Collected Stories (4 page)

“So I pushed him back on the bed, but, when I tried to get at his boots, he began to kick his feet up in the air, laughing like a kid.

“‘I'm dead, dead, dead, dead,' says he.

“‘Let me get at him, Larry,' says Nellie in her own determined way, so, begod, she lifted his leg that high he couldn't kick without falling over, and in two minits she had his boots and stockings off. Then I got off his coat, loosened his braces and held him back in the bed while she pulled his trousers down. At that he began to come to himself a bit.

“‘Show it to her! Show it to her!' says he, getting hot and making a dive for his clothes.

“‘Show what to her?' says I.

“‘Me charge sheet. Give it to me, Larry. There you are, you jade of hell! Seven and six-pence I paid for it to clear me character.'

“‘Get into bed, sobersides,' says I.

“‘I wo' not go into bed!'

“‘And there's an old nightshirt all ready,' says Nellie.

“‘I don't want no nightshirt. I'll take no charity from any wan of ye. I wants me character back, me character that ye took on me.'

“‘Take off his shirt, Larry,' says she.

“So I pulled the old stinking shirt up over his gray pate, and in a tick of the clock she had his nightshirt on.

“‘Now, Nellie,' says I, ‘I'll be going. There's nothing more I can do for you.'

“‘Thanks, Larry, thanks,' says she. ‘You're the best friend we ever had. There's nothing else you can do. He'll be asleep in a minit, don't I know him well?'

“‘Good-night, Henry,' says I.

“‘Good-night, Larry. Tomorrow we'll revive the Mollies.'

“Nellie went to see me to the door, and outside was the two ladies and the young gentleman in their nighties, listening.

“‘Who is it, Mother?' says they.

“‘Go back to bed the three of ye!' says Nellie. ‘ 'Tis only your father.'

“‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!' says the three of them together.

“At that minit we heard Henry inside bawling his heart out.

“‘Nellie, Nellie, where are you, Nellie?'

“‘Go back and see what he wants,' says I, ‘before I go.'

“So Nellie opened the door and looked in.

“‘What's wrong with you now?' says she.

“‘You're not going to leave me sleep alone, Nellie,' says he.

“‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,' says she, ‘talking like that and the children listening.… Look at him,' says she to me, ‘look at him for the love of God!' The eyes were shining in her head with pure relief. So I peeped in, and there was Henry with every bit of clothes in the bed around him and his back to us all. ‘Look at his ould gray pate!' says she.

“‘Still in all,' says Henry over his shoulder, ‘you had no right to say I was dead!'”

The Bridal Night

I
T WAS
sunset, and the two great humps of rock made a twilight in the cove where the boats were lying high up the strand. There was one light only in a little whitewashed cottage. Around the headland came a boat and the heavy dipping of its oars was like a heron's flight. The old woman was sitting on the low stone wall outside her cottage.

“'Tis a lonesome place,” said I.

“'Tis so,” she agreed, “a lonesome place, but any place is lonesome without one you'd care for.”

“Your own flock are gone from you, I suppose?” I asked.

“I never had but the one,” she replied, “the one son only,” and I knew because she did not add a prayer for his soul that he was still alive.

“Is it in America he is?” I asked. (It is to America all the boys of the locality go when they leave home.)

“No, then,” she replied simply. “It is in the asylum in Cork he is on me these twelve years.”

I had no fear of trespassing on her emotions. These lonesome people in the wild places, it is their nature to speak; they must cry out their sorrows like the wild birds.

“God help us!” I said. “Far enough!”

“Far enough,” she sighed. “Too far for an old woman. There was a nice priest here one time brought me up in his car to see him. All the ways to this wild place he brought it, and he drove me into the city. It is a place I was never used to, but it eased my mind to see poor Denis well-cared-for and well-liked. It was a trouble to me before that, not knowing would they see what a good boy he was before his madness came on him. He knew me; he saluted me, but he said nothing until the superintendent came to tell me the tea was ready for me. Then poor Denis raised his head and says: ‘Leave ye not forget the toast. She was ever a great one for her bit of toast.' It seemed to give him ease and he cried after. A good boy he was and is. It was like him after seven long years to think of his old mother and her little bit of toast.”

“God help us,” I said for her voice was like the birds', hurrying high, immensely high, in the colored light, out to sea to the last islands where their nests were.

“Blessed be His holy will,” the old woman added, “there is no turning aside what is in store. It was a teacher that was here at the time. Miss Regan her name was. She was a fine big jolly girl from the town. Her father had a shop there. They said she had three hundred pounds to her own cheek the day she set foot in the school, and—'tis hard to believe but 'tis what they all said: I will not belie her—'twasn't banished she was at all, but she came here of her own choice, for the great liking she had for the sea and the mountains. Now, that is the story, and with my own eyes I saw her, day in day out, coming down the little pathway you came yourself from the road and sitting beyond there in a hollow you can hardly see, out of the wind. The neighbors could make nothing of it, and she being a stranger, and with only the book Irish, they left her alone. It never seemed to take a peg out of her, only sitting in that hole in the rocks, as happy as the day is long, reading her little book or writing her letters. Of an odd time she might bring one of the little scholars along with her to be picking posies.

“That was where my Denis saw her. He'd go up to her of an evening and sit on the grass beside her, and off and on he might take her out in the boat with him. And she'd say with that big laugh of hers: ‘Denis is my beau.' Those now were her words and she meant no more harm by it than the child unborn, and I knew it and Denis knew it, and it was a little joke we had, the three of us. It was the same way she used to joke about her little hollow. ‘Mrs. Sullivan,' she'd say, ‘leave no one near it. It is my nest and my cell and my little prayer-house, and maybe I would be like the birds and catch the smell of the stranger and then fly away from ye all.' It did me good to hear her laugh, and whenever I saw Denis moping or idle I would say it to him myself: ‘Denis, why wouldn't you go out and pay your attentions to Miss Regan and all saying you are her intended?' It was only a joke. I would say the same thing to her face, for Denis was such a quiet boy, no way rough or accustomed to the girls at all—and how would he in this lonesome place?

“I will not belie her; it was she saw first that poor Denis was after more than company, and it was not to this cove she came at all then but to the little cove beyond the headland, and 'tis hardly she would go there itself without a little scholar along with her. ‘Ah,' I says, for I missed her company, ‘isn't it the great stranger Miss Regan is becoming?' and Denis would put on his coat and go hunting in the dusk till he came to whatever spot she was. Little ease that was to him, poor boy, for he lost his tongue entirely, and lying on his belly before her, chewing an old bit of grass, is all he would do till she got up and left him. He could not help himself, poor boy. The madness was on him, even then, and it was only when I saw the plunder done that I knew there was no cure for him only to put her out of his mind entirely. For 'twas madness in him and he knew it, and that was what made him lose his tongue—he that was maybe without the price of an ounce of 'baccy—I will not deny it: often enough he had to do without it when the hens would not be laying, and often enough stirabout and praties was all we had for days. And there was she with money to her name in the bank! And that wasn't all, for he was a good boy; a quiet, good-natured boy, and another would take pity on him, knowing he would make her a fine steady husband, but she was not the sort, and well I knew it from the first day I laid eyes on her, that her hand would never rock the cradle. There was the madness out and out.

“So here was I, pulling and hauling, coaxing him to stop at home, and hiding whatever little thing was to be done till evening the way his hands would not be idle. But he had no heart in the work, only listening, always listening, or climbing the cnuceen to see would he catch a glimpse of her coming or going. And, oh, Mary, the heavy sigh he'd give when his bit of supper was over and I bolting the house for the night, and he with the long hours of darkness forninst him—my heart was broken thinking of it. It was the madness, you see. It was on him. He could hardly sleep or eat, and at night I would hear him, turning and groaning as loud as the sea on the rocks.

“It was then when the sleep was a fever to him that he took to walking in the night. I remember well the first night I heard him lift the latch. I put on my few things and went out after him. It was standing here I heard his feet on the stile. I went back and latched the door and hurried after him. What else could I do, and this place terrible after the fall of night with rocks and hills and water and streams, and he, poor soul, blinded with the dint of sleep. He travelled the road a piece, and then took to the hills, and I followed him with my legs all torn with briars and furze. It was over beyond by the new house that he gave up. He turned to me then the way a little child that is running away turns and clings to your knees; he turned to me and said: ‘Mother, we'll go home now. It was the bad day for you ever you brought me into the world.' And as the day was breaking I got him back to bed and covered him up to sleep.

“I was hoping that in time he'd wear himself out, but it was worse he was getting. I was a strong woman then, a mayen-strong woman. I could cart a load of seaweed or dig a field with any man, but the night-walking broke me. I knelt one night before the Blessed Virgin and prayed whatever was to happen, it would happen while the light of life was in me, the way I would not be leaving him lonesome like that in a wild place.

“And it happened the way I prayed. Blessed be God, he woke that night or the next night on me and he roaring. I went in to him but I couldn't hold him. He had the strength of five men. So I went out and locked the door behind me. It was down the hill I faced in the starlight to the little house above the cove. The Donoghues came with me: I will not belie them; they were fine powerful men and good neighbors. The father and the two sons came with me and brought the rope from the boats. It was a hard struggle they had of it and a long time before they got him on the floor, and a longer time before they got the ropes on him. And when they had him tied they put him back into bed for me, and I covered him up, nice and decent, and put a hot stone to his feet to take the chill of the cold floor off him.

“Sean Donoghue spent the night sitting beside the fire with me, and in the morning he sent one of the boys off for the doctor. Then Denis called me in his own voice and I went into him. ‘Mother,' says Denis, ‘will you leave me this way against the time they come for me?' I hadn't the heart. God knows I hadn't. ‘Don't do it, Peg,' says Sean. ‘If 'twas a hard job trussing him before, it will be harder the next time, and I won't answer for it.'

“‘You're a kind neighbor, Sean,' says I, ‘and I would never make little of you, but he is the only son I ever reared and I'd sooner he'd kill me now than shame him at the last.'

“So I loosened the ropes on him and he lay there very quiet all day without breaking his fast. Coming on to evening he asked me for the sup of tea and he drank it, and soon after the doctor and another man came in the car. They said a few words to Denis but he made them no answer and the doctor gave me the bit of writing. ‘It will be tomorrow before they come for him,' says he, ‘and 'tisn't right for you to be alone in the house with the man.' But I said I would stop with him and Sean Donoghue said the same.

“When darkness came on there was a little bit of a wind blew up from the sea and Denis began to rave to himself, and it was her name he was calling all the time. ‘Winnie,' that was her name, and it was the first time I heard it spoken. ‘Who is that he is calling?' says Sean. ‘It is the schoolmistress,' says I, ‘for though I do not recognize the name, I know 'tis no one else he'd be asking for.' ‘That is a bad sign,' says Sean. ‘He'll get worse as the night goes on and the wind rises. 'Twould be better for me go down and get the boys to put the ropes on him again while he's quiet.' And it was then something struck me, and I said: ‘Maybe if she came to him herself for a minute he would be quiet after.' ‘We can try it anyway,' says Sean, ‘and if the girl has a kind heart she will come.'

“It was Sean that went up for her. I would not have the courage to ask her. Her little house is there on the edge of the hill; you can see it as you go back the road with the bit of garden before it the new teacher left grow wild. And it was a true word Sean said for 'twas worse Denis was getting, shouting out against the wind for us to get Winnie for him. Sean was a long time away or maybe I felt it long, and I thought it might be the way she was afeared to come. There are many like that, small blame to them. Then I heard her step that I knew so well on the boreen beside the house and I ran to the door, meaning to say I was sorry for the trouble we were giving her, but when I opened the door Denis called out her name in a loud voice, and the crying fit came on me, thinking how lighthearted we used to be together.