The Land of Strong Men

by A. M. Chisholm

  CHAPTER XIX

  INTRODUCING MRS. FOLEY

  That spring, as soon as the frost was out of the ground, Angus did hispromised work for Faith Winton, while a couple of carpenters ran up acottage, stable and outbuilding. With this extra work, Angus was morethan busy. The Frenches did nothing to help. They seemed to regard thegirl's actions as folly of which the sooner she was cured the better.

  "I am getting a companion, an old friend of mine," Faith told Angus oneday as the cottage neared completion. "It may be cowardly, but I don'twant to live here alone."

  "Of course it would be lonesome," he agreed. "It will be nice for you tohave a girl friend."

  She stared at him for a moment and laughed. "Oh, very nice. We'll movein some time next week."

  A week passed and another, and Angus, though he had heard that the newranch was occupied, had had no opportunity to visit it. Then one eveninghe saddled Chief and rode over.

  He saw smoke rising from the chimney, and when he dismounted andascended the steps he heard a strange swishing and thumping, accompaniedby a melancholy moaning which put him in mind of a dog scratching a soreear. Wondering what on earth the racket was about, he knocked.

  The noise ceased, heavy footsteps utterly unlike Faith Winton's crossedthe floor, the door opened and a strange lady confronted him. She wasshort, but extremely broad of beam. Her hair, streaked with gray, hadonce been a fiery red. She had keen, aggressive blue eyes, a short,turned-up nose, and a wide mouth with perfect white teeth. Her sleeveswere rolled above her elbows, showing a pair of solid, red, freckledforearms, and in one hand she carried a mop. Amazed at this apparition,Angus gaped at her.

  "Well," said the lady in accents which left no doubt of her nationality,"well, misther man, an' phwat will yez be wantin'?"

  "Is Miss Winton at home?" Angus asked.

  "She is _nat_."

  "She's living here now, isn't she?"

  "She is."

  "Which way has she gone?"

  "I dunno."

  "Then I'll wait," Angus decided.

  "Outside!" the lady also decided.

  Bang! The door shut in Angus' face. Immediately the thump and swishbegan again, though the moaning obligato did not. Angus sat down on thesteps and filled his pipe, but found he had no matches. For some momentshe sat there, sucking the cold stem and wondering where the deuce FaithWinton had picked up this woman. No doubt she and her girl friend hadgone for a walk. Well, he might as well be doing something.

  He went around to the back of the house where he had hauled a pile ofwood, picked up an old ax and began to split. Once the lady of the mopcame to the back door and took a long look at him. By and by, tiring ofsplitting and wanting a smoke very badly, he put on his coat and went tothe door to request a match. The lady of the mop met him on thethreshold.

  "Could you give me--" he began, but she cut him short.

  "I could _nat_," she said grimly. "Who asked ye to do ut? On yer way!"

  "But--"

  "They's nawthin' comin' to ye," the lady asserted. "Ut's no handoutyez'll get here."

  "But I don't want--"

  "Yez want coin, do yez? Divil th' cint will yez get!"

  "No, no," Angus protested, "you're all wrong. I want--"

  "An' do I care phwat yez want, ye black-avised bo?" the lady shouted ina tops'l-yard-ahoy bellow. "Beggars on harrseback I've heerd iv, butye're the first I've seen. On yer way; or th' flat iv me hand and th'toe iv me boot is phwat ye'll dhraw, for all the bigness iv ye, ye long,lazy, herrin'--bel--"

  "Give me a match!" Angus roared through this wealth of personaldescription, despairing of making his want known otherwise. "I want amatch, that's all."

  "A match?" the lady exclaimed.

  "Sure, to light my pipe with," Angus told her. "I'm not a hobo. I'mworking the place for Miss Winton."

  "And why couldn't ye say so before?" she demanded, frowning at him.

  "Because you wouldn't give me a chance. You wouldn't let me get in aword edgeways."

  "God save us all, an' maybe I wouldn't then," she admitted. "Is Mackayth' name iv ye? Come in an' sit down. A match, is ut? Here ye are,then."

  Angus sat down and lit his pipe, while she stared at him.

  "Faix, then, I wouldn't have knowed ye at all, at all," she said.

  "Well, you never saw me before."

  "Be description, I mane. She said--"

  "Miss Winton?"

  "Who else? Yez do be big enough, but homelier than she said."

  "Did she say I was homely?"

  "Did I say so?" the lady returned, and her blue eyes twinkled.

  "Not exactly. But--"

  "Then don't be puttin' words into a woman's mouth, for God knows they'sno need iv ut," she told him. "An' so ye do be th' Mackay lad I've beenhearin' iv, that found her whin she was a little, lost wan, an' shootedthat murtherin' divil iv a grizzly bear!"

  Angus acknowledged his identity and diffidently inquired the lady'sname.

  "Me name, is ut? They's times whin I have to stop an' think. Mary KellyI was born, an' me first was Tim Phelan. A slip iv a gyurl I was then,an' little more when they waked him. Dhrowned he was, but sure watherwas always fatal to his fam'ly, an' maybe it was all for the best, asFather Paul said whin he married me to Dan Shaughnessy after a dacintyear. But he died himself, the holy man, before Dan fell off the roof,an' it was Father Kerrigan said the words over me an' Pether Finucane.It was Dinney Foley brought me th' news iv th' premachure blast that tukPether, an' I married him. Dinny was me last. So me name's Mrs. Foley."

  "And is Mr. Foley here on the ranch?" Angus asked.

  "I hope not," Mrs. Foley returned with apprehension. "Givin' him th'best iv ut, he's wid th' blessid saints. A voylent man was poor Dinney,as broad as ye, but not so high, an' a lion wid a muckstick. But phwat'sa muckstick to knives? Sure thim dirty dagoes is born wid thim in theirhands. Though he stretched thim right an' left wid th' shovel, he couldnot gyard his back. So whin I buried him I quit. No, I've had no luck atall keepin' men." And Mrs. Foley sighed, pursed up her lips and shookher head at Angus.

  "You do seem to have been out of luck," Angus sympathized gravely. "Haveyou known Miss Winton long."

  "As long as she is. I nursed her wid me own b'y that died."

  "And have you known this girl friend of hers, long, too?"

  "Phwat gyurl friend?"

  "The one who is here with her--her companion."

  "I'm her," Mrs. Foley returned. "Where do ye get this gyurl friendthing, anyway?"

  But Angus could not tell. He had put his own construction on FaithWinton's words. At any rate Mrs. Foley seemed a capable companion.

  "Well, I hope you'll like it here," he said. "It may be a little lonely,but there's nothing to be afraid of. Bears seldom come down on thebenchlands now, and there are no hoboes worse than I am."

  "Afraid, is ut?" Mrs. Foley snorted. "An' wud I that has lived wid fourmen be afraid iv a bear? I am not even afeard iv a mouse. Anyways, forbears an' bos they's a dog."

  "I thought I heard him whining when I came to the front door."

  "Whining?" Mrs. Foley ejaculated.

  "Well, sort of moaning as if he was scratching a sore ear. And then hehowled."

  "Howled!" Mrs. Foley cried. "Th' nerve iv ye!"

  "What's the matter?" Angus asked. "It sounded like a lonesome pup tome."

  "Did ut, indade!" snorted Mrs. Foley. "Ye big, on-mannerly blackgyard,that was me, singin'!"

  "Singing?" Angus gasped.

  "Singin'," Mrs. Foley repeated firmly. "An' a sweet song, too, a raleIrish song. Color blind in th' ears, ye are, ye long lummix! May th'divil--But phwat's the use? Th' ign'rance iv ye is curse enough!"

  "What's the matter, Mary?" Faith Winton's voice asked from the door."You're not quarrelling with Angus Mackay, I hope."

  "I wud not lower mesilf!" Mrs. Foley replied loftily, "though he said mesingin' was like the howlin's iv a purp."

  "No, no," Angus protested, "I didn't mean that. I heard your sin
ging,too, and it was fine."

  "Yez may be a willin' liar, but yer work is coorse," Mrs. Foley informedhim. "Well, I do not set up f'r to be wan iv thim divas. I can raise th'keen fine over a corpse, but me singin' is privut an' so intended. So Iforgive ye, young man, more be token I can see it's herself thinks it'sa joke on the old gyurl. For shame, Miss Faith! An' me that's crooned yein yer cradle many's the long night!"

  But there was a twinkle in Mrs. Foley's blue eyes, and Angus began tosuspect that her bark was much worse than her bite.

  "Mary was my nurse," Faith told him when they were seated in the livingroom. "She really thinks the world of me, spoils me--and bullies me. Butwhat do you think of my humble home? You haven't seen it since it wasfinished."

  Angus approved the room and its furnishings. There was space to move,and a fireplace. The chairs were comfortable and strong; there was aspacious couch, a well-filled bookcase, a piano and a banjo case.

  "I like it," he said. "It's not cluttered up with a lot of junk.Everything looks as if it could be used. That's what I like. Is that abanjo and do you play it?"

  "Yes, I play it."

  "I like a banjo better than a piano."

  "You Philistine! Why?"

  "Perhaps because I'm a Philistine. I don't know just why. All I know isthat I _do_ like it better. A piano is sort of machine-made music to me;but with a banjo the player seems to be making the music himself, as ifhe was singing."

  "You mean there is more personal expression."

  "Maybe. I don't know anything about music. But a banjo seems to _talk_.It's the thing for the tunes that everybody knows."

  "You and Kipling agree, then. You know his 'Song of the Banjo':

  "And the tunes that mean so much to you alone-- Common tunes that make you choke and blow your nose, Vulgar tunes that bring the laugh that hides the groan-- I can rip your very heartstrings out with those."

  "Yes, that's the idea. He's right enough there."

  "And how about:

  "'But the word, the word is mine When the order moves the line, And the lean, locked ranks go roaring down to die,'?"

  she asked curiously.

  "The only music to fight with and to die to is the pipes," Angus said.

  "The pipes? You mean the bagpipes."

  "Of course."

  "Some people," Faith laughed, "would say that death would be a blessedrelief from the sound of them."

  Angus smiled grimly. "I know. There are plenty of jokes about the pipes.But they are no joke to the men who meet the men played into battle tothe skirl of them."

  "I believe you are right in that," Faith admitted. "I haven't a drop ofScotch blood, so far as I know. But I have heard a pipe band playing'Lochaber No More' behind a gun carriage which bore a dead soldier; andI have seen the Highland regiments march past the colors at a review, to'Glendarual' and 'Cock o' the North,' and heaven knows what gatheringsand pibrochs, and I have stood up on my toes and my back hair has feltcrinkly. I own up to it. But I love the banjo. It's a little sister ofthe lonesome."

  She took the instrument, a beautiful concert model, from its case, keyedit for a moment and spoke through low, rippling chords.

  "Sometimes at night I pick it by the hour--oh, very softly, so as not todisturb anybody--not any particular tune--just odds and ends,anything--and my thoughts go away off wool gathering and I am quitehappy. Can you understand such foolishness?"

  "Yes," Angus replied seriously. "I can't play anything, or sing, butthere are times when I want to--if you can understand that."

  She nodded, her fingers brushing the strings. "Yes, I know. Often theperson who knows least about music loves it best--down in his soul."

  "Play something," Angus urged.

  And so Faith Winton played. At first she played consciously; but as thedaylight faded and the twilight came she let the strings talk. Bits ofold half-forgotten melodies rippled from her fingers, changing,shifting, mingling and merging, now familiar or half familiar and thenquite strange; but always tugging, tugging at the heartstrings, as if inthe gut and parchment there dwelt a wayward, whimsical soul, half-sadand half-merry, whimpering and chuckling in the growing darkness.Suddenly the music swept into a rolling, thunderous march, shifted to arollicking Irish jig, and stopped abruptly with a crash of chords and aringing of gut and iron.

  "Don't stop," Angus said.

  "But I've played myself out--for this time. It's dark--quite dark--and Ididn't notice. I must get a light."

  "I must go. I have never heard playing like that--never. I'll take muchof it home with me."

  "Come and get more any time," she laughed. "When shall I see you again?"

  "To-morrow or next day. There are several things to be done here. If Ican't come myself, I'll send Gus."

  "Try to come yourself," said Faith Winton.

  Angus, as he rode homeward, found himself dwelling on these words.