He returned with a kit bag in either hand and gun-case under arm, and we went out under the arch to the station yard. The men at the entrance moved readily aside, and one of them said in a friendly way, “You’re welcome back, Major. Safe home to ye!” I no longer felt an alien.
I looked for the motorcar. There was none. The car was the Irish jaunting-car, or the “side-car,” as it is called in Munster, and the light from the station entrance showed a fifteen-hand pony in the shafts, a tousle-maned beast with astonishingly clean forelegs. It was bridle-held by a small urchin, and stood as quiet as an old sheep.
“That’s the boy, Jurreen! She didn’t try and run on you?”
“Faith, and ’tis me wouldn’t let the bastard,” piped Jurreen confidently.
While I climbed onto my side of the swaying car, Paddy Bawn stowed the luggage behind the dashboard, and then came and deftly fixed the rug round my feet.
“Hould her, you devil, Jurreen!” he warned as he sprang up on his own side; but the mare did not even flick an ear.
“Here, lad!” I called and felt for a shilling.
“Thank you, sir—and God spare you!”
“Hup, mare!”
And I gripped the front rail. But the mare turned quietly, and walked sedately out of the station yard into the darkness. The car had only a single right-side light, and that one of those ancient patterns of candle lamps. All round and close about us was the blackness of the winter night, and the dim candlepower no more than hinted that our way led into a tunnel of trees arching over the road, and that the road was uphill.
The mare paced along stolidly, and there was no breeze, nor any sound except the muted crunch of rubbered wheels and the regular clippety-clop of iron-shod hooves; and I noted, not for the first time, that the sound of a horse walking is not easily distinguished from the sound of a horse in a hand gallop. We seemed to be in no hurry. I leaned an elbow on the cushioned well of the car and spoke to Paddy Bawn.
“How far is it to Leaccabuie? About four miles?”
“Four miles, sir,—and a hangover. Soon as the girl here gets past the rise of the hill she won’t be long.”
I liked his voice, strong and a little thick, with its occasional quaint touch of Americanese.
“I am sorry that Sean Glynn is not so well.” I spoke as if the knowledge were old.
“Well? Faith! he’s as lively as a trout—an’ you’ll see that for yourself, Major.”
There was no doubting the sincerity of his tone. It told me what I wanted to know—that physically, at least, Sean Glynn was sound enough.
“Do you live at Leaccabuie?”
“Sort of land-steward to Sean Glynn, for the time.”
“I see. And what about that quiet place—you know—that quiet place you were on the lookout for?”
Paddy Bawn leaned across and spoke confidentially.
“ ’Tis waiting for me, Major—’tis waiting for me this long time, but it wasn’t convenient for me to leave Leacca. Still an’ all, God is good! and—I’m dam’ glad you’ve come, Major.”
“Yes, Paddy Bawn?”
“You’re needed,” said Paddy Bawn.
And that is all he did say. He wanted me to reach my own conclusions. But to me he had implied very clearly that some duty or loyalty kept him at Leacca, and that he looked to me to act the part of some providence.
And then we came to the top of the rise and out into the open; and the mare livened up. Paddy Bawn, who had no whip, merely flicked the reins, and she let herself go smooth as an eel. I know something about trotting horses and pacers, but that unkempt mare surprised me. I couldn’t see her action in the dark, yet I knew it was not the high-kneed action of the show ring, but that long low swoop with the reach at the end that eats up the miles. I tucked in the rug, pulled up the collar of my coat, and let body go with the easy swing and roll that is so pleasant in a well-balanced side-car.
“She is good,” I called across.
“Not that bad. She’s done Leacca station in fifteen minutes and a hurry on us.”
“Not in the dark?”
“Och, the road is as safe as a feather-bed—barrin’ an ould divil of an ass on the ramble.”
Presently, I noticed that the night was not what one would call cold—not cold with the searching rawness that comes off the North Sea, but with the brisk sharpness of sea water in June weather. And out in the open I could use my eyes. We were swinging westward along the northern crest of a valley that opened out wide and deep below us and was speckled plentifully with specks of light. Across the valley was the loom of a great hill, and on the summit of it the wan glimmer of snow below a star-spread sky of extraordinary green. Cloud islands sailed that green and gave one a weird perspective of a mystic translucent ocean in a dimension of its own.
“Quite a population down there,” I said.
“Good land all down the Ullachowen Glen. ’Twill be a rale purty sight tomorrow night when the Christmas candles are lit.”
“Christmas candles?”
“To be sure. Haven’t ye the likes in Scotland?”
“No-o. I don’t think so.”
“Glory be to God! Christmas Eve, comin’ on night, wax candles—the length of your arm—are lit by the man-of-the-house in every window. All the night long, and not one of them quenched before first Mass on Christmas morning. ’Tis to light the Mother of God and she in her need.”
And I contemplated in imagination that valley and hillside illuminated in every window all through the dark of the winter night to ensure that the Mother—any mother—any woman—should not go shelterless in her need.
In less than twenty minutes we swung in through an open gateway and up a lifting roughish avenue, swerved past the bole of some big tree, and curved into the wide cobbled yard of Leaccabuie House—a long, flat, two-storied façade below a thickness of rye thatch, with a broad arched door at the head of three curved steps. I remembered that comfortable house.
Paddy Bawn had the door open before I was well alighted.
“Leave the baggage to me, sir. Come away in.”
The room I entered through that door was hall, living-room, kitchen, all in one. It was long and wide, but not too high, with a flagged floor and a ceiling heavily beamed, and from each beam hung a flitch of bacon finely smoked and glistening with salt. A big turf fire burned on open hearth at one end, and, at the other, an enclosed stairway led to the upper floor. A black oak dresser, loaded with blue and brown delft, gleamed in the light of a swinging brass lamp.
My friend Sean Glynn was not in that room to welcome me. There was only a comely, middle-aged, black-garbed woman, who rose from a chair at the fireside. I remembered her, too: Johanna Dillane, Sean’s housekeeper.
“Ah! Major, sir! You’re welcome. Sure, ’tis fine to see you again—an’ the bad times forgotten. Take off your coat now—an’ you famished with the cold that’s in it, and the hunger. Mr. Sean is above in the room waiting for you.”
We shook hands, and her eyes were busy searching into me. She gave me time scarcely to say a word, but led me to a doorway within a covered entry to the right of the fireplace, ushered me through, and shut the door behind me.
I stood within the door and looked at Sean Glynn.
Chapter II
I
SEAN GLYNN sat at the fireside end of his dining-room table. And he was the Sean Glynn that I had always known. I had expected to find him gone shabby and careless, flaccid, his mouth out of control; but there he sat, clean-cut and keen as ever, his mouth firm, his eyes brilliant and steady. By his right hand on the tablecloth stood a half-full tumbler.
“Archie MacDonald, his own self,” he said quietly, with the old slow enunciation I remembered so well.
He sat there calmly and did not even smile. A spark of anger leaped in me. But luckily the dour Scot is stronger in me than the hot-tempered Celt, and no cold welcome could make me turn back now. I steadied myself in time.
“Changed days, Sean!” I said in as
quiet a tone as his own. “Am I not welcome?”
“Changed days surely, Archie! But you are welcome all the same. I have a lump in my throat—damn you and it!” And he smiled in a way that told me, roll time and tide, the old liking would never die. It was all I wanted to know.
He pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. And there I noticed that he steadied himself for a moment with his spread fingers on the cloth. There was, however, no trace of tip-and-balance in his walk as he came across the room, and his gaze met mine steadily, and, perhaps, a little challengingly. But, again, I noticed something. The brilliance of his eyes was clouded by a faint haze—not a drugging—just that small dulling and dazing that is caused by only one thing—malt whisky.
Sean Glynn was of the black Gael; not too tall, but built for endurance; deep-chested, light-limbed, aquiline-faced, his eyes so deeply blue that in the lamplight they looked black; a cool, strong, formidable man. And yet?
“I looked for you on the quay at the North Wall of Dublin,” I said.
“And I was not there.”
“I looked for you at Leacca station.”
“And I wasn’t there either.”
He turned to the table at his side and traced a long ellipse on the damask with a fingertip. “Two hundred and fifty-two acres, two roods and ten perches plantation-measure of arable land, and fifteen hundred acres of mountain and moor—that is my domain, the border within which I abide, and outside that border I will not move for god, dog or devil—”
“Man or woman?”
“Here within my borders you are welcome, Archie MacDonald—and you ought to know it.”
The small first tension slacked, and I glanced at the table.
“What have you in that decanter?”
“My poor fellow—and you famishing.” He went to the table-end and poured three fingers into a glass. The decanter neck clinked the crystal rim and drew a piercingly sweet note. “Water or soda? Water for good whisky always. Try that.” He lifted his own glass.
“Slainte!” I toasted. It was good whisky.
He put down his empty glass—half mine was left—walked to the door, and opened it.
“Johanna, is there anything to eat in the house?”
“In a minute, sir—in a minute.”
He looked at me over his shoulder. “You’re lucky. Come and have a wash. There’s a smut on the end of your Scots nose—and it had to be nicely aimed.”
And that was how I arrived and was made welcome at Leaccabuie.
II
There were grouse and woodcock for supper. The grouse season had expired a fortnight before, but the game tasted none the worse for that. The night drive had set my appetite on edge, yet Sean, who apparently had had more whisky than was good for him, ate as heartily as I did. Before we sat in he invited me to another drink, and, though I refused, replenished his own glass; and during supper replenished it once more.
“You seem to know that is good whisky,” I remarked.
“I’m no bad judge.” He lifted his glass and looked through the sunny amber of it.
“From what dripping cell, through what fairy glen,
Where mid old rocks and ruins the fox makes his den,
Over what lonesome mountain, acushla mo croidhe . . .
Are you come to me—sorrowful me? . . .
“And there is more of it,” he finished with abrupt satire. “No, I haven’t taken to poetry-making—though that is by a sad man and a poor Irishman.” He mocked me. “Your glass is empty?”
“Not yet.” I was afraid of the wicked insidiousness of that whisky.
“Very good! ’Tis not your vice. You know there is one thing a man must have?”
“Three, I was taught. Faith, hope and charity.”
“Men have dispensed with these—and lived. No! A man must have a vice or be damned all his brief days.”
“And have one and be damned in the hereafter.”
“Your Scots Calvinism.” He laughed.
He was on the subject leading my way and I held to it.
“Easy enough to choose a vice, old boy. Plenty of them.”
“Not so many worth while. Look! The making of books, the racing of horses, the singing of songs, the love o’ women—and this.” He clicked his glass with fingernail, and it answered with a note of curious sweetness.
“You are not writing a book, by any chance?” I inquired.
“The Lord forbid!”
“Keep a horse in training?”
“A hound or two.”
“You are a rotten bad singer, I know.”
“Well?”
“Oh, nothing!”
“Squeamish to ask about the love of woman? I have tried that, too.”
“Don’t boast, Sean. You may not have exhausted that subject.”
“Think so? Once a woman went through my two hands and she was broken, like you’d break a rotten stick. Yet she wasn’t rotten—by God! she was not rotten. And another could not see through the humors and jealousies to whatever verities there be. Sounds personal? But what the hell do you know about women, anyway? Let us stick to this fail-me-never,” and he flicked his glass with disintegrating satire.
“You must be damn sorry for yourself.”
But he only laughed and at me.
“No use, brother; we know each other too well. But don’t rush your fences. Take your time and look about you, and find out the sort of life I live before—before you reach conclusions.”
“You work, I suppose—or does Paddy Bawn do all that for you?”
“He does his share and I do mine. This night I’ll go to bed as late as you, but I’ll be out of it the morrow’s morn before you. There is a bawn of sixty milch cows, and you can tell me if one of them is badly cared for. My work. Man, I do not set foot in this room until nightfall.”
“And then?”
“Work, a book, a pipe—smoking, reading—smoking, reading—and this my vice, and it is adequate.”
“Work, a book, a pipe, a drink in reason—these alone and sleep thereafter.”
He moved his head slowly from side to side, and one hand ground into the other. “That’s it—that’s it, surely! Sleep thereafter. And every night I have to bridge the abyss.”
“No one to talk to? Why the devil do you hedge yourself in with this border of yours?”
“Because it is too easy to go outside.” He looked at me steadily, and his mouth had a quirk very near contempt. “Because, day and night, myself and you and every other damn fool urge me to go outside . . . And I promise you that, when my grip loosens and I want to be found dead in a ditch within six months, I’ll just step across.” He went on. “As for men to talk to, there are many, but a limitation of subjects in this free island where we are afraid to talk about things worth talking about. There are two good men who come to see me once a month or so, and you know them both: Hugh Forbes of Glounagrianaan, and Mickeen Oge Flynn of Lough Aonach—and they would talk the leg off a pot. They are coming over to see you Christmas evening. Hugh, you know, is married now.” He grinned at me. “Finished with your questions?”
I grinned back. “For the time.”
“You Scots are all the same. You must have a reason for everything, and you pursue it till it is cold and inhuman. Why not take me as you find me and damn the consequences? But if you do want a reason I’ll now provide you with one of the best as ever was.”
“Well?”
“A glass of punch as punch should be made.”
“There’s a man in Bombay, and one in Simla, and another in Aden, and ten from Torquay to the Kyle of Tongue, and each one of them holds the only secret for making punch. I have it myself.”
“And fine, too. You try mine and I’ll try yours, and you can watch me at my compounding. Reach me that kettle there. Here are the tumblers, and we’ll put one lump of sugar in each and two cloves—only two—and a spoon to keep the glass from shivering when we pour in the boiling water—that way. Now we’ll place the slice of the thick of
a lemon on top of that, and—reach me that grip-quart, that black one; ’tis a blend of my own—for punch only. Grain whisky and malt and just a flavoring of mountain dew. Now watch! We let the spirit trickle over the edge of a spoon—gently, brother, gently—so that it floats above the lemon. See? Is that enough? Another quarter of an inch. There! Another small taste. That’s it now, and no heap on it. Look at it, Archie! The hot water below, the whisky on top and the lemon between—and you leave it three minutes to temper before you stir. Can you wait three minutes, my dry soul?”
“I can.”
“Sometimes I can’t, and more’s the pity. But tonight I will. A drink for two lone men this Christmas weather, and a reason by its lone self.”
It was my turn to laugh. “No use, brother,” I half mimicked him. “We know each other too well. But I’ll accept your reason for the night.”
“You’ll have to.” He reached for his glass. “It is my turn now, and you’ll talk, talk, talk—and anything you say will be evidence against you in the great book of Gabriel. Do you mind, Archie, the time we camped out above Loch Linhe and decided over our Carlsberg that we were two grand talkers, and woman the very devil?”
He had a way with him, had Sean Glynn. He had his armor on, and, because he knew every turn of my sword play, I could not touch him. I was baffled, but not beaten. For if his vice—or his trouble—was no more than this sordid one of drunkenness I was not yet done with him. That vice kills and the death is a shameful one. And yet? A man who worked all day and drank all night might, must have some trouble of soul to make the night dreadful. My mind fastened on three things: a woman broken in his hands, a woman that failed him, and drink to drown memory. Halt there! I would put no name to these women yet awhile.
The Quiet Man and Other Stories Page 9