Part 5
Like her sister, Mrs Mulrane, of course, found things quieter, but that was for her a questionable benefit, because it gave her the more leisure for thinking, and her thoughts were poisoned with bitter self-reproaches. As time crept on, these might have been mitigated, if they had sprung only from the manner of old Patrick’s death. She might have argued them down in her own mind with a theory, more or less well founded, that her share in the event was at worst merely an error of judgment, if indeed an error at all; and having thus convinced herself, she would not have deeply considered the neighbours’ view of her proceedings, however unfavourable. But as it was, the panic-stricken impulse, which had led her to cast upon her sons the responsibility for that fatal delay, had in every way worsened her plight. For in addition to the dubious guilt of her hesitation to rescue, she had burdened her conscience with the indisputably criminal act of bearing false witness against her nearest and dearest. That it was also an act of utter folly she speedily learned by the experience which so punctually arrives just too late. By allowing her sons to be accused she had more than trebled her own share of affronts and mortifications; she had opened a threefold inlet to the spears and arrows of disparaging looks and speeches, that flew around her thick and fast.
Old Patrick Mulrane had been one of those people who, though generally disapproved of, are not personally unpopular, and this made everybody feel all the more strongly about the dolefulness of his fate, and the worthlessness of those who had so disgracefully forborne any endeavours to avert it. A tall, gaunt Debby Ashe, who spoke with some authority, declared that it “put her heart across” to think of the poor old man lying there, caught by the leg in the cruel big boulder-stones, and watching the waves rolling in every minute to drown the life out of him, and those three great lumps of grandsons of his all the while standing within a goat’s tether of him, that wouldn’t so much as reach a hand to help him, not though their unfortunate mother went down on her two knees to them--there was that to be said for her. No indeed, not a one of the whole of them would, for fear the water might take them off their good-for-nothing feet. She wouldn’t have thought there were the likes of three such young poltroons in the parish, and they were no credit to it, or to whoever had the rearing of them. Many other persons shared Debby Ashe’s opinion, and expressed it in still stronger terms, which whoever had the rearing of these young poltroons often overheard, sometimes by accident, but more times by design. Often again she saw, or fancied that she saw, the shadow of such comments on the downcast countenances of her sons, which were usually gloomy enough to give her ample scope for conjectures of the kind. Amongst these was predominant a fear that the lads were “thinking bad of her,” grudging and resenting the ill-turn she had done them. Reasonable as the apprehension might seem, there were little grounds or none for it, except in the case of Dan, her favourite, and even he said never a word. In fact the whole household kept an absolute silence upon the subject.
It would be impossible to ascertain exactly how she at length became aware that Dan was thinking of the Jim M‘Evoys’ eldest daughter Rose, and that she wouldn’t have anything to say to him, and that, supposing the girl would itself, her people wouldn’t let her, by reason of the talk about him and his brothers at the time their grandfather got his death, and the bad name it gave them among the neighbours. Perhaps Maggie, the onlooker, may have dropped a hint and supplied her with the key which enabled her to spell out from a cipher of trifles how the matter stood. At any rate it came to her knowledge, and brought keenlier home to her what a dire injury she had done Dan and his brethren. For at this time there was nothing else in the Mulrane’s circumstances to make him a despicable suitor for Rose M‘Evoy. Since their grandfather had ceased to squander their earnings, they had thriven fairly well on their bit of land, where Mrs Mulrane herself worked desperately, and at sea, to which they now put out in a fishing-boat of their own. They sometimes did so in “soft” or “dirty” weather, which daunted their neighbours, whose commentary on such an occasion often ran to the effect that, “Them young Mulranes was mighty ready to be foolin’ off wid themselves in a gale of win’, when they thought they had a chance of grabbin’ a few mackerl. They were a dale more delicate if there was no talk of gettin’ anythin’ better out of the water than a misfortunate ould drowndin’ crathur. Bedad it looked very like as if they’d liefer he stopped where he was that time, and let them be shut of him. Or maybe what made them so hardy now was thinkin’ it wouldn’t be wid _drowndin’_ the likes of them were apt to get their deaths, no matter where they took it into their heads to streel off to. But sure it was a pity for ould Paddy that they didn’t take up wid the notion of bein’ so venturesome a bit sooner, ay was it--the young poltroons.”
Consequently Mrs Mulrane could not but clearly understand what was implied by the M‘Evoys’ rejection of her son, and in her raging against it she had to include herself. She brooded and fretted over it for several weeks, till one gusty March morning, when the sight of Dan’s haggard face at breakfast had sharpened her two most goading fears, which were that he might make away with himself, or else run off to the States, she formed a difficult resolve, and started up the cliff path to call on Rose M‘Evoy’s grandmother.
The Dowlings and the O’Hagans were friends of very long standing, while Mrs O’Hagan, a somewhat older contemporary, had known her all the days of her life, and was now rather poorer than herself, facts which made her errand less impossibly humiliating. Still, it needed a mighty effort, for she was inwardly furious at the M‘Evoys’ impudence. “Cock up the likes of them to look crooked at Dan,” and sorely perplexed to imagine how she could set about effecting her purpose without compromising the pride of the Dowlings and the Mulranes. Her own, individually, she was prepared to let fall. For a task of the kind her qualifications were but meagre, tact, patience and self-control being by no means her strong points, and even the stubborn will with which she was commonly credited seeming nothing more serviceable than a habit of adhering blindly to any position she might have hurriedly taken up in some access of fear or anger. So now in her interview with Mrs O’Hagan, instead of approaching its delicate object gradually yet steadily, as a skilful diplomatist would have done, she proceeded in a series of abrupt advances and awkward retreats, certain to draw upon her the very suspicions that she wished to shun. That she notwithstanding did never blunder or venture very near to the matter in hand will appear, however, from the part of their conversation which most directly referred to it.
“’Deed now, I often heard an ould woman I knew passin’ the remark,” Mrs Mulrane said, _apropos_ of a reported marriage, “that her sons were well off to have ne’er a sister, the way there was no need to be savin’ up for their linen chests, and bits of fortunes, and sellin’ stock for them, or givin’ it away off the land. It’s a great burden girls do be in a family, ma’am, all the one thing wid the rates and the rint.”
“That’s a bad word you’re sayin’ agin yourself and meself, a while back, ma’am,” Mrs O’Hagan said, with a tinge of severity in her jesting tone.
“Sorra the daughter I ever had, glory be,” Mrs Mulrane said, obtusely missing the point in her preoccupation with her own moral, “and ne’er a drawback me lads have at home, unless their poor aunt, that’s not apt to last much longer, and that’s no great trouble or expinse at all. She has a couple of pounds hid away somewhere this ten or twelve year towards her buryin’, I well know, though it’s not grudgin’ her I’ve a call to be, nor the lads wouldn’t either, if she hadn’t a pinny to her name. We can afford to be keepin’ her. To be sure, you had a daughter to marry, ma’am, and she has a good few _girsheachs_ growin’ up, and two or three of them red-headed; I do be noticin’ them on a Sunday. But Rose is a fine slip of a girl. I suppose they’ll be settlin’ her wid somebody agin next Shrove, ma’am, anyway?”
“Och, they’re in no hurry,” said Mrs O’Hagan. “Did you happen to hear tell what way the Widdy Hefferman’s sick heifer was this morning?”
“I did not. She and I aren’t very great. But as for the hurry, that’s the very thing I do be sayin’ to Dan and his brothers at home. Sorra a bit of a hurry there is on me to be seein’ a daughter-in-law comin’ in; but, all the same, ne’er a word I’d say against it, supposin’ a one of them took the notion in his head. And if by any chance it was a girl out of his own parish belongin’ to very respectable people, that he thought of makin’ up a match wid, all the better I’d be plased.”
“Me daughter wouldn’t be wishful to marry a girl of hers wid any people livin’ down along the strand, that I know,” Mrs O’Hagan said hastily and flurriedly, as if running out from beneath a dangerous roof, “she’d liefer they went to some place inland. People don’t be gettin’ their health so well, she says, livin’ on the edge of the cowld water.”
“There’s more than a few wouldn’t get their healths to suit them, unless they could be takin’ away other people’s characters, and puttin’ an ill name on a poor boy that never done them a hand’s turn of harm,” Mrs Mulrane burst out with bitter emphasis, this obvious evasion inciting her to one of her indiscreet rushes forward; but she pulled herself up with a jerk. “I was thinkin’ of somethin’ I read on the paper a while ago,” she explained, “about a couple of childer got burnt to death in a house, I disremimber where. But the crathurs might ha’ been took out safe enough, for there was them close by that would ha’ gone through fire and water to raich them wid ne’er a thought of drowndin’ or anythin’ else, only nobody seen the house was a-fire, barrin’ a silly, dotin’ ould body, no better than meself, ma’am, and she never had the wit to tell the other people till it was too late altogether. So anythin’ that happint was no fau’t of theirs, ma’am, whatever talk there might be afterwards.”
“Goodness pity us all,” said Mrs O’Hagan, “And was that the story she had? Sure now, it’s the quare woman that wouldn’t be makin’ up lies to rightify her own belongings, if she got the chance; and it’s the quare ignorant people that would be blamin’ the crathur for it. Not that you or me, Abbey, has any call to be considherin’ any such a thing. And it’s like enough your son ’ill be bringin’ home a wife before any great while. Would he be apt to think of gettin’s married up in Dublin? Nannie Dwyer was tellin’ me her sister’s son was intindin’ he would, because they have the name of ownin’ pigs, so it’s a heavy fee Father Hely’nd have to be gettin’ off them. They’d do it a dale chaper in Dublin.”
“As much as to say he’d better go look for a girl in a strange place, where they know naught about him,” Mrs Mulrane said, whirling on her brown shawl, and again her hostess protested: “Musha, not at all, not at all. What ’ud ail anybody to be takin’ up that notion? And sure it’s not runnin’ away wid yourself you are yet a while? Stop now, woman dear, till I get you a sup of thick milk.”
Nevertheless Mrs Mulrane was very soon running away with herself down the steep cliff path, against the bleak March wind; and as she went she realised more fully than she had ever done before the irrevocability of her false step. The druidical mist of untruth which she had raised could not now be dispersed by any spell in her power; confession was of no avail. She had indeed robbed her sons of a jewel, and not only so, but had herself hopelessly lost it; she could never restore it to them again.
And a few weeks later Dan Mulrane was voyaging, a forlorn and listless passenger, in a big liner, across the lonely ocean-plains between Liverpool and Boston. He had departed unbeknownst, wishing to shun a domestic scene of lamentation and remonstrance. Beyond that circle he had no need to apprehend any excessive regrets, for though naturally of a sociable disposition, he had not a single friend. The sentiment of the parish was that “It would be a good job if the other two had went along wid him”; and his mother’s grief was embittered by the reflection that “when the Daly’s two brats of boys set off to New York a convoy as big as a fair saw them as far as Loughard; but her poor Dan might travel away to the well of the World’s End, and no more talk about it than if he was an ould stray saygull.”
THE FOOT-STICKS OF SLUGHNATRAIGH
I
The strange childer must have come to Clochranbeg a good while before young Dan Mulrane the man-trapper’s emigration, for at that time they were quite settled in the place. That is to say, they were so in fact, though by a sort of convention it was always assumed that they were only temporary sojourners. Upon their first arrival this had promised to be really the case, as the elderly vagrant with whom they were travelling intended to pass but one night in the village, and did actually make an even shorter stay there, for the people who tried to awaken him next morning found that he had set off again some hours earlier. Whence he had come seemed, to Clochranbeg, a more unanswerable question than whither he had gone, nor could the small girl and smaller boy, who were left behind, throw much light upon his past. Their recollections, which might be supposed to reach back a couple of years or so, were of nothing except tramping about with “Himself,” otherwise “the man,” and they could give no account either of their relationship to him or to each other, or of how he had become their guardian. They called one another “Min” and “Atty,” which was all they knew about names; so that there were not enough to go round the three of them, as Mr Heany the schoolmaster remarked in the course of a discussion about funeral arrangements.
It was lucky that nobody’s feelings would be hurt by this stranger’s coming on the rates, for burial at the expense of the Union seemed inevitably to await him. But there was a general opinion that he should not be allowed to go to the pauper’s corner of Kilanure burying-ground unprovided with at least a name; and it appeared as if that much could easily be done for him by a simple invention, until Dermot Cassidy, who had a turn for raising difficulties, started a question about the impropriety of “as good as puttin’ a lie in the poor man’s mouth, and he on the way to his grave.” For it was fifty chances to one, Dermot argued, against their guessing a name for him that would be even an offer at his own. It might, for anything they knew, said Dermot, be cast up to the _crathur_ where he was going. This speculation appealed to fears and fantasies that were always rife among Dermot’s hearers, and it was a relief when the schoolmaster recommended what could be approved of as a safe and blameless step by those who felt most strongly that you cannot take too many precautions when dealing with matters of such mysterious moment.
“It’s liker than not,” Mr Heany said, “that he had the one Christian name with the little gossoon, if he was the grandfather, as the chances are. And if you add to that just ‘Mann’--I seen the name now and again meself, spelt with the two n’s--you’ll be saying no more of him than you might of any mother’s son of us all. ‘A Mann’ or ‘Art Mann’--no fear but that’s a right guess anyway.”
This suggestion being accepted in all seriousness, and an inquest being deemed unnecessary, the death of A. Mann was officially registered, while the surname became less formally a property of that forlorn little pair, who were thenceforth known collectively as “the strange childer,” but individually as Min and Atty Mann.
Since their late guardian had transmitted to them nothing else except a walking-stick, and a red cotton bundle, containing a few rags, some crusts, and fourpence-halfpenny in coppers, it seemed evident that the workhouse would have to provide for them also; and the Relieving Officer’s deputy did, in fact, propose to convey them thither in the old man’s hearse. But Mrs O’Hagan, with whom they were meanwhile lodging, so vehemently protested against the unluckiness of such a plan, and was so strongly backed up by all her cronies, that he agreed to leave them where they were until the next time he had business in the neighbourhood. And when before long this did happen, he was met on her very threshold by Mrs O’Hagan with a flat refusal to hand him over Atty and Min. She gave him impudence, he said, and asked if himself wasn’t the sensible man to be thinking to take children driving ten or a dozen miles in a draughty ould covered van, and they choking with the whooping-cough that mortal minute. Faix then, he might catch them himself, if he wanted to, she couldn’t tell where they were playing outside down along the road. Whereupon Mrs Daly next door had poked out her head, and peremptorily troubled him not to be drawing up his ould workhouse yoke in front of _her_ place. Poor Alec Hanlon reported these affronts with not a little resentment, but without obtaining much redress from the authorities. The truth was that they were by no means eager to make themselves responsible for the support of the derelict children, and were more than willing to be relieved of it by anybody else. So they instructed him to leave the woman alone; if she had a fancy to keep the children, well and good; she’d be sure to let them know plenty soon enough whenever she got tired of it; trust her for that. It was perhaps a rather unofficial and irregular line of action, but it satisfied all the persons concerned, except Alec Hanlon, who could have wished to be charged with some alarming reprimand for the over-awing of _impident_ Mrs O’Hagan and abusive Mrs Daly.
The strange childer themselves acquiesced in their new situation quite contentedly. They continued to lodge with Mrs O’Hagan, who, living her lone, had room to spare, and they boarded dispersedly among the neighbours, who never failed to produce at least a sufficiency of potatoes. It could not be said that either of them did credit to their ungrudged fare, as they both remained thin and peaky-faced. In appearance they resembled one another, though Min’s hair was dark chestnut and Art’s a brownish hay-colour, and though the sun that had tanned his face had sprinkled hers with constellations of freckles of the first magnitude. In disposition there was less likeness, yet more than showed on the surface, the difference between them lying in development rather than in character. It was, however, noticed that two peculiarities were equally shared by each of them. Both feared horribly policemen and all kinds of officials, and both were most reluctant to set foot anywhere except along the road. Evidently the main precepts of their moral law had been: _Thou shalt keep out of the way of the pólis_, and _Thou shalt not stravade about_; while its sanctions had comprised shutting up in gaols and workhouses, and getting lost and starved. Several weeks passed after their arrival before the little Clochranbegians could persuade them to venture out upon the bog, and for many a day did Min and Atty cast dismayed and mistrustful glances at good-natured Andy M‘Evoy, who happened to be wearing an old postman’s cap. Although, as time went on, familiarity and the force of example undermined the authority of these fears, they never wholly lost their influence.
It was furthermore discovered that the strange childer were both endowed with the gift of song, possessing voices unexpectedly powerful for persons of their age and growth. Min, whose years were estimated at six or seven, had obviously formed her style upon that of various street-singers, and in a high treble reproduced the quavers and flourishes with more exactness, happily, than the words of their ditties, which in her version had at least the grace of complete unintelligibility. Atty, her junior by some twelve-month, owned the clear pipe of a blackbird, and appeared to be an improviser into the bargain, the stock piece in his repertoire showing all the signs of an original composition. A simple and artless lay enough, it became exceedingly popular at Clochranbeg, and was so repeatedly demanded by audiences of both young and old that its strains might often be heard rising from some out-of-door playground in the daytime, and after dark from some flickering fireside.
“_I would I were a mountain pig, I would indeed bedad_;”
it ran to a monotonous, mournful sort of chant,
“_I would I were a mountain pig A-walking in the lane_;”
and it continued thus indefinitely, varying only with respect to the occupation of the mountain pig. Perhaps the very monotony of its music may have been found soothing, or possibly the charm lay in the perfect senselessness of the words; undoubtedly it somehow hit the fancy of the neighbours, and it is probably chanted to this day upon the bog-lands of Meenaclochran.