THE WOLF AND THE CARPENTER
For a year after their arrival in Antrim they lived in the home of the
master-shoemaker for whom Jamie worked as journeyman. It was a great
hardship, for there was no privacy and their daily walk and
conversation, in front of strangers, was of the "yea, yea" and "nay,
nay" order. In the summer time they spent their Sundays on the banks of
Lough Neagh, taking whatever food they needed and cooking it on the
sand. They continued their courting in that way. They watched the
water-fowl on the great wide marsh, they waded in the water and played
as children play. In more serious moods she read to him Moore's poems
and went over the later lessons of her school life. Even with but part
of a day in each week together they were very happy. The world was full
of sunshine for them then. There were no clouds, no regrets, no fears.
It was a period--a brief period--that for the rest of their lives they
looked back upon as a time when they really lived. I am not sure, but I
am of the impression that the chief reason she could not be persuaded to
visit the Lough in later life was because she wanted to remember it as
she had seen it in that first year of their married life.
Their first child was two years of age when the famine came--the famine
that swept over Ireland like a plague, leaving in its wake over a
million new-made graves. They had been in their own house for over a
year. It was scantily furnished, but it was _home_. As the ravages of
the famine spread, nearly every family in the town mourned the absence
of some member. Men and women met on the street one day, were gone the
next. Jamie put his bench to one side and sought work at anything he
could get to do. Prices ran up beyond the possibilities of the poor. The
potato crop only failed. The other crops were reaped and the proceeds
sent to England as rent and interest, and the reapers having sent the
last farthing, lay down with their wives and children and died. Of the
million who died four hundred thousand were able-bodied men. The wolf
stood at every door. The carpenter alone was busy. Of course it was the
poor who died--the poor only. In her three years of married life Anna
realized in a measure that the future held little change for her or her
husband, but she saw a ray of hope for the boy in the cradle. When the
foodless days came and the child was not getting food enough to survive,
she gave vent to her feelings of despair. Jamie did not quite understand
when she spoke of the death of hope.
"Spake what's in yer heart plainly, Anna!" he said plaintively.
"Jamie, we must not blame each other for anything, but we must face the
fact--we live at the bottom of the world where every hope has a
headstone--a headstone that only waits for the name."
"Aye, dear, God help us, I know, I know what ye mane."
"Above and beyond us," she continued, "there is a world of nice
things--books, furniture, pictures--a world where people and things can
be kept clean, but it's a world we could never reach. But I had hope"--
She buried her face in her hands and was silent.
"Aye, aye, acushla, I know yer hope's in the boy, but don't give up.
We'll fight it out together if th' worst comes to th' worst. The boy'll
live, shure he will!"
He could not bear the agony on her face. It distracted him. He went out
and sought solitude on a pile of stones back of the house. There was no
solitude there, nor could he have remained long if there had been. He
returned and drawing a stool up close beside her he sat down and put an
arm tenderly over her shoulder.
"Cheer up, wee girl," he said, "our ship's comin' in soon."
"If we can only save him!" she said, pointing to the cradle.
"Well, we won't cry over spilt milk, dear--not at laste until it's
spilt."
"Ah," she exclaimed, "I had such hopes for him!"
"Aye, so haave I, but thin again I've thought t' myself, suppose th' wee
fella did get t' be kind-a quality like, wudn't he be ashamed ov me an'
you maybe, an' shure an ingrate that's somethin' is worse than nothin'!"
"A child born in pure love couldn't be an ingrate, Jamie; that isn't
possible, dear."
"Ah, who knows what a chile will be, Anna?"
The child awoke and began to cry. It was a cry for food. There was
nothing in the house; there had been nothing all that day. They looked
at each other. Jamie turned away his face. He arose and left the house.
He went aimlessly down the street wondering where he should try for
something to eat for the child. There were several old friends whom he
supposed were in the same predicament, but to whom he had not appealed.
It was getting to be an old story. A score of as good children as his
had been buried. Everybody was polite, full of sympathy, but the child
was losing his vitality, so was the mother. Something desperate must be
done and done at once. For the third time he importuned a grocer at
whose shop he had spent much money. The grocer was just putting up the
window shutters for the night.
"If ye cud jist spare us a ha'p'orth ov milk to keep th' life in th'
chile fur th' night?" he pleaded.
"It wudn't be a thimbleful if I had it, Jamie, but I haven't--we haave
childther ov our own, ye know, an' life is life!"
"Aye, aye," he said, "I know, I know," and shuffled out again. Back to
the house he went. He lifted the latch gently and tiptoed in. Anna was
rocking the child to sleep. He went softly to the table and took up a
tin can and turned again toward the door.
Anna divined his stealthy movement. She was beside him in an instant.
"Where are you going, Jamie?" He hesitated. She forced an answer.
"Jamie," she said in a tone new to her, "there's been nothing but truth
and love between us; I must know."
"I'm goin' out wi' that can to get somethin' fur that chile, Anna, if I
haave t' swing fur it. That's what's in my mind an' God help me!"
"God help us both," she said.
He moved toward the street. She planted herself between him and the
door.
"No, we must stand together. They'll put you in jail and then the child
and I will die anyway. Let's wait another day!"
They sat down together in the corner. It was dark now and they had no
candle. The last handful of turf was on the fire. They watched the
sparks play and the fitful spurts of flame light up for an instant at a
time the darkened home. It was a picture of despair--the first of a long
series that ran down the years with them. They sat in silence for a long
time. Then they whispered to each other with many a break the words they
had spoken in what now seemed to them the long ago. The fire died out.
They retired, but not to sleep. They were too hungry. There was an
insatiable gnawing at their vitals that made sleep impossible. It was
like a cancer with excruciating pain added. Sheer exhaustion only,
stilled the cries of the starving child. There were no more tears in
their eyes, but anguish has by-valves more keen, poignant and subtle.
In agony they lay in silence and counted time by the repercussion of
pain until the welcome dawn came with its new supply of hope. The scream
of a frenzied mother who had lost a child in the night was the prelude
to a tragic day. Anna dressed quickly and in a few minutes stood by the
side of the woman. There was nothing to say. Nothing to do. It was her
turn. It would be Anna's next. All over the town the specter hovered.
Every day the reaper garnered a new harvest of human sheaves. Every day
the wolf barked. Every day the carpenter came.
When Anna returned Jamie had gone. She took her station by the child.
Jamie took the tin can and went out along the Gray-stone road for about
a mile and entered a pasture where three cows were grazing. He was weak
and nervous. His eyes were bloodshot and his hands trembled. He had
never milked a cow. He had no idea of the difficulty involved in
catching a cow and milking her in a pasture. There was the milk and
yonder his child, who without it would not survive the day. Desperation
dominated and directed every movement.
The cows walked away as he approached. He followed. He drove them into a
corner of the field and managed to get his hand on one. He tried to pet
her, but the jingling of the can frightened her and off they went--all
of them--on a fast trot along the side of the field. He became cautious
as he cornered them a second time. This time he succeeded in reaching an
udder. He got a tit in his hand. He lowered himself to his haunches and
proceeded to tug vigorously. His hand was waxy and stuck as if glued to
the flesh. Before there was any sign of milk the cow gave him a swift
kick that sent him flat on his back. By the time he pulled himself
together again the cows were galloping to the other end of the pasture.
"God!" he muttered as he mopped the sweat from his face with his
sleeve, "if ye've got aany pity or kindly feelin' giv me a sup ov that
milk fur m' chile! Come on!"
His legs trembled so that he could scarcely stand. Again he approached.
The cows eyed him with sullen concern. They were thoroughly scared now
and he couldn't get near enough to lay a hand on any of them. He stood
in despair, trembling from head to foot. He realized that what he would
do he must do quickly.
The morning had swift wings--it was flying away. Some one would be out
for the cows ere long and his last chance would be gone. He dropped the
can and ran to the farm-house. There was a stack-yard in the rear. He
entered and took a rope from a stack. It was a long rope--too long for
his use, but he did not want to destroy its usefulness. He dragged it
through the hedge after him. This time with care and caution he got near
enough to throw the rope over the horns of a cow. Leading her to a
fence he tied her to it and began again. It came slowly. His strength
was almost gone. He went from one side to the other--now at one tit, now
at another. From his haunches he went to his knees and from that
position he stretched out his legs and sat flat on the grass. He no
sooner had a good position than the cow would change hers. She trampled
on his legs and swerved from side to side, but he held on. It was a life
and death struggle. The little milk at the bottom of the can gave him
strength and courage. As he literally pulled it out of her his strength
increased. When the can was half full he turned the cow loose and made
for the gap in the hedge. Within a yard of it he heard the loud report
of a gun and the can dropped to the ground. The ball had plowed through
both lugs of the can disconnecting the wire handle. Not much of the milk
was lost. He picked up the can and started down the road as fast as his
legs could take him. He had only gone a hundred yards when a man stepped
out into the road and leveled a gun at him.
"Another yard an' I'll blow yer brains out!" the man said.
"Is this yer milk?" Jamie asked.
"Aye, an' well ye know it's m' milk!"
Jamie put the can down on the road and stood silent. The farmer
delivered himself of a volume of profane abuse. Jamie did not reply. He
stood with his head bowed and to all appearances in a mood of penitence.
When the man finished his threats and abuse he stooped to pick up the
can. Before his hand touched it Jamie sprang at him with the ferocity of
a panther. There was a life and death tussle for a few seconds and both
men went down on the road--Jamie on top. Sitting on the man's chest he
took a wrist in each hand and pinned him to the ground.
"Ye think I'm a thief," he said to the man as he looked at him with eyes
that burned like live coals. "I'm not, I'm an honest maan, but I haave a
chile dying wi' hunger--now it's your life or his, by ---- an' ye'll
decide!"
"I think yer a liar as well as a thief," the man said, "but if we can
prove what ye say I'm yer friend."
"Will ye go with me?"
"Aye."
"D'ye mane it?"
"Aye, I do!"
"I'll carry th' gun."
"Ye may, there's nothin' in it."
"There's enough in th' butt t' batther a maan's brains out."
Jamie seized the gun and the can and the man got up.
They walked down the road in silence, each watching the other out of the
corners of his eyes.
"D'ye believe in God?" Jamie asked abruptly. The farmer hesitated
before answering.
"Why d'ye ask?"
"I'd like t' see a maan in these times that believed wi' his heart
insted ov his mouth!"
"Wud he let other people milk his cows?" asked the man, sneeringly.
"He mightn't haave cows t' milk," Jamie said. "But he'd be kind and not
a glutton!"
They arrived at the house. The man went in first. He stopped near the
door and Jamie instinctively and in fear shot past him. What he saw
dazed him. "Ah, God!" he exclaimed. "She's dead!"
Anna lay on her back on the floor and the boy was asleep by the hearth
with his head in the ashes. The neighbors were alarmed and came to
assist. The farmer felt Anna's pulse. It was feebly fluttering.
"She's not dead," he said. "Get some cold wather quickly!" They dashed
the water in her face and brought her back to consciousness. When she
looked around she said:
"Who 's this kind man come in to help, Jamie?"
"He's a farmer," Jamie said, "an' he's brot ye a pint ov nice fresh
milk!" The man had filled a cup with milk and put it to Anna's lips. She
refused. "He's dying," she said, pointing to the boy, who lay limp on
the lap of a neighbor. The child was drowsy and listless. They gave him
the cup of milk. He had scarcely enough strength to drink. Anna drank
what was left, which was very little.
"God bless you!" Anna said as she held out her hand to the farmer.
"God save you kindly," he answered as he took her hand and bowed his
head.
"I've a wife an' wains myself," he continued, "but we're not s' bad off
on a farm." Turning to Jamie he said: "Yer a Protestant!"
"Aye."
"An' I'm a Fenian, but we're in t' face ov bigger things!"
He extended his hand. Jamie clasped it, the men looked into each other's
faces and understood.
That night in the dusk, the Fenian farmer brought a sack of potatoes and
a quart of fresh milk and the spark of life was prolonged.