The Quiet Man and Other Stories

by Maurice Walsh

  “Well, sir! one Easter-tide down comes Shawn from Leacca, and, without looking before him, pops into the old confession-box and—cripes alive!—’tisn’t Father Mac was in it at all at the other side of the grating, but a young curate new-ordained from Maynooth College. ‘Murther!’ says Shawn to himself. ‘My goose is cooked—me name is mud, but sure God is good, an’ I’ll make sure of my man another year.’ So he ups and tells the young priest this and that, things wouldn’t hurt a fly, and, when the well is dry, he takes a hitch on himself and tells about the making of the poteen. It was terrible, I tell you. It was a shocking thing. For in Maynooth College they do be teaching the young clericals that poteen is the ruin of the west, a depraver of souls, a curse out of the pits o’ Hell, made and retailed by servants of ould Nick himself—och, be japers! The young priest said all that and more, and when he couldn’t think of anything else to say, he was in a quandary about what he would do to the poor penitent and him groaning—slap on a poultice of a penance that would hold Shawn on his knees till Lady Day in harvest, or send him up to the Bishop himself. ‘Wait there, you old reprobate!’ and out of the box with him and across to the side chapel, where Father Mac was hearing confessions, one a minute. ‘Father Mac,’ says he, whispering, ‘there is an old scoundrel over there that confesses to making poteen. What should I give him?’ ‘Give him, is it?’ says Father Mac. ‘That robber Shawn o’ the Skillet! Don’t give him a penny more than five shillings a pint—and make sure it is the second run.’ Ay faith!”

  Under cover of the laughter, Mickeen Oge, who had been hearing that story since he was a boy, finished his glass of draught stout and turned to the visitor. “Ready when you are, Mr. O’Connor,” he said and went out to the car. He rather liked the look of that American. A good listener, and not given to “shooting his neck.”

  He was bending over the crank-handle, when the visitor’s voice at his shoulder made him pause.

  “By the way, I did not quite catch your name?”

  “Michael Flynn, Mr. O’Connor.”

  “The hotelkeeper?”

  “His nephew. They call me Mickeen Oge.”

  “Mickeen Oge Flynn! I thought so. You know, Mr. Flynn, I have heard that name in the mouths of men far from here.”

  Mickeen Oge’s face, bent over the crank, gave no sign. It could be that, wherever Irishmen wandered, his name might be among the few not forgotten—but only for a little while.

  “Whale of a fighting man!” murmured the American softly, as if quoting some remembered phrase.

  Mickeen Oge’s smile mocked himself only.

  “Not much fighting left in us now. All it ever got me was half a year in jail—internment camp, if you like.”

  Suddenly the engine roared to the kick of the crank-handle.

  “Care to sit in front, sir?”

  “Certainly.”

  As they rattled along the uphill road winding below the curving brown breasts of the hills, this American, Art O’Connor, was thinking to himself. So this serious-faced man in rough tweeds was the Mickeen Oge Flynn that his partner, Owen Jordan, talked so much about. Great guerilla fighter, hunger-striker, incorruptible republican—and now driving a flivver for an anglers’ hotel! Some come-down in the world. Perhaps only a blind! For if Owen Jordan was right, the republican organization was still underground. None of his business. He himself had an Irish name, but that was all. He wanted no labels tied to him. He would see things for himself, discover the quality of men for himself, sense for himself this Irish atmosphere before he said one word of his friend in New Mexico. Perhaps the Irish blood in him might respond to some things, but in no event would he lose his head—and certainly not his heart.

  Mickeen Oge was thinking too, considering the American in his own mind. He had the marks of a sound man, and they were not many: not blatant—calm; laughing in a middle register at things worth laughing at; his voice cool and slow, taking its own time to savor the run of thought in the mind of himself and others; and one look at the brown neck and face above the loose-cut flannels showed that he was no cave-dweller amongst skyscrapers. The sort of man who would be able to hold his own, even among a team of hardshell, jealous fishermen. . . . All the same, it might not be a bad thing to give him a small hint or two of the peculiar prejudices and atmosphere up at the hotel.

  He throttled the car down to its easiest pace, and his voice rose above the rattle.

  “You’ll be for trying the fishing, Mr. O’Connor?”

  “Hope to.” He looked up at the high clear sky, deepening for twilight, and around him at the thirsty hillsides, gray-green in drought below the purple of the bell-heather. “Not fishing weather, is it?”

  “You may say it. Not a grilse or sea-trout landed in ten days—honestly—but the trout fishing on the lough is not bad.”

  “Big fellows?”

  “And shy—shy as heifers. You’ll never fill a bag, but the ones you land you’ll be glad you landed.”

  “Good fishing that!”

  “And if we get a drop of rain—more than our share oftener than not—there’ll be grilse in every pool down to Dounbeg—ten miles.”

  “Fine! The weather is due to give us a break sometime.”

  “And break all to hell when it does. One good thing, we are off the beaten track here, and not many know the pretty fair fishing we have. Those that do—” Mickeen Oge paused.

  “Want to keep it to themselves. I get you. So would I. I guess I’ll be no welcome visitor?”

  “You will not,” agreed Mickeen Oge.

  “How many may I expect to pile me?”

  “Four or five—and maybe four or five more when the weather is right.”

  “Just eight or nine too many.”

  “Fishermen are the devil,” said Mickeen Oge. “Major MacDonald would cut the liver out of you to get the first run of a pool, and there’s no better man I know; and old Caverley would card you in one of his own mills before he’d tell you where a fish lies. Myself, I’d only bite your ear. The ladies are all right.”

  “Snakes! Are there ladies, too?”

  “Miss Caverley and Kate—Miss Kate O’Brien—and she’ll argue with you from dawn to dark and back again. She’s niece to Major-General Kelly Cuthbert.”

  “British general?”

  “He is. We have him, too. He will be of the opinion that you are of the opinion that America won the war. Would you rather be hanged or drowned?”

  “Boiled. I’m in for a thin time evidently?”

  “There is no harm in him—the General. And there might be a bit of fun going, too,” said the Irishman.

  “I’ll let you in on it. Thank you for warning me, Mr. Flynn.” Already he was beginning to appreciate this man.

  “Not a word,” said Mickeen Oge, and bore down on the accelerator.

  III

  A few minutes after ten, Big Michael Flynn, as was his nightly custom, came light-footed into the lounge.

  Major MacDonald and Marcus Caverley were bending over a glass-topped table scattered with bright-colored feathers, tinsel, silk thread, gut and scraps of red and brown wax. The Highlandman was showing the Yorkshireman the only proper wing-set for a famous fly he called “The Blue Charm,” in which the hackle only was blue. They were so engrossed that they took no notice of Big Michael, though they knew he was there.

  Major-General Kelly Cuthbert was recumbent in a deep leather chair, his white mustache calm on his red healthy face, but the mind within glad of the coming of Big Michael, so that the usual nightcap be ordered—a particularly stiff Irish whisky and small soda. His niece, Kate O’Brien, sat reading near the french window, which was wide open; and from the veranda outside came Betty Caverley’s soft, almost sibilant English voice.

  “Goodnight, small Michael young! Will tomorrow be a fishing day?”

  She had a quaint habit of translating directly Mickeen Oge’s by-name, and Kate O’Brien noted that she was the only one that ever called and always called him by his proper name. She made
Michael, as it were, her very own.

  His voice, leisurely and mocking, floated up from the gravel drive. “No, young lady. It will be the very devil and all of a fine day.”

  “Major MacDonald says the trout might take, on a night like this—on the lough, you know.”

  “Not with thunder about. Tomorrow night, now, the moon would be about right.”

  “That will be splendid, Michael.”

  “Get off with you! Try the Major.”

  “But—”

  “Try him—he’s tough! You try him. Out there in a boat—in the moonlight—you’d be tempting the Angel Gabriel.”

  “I’d prefer to tempt—someone else, Michael.”

  “Very well so, small girl! I could give Gabriel points, anyway. Goodnight now and have sense—and say your prayers.”

  Kate O’Brien smiled to herself. Mickeen Oge had a way of addressing this girl as if she still wore pigtails. She had been coming to the hotel with her father for a long time now, and, perhaps, he had not noticed her growing from friendly adolescence to a dangerous maturity. Watch out, Michaeleen!

  His feet crunched away on the gravel, and Betty Caverley came back into the lounge. Her gray eyes were lustrous and frank under lashes that were darker than her hair, and her slim arms and neck were alarmingly lovely.

  “Michael and I are going fishing tomorrow night,” she proclaimed; and her father turned and looked at her speculatively for a moment, and a small nerve at mouth-corner twitched half humorously, half anxiously.

  “Betty Caverley,” said Major MacDonald without looking up from the wings of his Blue Charm, “I’m done with you—and I’m no Angel Gabriel either—nor is your young Michael.”

  “May I come with you, Betty?” asked Kate O’Brien smoothly.

  “Delighted, Kate dear.”

  The Irish girl’s mocking smile held till Betty’s color deepened. “You English are so equably kind-hearted.” She patted Betty’s arm. “Never mind, dear! You can’t help being dangerous.”

  Big Michael bent between the two men at the glass-topped table. “Lift it, Major,” he urged. “That back wing—just a taste! The water will do the flattening. I’m putting a small piece of ice in the lager.”

  “Yes—small!” said MacDonald abstractedly.

  “ ’Tis a good drink—I’m having one myself.”

  “On me, no doubt.”

  The big man came across to the Major-General, and placed a finger on the smooth-jacketed shoulder—an act of impertinence in any man but this big easy lord of his own domain. Through years of acquaintanceship there had grown some unassuming inner tie of friendship between the two.

  “Well, General, another dry day over us, thank God! The same again?”

  “Better, if you have it.” He cocked a live blue eye. “Your dam’ Yank arrived yet?”

  “Ay faith! And a cool lad. Wanting to know if the white trout he was having for his supper was honest caught.”

  “White trout! Who caught it?”

  “It wasn’t honest caught, whoever caught it,” came the quiet Highland drawl.

  “Honest as the daylight and the water,” protested Big Michael, “and a coupleen more for the morning’s breakfast.” He turned to the ladies and marked off an inch on a big forefinger. “That much, young ladies—my own special compounding?”

  “What is in it, Michael Big?” inquired Betty Caverley, laughing.

  “Heather honey—so much, a leaf of mint, the drawing of two caraway seeds, the soak of a ripe sloe, and the squeeze of a lemon.”

  “And the kick?” Kate O’Brien wanted to know.

  “Just a small flavoring of grain whisky—as much as would blind your eye—and divil the hurt or harm in it.”

  “Then we will have just so much—or a taste more. Are you letting the American in on us?”

  “Sure, it would be good, but maybe not safe, for any man to be looking at the both of ye,” said Big Michael, and took his big body nimbly to the door.

  In the passage outside he met the American, Art O’Connor.

  “Before I shut the bar, Mr. O’Connor,” he inquired, “would you be caring for anything?”

  “On your life, Mr. Flynn. What about some of your Guinness out of a pewter tankard?”

  “Fine, sir! Try it out of silver. The lounge is in there.”

  Big Michael ambled down the passage to the private bar, where he found his nephew leaning on the counter, an account-book under his eyes. He thumped him softly on the shoulder as he slipped inside the raised flap.

  “Is it a drink you’re after this time o’ night, Mickeen Oge?”

  “No-o-o—I don’t think so.”

  “You’ll change your mind, maybe. I hear you’re taking our Miss Betty fishing tomorrow night?”

  “Not likely to catch anything, either.”

  Big Michael reached down a bottle here and there. “There’s fishing—and fishing,” he remarked carelessly.

  “And there’s only one kind that I do, Michael Mor.”

  “Amn’t I knowing it, avic—amn’t I knowing it? But aren’t you a bitter fellow, and you so young?”

  “Young and bitter—am I?”

  “You are, then—sometimes. And small wonder, avouchaleen! Maybe it was wrong of me not to send you back to be a priest—and you with only two years to go.”

  “Is it too late?” He smiled half cynically at the thought. “Why not send me back to Maynooth tomorrow?”

  “I will not, then,” said Big Michael firmly, “unless the urge is on you—and I doubt it. If you must deny yourself, deny yourself like a man.” He looked at his nephew, solicitude in his eyes, still remembering this strong fighting man as the little lad he had reared. “This place—the work—’tis not fretting you, Michaeleen?”

  “The only fret that’s in it is a motherly old blether of an uncle.”

  “Yerra, go to hell out o’ that!”

  Mickeen Oge straightened up. “I will. What do you think of this American, Mr. Art O’Connor? Queer name for a Yankee.”

  “ ’Tis. He’ll hold his own, I’m thinking.”

  “How did he find out about this place?”

  “That’s telling. He wrote a long time ago—you were off somewhere—”

  “Where from?”

  “Beyant. Montreal it was.”

  “Montreal! That’s Canada—that’s the British Empire. We’ll keep an eye on him.”

  “Have sense, man! What the hell has the British Empire to do with us now?”

  “As long as Ireland is not free—aye! and when it is—the British secret-service will occasionally run its hands over us. A great empire, Uncle, and its agents never sleep.” He moved across to the door. “Leave the back door on the latch—I may be late.”

  “Be careful now, Mickeen Oge!” warned his uncle seriously.

  “Like a weasel,” said Mickeen Oge and closed the door behind him.

  Big Michael shook his head. The foolish lad! Hadn’t he suffered enough for the old sod? Six months in jail, five weeks on hunger-strike, a year hiding in the hills; and the spirit not yet broken in him. Pity now he wouldn’t settle down and bring a wife to this house where a woman was wanted—and where she was not far away—not far away, surely. Och, well! God was good—and the young blood would work out its own urge.

  IV

  Art O’Connor, still in his loose flannels, slouched easily across the soft Dun-Emer rugs, his eyes quietly observant; and he noted that, after a single quick glance from all the eyes in the room, no eye again sought him.

  “Good-evening, ladies and gentlemen!” he saluted in an impersonal low voice, and sank into a wicker chair near the open hearth.

  Major MacDonald said something like “Hugh-hugh” affirmatively away down his throat, and went on whipping silk. And after a longish time gentle Betty Caverley murmured, “Goodnight.” That was all.

  His eyes went over them one by one. There was the General, recumbent on his shoulder-blades, his face withdrawn with difficulty—no mist
aking him; and the girl who had returned his salutation in very shame, perched on the arm of the chair near the french window, was fair English and daughter of the stoutish man at the side table—Caverley the name; and the dark girl, pretending to read, was Miss O’Brien—Kate O’Brien—dark Irish, pre-Celtic blood in her, proud as Lucifer, and wanting the moon, of course! But, my Lord! She had something in that grave lean face of hers to set men marching. How was this Owen Jordan described her? “A sexless patriot who would have nothing to do with men.” And a tarnation good job, too! She would want all a man’s soul to play with and ask for more. . . . And there was Archibald MacDonald, tying a fly and not concerned with any American visitor: a cool, out-of-doors-looking customer with a family resemblance to his sister Margaid—though she had red hair. . . . Hope she hadn’t said anything about himself in her letters, for he looked the sort of man who could put two and two together.

  So they were giving him the cold shoulder, sort of hoping to shoo him away from their own select little circle hidden in the hills. And it was out of these hills and valleys that his forebears had come, blood and bone and tough enduring spirit. Well, they would not shoo him away, and there was five cents on that. A small spark grew hot in him, and it was an Irish spark. Thunder! he would have to be careful or this damned atmosphere would get him yet.

  Might he smoke? Betty Caverley inclined a fair head. Kate O’Brien glanced at him for the second time. In that first quick glance, as he had crossed the floor, she had noted that he walked with the in-toed, slightly bow-legged slouch of the horseman; and now she noted his brown, weathered, strong-boned face, and his eyes—light-colored eyes, as if they, like his eyebrows, had been bleached by sun and wind. This was no ordinary touring American in a hurry. He was lazy and tranquil and slouching, with a hint of some explosive reserve behind his eyes. Yes, his eyes interested her, quickened something in her. She looked at him a third time as he was lighting his pipe, and, even as she looked, his eyes lifted and met hers. Only for a second or two. He just looked, and then his eyes moved away, quite casually, without interest.