers for being priests, I’ll vow, and they’ll be all the better
priests afterwards for having been soldiers! If I were young! if I were
young!” He laughed at his own vehemence. “It’s your day,” he said; “a
great world just now for young men. And they tell me there’s any number
of them out of khaki yet—standing behind counters and selling lace and
ribbons; and some of them doing women’s hair! More shame for the women
that let them!”
“If a man wants to stay out of the game and do women’s work, well that’s
all he’s fit for,” said Jim, slowly. “He’s not wanted where there’s work
going. But he ought to have some sort of a brand put on him, so that
people will be able to tell him from a man in future!”
The priest chuckled appreciatively.
“Petticoats are the brand he wants,” said he. “And an extra tax put on
him, to support the widows and children of the men who were men—who
went and fought to save his worthless hide. ’Tis a shame, now, they
wouldn’t make him pay some way. Well, they wouldn’t have me in the
trenches—and it’s good sense they have; but for all I’m a broken-down
old ruin I’m going fighting—fighting with my tongue against the boys
that stay at home. Perhaps they don’t realize—the young ones: they
might listen to an old man that was a priest. Just a few days to rest
and feel I’m home at last, and I’m going to do my bit as a recruiting
sergeant!”
“Good luck!” Jim said, heartily. “Only don’t get knocked up, sir.”
The old man laughed.
“’Tis only once a man can die,” he said, cheerfully. “I’d die easier
knowing I’d done my bit, as you boys say. But I’m in dread I’ll lose my
temper with them, especially if I meet the lads that dress heads of
hair! They wash them too, I’m told. Well, well, it’s a queer world!”
Wally came up, faintly indignant at Jim’s lengthy absence, and joined in
the talk: and presently Mr. Linton and Norah followed, and made friends
with the old man. He was such a simple, cheery old man: it was easy to
be friends with him. They grew merry over queer stories from many
countries, and often the priest’s laugh rang out like a boy’s, while his
own stories brought peals of mirth from his new friends. But through it
all his dark eyes kept searching ahead: ever looking, looking till the
hills of Ireland should lift from the sea.
“They tell me you have big trees in that Australia of yours,” he said.
“Tell me now, are they as big as the Califorian redwoods?”
“I don’t know the redwoods,” Wally answered solemnly. “But ours are big.
There’s a story of twelve men who started with axes and cross-cut saws
to get a gum-tree down. They worked on one side for nine months and then
they got bored with that, and they packed up and made a journey round to
the other side. And there they found a party of fifteen men who’d been
working at that side for a year, and they were very surprised——”
Laughter overcame him suddenly at the sight of the priest’s amazed face.
“You young rascal!” said he, joining in the laugh against himself. “And
I taking it all in so meekly!”
“I might go on, if you liked, sir, and tell you the story of the man who
was out in the bush bringing home some calves,” said Wally.
“Don’t spare me,” begged his hearer.
“Well, he found his way blocked by a fallen tree, too big to get the
calves over. So he started to drive them along it, to get round. When he
didn’t come home they came to the conclusion that he had stolen the
calves; and so they had to apologize to him, later on, when he turned up
with a nice lot of bullocks. He said proudly that he hadn’t lost one,
only they had grown up while they were on the journey!”
“That was a long tree!” said the priest, between chuckles. “Well, well,
it must be a great country that will grow such timber—and such stories,
and the boys to tell them!”
Wally laughed.
“I ought to beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “Only no good Australian can
resist telling tall stories about his tall trees. But I can tell you a
true one of a tree I knew where seven men camped in the hollow butt.
They had bunks built inside, all round it, and a table in the middle,
and of course, space for a doorway. That tree was over fifty-five feet
inside, and goodness only knows what it was outside, buttresses and
all.”
“And it’s true, I suppose, that you could drive a coach-and-four through
a tree?” the priest asked.
“Driving a coach-and-four through the hollowed-out stump of a tree used
to be common enough with us,” said Jim. “Not that the four horses
mattered: you might as well say ‘and twelve’; it was the width high
enough up to take the top of the coach that meant a really big tree. It
was easier to make a hollow shell fit for the passage of the coach than
to get the whole tree cut down.”
“Quite so—quite so,” said the priest. “And I’ve read of church services
being held in a hollow tree, in your country.
“Rather. We know one that held twenty-two people. It was in a wild part
of the bush, and whatever clergyman came along used to use it—Roman
Catholic, Protestant, Presbyterian or Baptist; it didn’t matter. Every
one used to roll up, for it wasn’t often there was a chance of a church
service. There were lots of jobs for the travelling parson, too: all the
accumulated weddings and christenings.”
“Do you tell me!” said the priest.
“My mother had three children before ever a chance came of a baptism,”
said Mr. Linton. “Then the three were done together. I was the eldest,
and I remember being extremely indignant about it—I was four years old,
and it was winter, and the water was cold! It was a standing joke
against me afterwards that I had behaved so much worse than my small
brother and sister.” He laughed, and then grew grave. “Poor bush
mothers! they didn’t have an easy time. Two of my mother’s babies died
without ever having seen a clergyman; to the end of her life she worried
about the little souls that had gone out unbaptized.”
“It was themselves needed great hearts—those pioneer women,” said the
priest.
“They did; and mostly they had great hearts. But then I think most women
have, if the need really comes,” Mr. Linton said. “Thousands of them
were delicate, tenderly-reared women, with no experience of bush
conditions in a new country; but they made good. Women have a curious
way of finding themselves able to tackle any conditions with which they
are actually faced. My mother never was strong, and she had no training
for work; I expect she was something of a butterfly until she married my
father and went off into the Never-Never. She ended by being a kind of
oracle for fifty miles round; people used to send for her at all hours
of the day or night, in sickness, and she developed a business capacity
better than my father’s. I remember her as a little, merry thing: always
tired, but never too tired to work for other people. She was only one of
thousands of women doing the same thing.”
“But the process of learning must have been hard,” said the old priest,
pityingly.
“Yes. It must have been a tough apprenticeship. My mother told me she
used to sit down and cry often at the loneliness and strangeness of it
all—in the long days when all the men were miles away from the
homestead, and she was alone, with the chance of bush fires and
bushrangers and wild blacks. That was until the babies came. After that
there was no time to cry—which, she said, was a very good thing for
her. Poor little mother!”
He sighed; and in the silence that followed a slight commotion was
audible on the bridge. The priest glanced up sharply.
“Nothing—but that cruel business of the _Lusitania_ makes everyone
suspicious at sea, nowadays,” he said. “Still, the Germans may be active
enough in the south, but I don’t fancy they’ll come into these
landlocked waters. Too much risk from our destroyers.”
Norah was leaning over the rail.
“What’s that thing?” she said, slowly.
Their eyes followed the direction of her pointing finger. Nearly astern,
a slender grey object bobbed among the waves: so small a thing that an
idle glance might easily have passed it by unnoticed. A shadowy, grey
bar, bearing aloft what looked like a nut.
Jim uttered a shout.
“By Jove, it’s a submarine!”
Even as he shouted, a long grey shadow came into view under the bar.
Simultaneously, the engine-telegraph clanged from the bridge, and
following the signal, the steamer altered her course with a jerk that
sent most of the standing passengers headlong to the deck. They picked
themselves up, unconscious of bruises, rushing again to the rail.
The submarine was well in view—a slender, vicious, grey boat, with a
little cluster of men visible on her tiny deck, round the shaft of the
periscope. She was terribly near. Suddenly a volume of black smoke
gushed from the steamer’s funnels; the firemen were flinging themselves
at their work below, since on speed alone hung their slender hope of
safety. Again she altered her course. Sharp orders came from the bridge;
sailors were running to and fro, and an officer was serving out
life-belts frantically.
Something shot from the submarine—something that made a long,
glistening streak across the water, coming straight towards them like a
flash; and David Linton flung his arm round Norah muttering, “My God!” A
strained, high voice cried, “A torpedo!” and then silence fell upon the
ship, broken only by the smothered gasps of women. Straight and swift
the streak came; unimaginably swift, and yet the watching seemed a
lifetime.
“Hold tight to the rail,” Jim’s voice said in Norah’s ear. She gripped
mechanically; and as she did so, the steamer jerked again, plunging to
one side like a frightened horse that sees danger. It was just in time.
The torpedo shot past, missing the bow by a fraction—a space so small
that it was almost impossible to believe that it had indeed missed. Then
came relief, finding vent in an irrepressible shout.
“It’s too soon to shout,” some one said. “She’ll make better shooting
next time.”
Stewards and sailors were hurrying round, distributing life-belts; it
was no easy matter to put them on, for the ship was zigzagging wildly,
dodging in a desperate effort to elude her pursuer, and balance was
impossible without a firm hold on some fixed object.
“Sit on the deck—it’s safest,” said Mr. Linton. He fastened Norah’s
life-belt, while Jim performed a similar office for him, and Wally put
one on the old priest, who was so wild with excitement as to be quite
oblivious of any such precaution. His face was deadly white, his dark
eyes blazing. In his first fall he had lost his black felt hat, and his
silver hair waved in the wind.
“The murdering villains—the assassins!” he said. “Yerra, if I could
fight!”
An officer called for helpers to bring the women and children from
below. Jim and Wally sprang in answer, and a crowd of soldiers came
tumbling up from for’ard, elbowing their officers in mad excitement and
the rush to be first. Quick and strong hands were needed on the
companion ladders with their burdens, as the ship plunged hither and
thither, racing in zig-zags at top speed. Many of the women were
helpless between fear and the aftermath of sea-sickness; but they came
without outcry, with set white faces, determined, if this were indeed
Death, to die decently. The babies howled with a lusty disregard of the
world common to babies, while the soldiers patted them with far more
concern than they showed for the submarine. In a very few minutes not a
soul was left below.
“Why do we zigzag?” Norah asked, clinging to the rail as a fresh jerk
shook the ship.
“It’s our only chance,” Jim answered. “I don’t think the submarines can
beat these boats for speed, or else she’d just come up and sink us at
her leisure; and she can’t take aim accurately if we’re dodging. Of
course we cut down our speed by not going straight; but we can’t afford
the risk of letting her train her torpedo-tube carefully on us. Jove,
can’t the skipper handle this ship! She answers the helm like a
motor-car.”
“And can’t she go!” uttered Wally.
“Oh, the mail-boats are built for speed and not much else—thank
goodness!” Jim said. “Look!—she’s firing again!”
Again the streak shot from the pursuing submarine and darted towards
them. They held their breath.
It was a very close shave—only a lightning swerve saved the mail-boat.
The old priest uttered a sudden shout of triumph. “Whirroo!” he
cried—for a moment just the boy who had left Wicklow more than forty
years ago. He shook as he gripped the rail, laughing at the racing grey
shadow that followed them.
Jim Linton’s eyes were on his little sister: and Norah, feeling them,
slipped a hand into his.
“If it hadn’t been for us you wouldn’t be in this,” he said, miserably.
Norah opened her eyes in amazement.
“But that just makes it not matter so much,” she said. “Just fancy if we
weren’t all together! Don’t you worry, Jimmy.” She smiled at him very
cheerfully.
“If she hits us and we begin to sink, don’t wait for the ship to go
over,” Mr. Linton said. “Half the boats on the _Lusitania_ were
death-traps. Let us all jump in and keep together if we can; we would
have more chance of being picked up, and less of being taken down in the
suction as she sank. Can you swim, Father?”—to the priest.
“I can. But it’s years since I tried, and I don’t know would I keep
afloat at all,” said the old man, with unimpaired cheerfulness. “Let you
take your own course, and not trouble about me. I’m too old to try
jumping, and there’ll be some poor souls I could maybe help. And we’re
not beaten yet.” He gave a quick laugh, his grey head well up. “We’re
running away, but it’s a good fight we’re putting up, all the same:
something to see, after forty years in a New York slum!”
“I believe he likes it!” said Wally, under his breath. But the old man
caught the words.
“Like it! I used to dream of adventures when I was a boy, and it was all
the sea—clean winds and waves, and ships that were always magic to me.
And it ended in a slum: forty years of it, doing my work in the midst of
filth and wretchedness. Well, every man has his work, and mine lay
there. And now, at the end, this! I always knew ’twas luck I’d have if I
got back to Ireland!”
They had raced away in a straight course after the second torpedo,
increasing the distance from their pursuer. Now, however, a shot hummed
past them, and the captain dared no longer risk a hit—again the ship
swerved from side to side, in short, irregular tacks, and the submarine
drew nearer once more. On and on—leaping like a hare when the greyhound
is behind her: engines throbbing, smoke blackening the sky in her wake.
Some of the firemen had staggered up, exhausted, their places taken by
volunteers. Ahead, a dim line lay upon the sea: the Irish coast, where
lay safety. Would they ever reach it?
Then, from the north, came rescue: a patrol-boat, racing down upon them
with threatening guns ready to speak in their defence. She came out of a
light haze, which, blowing away, revealed her dogged grey shape, with
the white water churning and parting at her bow. Presently one of her
guns spoke, and a shell buried itself in the sea not far from the
submarine.
“So long, Brother Boche!” said an officer; and suddenly, as if in
answer, the submarine disappeared, submerging to the safety of the
underworld. The mail-boat ceased to zigzag, running a straight course
until near the destroyer, as a child runs to a protector.
The tension relaxed. Voices broke out in quick clamour: and then cheer
after cheer came from the pent-up passengers, redoubling as the
captain’s face showed over the railings of the bridge. The captain
grinned, saluted, and looked at his watch all at once: the danger was
over, and now the pressing business of his ordinary life reasserted
itself—the landing in time at Kingstown Pier of His Majesty’s mails.
People were laughing and talking nervously, keeping an anxious look-out
towards the spot where the submarine had disappeared; scarcely realizing
that their peril was past, and that the grey hunter would not again
reveal itself, hurrying upon their track. The destroyer shot past them,
seeking the enemy, with signal flags talking busily to the mail-boat. A
comforting sense of security was in her wake.
“Well!” said Jim. “We left England to find peace and quiet; but if this
is a specimen of what Ireland means to give us——”
“We’d better get back to the peaceful marshes of Flanders,” finished
Wally.
“I used to think when I was at home—at Billabong—that excitement would
be nice,” said Norah. “But it isn’t—not a bit: or else I’ve had an
overdose. At any rate, I don’t want any more as long as I live.”
A little sigh came from behind her, and her father made a sudden
movement, springing to the side of the priest. The old man was swaying
backwards and forwards. They caught him, and laid him gently on the
deck. His lips parted, and he tried to speak, but no sound came.
“Go and look for a doctor,” said Mr. Linton to Wally. “Quick!”
He tore at the old man’s collar, while Norah rubbed his hands
desperately. It seemed the only thing she could do. A little life came
into the white face, and his voice came faintly.
“’Tis the finish for me—don’t worry . . . my heart.” He smiled at them.
“And the doctor after telling me not to get excited.”
“Don’t talk,” Norah begged.
“It can’t hurt me. Don’t mind, little one.” He saw the tears in her
eyes, and tightened his hand on her fingers. “’Tis a good ending. I
wouldn’t ask for a better.”
Wally came back, a young man in uniform, with the R.A.M.C. badge on his
collar, at his heels. The doctor bent over the old priest. Presently he
rose, shaking his head as he met David Linton’s eyes.
“There’s nothing to be done,” he said, softly.
The old man’s hearing was no less acute.
“’Tis myself could have told you that,” he said. “I knew . . . next time
it came. And . . . when a man’s ready . . .”
His voice became almost inaudible, murmuring broken words of prayer.
Behind them Jim had formed a line of soldiers, keeping off the curious
crowd. Presently he spoke again.
“It’s easy, dying. Only it would be easier if I’d seen it again . . .
Ireland.”
“We’re very near,” Norah told him, pityingly.
“Near! And not to see it!” He tried to rise, helplessly. “Ah, but let me
look—let me look!”
David Linton’s eyes met the doctor’s.
“It can’t hurt him,” whispered the doctor. “Nothing can do that now.”
They lifted him, very gently. Ahead, the hills of Wicklow were green and
near. The grey sky had broken, and a little shaft of sunlight stole out
and lay upon the coast. It was as though Ireland smiled to welcome back
her son.
The dark eyes looked long and wistfully. Once he smiled at Norah; and
then looked back quickly, as though to lose no instant of home.
Presently his lips parted in broken words.
“Till we see . . . till we see Ireland again; and life or death will be
the same to us after that.” Then no more words came. But when the doctor
signed to them to lay him down he was still smiling.