A WILD NIGHT
I
The dance came to an end, and, worn out with their exertions, the women
picked up their shawls and wrapped them round their shoulders. Then
getting their bundles they went towards the wharf, Willie the Duck
leading, his fiddle under his arm and his bundle tied over his shoulders
with a string. Coming to the quay they passed through a gloomy
grain-shed, where heating bags of wheat sent a steam out into the air.
Suddenly, gazing through the rising vapour, Norah saw horses up in the
sky and she could hear them neighing loudly. For a moment she paused in
terror and wondered how such a thing could be, then recollected that in
a town, where there was no God, anything might be possible. Once out in
the open Maire a Glan pointed to the fall-and-tackle, hardly
distinguishable at a distance, which was lifting the animals off the
pier and lowering them down to the main deck of the boat. The horses
were turning round awkwardly and snorting wildly, terrified by the sound
of the sea.
Bags of grain were being lifted on long chains; dark derricks shoved out
lean arms that waved to and fro as if inviting somebody to come near;
cattle lowing and slipping were being hammered by the drovers’
blackthorns into the hold; a tall man with face fierce and swarthy,
eyes bright as fire, and mouth like a raw, red scar, was roaring out
orders in a shrill voice, and suddenly in the midst of all this Norah
saw Micky’s Jim leaning against the funnel of the boat, his hands deep
in his trousers’ pockets and the eternal pipe in his mouth, apparently
heedless of all that was going on around him.
Beside Jim stood one whom Norah knew, but one who had changed a great
deal since she had seen him last. As she went up the gang-plank,
stepping timidly, cowering under the great derrick that wheeled above,
she felt that a pair of eyes were fixed upon her, piercing into her very
soul. She turned her gaze towards the deck and found Dermod Flynn
looking straight at her as she made her way aboard. In an instant her
eye had taken the whole picture of the youth, his clothes, the coat,
much the worse for wear, his trousers, thin at knee and frilly at the
shoe-mouth, his cap torn at rim and crown, the stray locks of hair
straggling down his forehead, the bundle lying at his feet, and the
hazel stick which he held in his hand, probably even yet in imitation of
the cattle drovers who went along Glenmornan road on the way to the fair
of Greenanore. These things Norah noticed with a girl’s quick intuitive
perception, but what struck her most forcibly was Dermod’s look of
expectation as he watched her come up the gang-plank towards him.
“Dermod Flynn, I hardly knew ye at all,” she said, putting out her hand
and smiling slightly. “Ye’ve got very big these last two years.”
“So did you, Norah,” Dermod answered, looking curiously at the small
white hand which he gripped in his own. “You are almost as tall as I am
myself.”
“Why wouldn’t I be as tall as you are?” Norah replied, although Dermod
had unknowingly squeezed her hand in a hard, tense grip. “Am I not a
year and a half older?”
When her hand was released her skin showed white where Dermod’s fingers
had gripped her, but she did not feel angry. On the contrary the girl
was glad because he was so strong.
“Come over here!” cried Maire a Glan, who was sitting on her bundle
beside the rail, smoking a black clay pipe and spitting on the deck.
The noise was deafening; the rowting of the cattle in the pens became
louder; a man on the deck gave a sharp order; the gangway was pulled off
with a resounding clash, the funnel began to rise and fall; Norah saw
the pier move; a few women were weeping; some of the passengers waved
handkerchiefs (none of them too clean) to the people on the quay; rails
were bound together, hatches battened down; sailors hurried to and fro;
a loud hoot could be heard overhead near the top of the funnel and the
big vessel shuffled out to the open sea.
II
The boat was crowded with harvestmen from Frosses, potato-diggers from
Glenmornan and Tweedore; cattle drovers from Coleraine and Londonderry,
second-hand clothes-dealers, bricklayers’ labourers, farm hands, young
men and old, women and children; all sorts and conditions of people.
“There are lots of folk gathered together on this piece of floatin’
wood,” said Maire a Glan, crossing herself, a habit of hers, when
speaking of anything out of the ordinary. “The big boat is a wonderful
thing; beds with warm blankets and white sheets to sleep in, tables to
sit down at and have tea in real cups and saucers, just the same as
Father Devaney has at Greenanore, and him not out at all in the middle
of the ocean on a piece of floatin’ wood!”
“And will _we_ get a bed to sleep in?” asked Norah Ryan.
“Why should _we_ be gettin’ a grand bed? We’re only the poor people, and
the poor people have no right to these things on a big boat like this
one,” said the old woman, putting her black clay pipe into the pocket of
her apron. “There are no grand beds for people like us; they’re only for
the gentry.”
“Wouldn’t a bed look nice on a Frosses curragh?” said Micky’s Jim,
sitting down on the bundle belonging to Willie the Duck and pulling the
cork from a bottle of whisky which he had procured in Derry. “Will ye
have a drop, Maire a Glan?” he asked.
“I’ll not be havin’ any,” said the old woman, who nevertheless put out
her hand, caught the bottle and raised it to her lips. “It’s a nice drop
this,” she said, when she had swallowed several mouthfuls, “but I’m not
goin’ to drink any of it. I’m only just tastin’ it.”
“If it was my bottle I’d be content if ye only just smelt it,” said
Eamon Doherty, with a dry laugh.
“Dermod Flynn had one great fight in Tyrone,” said Micky’s Jim after
draining some of the liquor. “Gave his master one in the guts and
knocked him as sick as a dog.”
“Get away!”
“So he was sayin’. Dermod Flynn, come here and give an account of
yerself.”
The young fellow, who was watching the waves slide past the side of the
vessel, came forward when Micky’s Jim called him.
“Give an account of yerself, Dermod Flynn,” Jim cried. “Did ye not knock
down yer boss with one in the guts? That was the thing to do; that’s
what a Glenmornan man should do. I mind once when I was coal humpin’ on
the Greenock Docks----”
And without waiting for an answer to his question, Jim narrated the
story of a fight which had once taken place between himself and a
Glasgow sailor.
The sun, red as a live coal, was sinking towards the west, the murmur,
powerful and gentle, of a trembling wind could be heard overhead; a
white, ghostly mist stole down from the shore on either side and spread
far out over the waters. The waves lapped against the side of the vessel
with short, sudden splashes, and the sound of the labouring screw could
be heard pulsing loudly through the air. A black trail of smoke spread
out behind; a flight of following gulls, making little apparent effort,
easily kept pace with the vessel.
“They will follow us to Scotland,” said Maire a Glan, pointing at the
birds with a long claw-like finger.
Most of the men were drunk; a few lying stretched on the deck were
already asleep, and the rest were singing and quarrelling. Micky’s Jim
stopped in the middle of an interesting story, a new one, but also about
a fight, and joined in a song; old Maire a Glan helped him with the
chorus.
III
A man, full of drink and fight, paraded along the deck, his stride
uncertain and unsteady, a look born of the dark blood of mischief
showing in his eyes. He had already been fighting; in his hand he
carried an open clasp-knife; one eyebrow had been gashed and the strip
of torn flesh hung down even as far as his high cheekbones. He was
dressed in a dirty pea-jacket and moleskin trousers; a brown leather
belt with a huge, shiny buckle was tied round his waist, and the neck of
a half-empty whisky bottle could be seen peeping over the rim of his
coat pocket. His shoulders were broad and massive, his neck short and
wrinkled and the torn shirt showed his deep chest, alive with muscles
and terribly hairy, more like an animal’s than a man’s. His hands, which
seemed to have never been washed, were knotted and gnarled like the
branches of an old and stunted bush.
“This is young O’Donnel from the County Donegal, and young O’Donnel
doesn’t give a damn for any man on this boat!” he roared, speaking of
himself in the third person, and brandishing the knife carelessly around
him. “I can fight like a two year old bullock, and a blow from young
O’Donnel is like a kick from a young colt that’s new to the grass. I’m a
Rosses man and I don’t care a damn for any soul on this bloody boat--not
one damn! So there ye are!”
Suddenly observing Dermod Flynn staring at him, he slouched forward and
struck the boy heavily across the face with a full swing of his left
fist. Dermod dropped quietly to the deck; Micky’s Jim, who was
suggesting to Willie the Duck that the fiddle should be flung into the
sea, threw down the instrument which he held and, jumping on the top of
O’Donnel, with a sudden movement of his hand sent the knife flying into
the sea.
“Ye long drink of water, I’ll do for ye!” shouted Jim, and with feet and
fists he hammered O’Donnel into insensibility.
Dermod Flynn regained his feet with a swollen cheek and a long red gash
stretching along his face from ear to chin. He was helped to a seat by
one of the party; Norah Ryan procured some water and bathed his face,
rubbing her fingers tenderly over the sore.
“It was a shame to hit ye, Dermod,” she said. “One would think that a
big man like that wouldn’t hit a small boy like yourself!”
Dermod flushed and his eyes lit up as if he was going to say something
cutting, but Norah checked the words by pressing her hand across his
brow and looking at him with eyes of womanly understanding.
“I know what ye are goin’ to say, Dermod,” she said. “Ye’re goin’ to
tell me that ye are a man: and no one can deny that. Ye were a man when
ye were at school and hit the master. Sure I know meself what ye had in
yer head to say.”
Dermod resented the words of consolation and felt like rising and
walking away from the girl, if her fair fingers had not been pressing so
softly and tenderly against his cheek. He shrugged his shoulders and
resigned himself to the ministrations of Norah.
“By God, I wasn’t long with him!” cried Micky’s Jim, kicking idly at
Willie the Duck’s fiddle which still lay on the deck. “I just gave him
one in the jaw and three on the guts. Ah! that was the way to do it! It
takes a Glenmornan kiddie to use his mits in this bloomin’ hole.
Glenmornan, and every inch of it, forever! Whoo! There’s no man on this
boat could take a rise out of me; not one mother’s son! Fight! I could
fight any damned mug aboard this bleedin’ vessel. Look at my fist; smell
it! There’s the smell of dead men off it!”
Micky’s Jim, now doubly drunk with liquor and excitement, paced up and
down the deck, challenging all aboard to fight, to put up their “fives”
to him. Presently the quarrel became general.
All along the deck and down in the steerage cabin a terrible uproar
broke forth; men fastened on to one another’s throats, kicking, tearing,
and cursing loudly. The darkness had fallen; the buoys, floating past,
bobbed up and down in the water, their little bright lights twinkling
merrily. The pale ghost of a moon stole into the heavens and a million
stars kept it company. But those aboard the Derry boat took little heed
of the moon or stars. Over coils of ropes, loose chains, boxes and
bundles, sleeping women and crying babies, they staggered, fought and
fell, trampling everything with which they came in contact.
A man went headlong down the steerage stair and a second followed,
thrown from above. Beside the door a bleeding face, out of which gleamed
a pair of lustrous eyes, glowered sinister for a moment, a fist hit
sharply against the eyebrows, the eyes closed; a knife shone, glancing
brightly against the woodwork, the man with the bloodstained face
groaned and fell; a woman crouching at the bottom of the stairs was
trampled upon, she shrieked and the shriek changed into a volley of
curses, which in turn died away into a low, murmurous plaint of tearful
pity. Men sought one another’s faces grunting and gasping, long lean
arms stretched out everywhere and fists shot through the smoke-laden
atmosphere of the steerage ... splotches of blood showed darkly on the
deck ... somewhere from below came the tinkle of glasses and the loud
chorus of an Irish folk-song.
The fighters, overcome by their mad exertion, collapsed three or four in
a heap and slept where they had fallen. Outside on the open deck Micky’s
Jim lay prostrate, his head on the lap of Maire a Glan, who was also
asleep, her two remaining upper teeth, tobacco-stained and yellow,
showing in the moonlight. All over the deck men and women lay curled up
like dogs. Near the rail a woman’s bare arm showed for a moment over a
bundle of rags, then twined snakelike round the neck of a sleeping
child. On a bench astern Norah Ryan sat, her shawl drawn tightly over
her head and her eyes fixed on the moon-silvered sea that stretched out
behind. A great loneliness had overcome her; a loneliness which she did
not understand. It seemed as if something had snapped within her, as if
every fabric of her life had been torn to shreds. The stars overhead
looked so cold, everything seemed so desolate. A chill wind swept
against her face, and she could hear the water soughing along the
vessel’s side and crying wearily. Snores, groans, and sleepy voices came
through the open doors and resounded in the passage at the head of the
steerage stairs. Human bodies were heaped together in compact masses
everywhere. The fighting had come to an end--though now and then, as a
flame flickers up for a second over a dying fire, a man would totter
from a drunken sleep and challenge everybody on board to fight him. But
even when speaking loudest he would drop to the deck with a thud and
fall asleep again.
IV
Listening to the engine pulsing heavily and the propeller hitting the
water with an intermittent buzz Norah Ryan fell asleep. On opening her
eyes again she could see the moon further up the sky and the stars
twinkling colder than ever. Dermod Flynn, his face swollen horribly, was
beside her, looking at her, and she was pleased to see him.
“Sit down beside me, Dermod,” she said. “It will be warmer for two.”
He sat down, his eyes sparkling with pleasure; the girl nestled close to
his side in the darkness, and one timid little hand stole softly into
his.
“Ye nearly squeezed the hand off me when I met ye this evenin’,” she
said, but there was no reproof in her voice, and he understood that she
was not angry with his strong handshake, even though it had given her
pain.
“Did I?”
“Ye did.... Isn’t it cold?”
“Cold as the breath of a stepmother,” said Dermod. “There was great
fighting!”
“Why do men always fight?” asked Norah.
“Because it’s--it’s their way.”
“Why is that?”
“You’ll not understand; you’re only a girl.”
“Will I never understand?” asked Norah.
“Never,” Dermod answered. “And we’re goin’ to be sick too,” he went on
with boyish irrelevance. “That’s when we’re passin’ round the Mull of
Cantyre. So Micky’s Jim said. And we’re goin’ to see Paddy’s Milestone,
that’s if we aren’t asleep.”
“Where’s Paddy’s Milestone?”
“It’s a big rock out in the middle of the sea, half-way between Ireland
and Scotland,” said Dermod.
“Oh, is that it?... What kind of time had ye in Tyrone?”
“Not so bad, but Scotland will be a better place.... Is old Master Diver
livin’ away?”
“Dead, God rest his soul. He was only ill for three days. And poor Maire
a Crick is gone as well.”
“She was as old as the Glenmornan hills. And old Oiney Dinchy?”
“He got one of his eyes knocked out with the horns of a cow. That was
because the priest put the seven curses on him; but that was before ye
went away.”
“Is Fergus writin’ home now?”
“We haven’t heard hilt nor hair of him for a long while,” said Norah
sadly. “Maybe it is that he is dead.” “Don’t say that!” Dermod
exclaimed, fixing a pair of sad eyes on the girl.
“Well, it is a wonder that we’re not hearin’ from him,” Norah went on,
“a great wonder entirely.... Your face is very.... Is it sore now?”
The conversation died away; the boy and girl pressed closer for warmth
and presently both were asleep. When they awoke the pale dawn was
breaking. A drunken man lay asleep at their feet, his face turned
upwards, one arm stretched out at full length and the other curled over
his breast. Beside him on the deck was an empty whisky bottle and the
bowl of a broken clay pipe.
“Have ye seen Scotland yet?” asked the girl, rubbing her fingers over
her eyelids.
“That’s it, I think,” Dermod answered, pointing at the coastline which
showed like a well-defined cloud against the sky-line miles away.
“Have we passed Paddy’s Milestone?”
“I don’t know. I was sleepin’.”
“Isn’t it like Ireland?” remarked Norah after she had gazed for a while
in silence at the coastline. “I would like to be goin’ back again,
Dermod,” she said.
“I’m goin’ to make a great fortune in Scotland, Norah,” said the youth,
releasing the girl’s hand which he had held all night. “And I’m goin’ to
make ye a lady.”
“Why would ye be goin’ to do the likes of that?”
“I don’t know,” Dermod confessed, and the boy and girl laughed
together.