X
THE HOUSE OF FAHY
Nothing could shake the conviction of Maria that she was by nature andby practice a house dog. Every one of Shreelane's many doors had, atone time or another, slammed upon her expulsion, and each one of themhad seen her stealthy, irrepressible return to the sphere that she feltherself so eminently qualified to grace. For her the bone, thriftilyinterred by Tim Connor's terrier, was a mere diversion; even thefruitage of the ashpit had little charm for an accomplished _habitue_of the kitchen. She knew to a nicety which of the doors could be burstopen by assault, at which it was necessary to whine sycophantically;and the clinical thermometer alone could furnish a parallel for herperception of mood in those in authority. In the case of Mrs. Cadoganshe knew that there were seasons when instant and completeself-effacement was the only course to pursue; therefore when, on acertain morning in July, on my way through the downstairs regions to myoffice, I saw her approach the kitchen door with her usualcircumspection, and, on hearing her name enunciated indignantly by mycook, withdraw swiftly to a city of refuge at the back of the hayrick,I drew my own conclusions.
Had she remained, as I did, she would have heard the disclosure of acrime that lay more heavily on her digestion than her conscience.
"I can't put a thing out o' me hand but he's watching me to whip itaway!" declaimed Mrs. Cadogan, with all the disregard of her kind forthe accident of sex in the brute creation. "'Twas only last night Iwas back in the scullery when I heard Bridget let a screech, and therewas me brave dog up on the table eating the roast beef that was aftercoming out from the dinner!"
"Brute!" interjected Philippa, with what I well knew to be a simulatedwrath.
"And I had planned that bit of beef for the luncheon," continued Mrs.Cadogan in impassioned lamentation, "the way we wouldn't have tointhrude on the cold turkey! Sure he has it that dhragged, that all wecan do with it now is run it through the mincing machine for theMajor's sandwiches."
At this appetising suggestion I thought fit to intervene in thedeliberations.
"One thing," I said to Philippa afterwards, as I wrapped up a bottle ofYanatas in a Cardigan jacket and rammed it into an already apoplecticGladstone bag, "that I do draw the line at, is taking that dog with us.The whole business is black enough as it is."
"Dear," said my wife, looking at me with almost clairvoyantabstraction, "I could manage a second evening dress if you didn't mindputting my tea-jacket in your portmanteau."
Little, thank Heaven! as I know about yachting, I knew enough to makepertinent remarks on the incongruity of an ancient 60-ton hireling anda fleet of smart evening dresses; but none the less I left a pair ofindispensable boots behind, and the tea-jacket went into my portmanteau.
It is doing no more than the barest justice to the officers of theRoyal Navy to say that, so far as I know them, they cherish no mistakenenthusiasm for a home on the rolling deep when a home anywhere elsepresents itself. Bernard Shute had unfortunately proved an exceptionto this rule. During the winter, the invitation to go for a cruise inthe yacht that was in process of building for him hung over me like acloud; a timely strike in the builder's yard brought a respite, and, infact, placed the completion of the yacht at so safe a distance that Iwas betrayed into specious regrets, echoed with an atrocious sincerityby Philippa. Into a life pastorally compounded of Petty Sessions andlawn-tennis parties, retribution fell when it was least expected.Bernard Shute hired a yacht in Queenstown, and one short weekafterwards the worst had happened, and we were packing our things for acruise in her, the only alleviation being the knowledge that, whetherby sea or land, I was bound to return to my work in four days.
We left Shreelane at twelve o'clock, a specially depressing hour for astart, when breakfast has died in you, and lunch is still remote. Mylast act before mounting the dogcart was to put her collar and chain onMaria and immure her in the potato-house, whence, as we drove down theavenue, her wails rent the heart of Philippa and rejoiced mine. It wasa very hot day, with a cloudless sky; the dust lay thick on the whiteroad, and on us also, as, during two baking hours, we drove up and downthe long hills and remembered things that had been left behind, andgrew hungry enough to eat sandwiches that tasted suspiciously of roastbeef.
The yacht was moored in Clountiss Harbour; we drove through the villagestreet, a narrow and unlovely thoroughfare, studded with public-houses,swarming with children and poultry, down through an ever-growing smellof fish, to the quay.
Thence we first viewed our fate, a dingy-looking schooner, and the hopeI had secretly been nourishing that there was not wind enough for herto start, was dispelled by the sight of her topsail going up. Morethan ever at that radiant moment--as the reflection of the white sailquivered on the tranquil blue, and the still water flattered all itreproduced, like a fashionable photographer--did I agree with GeorgeHerbert's advice, "Praise the sea, but stay on shore."
"We must hail her, I suppose," I said drearily. I assailed the _EileenOge_, such being her inappropriate name, with desolate cries, butachieved no immediate result beyond the assembling of some villagechildren round us and our luggage.
"Mr. Shute and the two ladies was after screeching here for the boatawhile ago," volunteered a horrid little girl, whom I had already twicefrustrated in the attempt to seat an infant relative on our bundle ofrugs. "Timsy Hallahane says 'twould be as good for them to stayashore, for there isn't as much wind outside as'd out a candle."
With this encouraging statement the little girl devoted herself to thealternate consumption of gooseberries and cockles.
All things come to those who wait, and to us arrived at length the gigof the _Eileen Oge_, and such, by this time, were the temperature andthe smells of the quay that I actually welcomed the moment that foundus leaving it for the yacht.
"Now, Sinclair, aren't you glad we came?" remarked Philippa, as theclear green water deepened under us, and a light briny air came coollyround us with the motion of the boat.
As she spoke, there was an outburst of screams from the children on thequay, followed by a heavy splash.
"Oh stop!" cried Philippa in an agony; "one of them has fallen in! Ican see its poor little brown head!"
"'Tis a dog, ma'am," said briefly the man who was rowing stroke.
"One might have wished it had been that little girl," said I, as Isteered to the best of my ability for the yacht.
We had traversed another twenty yards or so, when Philippa, in a voicein which horror and triumph were strangely blended, exclaimed, "She'sfollowing us!"
"Who? The little girl?" I asked callously.
"No," returned Philippa; "worse."
I looked round, not without a prevision of what I was to see, andbeheld the faithful Maria swimming steadily after us, with her brownmuzzle thrust out in front of her, ripping through the reflections likea plough.
"Go home!" I roared, standing up and gesticulating in fury that I wellknow to be impotent. "Go home, you brute!"
Maria redoubled her efforts, and Philippa murmured uncontrollably--
"Well, she _is_ a dear!"
Had I had a sword in my hand I should undoubtedly have slain Philippa;but before I could express my sentiments in any way, a violent shockflung me endways on top of the man who was pulling stroke. Thanks toMaria, we had reached our destination all unawares; the two men,respectfully awaiting my instructions, had rowed on with disciplinedsteadiness, and, as a result, we had rammed the _Eileen Oge_ amidships,with a vigour that brought Mr. Shute tumbling up the companion to seewhat had happened.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" he said, with his mouth full. "Come in; don'tknock! Delighted to see you, Mrs. Yeates; don't apologise. There'snothing like a hired ship after all--it's quite jolly to see thesplinters fly--shows you're getting your money's worth. Hullo! who'sthis?"
This was Maria, feigning exhaustion, and noisily treading water at theboat's side.
"What, poor old Maria? Wanted to send her ashore, did he? Heartlessruffian!"
Thus was Maria i
nstalled on board the _Eileen Oge_, and the element offatality had already begun to work.
There was just enough wind to take us out of Clountiss Harbour, andwith the last of the out-running tide we crept away to the west. Theparty on board consisted of our host's sister, Miss Cecilia Shute, MissSally Knox, and ourselves; we sat about in conventional attitudes indeck chairs and on adamantine deck bosses, and I talked to Miss Shutewith feverish brilliancy, and wished the patience-cards were not in thecabin; I knew the supreme importance of keeping one's mind occupied,but I dared not face the cabin. There was a long, almost imperceptibleswell, with little queer seabirds that I have never seen before--andtrust I never shall again--dotted about on its glassy slopes. Thecoast-line looked low and grey and dull, as, I think, coast-linesalways do when viewed from the deep. The breeze that Bernard hadpromised us we should find outside was barely enough to keep us moving.The burning sun of four o'clock focussed its heat on the deck; Bernardstood up among us, engaged in what he was pleased to call "handling thestick," and beamed almost as offensively as the sun.
"Oh, we're slipping along," he said, his odiously healthy face glowinglike copper against the blazing blue sky. "You're going a great dealfaster than you think, and the men say we'll pick up a breeze oncewe're round the Mizen."
I made no reply; I was not feeling ill, merely thoroughly disinclinedfor conversation. Miss Sally smiled wanly, and closing her eyes, laidher head on Philippa's knee. Instructed by a dread freemasonry, I knewthat for her the moment had come when she could no longer bear to seethe rail rise slowly above the horizon, and with an equal rhythmicslowness sink below it. Maria moved restlessly to and fro, panting andyawning, and occasionally rearing herself on her hind-legs against theside, and staring forth with wild eyes at the headachy sliding of theswell. Perhaps she was meditating suicide; if so I sympathised withher, and since she was obviously going to be sick I trusted that shewould bring off the suicide with as little delay as possible. Philippaand Miss Shute sat in unaffected serenity in deck chairs, and stitchedat white things--teacloths for the _Eileen Oge_, I believe, things inthemselves a mockery--and talked untiringly, with that singularindifference to their marine surroundings that I have often observed inladies who are not sea-sick. It always stirs me afresh to wonder whythey have not remained ashore; nevertheless, I prefer their tranquiland total lack of interest in seafaring matters to the blatantVikingism of the average male who is similarly placed.
Somehow, I know not how, we crawled onwards, and by about five o'clockwe had rounded the Mizen, a gaunt spike of a headland that starts uplike a boar's tusk above the ragged lip of the Irish coast, and the_Eileen Oge_ was beginning to swing and wallop in the long sluggishrollers that the American liners know and despise. I was very far fromdespising them. Down in the west, resting on the sea's rim, a purplebank of clouds lay awaiting the descent of the sun, as seductively andas malevolently as a damp bed at a hotel awaits a traveller.
The end, so far as I was concerned, came at tea-time. The meal hadbeen prepared in the saloon, and thither it became incumbent on me toaccompany my hostess and my wife. Miss Sally, long past speech,opened, at the suggestion of tea, one eye, and disclosed a look ofhorror. As I tottered down the companion I respected her good sense.The _Eileen Oge_ had been built early in the sixties, and headroom wasnot her strong point; neither, apparently, was ventilation. I began bydashing my forehead against the frame of the cabin door, and then,shattered morally and physically, entered into the atmosphere of thepit. After which things, and the sight of a plate of rich cake, Iretired in good order to my cabin, and began upon the Yanatas.
I pass over some painful intermediate details and resume at the momentwhen Bernard Shute woke me from a drugged slumber to announce thatdinner was over.
"It's been raining pretty hard," he said, swaying easily with the swingof the yacht; "but we've got a clinking breeze, and we ought to makeLurriga Harbour to-night. There's good anchorage there, the men say.They're rather a lot of swabs, but they know this coast, and I don't.I took 'em over with the ship all standing."
"Where are we now?" I asked, something heartened by the blessed word"anchorage."
"You're running up Sheepskin Bay--it's a thundering big bay; Lurriga'sup at the far end of it, and the night's as black as the inside of acow. Dig out and get something to eat, and come on deck---- What! nodinner?"--I had spoken morosely, with closed eyes--"Oh, rot! you're onan even keel now. I promised Mrs. Yeates I'd make you dig out. You'reas bad as a soldier officer that we were ferrying to Malta one time inthe old Tamar. He got one leg out of his berth when we were going downthe Channel, and he was too sick to pull it in again till we got toGib!"
I compromised on a drink and some biscuits. The ship was certainlysteadier, and I felt sufficiently restored to climb weakly on deck. Itwas by this time past ten o'clock, and heavy clouds blotted out thelast of the afterglow, and smothered the stars at their birth. A wetwarm wind was lashing the _Eileen Oge_ up a wide estuary; the waveswere hunting her, hissing under her stern, racing up to her, crestedwith the white glow of phosphorus, as she fled before them. I dimlydiscerned in the greyness the more solid greyness of the shore. Themainsail loomed out into the darkness, nearly at right angles to theyacht, with the boom creaking as the following wind gave us anadditional shove. I know nothing of yacht sailing, but I canappreciate the grand fact that in running before a wind the boom isremoved from its usual sphere of devastation.
I sat down beside a bundle of rugs that I had discovered to be my wife,and thought of my whitewashed office at Shreelane and its bare butstationary floor, with a yearning that was little short of passion.Miss Sally had long since succumbed; Miss Shute was tired, and hadturned in soon after dinner.
"I suppose she's overdone by the delirious gaiety of the afternoon,"said I acridly, in reply to this information.
Philippa cautiously poked forth her head from the rugs, like a tortoisefrom under its shell, to see that Bernard, who was standing near thesteersman, was out of hearing.
"In all your life, Sinclair," she said impressively, "you never knewsuch a time as Cecilia and I have had down there! We've had to wash_everything_ in the cabins, and remake the beds, and _hurl_ the sheetsaway--they were covered with black finger-marks--and while we weredoing that, in came the creature that calls himself the steward, to askif he might get something of his that he had left in Miss Shute's'birthplace'! and he rooted out from under Cecilia's mattress a pair ofsocks and half a loaf of bread!"
"Consolation to Miss Shute to know her berth has been well aired," Isaid, with the nearest approach to enjoyment I had known since I cameon board; "and has Sally made any equally interesting discoveries?"
"She said she didn't care what her bed was like; she just dropped intoit. I must say I am sorry for her," went on Philippa; "she hatedcoming. Her mother made her accept."
"I wonder if Lady Knox will make her accept _him_!" I said. "How oftenhas Sally refused him, does any one know?"
"Oh, about once a week," replied Philippa; "just the way I kept onrefusing you, you know!"
Something cold and wet was thrust into my hand, and the aroma of dampdog arose upon the night air; Maria had issued from some lair at thesound of our voices, and was now, with palsied tremblings, slowlytrying to drag herself on to my lap.
"Poor thing, she's been so dreadfully ill," said Philippa. "Don't sendher away, Sinclair. Mr. Shute found her lying on his berth not able tomove; didn't you, Mr. Shute?"
"She found out that she was able to move," said Bernard, who hadcrossed to our side of the deck; "it was somehow borne in upon her whenI got at her with a boot-tree. I wouldn't advise you to keep her inyour lap, Yeates. She stole half a ham after dinner, and she mighttake a notion to make the only reparation in her power."
I stood up and stretched myself stiffly. The wind was freshening, andthough the growing smoothness of the water told that we were makingshelter of some kind, for all that I could see of land we might as wellhave been in mid-
ocean. The heaving lift of the deck under my feet,and the lurching swing when a stronger gust filled the ghostly sails,were more disquieting to me in suggestion than in reality, and, to mysurprise, I found something almost enjoyable in rushing throughdarkness at the pace at which we were going.
"We're a small bit short of the mouth of Lurriga Harbour yet, sir,"said the man who was steering, in reply to a question from Bernard. "Ican see the shore well enough; sure I know every yard of wather in thebay----"
As he spoke he sat down abruptly and violently; so did Bernard, so didI. The bundle that contained Philippa collapsed upon Maria.
"Main sheet!" bellowed Bernard, on his feet in an instant, as the boomswung in and out again with a terrific jerk. "We're ashore!"
In response to this order three men in succession fell over me while Iwas still struggling on the deck, and something that was eitherPhilippa's elbow, or the acutest angle of Maria's skull, hit me in theface. As I found my feet the cabin skylight was suddenly illuminatedby a wavering glare. I got across the slanting deck somehow, throughthe confusion of shouting men and the flapping thunder of the sails,and saw through the skylight a gush of flame rising from a pool offire, around an overturned lamp on the swing-table. I avalanched downthe companion and was squandered like an avalanche on the floor at thefoot of it. Even as I fell, McCarthy the steward dragged the strip ofcarpet from the cabin floor and threw it on the blaze; I found myself,in some unexplained way, snatching a railway rug from Miss Shute andapplying it to the same purpose, and in half-a-dozen seconds we hadsmothered the flame and were left in total darkness. The most strikingfeature of the situation was the immovability of the yacht.
"Great Ned!" said McCarthy, invoking I know not what heathen deity, "itis on the bottom of the say we are? Well, whether or no, thank God wehave the fire quinched!"
We were not, so far, at the bottom of the sea, but during the next tenminutes the chances seemed in favour of our getting there. The yachthad run her bows upon a sunken ridge of rock, and after a period offeminine indecision as to whether she were going to slide off again, orroll over into deep water, she elected to stay where she was, and thegig was lowered with all speed, in order to tow her off before the tideleft her.
My recollection of this interval is but hazy, but I can certify that inten minutes I had swept together an assortment of necessaries andknotted them into my counterpane, had broken the string of myeye-glass, and lost my silver matchbox; had found Philippa'scurling-tongs and put them in my pocket; had carted all the luggage ondeck; had then applied myself to the manly duty of reassuring theladies, and had found Miss Shute merely bored, Philippaenthusiastically anxious to be allowed to help to pull the gig, andMiss Sally radiantly restored to health and spirits by the cessation ofmovement and the probability of an early escape from the yacht.
The rain had, with its usual opportuneness, begun again; we stood in itunder umbrellas, and watched the gig jumping on its tow-rope like a dogon a string, as the crew plied the labouring oar in futile endeavour tomove the _Eileen Oge_. We had run on the rock at half-tide, and theincreasing slant of the deck as the tide fell brought home to us thepleasing probability that at low water--viz. about 2 A.M.--we shouldroll off the rock and go to the bottom. Had Bernard Shute wished toshow himself in the most advantageous light to Miss Sally he couldscarcely have bettered the situation. I looked on in helpless respectwhile he whom I had known as the scourge of the hunting field, theterror of the shooting party, rose to the top of a difficult positionand kept there, and my respect was, if possible, increased by thepresence of mind with which he availed himself of all critical momentsto place a protecting arm round Miss Knox.
By about 1 A.M. the two gaffs with which Bernard had contrived to shoreup the slowly heeling yacht began to show signs of yielding, and, inapproved shipwreck fashion, we took to the boats, the yacht's crew inthe gig remaining in attendance on what seemed likely to be the lastmoments of the _Eileen Oge_, while we, in the dinghy, sought for theharbour. Owing to the tilt of the yacht's deck, and the roughness ofthe broken water round her, getting into the boat was no mean feat ofgymnastics. Miss Sally did it like a bird, alighting in the inevitablearms of Bernard; Miss Shute followed very badly, but, by innate forceof character, successfully; Philippa, who was enjoying every moment ofher shipwreck, came last, launching herself into the dinghy with mysilver shoe-horn clutched in one hand, and in the other the tea-basket.I heard the hollow clank of its tin cups as she sprang, and appreciatedthe heroism with which Bernard received one of its corners in hiswaist. How or when Maria left the yacht I know not, but when I appliedmyself to the bow oar I led off with three crabs, owing to the devotionwith which she thrust her head into my lap.
I am no judge of these matters, but in my opinion we ought to have beenswamped several times during that row. There was nothing but thephosphorus of breaking waves to tell us where the rocks were, andnothing to show where the harbour was except a solitary light, amasthead light, as we supposed. The skipper had assured us that wecould not go wrong if we kept "a westerly course with a little northingin it;" but it seemed simpler to steer for the light, and we did so.The dinghy climbed along over the waves with an agility that was saferthan it felt; the rain fell without haste and without rest, the oarswere as inflexible as crowbars, and somewhat resembled them in shapeand weight; nevertheless, it was Elysium when compared with theafternoon leisure of the deck of the _Eileen Oge_.
At last we came, unexplainably, into smooth water, and it was at aboutthis time that we were first aware that the darkness was less densethan it had been, and that the rain had ceased. By imperceptibledegrees a greyness touched the back of the waves, more a drearinessthan a dawn, but more welcome than thousands of gold and silver. Ilooked over my shoulder and discerned vague bulky things ahead; as Idid so, my oar was suddenly wrapped in seaweed. We crept on; Mariastood up with her paws on the gunwale, and whined in high agitation.The dark objects ahead resolved themselves into rocks, and without moreado Maria pitched herself into the water. In half a minute we heardher shaking herself on shore. We slid on; the water swelled under thedinghy, and lifted her keel on to grating gravel.
"We couldn't have done it better if we'd been the Hydrographer Royal,"said Bernard, wading knee-deep in a light wash of foam, with thepainter in his hand; "but all the same, that masthead light is someone's bedroom candle!"
We landed, hauled up the boat, and then feebly sat down on ourbelongings to review the situation, and Maria came and shook herselfover each of us in turn. We had run into a little cove, guided by thephilanthropic beam of a candle in the upper window of a house about ahundred yards away. The candle still burned on, and the anaemicdaylight exhibited to us our surroundings, and we debated as to whetherwe could at 2.45 A.M. present ourselves as objects of compassion to theowner of the candle. I need hardly say that it was the ladies whodecided on making the attempt, having, like most of their sex, acourage incomparably superior to ours in such matters; Bernard and Ihad not a grain of genuine compunction in our souls, but we failed innerve.
We trailed up from the cove, laden with emigrants' bundles, stumblingon wet rocks in the half-light, and succeeded in making our way to thehouse.
It was a small two-storied building, of that hideous breed ofarchitecture usually dedicated to the rectories of the Irish Church; wefelt that there was something friendly in the presence of a pair ofcarpet slippers in the porch, but there was a hint of exclusiveness inthe fact that there was no knocker and that the bell was broken. Thelight still burned in the upper window, and with a faltering hand Iflung gravel at the glass. This summons was appallingly responded toby a shriek; there was a flutter of white at the panes, and the candlewas extinguished.
"Come away!" exclaimed Miss Shute, "it's a lunatic asylum!"
We stood our ground, however, and presently heard a footstep within, ablind was poked aside in another window, and we were inspected by anunseen inmate; then some one came downstairs, and the hall-door wasopened by a smal
l man with a bald head and a long sandy beard. He wasattired in a brief dressing-gown, and on his shoulder sat, like anangry ghost, a large white cockatoo. Its crest was up on end, its beakwas a good two inches long and curved like a Malay kris; its clawsgripped the little man's shoulder. Maria uttered in the background alow and thunderous growl.
"Don't take any notice of the bird, please," said the little mannervously, seeing our united gaze fixed upon this apparition; "he'sextremely fierce if annoyed."
The majority of our party here melted away to either side of thehall-door, and I was left to do the explaining. The tale of ourmisfortunes had its due effect, and we were ushered into a smalldrawing-room, our host holding open the door for us, like a nightmarefootman with bare shins, a gnome-like bald head, and an unclean spiritswaying on his shoulder. He opened the shutters, and we sat decorouslyround the room, as at an afternoon party, while the situation wasfurther expounded on both sides. Our entertainer, indeed, favoured uswith the leading items of his family history, amongst them the factsthat he was a Dr. Fahy from Cork, who had taken somebody's rectory forthe summer, and had been prevailed on by some of his patients to permitthem to join him as paying guests.
"I said it was a lunatic asylum," murmured Miss Shute to me.
"In point of fact," went on our host, "there isn't an empty room in thehouse, which is why I can only offer your party the use of this roomand the kitchen fire, which I make a point of keeping burning allnight."
He leaned back complacently in his chair, and crossed his legs; then,obviously remembering his costume, sat bolt upright again. We owed theguiding beams of the candle to the owner of the cockatoo, an old Mrs.Buck, who was, we gathered, the most paying of all the patients, andalso, obviously, the one most feared and cherished by Dr. Fahy. "Shehas a candle burning all night for the bird, and her door open to lethim walk about the house when he likes," said Dr. Fahy; "indeed, I maysay her passion for him amounts to dementia. He's very fond of me, andMrs. Fahy's always telling me I should be thankful, as whatever he didwe'd be bound to put up with it!"
Dr. Fahy had evidently a turn for conversation that was unaffected bycircumstance; the first beams of the early sun were lighting up the repchair covers before the door closed upon his brown dressing-gown, andupon the stately white back of the cockatoo, and the demoniacpossession of laughter that had wrought in us during the interviewburst forth unchecked. It was most painful and exhausting, as suchlaughter always is; but by far the most serious part of it was thatMiss Sally, who was sitting in the window, somehow drove her elbowthrough a pane of glass, and Bernard, in pulling down the blind toconceal the damage, tore it off the roller.
There followed on this catastrophe a period during which reasontottered and Maria barked furiously. Philippa was the first to pullherself together, and to suggest an adjournment to the kitchen firethat, in honour of the paying guests, was never quenched, and,respecting the repose of the household, we proceeded thither with astealth that convinced Maria we were engaged in a rat hunt. The bootsof paying guests littered the floor, the debris of their last repastcovered the table; a cat in some unseen fastness crooned a war song toMaria, who feigned unconsciousness and fell to scientific research inthe scullery.
We roasted our boots at the range, and Bernard, with all a sailor'sgift for exploration and theft, prowled in noisome purlieus and emergedwith a jug of milk and a lump of salt butter. No one who has not beena burglar can at all realise what it was to roam through Dr. Fahy'sbasement storey, with the rookery of paying guests asleep above, and tofeel that, so far, we had repaid his confidence by breaking a pane ofglass and a blind, and putting the scullery tap out of order. I havealways maintained that there was something wrong with it before Itouched it, but the fact remains that when I had filled Philippa'skettle, no human power could prevail upon it to stop flowing. For allI know to the contrary it is running still.
It was in the course of our furtive return to the drawing-room that wewere again confronted by Mrs. Buck's cockatoo. It was standing inmalign meditation on the stairs, and on seeing us it rose, without aword of warning, upon the wing, and with a long screech flung itself atMiss Sally's golden-red head, which a ray of sunlight had chanced toillumine. There was a moment of stampede, as the selected victim,pursued by the cockatoo, fled into the drawing-room; two chairs wereupset (one, I think, broken), Miss Sally enveloped herself in a windowcurtain, Philippa and Miss Shute effaced themselves beneath a table;the cockatoo, foiled of its prey, skimmed, still screeching, round theceiling. It was Bernard who, with a well-directed sofa-cushion, drovethe enemy from the room. There was only a chink of the door open, butthe cockatoo turned on his side as he flew, and swung through it like awoodcock.
We slammed the door behind him, and at the same instant there came athumping on the floor overhead, muffled, yet peremptory.
"That's Mrs. Buck!" said Miss Shute, crawling from under the table;"the room over this is the one that had the candle in it."
We sat for a time in awful stillness, but nothing further happened,save a distant shriek overhead, that told the cockatoo had sought andfound sanctuary in his owner's room. We had tea _sotto voce_, andthen, one by one, despite the amazing discomfort of the drawing-roomchairs, we dozed off to sleep.
It was at about five o'clock that I woke with a stiff neck and anuneasy remembrance that I had last seen Maria in the kitchen. Theothers, looking, each of them, about twenty years older than their age,slept in various attitudes of exhaustion. Bernard opened his eyes as Istole forth to look for Maria, but none of the ladies awoke. I wentdown the evil-smelling passage that led to the kitchen stairs, and,there on a mat, regarding me with intelligent affection, was Maria; butwhat--oh what was the white thing that lay between her forepaws?
The situation was too serious to be coped with alone. I flednoiselessly back to the drawing-room and put my head in; Bernard'seyes--blessed be the light sleep of sailors!--opened again, and therewas that in mine that summoned him forth. (Blessed also be the lightstep of sailors!)
We took the corpse from Maria, withholding perforce the language andthe slaughtering that our hearts ached to bestow. For a minute or twoour eyes communed.
"I'll get the kitchen shovel," breathed Bernard; "you open thehall-door!"
A moment later we passed like spirits into the open air, and on into alittle garden at the end of the house. Maria followed us, licking herlips. There were beds of nasturtiums, and of purple stocks, and ofmarigolds. We chose a bed of stocks, a plump bed, that looked likeeasy digging. The windows were all tightly shut and shuttered, and Itook the cockatoo from under my coat and hid it, temporarily, behind abox border. Bernard had brought a shovel and a coal scoop. We duglike badgers. At eighteen inches we got down into shale and stones,and the coal scoop struck work.
"Never mind," said Bernard; "we'll plant the stocks on top of him."
It was a lovely morning, with a new-born blue sky and a light northerlybreeze. As we returned to the house, we looked across the wavelets ofthe little cove and saw, above the rocky point round which we hadgroped last night, a triangular white patch moving slowly along.
"The tide's lifted her!" said Bernard, standing stock-still. He lookedat Mrs. Buck's window and at me. "Yeates!" he whispered, "let's quit!"
It was now barely six o'clock, and not a soul was stirring. We wokethe ladies and convinced them of the high importance of catching thetide. Bernard left a note on the hall table for Dr. Fahy, a beautifulnote of leave-taking and gratitude, and apology for the broken window(for which he begged to enclose half-a-crown). No allusion was made tothe other casualties. As we neared the strand he found an occasion tosay to me:
"I put in a postscript that I thought it best to mention that I hadseen the cockatoo in the garden, and hoped it would get back all right.That's quite true, you know! But look here, whatever you do, you mustkeep it all dark from the ladies----"
At this juncture Maria overtook us with the cockatoo in her mouth.
Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. Page 10