Part 9

The rich, who have more room in their houses, and fewer constraints to trouble them, do most of their love-making indoors. The poor have to do theirs in the open air, chiefly, as now, in the long evenings coming home together from market. The middle classes are more restricted by space and convention on both these sides, which perhaps partly accounts for their higher morality.

An Irish laborer's cottage of two rooms has to accommodate a whole family, the younger children often sleeping in the same bed with their parents. From thus herding together, and from the necessities of country life in connection with animals, the children are brought up in familiarity with aspects of life which never come under the notice of those bred in towns. And yet the Irish women have a high reputation for chastity; and justly, for they rarely take a lover outside of their own class. Within that class they are protected by their religion; if anything goes wrong between a man and a maid, the priest always hears of it, and marries them on the spot before worse can happen. Generations of this restraint have bred an ingrained habit of continence among the people, so that now in the Roman Catholic districts of Northern Ireland an illegitimate child is an almost unknown disgrace.

'What did ye buy in town the day, Paddy?' asked the girl, with the intonation of a tender speech. The limits of her vocabulary did not admit of a nearer approach to lovers' talk than the practical details of housekeeping that bore on their projected marriage.

'Them two pigs in the ass-cart, an' the Saints alone knows whether I'll be fit to kape thim through the winter. A shillin' a day, an' not ivery day at that, isn't enough to kape a man, let alone a wife an' two suckin' pigs. I only git two shillin' when I'm ploughin' or mowin', an' them machines is cuttin' us all out; they git all the wurruk these times. I'm thinkin' I'll jine to larn the use av them be next year; there's no man hereabouts as knows the thrick av it, an' I've a consate that siveral av the farmers would jine an' buy a mowin' machine right out instead av hirin' them thramp wans, av they had a man as cud use it.'

'But yous is the boy as has the head,' said the girl admiringly. 'I'm glad I'm to be married to yous. I'll niver want for bit nor sup, I'll hold ye.'

'It's that same that's botherin' me this minit, Norah darlin'. Whin are we to be married? It ud be ahl right wi' the house an' the wee bit farrum; but me brother Mick is that set agin you I don't know what's kim over him. An' I'd as lave not ang-er him. For Mick's right fond av me the whole time, whin ahl's said an' done.'

'Ay, troth is he; he thinks the sun rises an' sets an yer elbow whin yous is not by.'

'I'm clane moidhered what to do. What did you buy, swateheart?'

'I'm worse agin nor yous. I on'y got five shillin' for spriggin' an' stockins as tuk me a fair fortnight. But I scraped enough ha'pence together for a churn; an' I said as how yous wud bring it home the nixt time ye had the ass-cart in town.'

In these marriages it is the woman's part, where possible, to supply the household utensils necessary to set up house together, the man's to find the live-stock and keep a roof over their heads by his labor.

'It's comin' on saft, let's take shelther,' said Paddy presently.

'Ah, what signifies that dhrap? It'll on'y be a shower.'

'An' yous in yer new jacket an' hat wi' the red feather till it; it'll be ahl shpoilt. As it isn't goin' to last, it's ahl the more raison not to git wet to the pelt for nothin'. Let's git in behin' this ould wall for a wee taste; it's gran' shelther, an' the brackens right saft to set an.'

The girl resisted for a time, but finally, when she felt a large drop splash on her nose, her fears for her finery triumphed over her native modesty, and she let herself be persuaded against her will. Paddy calmly 'tossed' the loose stone wall, making a gap of a height sufficient to let her pass over it, and they took refuge under the ruined gable of an old church beside the road. The bracken grew thickly up to the foot of the crumbling wall; the overhanging ivy cast them into deep shadow.

'Ah, quit,' exclaimed the girl presently, in a tone half-angry, half-alarmed. 'Quit now, I'm tellin' ye. What for are ye squeezin' me so tight? For the love av Mary, Paddy darlin,' what are ye doin'? I didn't think it av ye,' and her voice died away in a murmur of passion.

When the shower was over, they rose and resumed their journey in silence, walking apart, one on the grass on either side, with the roadway between them.

When they had thus travelled a mile, the girl said timidly,--

'Pathrick.'

'Ay.'

'It's my turn to confess to Father Brady come Sunday.'

For another five minutes there was a silence, then the man said shamefacedly,--

'Norah.'

'Ay.'

'There's no call to say nothin' to the praste about yon. I'll tell him to call us for the first time in chapel on Sunday. Come an' giv us a kiss, darlin', an' make frinds agin. Troth it's all wan, whin we jine to be married so soon.'

PART II

THE BROTHERS

'Thramp it out, Paddy, thramp it out, ye scutt ye. D'ye call that buildin' a haycock? Putt a good head ahn it. Av ye lave the hay loose yon road at the edges, the first skift av rain will get in ondher it, an' go right to the heart av it, an' ye'll be havin' the whole clamjaffrey hatin' on us.'

'Ah! houl yer whisht, ye long-tongued divil, Mick. Give us a dacent lock at a time, an' don't go pokin' the fork in me eye. Ye nearly had me desthroyed yon time.'

'Fwhat for are ye buildin' it ahl crucked now? Ye've guv it a tilt to the North like a thrawler in a shkite av wund or a load of turf in a shough.'

'An' why for no, ye cantankerous owl' shkibareen. I done it for purpose, the way it might lane agin the blast that comes up them hollys. Av ye put a prop or two ondher it, it'll be as firrum as a house.'

'To blazes wi' ye, Paddy; ye've got too many consates in yer head ahlthegither. Make the butt livil and stiddy an' the top straight an' ye can't betther it. It's temptin' Providence ye are to send a lock of wund from behin' an' toss it on us.'

'Providence is it? Gahn! kape a civil tongue betune yer teeth. Ye have too much to say for yerself be half. Build a cock is it? Yous as can hardly tell a cock from a bull's fut. Stan' from ondher till I slither down.'

'Where's the ropes now? I'll hold ye that ye niver twisted them, an' divil a thrahook on the groun' to do it wid, nor so much as a sally rod to make wan.'

'Now ye're too fast enthirely, Mick. The ropes is ondher the wee grass cock at yer fut. Go to the other side an' catch a hoult av the ind when I toss it to ye. Are ye ready? Make it tight. Ah! lift man, can't ye? Put yer shouldher into it. An' now agin for the other wan. That's well done anyway.'

'What matther to have yon wee taste saved, when there's half av an acre shuck out, an' a whole wan in the swathe, an' it lukin' like a shtorrum av rain ev'ry minute.'

'Now quit lamentin'. God sees ahl, an' it's time to knock aff for dinner. It must be well ahn to one o'clock, the sun's straight over the tower an' the hill. Shtrike yer graip in the groun' an' come an' down to the well.'

'It's well ye minded to bring the dinner itself. I wouldn't putt it past ye to forgit even that. Where war ye last night? At the spriggin' camp, I'll be boun', stravaguin' about afther them girls.'

'Ay, divil a where else. But I'll be accountable to no man for me goin's.'

'There's no call to flare up now. It only shows ye've bin coortin' that Norah Sheehan agin, an' afther I've towl ye times out av' min' I won't have it. Maybe ye'll tell me where ye intind to putt her whin ye've got her.'

'You to hell with yer havin's. There's room in the house for ahl, an' I can arn bread for both av us. We're to be called in chapel come Sunday, so there.'

'Room in my house, divil a hate! An' where ud I be, I'd like to know?'

'Your house--I like that whin me father lift it betune us on his last deathbed. An' who's got a better right to live in it than me own wife an' no beholdin' to yous?'

'Ay, that's right enough betwixt us two, but not when other folks is by. Ye've got to prove it. I'm yer eldher brother, an' it's ahl mine be rights. Where's the paper ye have to show for it? an' my wurrud's as good as yours an' betther, so putt that in yer pipe an' smoke it.'

'You chatin' hound, you thry to best me out av me fair rights, an' I'll be the death av ye, so I will.'

'Them's nice wurruds to use to yer eldher brother, ye onnathural young limb. Though I wouldn't put it past ye to murdher me; ye've thried it before now. D'ye mind the day ye threw me aff of the cliff? But whether or no, divil a fut will that girl putt in my house. It's bin a respectable house up to now; an' if ye thry to bring her to it, out ye'll both go, you an' your trollope.'

'Say that wurrud agin, ye scutt. Say it agin, I darr you.'

'Ay, I'll say it as aften as I like, an' I say agin now to yer face, that neither you nor yer trollope will ever set fut on flure of mine from this out.'

'Then take that, ye ignorant fule. Ye wud have it. Maybe it'll larn ye to kape a still tongue in yer head,' shouted Paddy. In his rage the landscape swam blood-red before his gaze, he plucked the hay-fork from the ground behind him, and plunged it into his brother's chest. The sharp steel prongs drove through bone and muscle with a grinding sound, and stood out a handsbreadth behind his back. The base stopped with a thud against the breast-bone. There was a shrill scream, the scream with which the strong man's soul rends itself apart from the body; he rocked and swayed for a moment, and fell stiffly upon his back, his arms outspread. The handle of the fork stood erect, vibrating in the dead man's chest.

The young man put out his hand to grasp it, but it started away from him with a tremor, and he leaped backward, thinking it had come to life. What was that word? Murder. It appeared to be written in letters of brass across the heavens, and all the hills around were thundering it in his ears. For a long time he stood there with his eyes fixed straight in front of him, and the perspiration pouring in streams from his body.

'He dhruv me to it,' he muttered; 'he dhruv me to it.'

It had been coming to this for a long time between the brothers, though neither of them had seen it. The nagging tongue of the elder and the uncontrolled temper of the younger made them an ill-assorted pair. Once in boyhood Paddy, in a fit of anger, had pushed his brother off a cliff into the sea, and in an agony of contrition had leapt off after him. Neither was hurt by the fall, and they swam contentedly together to land, and there fought till neither of them could stand. Since then it had gradually been getting worse. A word and a blow was a daily occurrence between them, and latterly the blow was dealt with whatever instrument came handy. It had come to be only a question of sufficient provocation and a deadly enough weapon, and that was bound to happen which had now happened. This time no remorse would avail. His brother had gone where he could not follow him.

As the young man stood there beside his dead brother, a dull strange sense of the injustice of it all began to rise and swell in his bosom. He couldn't understand it. An ordinary quarrel, resulting in not quite the ordinary way, and two lives were sacrificed and a third ruined forever. God help poor Norah! It was not fair. What good did it do to any one? and why had he and Norah been selected for this thing to happen to?

After a long time he woke from his trance with a start, and keeping his eyes carefully turned from the pool of blood that was slowly drying in front of him, he ran swiftly to the house, as though to escape some temptation that was behind him. Quickly he put the horse in the cart, and standing up in it, drove at full speed to the town. Down the hill of the main street he rattled, as one of the neighbors said, 'as if the devil was behind him,' and pulled up with a jerk at the doctor's door.

'Docther dear, hurry for the love av God,' he said; 'ye're wanted badly out at Michaelstown, there's a man kilt.'

Then he walked across the road to the police station opposite, and said to the sergeant in charge, 'Me an' me brother was havin' wurruds in the three-cornered field behind the house, an' I've shtuck the graip into him. I'm thinkin' it's kilt him I have, an' I've come to giv' meself up.'

ORANGE AND GREEN

The crowd surged and muttered. It was extraordinarily still for an Irish mob. No man spoke to his neighbor, but all kept their eyes steadfastly fixed on the vanishing lines of the railway; nevertheless, through the whole mass there ran the troubled undertone, the uneasy stir of a ground-swell in the Atlantic. Every minute men came dropping in by twos and threes and took their places in the serried ranks, till the cut leading to the railway station of Lisnamore was packed from end to end with two banks of solid humanity, leaving a broad avenue down the middle. Each man, as he fell into his place, bent his eyes upon the horizon, and assumed the same attitude of tense and feverish expectation.

It was the twelfth of July, the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne. The manufacturers of the distant town of Belrush had selected the Northern day of rejoicing to give a holiday to their mill-hands, and by some unlucky chance the workmen had chosen to spend the day by the seaside at Lisnamore. Two train-loads of them were coming--six hundred Catholics and six hundred Protestants. So the Catholics of Lisnamore and the surrounding districts were now assembled in their thousands to express their disapprobation of the indecent presence of Orangemen in their town upon that day. Every fist held an ash-plant or a blackthorn stick, and every pocket was filled with jagged pieces of limestone.

Suddenly a rumor--a whisper--flashed down the ranks and died out like a sigh: 'The polis.'

The rhythm of disciplined feet crept upon the ear; and the dark-green tunics and brown rifle-barrels of the Royal Irish Constabulary rounded the corner and came into view. Amid a silence of death they marched steadily up the centre of the avenue--twenty-four stalwart men and their officer--and behind them rode the resident magistrate on his big roan horse.

Straight up the cut they strode, until they reached the mouth of the station-yard, and then came the order sharp and decisive,--

'Right wheel!--Halt!--Front turn!--'Tention!--Ready!--Fix swords!--With buckshot--Load!'

The policemen were now between the crowd and their approaching victims. The two lines of glittering bayonets rose aloft in the sunlight; and as the snap of the rifle breeches ceased upon the sullen air, the magistrate raised his voice and said in a dry, official tone,--

'I call upon this meeting to disperse.'

No one moved.

The magistrate then took off his hat, and, looking intently into the crown of it, proceeded to read the Riot Act, which he had printed on the lining. He gabbled through his duty with a meaninglessness born of frequent repetition.

When he had ended, the crowd laughed. But it was an ugly laugh, with the sough of a winter storm through it.

Fitzgerald, swift to recognize the temper of a mob, and loth to begin a conflict which, once started, no man might say how it would end, glanced hastily round him.

His eyes were attracted by an unexpected sight, and remained fixed. Round the corner of the road furthest from the station came a pair of horse's ears, and they were decked with orange lilies.

A big man standing opposite Fitzgerald in the crowd, the centre of a group of men in dark-blue jerseys, who looked like fishermen, followed the direction of his gaze, and exclaimed,--

'Troth, I wudn't be the man what's behin' them orange lilies for somethin'. The boys will tear him limb from limb.'

Slowly the ears lengthened into the shape of a fat cob, foreshortened by the turn, which paced sleepily along regardless of the throng; he drooped his head, overcome by the noon-day heat, and shook it from time to time at the flies, with a rattle of his bit. Behind the cob came a small phaeton, and in the phaeton was sitting a young girl; she carried a knot of orange ribbons on her whip, and in her breast a cluster of the lilies.

As the girl drove deliberately forward, she flashed indignant glances from side to side. Abreast of her, along the face of the rows, there wavered a ripple, as though each man had a mind to hide himself behind his neighbor's back.

'Holy Mother! it's Miss Kitty,' ejaculated the big man.

'Miss Desmond,' said Fitzgerald, with a gasp of relief.

Kitty Desmond was the daughter of the vicar of the town, and in spite of being a Protestant, was beloved by the peasantry for miles around. Even more than by the assistance she was always the first to render them and their wives, she was endeared to the men by her beauty, her high spirits, and her winning manner. She knew every man, woman, and child by name upon the countryside, and always had a friendly word and a cheerful smile for them. She was loved by the women, but the men worshipped her. She had an absolute recklessness and abandonment of temperament which dominated them. For, except when supported by others, your peasant is prone to be cautious. She was the only soul in the town that thoroughly knew them, and the only one that dared to cross them in their blackest moods. In fact, she was at heart a coquette, with the fearlessness of a coquette. She did not disdain to practise her fascinations upon the meanest of them all. She knew her power and enjoyed it, and they enjoyed it too.

She halted her pony now opposite the police force, and, standing up in the carriage, addressed the mob in her cheerful, audacious tones.

'Now, then, boys, you needn't think that I don't know what you are doing here; for I do. And what you've got to do is to go straight home. So, go!'

There was an automatic movement in the crowd, as the habit of obedience to her asserted itself, and for a moment the meeting was on the point of dissolving. But then the sullenness of their temper returned upon them: the men stood fast, shuffled their feet doggedly, and upon their brows gathered the brooding obstinacy of the Celtic character.

Kitty watched the success of her experiment flicker and die out. Then the blood surged hotly over her face and neck. She was not used to having her influence questioned, and here where it was needed, as it had never been needed before, it had failed. She was General enough to recognize that her best chance lay in a direct command. She had staked all upon a single throw--and lost.

She knew better than anybody there, even than Fitzgerald himself, the danger of the mood that could make these men resist her, and she grew sick with apprehension. For she could see no possibility now of averting a great riot, in which probably many lives would be sacrificed. For herself, she did not stop to fear, and at least she would utilize her woman's privilege and give them a piece of her mind.

As these thoughts flashed through her brain, she stood upright, still leaning upon her whip; then she began to speak again, but this time her voice was cutting, and her face was white and scornful,--

'And you call yourselves men?' she said; 'you gather here with sticks and stones, and lie in wait for unarmed and unsuspecting holiday-makers. If they were as many as you are, you wouldn't dare to touch them. You never have the pluck to fight unless you are two to one, or get the chance of kicking a man when he is down. If you want to fight fairly, why don't you throw away those sticks and stones, and use your fists like men? But you don't want a fair fight, not you. Shall I tell you what I think of you? I think you are mean, cowardly savages!'

She left off, gasping, with the tears of indignation in her throat, and a hoarse threatening murmur rose vaguely round her.

'Oh, you needn't think I am afraid of you, you miserable idiots,' she said, with infinite scorn. 'I only hope they'll--they'll knock hell out of you,' and she stamped her foot viciously.

'Ah, be aisy now, Miss Kitty,' implored the big man; 'shure, the boys are only afther a bit ov fun.'

'And is that you, Dan Murphy? You hulking scoundrel, and you dare to look me in the face? What business have you here, I should like to know?'

'Troth, Miss, I'd like nahthin' better nor to be ahlways lookin' you in the face. For it's fine an' purthy,' declared the giant, skilfully turning her flank.

Kitty's heart was softened by the blarney of the good-natured fisherman amid the prevailing rebellion of her subjects; she got out of the phaeton, and walking up to him, laid her hand upon his sleeve, and said,--

'Now, Dan, dear Dan, you'll get them to go away, won't you, for my sake?'

She looked up at him with a pleading gaze in the violet eyes beneath their fringe of long, dark lashes, eyes that had melted many a stouter heart than poor Dan Murphy's.

'Ah, now, Miss Kitty darlin',' he stammered, 'ye know that it's yersilf can do more wid the boys than any wan bar the praste, an' he's not here the day; foreby, he's backin' them up. Divil a hate wud they heed me. They'd as soon ate me as luke at me if I crossed them.'

'Dan, you're just a soft lump,' she spat the words at him spitefully, and returned to her seat.