a fishing-boat lay at anchor in a cove of dun-manus bay, a hundred rods from shore, softly rising and sinking with the swell of the tide which stirred the blue waters with all gentleness on this peaceful june morning. two men sat in lounging attitudes at opposite ends of the little craft, yawning lazily in the sunshine. they held lines in their hands, but their listless and wandering glances made it evident that nothing was further from their thoughts than the catching of fish.
the warm summer air was so clear that the hamlet of muirisc, whose gray walls, embroidered with glossy vines, and tiny cottages white with lime-wash were crowded together on the very edge of the shore, seemed close beside them, and every grunt and squawk from sty or barn-yard came over the lapping waters to them as from a sounding-board. the village, engirdled by steep, sheltering cliffs, and glistening in the sunlight, made a picture which artists would have blessed their stars for. the two men in the boat looked at it wearily.
“egor, it’s my belafe,” said the fisher at the bow, after what seemed an age of idle silence, “that the fishes have all follied the byes an’ gerrels, an’ betaken thimselves to ameriky.” he pulled in his line, and gazed with disgust at the intact bait. “luk at that, now!” he continued. “there’s a male fit for the holy salmon of knowledge himsilf, that taught fin maccool the spache of animals, and divil a bite has the manest shiner condiscinded to make at it.”
“oh, darn the fish!” replied the other, with a long sigh. “i don’t care whether we catch’ any or not. it’s worth while to come out here even if we never get a nibble and baked ourselves into bricks, jest to get rid of that infernal o’daly.”
it was the o’mahony who spake, and he invested the concluding portion of his remark with an almost tearful earnestness. during the pause which ensued he chewed vigorously upon the tobacco in his mouth, and spat into the sea with a stern expression of countenance.
“i tell you what, jerry,” he broke out with at last—“i can’t stand much more of that fellow. he’s jest breakin’ me up piecemeal. i begin to feel like jeff davis—that it ’ud have bin ten dollars in my pocket if i’d never bin born.”
“ah, sure, your honor,” said jerry, “ye’ll git used to it in time. he manes for the best.”
“that’s jest what makes me tired,” rejoined the o’mahony; “that’s what they always said about a fellow when he makes a confounded nuisance of himself. i hate fellows that mean for the best. i’d much rather he meant as bad as he knew how. p’raps then he’d shut up and mind his own business, and leave me alone part of the time. it’s bad enough to have your estate mortgaged up to the eyebrows, but to have a bard piled on top o’ the mortgages—egad, it’s more’n flesh and blood can stand! i don’t wonder them other o’mahonys took to drink.”
“there’s a dale to be said for the dhrink, your honor,” commented the other, tentatively.
“there can be as much said as you like,” said the o’mahony, with firmness, “but doin’ is a hoss of another color. i’m goin’ to stick to the four drinks a day an’ two at night; an’ what’s good enough for me’s good enough for you. that bat of ours the first week we come settled the thing. i said to myself: ‘there’s goin’ to be one o’mahony that dies sober, or i’ll know the reason why!’”
“egor, saint pether won’t recognize ye, thin,” chuckled jerry; and the other grinned grimly in spite of himself.
“do you know i’ve bin fig’rin’ to myself on that convent business,” the o’mahony mused aloud, after a time, “an’ i guess i’ve pritty well sized it up. the o’mahonys started that thing, accordin’ to my notion, jest to coop up their sisters in, where board and lodgin’ ’ud come cheap, an’ one suit o’ clothes ’ud last a lifetime, in order to leave more money for themselves for whisky. i ain’t sayin’ the scheme ain’t got some points about it. you bar out all that nonsense about bonnets an’ silk dresses an’ beads an’ fixin’s right from the word go, and you’ve got ’em safe under lock an’ key, so ’t they can’t go gallivantin’ round an’ gittin’ into scrapes. but i’ll be dodrotted if i’m goin’ to set still an’ see ’em capture that little gal katie agin her will. you hear me! an’ another thing, i’m goin’ to put my foot down about goin’ to church every mornin’. once a week’s goin’ to be my ticket right from now. an’ you needn’t show up any oftener yourself if you don’t want to. it’s high time we had it out whether it’s me or o’daly that’s runnin’ this show.”
“sure, rightly spakin’, your honor’s own sowl wouldn’t want no more than a mass aich sunday,” expounded jerry, concentrating his thoughts upon the whole vast problem of dogmatic theology. “but this is the throuble of it, you see, sir: there’s the sowls of all thim other o’mahonys that’s gone before, that the nuns do be prayin’ for to git out of purgatory, an’—”
“that’s all right,” broke in the o’mahony, “but my motto is: let every fellow hustle for himself. they’re on the spot, wherever it is, an’ they’re the best judges of what they want; an’ if they ain’t got sand enough to sail in an’ git it, i don’t see why i should be routed up out of bed every mornin’ at seven o’clock to help ’em. to tell the truth, jerry, i’m gittin’ all-fired sick of these o’mahonys. this havin’ dead men slung at you from mornin’ to night, day in an’ day out, rain or shine, would have busted up job himself.”
“i’m thinking, sir,” said jerry, with a merry twinkle in his eyes, “there’s no havin’ annything in this worruld without payin’ for that same. ’tis the pinalty of belongin’ to a great family. egor, since o’daly thranslated me into a macegan i’ve had no pace of me life, by rayson of the necessity to demane mesilf accordin’.”
“why, darn it all, man,” pursued the other, “i can’t do a solitary thing, any time of day, without o’daly luggin’ up what some old rooster did a thousand years ago. he follows me round like my shadow, blatherin’ about what dermid of the bucking horses did, an’ what conn of the army mules thought of doin’ and didn’t, and what finn of the wall-eyed pikes would have done if he could, till i git sick at my stomach. he won’t let me lift my ‘finger to do anything, because the o’mahony mustn’t sile his hands with work, and i have to stand round and watch a lot of bungling cusses pretend to do it, when they don’t know any more about the work than a yellow dog.”
“faith, ye’ll not get much sympathy from the gintry of ireland on that score,” said jerry.
“an’ then that malachy—he gives me a cramp! he ain’t got a grin in his whole carcass, an’ he can’t understand a word that i say, so that o’daly has that for another excuse to hang around all the while. take my steer, jerry; if anybody leaves you an estate, you jest inquire if there’s a bard and a hereditary dumb waiter that go with it; an’ if there is, you jest sashay off somewhere else.”
“ah, sir, but an estate’s a great thing.”
“yes—to tell about. but now jest look at the thing as she stands. i’m the o’mahony an’ all that, an’ i own more land than you can shake a stick at; but what does it all come to? why, when the int’rest is paid, i am left so poor that if churches was sellin’ at two cents apiece, i couldn’t buy the hinge on a contribution box. an’ then it’s downright mortifyin’ to me to have to git a livin’ by takin’ things away from these poverty-stricken devils here. i’m ashamed to look ’em in the face, knowin’ as i do how o’daly makes ’em whack up pigs, an’ geese, an’ chickens, an’ vegetables, an’ fish, not to mention all the money they can scrape together, just to keep me in idleness. it ain’t fair. every time one of ’em comes in, to bring me a peck o’ peas, or a pail o’ butter, or a shillin’ that he’s managed to earn somewhere, i say to myself: ‘ole hoss, if you was that fellow, and he was loafin’ round as the o’mahony, you’d jest lay for him and kick the whole top of his head off, and serve him darned well right, too.’”
jerry looked at his master now with a prolonged and serious scrutiny, greatly differing from his customary quizzical glance.
“throo for your honor,” he said at last, in a hesitating way, as if his remark disclosed only half his thought.
“yes, sirree, i’m sourin’ fast on the hull thing,” the o’mahony exclaimed. “to do nothin’ all day long but to listen to o’daly’s yarns, an’ make signs at malachy, an’ think how long it is between drinks—that ain’t no sort o’ life for a white man. egad! if there was any fightin’ goin’ on anywhere in the world, darn me if i would not pull up stakes an’ light out for it. another six months o’ this, an’ my blood’ll all be turned to butter-milk.”
the distant apparition of a sailing-vessel hung upon the outer horizon, the noon sun causing the white squares of canvas to glow like jewels upon the satin sheen of the sea. jerry stole a swift glance at his companion, and then bent a tong meditative gaze upon the passing vessel, humming softly to himself as he looked. at last he turned to his companion with an air of decision.
“o’mahony,” he said, using the name thus for the first time, “i’m resolved in me mind to disclose something to ye. it’s a sacret i’m goin’ to tell you.”
he spoke with impressive solemnity, and the other looked up with interest awakened.
“go ahead,” he said.
“well, sir, your remarks this day, and what i’ve seen wid me own eyes of your demaynor, makes it plane that you’re a frind of ireland. now there’s just wan way in the worruld for a frind of ireland to demonsthrate his affection—and that’s be enrollin’ himsilf among thim that’ll fight for her rights. sir, i’ll thrust ye wid me sacret. i’m a fenian.”
the o’mahony’s attentive face showed no light of comprehension. the word which jerry had uttered with such mystery conveyed no meaning to him at all at first; then he vaguely recalled it as a sort of slang description of irishmen in general, akin to “mick” and “bogtrotter.”
“well, what of it?” he asked, wonderingly.
jerry’s quick perception sounded at once the depth of his ignorance.
“the fenians, sir,” he explained, “are a great and sacret society, wid tins of thousands of min enlisted here, an’ in ameriky, an’ among the irish in england, wid intint to rise up as wan man whin the time comes, an’ free ireland. it’s a regular army, sir, that we’re raisin’, to conquer back our liberties, and dhrive the bloody saxon foriver away from erin’s green shores.”
the o’mahony let his puzzled gaze wander along the beetling coast-line of naked rocks.
“so far’s i can see, they ain’t green,” he said; “they’re black and drab. an’ who’s this fellow you call saxon? i notice o’daly lugs him into about every other piece o’ po’try he nails me with, evenin’s.”
“sir, it’s our term for the englishman, who oppreases us, an’ dhrives us to despair, an’ prevints our holdin’ our hieads up amongst the nations of the earth. sure, sir, wasn’t all this counthry roundabout for a three days’ journey belongin’ to your ancesthors, till the english stole it and sold it to boyle, that thief of the earth—and his tomb, be the same token, i’ve seen many a time at youghal, where i was born. but—awh, sir, what’s the use o’ talkin’? sure, the blood o’ the o’mahonys ought to stir in your veins at the mere suspicion of an opporchunity to sthrike a blow for your counthry.” the o’mahony yawned and stretched his long arms lazily in the sunshine.
“nary a stir,” he said, with an idle half-grin. “but what the deuce is it you’re drivin’ at anyway?”
“sir, i’ve towld ye we’re raisin’ an army—a great, thund’rin’ secret army—and whin it’s raised an’ our min all dhrilled an’ our guns an’ pikes all handy—sure, thin we’ll rise and fight. an’ it’s much mistaken i am in you, o’mahony, if you’d be contint to lave this fun go on undher your nose, an’ you to have no hand in it.”
“of course i want to be in it,” said the o’mahony, evincing more interest. “only i couldn’t make head or tail of what you was talkin’ about. an’ i don’t know as i see yet jest what the scheme is. but you can count me in on anything that’s got gunpowder in it, an’ that’ll give me somethin’ to do besides list’nin’ to o’daly’s yawp.”
“we’ll go to cork to-morrow, thin, if it’s convanient to you,” said jerry, eagerly. “i’ll spake to my ‘b,’ or captain, that is, an’ inthroduce ye, through him, to the chief organizer of munster, and sure, they’ll mak’ ye an’ ‘a,’ the same as a colonel, an’ i’ll get promotion undher ye—an’, egor! we’ll raise a rigiment to oursilves entirely—an’ muirisc’s the very darlin’ of a place to land guns an’ pikes an’ powdher for all ireland—an’ ’tis we’ll get the credit of it, an’ get more promotion still, till, faith, there’ll be nothin’ too fine for our askin’, an’ we’ll carry the whole blessed irish republic around in our waistcoat pocket. what the divil, man! we’ll make ye presidint, an’ i’ll have a place in the poliss.”
“all right,” said the o’mahony, “we’ll git all the fun there is out of it; but there’s one thing, mind, that i’m jest dead set about.” ..
“ye’ve only to name it, sir, an’ they’ll be de-loighted to plase ye.”
“well, it’s this: o’daly’s got to be ruled out o’ the thing. i’m goin’ to have one deal without any hereditary bard in it, or i don’t play.”
