“There, then, is the Feale River, girleen, and that is Listowel town beyond on the slope. You know where you are now?”
“Oh, yes, sir! That’s Cnucanor Hill in front of us.”
“Here then we part.” His voice was deep and low. “The dawn is here, and we cannot keep cocks from crowing, for the cocks have to crow in every dawn. You will have to hurry now, Ellen Oge.” He ran his hand gently down the nape of her neck and gave her a little push between the shoulders. “Run, a leanaveen! your mother will be waiting for you.”
Lightly, then, she ran down onto the bridge. And away out on the island farm a cock crew, and his clarion was as keen and as sad as the horns of fairyland. At the middle arch she turned to wave farewell. The road was empty. The whole hillside was empty—empty. The desolate dawn-light showed the emptiness of all life, all hope, all fear—even all despair. But not to Ellen Oge Molouney.
Listen now! The distance she had come was forty-odd miles as the crow flies, and she had done it in less than four hours. Whatever else is true, that is true.
Wait ye! That morning her mother, Norrey Walsh, rose at the dawn, a full hour before her usual time. She built up the fire out of its rakings, put on the kettle to boil, laid the table with two cups, a fresh soda loaf, and a pat of new butter; and she chose two of the brownest eggs and put them in the skillet, ready for boiling. And then she went out into the morning, and there was the sun rising over the Drum of Glouria; and there was her daughter Ellen running to her round the last twist of the bohereen.
She was a quiet woman always, and not effusive. She only put an arm round her little one’s shoulders. “I knew you’d be here early, Ellen Oge. Last night I dreamed of you and you on the road. You’ll be killed an’ all with the tiredness.”
Ellen Oge snuggled into her mother’s side. “Sure, it was only a step, Mother—just beyond there.”
“Forty Irish miles, girl. You got a lift, maybe?”
“No. But, Mother, how could it be that far? Sure, I only left after the dead of night—and the sun only up now.” She went on with a rush. “And, oh, Mother! wait till I tell you about the grand man showed me the way as far as the Feale Bridge. I was—I was frightened of my Uncle John; and he came along the bank of the Maine River and him whistling ‘The Blackbird.’ ”
“God save us all,” said her mother, and then quietly: “What like of man was he, colleen?”
“Maybe you’d be knowing him, Mother. He knew you, and Uncle Shawn—long ago, he said, long ago. And oh, dear! I forgot to ask his name. He was a man who would reach up to the collar-brace there, and he had a limp in one leg—but he could lep the moon. And a hurley with a lead boss, and, oh! he had a great big scar one side of his face—there. Would you be knowing him, Mother?”
“God rest his soul, daughtereen! He was your own father.”
“My father—my father that’s dead?”
“These fifteen years, Ellen Oge. But dead or alive the Molouneys can take care of their own. Thanks be to God.”
III
Hugh Forbes was the first to break the ensuing silence.
“We will wear them as a shield upon our arms, as a shield upon our hearts, for Love is stronger than Death,” he murmured deeply. “Our dead, too, will take care of us, if we do not fail them.”
The silence grew deeper, and in it could almost be heard the feet of the dead—our dead. No symbolism had been implied in the story, but the wandering girl, the wandering woman—the Irish knew her as the woman Erin, under many names. Something moved about us, someone whispered, or something—I think, now, it was Margaid MacDonald in a lucid resignation.
“The secret place in your heart no woman can touch—but the woman Erin.”
I cannot explain the overpowering clairvoyance that held us, as if we knew finally and for all time, and were set there waiting for what was to come.
And upon that sense of expectancy came the footsteps.
When Big Paudh, our sentry, shoved open the french window and the cloaked woman came in we were held as in a trance. By her carriage she was young, and the long, dark-blue, hooded Irish cloak made her face a pale oval. A sod of peat flickered and flamed, and before she could turn from it I saw that that face was of extraordinary pallor and, to us at the moment, of unearthly beauty. And her hair at the edge of the hood was paler than pale yellow.
Immediately behind her was Sean Glynn, but, I think, no one looked at him until he spoke.
“God save all here!” It was the customary salute, but his voice was beyond mere bitterness.
“God save ye kindly!” Mickeen Oge’s voice, by contrast, was kindly warm.
Hugh Forbes was sitting up on the glass-topped table. “Ye are welcome. How did ye come?”
“Across the lough,” said Sean. “This is Nuala Kierley, Hugh. She is tired.” He turned to Big Michael Flynn. “You have a room ready, Michael?”
“I have, agrah.”
The woman turned to the big man. “I will go to it, please.” Her tone was low and entirely without color.
“Very well so, acuid. Come now!”
She had not been one minute amongst us, but she left a dumbness behind her and a new weight on our minds.
I found myself looking at Archibald MacDonald. He was half-turned in his chair, his eyes on the door by which the woman had disappeared, and, as I looked at him, his shoulders shivered as if a cold breath had blown over or in him. And at that moment I knew that, whereas we had been under the spell of our own imaginings, he alone had looked upon the woman herself and sensed her brokenness.
Sean Glynn pulled himself out of the slough and came across to the fireplace. “Sorry these scoundrels caught you, Margaid,” he said. “The English papers are making a sensation of your disappearance.”
“They would,” she murmured.
He looked at his friend, Archibald MacDonald, but that man seemed still to be staring at something within his own mind.
“Any news from Dublin?” asked Hugh Forbes.
“A good deal. There is some real talk of a truce at last—it may come soon. . . . But it will come too late for one man.”
“Bad as that, Sean?”
“It could not be worse—worse than any of us imagined, Hugh.”
Hugh turned down a thumb.
Sean nodded. “Any day—today—tonight.”
“Does Nuala Kierley know?”
“She does—now.”
“My God!” said Hugh Forbes.
And there I remembered why Sean Glynn had gone to Dublin. As he himself had said, to set a woman of his own blood at a man to get at another man who was a traitor. Was Nuala Kierley that woman? Who, then, and where was the other man this night? We had no mercy on that venomous snake, the Irish traitor. A shiver went over me as it had gone over the Highlandman.
I looked at Sean Glynn. He was looking into the red heart of the fire, and the wavering light of it washed over his set and rigid face. This was not the cheerful man we had known, the light-hearted gallant man who took life and even love gaily. And there I noticed that not once since he had entered the room had his eyes rested on the fair girl who was his sweetheart. It was not the moment for cheerful greetings, and a man does not carry his affection on his sleeve, but Sean had made no difference between Joan Hyland and the rest of us—in a sense, indeed, he had almost noticed her less, as if held by a pitiless embarrassment. The girl must have observed this, too. Her eyes were on him intently. He refused her eyes. But she said no word.
His voice lifted almost angrily. “Is there a drink in this house at all?”
Mickeen Oge’s chair protested as he kicked it back.
“Make it deep, Mickeen Oge.”
I could see that there was a bitter taste in his mouth. Sean Glynn had been through the mill. Margaid MacDonald at my side knew that, too: uncannily she had sensed the undercurrent that was in our minds and speech. But she was not sorry for Sean Glynn. For the woman was she sorry. Suddenly she leaned forward in her chair and accused us, her
voice queerly strained.
“You are not human. You have no mercy on woman. You would use her—use her—use her—buy and sell her, body and soul.”
“Never her inviolate soul,” said dark Kate O’Brien quietly.
And I had a selfish thankfulness that I was only a plain fighting man, after all.
Chapter V
I
A BONNY river, the Ullachowen!” said Hugh Forbes. “Are you going fishing with Margaid MacDonald?”
“Like to go yourself?” I queried back sourly.
“I might, then—and be damned to you!”
“By the way, Hugh,” Mickeen Oge inquired sort of casually, “are you still thinking of taking that trip to Scotland—for a red-haired woman? I haven’t heard you mention it for some time.”
“I wonder, now,” mused Hugh quizzically, “if that there mountain ever thought of coming to Mahomet?”
“A volcano topped with a red flame,” said Mickeen Oge. “But who is our Mahomet? Hugh Forbes or—it never could be Owen Jordan?”
“To hell with that fellow!”
“Amen!” said I. “He is a damn fool to be listening to ye.”
The three of us were leaning on the drystone wall of Sean Glynn’s kitchen garden and, down below us, the translucent heat haze of the afternoon had settled sleepily into the bottom of the valley.
It was getting on for mid-July now, and the last time we had been here was late May. In the seven or so weeks between we had marched and fought and countermarched the full circle, but not yet had the game been played to a finish. We had dealt most thoroughly with one truck-load of Black-and-Tans at Coolbeigh Bridge in Glounagrianaan; we had skirmished for two days with a company of Highlanders over Garabhmore Mountain and back again; we had blown up culverts, trenched roads, burned barracks; and now we had closed the circle for the final round by what was left of us with what was left of the enemy in Castletown. And we were very weary.
I turned to move away from the wall, but had not taken a stride before Captain MacDonald and his sister Margaid emerged from the kitchen door beyond the garden. Behind them came Big Paudh Moran draped with fishing tackle, and Sean Glynn brought up the rear.
“We’re for trying the evening rise, Hugh,” called our prisoner as he came down the path towards us.
“To be sure, Archie. A guard—or the usual four hours?”
“Oh! your damn guard disturb the fish and argue like hell. I’ll take four hours with Sean Glynn.”
“Very good! The boys have taught you to swear nice and handy.”
“I’ll drown him in Poul Tarabh if need be,” said Sean.
Captain MacDonald looked hale and hearty, apparently without a care in the world. For seven weeks he had had the time of his life, as Hugh Forbes had promised: the pick of the best fishing waters in Munster and plenty of time to try them—early in the mornings, late in the long summer evenings, and, in secluded areas, at any time he pleased. And neither God nor the Devil had helped him to escape. Very early on he had discovered that if he wanted to fish he had either to be subject to a particularly strict guard or give an implicit understanding to return to the column within four hours, and on good fishing water he always took the four hours. The relations between himself and his captors were little short of brotherly, and he spent most of his time warmly arguing with them on every subject under the sun.
Sean Glynn looked more like a prisoner than his friend, the Highland officer. Sean was set and serious, no longer debonair. He had rejoined the column at Lough Aonach, bringing broken Nuala Kierley with him; had brought her to his own place at Leaccabuie some days later, kept her there for a week; and then she had gone away—where, no one knew. And now he was back with us, but his nerve had not come back with him. He was drinking more than he should, and that was a bad sign, for, in our game, drink and life did not go long together. And it was plain to every one of us, his friends, that he was avoiding Joan Hyland. There was trouble there, but whether it was because of Nuala Kierley or not we could not be sure. One thing I did know: Nuala Kierley was a woman who might change the mind in any man, and the change might not be for good.
Hugh Forbes turned to Margaid MacDonald. “Take four hours, Margaid?” He had a friendly way of using her Christian name that, for some reason, did not appeal to me.
She looked us over one by one, and shook her head frowningly. “No—I’ll want a guard.” Never once, strangely enough or naturally enough, had she given parole.
“Little irreconcilable!” he half-teased her. “And who is going to guard your guard?”
Margaid MacDonald did not look hale or happy. For a month, up to that night at Lough Aonach, she had seemed to enjoy the life: the rambling ways, the unconventional living, the new experiences, the care and gentleness of fighting men; and she had a fine pleasant way of criticizing us for our good, as if she had business with us. But then, and quite suddenly, she had sobered down and seemed to shut herself away in some secret chamber of her own; growing queerly listless, despondent, losing all interest in us. And she no longer criticized anything. She was thinner too, her eyes sunken a little, and her face, that never had much color, had now no color at all. But her chin remained obstinate as ever—obstinate and dour to withstand patiently some ill of the mind.
We were worried about her. Only the previous night we three leaders had decided to run her up to Dublin at the first opportunity, and from there slip her across to her own Highlands. And yet, we felt that it was not the physical hardship that was wearing on her. We had been very careful of her comfort, taking her across country by easy marches, using a dog-cart for night work when the roads were open, feeding her on the best that the country offered, and giving her the companionship of pleasant girls at every resting-place. But the despondency on her—a queer kind of hopelessness—had only settled deeper down. She was as gloomy—well! she was as gloomy as myself.
Hugh Forbes brought his hands smartly together. “Fine! I have the evening to myself. I’ll guard you.”
She smiled at him, as she always did. “No, Hugh! I want to fish this evening. I’ll take Paudh—and Owen Jordan.”
He turned his back to her, facing me, one eyebrow down and a sardonic sympathy about his mouth.
“A woman has to have her own way in some things. I can’t help you, small son.”
II
So we went fishing.
Captain MacDonald and Sean Glynn went off by themselves down the river; Margaid MacDonald, Paudh and myself worked upwards. And, though she had come out to fish, the girl did very little fishing. I did none at all. I handed my rod over to Big Paudh, and he went hurriedly round a corner to some choice pool of his own.
I sat on a low grass bank, my feet on fresh-water sand, smoked slowly, and watched the girl work down a long run. She had a nice supple action of the wrist, and the taut readiness of a strung bow. The sun swinging down into the mouth of the glen shone all about her and set a curl aflame, and the strong flow of the stream ridged up her knee-boots and made a pleasant gurgle.
She fished the run out, caught two sizable trout, and came slowly back by the margin of the pool as if she intended going over it a second time. But, opposite where I sat, she halted, her back to me, and for a full minute looked up at the bulk of Leaccamore, whose swelling brown breast was faintly brushed over with the early budding purple of the heather. Then she laid her rod carefully along the gravel and came across to me. She sat down within a yard, loosed the wicker creel off her shoulders, and leaned an elbow on it.
“Thought you came out to fish?”
“Time enough.” She nodded towards her rod. “You try it.”
“No. I’m tired of fishing.”
“I am tired, too,” she agreed simply.
And the two of us—poor simpletons—sat there moodily contemplating the evening glory washing over the breast of the great hill that changed not from its immobility under any caress of sun or wind. I could feel her melancholy.
“I am sorry you are unhappy,” I
said at last.
“Who said I was unhappy?”
Instead of answering that half-sullen question I said:
“It will not be long now.”
“Until you kill or be killed?”
“More than that. There is talk—more than talk—of a truce.”
“There is always talk.”
“But since King George’s good-will speech in Belfast—of all places—it is certain that secret negotiations are going on with the leaders in Dublin. Any day, now, there may be a truce—and you free to go.”
“And you?”
“If peace comes I’ll go back to New Mexico.”
“To marry that wife?”
“What wife?”
“The wife—you remember—the wife to rear sons to carry on.”
“Oh, that! All foolish talk.”
“And pretty Grania Grace that Paudh—”
“To hell with her!” I exploded ungallantly.
“Don’t you like her?”
“Nor any other woman,” I lied bitterly. “I hate every bone of them.”
“And they hate every bone of you,” she gave back, her eyes suddenly blazing at me.
“I know that.”
“When did you find out?”
“It’s plain enough,” I said heavily.
She turned away from me then, leaned both elbows on her fishing creel, and cupped her chin in her hands.
“I hate this awful country.” She barely breathed the words.
“So do I—sometimes.”
The Quiet Man and Other Stories Page 6