THE CRUEL HARM
Mick had made friends with Pat M'Garvey in the spring, when Jane and
the others had measles, and he had been sent to the Rectory to be out
of the way. The weather had been fine, and he had gone exploring
nearly every day. On one of these expeditions he had come across a
tall, red-haired boy setting potatoes in a patch of ground behind a
cottage on tfie side of the mountain. The coast road ran below, and
Mick must have passed the cottage dozens of times, but he had never
seen it before. He discovered it now only because he had been up the
mountain and had seen a thread of smoke below. Even then it had been
hard to find the cottage, hid as it was by boulders and whins. At
first Pat had not been friendly. When he straightened his long back up
from the potatoes he was bending over he had looked angrily at Mick.
But Mick had insisted on being friends, he was so lonely, and after a
bit Pat had invited him into the garden, and allowed him to help to
plant the potatoes. The next day Mick went again, and then the next.
He soon discovered that Pat was not like the boys in the village: he
knew things that Mick had never heard of, and told him stories of the
Red Branch Knights and the time when Ireland was happy. Once when Mick
tried to show off the little he knew about the Rebellion Pat took the
story out of his mouth, and got so excited that his grey-green eyes
looked as though they were on fire. He was twenty years old, and lived
alone with his old grandmother.
[Illustration: "Michael Darragh! Is that who ye are? Mother a' God,
an' yer father's gun in his han'"]
The first time Mick went into the cottage a strange thing happened.
Old Mrs M'Garvey was sitting by the chimney corner, her hands stretched
out over the fire. She looked like a witch, Mick thought. Over the
chimneypiece there was a gun that took Mick's fancy. It was nearly six
feet long. Pat saw him looking at it, and took it down. He said it
had been washed ashore the time of the Spanish Armada, and had been
found in the sand. Mick took it into his hands to feel the weight.
Suddenly the old woman looked up, and asked Pat what was the young
gentleman's name. Mick answered for himself. She rose from her stool
with a screech: "Michael Darragh! Is that who ye are? Mother a' God!
an' yer father's gun in his han'." Mick turned in bewilderment to Pat,
but he was leaning against the wall, shaking all over. "In the name of
God," he was saying. Then he took the gun away, and hurried Mick out
of the cottage. "I niver knew that was who ye were," he said; "I made
sure you were wan a' the young Bogues." He told Mick not to think
about it again--the old woman was doting, and did not know what she was
saying--but he made him promise never to tell anyone what had happened,
and never let anyone know they were friends--they might both get into
trouble if it were known, he said. Soon after this Mick went back to
Rowallan, and then he was not able to see Pat so often. If the
friendship had not been a secret he could have gone, but it was hard to
get away from the others without explaining where he was going. Once
or twice through the summer he slipped away, and found Pat about the
cottage. On one of these days Pat told him he was going away to
America soon, to his father. Mick had imagined that Mr M'Garvey was
dead. He thought Pat looked very miserable. "Don't ye want to go?" he
asked.
"It's not so much the goin' I mind as a terrible piece a' work I have
to do afore I go," he said. Then after a pause he added: "But I'll not
be goin' yet a bit; I'll wait till I bury my ould granny."
Mick did not go back till one day in November. He could not see Pat
anywhere outside, so he knocked at the cottage door. It was opened by
Pat himself. "She's dead," he said. He came out, and they sat on the
wall. "Then ye'll be off to America," Mick said sadly--he had never
seen Pat look so thin and ill; "I'll be quare an' sorry to see ye go."
Pat did not answer, he was looking straight out at the line of grey
sea. Mick could hear the waves beating on the rocks below. At last
Pat said: "I have that bit of a job to do before I go." Mick thought
he meant he must bury his granny. He tried to cheer him up. "Yer
father'll be brave an' glad to see ye," he said.
"It's six years the morra since I seen him," said Pat, still looking
out to sea.
"Six years the morra; why, that's just as long as my father's been
dead," said Mick. Pat did not answer.
"Will ye iver come back any more?" Mick asked.
"Niver," said Pat. "I'll bury my granny the morra, an' then--then I
start."
"Well, I'll niver forget ye," said Mick. Now that it had come to
saying good-bye for ever Mick felt he could not let Pat go; it was like
parting from Jane or Patsy; he was almost crying.
"Ye'll have no call to forget me or mine," said Pat bitterly.
"'Deed, I won't," said Mick; "ye've been quare an' kind to me. I'd
like to give ye somethin' before ye go, so that ye won't forget me, but
I've nothin' but my ould watch. I wisht ye'd take it, Pat."
Pat hid his face in his hands, then he gave a sound like a groan, and
got up, and took Mick by the shoulders. "See here," he said, "ye'll
niver forget me, an' I'll niver forget you. God forgive me, I wouldn't
hurt a hair a' yer head, an' yet I'm goin' to do ye the cruel harm.
An' it's tearin' the heart out of me to do it. Mind that. But I give
my father my word I'd do it, an' it's the right thing for-by. It's
only because it's yerself that it's killin' me." And he turned back
into the cottage, and shut the door. The whole way home Mick puzzled
over what he could have meant.
The next day was Honeybird's birthday, and they were all to go to take
tea with Aunt Mary and Uncle Niel at the farm. This was one of their
greatest treats; but at the last minute Mick said he did not want to
go. All the morning, every time he remembered, tears kept coming into
his eyes--Pat was burying his old granny to-day, and then he was going
to leave Ireland for ever. It seemed a mean thing to go to a tea party
when your best friend was going away, and you would never see him
again. When he thought of how white and ill Pat had looked yesterday
Mick felt a lump in his throat. But Lull said he must go to the farm
whether he liked it or not, or Aunt Mary would be hurt.
The farm was nearly a mile from Rowallan. Half the way was by the open
road, but the other half was through the loney--a muddy lane with a bad
reputation. All sorts of tales were told about it. A murderer had
been hanged, people said, on the willow-tree that grew there, and late
at night his bones could be heard still rattling in the breeze; and
_Things_ that dare not go by the front road, for fear of passing the
figure of the Blessed Virgin on the convent chapel, came to and from
the mountains by this way. The convent wall, on one side, threw a
shadow on the path, making it dark even in daylight; on the other side
was a deep ditch. The children ran as fast as they could till they
came to the end of the wall, when the path turned across the open
fields to the farm. They knew no place that looked so clean and bright
as that whitewashed house on the brow of the hill. After the gloom of
the loney the low, white garden wall, the fuchsia bushes, the beds of
yellow marigolds seemed to smile at them in a glow of sunlight. Aunt
Mary was waiting at the half-door, quieting the dogs, that had been
roused from their sleep in front of the kitchen fire. Aunt Mary was a
little woman with a soft voice; she wore her hair parted down the
middle, and brushed back till it shone like silk. When she had kissed
them all she took them upstairs to her bedroom to take off their
things. Jane always said she would be feared to death to sleep in Aunt
Mary's room. The ceiling sloped down on one side, and in under it
there was a window looking across the fields to the river and the big
dark mountains beyond. To-day the window was open, and they could hear
the noise the river made as it fell at the weir. Jane listened a
minute, then turned away. "I hate it," she said; "it's like a mad,
wild woman cryin'."
"Don't, Jane," Mick said sharply. That mournful sound had made him
unhappy again about Pat.
"Come on out of that," said Patsy, "an' let's get some pears."
Aunt Mary always allowed them to play in the room where the apples and
pears were stored. Besides apples and pears there were two wooden
boxes full of clothes to dress up in--stiff, old-fashioned silks,
Indian muslins, embroidered jackets, and a pair of white kid boots.
Aunt Mary had worn these things when she was young and lived at
Rowallan, before she turned to be a Roman Catholic and was driven out
by her father. When they were tired of play they came downstairs to
the parlour. This, they thought, was the most beautiful room in the
world. There was a carpet with a wreath of roses on a grey ground, a
cupboard with diamond panes, where Aunt Mary kept her china, and the
deep window seat was filled with geraniums. Aunt Mary had a birthday
present for Honeybird; she kissed her when she gave it; and said: "God
and His Blessed Mother keep you, child." Then she cried a little, till
they all felt inclined to cry with her. But she jumped up, and said it
was time she baked the soda bread for tea. When the bread was baked
and the table laid Aunt Mary went to the half-door to look out for
Uncle Niel.
"I always know when he's comin' by your face, Aunt Mary," Jane said.
Aunt Mary laughed. "Indeed, I'm not surprised," she said; "for I can't
remember a day when I didn't watch for his coming."
He came soon, and they had tea, and then he told them fairy tales by
the kitchen fire. In the middle of a story Mick suddenly noticed Aunt
Mary's face as she looked up from her knitting to watch her brother.
Jane was right; her face changed when she looked at him, her eyes
seemed to shine. When he and Jane were old, and lived together as they
had planned to do, they would love each other like that. Uncle Niel
was like their father, Lull had once told them. She said there was not
a finer gentleman in Ireland, and held him up to Mick and Patsy as a
pattern of what they ought to be when they were men. Mick agreed with
her. Uncle Niel was the kindest person he knew; after being with him
Mick always felt he would like to be more polite to the others. When
he was old he would be as polite to Jane as Uncle Niel was to Aunt
Mary. On the way home it was very dark, and they all walked close to
Uncle Niel going through the loney. He laughed at them, but Jane said
she was afraid of the murderer whose bones rattled in the breeze.
"It's the first time I've heard of him or his bones," Uncle Niel said,
"and I've been through the loney at all hours of the day and night."
"Did ye niver hear tell of Skyan the Bugler?" said Honeybird, "for I'm
quare an' scared of him myself."
Uncle Niel picked her up in his arms. "What would Skyan the Bugler
want with you?" he said.
"'Deed, he might be after marryin' me," she said, "an' ye know I
wouldn't like that."
"I'd rather be married that kilt," said Jane.
"I think one is as bad as the other," said Uncle Niel, and he laughed
again. "But I tell you what," he added; "if I ever meet anything in
the loney worse than myself I'll come over in the morning and tell you."
Then Patsy, who had been walking along quietly, suddenly spoke. "Uncle
Niel," he said, "who was Patrick M'Garvey?"
Mick caught his breath. Where had Patsy heard that name? Uncle Niel
seemed to be startled too. He stopped short on the path. "Who was
telling you about him, Patsy, lad?" he said.
"It was just a man at the fair wanst. He said if Patrick M'Garvey had
waited in the loney instead of at the big gates my father would be
alive to this day. I ast him what his manin' was; but another man
tould him to hould his tongue, an' tould me not to heed him, for he had
drink on him."
"Well, don't think about it any more, Patsy," Uncle Niel said; he was
not laughing now. "You and I have a lot to forgive when we think of
Patrick M'Garvey, but we do well to forgive, as God forgives us."
Mick could not go to sleep that night thinking of what Uncle Niel and
Patsy had said. It was a wet night, and the rain beat against the
windows. After a bit Jane came into his room from the nursery; she
could not sleep either, and she thought she had heard the banshee
crying. But there was no sound except the pelting of heavy rain when
they listened. Mick made her crawl into his bed, and then they must
have fallen asleep. They were waked by the sound of voices downstairs.
The rain was over, but the wind was up, and the voices seemed to die
away and rise again every time there was a lull in the storm. They
both got up, and dressed hurriedly, without waking the others.
Something must have happened, they thought, and on such a dismal
morning it could only be something bad. All the village was gathered
in the kitchen when they got downstairs. Some of the women were
crying, and there was a scared look on the men's faces. Mick and Jane
were sure their mother must be dead. But no one took any notice of
them, and they could not see Lull anywhere.
"The dog was howlin' at half-past eleven," Mick heard a man say, "an'
the dour was locked and boulted when the polis tuk the body home."
Then the back door opened, and Father Ryan, the parish priest, came in.
"Go home, every one of you," he said; "talkin' won't give the man his
life back."
The kitchen was soon cleared. Mick saw Lull sitting by the table, her
head on her hands. Father Ryan put his hand on her shoulder.
"I've lost my best friend, Lull," he said. Lull looked up; Mick hardly
knew her face, it was so small and old.
"God help us, Father," she said, and then began to cry wildly. "Miss
Mary, poor Miss Mary; it'll be the death of her."
"You are right, Lull," Father Ryan said; "she'll never get over it.
I've just come from her. It will just be the mistress over again----
What are the children doing here?" he added quickly.
"God forgive me, I niver seen them to this minute," said Lull.
Father Ryan called them over to him. "Do you know what's come to you?"
he said.
"Somebody's dead," Mick answered.
"It's your Uncle Niel," Father Ryan said; "he was killed in the loney
last night."
Father Ryan did not stay long. When he had gone Andy came in. Mick
was crouching by the fire.
"Do you call to mind what day it was, Lull?" Andy said in a whisper
Mick heard.
"I do, well," said Lull; "six years to the very day. God's curse on
him," she added in a strange, harsh voice; "couldn't he be content with
murderin' the wan, an' not hape sorra on us like this?"
"He's safe in America," said Andy, "that's the divilment of him; but
them that's got childer has got the long arm. I'll hould ye he's niver
let the boy forget. The ould mother was buried yesterday, an' the boy
must 'a' been waitin' for that till he done it."
Mick heard no more; he slipped out down the passage to the schoolroom.
He had forgotten all about Pat, but now he remembered, with a terror
that overwhelmed him. For a moment he wondered if he were really
himself. It could not be true that Uncle Niel was dead, and he,
Michael Darragh, knew--knew what? He could not bear the thought. But
it was all spread out plain before his eyes. Pat M'Garvey, his friend,
whom he loved so much, had murdered Uncle Niel. He shut his eyes, and
drew in his breath. "I'm goin' to do ye the cruel harm"--he could see
Pat's face as he said it, so thin and miserable. Why, why had he done
it? Uncle Niel was so good, and Pat was so good too, but now one was
dead and the other was a murderer. Quick before his eyes horrid
pictures rose up--Uncle Niel lying dead, and Pat, with blood on his
hands, caught by the police; Pat going to gaol on a car, handcuffed,
between two policemen, his white face---- "He didn't mane it," Mick
burst out passionately. "Oh, God, I just can't bear it." Then another
thought came. He himself would be brought up to give evidence. Pat
had told him he was going to do it, and now on his word Pat would be
hanged. What had happened that the whole world had turned against him
like this?
The next minute he was off, across the wet lawn, over the road, running
for his life, not on the road, in case he was seen, but on the other
side of the stone wall. It was not daylight yet, but dawn was
struggling through the clouds. When he came to the village he skirted
it by climbing over the rocks, then on as fast as he could go, on the
coast road now it was safe--he would meet no one there--then up along
the little path that wound through dead whins and boulders, up to the
cottage, where the rain was dripping from the thatch. Mick never
stopped till he was at the door. There was no answer to his knock.
"Pat," he whispered, "let me in." Still there was no answer. He
looked in at the window: the fire was out, and the place looked
deserted. "He's away," he muttered. But just then the door opened.
"Is that you?" said Pat's voice. "Come in." Mick went in, and shut
the door behind him.
"Pat," he said, "ye must be off at wanst--quick, quick--or they'll
catch ye."
"Who tould ye?" said Pat.
"Nobuddy tould me. They said he was in America an' the ould mother was
buried yesterday. But ye must be goin' this minute."
"Hould on a minute," said Pat; "do ye know what ye're sayin', do ye
know what I've done at all?"
"I do," said Mick; "ye mur---- Ye tould me yerself ye were goin' to do
me the cruel harm."
"Is that all ye know?" said Pat--"then ye know nothin'. Do ye see that
gun there?" Mick saw it was still hanging over the chimneypiece.
"Well, it was that gun shot your father. Do ye see what I mane?"
Mick stared at him in a dazed way. "My father?" he repeated.
"Your father," said Pat; "an' it was my father murdered him."
Mick was too dazed to take it in. All he could think of, all he could
see, was that thin white face before his eyes.
"Do ye think ye'll get safe to America?" he said huskily.
"My God, are ye a chile at all?" said Pat. He gave a big sob, that
made Mick jump, and then began to cry and shake all over. "What did I
do it for at all at all?" he wailed.
Mick put his arm round him. "Whist, Pat, whist, man; ye must be off,
now, at wanst."
Pat stopped crying. "I'm not goin'," he said. "I done what he bid me,
an' now I'll give myself up, an' let them hang me: it's what I disarve."
"Listen a bit, Pat," said Mick. "Ye didn't mane it, I know that. It's
not you but yer ould father that ought to be hanged----" He stopped,
something came back to his mind as though out of a far-off past; but it
was only last night Uncle Niel had said: "We do well to forgive him, as
God forgives us." "Pat," he cried, "Uncle Niel said we were to forgive
your father!" Quickly he told the whole story--what Patsy had said,
what Uncle Niel had answered, with such a sense of relief as he told it
that he felt almost glad. "An' I know he would forgive you for
murderin' him, Pat, this very minute, if he could spake." Pat did not
answer. "An' if ye don't go they'll make me give evidence, an' ye
wouldn't have me an informer, would ye?"
"I'll go," said Pat.
No one had missed Mick when he got home. Their mother was ill, and the
doctor had come. Lull was with her, and Teressa had come to do the
work. After dinner Teressa came into the schoolroom. She said she was
afraid to be by herself in the big kitchen. Jane questioned her about
Uncle Niel, and she told them that one of the men had found the dead
body in the loney late at night as he was coming back from Newry with
one of the horses. The horse had stopped half way down the loney, and
when the man looked round for a bit of a stick to beat him with he saw
the body lying on its face in the ditch. "But the quare thing,"
Teressa said, "is that yer Aunt Mary houlds to it that he come in after
seein' yez all home last night. She let him in, and boulted the dour
after him, but when they took the corpse home the dour was still
boulted, an' his bed had never been slep' in." Here Lull came into the
schoolroom, and was cross with Teressa. "Have ye no wit, woman," she
said, "sittin' there like an ould witch tellin' the childer a lock a'
lies?"
The day of the funeral Mick stood at the schoolroom window in his new
black coat watching the rain beating against the panes. The burden of
the secret he carried weighed him down. He must have been changed into
another person, he thought, since Honeybird's birthday.
"I wonder why it always rains when people die?" said Fly.
"He didn't die, he was murdered," said Jane bitterly.
Mick shivered; he felt like an accomplice. All night he had been
thinking of the funeral. Lull had told him yesterday he must go to be
chief mourner. But had he any right to be a mourner? What would the
people think--what would Father Ryan say--if they knew that he had
helped his uncle's murderer to escape?
"I wisht I could go with ye, Mick," said Jane at his elbow. "I ast
Lull, but she said ladies niver went to feenerals."
Mick turned round. "I'm all right, Janie," he said. But Janie's
kindness seemed to hurt him more: what would she say if she knew?
"Wouldn't it be awful nice if ye woke up this minute an' it wasn't real
at all, an' we'd only dreamt it?" said Fly.
"Nip me as hard as ye can," said Jane. Fly nipped her arm. "Ye
needn't nip so hard--it's true enough."
"I wonder if God could make it not true?" said Fly.
"He couldn't," said Mick, "for I'd niver, niver forget it."
"Andy's ready waitin' for ye, Mick," said Lull at the door.
When they came home from the funeral Mick was ill, and had to be put to
bed. Jane came up to his room, and sat with him. "Do ye mind what
Uncle Niel said to us in the loney?" she said. "Well, he couldn't come
as far as this to tell us, so he went an' tould Aunt Mary; Teressa says
it was his ghost come back to her."
"To tell us what?" said Mick feverishly.
"That it was wan of them _Things_ done it."
"I thought ye meant about forgivin'," said Mick. "Mebby it was that;
don't ye think it might 'a' been, Janie?" His voice was very eager.
"I niver thought a' that," said Jane; "but Uncle Niel was quare an'
good. I believe he'd even forgive a buddy for murderin' him."
Mick lay down with a sigh of relief. "I thought that myself," he said.
It was not till the primroses were out that the children went to the
farm again. Half way down the loney there was a rough cross scratched
on a stone in the wall, and the words: Niel Darragh. R.I.P. Aunt Mary
had been ill all winter, and at first they did not know her, for her
hair was quite white. But nothing else was changed. The parlour
looked brighter than ever; there was a bowl of primroses on the table.
Through the window you could see the big cherry-trees in the orchard
white with blossom. Upstairs the sun streamed into Aunt Mary's
bedroom, and the river sounded quite cheerful across the fields as it
raced along over the weir. When Aunt Mary had baked the soda bread for
tea she went to the half-door, and looked out across the fields. "I
thought I saw Niel coming," she said; "it is about time he was home."
Then she turned back to the children, and welcomed them, as though she
saw them now for the first time. On the way back they asked each other
in whispers what could be the matter with her, but Mick walked on
ahead, and said not a word. At the end of the loney they met Father
Ryan.
"I was just coming to see you," he said. "It's you, Michael, I was
wanting. I've got a blue pigeon for you, if you'll walk the length of
the village with me."
Mick turned back with him. It was a lovely evening; the air was full
of the smell of spring. They walked along silently. At their feet
were tufts of primroses and dog-violets growing under the shelter of
the stone wall. A chestnut-tree in the convent garden hung a green
branch over the road. Before them, on one side, the sea lay like a
silver mist; on the other the mountains, so ethereal that they looked
as though at any moment they might melt away into the blue of the sky.
But Mick had no heart for these things. Even when he heard the cuckoo
across the fields, for the first time that year, it was with no
answering thrill, but only with a dull sense that he had grown too old
now to care--seeing Aunt Mary had brought back all the trouble he had
tried so hard to forget.
When they got to Father Ryan's house they went straight into the
parlour. "Mick," said Father Ryan, sitting down in his chair, "what
ails you, child, this long time back?" Mick looked into his face.
"It's all right," said Father Ryan; "you can tell me nothing I don't
know. I had a letter from him this morning, poor boy."
"Is he all right?" said Mick.
"He's all right; that's what I wanted to tell you. But yourself, Mick,
what ails you?"
"There's nothin' ails me," said Mick; "I've just got ould."
"Whist, boy, at your time of life," said Father Ryan.
"What did he do it for?" said Mike sharply. "Ye've seen her, Father;
it's made her go mad." He began to cry.
"There, there, child," said Father Ryan. "It's more than you or me can
say what it was done for. A better boy than Pat never lived, but the
father had a bad hold on him."
"I sometimes think I done it myself," said Mick.
"You did it?" said Father Ryan. "Faith, child, you did a thing God
Himself would have done."
When Mick said good-bye to Father Ryan about half-an-hour later, and
was starting out, with the pigeon buttoned up inside his coat, he found
Jane sitting on a stone at the presbytery gate waiting for him.
"Ye're the good ould sowl," he said, and he took her hand. "Come on,
let's run home; I'm quare an' happy."