One day passed, and then another, and the evening of the third day drew
near--yet brought no returning Bernard. It is true that on the second
day a telegram--the first Jerry had ever received in his life--came
bearing the date of Cashel, and containing only the unsigned
injunction:
_“Don’t be afraid.”_
It is all very well to say this, but Jerry and Linsky read over the
brief message many scores of times that day, and still felt themselves
very much afraid.
Muirisc was stirred by unwonted excitement. In all its history,
the village had never resented anything else quite so much as the
establishment of a police barrack in its principal street, a dozen years
before. The inhabitants had long since grown accustomed to the sight
of the sergeant and his four men lounging about the place, and had even
admitted them to a kind of conditional friendship, but, none the less,
their presence had continued to present itself as an affront to Muirisc.
From one year’s end to another, no suspicion of crime had darkened the
peaceful fame of the hamlet. They had heard vague stories of grim and
violent deeds in other parts of the south and west, as the failure of
the potatoes and the greed of the landlords conspired together to
drive the peasantry into revolt, but in Muirisc, though she had had her
evictions and knew what it was to be hungry, it had occurred to no one
to so much as break a window.
Yet now, all at once, here were fresh constables brought in from Bantry,
with an inspector at their head, and the amazed villagers saw these
newcomers, with rifles slung over their short capes, and little round
caps cocked to one side on their close-cropped heads, ransacking every
nook and cranny of the ancient town in quest of some mysterious thing,
the while others spread their search over the ragged rocks and moorland
roundabout. And then the astounding report flew from mouth to mouth that
Father Jago had read in a Dublin paper that O’Daly was believed to have
been murdered.
Sure enough, now that they had thought of it, O’Daly had not been seen
for two or three days, but until this strange story came from without,
no one had given this a thought. He was often away, for days together,
on mining and other business, but it was said now that his wife, whom
Muirisc still thought of as Mrs. Fergus, had given the alarm, on the
ground that if her husband had been going away over night, he would
have told her. There was less liking for this lady than ever, when this
report started on its rounds.
Three or four of the wretched, unwashed and half-fed creatures, who had
fled from O’Daly’s evictions to the shelter of the furze-clad ditches
outside, had been brought in and sharply questioned at the barracks, on
this third day, but of what they had said the villagers knew nothing.
And, now, toward evening, the excited groups of gossiping neighbors
at the corners saw Jerry Higgins himself, with flushed face and
apprehensive eye, being led past with his shambling cousin toward
constabulary headquarters by a squad of armed policemen. Close upon
the heels of this amazing spectacle came the rumor--whence started, who
could tell?--that Jerry had during the day received a telegram clearly
implicating him in the crime, At this, Muirisc groaned aloud.
“’Tis wid you alone I want to spake,” said Kate, bluntly, to the
mother superior.
The April twilight was deepening the shadows in the corners of the
convent’s reception hall, and mellowing into a uniformity of ugliness
the faces of the four Misses O’Daly who sat on the long bench before the
fireless hearth. These young women were strangers to Muirisc, and had
but yesterday arrived from their country homes in Kerry or the Macroom
district to enter the convent of which their remote relation was
patron. They were plain, small-farmers’ daughters, with flat faces, high
cheek-bones and red hands. They had risen in clumsy humility when Kate
entered the room, staring in admiration at her beauty, and even more at
her hat; they had silently seated themselves again at a sign from the
mother superior, still staring in round-eyed wonder at this novel kind
of young woman; and they clung now stolidly to their bench, in the
face of Kate’s remark. Perhaps they did not comprehend it, But they
understood and obeyed the almost contemptuous gesture by which the aged
nun bade them leave the room.
“What is it thin, _Dubhdeasa?_” asked Mother Agnes, with affectionate
gravity, seating herself as she spoke. The burden of eighty years rested
lightly upon the lean figure and thin, wax-like face of the nun. Only a
close glance would have revealed the fine net-work of wrinkles covering
this pallid skin, and her shrewd observant eyes flashed still with the
keenness of youth. “Tell me, what is it?”
“I’ve a broken heart in me, that’s all!” said the girl.
She had walked to one of the two narrow little windows, and stood
looking out, yet seeing nothing for the mist of tears that might not
be kept down. Only the affectation of defiance preserved her voice from
breaking.
“Here there will be rest and p’ace of mind,” intoned the other. “’T
is only a day more, Katie, and thin ye’ll be wan of us, wid all the
worriments and throubles of the world lagues behind ye.”
The girl shook her head with vehemence and paced the stone floor
restlessly.
“’T is I who’ll be opening the dure to ’em and bringing ’em all in
here, instead. No fear, Mother Agnes, they’ll folly me wherever I go.”
The other smiled gently, and shook her vailed head in turn.
“’T is little a child like you drames of the rale throubles of me,”
she murmured. “Whin ye’re older, ye’ll bless the good day that gave ye
this holy refuge, and saved ye from thim all. Oh, Katie, darlin’, when I
see you standing be me side in your habit--’t is mesilf had it made
be the Miss Maguires in Skibbereen, the same that sews the vestmints for
the bishop himself--I can lay me down, and say me _nunc dimittis_ wid a
thankful heart!”
Kate sighed deeply and turned away. It was the trusting sweetness of
affection with which old Mother Agnes had enveloped her ever since the
promise to take vows had been wrung from her reluctant tongue that rose
most effectually always to restrain her from reconsidering that promise.
It was clear enough that the venerable O’Mahony nuns found in the speedy
prospect of her joining them the one great controlling joy of their
lives. Thinking upon this now, it was natural enough for her to say:
“Can thim O’Daly girls rade and write, I wonder?”
“Oh, they’ve had schooling, all of them. ’T is not what you had here,
be anny manes, but ’t will do.”
“Just think, Mother Agnes,” Kate burst forth, “what it ‘ll be like to be
shut with such craytures as thim afther--afther you l’ave us!”
“They’re very humble,” said the nun, hesitatingly. “’T is more of that
same spirit I’d fain be seeing in yourself, Katie! And in that they’ve
small enough resimblance to Cormac O’Daly, who’s raked ’em up from
the highways and byways to make their profession here. And oh--tell me
now--old Ellen that brings the milk mintioned to Sister Blanaid that
O’Daly was gone somewhere, and that there was talk about it.”
“Talk, is it!” exclaimed Kate, whose introspective mood had driven this
subject from her mind, but who now spoke with eagerness. “That’s the
word for it, ‘talk.’ ’T is me mother, for pure want of something to
say, that putt the notion into Sergeant O’Flaherty’s thick skull, and,
w’u’d ye belave it, they’ve brought more poliss to the town, and they’re
worriting the loives out of the people wid questions and suspicions.
I’m told they’ve even gone out to the bog and arrested some of thim
poor wretches of O’Driscolls that Cormac putt out of their cottages last
winter. The idea of it!”
“Where there’s so much smoke there’s some bit of fire,” said the older
woman. “Where _is_ O’Daly?” The girl shrugged her shoulders.
“’T is not my affair!” she said, curtly. “I know where he’d be, if I’d
my will.”
“Katie,” chanted the nun, in tender reproof, “what spirit d’ye call that
for a woman who’s within four-an’-twinty hours of making her profession!
Pray for yourself, child, that these worldly feelings may be taken from
ye!”
“Mother Agnes,” said the girl, “if I’m to pretind to love Cormac O’Daly,
thin, wance for all, ’t is no use!”
“We’re bidden to love all thim that despite--” The nun broke off her
quotation abruptly. A low wailing sound from the bowels of the earth
beneath them rose through the flags of the floor, and filled the chamber
with a wierd and ghostly dying away echo. Mother Agnes sprang to her
feet.
“’T is the Hostage again!” she cried. “Sister Ellen vowed to me she
heard him through the night. Did _you_ hear him just now?”
“I heard _it_,” said Kate, simply.
The mother superior, upon reflection, seated herself again.
“’T is a strange business,” she said, at last. Her shrewd eyes,
wandering in a meditative gaze about the chamber, avoided Katie’s face.
“’T is twelve years since last we heard him,” she mused aloud, “and
that was the night of the storm. ’T is a sign of misfortune to hear
him, they say--and the blowing down of the walls that toime was taken
be us to fulfill that same. But sure, within the week, The O’Mahoney had
gone on his thravels, and pious Cormac O’Daly had taken his place,
and the convint prospered more than ever. At laste _that_ was no
misfortune.”
“Hark to me, Mother Agnes,” said Kate, with emphasis. “You never used to
favor the O’Mahonys as well I remimber, but you’re a fair-minded woman
and a holy woman, and I challenge ye now to tell me honest: Wasn’t
anny wan hair on The O’Mahony’s head worth the whole carcase of Cormac
O’Daly? ’T was an evil day for Muirisc whin he sailed away. If the
convint has prospered, me word, ’t is what nothing else in Muirisc has
done. And laving aside your office as a nun, is it sp’akin well for a
place to say that three old women in it are better off, and all the rist
have suffered?”
“Katie!” admonished the other. “You’ll repint thim words a week hence!
To hearken to ye, wan would think yer heart was not in the profession
ye’re to make.”
The girl gave a scornful, little laugh.
“Did I ever pretind it was?” she demanded.
“’T is you are the contrary crayture!” sighed the mother superior.
“Here now for all these cinturies, through all the storms and wars and
confiscations, this holy house has stud firm be the old faith. There
’s not another family in Ireland has kept the mass in its own chapel,
wid its own nuns kneeling before it, and never a break or interruption
at all. I’ll l’ave it to yer own sinse: Can ye compare the prosperity
of a little village, or a hundred of ’em, wid such a glorious and
unayqualed riccord as that? Why, girl, ’t is you should be proud
beyond measure and thankful that ye’re born and bred and selected
to carry on such a grand tradition. To be head of the convint of
the O’Mahonys ’t is more historically splindid than to be queen of
England.”
“But if I come to be the head at all,” retorted Kate, “sure it will be a
convint of O’Dalys.”
The venerable woman heaved another sigh and looked at the floor in
silence.
Kate pursued her advantage eagerly.
“Sure, I’ve me full share of pride in proper things,” she said, “and no
O’Mahony of them all held his family higher in his mind than I do.
And me blood lapes to every word you say about that same. But would
_you_--Agnes O’Mahony as ye were born--would you be asking me to have
pride in the O’Dalys? And that ’s what ’t is intinded to make of the
convint now. For my part, I’d be for saying: ‘L’ave the convint doy now
wid the last of the ladies of our own family rather than keep it alive
at the expinse of giving it to the O’Dalys.’”
Mother Agnes shook her head.
“I’ve me carnal feelings no less than you,” she said, “and me family
pride to subdue. But even if the victory of humility were denied me,
what c’u’d we do? For the moment, I’ll put this holy house to wan
side. What can _you_ do? How can you stand up forninst Cormac O’Daly’s
determination? Remimber, widout him ye’re but a homeless gerrel, Katie.”
“And whose fault is that, Mother Agnes?” asked Kate, with swift glance
and tone. “Will ye be telling me ’t was The O’Mahony’s? Did he l’ave
me widout a four-penny bit, depindent on others, or was it that others
stole me money and desaved me, and to-day are keeping me out of me own?
Tell me that, Mother Agnes.”
The nun’s ivory-tinted face flushed for an instant, then took on a
deeper pallor. Her gaze, lifted momentarily toward Kate, strayed beyond
her to vacancy. She rose to her full height and made a forward step,
then stood, fumbling confusedly at her beads, and with trembling,
half-opened lips.
“’T is not in me power,” she stammered, slowly and with difficulty.
“There--there _was_ something--I’ve not thought of it for so long--I’m
forgetting strangely--”
She broke off abruptly, threw up her withered hands in a gesture of
despair, and then, never looking at the girl, turned and with bowed head
left the room.
Kate still stood staring in mingled amazement and apprehension at the
arched casement through which Mother Agnes had vanished, when the oak
door was pushed open again, and Sister Blanaid, a smaller and younger
woman, yet bent and half-palsied under the weight of years, showed
herself in the aperture. She bore in her arms, shoving the door aside
with it as she feebly advanced, a square wooden box, dust-begrimed and
covered in part with reddish cow-skin.
“Take it away!” she mumbled. “’T is the mother-supayrior’s desire you
should take it from here. ’T is an evil day that’s on us! Go fling
this haythen box into the bay and thin pray for yourself and for her,
who’s taken that grief for ye she’s at death’s door!”
The door closed again, and Kate found herself mechanically bearing this
box in her arms and making her way out through the darkened hallways to
the outer air. Only when she stood on the steps of the porch, and set
down her burden to adjust her hat, did she recognize it. Then, with a
murmuring cry of delight, she stooped and snatched it up again. It was
the _cathach_ which The O’Mahony had given her to keep.
On the instant, as she looked out across the open green upon the harbor,
the bay, the distant peninsula of Kilcrohane peacefully gathering to
itself the shadows of the falling twilight--how it all came back to
her! On the day of his departure--that memorable black-letter day in her
life--he had turned over this rude little chest to her; he had told her
it was his luck, his talisman, and now should be hers. She had carried
it, not to her mother’s home, but to the tiny school-room in the old
convent, for safekeeping. She recalled now that she had told the nuns,
or Mother Agnes, at least, what it was. But then--then there came a
blank in her memory. She could not force her mind to remember when she
ceased to think about it--when it made its way into the lumber-room
where it had apparently lain so long.
But, at all events, she had it now again. She bent her head to touch
with her lips one of the rough strips of skin nailed irregularly upon
it; then, with a shining face, bearing the box, like some sanctified
shrine, against her breast, she moved across the village-common toward
the wharf and the water.
The injunction of quavering old Blanaid to cast it into the bay drifted
uppermost in her thoughts, and she smiled to herself. She had been
bidden, also, to pray; and reflection upon this chased the smile away.
Truly, there was need for prayer. Her perplexed mind called up, one by
one, in disheartening array, the miseries of her position, and drew new
unhappiness from the confusion of right and wrong which they presented.
How could she pray to be delivered from what Mother Agnes held up as the
duties of piety? And, on the other hand, what sincerity could there be
in any other kind of spiritual petition?
She wandered along the shore-sands under the cliffs, the box tightly
clasped in her arms, her eyes musingly bent upon the brown reaches of
drenched seaweed which lay at play with the receding tide.
Her mind conjured up the image of a smiling and ruddy young face,
sun-burned and thatched with crisp, curly brown hair--the face of that
curious young O’Mahony from Houghton County. His blue eye looked at her
half quizzically, half beseeching, but Kate resolutely drove the image
away. He was only the merest trifle less mortal than the others.
So musing, she strolled onward. Suddenly she stopped, and lifted her
head triumphantly; the smile had flashed forth again upon her face, and
the dark eyes were all aglow. A thought had come to her--so convincing,
so unanswerable, so joyously uplifting, that she paused to marvel at
having been blind to it so long. Clear as noon sunlight on Mount Gabriel
was it what she should pray for.
What _could_ it ever have been, this one crowning object of prayer, but
the return of The O’Mahony?
As her mental vision adapted itself to the radiance of this revelation,
the abstracted glance which she had allowed to wander over the bay was
arrested by a concrete object. Two hundred yards from the water’s edge
a strange vessel had heaved to, and was casting anchor. Kate could hear
the chain rattling out from the capstan, even as she looked.
The sight sent all prayerful thoughts scurrying out of her head. The
presence of vessels of the size of the new-comer was in itself most
unusual at Muirisc. But Kate’s practiced eye noticed a strange novelty.
The craft, though thick of beam and ungainly in line, carried the
staight running bowsprit of a cutter, and in addition to its cutter
sheets had a jigger lug-sail. The girl watched these eccentric sails as
they were dropped and reefed, with a curious sense of having seen
them somewhere before--as if in a vision or some old picture-book of
childhood. Confused memories stirred within her as she gazed, and held
her mind in daydream captivity. A figure she seemed vaguely to know,
stood now at the gunwale.
The spell was rudely broken by a wild shout from the cliff close above
her. On the instant, amid a clatter of falling stones and a veritable
landslide of sand, rocks and turf, a human figure came rolling,
clambering and tumbling down the declivity, and ran toward her, its arms
stretched and waving with frantic gestures, and emitting inarticulate
cries and groans as it came.
The astonished girl instinctively raised the box in her hands, to use
it as a missile. But, lo, it was old Murphy who, half stumbling to his
knees at her feet, fiercely clutched her skirts, and pointed in a frenzy
of excitement seaward!
“Wid yer own eyes look at it--it, Miss Katie!” he screamed. “Ye can see
it yerself! It’s not dr’aming I am!”
“It’s drunk ye are instead, thin, Murphy,” said the girl, sharply,
though in great wonderment.
“Wid joy! Wid joy I’m drunk!” the old man shouted, dancing on the sands
and slippery sea-litter like one possessed, and whirling his arms about
his head.
“Murphy, man! What ails ye? In the name of the Lord--what--”
The browned, wild-eyed, ragged old madman had started at a headlong pace
across the wet waste of weeds, and plunged now through the breakers,
wading with long strides--knee-deep, then immersed to the waist. He
turned for an instant to shout back: “I’ll swim to him if I drown for
it! ’Tis the master come back!”
The girl fell to her knees on the sand, then reverently bowed her head
till it rested upon the box before her.