The Return of Fursey

by Mervyn Wall

  The outline of his giant form shivered for a moment in the air before it disappeared.

  “I’ve not time to wait,” shouted Fursey to the empty air, and began to march down the road. He was conscious of a warm glow of confidence as he continued on his way. He told himself that in order to dispel fear, all that was necessary was to downface the danger. “I’ve become a man at last,” he said to himself wonderingly, but he had not gone more than a hundred paces when he heard a small explosion behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that Satan had appeared on the spot where the cacodemon had stood. The Devil looked to left and right as if searching for Fursey; then seeing him in the distance, came running down the road after him.

  “You might have the good manners to wait for me,” he complained as he came alongside.

  “I didn’t send for you,” replied Fursey coldly. “I want to have nothing to do with you or your ilk.”

  “We’ll soon see about that,” said the Devil grimly. “One of my ilk has just complained that you insulted him.”

  “That’s right,” said Fursey belligerently. “Do you want to make anything of it?”

  The Archfiend looked surprised. His crafty eyes examined Fursey’s moonlike face for some moments. When he spoke again, he seemed to choose his words carefully.

  “So at last you have rid yourself of your sorcery.”

  “Yes. How did you find that out?”

  “An old gentleman has just arrived in Hell. He states that his occupation was that of rustic prophet. According to what I can make out, he is of opinion that you played a very doubtful trick on him.”

  “Dear me, is he deceased already?”

  “He died as a result of shock shortly after you left him.”

  “That’s too bad,” commented Fursey. “I formed the opinion that he was a man of sweet and amiable nature.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said the Devil eyeing Fursey narrowly. “He created a considerable furore when he recognised his surroundings. He was still giving vent to the most uncouth language when I left. He’s shouting something about filing a petition.”

  Fursey shook his head sadly. “He was, perhaps, a trifle too precipitate. The golden rule in life is to think twice and do nothing.”

  “You seem to have become suddenly endowed with wisdom,” said the Devil carefully. “I observe that you are able to twist most things so that they serve your interest.”

  “I’m no fool,” replied Fursey, sticking out his chest. “I’m well able to look after myself.”

  “No one suggests anything else,” said the Archfiend soothingly. “I understand that you’re contemplating suicide.”

  “I am not,” said Fursey heatedly. “It seems to me that you’re in an indecent hurry to get hold of me.”

  There was a brittle glint in the Devil’s eye as he fixed his gaze on Fursey’s face.

  “It would be well for you to fall in with my wishes,” he answered coldly. “Do you not realise that it is my intention, if you oppose me, to make your life miserable with hideous apparitions and manifestations of the most abominable character?”

  “Call them up in their dozens. I’m ready for them.”

  The Devil looked at him in wondrous amaze. He raised a hooked claw and thoughtfully pulled one of his pointed ears.

  “Your senses are obviously in decay. How long do you think that your sanity could endure the proximity of infectious dragons and the never-ceasing bustle of demons? Moreover, you do not seem to appreciate that it’s in my power to molest you with loathsome diseases, such as involuntary twitching of the legs, for I am never without my machinery and subtle contrivances.”

  “Why must you always be such an unpleasant fellow?” enquired Fursey. “No one has ever a good word to say for you. Does popularity mean nothing to you, and the good opinion of your acquaintance?”

  “It is my business to undo mankind.”

  “I don’t care a snap of my fingers for your snares. I’m not going to commit suicide to please you or anyone else.”

  “Then,” said the Devil grimly as he rolled up his sleeves, “I shall have to throw you over the precipice myself.”

  Fursey regarded him coldly.

  “That would be the height of foolishness. You’ll never get me then. I’ll die a blessed martyr, and be carried off to Heaven to the sound of lutes.”

  The Devil paused and savagely shot his cuffs back into position.

  “You’re very glib,” he snarled, “but it’s only a matter of time. I’ll have you in the end of all.”

  “I wouldn’t be too certain. I’ve abandoned my life of wickedness. I’m no longer a man of pernicious principles.”

  “What’s that?” asked the Devil incredulously.

  “You heard what I said. Evil is a very overrated pursuit. I never got anything out of it except kicks and beatings. I’m not going to indulge in wickedness any more. I’m going in for virtue in future.”

  “What you tell me causes me the greatest inquietude and alarm. Next thing you’ll be trying to denounce the pact you made with me.”

  “What pact?” asked Fursey.

  The Devil emitted a howl, and his eyes flashed lightning.

  “The pact which you signed in your blood selling me your soul. You swallowed the duplicate copy in my presence.”

  “I haven’t the faintest notion what you’re talking about. It’s true that after I last saw you I was violently sick. Certainly, I retain no such pact about my person.”

  “Ah,” said the Devil, “you’re very clever, but the original is filed in my cabinet in Hell.”

  “Are you certain that you’re not mixing me up with someone else? A robber captain from the County Cork, for instance.”

  “Look here,” said the Devil violently. “Who’s the Father of Lies, you or me?”

  “You are,” replied Fursey innocently.

  “Well, kindly remember it; and don’t be trying to oust me from my office. I hold an agreement for the sale of the soul of one, Fursey, in consideration of two pieces of advice.”

  “There’s a mistake somewhere. I signed no agreement. I can neither read nor write.”

  “You made your mark at the bottom of it,” howled the Devil indignantly.

  Fursey looked at the darkening sky and the cloud drift overhead. He pursed his lips and whistled a few bars from a sprightly tune. Then he let his roving eyes return and rest carelessly on the swarthy face of the Archfiend.

  “I trust,” he said sweetly, “that my mark to the document in question was duly witnessed by a third party. I’m afraid that other­wise it can have no validity. Without the signature of a witness no court on earth or in Heaven would accept it as genuine in the face of my denial.”

  For a moment the Devil stared at Fursey, then he turned completely black. He no longer bore the slightest resemblance to a gentleman, decayed or otherwise. He stood crouched there in all his hideousness, a hunchbacked figure with pointed ears, hooves and a forked tail. Pitchy clouds rolled overhead, and darkness began to overspread the earth.

  “We don’t want you here,” said Fursey quietly. “You would be wise to take your departure before I call a handful of children to stone you.”

  The Devil’s countenance became contorted with a paroxysm of fury. He gave one whisk of his forked tail so that it wound for a moment around Fursey’s middle, almost persuading Fursey that he was cut in half. Then in a blinding flash the Enemy of Mankind disappeared. Fursey waved a languid hand to dispel the resultant cloud of sulphurous smoke, then he turned and began to amble down the road, his hands behind his back, whistling “The Haymakers’ Jig.” But his confidence did not last very long; he became sad and tired. He realised that great labours still lay ahead of him. As he climbed the rugged track that wound towards the pass, he appreciated that he might soon have hunger to contend with as well. It began to rain. Night came down, and he had to search long before he found a convenient overhanging crag, under which he crept, and rolling himself into a ball, composed him
self for sleep.

  Sleep did not come easily. It was cold, and there was a surprising amount of rustling and stirring on the hillside. The moon came in and out with irritating regularity as clouds scurried across the sky before the high wind which had sprung up. Fursey tossed and turned, rolling over on to his hands and knees from time to time to remove a piece of stone from the small of his back. It was past understanding how there could be so many hard, round stones in such a confined space. He grunted and wallowed and asked himself how the wind managed to blow from every quarter at the same time. No sooner had he settled himself into what promised to be a comfortable position, than the chill breeze began to play about his ankles or his neck. Then the long grasses began to tickle his ears. He hammered them flat and lying down again, slowly drifted into an uncertain sleep.

  He dreamt that he was standing in a waste spot, hideous with malformed boulders and stunted bushes. It was forlorn territory, and Fursey looked about him sick with apprehension. As his eyes accustomed themselves to the fitful light, he saw that the blasted countryside stretched away from where he stood, in all directions but one; and on that one side there was an awful precipice. He realised that he was standing on the very brink. Far below him a dense pall of smoke rolled about in the abyss. In its depths thin slivers of flame, seemingly hundreds of feet in height, wavered and stabbed the surrounding gloom, lighting for a moment the grey, billowing clouds of smoke. A sickening smell of brimstone and burning flesh assailed his nostrils. From the pit arose a continuous, despairing cry, which was not one cry, but the woven screams of a myriad human beings in unspeakable agony. As Fursey listened shuddering, he discerned behind and beyond this awful plaint, the never-ending crackling of human bones and bodies, ablaze with a fire that tortured but did not consume. He swayed, sick with terror, for he realised that he was standing on the edge of Hell. He tore away his eyes and cast them upwards. Worlds and universes coursed through the heavens; and as he gazed, he saw a host of beings like himself as thick as snowflakes falling, ever falling from above into the abyss.

  He started from beneath the boulder fully awake. The sky was grey in the east, and a mournful wind blew, held its breath and sighed again, so that the tufted reeds about him, shook their heads despairingly. He struggled to his feet choking with terror, and made for the road. The familiar world was about him once again, and he stared at it as if he could never gaze his fill. He sat down by the track and covered his face with his hands. The horror of his dream took possession of him once more. He sat hour after hour, alternately hiding his eyes and uncovering them to gaze at the reality about him. What if after all he ended up in the eternal torments of Hell? He told himself again and again that it could not be the case that a merciful divinity would so torture His creatures. But he knew that as long as as he lived he would never rid himself of the beliefs and fears hammered into his head by his teachers in his childhood. He might forget or put aside such terrors for a little while, but he knew that they would persist in coming back from time to time to plague his sleep and waking hours, and he knew that inevitably they would forgather to press around his bed in the last awful hour when it was time for him to die.

  He tried to pray, but it was no use. He realised that it would be the merest hypocrisy. He had changed. He had lost his simple faith, and he knew that it was gone for ever. Moreover, his future course of action was determined. No matter what punishment might await him, he would kill Magnus and have Maeve.

  CHAPTER IX

  He stood on the ditch and peered down at the beehive hut, two hundred paces away, a hut in no way remarkable, but just like any other hut which one might find in a spot where the woods or the overhanging mountains provided shelter. Fursey fixed his eyes on it, telling himself that humble as it was, it held the woman who was superior to all other women in comeliness and kindness. It was of wickerwork, the twigs cunningly interwoven and the crevices filled with hardened mud. The conical roof was thatched with grass and rushes. Peat smoke drifted gently from the doorway: the pleasant smell came to him where he stood. In a field behind the cottage two cows moved, peacefully cropping the grass. He heard the crowing of a cock.

  He looked down at his clothes. He was a sorry sight. He had torn his trousers and vest crossing a thick fence of woven thorns, and he had slipped and fallen at the edge of a bog pool. He was conscious of the brown peat mud caked in his hair. He climbed down from the ditch and began to consider a plan of action.

  A small boy came along the track whistling shrilly. He was an unpleasant, grubby little fellow, who kicked the stones along the road as he walked, and occasionally bent quickly to pick one up and fling it at an unwary bird hopping in the hedge. When he came to where Fursey was standing, he halted and began to stare rudely.

  “How are you, my little man?” said Fursey, “and isn’t it a glorious afternoon?”

  The boy gaped at Fursey and spat contemptuously on to the road; but he did not deign to reply.

  “Tell me,” continued Fursey soothingly, “does a man called Magnus live in the little house beyond the trees?”

  The boy regarded Fursey critically.

  “What will you give me if I tell you?”

  “A poor man like me has little to give except his blessing.”

  The boy stared at Fursey. It was obvious that he did not regard a blessing as a marketable commodity.

  “Ay, he does,” he admitted grudgingly.

  “I want you to do something for me,” continued Fursey producing the little roll of parchment on which Cuthbert had inscribed the letter of challenge. “Take this down to Magnus and hand it to him.”

  “What will you give me if I do?” repeated the youth.

  Fursey felt in his pockets. They were empty except for the sheathed bodkin.

  “I shan’t give you anything for doing it,” he replied sweetly, “but if you don’t do it, I’ll knock your head off.”

  “Garn!” exclaimed the boy contemptuously. “An old fellow like you!”

  Fursey made a move in the objectionable youth’s direction. The small boy did not retreat, but bent and picked up a heavy stone. Fursey halted and the two eyed one another in silence for some moments. Then Fursey stepped back a pace.

  “When you have performed the errand, I shall reward you handsomely.”

  The boy hesitated. “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  The small boy held out his hand for the parchment, and when he had secured it, started at a run in the direction of the cottage. With the consciousness that great events had been put in train, Fursey scrambled over the ditch and ducked down behind a bush. Trembling, he took the poisoned bodkin from his pocket and drew the blade from its sheath. It glittered wickedly in the slanting sunlight. He shuddered, pushed it back into its cover, and slipped it into his pocket. Then he raised his head and watched with an anxious eye the devious course which the small boy was taking. He grunted indignantly as the youth stopped for some moments to paddle his feet in a stream and then set off across a field in pursuit of a rabbit; but the urchin returned at last and circled the fence of sharp stakes with which the hut was surrounded as a protection against wild beasts. There was an opening through which he could have passed with no inconvenience to himself, but he chose rather to climb across the fence at what seemed to be the most difficult part for such an operation. Fursey sighed with relief as he saw the boy at last entering the doorway of the hut.

  Inside was a scene of domestic bliss. A fire blazed in the centre of the earthen floor, and the resultant smoke filled the interior of the hut, circulating slowly as it drifted towards the doorway and slipped through the opening. The boy’s sharp eyes picked out at once the woman of the house standing at a table with her sleeves rolled up as she pounded a shapeless slab of dough into a condition more shapeless still, lifted it up, flung it on its back, and began to beat it with her fists. Magnus lay in a chair before the fire, his long legs stretched out on either side as if to embrace it, his jowl on his chest, fast asleep. The boy st
ood on one leg and fixed his eyes with interest on the sword and shield which rested in a corner beside a formidable spear.

  “What do you want, Benignus?” asked the woman kindly.

  “A message for Magnus.”

  “Well, you had better awaken him.”

  Magnus awoke with a muffled oath as he felt himself suddenly pushed. The brat was standing in front of him tendering the tiny roll of parchment. The man yawned, rubbed his eyes and took it from him. He examined it from every angle, finally opened it, and looked at the writing and at the back.

  “This is not much good to me,” he remarked. “I can’t read. Where did you get it?”

  “From a queer-looking fellow up the road.”

  “What sort of a queer-looking fellow?”

  The boy shrugged his shoulders impatiently. “A queer-looking fellow with white hair.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “He looked like something that had fallen off the back of a tinker’s cart,” replied the boy acidly.

  Magnus rubbed his head. “I’d better go and see,” he muttered.

  He rose, stretched himself, went out through the doorway and stood blinking in the sunlight. His roving eye rested at last on a small, plump figure peering at him from behind a bush. With a puzzled frown he strode in the stranger’s direction. As he approached, the small man skipped from the shelter of the bush and hid behind another one. Magnus stopped to consider this unusual behaviour. He could see the stranger’s head round the edge of the foliage and a pair of round eyes still staring at him.

  “Who are you?” he called out. “Come forth and declare yourself.”

  After a moment’s hesitation the stranger emerged and stood in the open, one hand behind his back.

  “Fursey!” gasped Magnus. “Are you really still alive?” and he bounded in Fursey’s direction.

  Fursey had expected at least a blow, and he was considerably taken aback to find his hand seized and shaken heartily. He slipped the naked bodkin into his pocket as Magnus slapped him on the back and assured him how delighted he was to see him.