Land

by Liam O'Flaherty

  Chapter XIX

  The grey stallion ran at full speed across the flat bog that stretched from the head of the mountain trail to the lake shore. Hardened by the violence of the summer heat, the naked brown earth re-echoed like a drum to the rhythmic beating of the steel-shod hooves. A curtain of swirling dust marked the fierce passage of the horse.

  Barbara drew rein sharply by the water’s edge, bringing the stallion almost to his haunches. Then she leaped to the ground and dropped the reins. The stallion righted himself, neighed in fright and set off along the shore at a canter. Crazed by the heat and by the furious pace at which he had been driven up the mountain, he could not contain himself. A cloud of smoke rose from his sweating flanks. There was foam on his bridle, along his trailing reins, under his belly and about his crupper. He neighed again and wheeled away from the lake. He galloped back the way he had come, raising another curtain of dust parallel with the first. He had begun to descend the mountain trail once more when the groom caught him.

  Barbara looked across the lake towards a heather-covered rock that rose a few feet above the far shore. Her face was flushed and tense.

  “You shouldn’t have ridden him that hard,” the groom said in a reproving tone as he trotted across the bog on an elderly roan mare, leading the stallion by the reins. “He’s a very nervous animal, ma’am. You could do him a great deal of harm by driving him hard up a mountain road on a hot day like this.”

  “Do the people really believe this lake is enchanted?” Barbara said with her back turned to him.

  “They do, ma’am,” the groom said as he jumped lightly from the saddle.

  “Do you believe it, Andrew?” Barbara said.

  “It’s hard to go against what everybody says,” Andrew replied.

  Barbara turned towards him abruptly. They looked at one another in silence. Then Andrew turned away his eyes and put his fingers under the edge of the sweating stallion’s saddle. The animal started violently, whinnied and pushed against the mare.

  “Whoa!” the groom said in a tender whisper. “Easy now, darling. Easy.”

  Barbara again looked across the water and said:

  “Would you be afraid to swim over to that rock with me, Andrew?”

  Andrew glanced towards the rock. Then he continued to caress the stallion without making any reply.

  “You would be afraid,” Barbara said in a slightly contemptuous tone. “Is that so?”

  “They say it’s enchanted water,” Andrew said gently.

  “What does that mean?” Barbara said.

  “It means that this lake is supposed to have no bottom.” Andrew said.

  “Do you believe that?” Barbara said.

  “They say a swimmer would surely sink forever through its black water,” he said. “That’s why no one ever dares to put foot in it.”

  “Then you are really afraid of swimming across it,” Barbara said.

  “I’m afraid of nothing, ma’am,” Andrew said. “I’m just telling you what the people say.”

  “You wouldn’t tell me what the people say,” Barbara said, “unless you were afraid.”

  “What the people say is generally true,” Andrew said. “There is always wisdom at the back of what they say, no matter how foolish it may seem to be at first sight.”

  “You are making excuses just because you are ashamed of being afraid,” she said in a nagging tone.

  “I’m not afraid,” Andrew cried in a voice that had suddenly thickened with passion.

  Barbara pointed with her whip towards a group of tall rocks that stood a little distance to the right.

  “Let the horses rest behind those rocks, Andrew,” she commanded.

  She waited until he was out of sight. Then she ran in the opposite direction. Crouching behind a boulder, she began to undress in great haste. When she was naked, she unloosed her hair and let it fall down her back to its full length. Then she entered the water. It was very shallow for about five yards, barely reaching above her ankles. Then the ground disappeared suddenly from beneath her feet, just as if it had been removed by enchantment. She gasped and began to swim. The shallow water had been warm. Here in the deep it was ice cold. She could hardly breathe because of the cold, as she struck out with all her strength towards the far shore.

  Presently she heard Andrew call to her.

  “For God’s sake, ma’ma,” he cried, “come back here.”

  She continued to swim without paying any heed to him.

  “Are you out of your mind?” he continued, raising his voice. “Come back before it’s too late.”

  She stood up in the water and turned towards him.

  “Come with me to the far shore,” she said.

  Andrew waded across the narrow strip of shallow water. He halted by the edge and shouted at her through his cupped palms.

  “Come back in God’s name,” he said.

  Barbara tossed her head and laughed. Then she stretched out her arms and legs, shook wide her hair and floated with her face to the sun. She arched her bosom, so that her tawny breasts rose clear above the water. The dark nipples glistened.

  Enraged by this wanton gesture, Andrew shook his clenched fist at her.

  “You insane woman!” he shouted. “You need to have the rod laid to you.”

  Barbara laughed again. Then she paddled with her arms and legs, churning the black water into foam.

  “Laugh, you devil,” Andrew yelled as he raced back to shore. “I’ll soon change your tune.”

  When she saw him undress in frenzied haste, she turned and continued to swim. As she advanced towards the cliffs that towered above the far side of the lake, the movement of her limbs began to sound loud in the stillness.

  She was halfway across when she again heard him shout.

  “I’ll teach you never again to torment a man,” he said.

  She glanced back over her shoulder. He was wading slowly through the shallow water, holding both hands in front of his person. The beautiful lean symmetry of his naked body made her swallow with delight. His trunk looked very white against the blackness of his hair and the brown tan of his bony face. He made the sign of the Cross on his forehead before plunging into the deep.

  “You devil of a woman!” he shouted as he began to swim.

  Barbara reached the far shore a good distance ahead of him. Gasping for breath, she climbed on to the rock and threw herself backwards among the half-resisting branches of the heather. A wide shaft of sunlight, coming through a cleft in the towering peaks, poured down upon the rock. The heather was warm and sweet-smelling.

  She stretched out her arms and legs, closed her eyes and listened to the panting rush of Andrew’s body towards her through the water.

  Chapter XX

  Stapleton was clearing the table with leisured dignity when Neville suddenly began to abuse him in a most rude fashion.

  “Don’t spend the whole night collecting a few crumbs, you dolt,” Neville said. “I’m getting to hate the very sight of you.”

  The butler recoiled visibly, like an ass that feels the sting of a sharp blow on his hide. He stood still for a moment. Then he continued to brush the table, hurriedly and without dignity.

  “You are becoming utterly incompetent,” Neville continued as he reached across the table for the decanter of port. “You have even become slothful. You have been in Ireland too long. All English servants degenerate after a certain time in this country. One should change them ever so often, just like one’s linen. You had better pull yourself together, my man, or else pack your things at once. I don’t tolerate inefficiency.”

  The butler finished gathering the crumbs. Then he bowed humbly to his master.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, sir,” he said in a frightened tone. “I’ll do my best to remedy …”

  “How dare you take on an injured air?” Neville interrupted as he struck the board with the heel of his fist. “Clear out at once.”

  Stapleton almost bolted from the room. He had seen Neville hor
sewhip other servants as a result of even more trivial incidents than this one. He closed the door behind him ever so gently. Then he ran on tip-toe all the way to the pantry.

  “Are you annoyed about something, Neville?” Barbara said, pushing her empty glass towards him.

  He filled her glass without looking at her. In fact, he had not looked at her even once during the meal.

  “I have every reason to be annoyed,” he said.

  Barbara raised her glass and then lowered it again before it had touched her lips. She looked unhappy and ashamed of herself. It was a mood that made her cruel face somewhat kindly and even gentle.

  “You are annoyed about the grey,” she said.

  “I told you several times to be careful with him,” Neville said.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” said Barbara. “Do you think he is seriously hurt?”

  “Andrew hasn’t been able to cool him off yet,” Neville growled, “but I think he’ll be all right in a day or two. He’s a bundle of nerves, that animal. Otherwise, he’d be a champion. Should geld him, I suppose. Damn the grey, in any case. I’ve more important things to worry about. I don’t like the way that groom looked at me when I entered the stables. He’s become surly. A fellow like him cowered before a gentleman until recently. Now he has the effrontery to look me straight in the eye, just as if he considered himself my equal. It’s the spirit of rebellion that is sweeping the country. Even our servants have become rebels.”

  Barbara leaned far back in her chair, stared at the far wall, raised her glass with a quick turn of her wrist and took a sip. Then she sighed deeply.

  “You are beginning to suspect everybody,” she said. “Sometimes I even think that you suspect me.”

  Neville looked at her steadily for a little while. Then he shook his head.

  “I don’t suspect you,” he said gloomily. “I never had any illusions about you. I know that you never even liked me. You married me for your own convenience. One can’t suspect a person about whom one has no illusions.”

  “You are in a peculiar mood to-night,” Barbara said.

  “I’m not complaining,” he continued. “I’ve never asked for sympathy from anybody. I don’t ask for it now, when the going is beginning to get a little rough. I’m not even complaining because you took advantage of my broken ribs to take a separate bedroom. I make no demands on you, not even that you should behave towards me with common decency.”

  “Did you have a lot to drink in Clash to-day?” Barbara said.

  “Fenton and I did drink a great deal of whisky,” he said.

  “Are you planning another murder?” Barbara said.

  Neville stared at her angrily and said:

  “None of that, Barbara. Do you understand? I’m in no mood for it.”

  He shrugged his shoulders, emptied his glass abruptly and then refilled it. His hand shook as he poured the wine from the decanter.

  “Fenton is cracking up,” he said after a long silence. “The Bodkin affair has been too much for him. Confound the fellow! His cowardice is bound to get me into trouble.”

  “Surely, you can’t blame him,” Barbara sneered, “for having the instincts of a gentleman.”

  “You insult the word gentleman,” Neville said. “He is beneath contempt. He went on and on about his wrecked career and his conscience, just as if he held me responsible for his failure to cope with his own weakness. In fact, he was downright hostile to me at first, when I called on him at his chambers. At one stage in the proceedings, he had the effrontery to jeer at me quite openly, because certain arrangements of mine had miscarried.”

  He chuckled and then added with great satisfaction:

  “He thought that he had me in a corner and that he could gloat over me, but I soon brought him to his senses. He cracked up almost at once when I took him over to Bodkin’s tavern. It was really a disgraceful exhibition. Frankly, it’s not a pretty sight when an Englishman …”

  “What was there at Bodkin’s tavern?” Barbara said in a very hostile tone.

  Neville had been slouching over the board. Now he sat up rigidly and pulled back his shoulders. His eyes became very sharp.

  “I wish I knew exactly,” he said. “There’s more to it than meets the eye. On the surface, there is only an elderly man, who formerly did intelligence work of a menial sort for the Government, living alone, cut off from all intercourse with his kind, slowly going insane. It’s not a pretty sight. Yet the shocking part is what cannot be seen or even described. You have to feel this sort of thing in order to understand it. You can only feel it by being where it’s happening. Of whom and of what is the fellow afraid? He won’t speak. We know that a number of men came to his tavern during Parnell’s meeting, three weeks ago last Sunday. Yet he refuses to say what transpired during their visit. It’s uncanny. I never experienced anything like this in Ireland. We could buy anybody in the blasted country for a pound note until now. The Fenians have the people terrorised. The changed behaviour of the Fenians is also very odd. They used to be harmless idiots, who liked to play at being conspirators. Now they are off on a new tack, interfering with government and making things difficult for us in every way they can. Not a soul has come into the tavern since the day of the Parnell meeting, except for the Constabulary and myself. Bodkin emerged only once, to visit a shop where he usually made his purchases. They absolutely refused to sell him any food. He told me that they looked at him just as if he had suddenly become a leper. He has remained indoors ever since. One of the constables takes him food, but he barely touches a morsel now and again. He’s deliberately starving himself, or else he has lost his appetite through fear. When I asked him if there was anything I could do for him, he went on his knees to me and said: ‘Send me Father Francis, your honour.’ He referred to an unfrocked priest, a relative by marriage, that had been living with him for years. Fenton told me that he himself had been to see this priest two weeks ago at Bodkin’s request. Oddly enough, he left the tavern on the day of the meeting and went to live in a stone hut up at Manister Head. He told Fenton, in so many words, to go to the Devil on being told of Bodkin’s request. ‘I have my own soul to save,’ he shouted. They are all mad, the whole pack of them. Since then, according to Fenton, Bodkin seems to have given up all hope, even though he keeps begging everybody he sees to send him Father Francis.”

  “How perfectly horrible!” Barbara said.

  “It’s worse than that,” Neville said. “It’s a downright dangerous situation, when you consider that we are handcuffed by the timidity of our Government. Martial law is the only solution. We have no idea what is being plotted. We have lost all our usual sources of information. The people now shun the rural constables.”

  “Why on earth don’t you pack up and go?” Barbara said passionately.

  “Are you serious?” Neville said.

  “You’re a shrewd business man,” Barbara continued. “You must know that the game you’ve been playing here in Ireland is no longer worth the candle. This lovely island has been stripped naked. It is now a horrible skeleton, picked clean by vultures like you.”

  Neville leaned towards her across the board and said:

  “You insolent swine!”

  “You’ve had your fair share of the flesh,” Barbara said calmly. “You came here, on your own admission, with no more than the clothes you had on your back. You are now a man of substance. When I first married you, three years ago, you sent your cattle to market in England on ships that had been chartered specially by you. You often engaged whole trains on the railway. Those …”

  “You insolent swine!” Neville said again, striking the table.

  “Those days of high prices and enormous profits are gone,” Barbara continued imperturbably. “Cattle are worth hardly more than their keep now. So why don’t you go, while there is still time?”

  “You are no better than a damned rebel,” he shouted at her.

  “You are getting afraid, Neville,” Barbara said with a smile. “I see it in your
eyes. You are losing control of yourself. You had better pack up and go before other people see that your eyes have become furtive and shifty.”

  “You are an insolent swine and a rebel,” he cried, getting purple in the face.

  “I’m proud of being a rebel,” Barbara said as she pushed back her chair and got to her feet. “I’ve always been one. English people are not all thieves and marauders. Thank God! England has also given poets and rebels to the world.”

  He drained his glass as she walked to the door.

  “Good night, Neville,” she said as she closed the door after her gently.

  “You insolent swine!” Neville said, picking up the decanter. “I’ll see you all in hell before I retreat an inch.”

  He changed his mind as he was about to fill his glass. He hurled the decanter from him across the table. The wine belched from the rolling vessel, making dark islands on the white cloth.

  Chapter XXI

  Four days later, Neville drove into the village to preside at the monthly sessions of the parish court. On emerging from the demesne gate, he was surprised to find that there was hardly anybody in the square.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” he said to Hopkins, who sat opposite him in the carriage. “Where are the people?”

  The tall, sallow-faced Cockney glanced in all directions without change of expression.

  “Don’t seem to be many here, sir,” he said gloomily.

  As a rule the square was crowded on court days, since the people regarded the petty sessions as a form of entertainment; largely in the way that the theatre is regarded by townspeople. They came from far and near to enjoy the litigation, abandoning the most important work in order to be present at it. The little courthouse was packed from early morning. The overflow stood outside and had the proceedings relayed to them from mouth to mouth, according as they transpired.

  To-day, however, there was only a small group standing in a forlorn fashion by the courthouse door. It consisted of the local police sergeant, three solicitors from Clash, Daggett, the process-server, and Fenton.

  “I don’t like the look of this, Hopkins,” Neville said as the horses broke into a walk circling the monument. “It’s Fenian ruffianism, I wager.”