Great Irish Short Stories (26 page)

The air of the room chilled his shoulders. He stretched himself cautiously along under the sheets and lay down beside his wife. One by one, they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover’s eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live.

Generous tears filled Gabriel’s eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling.

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

Daniel Corkery

WITH which shall I begin—man or place? Perhaps I had better first tell of the man; of him the incident left so withered that no sooner had I laid eyes on him than I said: Here is one whose blood at some terrible moment of his life stood still, stood still and never afterwards regained its quiet, old-time ebb-and-flow. A word or two then about the place—a sculped-out shell in the Kerry mountains, an evil-looking place, green-glaring like a sea when a storm has passed. To connect man and place together, even as they worked one with the other to bring the tragedy about, ought not then to be so difficult.

I had gone into those desolate treeless hills searching after the traces of an old-time Gaelic family that once were lords of them. But in this mountainy glen I forgot my purpose almost as soon as I entered it.

In that round-ended valley—they call such a valley a coom—there was but one farmhouse, and Considine was the name of the householder—Shawn Considine, the man whose features were white with despair; his haggard appearance reminded me of what one so often sees in war-ravaged Munster—a ruined castle-wall hanging out above the woods, a grey spectre. He made me welcome, speaking slowly, as if he was not used to such amenities. At once I began to explain my quest. I soon stumbled; I felt that his thoughts were far away. I started again. A daughter of his looked at me—Nora was her name—looked at me with meaning; I could not read her look aright. Haphazardly I went through old family names and recalled old-world incidents; but with no more success. He then made to speak; I could catch only broken phrases, repeated again and again. “In the presence of God.”“In the Kingdom of God.” “All gone for ever.” “Let them rest in peace”—(I translate from the Irish). Others, too, there were of which I could make nothing. Suddenly I went silent. His eyes had begun to change. They were not becoming fiery or angry—that would have emboldened me, I would have blown on his anger; a little passion, even an outburst of bitter temper would have troubled me but little if in its sudden revelation I came on some new fact or even a new name in the broken story of that ruined family. But no; not fiery but cold and terror-stricken were his eyes becoming. Fear was rising in them like dank water. I withdrew my gaze, and his daughter ventured on speech:

“If you speak of the cattle, noble person, or of the land, or of the new laws, my father will converse with you; but he is dark about what happened long ago.” Her eyes were even more earnest than her tongue—they implored the pity of silence.

So much for the man. A word now about the place where his large but neglected farmhouse stood against a bluff of rock. To enter that evil-looking green-mountained glen was like entering the jaws of some slimy, cold-blooded animal. You felt yourself leaving the sun, you shrunk together, you hunched yourself as if to bear an ugly pressure. In the far-back part of it was what is called in the Irish language a
leaca
—a slope of land, a lift of land, a bracket of land jutting out from the side of a mountain. This leaca, which the daughter explained was called Leaca-na-Naomh—the Leaca of the Saints—was very remarkable. It shone like a gem. It held the sunshine as a field holds its crop of golden wheat. On three sides it was pedestalled by the sheerest rock. On the fourth side it curved up to join the parent mountain-flank. Huge and high it was, yet height and size took some time to estimate, for there were mountains all around it. When you had been looking at it for some time you said aloud: “That leaca is high!” When you had stared for a longer time you said: “That leaca is immensely high—and huge!” Still the most remarkable thing about it was the way it held the sunshine. When all the valley had gone into the gloom of twilight—and this happened in the early afternoon—the leaca was still at mid-day. When the valley was dark with night and the lamps had been long alight in the farmhouse, the leaca had still the red gleam of sunset on it. It hung above the misty valley like a velarium—as they used to call that awning-cloth which hung above the emperor’s seat in the amphitheatre.

“What is it called, do you say?” I asked again.

“Leaca-na-Naomh,” she replied.

“Saints used to live on it?”

“The Hermits,” she answered, and sighed deeply.

Her trouble told me that that leaca had to do with the fear that was burrowing like a mole in her father’s heart. I would test it. Soon afterwards the old man came by, his eyes on the ground, his lips moving.

“That leaca,” I said, “what do you call it?”

He looked up with a startled expression. He was very white; he couldn’t abide my steady gaze.

“Nora,” he cried, raising his voice suddenly and angrily, “cas isteach iad, cas isteach iad!” He almost roared at the gentle girl.

“Turn in—what?” I said, roughly, “the cattle are in long ago.”

“’Tis right they should,” he answered, leaving me.

Yes, this leaca and this man had between them moulded out a tragedy, as between two hands.

Though the sun had gone still I sat staring at it. It was far off, but whatever light remained in the sky had gathered to it. I was wondering at its clear definition among all the vague and misty mountain-shapes when a voice, quivering with age, high and untuneful, addressed me:

“’Twould be right for you to see it when there’s snow on it.”

“Ah!”

“’Tis blinding!” The voice had changed so much as his inner vision strengthened that I gazed up quickly at him. He was a very old man, somewhat fairy-like in appearance, but he had the eyes of a boy! These eyes told me he was one who had lived imaginatively. Therefore I almost gripped him lest he should escape; from him would I learn of Leaca-na-Naomh. Shall I speak of him as a vassal of the house, or as a tatter of the family, or as a spall of the rough landscape? He was native to all three. His homespun was patched with patches as large and as straight-cut as those you’d see on a fisherman’s sail. He was, clothes and all, the same colour as the aged lichen of the rocks; but his eyes were as fresh as dew.

Gripping him, as I have said, I searched his face, as one searches a poem for a hidden meaning.

“When did it happen, this dreadful thing?” I said.

He was taken off his guard. I could imagine, I could almost feel his mind struggling, summoning up an energy sufficient to express his idea of how as well as when the thing happened. At last he spoke deliberately.

“When the master,”—I knew he meant the householder—“was at his best, his swiftest and strongest in health, in riches, in force and spirit.” He hammered every word.

“Ah!” I said; and I noticed the night had begun to thicken, fitly I thought, for my mind was already making mad leaps into the darkness of conjecture. He began to speak a more simple language:

“In those days he was without burden or ailment—unless maybe every little biteen of land between the rocks that he had not as yet brought under the plough was a burden. This, that, yonder, all those fine fields that have gone back again into heather and furze, it was he made them. There’s sweat in them! But while he bent over them in the little dark days of November, dropping his sweat, he would raise up his eyes and fix them on the leaca.
That
would be worth all of them, and worth more than double all of them if it was brought under the plough.”

“And why not?” I said.

“Plough the bed of the saints?”

“I had forgotten.”

“You are not a Gael of the Gaels maybe?”

“I had forgotten; continue; it grows chilly.”

“He had a serving-man; he was a fool; they were common in the country then; they had not been as yet herded into asylums. He was a fool; but a true Gael. That he never forgot; except once.”

“Continue.”

“He had also a sire horse, Griosach he called him, he was so strong, so high and princely.”

“A plough horse?”

“He had never been harnessed. He was the master’s pride and boast. The people gathered on the hillsides when he rode him to Mass. You looked at the master; you looked at the horse; the horse knew the hillsides were looking at him. He made music with his hoofs, he kept his eyes to himself, he was so proud.

“What of the fool?”

“Have I spoken of the fool?”

“Yes, a true Gael.”

“’Tis true, that word. He was as strong as Griosach. He was what no one else was: he was a match for Griosach. The master petted the horse. The horse petted the master. Both of them knew they went well together. But Griosach the sire horse feared Liam Ruadh the fool; and Liam Ruadh the fool feared Griosach the sire horse. For neither had as yet found out that he was stronger than the other. They would play together like two strong boys, equally matched in strength and daring. They would wrestle and throw each other. Then they would leave off; and begin again when they had recovered their breath.

“Yes,” I said, “the master, the horse Griosach, the fool Liam—now, the Leaca, the Leaca.”

“I have brought in the leaca. It will come in again, now! The master was one day standing at a gap for a long time; there was no one near him. Liam Ruadh came near him. ‘It is not lucky to be so silent as that,’ he said. The master raised his head and answered:

“‘The Leaca for wheat.’

“The fool nearly fell down in a sprawling heap. No one had ever heard of anything like that.

“‘No,’ he said like a child.

“‘The Leaca for wheat,’ the master said again, as if there was someone inside him speaking.

“The fool was getting hot and angry.

“‘The Leaca for prayer!’ he said.

“‘The Leaca for wheat,’ said the master, a third time.

“When the fool heard him he gathered himself up and roared—a loud ‘O-oh!’ it went around the hills like sudden thunder; in the little breath he had left he said: ‘The Leaca for prayer!’

“The master went away from him; who could tell what might have happened?

“The next day the fool was washing a sheep’s diseased foot—he had the struggling animal held firm in his arms when the master slipped behind him and whispered in his ear:

“‘The Leaca for wheat.’

“Before the fool could free the animal the master was gone. He was a wild, swift man that day. He laughed. It was that self-same night he went into the shed where Liam slept and stood a moment looking at the large face of the fool working in his dreams. He watched him like that a minute. Then he flashed the lantern quite close into the fool’s eyes so as to dazzle him, and he cried out harshly, ‘The Leaca for wheat,’ making his voice appear far off, like a trumpet-call, and before the fool could understand where he was, or whether he was asleep or awake, the light was gone and the master was gone.

“Day after day the master put the same thought into the fool’s ear. And Liam was becoming sullen and dark. Then one night long after we were all in our sleep we heard a wild crash. The fool had gone to the master’s room. He found the door bolted. He put his shoulder to it. The door went in about the room, and the arch above it fell in pieces around the fool’s head—all in the still night.

“‘Who’s there? What is it?’ cried the master, starting up in his bed.

“‘Griosach for the plough!’ said the fool.

“No one could think of Griosach being hitched to a plough. The master gave him no answer. He lay down in his bed and covered his face. The fool went back to his straw. Whenever the master now said ‘The Leaca for wheat’ the fool would answer ‘Griosach for the plough.’

“The tree turns the wind aside, yet the wind at last twists the tree. Like wind and tree master and fool played against each other, until at last they each of them had spent their force.

“‘I will take Griosach and Niamh and plough the leaca,’ said the fool; it was a hard November day.

“‘As you wish,’ said the master. Many a storm finishes with a little sob of wind. Their voices were now like a little wind.

“The next night a pair of smiths were brought into the coom all the way from Aunascawl. The day after the mountains were ringing with their blows as the ploughing-gear was overhauled. Without rest or laughter or chatter the work went on, for Liam was at their shoulders, and he hardly gave them time to wipe their sweaty hair. One began to sing: ‘’Tis my grief on Monday now,’ but Liam struck him one blow and stretched him. He returned to his work quiet enough after that. We saw the fool’s anger rising. We made way for him; and he was going back and forth the whole day long; in the evening his mouth began to froth and his tongue to blab. We drew away from him; wondering what he was thinking of. The master himself began to grow timid; he hadn’t a word in him; but he kept looking up at us from under his brow as if he feared we would turn against him. Sure we wouldn’t; wasn’t he our master—even what he did?

“When the smiths had mounted their horses that night to return to Aunascawl one of them stooped down to the master’s ear and whispered: ‘Watch him, he’s in a fever.’

“‘Who?’

“‘The fool.’ That was a true word.

“Some of us rode down with the smiths to the mouth of the pass, and as we did so snow began to fall silently and thickly. We were glad; we thought it might put back the dreadful business of the ploughing. When we returned towards the house we were talking. But a boy checked us.

“‘Whisht!’ he said.

“We listened. We crept beneath the thatch of the stables. Within we heard the fool talking to the horses. We knew he was putting his arms around their necks. When he came out, he was quiet and happy-looking. We crouched aside to let him pass. Then we told the master.

“‘Go to your beds,’ he said, coldly enough.

“We played no cards that night; we sang no songs; we thought it too long until we were in our dark beds. The last thing we thought of was the snow falling, falling, falling on Leaca-na-Naomh and on all the mountains. There was not a stir or a sigh in the house. Everyone feared to hear his own bed creak. And at last we slept.

“What awoke me? I could hear voices whispering. There was fright in them. Before I could distinguish one word from another I felt my neck creeping. I shook myself. I leaped up. I looked out. The light was blinding. The moon was shining on the slopes of new snow. There was none falling now; a light, thin wind was blowing out of the lovely stars.