The Return of Fursey

by Mervyn Wall

  “Do you know,” he whispered suddenly, “whether they make you say prayers to Thor?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Fursey. “I was never here before. Ask someone.”

  “I was never here either,” responded his companion, “but I’ve been in similar places.”

  His eyes roved anxiously up and down and at last lighted on another human wreck who was sitting a few feet away. His elbow was resting on the rope and he looked more like a corpse that had been dried in the sun, than anything else. When questioned he answered in deep, sepulchral tones.

  “Oh, yes, this is a very religious institution. Only last week there was an atheist in here, and he hid in the washroom while the rest of us were committing our well-being to Thor. The Superintendent dragged him out and nearly hacked him to pieces before throwing him out. Oh, the Superintendent is a very pious man.”

  The ragged creature began to tremble so as to set the whole rope vibrating.

  “What’s wrong?” whispered Fursey.

  “I’m a Christian,” came out in a terrified whisper. “I got in here under false pretences. But I can’t join in public prayers to Thor. I’d be afraid that I’d be stricken dead.”

  “Well, you better get out quick,” advised Fursey.

  “But will they let me out?”

  “What’s to prevent you slipping down towards the door? If you’re asked any questions, say you’re sick and that you want to go outside for a few moments.”

  “I’ll try it,” said the little creature. “Thanks.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Fursey, gripping him by the arm. “Look, do you want to do a pious act?”

  The miserable creature’s teeth began to chatter. “What is it?” he asked at length.

  Fursey had taken a desperate resolution. “Listen,” he whispered urgently, “did you see the dragonship?”

  “Yes, traders.”

  “No, raiders. They’re going to sack Clonmacnoise tomorrow.”

  The little man uttered a pious ejaculation and looked at Fursey with horror.

  “There’s not a moment to lose,” hissed Fursey. “When you get out of here make straight to Mulligan. He’s the chieftain of the territory in which Clonmacnoise is situated, and his is the nearest military aid. Go at once. Don’t waste a moment.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better to warn Clonmacnoise?” gasped the stranger.

  “No. Time would be lost. The monastery in its turn would have to seek aid from Mulligan. I’ll try to warn Clonmacnoise myself. Do you think you can do it? I notice that you’ve no shoes.”

  “I’ll do it,” said the little man. “I’ll do it somehow.”

  “Rouse the countryside anyway,” urged Fursey. “But don’t tell anyone until you’re well clear of this territory. This place is all Norse.”

  Fursey watched the little man sidling down the hall and then make a sudden rush through the door. Then Fursey bowed his head on the rope with a full heart. He saw in his mind’s eye the fluttering rags and the bare feet running through the night, across thorns and sharp rocks. How little the Christians had done for that frail, starving man, and yet he had not for a moment hesitated.

  Snorro was standing at Fursey’s elbow. “I’m just drifting around to pick up what information I can. I’ll be back.”

  Fursey nodded, and Snorro disappeared once more into the washroom.

  “Here’s Thorkils,” said the corpse who was sitting beside Fursey.

  Fursey looked up and saw a huge, red-haired man shouldering his way down the room from the door. He seemed to be sodden with drink, and the other inmates got out of his way hastily. His features were grim and ill-favoured, and his ginger moustaches were uneven and ragged as if they had been bitten off in some struggle to the death. He was of powerful physique and had hands like two hams. He passed Fursey and, going to the fire, threw two aged Vikings into the corner so as to secure a place for himself. He sat for a few moments warming his knees, then he turned his great torso and let his glance travel up the middle of the room. His eyes fell upon Fursey. It was some moments before Fursey realised that he was being stared at. When he saw Thorkils’ bloodshot eyes fixed upon him, he averted his own gaze. Thorkils immediately staggered to his feet and came uncertainly across to Fursey.

  “Are you laughing at me by any chance?” he enquired roughly.

  Fursey assured him that he wasn’t.

  “Because if I thought you were I’d make the pieces of you fly this way and that.”

  Fursey again assured him that he was mistaken, and Thorkils returned to the fireplace.

  “That’s Thorkils,” repeated the cadaverous creature seated beside Fursey. “I wouldn’t argue with him if I were you. He has the name of being peevish when he’s crossed.”

  “I’ve no wish to argue with him,” responded Fursey nervously. He allowed his eyes to wander all over the room, and it was a long time before he ventured to throw a quick glance across at Thorkils. The big man was watching him from under beetling, ginger brows, and the moment he caught Fursey’s eye he heaved himself on to his feet once more and came staggering across.

  “Are you quite certain that you’re not laughing at me?” he queried. “Because if you are, it’s the last thing you’ll ever do. By the time I’m finished with you I’ll leave you totally bereft of warmth and animation.”

  “I’m not laughing at you,” said Fursey faintly. “I assure you that I’m not laughing at anyone. You can take my word for it.”

  Thorkils hiccupped. “That’s all right then,” he said, “but I warn you that I’m not a man to be laughed at. I’ve formed the opinion that you’re of an artful, gloomy and mischievous disposition. I’m well acquainted with your trickeries. So be careful.”

  Thorkils returned to his seat, and Fursey began to pray desperately for Snorro’s return. A few moments later he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Thorkils was once more getting to his feet. All around Fursey the inmates seemed sunk in their own thoughts. Fursey himself arose and with shaky steps walked the length of the room. He took his stand near the door beside the Superintendent. When he looked back he saw that Thorkils was watching him with narrowed eyes. When a few minutes later the Superintendent was called from the room on some business, Fursey began to move idly in the direction of the washroom with the intention of attaching himself to Snorro, but on the way he was intercepted by Thorkils.

  “I knew you were laughing at me,” said the Viking, and raising his great fist he brought it down with all his strength on Fursey’s pate. Fursey uttered a lamentable moan and crumpled on to the floor. It took the Superintendent and Snorro five minutes to remove Thorkils from the premises, and it is doubtful if they would even then have succeeded in doing so, only that the Superintendent lost his temper and rendered Thorkils unserviceable by a sudden blow on the skull with the flat of his battleaxe.

  When Thorkils had been thrown out, they began to search among the debris on the floor for the remnants of Fursey. They found him under the bench quite unconscious, but with a languid smile on his face.

  “I feared at first,” said the Superintendent, “that the vital spark had fled.”

  They lifted Fursey and put him on the bench with his chin resting on the rope, and trusted that he would be all right in the morning.

  CHAPTER IV

  On the summit of a small, green hill Fursey and Snorro lay on their stomachs on the grass and gazed down at the monastic settlement of Clonmacnoise. It lay half-a-mile away just above the high flood mark of the river, a cluster of beehive huts and small churches clearly visible in detail in the mild afternoon sunlight. One could even see the tiny, black figures of the monks moving like ants in the passages between the whitewashed cells, and dotted in the surrounding fields. Looking over his shoulder, Fursey could see the dragonship around the bend of the river, drawn in close against the bank. Snorro was grunting to himself as he strove to disentangle one of his moustaches from a bed of thistles. Fursey spoke rapidly in an attempt to hide his emotion.
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br />   “It’s a most famous monastery,” he said. “In the sixth century the blessed Kieran chose this spot for his foundation because it was lonely and remote from men. He knew that his monks could work and pray in this spot, their minds free from worldly imaginings. And so they have during four long centuries, even to the present day. They have lived in close converse with the saints, barricaded in from the world and from worldly follies.”

  “Are they happy?” grunted Snorro.

  “Ah,” replied Fursey, “who is happy?”

  “We mustn’t waste time,” said Snorro. “Point out the geography of the place to me.”

  “The whole settlement is enclosed by a palisade of wooden posts and thorns,” said Fursey, pointing. “That is to keep out the wild beasts which lurk in the forest. The gateway, which is of wickerwork, is on the northern side, opening on to the Pilgrims’ Way.”

  “It will be easy to cut our way with battleaxes through the palisade,” said Snorro.

  “Yes,” replied Fursey sorrowfully, “very easy. Do you see the great cross and what looks like a forest of stones?”

  Snorro shaded his one eye with his hand. “Yes,” he replied at last.

  “That is the graveyard where the generations of princes of the neighbouring territories are buried. It’s a very high-class graveyard. You have to be an abbot or a chieftain or a very great warrior to get into it.”

  “I observe that there are two very solid-looking round towers,” remarked Snorro.

  “Yes,” answered Fursey, his eyes coming to rest on the conical caps of the two narrow, tapering buildings of stone which rose high above the surrounding huts like two upright pencils.

  “I’m acquainted with round towers,” growled Snorro. “That’s why surprise is so important. If the monks once get up into those towers with their gold plate we’ll never get them out.”

  “That’s the object of round towers,” said Fursey softly.

  “I think we better attack from the river, having first sent a small landing party to cut off retreat in case some of the fleeter young monks try to escape into the woods with the valuables. What’s wrong with you? You’re crying.”

  Fursey passed his fist across his eyes.

  “I was thinking of the twenty-four years that I spent in Clonmacnoise as a lay brother. It’s the only real home I’ve ever known. I know every member of the community.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Snorro jocularly as he bared his two yellow fangs. “Your friends will all be with the saints to-night.”

  “I trust so,” said Fursey mournfully. “The only one I’d have any doubt about is the cook. He’s a man of hard temper. Many the time when I was working in the kitchen he hit me over the head with the ladle; but, then, I suppose I wasn’t much good.”

  “You’re against them now?” asked Snorro suspiciously.

  “Yes, of course,” replied Fursey. “Didn’t they expel me without adequate reason, and hasn’t the abbot ever since been intent on burning me?”

  “We better crawl back and report to Sigurd,” said Snorro.

  “Wait a minute,” said Fursey desperately. “I perceive over there some herbs that I shall require for the spell that is to make your breastplate invulnerable. I won’t be a moment collecting them.”

  “Come back,” hissed Snorro. “You’ll be seen from the monastery.”

  But Fursey didn’t wait. He scrambled down the incline to the shelter of a hedge about twenty yards away. When he glanced back, Snorro was waving frantically to him to return. Fursey crept along hurriedly until he found a hole in the hedge. He forced his way through, and in a moment was running as fast as his legs would carry him across the fields towards the monastery.

  Peace pervaded Clonmacnoise. Father Crustaceous, who on account of his great age was allowed considerable licence and freedom from the rule, was stumping about the settlement with the aid of two sticks, poking his nose everywhere in the firm conviction that unless he kept an eye on everything chaos would inevitably result. He had stood in the doorway of the poultry house sucking hard at his one remaining tooth and finding fault with Father Killian’s system of organising the hens. Then he had looked into the bakeries and watched from under his fierce eyebrows the laybrothers at the querns grinding corn. He tested with a large, malformed thumb the loaves of wheaten bread reserved for the use of the fathers, and the bread of poorer quality made from barley, which was for consumption by the laybrothers and for distribution to the poor. In the dairy he dipped his finger into the churns and tasted the butter, and he sniffed suspiciously at the vessels of curds put aside for the manufacture of cheese. He visited the forge and poked at the birch logs with his stick. He looked disapprovingly at the heaps of wood charcoal, which was used by the workers in metal; and asserted that the charcoal had been a different colour when he was a boy. He felt that it was very necessary for some responsible man to keep an eye to things, for the Abbot Marcus had not yet returned from Britain. He should, of course, have been back long ago, but somewhere or other on the way he had been stopped and persuaded to found a monastery, so it was unlikely that he would arrive for another few days. In the meantime it was up to an old watchdog like Father Crustaceous to ensure that nobody was slacking.

  In the library six choice scribes were busy illuminating manuscripts. To the leg of each table a goose was tethered, so that each scribe could bend down, without interruption of his work, and secure himself a fresh quill as required. The Librarian himself sat apart sunk in melancholy abstraction. The reason for his ill-humour was not far to seek. In the previous year a Censor had been appointed by the Synod of Cashel to visit every monastery in Ireland and search the libraries for written matter offensive to morals. He was an active and conscientious man, and in each monastery which he had visited he had left behind him a heap of cinders where there had been previously treasured manuscripts of secular or pagan origin. He had been only three weeks in Clonmacnoise, but already he had committed to the flames most of the Greek and Latin manuscripts, as well as four copies of the Old Testament, which he had denounced as being in its general tendency indecent. He was a small, dark man with a sub-human cast of countenance. One of his principal qualifications for the post of Censor was that each of his eyes moved independently of the other, a quality most useful in the detection of double meanings. Sometimes one eye would stop at a word which might reasonably be suspected of being improper, while the other eye would read on through the whole paragraph before stopping and travelling backwards along the way it had come, until the battery of both eyes was brought to bear on the suspect word. Few words, unless their consciences were absolutely clear, could stand up to such scrutiny; and the end of it usually was that the whole volume went into the fire. When he had first arrived at Clonmacnoise he had explained his method to the heartbroken Librarian.

  “I’ve an old mother,” he said, “who lives in a cottage on the slopes of the Macgillicuddy Reeks. She is for me the type of the decent, clean-minded people of Ireland. I use her as a touchstone. Whenever I’m in doubt about a word or phrase, I ask myself would such word or phrase be used by her.”

  There came to the Librarian’s mind an image of an incredibly old peasant woman with the wrinkles of her face caked with dirt.

  “Can your mother read?” he asked.

  “No,” replied the Censor indignantly, “she’s illiterate. But I don’t see what difference that makes.”

  “And I suppose she never heard of Rome or Greece?” said the Librarian pathetically, as he watched the monastery’s only copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses curling in the flames.

  “No, of course she didn’t,” replied the Censor. “And isn’t she just as well off?”

  The Censor had a permanent smile on his face. It didn’t denote good humour; he was just born that way.

  “What some of you people don’t realise,” he explained to the mournful Librarian, “is that in this country we don’t want men of speculative genius or men of bold and enquiring mind. We must establish the rule of
Aristotle’s golden mean. We must rear a race of mediocrities, who will be neither a danger to themselves nor to anyone else.”

  Once a week it became necessary to wash out the filter of the Censor’s mind, which otherwise would have become choked with the dirt through which he self-sacrificingly waded for the common good. This office was performed by four sturdy laybrothers, who held him under the pump and pumped water at high pressure through one of his ears. A stream of filthy, black liquid was forced out through the far ear. The operation was painful, and the Censor screamed throughout; but he didn’t mind: he knew that it was all for the glory of God and the honour of his country. When the sieve of his mind had been thoroughly cleansed, it was once more in smooth working order to filter the literature of his people. The Librarian had made several ineffectual attempts to hide under the floor boards manuscripts noted for their antiquity or their beauty, but the Censor, who had a nose which was constantly in motion, sniffing and twitching like that of a ferret, had smelt them out. The Librarian now sat gloomily watching the sub-human face of the Censor as he read his way through one of these tomes, his eyes moving left and right and in all directions, and his nose a-quiver.

  As it was not fitting that such a famous monastery should be without its wonders, a daily miracle was to be seen outside one of the cowsheds. There was a brindled cow, and every afternoon at milking time a bird came and perched on one of its horns. The bird sang to the cow during the milking, and the cow, previously reluctant to give milk, gave it freely when thus sung to. The monastery was fortunate also in having an exceptionally nimble-fingered milker, who had followed the profession of pickpocket before his reform and entry into the cloister.