A fishing-boat lay at anchor in a cove of Dun-manus Bay, a hundred rods
from shore, softly rising and sinking with the swell of the tide which
stirred the blue waters with all gentleness on this peaceful June
morning. Two men sat in lounging attitudes at opposite ends of the
little craft, yawning lazily in the sunshine. They held lines in their
hands, but their listless and wandering glances made it evident that
nothing was further from their thoughts than the catching of fish.
The warm summer air was so clear that the hamlet of Muirisc, whose gray
walls, embroidered with glossy vines, and tiny cottages white with
lime-wash were crowded together on the very edge of the shore, seemed
close beside them, and every grunt and squawk from sty or barn-yard came
over the lapping waters to them as from a sounding-board. The village,
engirdled by steep, sheltering cliffs, and glistening in the sunlight,
made a picture which artists would have blessed their stars for. The two
men in the boat looked at it wearily.
“Egor, it’s my belafe,” said the fisher at the bow, after what seemed
an age of idle silence, “that the fishes have all follied the byes an’
gerrels, an’ betaken thimselves to Ameriky.” He pulled in his line, and
gazed with disgust at the intact bait. “Luk at that, now!” he continued.
“There’s a male fit for the holy Salmon of Knowledge himsilf, that
taught Fin MacCool the spache of animals, and divil a bite has the
manest shiner condiscinded to make at it.”
“Oh, darn the fish!” replied the other, with a long sigh. “I don’t care
whether we catch’ any or not. It’s worth while to come out here even if
we never get a nibble and baked ourselves into bricks, jest to get rid
of that infernal O’Daly.”
It was The O’Mahony who spake, and he invested the concluding portion
of his remark with an almost tearful earnestness. During the pause which
ensued he chewed vigorously upon the tobacco in his mouth, and spat into
the sea with a stern expression of countenance.
“I tell you what, Jerry,” he broke out with at last--“I can’t stand much
more of that fellow. He’s jest breakin’ me up piecemeal. I begin to feel
like Jeff Davis--that it ’ud have bin ten dollars in my pocket if I’d
never bin born.”
“Ah, sure, your honor,” said Jerry, “ye’ll git used to it in time. He
manes for the best.”
“That’s jest what makes me tired,” rejoined The O’Mahony; “that’s what
they always said about a fellow when he makes a confounded nuisance of
himself. I hate fellows that mean for the best. I’d much rather he
meant as bad as he knew how. P’raps then he’d shut up and mind his own
business, and leave me alone part of the time. It’s bad enough to have
your estate mortgaged up to the eyebrows, but to have a bard piled on
top o’ the mortgages--egad, it’s more’n flesh and blood can stand! I
don’t wonder them other O’Mahonys took to drink.”
“There’s a dale to be said for the dhrink, your honor,” commented the
other, tentatively.
“There can be as much said as you like,” said The O’Mahony, with
firmness, “but _doin_’ is a hoss of another color. I’m goin’ to stick to
the four drinks a day an’ two at night; an’ what’s good enough for me’s
good enough for you. That bat of ours the first week we come settled
the thing. I said to myself: ‘There’s goin’ to be one O’Mahony that dies
sober, or I’ll know the reason why!’”
“Egor, Saint Pether won’t recognize ye, thin,” chuckled Jerry; and the
other grinned grimly in spite of himself.
“Do you know I’ve bin fig’rin’ to myself on that convent business,” The
O’Mahony mused aloud, after a time, “an’ I guess I’ve pritty well sized
it up. The O’Mahonys started that thing, accordin’ to my notion, jest to
coop up their sisters in, where board and lodgin’ ’ud come cheap, an’
one suit o’ clothes ’ud last a lifetime, in order to leave more money
for themselves for whisky. I ain’t sayin’ the scheme ain’t got some
points about it. You bar out all that nonsense about bonnets an’ silk
dresses an’ beads an’ fixin’s right from the word go, and you’ve got
’em safe under lock an’ key, so ’t they can’t go gallivantin’ round
an’ gittin’ into scrapes. But I’ll be dodrotted if I’m goin’ to set
still an’ see ’em capture that little gal Katie agin her will. You
hear _me!_ An’ another thing, I’m goin’ to put my foot down about goin’
to church every mornin’. Once a week’s goin’ to be my ticket right from
now. An’ you needn’t show up any oftener yourself if you don’t want to.
It’s high time we had it out whether it’s me or O’Daly that’s runnin’
this show.”
“Sure, rightly spakin’, your honor’s own sowl wouldn’t want no more than
a mass aich Sunday,” expounded Jerry, concentrating his thoughts upon
the whole vast problem of dogmatic theology. “But this is the throuble
of it, you see, sir: there’s the sowls of all thim other O’Mahonys
that’s gone before, that the nuns do be prayin’ for to git out of
purgatory, an’--”
“That’s all right,” broke in The O’Mahony, “but my motto is: let every
fellow hustle for himself. They’re on the spot, wherever it is, an’
they’re the best judges of what they want; an’ if they ain’t got sand
enough to sail in an’ git it, I don’t see why I should be routed up out
of bed every mornin’ at seven o’clock to help ’em. To tell the truth,
Jerry, I’m gittin’ all-fired sick of these O’Mahonys. This havin’ dead
men slung at you from mornin’ to night, day in an’ day out, rain or
shine, would have busted up Job himself.”
“I’m thinking, sir,” said Jerry, with a merry twinkle in his eyes,
“there’s no havin’ annything in this worruld without payin’ for that
same. ’Tis the pinalty of belongin’ to a great family. Egor, since
O’Daly thranslated me into a MacEgan I’ve had no pace of me life, by
rayson of the necessity to demane mesilf accordin’.”
“Why, darn it all, man,” pursued the other, “I can’t do a solitary
thing, any time of day, without O’Daly luggin’ up what some old rooster
did a thousand years ago. He follows me round like my shadow, blatherin’
about what Dermid of the Bucking Horses did, an’ what Conn of the Army
Mules thought of doin’ and didn’t, and what Finn of the Wall-eyed Pikes
would have done if he could, till I git sick at my stomach. He won’t let
me lift my ‘finger to do anything, because The O’Mahony mustn’t sile his
hands with work, and I have to stand round and watch a lot of bungling
cusses pretend to do it, when they don’t know any more about the work
than a yellow dog.”
“Faith, ye’ll not get much sympathy from the gintry of Ireland on _that_
score,” said Jerry.
“An’ then that Malachy--he gives me a cramp! he ain’t got a grin in his
whole carcass, an’ he can’t understand a word that I say, so that O’Daly
has that for another excuse to hang around all the while. Take my steer,
Jerry; if anybody leaves you an estate, you jest inquire if there’s a
bard and a hereditary dumb waiter that go with it; an’ if there is, you
jest sashay off somewhere else.”
“Ah, sir, but an estate’s a great thing.”
“Yes--to tell about. But now jest look at the thing as she stands. I’m
the O’Mahony an’ all that, an’ I own more land than you can shake a
stick at; but what does it all come to? Why, when the int’rest is paid,
I am left so poor that if churches was sellin’ at two cents apiece, I
couldn’t buy the hinge on a contribution box. An’ then it’s downright
mortifyin’ to me to have to git a livin’ by takin’ things away from
these poverty-stricken devils here. I’m ashamed to look ’em in the
face, knowin’ as I do how O’Daly makes ’em whack up pigs, an’ geese,
an’ chickens, an’ vegetables, an’ fish, not to mention all the money
they can scrape together, just to keep me in idleness. It ain’t fair.
Every time one of ’em comes in, to bring me a peck o’ peas, or a pail
o’ butter, or a shillin’ that he’s managed to earn somewhere, I say to
myself: ‘Ole hoss, if you was that fellow, and he was loafin’ round as
The O’Mahony, you’d jest lay for him and kick the whole top of his head
off, and serve him darned well right, too.’”
Jerry looked at his master now with a prolonged and serious scrutiny,
greatly differing from his customary quizzical glance.
“Throo for your honor,” he said at last, in a hesitating way, as if his
remark disclosed only half his thought.
“Yes, sirree, I’m sourin’ fast on the hull thing,” The O’Mahony
exclaimed. “To do nothin’ all day long but to listen to O’Daly’s yarns,
an’ make signs at Malachy, an’ think how long it is between drinks--that
ain’t no sort o’ life for a white man. Egad! if there was any fightin’
goin’ on anywhere in the world, darn me if I would not pull up stakes
an’ light out for it. Another six months o’ this, an’ my blood’ll all be
turned to butter-milk.”
The distant apparition of a sailing-vessel hung upon the outer horizon,
the noon sun causing the white squares of canvas to glow like jewels
upon the satin sheen of the sea. Jerry stole a swift glance at his
companion, and then bent a tong meditative gaze upon the passing
vessel, humming softly to himself as he looked. At last he turned to his
companion with an air of decision.
“O’Mahony,” he said, using the name thus for the first time, “I’m
resolved in me mind to disclose something to ye. It’s a sacret I’m goin’
to tell you.”
He spoke with impressive solemnity, and the other looked up with
interest awakened.
“Go ahead,” he said.
“Well, sir, your remarks this day, and what I’ve seen wid me own eyes
of your demaynor, makes it plane that you’re a frind of Ireland.
Now there’s just wan way in the worruld for a frind of Ireland to
demonsthrate his affection--and that’s be enrollin’ himsilf among thim
that’ll fight for her rights. Sir, I’ll thrust ye wid me sacret. I’m a
Fenian.”
The O’Mahony’s attentive face showed no light of comprehension. The word
which Jerry had uttered with such mystery conveyed no meaning to him at
all at first; then he vaguely recalled it as a sort of slang description
of Irishmen in general, akin to “Mick” and “bogtrotter.”
“Well, what of it?” he asked, wonderingly.
Jerry’s quick perception sounded at once the depth of his ignorance.
“The Fenians, sir,” he explained, “are a great and sacret society, wid
tins of thousands of min enlisted here, an’ in Ameriky, an’ among the
Irish in England, wid intint to rise up as wan man whin the time comes,
an’ free Ireland. It’s a regular army, sir, that we’re raisin’, to
conquer back our liberties, and dhrive the bloody Saxon foriver away
from Erin’s green shores.”
The O’Mahony let his puzzled gaze wander along the beetling coast-line
of naked rocks.
“So far’s I can see, they ain’t green,” he said; “they’re black and
drab. An’ who’s this fellow you call Saxon? I notice O’Daly lugs him
into about every other piece o’ po’try he nails me with, evenin’s.”
“Sir, it’s our term for the Englishman, who oppreases us, an’ dhrives us
to despair, an’ prevints our holdin’ our hieads up amongst the nations
of the earth. Sure, sir, wasn’t all this counthry roundabout for a three
days’ journey belongin’ to your ancesthors, till the English stole it
and sold it to Boyle, that thief of the earth--and his tomb, be the same
token, I’ve seen many a time at Youghal, where I was born. But--awh,
sir, what’s the use o’ talkin’? Sure, the blood o’ the O’Mahonys ought
to stir in your veins at the mere suspicion of an opporchunity to
sthrike a blow for your counthry.” The O’Mahony yawned and stretched his
long arms lazily in the sunshine.
“Nary a stir,” he said, with an idle half-grin. “But what the deuce is
it you’re drivin’ at anyway?”
“Sir, I’ve towld ye we’re raisin’ an army--a great, thund’rin’ secret
army--and whin it’s raised an’ our min all dhrilled an’ our guns an’
pikes all handy--sure, thin we’ll rise and fight. An’ it’s much mistaken
I am in you, O’Mahony, if you’d be contint to lave this fun go on undher
your nose, an’ you to have no hand in it.”
“Of course I want to be in it,” said The O’Mahony, evincing more
interest. “Only I couldn’t make head or tail of what you was talkin’
about. An’ I don’t know as I see yet jest what the scheme is. But you
can count me in on anything that’s got gunpowder in it, an’ that’ll give
me somethin’ to do besides list’nin’ to O’Daly’s yawp.”
“We’ll go to Cork to-morrow, thin, if it’s convanient to you,” said
Jerry, eagerly. “I’ll spake to my ‘B,’ or captain, that is, an’
inthroduce ye, through him, to the chief organizer of Munster, and sure,
they’ll mak’ ye an’ ‘A,’ the same as a colonel, an’ I’ll get promotion
undher ye--an’, Egor! we’ll raise a rigiment to oursilves entirely--an’
Muirisc’s the very darlin’ of a place to land guns an’ pikes an’ powdher
for all Ireland--an’ ’tis we’ll get the credit of it, an’ get more
promotion still, till, faith, there’ll be nothin’ too fine for our
askin’, an’ we’ll carry the whole blessed Irish republic around in our
waistcoat pocket. What the divil, man! We’ll make ye presidint, an’ I’ll
have a place in the poliss.”
“All right,” said The O’Mahony, “we’ll git all the fun there is out of
it; but there’s one thing, mind, that I’m jest dead set about.” ..
“Ye’ve only to name it, sir, an’ they’ll be de-loighted to plase ye.”
“Well, it’s this: O’Daly’s got to be ruled out o’ the thing. I’m goin’
to have one deal without any hereditary bard in it, or I don’t play.”