Part 9

Now nobody could be long in Mrs MacNee’s company without becoming aware of her three ruling passions. These might be summed up as a love, a fear, and a hate, of which the respective objects were her son, ghosts, and spiders. None of these emotions existed unmixed with another. As no one holds any such possessions in fee simple, she had to pay a heavy fine of fear for her interest in Paddy, all the heavier on account of his absence in terribly far-off States. Fear, again, mingled with her abhorrence of the long-legged spinners, who, hideously sprawling, let themselves down by sudden threads from the rafters “on top of a body’s cap” maybe, or glanced in hobgoblin gallops over wall and floor. Nor could she truthfully have denied, though she dared not avow, a mortal antipathy to those ghostly enemies, whose presence, less frankly manifested, was scarcely a whit more doubtful, and more dreadful by far. She found it a solace to discourse about these things to a sympathetic hearer, and such a one she had in Jim Moriarty. With respect to Paddy and the ghosts he was nothing more. All he could do was to listen appreciatively while she expatiated on the various virtues of her son, or related how the lough and its shores had come to be infested with phantoms of an ill-omened sort. But in the matter of the spiders he was able to lend more practical assistance, and it became his custom to spend part of each visit in pursuing them, with the help of a heather-tipped oar-handle, to their most obscure and recondite recesses. Lizzie doubted whether “he mightn’t as well be offerin’ to hunt the clouds off the sky as them crathurs that kep’ on patchin’ up their old webs out of nothin’ at all;” and Maria sometimes complained that he stirred up the dust to fly about choking them; but as the chase seemed a satisfaction to Mrs MacNee, it was persevered in until at length it brought disaster.

One evening after tea Jim was flourishing his mop with especial energy on the track of a huge spider, which his hostess had descried “leggin’ it up the wall beside the turf-bin, with horns on it’s hijjis head the len’th of your arm and as black and hairy in itself as the divil’s hind-foot.” This prodigious object was elusively swift in its movements, and dodged about for a long while among the rafters with tantalising disappearances and reappearances, until at last Jim, making a desperate lunge, tripped over a stool and brought down his weapon with much violence on the jingling dresser. It stood so thick with crockery that the resulting damage seemed strangely slight, being limited to the fracture of a single cup. Only Jim and Lizzie witnessed the accident, Mrs MacNee having stepped into the other room bringing tea for Maria, who was laid up with asthma. “That’s contrary now,” said Lizzie. “Of course nothin’ would suit it but to be the one our Paddy gave me mother just before he quit, and that she sets the greatest store by at all.”

“Ay, ay, ay, it’s too bad altogether,” Jim said, standing in large disconcertion, and looking down on the small pink-and-white victim of his clumsiness.

“The worst of it is,” said Lizzie, “that she’ll be sure to think it’s a sign of somethin’ happenin’ him, and fretting herself into fiddlestrings she’ll be till we hear from him agin.”

“I wonder now would there be e’er a chance I could match it anywhere,” Jim said, ruefully examining the pink-banded cup with the piece out of its side. “It’s not too oncommon a pattron.”

“It wouldn’t be the same thing to her as Paddy’s one, even so,” said Lizzie.

“Suppose it happened she didn’t know the differ,” said Jim.

“To be sure if I kep’ the right side turned out she might maybe never notice it till you thried for the other,” said Lizzie.

“Do then, like a jewel,” said Jim.

“It might be the best plan,” said Lizzie. “For I well know she’d have us all bothered hearin’ banshees, and dreamin’ ugly dreams, and sayin’ it was a sign of troubles. And you might have a good chance of matchin’ it at the fair there is to-morrow or next day down below.”

“I will so,” said Jim.

Thus the conspiracy was hatched, with what seemed a fair prospect of success. But the Fowl of Fortune never will sit upon only a single egg; and it seldom happens that at least one of the brood does not turn out an unchancy bird.

On the next day was Haganstown Fair, at which six of the Moriarty sheep off the mountainy lands were to be sold. Andy had intended to drive them over with the help of Garry the collie and Jack; but at the early breakfast Jim proposed to come instead of the latter. He said it was because the young chap had a heavy cold on him to be going out under the wet, and Andy said (aside to Biddy) it was because the big ass did be always stuffin’ himself wherever he wasn’t wanted; but neither explanation was strictly true. And at the Fair the first acquaintance Jim fell in with was Lizzie MacNee, who for a wonder had been persuaded to accept a seat on the Duffs’ side-car. The meeting seemed a lucky event, as they both hoped that the right teacup might be found in time for Lizzie to carry it home with her. “And that,” said Lizzie, “would be a great thing; for she’s apt enough to take the notion of usin’ it at the party to-morra night, and then where’d we be?” To-morrow was no less an occasion than Shrove Tuesday, which the MacNees were to celebrate with friends to tea. But the Duffs were in a hurry home out of the rain, and Lizzie had to go before the china-hunt had well begun. “I’ll get it sure enough yet, no fear,” Jim prophesied at parting. “’Twill be on one of them stalls. And I brought the broken bit along, the way I mightn’t be mistook in the colour.” He showed her, with some pride at his own providence, the pink-and-white fragment which protruded from a pocket of his best coat.

“Don’t be late bringin’ it over to-morra,” said Lizzie. “Of course Biddy and little Jack ’ill be comin’ along--and Andy, maybe, that’s too much took up wid his ould sheep to come and spake a word to anybody.”

Andy, standing black-browed at a little distance, looked as if any words he might see fit to speak would be far from agreeable. He had watched the meeting of Lizzie with Jim, and through the voluble bargaining of old Joe Megarity had overheard snatches of their conversation, which he thought betokened some secret understanding between them. His impression when setting out had been that Jim was coming to keep an eye on the sale of the sheep, lest he should be defrauded of the profits in which he owned so large a share. But now a different motive suggested itself, and shrivelled up the more sordid suspicion as a wave of flame might scorch up a muddy little puddle. As the Duffs’ car drove off he withdrew scowlingly into the seclusion of a dense crowd, and for the remainder of the Fair evaded notice so completely that Jim had to return alone.

III

The next morning, which was the last one of an inclement February, wore so murky and menacing an aspect that Biddy Moriarty decided upon walking over very early to the MacNees, lest if she waited till towards evening the threatened _polthogues_ of rain should catch her in her “good things.” She started in her best humour too, for Jim had just presented her with a grand blue silk scarf, and moreover, to her delighted exclamation that it was “the very same colour as the one looked so iligant on Lizzie MacNee,” had replied: “Bedad now, Biddy, you’d be twice as purty a girl as any MacNee if you done your hair a trifle tidier.” This qualified compliment was no more than the truth; but compliments of any sort had so rarely been her portion that it elated her exceedingly. Passing the turf-stack she saw Andy lounging against it, and accosted him with: “Well, Andy, do you know what Jim’s after sayin’ to me?” Andy, however, kicked over a zinc bucket which lay near, and growled amid its clatter: “Och, go to the mischief. What the divil do I care what the bosthoon’s after sayin’ to anybody?” So, inferring his mood to be unsympathetic, she huffily went her way with her news untold. Jim, who had thought of entrusting her with the surreptitious cup, which he had successfully matched, saw that she was bundle-laden, and resolved to row himself over with it at a reasonably early hour.

But by the time that it seemed late enough to set off the weather had altered seriously for the worse. Not only was the wind rising in fitful squalls, but through the nearest gap in the hills a procession of low-trailing clouds came on interminably, with the gait of winged things that chose to creep, and in a lull about noon one of these lit like an immense white moth on Beltranagh Farm, blotting out its world with blurs of blank fog. “It might take off wid itself in a couple of hours, if the wind got up agin, or it might settle down for the divil knows how long,” was Andy’s forecast when he came gloomily groping indoors and was rather anxiously consulted by Jim. “And what odds does it make one way or the other?”

“I was thinkin’ of gettin’ over to the MacNees,” said Jim.

“Then you might as well be thinkin’ of breakin’ your fool’s neck while you’re about it, steppin’ into some hole--and welcome,” said Andy, dumping himself down into the hearth corner. He had brought home yesterday, instead of one fairing that he had changed his mind about getting, a bottle of new whisky, and to-day’s evil humour was aggravated by its contents. Jim perceived that Andy did not propose to accompany him, which was inconvenient, inasmuch as an experienced guide would have been useful, sullen or no. However, he reflected that morose society might be better than none for Jack, whose cold forbade stravading about in the chilly fog. So he tied up his teacup in a large red cotton handkerchief and went out, uncertain whether to make his way by land or by lough. This question soon seemed to be decided for him by his losing himself with a thoroughness which he would have thought impossible upon a strip of ground nowhere many perches wide. The fog pressed on him so impenetrably that he could not see a hand, much less a foot, before his face, and in skirting rough, tall boulders and crossing little creeks he lost his bearings completely and irretrievably. To and fro he circuitously strayed, until he would have abandoned his expedition in despair had not home become as unapproachable as any other place.

Then at length he stumbled against something and discovered that it was the small boat in which he had made his last voyage up the lough. She was lying as usual on the little sandy patch close to the water, which he heard lapping unseen; and he forthwith felt assured that his plan could be carried out after all. He generally disliked giving up a plan, and particularly wished the teacup to arrive in good time. As he faced the water a cold blast blew steadily in his back, and he said to himself: “More power to it! That win’ ill soon raise the fog, and ’twill give me a fine lift up the lough. Me arm’s right enough anyhow for rowin’ that far; I needn’t put up the sail while it’s so thick.” He launched the boat easily, with his bundle stowed carefully under a bench, and was just pushing off when somebody chuckled startlingly close by. The fog was lightening, for he could almost imagine that he saw the outline of the somebody seated on a boulder. “Is it fishin’ you’re a-goin’ this fine evenin’?” said Andy, and laughed derisively.

“To be sure I am, all the way up to Mrs MacNee’s. Are you comin’ along?” Jim replied, choosing to assume that Andy’s sarcasm was amicably meant, but not by any means supposing that the invitation would be accepted. Andy in fact did reply: “Am I goin’ to blazes wid me great-grandmother’s cat?” But the next moment he jumped up, saying: “Och, bedad, I might as well,” and suddenly had one foot at sea.

“If you’ve drink taken, you’d a right to stop on shore,” said Jim, to whom this infirmness of purpose looked suspicious. But Andy only said: “Drink away, boys,” and swung himself on to a bench. His embarkation was immediately followed by another, which sought, and failed to be unobserved. “What’s that clattering?” said Jim. “Och to goodness is it Jack?” It was Jack, who had furtively attended Andy when he sauntered out. “Git along wid yourself home, you young rapscallion,” Andy said, making a grab at him, whereupon Jim shoved the child out of reach behind him into the bows. “He’d better stop as he’s come,” said Jim. “He might be all night findin’ the house agin.”

“Och, have it your own way,” said Andy, with another laugh, taking an oar. Jim also began to row, not rejoicing in either of his companions.

For some time he pulled on silently and gave no signs that he was growing puzzled: their progress seemed to him so inexplicably slow. The high wind certainly was with them, yet they made little way, and as if against a strong current. The blinding white fog had thinned somewhat, and lifted, but nothing came into view except dull green water, and that was strangely turbulent. “Begorra, there’s no end to it,” said Jim, at last, or rather shouted, the noisy wind prescribing loud and laconic speech. “We should ha’ been past the narrows long ago, but ne’er a sign of them; and its wilder the wather’s gettin’ on us instead of smoother.”

“Sure, now, yourself’s the quare man,” Andy shouted back. “Thinkin’ to be in the town of New York by tay-time. If you get your breakfast there you’ll be doin’ right well.”

“What at all are you romancin’ about?”

“Where else are you expectin’ to get it--and yourself rowin’ out to say as hard as you can pelt for the last half-hour or more? We’ll be off Inish Arbeen by now.”

“It’s a lie you’re tellin’. Sure, I knew you were demented wid the drink.”

“Take a sup yourself, then, boyo, of wather, and you’ll aisy see if e’er a drop like it’s in Lough Orren to wet Lizzie MacNee’s tay,” Andy yelled hoarsely, hindered by his own passion as well as the rising storm’s; and Jim involuntarily obeyed the injunctions as a splash of scudding spray was slung across his face. Tasting the sharp Atlantic brine, he was convinced that Andy, drunk or sober, had spoken the truth.

“Then I turned the wrong way and you never tould me. Of all the bedlam tricks,” he said. “But we must be gettin’ back out of this the quickest road we can, and it’s as much as we’ll do.” He stopped rowing and held water, so that as Andy continued to pull, the boat swung round with her broadside to a wave, which swooping by almost swamped them.

“Quit them fool’s antics,” commanded Andy. “We couldn’t make an offer to git back agin’ that win’, and if we could we’d only be bet to sticks on the shingle. What we’ve a right to do is thry run in under the lee of Arbween Headland over yonder.” He pointed across a field of mounded foam to where, on the more stable-seeming vapour, quivered a dim outline, showing the soft curves of silvery flower-petals, but in reality representing a bastion of black rock reared above buttresses shagged with murky weed, and hung with seething white fleeces. “It’s our best chance,” he said, “and a bad one.”

“Thry anythin’ you can; I’m a land-lubber to you,” said Jim. It was indeed no time for self-assertion. The wind was raving in a full gale as they began to struggle towards their refuge, awfully distant beyond whirling chasms and drifting cataracts. No conversation was possible, save the argument between the powers of the waters and the air, carried on with skirling shriek and moaning bellow. At last, in a brief pause, a human voice, small and futile, made itself heard. It was Jack, whose hitherto implicit faith in his elders’ capacity for managing affairs had been shaken by the fiercer plunging and battering, and who now inquired breathlessly: “Is there e’er a chance--of us goin’ down--the way the Mulhalls’ boat done wid them before Christmas?”

“The divil recaive the chance there is of any such a thing, sonny, sorra a one at all,” said Jim, with a vivid recollection of how he had decreed the child’s fate. “Take the cup out of the handkerchief there beside you, avic--’twould ha’ been in smithereens if you hadn’t kep’ a hold on it--and bale away wid it like a Trojan.” He set Jack this task as he might have blindfolded a frightened horse. But when Andy saw the cup unwrapped, his eyes glared in the black and white of his drawn face. “It’s not drinkin’ tay out of that Lizzie MacNee ’ill be this night, nor e’er another night she won’t be, I’m thinkin’, for all the fine hurry you were in takin’ off wid it to her,” he said triumphantly.

“What blatherin’ have you about Lizzie MacNee?” Jim answered. “’Twas a cup I was bringin’ her mother in place of one I broke on her.”

“And I didn’t see you colloguin’ wid Lizzie yisterday at the Fair, and she so took up wid you she couldn’t look the way anybody else was?”

“Lizzie MacNee’s nothin’ to me, alive or dead, or meself to Lizzie, there’s the whole of it. And that’s what you’ve dhrownded the three of us for--you mad divil.”

“We’re not dhrownded yit. Forby, how could I tell it was goin’ to blow a gale?” Andy rejoined half apologetically, after one more hopeless wrestle. “It’s just a quare bit of bad luck all round. Faix, there’s an end of that anyway.” For at this moment the cup, slipping from Jack’s hand, broke in two. The mishap made him look up with an apprehensiveness that in the circumstances struck Jim as singularly piteous. “Never mind, Jack, me man,” he hastened to say, “sure what matter at all? ’Twas the unlucky ould cup, and we’ll do as well widout it every atom.” He was thinking to himself: “If I could be sartin ’twas an aisier way than dhrowndin’, I’d knock him on the head wid the oar--I would so.”

Andy spoke his thoughts aloud: “I hope Biddy’ll be stoppin’ the night at the MacNees. What I do be thinkin’ worst of is her comin’ home, the crathur, to the empty house. She and Lizzie was great friends ever; Lizzie ’ud be very apt to keep her.” For further reflections they had no time. A vast wave, sweeping along to hurl itself against the cliffs, was caught and swirled round close by in a boiling crater, whence it broke forth through a flurry of smotherin’ foam, and rising higher and higher poised itself over the huddled heads in the little boat. Another instant and it fell sheer upon them, as a rearing horse falls back to crush his rider.

At this time, which was about sunset, the MacNees, in their fire-lit kitchen away at the head of the lough, made up their minds that it would be ridiculous to expect any guests on such a wild wet evening, and had begun to prepare tea. “Your brothers might be lookin’ in a bit later, when the win’ goes down,” Lizzie said to Biddy. “I wouldn’t wonder if Jim did anyway.”

“If they’d be ruled by me they’d keep off the lough after dark,” said Mrs MacNee. “The dear knows what else might be out and about on it this minyit.”

“Ah, sure, they’ll do well enough so long as they meet nothin’ worse than mother’s ould ghosts,” said Lizzie.

“They’ll maybe have little Jack along wid them,” said Maria. “And a child’s a grand thing, folk say, for keepin’ away any such. We mustn’t forget the sugar-sticks we have for him.”

“Yis, mother, I’m just puttin’ out the common cups,” said Lizzie. “What need is there to be usin’ Paddy’s good one when nobody--”

“Whisht,” Biddy interrupted, “isn’t that them outside?” She listened for a moment, and then: “I thought I heard Andy’s voice callin’,” she said, “but it must ha’ been only the howlin’ win’.”

CRAZY MICK

“So them half-dozen big giants,” said Felix the Thatcher, “did be drinkin’ off their cups of tay, as plisant as anythin’, sittin’ over yonder fornint us, every one of them cocked up on his own bit of a hill.” Felix pointed across the small round valley to a concave hill-line, which does show six more or less distinct summits. “And if they did, some fine evenin’ a one of them took and slung the grounds at the bottom of his cup slap down there into the middle of the grassland, and you may see them lyin’ on it to this day.” The end of Felix’s reaping-hook dropped till it quivered at a black patch that occupied a large space in the middle of the level green floor below, and spread with splash-like streaks towards the slopes surrounding. Amongst them a few white dots were scattered, gleaming clearly, and to these Felix referred as he continued, in an unmistakable tone of self-quotation: “Bedad now, I’m thinkin’ he must ha’ chucked out two or three grains of lump-sugar along wid them. I wonder they’re not melted agin now--unless it’s breadcrumbs they were.”

“You might wonder anybody wasn’t tired tryin’ to get a livin’ on a wet bog, and there’d be some sinse in it, begor,” Dinny Colman, who rented one of the white cabins, interpolated, rather resentfully matter-of-fact; but Felix finished his conceit perseveringly. “Bad luck to the big bosthoon. Why couldn’t he have the wit to sling th’ ould tay leaves over his shoulder into the lough, or into the say beyant, where they’d make no differ, instead of to be destroyin’ the bit of good land on us? He’d little to do, let me tell him.”

Felix the Thatcher was also, though not by trade, a _shanachie_, or story-teller of some renown in his district, and he had now produced the favourite local legend of the giants’ tea-party, ostensibly for the information of Larry Dowdall, a new-comer, but principally for the entertainment of four gossoons, who listened with unjaded interest. They, with their three elders, were sitting on a furzy bank at the foot of a very steep oat-field, which the men had been reaping all the forenoon, while the boys did such odd jobs as their size and wits permitted. Now, just as Felix had finished accounting for the existence of the black bog, another object that seemed to demand explanation presented itself--a figure moving along the lane, which at a lower level girdles the hillside. It was a tall, elderly man, in a long, ragged cotamore and battered caubeen, who walked slowly and stoopingly, with down-bent eyes, apparently talking to himself.

“Here’s Crazy Mick trapesin’ along,” said Patsy Colman, “Himself and his little brat.”

“If he’s been till now gettin’ here from Foynish, he’s took his time,” said Patsy’s father, “for I seen him halfways afore breakfast.”