Great Irish Short Stories (29 page)

The widow of the weaver approached the door of Malachi Roohan’s house with an apologetic step, pawing the threshold a little in the manner of peasant women—a mannerism picked up from shy animals—before she stooped her head and made her entrance.

Malachi Roohan’s daughter withdrew from the fire a face which reflected the passionate soul of a cook. The face cooled as the widow disclosed her business.

“I wouldn’t put it a-past my father to have knowledge of the grave,” said the daughter of the house, adding, “the Lord a mercy on the weaver.”

She led the widow into the presence of the cooper.

The room was small and low and stuffy, indifferently served with light by an unopenable window. There was the smell of old age, of decay, in the room. It brought almost a sense of faintness to the widow. She had the feeling that God had made her to move in the ways of old men—passionate, cantankerous, egoistic old men—old men for whom she was always doing something, always remembering things, from missing buttons to lost graves.

Her eyes sought the bed of Malachi Roohan with an unemotional, quietly sceptical gaze. But she did not see anything of the cooper. The daughter leaned over the bed, listened attentively, and then very deftly turned down the clothes, revealing the bust of Malachi Roohan. The widow saw a weird face, not in the least pale or lined, but ruddy, with a mahogany bald head, a head upon which the leathery skin—for there did not seem any flesh—hardly concealed the stark outlines of the skull. From the chin there strayed a grey beard, the most shaken and whipped-looking beard that the widow had ever seen; it was, in truth, a very miracle of a beard, for one wondered how it had come there, and having come there, how it continued to hang on, for there did not seem anything to which it could claim natural allegiance. The widow was as much astonished at this beard as if she saw a plant growing in a pot without soil. Through its gaps she could see the leather of the skin, the bones of a neck, which was indeed a neck. Over this head and shoulders the cooper’s daughter bent and shouted into a crumpled ear. A little spasm of life stirred in the mummy. A low, mumbling sound came from the bed. The widow was already beginning to feel that, perhaps, she had done wrong in remembering that the cooper was still extant. But what else could she have done? If the weaver was buried in a wrong grave she did not believe that his soul would ever rest in peace. And what could be more dreadful than a soul wandering on the howling winds of the earth? The weaver would grieve, even in heaven, for his grave, grieve, maybe, as bitterly as a saint might grieve who had lost his halo. He was a passionate old man, such an old man as would have a turbulent spirit. He would surely——. The widow stifled the thoughts that flashed into her mind. She was no more superstitious than the rest of us, but——. These vague and terrible fears, and her moderately decent sorrow, were alike banished from her mind by what followed. The mummy on the bed came to life. And, what was more, he did it himself. His daughter looked on with the air of one whose sensibilities had become blunted by a long familiarity with the various stages of his resurrections. The widow gathered that the daughter had been well drilled; she had been taught how to keep her place. She did not tender the slightest help to her father as he drew himself together on the bed. He turned over on his side, then on his back, and stealthily began to insinuate his shoulder blades on the pillow, pushing up his weird head to the streak of light from the little window. The widow had been so long accustomed to assist the aged that she made some involuntary movement of succour. Some half-seen gesture by the daughter, a sudden lifting of the eyelids on the face of the patient, disclosing a pair of blue eyes, gave the widow instinctive pause. She remained where she was, aloof like the daughter of the house. And as she caught the blue of Malachi Roohan’s eyes it broke upon the widow that here in the essence of the cooper there lived a spirit of extraordinary independence. Here, surely, was a man who had been accustomed to look out for himself, who resented attentions, even in these days of his flickering consciousness. Up he wormed his shoulder blades, his mahogany skull, his leathery skin, his sensational eyes, his miraculous beard, to the light and to the full view of the visitor. At a certain stage of the resurrection—when the cooper had drawn two long, stringy arms from under the clothes—his daughter made a drilled movement forward, seeking something in the bed. The widow saw her discover the end of a rope, and this she placed in the hands of her indomitable father. The other end of the rope was fastened to the iron rail of the foot of the bed. The sinews of the patient’s hands clutched the rope, and slowly, wonderfully, magically, as it seemed to the widow, the cooper raised himself to a sitting posture in the bed. There was dead silence in the room except for the laboured breathing of the performer. The eyes of the widow blinked. Yes, there was that ghost of a man hoisting himself up from the dead on a length of rope, reversing the usual procedure. By that length of rope did the cooper hang on to life, and the effort of life. It represented his connection with the world, the world which had forgotten him, which marched past his window outside without knowing the stupendous thing that went on in his room. There he was, sitting up in the bed, restored to view by his own unaided efforts, holding his grip on life to the last. It cost him something to do it, but he did it. It would take him longer and longer every day to grip along that length of rope; he would fail ell by ell, sinking back to the last helplessness on his rope, descending into eternity as a vessel is lowered on a rope into a dark, deep well. But there he was now, still able for his work, unbeholding to all, self-dependent and alive, looking a little vaguely with his blue eyes at the widow of the weaver. His daughter swiftly and quietly propped pillows at his back, and she did it with the air of one who was allowed a special privilege.

“Nan!” called the old man to his daughter.

The widow, cool-tempered as she was, almost jumped on her feet. The voice was amazingly powerful. It was like a shout, filling the little room with vibrations. For four things did the widow ever after remember Malachi Roohan—for his rope, his blue eyes, his powerful voice, and his magic beard. They were thrown on the background of his skeleton in powerful relief.

“Yes, Father,” his daughter replied, shouting into his ear. He was apparently very deaf. This infirmity came upon the widow with a shock. The cooper was full of physical surprises.

“Who’s this one?” the cooper shouted, looking at the widow. He had the belief that he was delivering an aside.

“Mrs. Hehir.”

“Mrs. Hehir—what Hehir would she be?”

“The weaver’s wife.”

“The weaver? Is it Mortimer Hehir?”

“Yes, Father.”

“In troth I know her. She’s Delia Morrissey, that married the weaver; Delia Morrissey that he followed to Munster, a raving lunatic with the dint of love.”

A hot wave of embarrassment swept the widow. For a moment she thought the mind of the cooper was wandering. Then she remembered that the maiden name of the weaver’s first wife was, indeed, Delia Morrissey. She had heard it, by chance, once or twice.

“Isn’t it Delia Morrissey herself we have in it??” the old man asked.

The widow whispered to the daughter:

“Leave it so.”

She shrank from a difficult discussion with the spectre in the bed on the family history of the weaver. A sense of shame came to her that she could be the wife to a contemporary of this astonishing old man holding on to the life rope.

“I’m out!” shouted Malachi Roohan, his blue eyes lighting suddenly. “Delia Morrissey died. She was one day eating her dinner and a bone stuck in her throat. The weaver clapped her on the back, but it was all to no good. She choked to death before his eyes on the floor. I remember that. And the weaver himself near died of grief after. But he married secondly. Who’s this he married secondly, Nan?”

Nan did not know. She turned to the widow for enlightment. The widow moistened her lips. She had to concentrate her thoughts on a subject which, for her own peace of mind, she had habitually avoided. She hated genealogy. She said a little nervously:

“Sara MacCabe.”

The cooper’s daughter shouted the name into his ear.

“So you’re Sally MacCabe, from Looscaun, the one Mortimer took off the blacksmith? Well, well, that was a great business surely, the pair of them hot-tempered men, and your own beauty going to their heads like strong drink.”

He looked at the widow, a half-sceptical, half-admiring expression flickering across the leathery face. It was such a look as he might have given to Dervorgilla of Leinster, Deirdre of Uladh, or Helen of Troy.

The widow was not the notorious Sara MacCabe from Looscaun; that lady had been the second wife of the weaver. It was said they had led a stormy life, made up of passionate quarrels and partings, and still more passionate reconciliations, Sara MacCabe from Looscaun not having quite forgotten, or wholly neglected, the blacksmith after her marriage to the weaver. But the widow again only whispered to the cooper’s daughter:

“Leave it so.”

“What way is Mortimer keeping?” asked the old man.

“He’s dead,” replied the daughter.

The fingers of the old man quivered on the rope.

“Dead? Mortimer Hehir dead?” he cried. “What in the name of God happened him?”

Nan did not know what happened him. She knew that the widow would not mind, so, without waiting for a prompt, she replied:

“A weakness came over him, a sudden weakness.”

“To think of a man being whipped off all of a sudden like that!” cried the cooper. “When that’s the way it was with Mortimer Hehir what one of us can be sure at all? Nan, none of us is sure! To think of the weaver, with his heart as strong as a bull, going off in a little weakness! It’s the treacherous world we live in, the treacherous world, surely. Never another yard of tweed will be put up on his old loom! Morty, Morty, you were a good companion, a great warrant to walk the hills, whistling the tunes, pleasant in your conversation and as broad-spoken as the Bible.”

“Did you know the weaver well, Father?” the daughter asked.

“Who better?” he replied. “Who drank more pints with him than what myself did? And indeed it’s to his wake I’d be setting out, and it’s under his coffin my shoulder would be going, if I wasn’t confined to my rope.”

He bowed his head for a few moments. The two women exchanged a quick, sympathetic glance.

The breathing of the old man was the breathing of one who slept. The head sank lower.

The widow said:

“You ought to make him lie down. He’s tired.”

The daughter made some movement of dissent; she was afraid to interfere. Maybe the cooper could be very violent if roused. After a time he raised his head again. He looked in a new mood. He was fresher, more wide awake. His beard hung in wisps to the bedclothes.

“Asking him about the grave,” the widow said.

The daughter hesitated for a moment, and in that moment the cooper looked up as if he had heard, or partially heard. He said:

“If you wait a minute now I’ll tell you what the weaver was.” He stared for some seconds at the little window.

“Oh, we’ll wait,” said the daughter, and turning to the widow, added, “Won’t we, Mrs. Hehir?”

“Indeed we will wait,” said the widow.

“The weaver,” said the old man suddenly, “was a dream.”

He turned his head to the women to see how they had taken it.

“Maybe,” said the daughter, with a little touch of laughter, “Maybe Mrs. Hehir would not give in to that.”

The widow moved her hands uneasily under the shawl. She stared a little fearfully at the cooper. His blue eyes were clear as lake water over white sand.

“Whether she gives in to it, or whether she doesn’t give in to it,” said Malachi Roohan, “it’s a dream Mortimer Hehir was. And his loom, and his shuttles, and his warping bars, and his bobbin, and the threads that he put upon the shifting racks, were all a dream. And the only thing he ever wove upon his loom was a dream.”

The old man smacked his lips, his hard gums whacking. His daughter looked at him with her head a little to one side.

“And what’s more,” said the cooper, “every woman that ever came into his head, and every wife he married, was a dream. I’m telling you that, Nan, and I’m telling it to you of the weaver. His life was a dream, and his death is a dream. And his widow there is a dream. And all the world is a dream. Do you hear me, Nan, this world is all a dream?”

“I hear you very well, Father,” the daughter sang in a piercing voice.

The cooper raised his head with a jerk, and his beard swept forward, giving him an appearance of vivid energy. He spoke in a voice like a trumpet blast:

“And I’m a dream!”

He turned his blue eyes on the widow. An unnerving sensation came to her. The cooper was the most dreadful old man she had ever seen, and what he was saying sounded the most terrible thing she had ever listened to. He cried:

“The idiot laughing in the street, the King looking at his crown, the woman turning her head to the sound of a man’s step, the bells ringing in the belfry, the man walking his land, the weaver at his loom, the cooper handling his barrel, the Pope stooping for his red slippers—they’re all a dream. And I’ll tell you why they’re a dream: because this world was meant to be a dream.”

“Father,” said the daughter, “you’re talking too much. You’ll overreach yourself.”

The old man gave himself a little pull on the rope. It was his gesture of energy, a demonstration of the fine fettle he was in. He said:

“You’re saying that because you don’t understand me.”

“I understand you very well.”

“You only think you do. Listen to me now, Nan. I want you to do something for me. You won’t refuse me?”

“I will not refuse you, Father; you know very well I won’t.”

“You’re a good daughter to me, surely, Nan. And do what I tell you now. Shut close your eyes. Shut them fast and tight. No fluttering of the lids now.”

“Very well, Father.”

The daughter closed her eyes, throwing up her face in the attitude of one blind. The widow was conscious of the woman’s strong, rough features, something good-natured in the line of the large mouth. The old man watched the face of his daughter with excitement. He asked: