two men sat one afternoon beside a spinney of beeches near the top of a wild bare down. old shepherd mordecai was admonishing a younger countryman, eustace cocking, now out of work, who held beside him in leash a brindled whippet dog, sharp featured and lean, its neck clipped in a broad leather collar. the day was radiant, the very air had bloom; bright day is never so bright as upon these lonely downs, and the grim face of storm never so tragic elsewhere. from the beeches other downs ranged in every direction, nothing but downs in beautiful abandoned masses. in a valley below the men a thousand sheep were grazing; they looked no more than a handful of white beach randomly scattered.
“the thing’s forbidden, eustace; it always has and always will be, i say, and thereby ’tis wrong.”
“well, if ever i doos anything wrong i allus feel glad of it next morning.”
“’tis against law, eustace, and to be against law is the downfall of mankind. what i mean to say—i’m a national man.”
“the law! foo! that’s made by them as don’t care for my needs, and don’t understand my rights. is it fair to let them control your mind as haven’t got a grip of their own? i worked for yon farmer a matter of fourteen years, hard, i tell you, i let my back sweat....”
the dog at his side was restless; he cuffed it impatiently: “and twice a week my wife she had to108 go to farmhouse; twice a week; doing up their washing and their muck—‘lie down!’” he interjected sternly to the querulous dog—“two days in every seven. then the missus says to my wife, ‘i shall want you to come four days a week in future, mrs. cocking; the house is too much of a burden for me.’ my wife says: ‘i can’t come no oftener, ma’am; i’d not have time to look after my own place, my husband, and the six children, ma’am.’ then missus flew into a passion. ‘oh, so you won’t come, eh!’
“‘i’d come if i could, ma’am,’ my wife says, ‘and gladly, but it ain’t possible, you see.’
“‘oh, very well!’ says the missus. and that was the end of that, but come saturday, when the boss pays me: ‘cocking,’ he says, ‘i shan’t want you no more arter next week.’ no explanation, mind you, and i never asked for none. i know’d what ’twas for, but i don’t give a dam. what meanness, mordecai! of course i don’t give a dam whether i goes or whether i stops; you know my meaning—i’d much rather stop; my home’s where i be known; but i don’t give a dam. ’tain’t the job i minds so much as to let him have that power to spite me so at a moment after fourteen years because of his wife’s temper. ’tis not decent. ’tis under-grading a man.’”
there was no comment from the shepherd. eustace continued: “if that’s your law, mordecai, i don’t want it. i ignores it.”
“and that you can’t do,” retorted the old man.109 “god a’mighty can look after the law.”
“if he be willing to take the disgrace of it, mordecai stavely, let him.”
the men were silent for a long time, until the younger cheerfully asked: “how be poor old harry mixen?”
“just alive.”
eustace leaned back, munching a strig of grass reflectively and looking at the sky: “don’t seem no sign of rain, however?”
“no.”
the old man who said “no” hung his melancholy head, and pondered; he surveyed his boots, which were of harsh hard leather with deep soles. he then said: “we ought to thank god we had such mild weather at the back end of the year. if you remember, it came a beautiful autumn and a softish winter. things are growing now; i’ve seen oats as high as my knee; the clover’s lodged in places. it will be all good if we escape the east winds—hot days and frosty nights.”
the downs, huge and bare, stretched in every direction, green and grey, gentle and steep, their vast confusion enlightened by a small hanger of beech or pine, a pond, or more often a derelict barn; for among the downs there are barns and garners ever empty, gone into disuse and abandoned. they are built of flint and red brick, with a roof of tiles. the rafters often bear an eighteenth-century date. elsewhere in this emptiness even a bush will have a name, and an old stone becomes a track mark. upon the soft tufts and among the triumphant furze live a few despised birds, chats and finches and that blithe110 screamer the lark, but above all, like veins upon the down’s broad breast, you may perceive the run-way of the hare.
“why can’t a man live like a hare?” broke out the younger man. “i’d not mind being shot at a time and again. it lives a free life, anyway, not like a working man with a devil on two legs always cracking him on.”
“because,” said mordecai, “a hare is a vegetarian creature, what’s called a rubinant, chewing the cud and dividing not the hoof. and,” he added significantly, “there be dogs.”
“it takes a mazin’ good dog to catch ever a hare on its own ground. most hares could chase any dog ever born, believe you me, if they liked to try at that.”
“there be traps and wires!”
“well, we’ve no call to rejoice, with the traps set for a man, and the wires a choking him.”
at that moment two mating hares were roaming together on the upland just below the men. the doe, a small fawn creature, crouched coyly before the other, a large nut-brown hare with dark ears. soon she darted away, sweeping before him in a great circle, or twisting and turning as easily as a snake. she seemed to fly the faster, but when his muscular pride was aroused he swooped up to her shoulder, and, as if in loving derision, leaped over her from side to side as she ran. she stopped as sharply as a shot upon its target and faced him, quizzing him gently with her nose. as they sat thus the dark-eared one perceived not far off a squatting figure; it was another hare, a tawny buck, eyeing their dalliance.111 the doe commenced to munch the herbage; the nut-brown one hobbled off to confront this wretched, rash, intruding fool. when they met both rose upon their haunches, clawing and scraping and patting at each other with as little vigour as mild children put into their quarrels—a rigmarole of slapping hands. but, notwithstanding the delicacy of the treatment, the interloper, a meek enough fellow, succumbed, and the conqueror loped back to his nibbling mistress.
yet, whenever they rested from their wooing flights, the tawny interloper was still to be seen near by. hapless mourning seemed to involve his hunched figure; he had the aspect of a deferential, grovelling man; but the lover saw only his provocative, envious eye—he swept down upon him. standing up again, he slammed and basted him with puny velvet blows until he had salved his indignation, satisfied his connubial pride, or perhaps merely some strange fading instinct—for it seemed but a mock combat, a ritual to which they conformed.
away the happy hare would prance to his mate, but as often as he came round near that shameless spy he would pounce upon him and beat him to the full, like a turk or like a russian. but though he could beat him and disgrace him, he could neither daunt nor injure him. the vanquished miscreant would remain watching their wooing with the eye of envy—or perhaps of scorn—and hoping for a miracle to happen.
and a miracle did happen. cocking, unseen, near the beeches released his dog. the doe shot away over the curve of the hill and was gone. she did not112 merely gallop, she seemed to pass into ideal flight, the shadow of wind itself. her fawn body, with half-cocked ears and unperceivable convulsion of the leaping haunches, soared across the land with the steady swiftness of a gull. the interloping hare, in a blast of speed, followed hard upon her traces. but cocking’s hound had found at last the hare of its dreams, a nut-brown, dark-eared, devil-guided, eluding creature, that fled over the turf of the hill as lightly as a cloud. the long leaping dog swept in its track with a stare of passion, following in great curves the flying thing that grew into one great throb of fear all in the grand sunlight on the grand bit of a hill. the lark stayed its little flood of joy and screamed with notes of pity at the protracted flight; and bloodless indeed were they who could view it unmoved, nor feel how sweet a thing is death if you be hound, how fell a thing it is if you be hare. too long, o delaying death, for this little heart of wax; and too long, o delaying victory, for that pursuer with the mouth of flame. suddenly the hound faltered, staggered a pace or two, then sunk to the grass, its lips dribbling blood. when cocking reached him the dog was dead. he picked the body up.
“it’s against me, like everything else,” he muttered.
but a voice was calling “oi! oi!” he turned to confront a figure rapidly and menacingly approaching.
“i shall want you, eustace cocking,” cried the gamekeeper, “to come and give an account o’ yourself.”
113
the man from kilsheelan
if you knew the man from kilsheelan it was no use saying you did not believe in fairies and secret powers; believe it or no, but believe it you should; there he was. it is true he was in an asylum for the insane, but he was a man with age upon him so he didn’t mind; and besides, better men than himself have been in such places, or they ought to be, and if there is justice in the world they will be.
“a cousin of mine,” he said to old tom tool one night, “is come from ameriky. a rich person.”
he lay in the bed next him, but tom tool didn’t answer so he went on again: “in a ship,” he said.
“i hear you,” answered tom tool.
“i see his mother with her bosom open once, and it stuffed with diamonds, bags full.”
tom tool kept quiet.
“if,” said the man from kilsheelan, “if i’d the trusty comrade i’d make a break from this and go seek him.”
“was he asking you to do that?”
“how could he an’ all and he in a ship?”
“was he writing fine letters to you then?”
“how could he, under the lord? would he give them to a savage bird or a herring to bring to me so?”
“how did he let on to you?”
“he did not let on,” said the man from kilsheelan.
tom tool lay long silent in the darkness; he had a mistrust of the man, knowing him to have a forgetful mind; everything slipped through it like rain114 through the nest of a pigeon. but at last he asked him: “where is he now?”
“he’ll be at ballygoveen.”
“you to know that and you with no word from him?”
“o, i know it, i know; and if i’d a trusty comrade i’d walk out of this and to him i would go. bags of diamonds!”
then he went to sleep, sudden; but the next night he was at tom tool again: “if i’d a trusty comrade,” said he; and all that and a lot more.
“’tis not convenient to me now,” said tom tool, “but to-morrow night i might go wid you.”
the next night was a wild night, and a dark night, and he would not go to make a break from the asylum, he said: “fifty miles of journey, and i with no heart for great walking feats! it is not convenient, but to-morrow night i might go wid you.”
the night after that he said: “ah, whisht wid your diamonds and all! why would you go from the place that is snug and warm into a world that is like a wall for cold dark, and but the thread of a coat to divide you from its mighty clasp, and only one thing blacker under the heaven of god and that’s the road you walk on, and only one thing more shy than your heart and that’s your two feet worn to a tissue tramping in dung and ditches....”
“if i’d a trusty comrade,” said the man from kilsheelan, “i’d go seek my rich cousin.”
115
“ ... stars gaping at you a few spans away, and the things that have life in them, but cannot see or speak, begin to breathe and bend. if ever your hair stood up it is then it would be, though you’ve no more than would thatch a thimble, god help you.”
“bags of gold he has,” continued the man, “and his pockets stuffed with the tobacca.”
“tobacca!”
“they were large pockets and well stuffed.”
“do you say, now!”
“and the gold! large bags and rich bags.”
“well, i might do it to-morrow.”
and the next day tom tool and the man from kilsheelan broke from the asylum and crossed the mountains and went on.
four little nights and four long days they were walking; slow it was for they were oldish men and lost they were, but the journey was kind and the weather was good weather. on the fourth day tom tool said to him: “the dear knows what way you’d be taking me! blind it seems, and dazed i am. i could do with a skillet of good soup to steady me and to soothe me.”
“hard it is, and hungry it is,” sighed the man; “starved daft i am for a taste of nourishment, a blind man’s dog would pity me. if i see a cat i’ll eat it; i could bite the nose off a duck.”
they did not converse any more for a time, not until tom tool asked him what was the name of his grand cousin, and then the man from kilsheelan was in a bedazement, and he was confused.
“i declare, on my soul, i’ve forgot his little name. wait now while i think of it.”
116
“was it mcinerney then?”
“no, not it at all.”
“kavanagh? the grogans? or the duffys?”
“wait, wait while i think of it now.”
tom tool waited; he waited and all until he thought he would burst.
“ah, what’s astray wid you? was it phelan—or o’hara—or clancy—or peter mew?”
“no, not it at all.”
“the murphys. the sweeneys. the moores.”
“divil a one. wait while i think of it now.”
and the man from kilsheelan sat holding his face as if it hurt him, and his comrade kept saying at him: “duhy, then? coman? mcgrath?” and driving him distracted with his o this and o that, his mc he—s and mc she—s.
well, he could not think of it; but when they walked on they had not far to go, for they came over a twist of the hills and there was the ocean, and the neat little town of ballygoveen in a bay of it below, with the wreck of a ship lying sunk near the strand. there was a sharp cliff at either horn of the bay, and between them some bullocks stravaiging on the beach.
“truth is a fortune,” cried the man from kilsheelan, “this it is.”
they went down the hill to the strand near the wreck, and just on the wing of the town they saw a paddock full of hemp stretched drying, and a house near it, and a man weaving a rope. he had a great cast of hemp around his loins, and a green apron. he walked backwards to the sea, and a young girl stood turning a little wheel as he went away from her.
“god save you,” said tom tool to her,117 “for who are you weaving this rope?”
“for none but god himself and the hangman,” said she.
turning the wheel she was, and the man going away from it backwards, and the dead wreck in the rocky bay; a fine sweet girl of good dispose and no ways drifty.
“long life to you then, young woman,” says he. “but that’s a strong word, and a sour word, the lord spare us all.”
at that the rope walker let a shout to her to stop the wheel; then he cut the rope at the end and tied it to a black post. after that he came throwing off his green apron and said he was hungry.
“denis, avick!” cried the girl. “come, and i’ll get your food.” and the two of them went away into the house.
“brother and sister they are,” said the man from kilsheelan, “a good appetite to them.”
“very neat she is, and clean she is, and good and sweet and tidy she is,” said tom tool. they stood in the yard watching some white fowls parading and feeding and conversing in the grass; scratch, peck, peck, ruffle, quarrel, scratch, peck, peck, cock a doodle doo.
“what will we do now, tom tool? my belly has a scroop and a screech in it. i could eat the full of isknagahiny lake and gape for more, or the hill of bawn and not get my enough.”
beyond them was the paddock with the hemp drying across it, long heavy strands, and two big stacks of it beside, dark and sodden, like seaweed. the girl came to the door and called:118 “will ye take a bite?” they said they would, and that she should eat with spoons of gold in the heaven of god and mary. “you’re welcome,” she said, but no more she said, for while they ate she was sad and silent.
the young man denis let on that their father, one horan, was away on his journeys peddling a load of ropes, a long journey, days he had been gone, and he might be back to-day, or to-morrow, or the day after.
“a great strew of hemp you have,” said the man from kilsheelan. the young man cast down his eyes; and the young girl cried out: “’tis foul hemp, god preserve us all!”
“do you tell me of that now,” he asked; but she would not, and her brother said: “i will tell you. it’s a great misfortune, mister man. ’tis from the wreck in the bay beyant, a good stout ship, but burst on the rocks one dark terror of a night and all the poor sailors tipped in the sea. but the tide was low and they got ashore, ten strong sailor men, with a bird in a cage that was dead drowned.”
“the dear rest its soul,” said tom tool.
119
“there was no rest in the ocean for a week, the bay was full of storms, and the vessel burst, and the big bales split, and the hemp was scattered and torn and tangled on the rocks, or it did drift. but at last it soothed, and we gathered it and brought it to the field here. we brought it, and my father did buy it of the salvage man for a price; a mexican valuer he was, but the deal was bad, and it lies there; going rotten it is, the rain wears it, and the sun’s astray, and the wind is gone.”
“that’s a great misfortune. what is on it?” said the man from kilsheelan.
“it is a great misfortune, mister man. laid out it is, turned it is, hackled it is, but faith it will not dry or sweeten, never a hank of it worth a pig’s eye.”
“’tis the devil and all his injury,” said kilsheelan.
the young girl, her name it was christine, sat grieving. one of her beautiful long hands rested on her knee, and she kept beating it with the other. then she began to speak.
“the captain of that ship lodged in this house with us while the hemp was recovered and sold; a fine handsome sport he was, but fond of the drink, and very friendly with the mexican man, very hearty they were, a great greasy man with his hands covered with rings that you’d not believe. covered! my father had been gone travelling a week or a few days when a dark raging gale came off the bay one night till the hemp was lifted all over the field.”
“it would have lifted a bullock,” said denis, “great lumps of it, like trees.”
120
“and we sat waiting the captain, but he didn’t come home and we went sleeping. but in the morning the mexican man was found dead murdered on the strand below, struck in the skull, and the two hands of him gone. ’twas not long when they came to the house and said he was last seen with the captain, drunk quarrelling; and where was he? i said to them that he didn’t come home at all and was away from it. ‘we’ll take a peep at his bed,’ they said, and i brought them there, and my heart gave a strong twist in me when i see’d the captain stretched on it, snoring to the world and his face and hands smeared with the blood. so he was brought away and searched, and in his pocket they found one of the poor mexican’s hands, just the one, but none of the riches. everything to be so black against him and the assizes just coming on in cork! so they took him there before the judge, and he judged him and said it’s to hang he was. and if they asked the captain how he did it, he said he did not do it at all.”
“but there was a bit of iron pipe beside the body,” said denis.
“and if they asked him where was the other hand, the one with the rings and the mighty jewels on them, and his budget of riches, he said he knew nothing of that nor how the one hand got into his pocket. placed there it was by some schemer. it was all he could say, for the drink was on him and nothing he knew.
“‘you to be so drunk,’ they said, ‘how did you get home to your bed and nothing heard?’
“‘i don’t know,’ says he. good sakes, the poor lamb, a gallant strong sailor he was! his mind was a blank, he said. ‘’tis blank,’ said the judge, ‘if it’s as blank as the head of himself with a gap like that in it, god rest him!’”
“you could have put a pound of cheese in it,” said denis.
121
“and peter corcoran cried like a loony man, for his courage was gone, like a stream of water. to hang him, the judge said, and to hang him well, was their intention. it was a pity, the judge said, to rob a man because he was foreign, and destroy him for riches and the drink on him. and peter corcoran swore he was innocent of this crime. ‘put a clean shirt to me back,’ says he, ‘for it’s to heaven i’m going.’”
“and,” added denis, “the peeler at the door said ‘amen.’”
“that was a week ago,” said christine, “and in another he’ll be stretched. a handsome sporting sailor boy.”
“what ... what did you say was the name of him?” gasped the man from kilsheelan.
“peter corcoran, the poor lamb,” said christine.
“begod,” he cried out as if he was choking, “’tis me grand cousin from ameriky!”
true it was, and the grief on him so great that denis was after giving the two of them a lodge till the execution was over. “rest here, my dad’s away,” said he, “and he knowing nothing of the murder, or the robbery, or the hanging that’s coming, nothing. ah, what will we tell him an’ all? ’tis a black story on this house.”
“the blessing of god and mary on you,” said tom tool. “maybe we could do a hand’s turn for you; me comrade’s a great wonder with the miracles, maybe he could do a stroke would free an innocent man.”
“is it joking you are?” asked christine sternly.
“god deliver him, how would i joke on a man going to his doom and destruction?”
the next day the young girl gave them jobs to do, but the man from kilsheelan was destroyed with122 trouble and he shook like water when a pan of it is struck.
“what is on you?” said tom tool.
“vexed and waxy i am,” says he, “in regard of the great journey we’s took, and sorra a help in the end of it. why couldn’t he do his bloody murder after we had done with him?”
“maybe he didn’t do it at all.”
“ah, what are you saying now, tom tool? wouldn’t anyone do it, a nice, easy, innocent crime. the cranky gossoon to get himself stretched on the head of it, ’tis the drink destroyed him! sure’s there’s no more justice in the world than you’d find in the craw of a sick pullet. vexed and waxy i am for me careless cousin. do it! who wouldn’t do it?”
he went up to the rope that denis and christine were weaving together and he put his finger on it.
“is that the rope,” says he, “that will hang my grand cousin?”
“no,” said denis, “it is not. his rope came through the post office yesterday. for the prison master it was, a long new rope—saints preserve us—and jimmy fallon the postman getting roaring drunk showing it to the scores of creatures would give him a drink for the sight of it. just coiled it was, and no way hidden, with a label on it, ‘o.h.m.s.’”
“the wind’s rising, you,” said christine. “take a couple of forks now, and turn the hemp in the field. maybe ’twill scour the satan out of it.”
“stormy it does be, and the bay has darkened in broad noon,” said tom tool.
123
“why wouldn’t the whole world be dark and a man to be hung?” said she.
they went to the hemp so knotted and stinking, and begun raking it and raking it. the wind was roaring from the bay, the hulk twitching and tottering; the gulls came off the wave, and christine’s clothes stretched out from her like the wings of a bird. the hemp heaved upon the paddock like a great beast bursting a snare that was on it, and a strong blast drove a heap of it upon the man from kilsheelan, twisting and binding him in its clasp till he thought he would not escape from it and he went falling and yelping. tom tool unwound him, and sat him in the lew of the stack till he got his strength again, and then he began to moan of his misfortune.
“stint your shouting,” said tom tool, “isn’t it as hard to cure as a wart on the back of a hedgehog?”
but he wouldn’t stint it. “’tis large and splendid talk i get from you, tom tool, but divil a deed of strength. vexed and waxy i am. why couldn’t he do his murder after we’d done with him. what a cranky cousin. what a foolish creature. what a silly man, the devil take him!”
“let you be aisy,” the other said, “to heaven he is going.”
“and what’s the gain of it, he to go with his neck stretched?”
“indeed, i did know a man went to heaven once,” began tom tool, “but he did not care for it.”
“that’s queer,” said the man,124 “for it couldn’t be anything you’d not want, indeed to glory.”
“well, he came back to ireland on the head of it. i forget what was his name.”
“was it corcoran, or tool, or horan?”
“no, none of those names. he let on it was a lonely place, not fit for living people or dead people, he said; nothing but trees and streams and beasts and birds.”
“what beasts and birds?”
“rabbits and badgers, the elephant, the dromedary, and all those ancient races; eagles and hawks and cuckoos and magpies. he wandered in a thick forest for nights and days like a flea in a great beard, and the beasts and the birds setting traps and hooks and dangers for a poor feller; the worst villains of all was the sheep.”
“the sheep! what could a sheep do then?” asked kilsheelan.
“i don’t know the right of it, but you’d not believe me if i told you at all. if you went for the little swim you was not seen again.”
125
“i never heard the like of that in roscommon.”
“not another holy soul was in it but himself, and if he was taken with the thirst he would dip his hand in a stream that flowed with rich wine and put it to his lips, but if he did it turned into air at once and twisted up in a blue cloud. but grand wine to look at, he said. if he took oranges from a tree he could not bite them, they were chiny oranges, hard as a plate. but beautiful oranges to look at they were. to pick a flower it burst on you like a gun. what was cold was too cold to touch, and what was warm was too warm to swallow, you must throw it up, or die.”
“faith, it’s no region for a christian soul, tom tool. where is it at all?”
“high it may be, low it may be, it may be here, it may be there.”
“what could the like of a sheep do? a sheep!”
“a devouring savage creature it is there, the most hard to come at, the most difficult to conquer, with the teeth of a lion and a tiger, the strength of a bear and a half, the deceit of two foxes, the run of a deer, the...”
“is it heaven you call it! i’d not look twice at a place the like of that.”
“no, you would not, no.”
“ah, but wait now,” said kilsheelan, “wait till the day of judgment.”
“well, i will not wait then,” said tom tool sternly. “when the sinners of the world are called to their judgment, scatter they will all over the face of the earth, running like hares till they come to the sea, and there they will perish.”
“ah, the love of god on the world!”
they went raking and raking, till they came to a great stiff hump of it that rolled over, and they could see sticking from the end of it two boots.
“o, what is it, in the name of god?” asks kilsheelan.
“sorra and all, but i’d not like to look,” says tom tool, and they called the girl to come see what was it.
“a dead man!” says christine, in a thin voice with a great tremble coming on her, and she white126 as a tooth. “unwind him now.” they began to unwind him like a tailor with a bale of tweed, and at last they came to a man black in the face. strangled he was. the girl let a great cry out of her. “queen of heaven, ’tis my dad; choked he is, the long strands have choked him, my good pleasant dad!” and she went with a run to the house crying.
“what has he there in his hand?” asked kilsheelan.
“’tis a chopper,” says he.
“do you see what is on it, tom tool?”
“sure i see, and you see, what is on it; blood is on it, and murder is on it. go fetch a peeler, and i’ll wait while you bring him.”
when his friend was gone for the police tom tool took a little squint around him and slid his hand into the dead man’s pocket. but if he did he was nearly struck mad from his senses, for he pulled out a loose dead hand that had been chopped off as neat as the foot of a pig. he looked at the dead man’s arms, and there was a hand to each; so he looked at the hand again. the fingers were covered with the rings of gold and diamonds. covered!
“glory be to god!” said tom tool, and he put his hand in another pocket and fetched a budget full of papers and banknotes.
“glory be to god!” he said again, and put the hand and the budget back in the pockets, and turned his back and said prayers until the peelers came and took them all off to the court.
it was not long, two days or three, until an inquiry was held; grand it was and its judgment was good.127 and the big-wig asked: “where is the man that found the body?”
“there are two of him,” says the peeler.
“swear ’em,” says he, and kilsheelan stepped up to a great murdering joker of a clerk, who gave him a book in his hand and roared at him: “i swear by almighty god....”
“yes,” says kilsheelan.
“swear it,” says the clerk.
“indeed i do.”
“you must repeat it,” says the clerk.
“i will, sir.”
“well, repeat it then,” says he.
“and what will i repeat?”
so he told him again and he repeated it. then the clerk goes on: “... that the evidence i give....”
“yes,” says kilsheelan.
“say those words, if you please.”
“the words! och, give me the head of ’em again!”
so he told him again and he repeated it. then the clerk goes on: “ ... shall be the truth....”
“it will,” says kilsheelan.
“ ... and nothing but the truth....”
“yes, begod, indeed!”
“say ‘nothing but the truth,’” roared the clerk.
“no!” says kilsheelan.
“say ‘nothing.’”
“all right,” says kilsheelan.
“can’t you say ’nothing but the truth'?”
“yes,” he says.
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“well, say it!”
“i will, so,” says he, “the scrapings of sense on it all!”
so they swore them both, and their evidence they gave.
“very good,” his lordship said, “a most important and opportune discovery, in the nick of time, by the tracing of god. there is a reward of fifty pounds offered for the finding of this property and jewels: fifty pounds you will get in due course.”
they said they were obliged to him, though sorrow a one of them knew what he meant by a due course, nor where it was.
then a lawyer man got the rights of the whole case; he was the cunningest man ever lived in the city of cork; no one could match him, and he made it straight and he made it clear.
old horan must have returned from his journey unbeknown on the night of the gale when the deed was done. perhaps he had made a poor profit on his toil, for there was little of his own coin found on his body. he saw the two drunks staggering along the bay—he clove in the head of the one with a bit of pipe—he hit the other a good whack to still or stiffen him—he got an axe from the yard—he shore off the mexican’s two hands, for the rings were grown tight and wouldn’t be drawn from his fat fingers. perhaps he dragged the captain home to his bed—you couldn’t be sure of that—but put the hand in the captain’s pocket he did, and then went to the paddock to bury the treasure. but a blast of wind whipped and wove some of the hemp strand around his limbs, binding him sudden. he was all huffled and hogled129 and went mad with the fear struggling, the hemp rolling him and binding him till he was strangled or smothered.
and that is what happened him, believe it or no, but believe it you should. it was the tracing of god on him for his dark crime.
within a week of it peter corcoran was away out of gaol, a stout walking man again, free in ballygoveen. but on the day of his release he did not go near the ropewalker’s house. the horans were there waiting, and the two old silly men, but he did not go next or near them. the next day kilsheelan said to her: “strange it is my cousin not to seek you, and he a sneezer for gallantry.”
“’tis no wonder at all,” replied christine, “and he with his picture in all the papers.”
“but he had a right to have come now and you caring him in his black misfortune,” said tom tool.
“well, he will not come then,” christine said in her soft voice, “in regard of the red murder on the soul of my dad. and why should he put a mark on his family, and he the captain of a ship.”
in the afternoon tom tool and the other went walking to try if they should see him, and they did see him at a hotel, but he was hurrying from it; he had a frieze coat on him and a bag in his hand.
“well, who are you at all?” asks peter corcoran.
“you are my cousin from ameriky,” says kilsheelan.
“is that so? and i never heard it,” says peter.130 “what’s your name?”
the man from kilsheelan hung down his old head and couldn’t answer him, but tom tool said: “drifty he is, sir, he forgets his little name.”
“astray is he? my mother said i’ve cousins in roscommon, d’ye know ’em? the twingeings....”
“twingeing! owen twingeing it is!” roared kilsheelan. “’tis my name! ’tis my name! ’tis my name!” and he danced about squawking like a parrot in a frenzy.
“if it’s owen twingeing you are, i’ll bring you to my mother in manhattan.” the captain grabbed up his bag. “haste now, come along out of it. i’m going from the cunning town this minute, bad sleep to it for ever and a month! there’s a cart waiting to catch me the boat train to queenstown. will you go? now?”
“holy god contrive it,” said kilsheelan; his voice was wheezy as an old goat, and he made to go off with him. “good-day to you, tom tool, you’ll get all the reward and endure a rich life from this out, fortune on it all, a fortune on it all!”
and the two of them were gone in a twink.
tom tool went back to the horans then; night was beginning to dusk and to darken. as he went up the ropewalk christine came to him from her potato gardens and gave him signs, he to be quiet and follow her down to the strand. so he followed her down to the strand and told her all that happened, till she was vexed and full of tender words for the old fool.
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“aren’t you the spit of misfortune? it would daunt a saint, so it would, and scrape a tear from silky satan’s eye. those two deluderers, they’ve but the drainings of half a heart between ’em. and he not willing to lift the feather of a thought on me? i’d not forget him till there’s ten days in a week and every one of ’em lucky. but ... but ... isn’t peter corcoran the nice name for a captain man, the very pattern?”
she gave him a little bundle into his hands. “there’s a loaf and a cut of meat. you’d best be stirring from here.”
“yes,” he said, and stood looking stupid, for his mind was in a dream. the rock at one horn of the bay had a red glow on it like the shawl on the neck of a lady, but the other was black now. a man was dragging a turf boat up the beach.
“listen, you,” said christine. “there’s two upstart men in the house now, seeking you and the other. there’s trouble and damage on the head of it. from the asylum they are. to the police they have been, to put an embargo on the reward, and sorra a sixpence you’ll receive of the fifty pounds of it: to the expenses of the asylum it must go, they say. the treachery! devil and all, the blood sweating on every coin of it would rot the palm of a nigger. do you hear me at all?”
she gave him a little shaking for he was standing stupid, gazing at the bay which was dying into grave darkness except for the wash of its broken waves.
“do you hear me at all? it’s quit now you should, my little old man, or they’ll be taking you.”
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“ah, yes, sure, i hear you, christine; thank you kindly. just looking and listening i was. i’ll be stirring from it now, and i’ll get on and i’ll go. just looking and listening i was, just a wee look.”
“then good-bye to you, mr. tool,” said christine horan, and turning from him she left him in the darkness and went running up the ropewalk to her home.
