The Quiet Man and Other Stories (originally published as Green Rushes)
by Maurice Walsh
First published in 1933 and 1935
This edition published by Reading Essentials
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
THE QUIET MAN AND OTHER STORIES
(originally published as Green Rushes)
by Maurice Walsh
Introduction
SIX men and four girls spent a night of June, during the Black-and-Tan war, at the Anglers’ Hotel above Lough Aonach in a certain mountainous district of southwestern Ireland, and something of their life stories, strangely intermingled, is told in the following pages.
* * *
The six men were:
Hugh Forbes, “The Small Dark Man,” ex-British officer, and famous guerilla leader of a Flying Column of the I.R.A. (Irish Republican Army);
Michael Flynn, his second in command, known as “Mickeen Oge Flynn,” unconditional republican, celibate by inclination, half priest by training;
Owen Jordan, doctor to the Flying Column, Irish-American and son of a Fenian;
Paddy Bawn Enright, ex-prize fighter, known as “The Quiet Man” because he hoped to end his days in “a quiet small little place on a hillside,” and was more likely to finish them in a Black-and-Tan ambush;
Sean Glynn, gentleman farmer, and intelligence officer to the I.R.A.; and
Archibald MacDonald, a Highlandman, captain in the Seaforth Highlanders, an old friend of Sean Glynn’s, inveterate angler, and a prisoner to the Flying Column because of that failing.
The girls were:
Margaid MacDonald, sister to Captain MacDonald, and a prisoner with him;
Joan Hyland, a young Irish girl, sweetheart to Sean Glynn;
Kate O’Brien, niece of a British major-general and as fervid a republican as Mickeen Oge Flynn; and
Nuala Kierley, secret-service agent to the I.R.A., broken in the cause.
The love story of Hugh Forbes is told in another book, “The Small Dark Man.” How the others fell victim to the Matriarchy—in whose Serfdom all men are—is told here.
PART ONE
“Then Came the Captain’s Daughter”
“Then came the Captain’s daughter, the Captain of the Yeos,
Saying, ‘Brave United Irishman, we’ll ne’er again be foes;
A thousand pounds I’ll give to thee, and fly from home with me;
I’ll dress myself in man’s attire and fight for liberty.’”
Chapter I
I
IT was a fine morning that morning, and I was feeling fine too. Fine but tired—too tired even to smoke.
I propped my weathered rifle against the drystone wall, leaned elbows on the coping stones, and let my eyes wander lazily down and across this valley that I had not seen before. A pleasant valley below stone-ribbed, arid brown slopes of heather, and, somehow, though six thousand miles away, it reminded me of a sheltered fold in the stony ridges behind San Lorenzo where I had once shot an Arizona white-tailed deer of nine points. I sighed in a rather agreeable melancholy. Would I ever see New Mexico again—its austere peaks, its distances, its colors? Any day, now, a Black-and-Tan bullet might find me; and my head would sink on the stock of my rifle—as I had seen heads sink—and my soul go winging six thousand miles, if I had any soul to wing.
From the open kitchen door behind me, across the little fruit garden, came the deep murmur of men’s voices and an occasional high-pitched, southern Irish laugh. The remnant of the Flying Column was having its breakfast in there, and the odor of bacon and eggs made my mouth water. In ten minutes or so Mickeen Oge Flynn would be out to relieve me, but, at that, I was not feeling so very hungry after the long night march. Every tension had slacked down comfortably, and the only desire that abided was the desire to sleep: to sleep, and to wake up sleepily, and sleepily to watch life slide by softly—for a time. And I was not sorry for myself any more.
A pleasant May morning, with a soft flow of air breathing sweetness from the hawthorn and setting little white clouds drifting over the bald head of Leaccamore Mountain across the valley; and, though the blackbirds were silent, the larks were asoar and singing; and, as an undertone to the larks’ high song, there came up the green slope the drawn-out murmur of water running over shallows—a sleepy, slow, ruminative half-chuckle-half-sigh aloof with a gentle lonesomeness in tune with a quiet mood.
There would be fish in water like that, I considered lazily: speckled trout gormandizing on the May fly, or, maybe, a clean-run salmon up from Shannon River. I could see wide pools between clumps of hazel in the valley bottom, and the young sun made bright wimplings down the long shallows. A small interest came alive in me. Myself—but I would have one good sleep first—myself and Big Paudh Moran would, like enough, be trying a cast or two in the heel of the evening.
A stoutish short man, wearing a black coat and a bowler hat, climbed over a clay fence a hundred yards below, and walked up the slope towards me. He did not look dangerous, but in our deadly game one could never be sure; so I whistled two sharp notes and slipped hand to the warm flat butt under oxter.
“Morrow, sir!” he saluted loudly a safe distance out. “A fine morning, thank God!”
“It is,” I agreed. “Anything else on your mind?”
“No—well, yes, sir! I came out to see—” he hesitated—“I came out to see Sean Glynn.”
Sean Glynn of Leaccabuie was the upland farmer who was giving the Flying Column its breakfast this morning; one of our own, a friendly man, and any man coming to see him might be friendly too. Whoever he was, he was not of the fighting line, for there was no tan on his round, smooth-shaven, perspiring face, and he wore the shopman’s clothes—not the belted trench coat and felt hat of the columns. Only one man of us insisted on wearing a bowler hat: Matt Tobin, the thresher, and he wore it because, he said, it brought him luck. It had two bullet-holes through it.
A voice spoke behind me: “All right, Doctor!” Sean Glynn came down the path between the berry bushes. “You’re welcome, John. Come away up.”
The townsman came to the hand-gate in the wall, his side-glance aware of me. “Commandant Forbes I’m looking for,” he said. “There’s an urgent thing I have to tell him.”
I looked at Sean, and Sean nodded. “You knew where to look, John. Hugh Forbes is having his breakfast. Come away in.”
He preceded the visitor to the kitchen door, called his name through, and came back to my side at the wall.
“John Molouney—keeps a pub at Castletown, eight miles over the shoulder there,” he told me. “One of my intelligence squad, and as sound a man as ever drew breath.”
Sean Glynn was a young man and dark, with a college education and no side, a man of gay and gallant spirit. He was our chief intelligence officer in the south. Farming many acres in the valley bottom, sheep-grazing all the moors behind us, he had obvious business interests in every market town in Munster; and there he gleaned information in his own quiet way, and kept the lines of communication open between the Flying Columns and Dublin headquarters.
His voice took on weight now. “ ’Twas no small thing brought John Molouney over Leaccamore so early in the morning.”
“Pity he came, then,” I grumbled. “We are not in this place for big things, but for a rest only.”
&nb
sp; “God send it to ye!” wished Sean Glynn, a shade derisively. Rest was one of the things rarely vouchsafed to the Flying Columns.
I yawned deeply. “That a fishing river down there?”
“That’s the Ullachowen.” The quiet pride in his voice made the answer adequate. “See that pool—the crooked one with the blackthorn at the elbow? Only last week my friend, Captain Archie MacDonald, landed a twenty-pounder at the tail of it. He commands the English garrison at Castletown—Seaforth Highlanders.”
“And a friend of yours?”
“Even so, though he is one of the enemy.”
“And with a company of his kilts to guard him while he fished?”
“Devil the one—except his sister, and she gaffed the salmon as neat as ninepence.”
“Glory be to all the patient little gods of fishing!” I gave praise, “for this happy valley, where an officer of the enemy may catch twenty-pounders with no one to guard him but his sister. Is she a friend of yours, too?”
He shook his dark head and grinned at me. “She has red hair, but she is a darling girl all the same, and her brother a decent man. Actually he is one of my oldest friends. You know, I lived in Scotland for fifteen years, where my dad was in the revenue service, and Archie MacDonald and I were through Edinburgh Varsity together. I like him—he’s quiet, and hates this damned war.”
“Does he know you’re in it—you black spy?”
“Not from me. He is not easily fooled, but he says nothing.”
“Foolish of him to bring a girl here.”
“My fault. He asked me if it was safe, and I said it was. He is liked in Castletown and holds the scales even. His Highlanders haven’t put a wet finger on man, woman, chick or child—except, it might be, a bit of courting amongst the girls.”
“ ’Tis a way girls and Highlanders have,” said I.
Mickeen Oge Flynn, our second in command, came out to relieve me then, and cocked his sardonic blue eye at me.
“Hugh Forbes has a pleasant bit of news for you, Owen.”
“To hell with his news!” I said, and went in to breakfast with Sean.
II
Some of the boys were still at the long white-boarded table; others, aslouch on the rush-seated chairs, smoked comfortably; and Big Paudh Moran sat on the flagged floor, his back to the lime-washed wall, and nursed my canvas-covered fishing-rod.
“You big ape!” I snatched the rod and pinned him with the butt. “The next time I catch your broken paws on it I’ll shove it down your yellow thrapple.”
“Jasus, Owen Jordan!” his great hands deprecatory. “Sure I was only keeping it out o’ harm’s way.”
“Some bastard might step on it, sure enough,” said Paddy Bawn Enright.
Paddy Bawn was he whom we called the Quiet Man: smallish, with a trick of hunching one shoulder, and the steadfast eyes of the fighting man below craggy brows. He had spent fifteen hectic years in the States, had been one of the best welterweights of his time, and had returned home to Kerry to seek peace on a few hillside acres; and the peace he was likely to find was the final peace of death—death in a Black-and-Tan ambush.
Stout Johanna Dillane, Sean Glynn’s housekeeper—Sean was not married—bending over a bastable oven set on the embers of the peat fire, spoke in the soft Munster voice.
“Sit in to your breakfast, mo grah geal an’ lave be.” She laid a plate of bacon and eggs at my elbow and reached for her brown teapot.
As I ate I kept my precious rod in the crook of a knee. And I kept casting side glances at Commandant Hugh Forbes, our famous Small Dark Man. He was sitting at one side of the big inglenook, his chair on two legs, and, as ever, his ancient felt hat was pulled aslant over his eyes. I could see only the tip of his eagle nose, the line of his mouth that was at once sensitive and grim above the broad chin. He was not smoking, so I knew there was something on his mind. The messenger from Castletown sat on his far side, sipping steaming hot tea from a mug, his brow still warm.
“John Molouney here brought us a trifle o’ news, Oweneen.” Hugh Forbes’s deep voice was no more than a murmur, his lips barely moved, his head did not move at all.
I did not like the way he called me Oweneen—little Owen. There was not a man of us who was not taller than he was—and years older, too—but, when he was minded to put a hard task on us, he used the affectionate diminutives he would use to children, us his own beloved little ones. He was one of the very greatest guerilla leaders in all that upheaved and tortured land.
“A trifle of news, Oweneen Jordan,” he said again.
“Keep it to yourself, da,” said I, and refilled my mouth. I feared that news.
“You’ll hear it, son.”
But I did not hear it for yet awhile.
The shrill of two sharp whistles came from the rear of the house, and every one of us stiffened where we sat, except Sean Glynn, who started to his feet and hurried outside; and Johanna Dillane drew in her breath and exhaled it in a moan that had a cadence of fear and patience.
Sean was back in less than a minute. “No danger,” he said quickly, yet his voice held anxiety. “Captain MacDonald of the Seaforths and his sister. They come up for the fishing nearly every week.”
Hugh Forbes was on his bowed legs. “How far off?”
“Coming in off the highroad—ten minutes.”
“Ever come in the house?”
“Often, for a cup of tea and a talk, but not in the mornings. There’s room for ye all in the loft—”
“If we don’t want a swarm about your ears. Right! Out with you, Paddy Bawn, and warn the outposts to hole up in the hayshed. Come, boys!” His eyes rested on me. “Go on with your breakfast, Owen—a friend of the family up for the day’s fishing.” He grimaced and swore warmly. “Damn Archie MacDonald! There was never anything in his head except fishing.”
“You know him?” I wondered.
“Fine that. We were drunk together in Cairo and climbed the great Pyramid on our ears. You’ve met—but no! He was never on the Salonika front.”
It was on the Salonika front I first met Hugh Forbes, that time the Tenth Irish Division guarded the retreat down the Vardar Valley and I did thirty-six straight hours with the wounded. And, now, we were no longer Allied officers, and Captain MacDonald was an enemy.
In three minutes the kitchen was empty except for Johanna Dillane and myself. She was hurriedly removing the last traces of the extra breakfasts, and I went on eating slowly and with no appetite.
The sound of voices came round the side of the house and proceeded across the kitchen garden to the gate in the drystone wall. A man’s voice, a woman’s, and Sean Glynn’s—pleasant voices all. I found myself thinking that the educated English accent was a patently cultivated one, not like these, which had a softly pleasant draw. I could hear every word.
“You are up early, Archie—and wasting your time?”
“Not a promising day—for the fishing, I mean. All right for you chaw-bacons.”
“It will cloud up after the turn of the day,” promised the Irishman, who knew it would not.
“Thought I’d give it a whirl, anyway. I may not have many more opportunities.”
“Sorry to hear that, old man. Clearing out?”
“I am. But there are still a few fish in the Scottish waters where I’m going—you remember them, Sean—and no risk from you darn Sinn Feiners.” And then in a voice carelessly suggestive. “And, by the way, Hugh Forbes and his column are reported—only a Castletown rumor—somewhere in the hills, Glounagrianaan or here.”
“What would bring him up here?” Sean was skeptical.
“Mischief; what else? If you do see him—oh, yes! you may see him, my quiet fellow—tell him I hope to punch his silly black head and drink one last drink with him before the handcuffs snap.”
“Well, oh, well, soldier man!” Sean was not to be drawn one least inch.
I grinned to myself. No doubt at all but Hugh Forbes would be ready for that last drink, but this Highland off
icer would need to be the very hell of a good man to punch our small dark man’s head—drunk or sober.
“I would just love to meet the great Hugh Forbes.” That was the lady speaking.
“I’ll warn him against you—if I see him,” said Sean playfully. “They say he’s fond of red hair, Margaid. Ay! red as ever was. Isn’t it, Archie?”
And I smiled at that, too. At the moment the great Hugh would be looking at her through a chink in the loft lattice. And why not take a peep myself? I leaned across the table and lifted a corner of the window-curtain.
The man was tall, lean-faced, weather-brown, enduring, wearing heather tweeds and a two-peaked deer-stalker; a big fishing creel on his hip and, under his arm, a trouting rod that, I judged, would set up to twelve feet—length enough for a whale. His sister, back turned, was a slender slip of a girl in riding-breeches and knee-boots.
I had an uncanny feeling then. Suddenly I felt remote and lonely. This was a sheltered woman, and I was looking at her out of another dimension in which a terrible ideal of freedom drove us through days and nights of fear. This woman I would never know, this woman would never know me; for I was shut off from the ordinary ways of life, and there was nothing to do but fight unyielding to an end.
I suppose it was the intentness of my gaze that made her turn round to face the house, and brought her eyes directly to the lifted corner of the window-curtain. She seemed to be looking right into my eyes. Hers was the narrow type of face, broad in the brow, long in the chin, with very little color below the clear skin. Her eyes were either very dark or had very dark lashes, and a band of dark red hair showed under a tweed hat that carried a twist of flies.
“Elizabeth Queen, alive in the flesh,” I murmured to myself.
She turned away slowly, and I let the curtain drift into place. A few more words, a parting salute, and the thump of Sean Glynn’s farm boots coming up the path. Soldier, girl and Sinn Fein farmer had talked to each other in a tone of easy friendship.
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