n-nnMi ,jyi nm (Qarnell Uniiieraitg Slibrarg 3tl;ara. ^m $iirk BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 Cornell University Library PR 6029.K29G6 The golden barque and The weaver's grave 3 1924 013 658 970 The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013658970 C a\ b o c ,pR.ess vOooks THE GOLDEN BARQUE AND THE WEAVER'S GRAVE The Golden Barque and The Weaver's Grave By SEUMAS O'KELLY DUBLIN TheTalbot Press Ltd. 89 Talbot Street LONDON T. Fisher Unwin Ltd. 1 Adelphi Terrace 19 19 /\sx<&si -7^ Printed at ctie CAtboc pness 89 Talbot Street Dublin CONTENTS The Weaver's Grave page 9 The Golden Barque Michael and Mary 111 Hike and Calcutta 121 The Haven 134 Billy the Clown 149 The Derelict 173 The Man with the Gift 200 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE A STORY OF OLD MEN I ORTIMER HEHIR. the weaver, had died, and they had come in search of his grave to Cloon na Morav, the Meadow of the Dead. Meehaul Lynskey, the nail-maker, was first across the stile. There was excitement in his face. His long warped body moved in a shuffle over the ground. Following him came Cahir Bowes, the stone-breaker, who was so beaten down from the hips forward, that his back was horizontal as the back of an animal. His right hand held a stick which propped him up in front, his left hand clutched his coat behind, just above the small of the back. By these devices he kept himself from toppling head over heels as he walked. Mother earth was the brow of Cahir Bowes by magnetic force, and Cahir Bowes was resisting her fatal kiss to B 10 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE the last. And just now there was anima- tion in the face he raised from its customary contemplation of the ground. Both old men had the air of those who had been unexpectedly let loose. For a long time they had lurked somewhere in the shadows of life, the world having no business foot them, and now, suddenly, they had been remembered and called forth to perform an office which nobody else on earth could per- form. The excitement in their faces as they crossed over the stile into Cloon na Morav expressed a vehemence in their belated usefulness. Hot on their heels came two dark, handsome, stoutly-built men, alike even to the cord that tied their corduroy trousers under their knees, and, being gravediggers, they carried flashing spades. Last of all, and after a little delay, a firm white hemd was laid on the stile, a dark figure followed, the figure of a woman whose palely sad face was picturesquely, almost dramatically, framed in a black shawl which hung from the crown of the head. She was the widow of Mortimer Hehir, the weaver, and she followed the others into Cloon na Morav, the Meadow of the Dead. THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 11 To glance at Cloon na Morav as you went by on the hilly road, weis to get an Impres- sion of a very old burial-ground ; to pause on the road and look at Cloon na Morav was to become conscious of Its quiet situa- tion, of winds singirig down from the hills in a chant for the dead ; to walk over to the wall and look at the mounds inside was to provoke quotations from Gray's Elegy; to make the Sign of the Cross, lean over the wall, observe the gloomy lichened back- ground of the wall opposite, and mark the things that seemed to stray about, like yellow snakes in the grass, was to think of Hamlet moralising at the graveside of Ophelia, and hear him establish the Iden- tity of Yorrick. To get over the stile and stumble about inside, was to forget all these things and to know Cloon na Morav for itself. Who could tell the age of Cloon na Morav ? The mind could only swoon away into mythology, paddle abput in the dotage of paganism, the toothless infancy of Chris- tianity. How many generations , how many septs, how many clans, how many families, how many people, had gone into Cloon na Morav? The mind could only take wing on the romances of mathematics. The 12 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE ground was billowy, grotesque. Several partially suppressed insurrections — a great thirsting, worming, pushing and shoulder- ing under the sod — had given it character. A long tough growth of grass wired it from end to end. Nature, by this effort, endea- vouring to control the strivings of the more daring of the insurgents of Cloon na Morav. No path here; no plan or map or register existed; if there ever had been one or the other it had been lost. Invasions and weirs and famines and feuds had swept the ground and left it. All claims to interment had been based on powerful traditional rights. These rights had years ago come to an end — all save in a few outstanding cases, the rounding up of a spent generation. The overflow from Clooh na Morav had already set a new cemetery on its legs a mile away, a cemetery in which limestone headstones and Celtic crosses were springing up like mushrooms, advertising the triviality of a civilisation of men and women, who, according to their own epitaphs, had done exactly the two things they could not very well ■ avoid doing : they had all, their obituary notices said, been born and they had all died. THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 13 Obscure quotations from Scripture were sometimes added by way of apology. There was an almost unanimous expression of for- giveness to the Lord for what had happened to the deceased. None of this lack of humour in Cloon ra Morav. Its monu- ments were comparatively few, and such of them as it had not swallowed were well within the general atmosphere. No obituary notice in the place was coiiiplete; all were either wholly or partially eaten up by the teeth of time. The monuments that had made a stout battle for existence were pathetic in their futility. The vanity of the fashionable of dim ages made one weep. Who on earth could have brought in the white marble slab to Cloon na Morav? It had grown green with shame. Perhaps the lettering, once readable upon it, had been conscientiously picked out in gold. The shrieking winds and the fierce rains of the hills alone could tell. Plain heavy stones, their shoulders rounded with a chisel, pre- sumably to give them some off-handed resemblance to humanity, now swooned at fantastic angles from their settings, as if the people to whose memory they had been dedicated had shouldered them away as an 14 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE impertinence. Other slabs lay in fragments on the ground, filling the mind with thoughts of Moses descending from Mount Sinai and, waxing angry at sight of his followers danc- ing about false gods, casting the stone tables containing the Commandments to the ground, breaking them in pieces — the most tragic destruction of a first edition that the world has known. Still other heavy square dark slabs, surely creatures of a pagan ima- gination, were laid flat down on numerous short legs, looking sometimes like represen- tations of monstrous black cockroaches, and again like tables at which the guests of Cloon na Morav might sit down, goblin-like, in the moon-light, when nobody was looking. Most of the legs had given way and the tables lay overturned, as if there had been a quarrel at cards the night before. Those that had kept their legs exhibited great cracks or fissures across their backs, like slabs of dark ice breaking up. Over by the wall, draped in its pattern of dark green lichen, certain families of dim ages had n:iade an effort to keep up the traditions of the Eastern sepulchres. They had showed an aristocratic reluctance to take to the com- mon clay in Cloon na Morav. They had THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 15 built low casket-shaped houses against the gloomy wall, putting an enormously heavy iron door with ponderous iron rings — like the rings on a pier by the sea at one end, a tremendous lock — one wondered what Goliath kept the key — finally cementing the whole thing up and surrounding it with spiked iron railings. In these contraptions very aristocratic families locked up their dead as if they were dangerous wild animals. But these ancient vanities only heightened the general democracy of the ground. To prove a traditional right to a place in its community was to have the bond of your pedigree sealed. The act of burial in Cloon na Moray was in itself an epitaph. And it was amazing to think that there were two people still over the sod who had such a right — one Mortimer Hehir, the weaver, just passed away, the other Malachi Roohan, a cooper, still breathing. When these two survivors of a great gene- ration got tucked under the sward of Clcon na Morav its terrific history would, for all practical purposes, have ended. II Meehaul Lynskey, the nailer, hitched for- ward his bony shoulders and cast his eyes over the ground — eyes that were small and sharp, but unaccustomed to range over wide spaces. The width and the wealth of Cloon na Morav were baffling to him. He had spent his long life on the look-out for one small object so that he might hit it. The colour that he loved was the golden glowing end of a stick of burning iron ; wherever he saw that he seized it in a small sconce at the end of a long handle, wrenched it off by a twitch of the wrist, hit it with a flat hammer several deft taps, dropped it into a vessel of water, out of which -it came a cool and perfect nail. To do this thing several hundred times six days in the week, and pull the chain of a bellows at short intervals, Meehaul Lynskey had developed an extraordinary dexterity of sight and touch, a swiftness of business that no miortal THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 17 man could exceed, and so long as he had been pitted against nail-makers of Hash and blood he had more than held his own; he had, indeed, even put up a tremendous but an unequal struggle against the competition of nail-making machinery. Accustomed as he was to concentrate on a single, glowing, definite object, the complexity and disorder of Cloon na Morav unnerved him. But he was not going to betray any of these profes- sional defects to Cahir Bowes, the stone- breaker. He had been sent there as an ambeissador by the caretaker of Cloon na Morav, picked out for his great age, his local knowledge, and his good character, and it was his business to point out to the twin gravediggers, sons of the caretaker, the weaver's grave, so that it might be opened to receive him. Meehaul Lynskey had a knowledge of the place, and was quite cer- tain as to a great number of grave sites, while the caretaker, being an official with- out records, had a profound ignorance of the whole place. Cahir Bowes followed the drifting figure of the nail-maker over the ground, his face hitched up between his shoulders, his eyes keen and gray, glint-like as the mountains of 18 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE stones he had in his day broken up as road material. Ceihir, no less than Meehaul, had his knowledge of Cloon na Morav and some of his own people were buried here. His sharp, clear eyes took in the various mounds with the eye of a prospector. He, too, had been sent there as an ambassador, and as between himself and Meehaul Lynskey he did not think there could be any two opi- nions; his knowledge was superior to the knowledge of the nailer. Whenever Cahir Bowes met a loose stone on the grass quite instinctively he turned it over with his stick, his sharp old eyes judging its grain with a professional swiftness, then cracking at it with his stick. If the stick were a hammer the stone, attacked on its most vulnerable spot, would fall to pieces like glass. In stones Cahir Bowes saw not sermons but seams. Even the headstones he tapped sig- nificantly with the ferrule of his stick, for Cahir Bowes had an artist's passion for his art, though his art was far from creative. He was one of the great destroyers, the reducers, the makers of chaos, a powerful and remorseless critic of the Stone Age. The two old men wandered about Cloon na Morav, in no hurry whatever to get THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 19 through with their business. After all they had been a long time pensioned off, forgotten, neglected, by the world. The renewed sensation of usefulness was pre- cious to them. They knew that when this business was over they were not likely to be in request for anything in this world again. They were ready to oblige the world, but the world would have to allow them their own time. The world, made up of the two grave-diggers and the widow of the weaver, gathered all this without any vocal procla-, nation. Slowly, mechanically as it were, they followed the two ancients about Cloon na Morav. And the two ancients wandered about with the labour of age and the hearts of children. They separated, wandered about silently as if they were picking up old acquaintcuices, stumbling upon forgotten things, gathering up the threads of days that were over, reviving their memories, and then drew together, beginning to talk slowly, almost casually, and all their talk was of the "dead, of the people who lay in the ground about them. They warmed to it, airing their knowledge, calling up names and complica- tions of family relationships, telling stories, reviving all virtues, whispering at past 20 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE vices, past vices that did not soimd ■ like vices at all, for the long years are great mitigalors and run in splen- did harness vrith the coyest of all the virtues. Charity. The whispered scandals of Cloon na Morav were seen by the twin gfavediggers and the widow of the weaver through such a haze of antiquity that they were no longer scandals but romances. The rake and the drab, seen a good way down the avenue, merely look picturesque. The grave-diggers rested their spades in the ground, leaning on the handles in exactly the same graveyard pose, and the pale widow stood in the background, silent, apart, patient, and, like all dark, tragic looking women, a little mysterious. The stonebreaker pointed with his quiver- ing stick at the graveis of the people whom he spoke about. Every time he raised that forward support one instinclively looked, anxious and fearful, to .see if the clutch were secure on the small of the back. Cahir Bowes had the sort of shape that made one eternally fearful for his equilibrium. The nailer, who, like~his friend the stonebreaker, wheezed a good deal, made short, sharp gestures, and always with the right hand; THE WEAVER'S GRAVE' 21 the fingers were hooked in such a way, and he shot out the arm in such a manner, that they gave the illusion that he held a hammer and that it was struck out over a very hot fire. Every time Meehaul Lynskey made this gesture one expected to see sparks flying. "Where are we to bury the weaver?" one of the grave-diggers asked at last. Both old men laboured around to see where the interruption, the impertinence, had come from. They looked from one twin to the other, with gravity, indeed anxiety, for they were not sure which was which, or if there was not some illusion in the- resemblance, some trick of youth to baflFle age. "Where axe we to bury the weaver?" the other twin repeated, and the strained look on the old men's faces deepened. They were trying to fix in their minds which of the twins had interrupted first and which last. The eyes of Meehaul Lynskey fixed on one twin with the instinct of his trade, while Cahir Bowes ranged both and eventually wandered to the figure of the widow in the background, silently accusing 22 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE her of impatience in a matter which it would be indeUcate for her to show haste. "We can't stay here for ever," said the first twin. It was the twin upon whom Meehaul Lynskey had fastened his small eyes, and, sure of his man this time, Meehaul Lynskey hit him. " There's many a better man than you," said Meehaul Lynskey, " that will stay here for ever." He swept Cloon na Morav with the hooked fingers. " Them that stays in Cloon na Morav for ever," said Cahir Bowes with a wheezing energy, " have nothing to be ashamed of — nothing to be ashamed of. Remember that, young fellow." Meehaul Lynskey did not seem to like the intervention, the help, of Cahir Bowes. It was a sort of implication that he had not — he, mind you, — ^had not hit the nail properly on the head. " Well, where are we to bury him, any- way?" said the twin, hoping to profit by the chagrin of the nailer — the nailer who, by implication, had failed to nail. " You'll bury him," said MeehauL Lyns- key, " where all belonging to him is buried." THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 23 '* We come," said the other twin, "with some sort of intention of that kind." He drawled out the words, in imitation of the old men. The skin relaxed on his handsome dark face and then bunched in puckers of humour about the eyes; Meehaul Lynskey's gaze, wandering for once, went to the hand- some dark face of the other twin and the skin relaxed and then bunched in puckers of humour about his eyes, so that Meehaul Lynskey had an unnerving sensation that these young grave-diggers were purposely confusing him. " You'll bury him," he began with some vehemence, and was amazed to again find Cahir Bowes taking the words out of his mouth, snatching the hammer out of his hand, so to speak. " where you're told to bury him," Cahir Bowes finished for him. Meehaul Lynskey was so hurt that his long slanting figure moved away down the grave- yard, then stopped suddenly. He had deter- mined to do a dreadful thing. He had deter- mined to do a thing that was worse than kicking a crutch from under a cripple's shoulder; that was like stealing the holy water out of a room where a man lay dying. 24 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE He had determined to ruin the last day's amusement on this earth for Cahir Bowes and himself by prematurely and basely dis- closing the weaver's grave I " Here," called back Meehaul Lynskey, " is the weaver's grave, and here you will bury him." All moved down to the spot, Cahir Bowes going with extraordinary spirit, the ferrule of his terrible stick cracking on the stones he met on the way. "Between these t\yo mounds," said Meehaul Lynskey, ^d already, t^e ,twins raised their twin spades in a sinister move- ment, like swords of lancers flashing at a drill. "Between these two mounds," said Meehaul Lynskey, " is the grave of Mortimer Hehir."^ " Hold on !" cried Cahir Bowes. He was so eager, so excited, that he struck one of the grave-diggers a whack of his stick on the back. Both grave-diggers swHng about to him as if both had been hurt by the on^ blow. " Easy there," said the first twin. " Easy there," said the second twin. " Easy youjrselves," cried Cahir Bowes. THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 25 He wheeled about his now quivering face on Meehaul Lynskey. " What is it you're saying about the spot between the mounds?" he demanded. " I'm saying," said Meehaul Lynskey vehemently, " that it's the weaver's grave." "What weaver?" asked Cahir Bowes. "Mortimer Hehir," replied Meehaul Lynskey. " There's no other weaver in it." " Was Julia Rafferty a weaver?" "What Julia Rafferty?" "The midwife, God rest her." " How could she be a weaver if she was a midwife?" " Not a one of me knows. But I'll tell you what I do know and know rightly : that it's Julia Rafferty is in that place and no weaver at all." " Amn't I telling you it's the weaver's grave?" "And amn't I telling you it's not?" " That I may be as dead as my father but the weaver was buried there." " A bone of a weaver was never sunk in it as long as weavers was weavers. Full of Raffertys it is." " Alive with weavers it Is." " Heavenlyful Father, was the like ever C 26 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE heard : to say that a grave was alive with dead weavers." " It's full of them — full as a tick." " And the clean grave that Mortimer Hehir was never done boasting about — dry and sweet and deep and no way bulging at all. Did you see the burial of his father " I did, in troth, see the burial of his father — ^forty year ago if it's a day." " Forty year ago — ^it's fifty-one year come , the sixteenth of May. It's well I remember it and it's well I have occasion to remember it, for it was the day after that again that myself ran away to join the soldiers, my aunt hot foot after me, she to be buying me out the week after, I a high-spirited fellow morebetoken." " Leave the soldiers out of it and leave your aunt out of it and stick to the weaver's grave. Here in this place was the Icist weaver buried, and I'll tell you what's more. In a straight line with it is the grave of " " A straight line, indeed ! Who but yourself, Meehaul Lynskey, ever heard of a straight line in Cloon na Morav? No such thing was ever wzinted or ever allowed in it." THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 27 " In a straight direct line, measured with 1* t e " Measured with crooked, stumbling feet, maybe feet half reeling in drink." " Can't you listen to me now?" "I was always a bad warrant to listen to anything except sense. Yourself ought to be the last man in the world to talk about straight lines, you with the sight scattered in your head, with the divil of sparks flying under your eyes." "Don't mind me sparks now, nor me sight neither, for in a straigljt measu,recj line with the weaver's grave was the grave of the Cassidys." "What Cassidys?" "The Cassidys that herded for the O'Sheeis." "Which O'Sheas?" "O'Shea Ruadh of Cappakelly. Don't you know anyone at all, or is it gone en- tirely your memory is?" "Cappakelly inagh ! And who cares a whistle about O'Shea Ruadh, he or his seed, breed and generations? It's a rotten lo4 of landgrabbers they were." "Me hand to you on that. Striving ever 28 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE they were to put their red paws on this bit of grass and that perch of m6adow.*' "Hungry in themselves even for the cut- away bog." "And Mortimer Hehir a decent weaver, respecting every man's wool." "His forehead pallid with honesty over the yarn and the loom." "If a bit broad-spoken when he came to the door for a smoke of the pipe." "Well, there won't be a mouthful of clay between himself and O'Shea Ru'adh now." "In the end what did O'Shea Ruadh get jJter all his striving?" "I'll tell you that. He got what land suits a blind fiddler." "Enough to pad the crown of the head and tap the sole of the foot ! Now you're talking." "And the devil a word out of him now no more than anyone else in Cloon na Morav." "It's easy talking to us all about land when we're packed up in our timber boxes." "As the weaver was when he got sprinkled with the holy water in that place." THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 29 "As Julia Rafferty was when they read the prayers over her in that place, she a fine, buxom, cheerful woman in her day, with great skill in her business." "Skill or no skill, I'm telling you she's not there, wherever she is." "I suppose you want me to take her up in my arms and show her to you?" "We then, indeed, Cahir, I do not. lisn't a very handsome pair you would make at all, you not able to stand much more hardship than Julia herself." From this there developed a slow, laboured, aged dispute betv/een the two authorities. They moved from grave to grave, pitting memory against memory, story against story, knocking down reminis- cence with reminiscence, arguing in a powerful intimate obscurity that no out- sider could hope to follow, blasting know- ledge with knowledge, until the whole place seemed strev/n with the coirpses of their arguments. The two grave-diggers followed them about in a grim silence; im- patience in their movements, their glances; the widow keeping track of the grand tour with ^ miserable feeling, a feeling, as s.ite after site was rejected, that the tremen- 30 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE dous exclusiveness of Cloon na Morav would altogether push her dead man, the weaver, out of his privilege. The dispute ended, like all epics, where it began. Nothing was established, nothing settled. But the two old men were quite exhausted, MeehauKLynskey sitting down on the back of one of the monstrous cockroaches, Cahir Bowes leaning against a tombstone that was half -submerged, its end. up like the stern of a derelict at sea. Here they sat glaring at each other like a pair of grim vultures. The two grave-diggers grew restive. Their business had to be done. The weaver would havei to be buried. Time pressed. They held a consultation apart. It broke up after a brief exchange of views, a little laughter. "Meehaul Lynskey is right," said one of the twins. Meehaul Lynskey's face lit up. Cahir Bowes looked as if he had been slapped on the cheeks. He moved out from his tomb- stone. "Meehaul Lynskey is right," repeated the other twin. They had decided to break tip the dispute by taking sides. They raised their spades and moved to the site THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 31 which Meehaul Lynskey had urged upon them. "Don't touch that place," Cahir Bowes cried, raising his stick. He was measuring the back of the grave-digger again when the man spun round upon him, menace in his heuidsome dark face. "Touch me with that stick," he cried, "and I'll " Some movement in the background, some agitation in the widow's shawl, caused the grave-digger's menace to dissolve, the words to die in his mouth, a swift flush mounting the man's face. A faint smile of ^gratitude swept the widow's face like a flash. If was as if she had cried out, "Ah, don't touch the poor old, cranky fellow ! you might hurt him." An<;l it was as if the grave-digger had cried back : "He has annoyed me greatly, but I don't intend to hurt him. And since you say so with your eyes I won't even threaten him. Under pressure of the half threat, Cahir Bowes shuffled back a little way. striking an attitude of feeble dignity, leaning out on his stick while the grave-diggers got to work. 32 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE "It's the weaver's grave, surely," said Meehaul Lynskey. "If it is," said Cahir Bowes, "remember his father was buried down seven feet. You gave into that this morning.". "There was no giving in about it," said Meehavil Lynskej'. "We all know that one of the wonders of Cloon na Morav was the burial of the last weaver seven feet, he hav- ing left it as an injunction on his family. The world knows he went down the seven feet." "And remember this," said Cahir Bowes, "that Julia Rafferty was buried no seven feet. If she is down three feet it's as much as she went." Sure enough, the grave-diggers had not dug down more than three feet of ground when one of the spades ^fruck hollowly on unhealthy timber. The sound was unmis- takable and ominous. There was silence for a moment. "Then Cahir Bowes made a sudden short spurt up a mound beside him, as if he were some sort of mechanical animal wound up, his horizontal back quivering. On the mound he made a superhuman effort to straighten himself. He got his ears and his blunt nose into a THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 33 considerable elevation. He had not been so upright for twenty years. And raising his weird countenance, he broke into a cackle that was certainly: meant to be a crow. He glared at Meehaul Lynskey, his emotion so great that his eyes sv/am in a watery triumph. Meehaul Lynskey had his eyes, as was his custom, upon one thing, and that thing was the grave, and especially the spot on the grave where the spade had struck the coffin. He looked stunned and fearful. His eyes slowly withdrew their gimlet-like scrutiny from the spot, and sought the triumphant crowing figure of Cahir Bowes on the mound. Meehaul Lynskey looked as if he would like to say something, but no words came. Instead he ambled away, retired from the battle, and standing apart, rubbed one leg against the other, above the back #of the ankles, like some great insect. His hooked fingers at the same time stroked the birldge of his nose. He weis beaten. *'! suppose it's not the weaver's grave," said one of the grave-diggers. Both of them looked at Cahir Bowes. "Well, you know it's not," said the 34 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE stonebreaker. "It's Julia Rafferty you struck. She helped many a one into the world in her day, and it's poor recompense to her to say she can't be at rest when she left it." He turned to the remote figure of Meehaul Lynskey and cried : "Ah-ha, well- you may rub your ignorant legs. And I'm hoping Julia will forgive you this day's ugly work." In silence, quickly, with reverence, the twins scooped back the clay over the spot. The widow looked on with the same quiet, patient, mysterious silence. One of the gravediggers turned on Cahir Bowes. "I suppose you know where the weaver's grave is?" he asked. Cahir Bowes looked at him with an ancient tartness, then said : "You suppose !" "Of course, you know where it is." Cahir Bowes looked as if he knew where the gates of heaven were, and that he might — or might not — enlighten an ignorant world. It all depended ! His eyes wandered knowingly out over the meadows beyond the graveyard. He said : "I do know wKere the weaver's grave is. THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 35 "We'll be very much obliged to you if you show it to us." "Very much obliged," endorsed the other twin. The stonebreaker, thus flattered, led the way to a new site, one nearer to the wall, where were the plagiarisms of the Eastern sepulchres. Cahir Bowes made little journeys about, measuring so many steps from one place to another, mumbling strange and unintelligible information to himself, going through an extraordinary geometrical emotion, striking the ground hard taps with his stick. "Glory be to the Lord," cried Meehaul Lynskey, "he's like the man they had driv- ing the water for the well in the quarry field, he whacking the ground with his magic heizel wand." Cahir Bowes made no reply. He was too absorbed in his own emotion. A iifitle steam wias beginning to ascend from his brow. He was- moving about the ground like some grotesque spider weaving an in- visible web. "I suppose now," said Meehaul Lynskey, addressing the marble monument, "that as soon as Cahir hits the right spot one of the 36 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE weavers will turn about below. Or maybe he expects one of them to whistle up at him out of the ground. That's it; devil a other ! When we hear the whistle we'll all know for certiain where to bury the weaver." Cahir Bowes weis contracting his move- ments, so that he was now circling about the one spot, like a dog going to lie down. Meehaul Lynskey drew a little closer, watching eagerly, his grim yellow- face, seared with yellow marks from the fires of his workshop, tightened up in a sceptical pucker. His half-muttered words were bitter with an aged sarcasm. He cried : "Say nothing; he'll get it yet, will the man of knowledge, the know-all, Cahir Bowes ! Give him time. Give hiih until this day twelve month. Look at that for a right-about-tum on the left heel. Isn't the nimbleness of that young fellow a treat to see? Are they whistling to you from below, Cahir? Is it dancing to the weaver's music you are? That's it, devil a other." Cahir Bowes was mapping out a space on the grass with his stick. Gradually it took, more or less, the outline of a grave THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 37 site. He took off his hat and mopped his steaming brow with a red handkerchief, saying : "There is the weaver's grave." "God in Heaven," cried Meehaul Lyn- skey, "will you look at what he calls the weaver's grave? I'll say nothing at all. I'll hold my tongue. I'll shut up. Not one word will I say about Alick Finlay, the mildest man that ever lived, a man full of religion, never at the end of his prayers ! But; sure, it's the saints of God that get the worst of it in this world, and if Alick escaped during life, faith he's in for it now, with the pirates and the body-snatchers of Cloon na Morav on top of him." A corncrake began to sing in the nearby meadow, and his rasping notes sounded like a queer accompaniment to the words of Meehaul Lynskey. The grave-diggers, who had gone to work on the Cahir Bowes site, laughed a little, one of them looking for a moment at Meehaul Lynskey, saying : "Listen to that damned old corncrake in the meadow ! I'd like to put a sod in his mouth." The man's eye went to the widow. She showed no emotion one way or the other. 38 THE WEAV'ER'S GRAVE and the grave-digger got back to his work. Meehaul Lynskey, however, wore the cap. He said : "To be sure ! I'm to sing dumb. I'm not to have a word out of me at all. Others can rattle away as they like in this place, as if they owned it. The ancient good old stock is to be nowhere and the scruff of the hills let rampage as they will. That's it, devil a other. Castles falling and dunghills rising ! Well, God be with the good old times and the good old mannerly people that used to be in it, and God be with Alick Finlay, the holiest " A sod of earth came through the air from the direction of the grave, and, skimming Metehaul Lynskey's (head, idropped some- where behind. The corncrake stopped his notes in the meadow, and Meehaul Lyn- skey stood statuesque in a mute protest, and silence reigned in the place while the clay sang up in a swinging rhythm from the grave. Cahir Bowes, watching the operations with intensity, said : "It was nearly going astray on me." Meehaul Lynskey gave a little snort. He etsked : THF: WEAVER'S GRAVE 39 "What was?" "The weaver's grave." "Remember this : the leist weaver is down seven feet. And remember this: Alicjk Finlay is down less than Julia Rafferty." He had no sooner spoken when a fearful thing happened. Suddenly out of the soft cutting of the earth a spade sounded harsh on tinware, there was a crash, less harsh, but painfully distinct, as if rotten boards were falling together, then a distinct sub- sidence of the earth. The work stopped at once. A moment's fearful silence fol- lowed. It was broken by a short, dry laugh from Meehaul Lynskey. He said : "God be merciful to us all ! That's the latter end of Alick Finlay." The two grave-diggers looked at each other. The shawl of the widow in the background was agitated. One twin said to the other : "This can't be the weaver's grave." The other agreed. They all turned their eyes upon Cahir Bowes. He was hanging forward in a pained strain, his head quak- ing, his fingers twitching on his stick. 40 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE Meehaul Lynskey turned to the marble monument and said with venomj. "If I was guihy I'd go down on my knees and beg God's pardon. If I didn't I'd know the ghost of Alick Finlay, saint as he was, would leap upon me and guzzle me — fpr what right would I have to set anybody at him with driving spades when he was long years in his grave?" Cahir Bowes took no notice. He was looking at the ground, searching about, and slowly, painfully, began his web-spinning again.. The grave-diggers covered in the ground without a word. Cahir .Bowes ap- peared to get lost in some fearful maze of his own making. A little whimper broke from him now arid again. The steam from his brow thickened in the air, and eventu- ally he settled down on the end of a head- stone, having got the worst of it. Meehaul Lynskey sat on another stone facing him, and they glared, sinister and grotesque, at each other. Cahir Bowes,'' said Meehaul Lynskey, "I'll tell you what you are, and then you CEin tell me what I am." "Have it whatever way you like," said Cahir Bowes. "What is it that I am?" THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 41 "You're a gentleman, a grand oul' stone- breaking gentleman. That's what yop are, devil a other !" The wrinkles on the withered face of Cahir Bowes contracted, his eyes stared across at Meehaul Lynskey, and two yellow teeth showed between his lips. He wheezed ; "And do you know what you are?" "I don't." "You're a nailer, that's what you are, a damned nailer." They glared at each other in a quaking, grim silence. And it was at this moment of collapse, of deadlock, that the widow spoke for the first time. At the first sound of her voice one of the twins perked his head, his eyes going to her face. She said in a tone as quiet as her whole behaviour : "Maybe I ought to go up to the Tunnel Road eind ask Malachi Roohan whera the grave is." They had all forgotten the oldest man of them all, Malachi Roohan. He would be the last mortal man to enter Cloon na Morav. He had been the great friend of Mortimer Hehir, the weaver, in the days that were 42 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE over, ' and the whole world knew that Morti- mer Hehir's knowledge of Cloon na Morav was perfect. Maybe Malachi Roohan would have learned a great deal from him. And Malachi Roohan, the cooper, was so long bed-ridden that those who remembered him at all thought of him as a man who had died a long time ago. "There's nothing else for it," said one of the twins, leaving down his spade, and iminediately the other twin laid his spade beside it. The two ancients on the headstones said nothing. Not even they could raise a voice eigainst the possibilities of Malachi Roohem, the cooper. By their terrible aged silence they gave consent, and the widow turned to walk out o/ Cloon na Morav. One of the grave-diggers tobk out his pipe. The eyes of the other followed the widow, he hesi- tated, then walked after her. She became conscious of the msin's step behind her as she got upon the stile, and turned her palely sad face upon him. He stood awkw^ardly, his eyes wandering, then said : "Ask Malachi Roohan where the grave is, the exact place." It was to do this the widow was leaving THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 43 Cloon na Morav; she had just announced that she was going to ask Malachi Roohan where the grave was. Yet the man's tone was that of one who was giving her extra- ordinarily acute advice. There was a httle half-embarrassed note of confidence in his tone. , In a dim way the widow thought that, maybe ,^ he had accompanied her to the Stile in a little awkward impulse of .sym- pathy. Men were very curious in their ways sometimes. The widow was a very well-mannered woman, juid she tried to look as if she had received a very valuable direction. She said : "I will. I'll put that question to Malachi Roohem." Arid then she passed out over the stile. Ill The widow went up the road, and beyond it struck the first of the houses of the nearby town. She passed through feded streets in her quiet gait, moderately grief- stricken at the death of her weaver. She had been his fourth wife, and the widow- hoods of fourth wives had not the rich abandon, the great emotional cataclysm, of first, or even second, widowhoods. It is a little cheistened in its poignanqy. The widow had a nice feeling that it would be out of place to give way to any of the char- acteristic manifestations of normal widow- hood. She shrank from drawing attention to the fact that she had been a fourth wife. People's memories become so extraordi- narily acute to family history in times of death ! The widow did not care to come in as a soirt of dramatic surprise in the gossip of the people about the weaver's life. She had heard snatches of such gossip at THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 45 the wake the night before. She was be- ginning to understand why people love wakes andi the intimate personalities of wakehouses. People listen to, remember, and believe what they hear at wakes. It is more precious to them than anything they ever hear in school, church, or playhouse. It is hardly because they get certain enter- tainment at the wake. It is more because the wake is a grand review of family ghosts. There one hears all the stories, the little flattering touches, the little unflattering bitternesses, the traditions, the astonishing records, of the clans. The woman with a memory speaking to the company from a chair beside a laid-out corpse carries more authority than the bishop allocuting from his chair. The wake is realism. The widow had heard a great deal at the wake about the clan of the weavers, and noted, without expressing any emotion, that she had come into the story not like other women, for anything personal to her own womanhood — for beauty, or high spirit, or temper, or fciithfulness, or unfaithfulness — but simply because she was a fourth wife, a kind of curiosity, the back-wash of Morti- mer Hehir's romances. The widow felt a 46 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE remote sense of injustice in all this. She had said to herself that widows who had been fourth wives deserved more sjrmpathy than widows who had been first wives, for the simple reason that fourth widows had never been, Eind could never be, first wives I The thought confused her a little, and she did not pursue it, instinctively feel- ing that if she did accept the conventional view of her condition she would only crystallise her widowhood into a grievance that nobody would try to understand, and which would, accordingly, be merely use- less. And what was the good of it, any- how? The widow smoothed her dark hair on each side of her head under her shawl. She had no bitter and no sweet memories of the weaver. There weis nothing that was even vivid in their marriage. She had no complaints to make of Mortimer Hehir. He had not come to her in any fiery love impulse. It was the marriage of an old man with a woman years younger. She had recognised him as an old man from first to last, a man who had already been thrice through a wedded experience, and her temperament, naturally calm, had met his half-stormy, half-petulant character, with- THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 47 out suffering any sort of shock. The weaver had tried to keep up to the illusion of a perennial youth by dyeing his hair, and marrying one wife as soon cis possible after another. The fourth wife had come to him late in life. She had a placid understand- ' ing that she weis a mere flattery to the weaver's truculent egoism. These thoughts, in some shape or other, occupied, without agitating, the mind of the widow as she passed a dark shadowy figure through streets that were clamorous in their quietudes, painful in their lack of all the puarposes for which streets have ever been created. Her only emotion was one which • she knew to be quite creditable to her situa- tion : a sincere , desire to see the weaver buried in the grave to which the respecta- bility of his family and the claims of his ancient house fully and fairly entitled him to. The proceedings in Cloon na Morav had been painful, even tragical, to the widow. The weavers had always been great authorities and zealous guardians of iftie lancienjt buriat place. This function had been traditional and voluntary with them. This was especially true of the last of them, Mortimer Hehir. He had been 48 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE the greatest of all authorities on the burial places of the local clans. His knowledge was scientific. He had been the grand savant of Cloon na Morav.^ He had policed the place. Nay, he had been its tyrant. He had over and over again prevented' terrible mistakes, complications that would have appalled those concerned if they were not beyond all such concerns. The widow of the weaver had often thought that in his day Mortimer Hehir had made his solicita- tion for the place a passion, unreasonable, almost violent. They said that all this had sprung from a fear that had come t6 him in his early youth that through some blunder an alien, an inferior, even an eiiemy, might come to find his way into the family burial place of the weavers. This fear had m&de him what he was. And in his later years his pride in the family burial place became a worship. His trade had gone down, and his pride had gone up. The burial ground in Cloon na Morav was the grand proof of his, aristocracy. That weis the' coat-of- arms, the,ened?" The face of the Terror was eager. Billy hitched his belt. " Well, you see, this was the height of it. The man that was the husbemd of the person that owned the show was advance agent. He was always a week ahead of us, putting up posters and taking drink. One day he turned up when iiobody expected or wanted him. He took a dislike to me and I left. He hurt my feelings," 162 THE GOLDEN BARQUE Billy S'tood up. " Now, sonny," He said, " it's getting late. You'll be expected at home. I'm going to bed early, and I'd like a feed of something before I turn in." " Do you — ^would you — could you— eat lettuce," the Terror asked, standing before Billy on the deck. Billy whistled. " My word," he said, chopping with his teeth. " The identical article with cold pig's cheek. How did you think of it? I'd give my hat for a head." The Terror flew down tjie planks to the bank. Billy watched his figure disappear along the road. " A nice wee kid," he said tolerantly. He stood, on the deck looking into the water. It was dim in the uncertain light. Then something dropped in from the bank. He saw a little figure make a ripple on the sur- face and cut a way directly across, a small snout just visible. It was a water rat. " Poor devil," Billy said, for his sympa- thies were broad. He knew what it was to fend for himself. Some footsteps sounded on the road. The figure of the Terror came running along. THE GOLDEN BARQUE 163 clutching something in his arms. He ran up the planks. " It will do you for to-night," he said, thrusting something^into Billy's hand. He turned on his heels and fled. Som^ of the heads of lettuce fell on to the deck, They were wet with dew. The clay around the rooits was fresh. They had been hastily gathered. Billy picked it up and went down to the cabin humming. The Terror lived in a state of mild ecstasy for some days. He was the confidant, the friend, of a great man, a man who had travelled the world and who now lived in a canal boat. There was no doubt as to his greatness. Look at the scar,, the ear-rings, the way he could somersault, the way he could sing, the drollery in the movements of his legs. Going to school seemed a ridicu- lous, a tame business, when considered in relation to the great life that Billy stood for. Playing marbles with other boys was a pallid affair. He simply cut his compan- ions. Seated on the box on The Golden Barque listening to Billy, looking at him, rubbing up against him, feeding him with pilfered lettuces ! Why, if he had been allowed — and able — to feed wild animals it 164 THE GOLDEN BARQUE could not be more tkrilling. The Terror hopped on one leg now emd another again at the very thouglit of it. One evening it would be a story of a far country, a country so hot that you lived upon peaches hanging down over your head wherever you went. Again it would be of a place where Billy had seen hailstones as large as cocoanuts, and so hard that one of them was known to split open the skull of a nigger. Again, it would be an affair in a canoe on a forest river where Billy had left a memory thalt would last for ever in the noodles of all crocodiles. Battles with hordes of mosquitoes in the air, struggles with serpents in the grass, a ride over sands in the desert cistride an ostrich, scuttling a ship in the middle of the ocean — it was per- fect. And at the back of it all was the atmosphere of the circus, suggested by sudden snatches of songs in the middle of tropical sensations, the repetition of an encounter with the ringmeister, and the capers of Billy that made the Terror shriek with laughter. Then one evening the joy of it all was concentrated in the offer of Billy to make a pair of stilts on which he would teach the Terror to walk. THE GOLDEN BARQUE 165 ■" ~y . i That was where the Terror came in, where he was able to astonish even Billy. The stilts were made, produced, practically embraced, and taken home with an exulteint heart. Next evening, so apt was the pupil, so persistent the practice all day in the privacy of a backyaird, that without any tuition, he was able to walk on them along by the hedge on the road to the boat. He came along with the eternal suggestion of a smile under the soft hat. Billy praised him a little — but just imagine, what a word of praise was from the man who had once been the whole performance in Sinclair's farpous circus ! The Terror sat on the box with the stilts beside him, an expression of rapt ambi- tion on his face. He would yet stride up to the stars on his stilts ! It was a heavenly week. The world throbbed. It was full of adventure — adven- ture that was only new-bom, yet to be realised. The Terror by turns felt heroic, masterful, capable of devastation, the dis- penser of horrors, of mercies, of kindnesses, of lacerations, of frightful deaths, of superb rescues, of melodramatic zissertions of right over might. But then came the week-end. The people 166 THE GOLDEN BARQUE on the boat went away to their wives and their homes for Sunday. Billy had no home and no wife to which he could go. There- fore, he wcis left in charge of The Golden Barque. He sat disconsolate on an upturned empty barrel. The prospect of an evening with the Terror, of the lettuces he would bring, was lacking in vividness. It seemed too much a part of the pastoral landscape about him. Some crows cried overhead, but even they had some social centre, some home, some rookery. A wandering seagull cried out, and brought a memory of places that the seas washed. A cow mewed over a hedge, her vocal tribute to the evening being one of utter desolation. As soon as Billy heard it he sprang to his feet, saying " That's done it." He hitched his belt about him, walked down to the barik, and set his course for the village. When the Terror arrived he found the boat deserted. He walked about the deck, explored the cabin. He left his stilts beside the box, and sat patiently until a lock-keeper came along. "Are you looking for Billy?" the lock- keeper a^ked. "Yes." THE GOLDEN BARQUE 167 " Well, you can go home. Billy has broken out." The Terror did not understand. He hung on. At length Billy came down the road, lurching in his walk. The Terror went on to the road to meet him. Billy held his head down. When the Terror saw his face there was a change in it. There was a scowl, something in the eyes that made the Terror step back from him. " Go home," Billy muttered. He made a vague movement with one of his hands. He appeEired to have only a general, uncer- tain idea of the position of things. The Terror did not go home. Some touch of rebellion crept into the mild, round face. " I won't go home," he said- You won t? "No. Not for you." Billy swayed up to the boat and' fooled about the deck. The Terror stood looking at him from the bank, his hands behind his back. "Go home," came the command again. " No," came the uncompromising answer. Billy stumbled over one of the stilts. He raised it in his hand. Then he went over to 168 THE GOLDEN BARQUE a chest, raised the iid, took out a hatchet. The Terror never budged eis Billy brought the hatchet down on the stilt. The aim was uncertain, but he struck at it until it went to pieces. " Now will you go home?" he demanded. " No, not unless I like." The shattered stilt fell into the water. The eyes of the Terror were up>on the pieces as they floated about, bobbing against the side' of The Golden Barque. Billy came swaying, but threatening, to the bank. The Terror set backwards some yards on hisjegs, his eyes shining, his hcinds twitchirig. Billy looked about him foolishly, then hitched his belt and struck for the vil- lage again. The Terror watched him until he had gone, then went aboard. He passed down straight to Billy's cabin. He pulled the bed out of the bunk, tossed the bed- clothes about. Over them he upset a keg of water ; some of it drained out on the bed. He caught the kettle, the saucepan, the few enamel mugs, the frying-pan, the spoons, knives and forks, and cast them about. In an afterthought he picked up the fork and stuck it through the bolster. He opened the small cupboard. Half a losif and the pickled THE GOLDEN BARQUE 169 jawbone of a pig were there. The bone the Terror stuffed into the coal stove. He folded the bread up in a dish-cloth sind set it on the top of the stove. Then he went on deck. Some bags lay beside a step-ladder. He set the step-ladder against the funnel and, taking the bags, went up the steps. He was breathing hard as he stuffed the sacks down the funnel. "Now," he said to himself, as he came down, " when he lights the fire below it will choke him." The Terror was as black as a sweep, hands and face, as he left the boat, but he was satisfied. He went home, washed himself, said his prayers, went to bed, and dreamt that he was fighting a tiger in a jungle, which, at a critical moment, turned into a crocodile, and eventually into a pair of stilts upon which the Terror crossed a desert. Billy was linked on to The Golden Barque by a lock-keeper that night. They nego- tiated the steps down to the cabin with extraordinary skill. When the lock-keeper struck a match and put it to the candle he stared at the scene. The lock-keeper turned to him. M 170 THE GOLDEN BARQUE "Billy," he said, "someone has wrecked the cabin — ^heis wrecked the boat." Billy blinked, then laughed inanely. He broke into a song. The lock-keeper gathered that it was of Brigid Donohoe, of whom Billy sang, " I really do love you," then fell to the floor — on the huddled bed, his head pillowed by the water keg. The lock-keeper beheld the prostrate figure with despair, sighed, and went home. He had scarcely set foot on the bank when Billy was dreaming that he was in pink tights, per- forming his great feat of springing from the ground clean on to the bare back of a horse going round the ring, Eifter the necessary number of pretended failures to work up the feelings of the bucolic audience. When the band struck up a triumphant blast Billy turned his head over on the empty keg. .. Next morning the Terror passed by the boat on his way to school. As he did so, Billy was drawing out sacks from the funnel. His face was covered with smuts. The face of the Terror was clean, the colour on the clean skin vivid. A schdol-bag hung to his back, cheirged with books and luncheon. The eternal suggestion of a smile was spread over the round, mild face. But he never THE GOLDEN BARQUE 171 looked up at Billy or his boat. He was the picture of respectability. Billy- regarded him curiously with eyes encircled by black. That evening the Terror came along slowly the canal road. He was like one who was under a spell ; The Golden Barque drew him. A look of repentance, reconcil- iation, was on his face. When he arrived The Golden Barque was leaving the lock. The job was finished. They were going away, A hand waved at the Terror. He stood stock still. Then a pair of brand new stilts were shot on to the bank. They clat- tered before his feet. He stooped and lifted them up, but without any joy, for he saw that the figure of Billy was walking down the deck. He was singing in his metallic voice. The words rang out over the land- scape : " I sent her home a picture, I did upon my word, 'Twas not a picture of myself, but a picture of a bird. It was the American Eagle. Says I. : ' Miss Donohoe, These Eagle's wings are laage enough to shelter me arrcl you.' " 172 THE GOLDEN BARQUE Then Billy's lego began to make shapes on the boat, that suggested various droller- ies. His hat was cocked on the side of his head. The boat glided away. The Terror sat under the shadow of the hedge, his eyes upon the boat, riveted upon the figure of Billy as long as it was in sight. After it had gone there seemed to be a big void in the world. Everything was miser- able, grey, dissatisfying. The very evening lost its vividness, the landscape its colour. The earth had shrunken. A companion came along, beheld the Terror with dome surprise, sat down beside him, and asked : " What's wrong with The Terror ran his fingers up and down the stilts, without appearing conscious of the action. His head hung over his angular knees. His face weis to the ground. " I feel horrid," he said in a low voice. THE DERELICT. HE Boss of The Golden Barque was very pleased when he was able to resume business on her deck. He was like- wise pleased that the man with the pock-mcurked face had dis- appeared and that Billy the Clown was available to fill his place. Billy the Clown was obviously a companionable person, in- terested in almost everything, and sometimes the Boss liked to talk. He explained to Billy that he always experienced a heavy bilious attack when forced to leave The Golden Barque for other craft on the canal. There was, he said, some quality in the timbers of The Golden Barque which cured him immediately he got aboard her. He was anxious lo impress th's knowledge upon Billy as they voyaged through a very pleasant country, great trees hanging over the canal, sweeping green pastures visible between them, red and white cows browsing 174 THE GOLDEN BARQUE on the rich grass lands. Billy was mildly putting the point that one canal boat was as like cinother canal boat as one crow was like Einother crow or one Chinaman like an- other Chinaman. Tut-tut ! The Boss would not — could not — ^hear of it. The compari- son, as Billy put it slyly for the Boss, " didn't hold water." Canal boats, to the intelli- gence of the Boss, were full of individuality "as young hares'* — ^it"was Billy again who suggested the comparison. The Boss went on talking of canal boats with an intimacy and lack of humour which made of them human things. Calcutta listened, hanging over a pile of soap boxes, and having yawned went back to his vigil by the funnel, his smouldering eyes showing their eternal gleam of ugly hatred, watchfulness, as they became fastened on Hike, who stumbled and prayed on the bank. The Boss had reached the topic of the ages of boats when he hit on the affair of the Derelict. Had Billy the Clown ever heard of the Derelict ? Billy the Clown had never heard of the Derelict. What was more, Billy the Clown declared he had no interest whatever in derelicts, in old ruins, tomb-stones, fairy raths, or mummies. He THE GOLDEN BARQUE 175 did not care if he never saw another Round Tower. "The Derelict is not a boat," broke in the Boss. " It is a man." "A live man?" Billy asked cautiously. " Yes, a live man." The Boss swung the rudder a little" to one side. " He's alive yet, too. He was the first Boss of The Golden Barque, and the reason I drew him down was because we're coming to his place and you'll be apt to see him." They went on quietly for some lime, the bubble of the water sounding pleeisantly on the timbers of The Golden Barque, the country growing more and more serene, the bEinks given up to the quacking of little parties of white and fawn ducks. The Boss went on talking Eifter a little while, but his voice had such a pleasant drone, and Billy felt so sure that what he talked about no more mattered thzin the bubble of the water at the prow of the boat, that he did not really break the beautiful peace, the exquisite sense of idleness of the whole place. He was speaking for quite a long time before Billy became conscious that he had worked his way back again to the ages of canal boats. 176 THE GOLDEN BARQUE No, he w£is saying, The Golden Barque was a youthful thing compared to certain other old trick-o'-the-loops to be met with. Why did the Boss say that? He raised his fat hand as he put the question. He had his proof of it. The Boss brought down his fat hand with a clinch on the shaft of the tiller when he said he had his proof of it. He was always bringing forth great proofs of unimportant things, always clinching points that did not matter. But as he went on references to the Derelict became more and more frequent. ' Billy gathered, after a long time, after he had dropped off and leisurely caught him up again, that the Dere- lict was a name put upon one James Vasey, that James Vasey was the first man to put the nose of The Golden Barque to the water, and that as James Vasey was still a living if an old man, that, therefore, The Golden Barque could not possibly be as old as people might very well take her to be. James Vasey — or the Derelict — was. not always an old man no more J:han anybody else, the Boss insisted. There was a time when he was a young man, as young as any- body else if it went to that. Why did the Boss say that? The fat hand went up. THE GOLDEN BARQUE 177 When the Boss brought down the fat hand on the tiller a drake with a rich green and white head, a sheen of gold glinting over it, stood up on the bank, spread out his wings and shouted out shamelessly that he was as good a drake as any other drake that had ever led a line of ducks up the canal. The Boss, ignoring him, brought forward his proof that the Derelict was once as young Eis Euiybody else; the weight of evidence in support of this stupendous assertion lay in the fact that once upon a time from the deck of that boat, from the very spot where the Bossi had now planted his flat feet, James Vasey, the Derelict, had cast eimorous eyes upon a young girl with a rich bloom on her cheeks. Not alone that, but The Golden Barque had been known to lie with her bow to the bank waiting patiently for James Vasey, the Dexelict, who had risked his position as Boss of the boat by drawing her up there and bidding the men shut their mouths while he went in pursuit of a young female up a bohreen. If the Derelict was not as young as anybody else, how could he do a thing like that? And why did the Boss say the Derelict had gone up a bohreen after a young girl? He said it because he 178 THE GOLDEN BARQUE had his proof of it. That proof lay not alone in the existence of James Vasey, the Derelict, but in the continued existence of the bohreen, or Isineway, up which- he had taken eager strides in auld lang syne. What was more, that very day that was in it the Boss would point out with his own hand the very smd the identical bohreen up which the Derelict had coursed the time the hot iancy took him for the . panting young femalej. And why did he say he (could point it out with his own hand ? Because — And the Boss went on with his intermin- able proofs about nothing ; a group of geese on the bank suddenly broke into a hearty quack of laughter which was taken up by other groups along the canal until the whole waterway was ringing with it. They ceime to the romantic bohreen in the course of the day. The Boss came up ' the deck of the boat on his flat web-like feet to point it out to Billy. Nothing in the shape of a vehicle had p^assed through that boh- reen, or by-road, for years. It was covered with scutch-grass, briars, dock leaves, nettles, Robin-run-the-hedge. Over this hearty growth the hedges each side had struggled until they had caught hands, em- THE GOLDEN BARQUE 179 braced, hugged «ach other, became one tangle of shoots and leaves. It was more like a jungle than a bohreen. As luck would have it, out of this jungle an old man CEime prowling as the boat passed. The grizzled, long, lined face, the wisps of shaggy hair about the jaws, the head that hung level between the drooping shoulders, the small, sharp eyes, a certain furtiveness in their expression, the claw-like, nervous hands, gave him an entirely animal appear- ance. There was a crackling of brambles as he emerged from his den. " Good morrow, James," the Boss sang out. " Good morrow, Martin," the old man EUiswered. He trembled with ague as he followed the boat on the bank, hobbling along like one who was accustomed to and took pleasure in a difficult effort. "What way is the health, James?" "I'd be right enough only the compres- sion on the chest. It takes the wind from me in the night." He wheezed as he spoke. " Well, keep the heart up. It is the heart that tells at the last." " The heart is yery sound with me, 180 THE GOLDEN BARQUE Martin. Did you see any treu;e of a puckr haun as you came along?" " No, sorra tiace, James. Are you miss- ing the goat?" " I am. He's a devil. My melt is broke striving for to keep him within bounds. A fortune he is costing me in ropes. Buck- leaping this way and that, until I pray to the Lord that he might brain himself against the ditch. I don't know where to turn for him now, for the four quarters of the world are forninst me." The boat had gone by, the old institution not able to keep up any longer, his claw up to his wheezing chest. Further conversa- tion was not possible. Billy could not help looking back at the old figure of the mem on the bank, his gaze wandering helplessly about. Billy found it hard to imagine him as commander — the first commander— of The Golden Barque. But as a Derelict he was complete and magnificent. " He has no interest in the cailial now," Billy said to the Boss. " His mind is given up to the lost puckhaun." " Don't think that," the Boss said. " That old fellow could not live a mile from the canal. He's down every day to see the THE GOLDEN BARQUE 181 boats going by. The life has a hold of him yet, £ind it will keep him until they put the band of death about his jaw." They went on for some time in silence. The figure of the old man hobbling on the bzink grew fainter. The Boss began to moralise. "Mind you," he said, "the canal has a call. The old soldier has a taste for the barracks, the farmer has nature for the fields, and the sailor can converse with the winds. That old fellow, James V£isey, has the same love for the canal as the water rat hid in the rushes." The Boss began to hum in his monoton- ous voice as he fondled the shaft of the tiller, the same sihaft that James Vasey had fondled years gone by. " Did you take stock of that little house beside the bohreen?" he asked after a time. Billy told the Boss it was almost his trade to take stock. He remembered the house as a little wreck of a place, roofless, the shoulder of the dobrway that survived black- ened, two square window spaces gaping beside it like eye cavities in the head of a skull. But the Boss had another memory of it. His description was laboured. All the same 182 THE GOLDEN BARQUE he made a picture of it in time. Billy began to see the thatch on the roof, the smoke coming out of the chimney, the panes of glass shining in the windows, neat, white screens behind them; some order in the front, even a sanded path, and roses clus- tering about the doorway. The figure of a young girl busying herself about the house, trim and alert, foUov/ed; then the manner in which James Vasey began to follow her movements, to make note of her charms, and to throw sheep's eyes from the deck of The Golden Barque. It culminated in the pulling up of the boat and the scandal g^ven to the crew by the chasing of the young girl up the bohreen. But James Vasey 's enterprise prospered. The young girl liked the way he adventured, and she smiled, on his advahces. The Boss liked to dwell on the subsequent developments. As he did so he more and more fell into the love tradition of the novel- ettes. He closed his case with a " lived happy ever after " ring in his voice. But Billy the Clown was left with the im- pression that the thing worth telling in James Vasey 's life remained untouched. An under-current of contempt for the hero of THE GOLDEN BARQUE 183 the romance now and again betrayed itself in the manner of the Boss. While he was squeezing the first commander of The Golden Barque into an affair of rose and water he could not altogether help remem- bering him for something else. With pres- sure it came out in bits and scraps. Let us put them together. The married life of James Vasey was the married life of all boatmen. He turned up at home when he could. He had a great joy in the little home -beside the ceinal. The peirents of the girl whom he had married died in course of time, leaving the place to James Vasey. A son and a daughter were born to him. The son went away to Liver- pool and never returned. It was said of him that he turned out a bad lot. The daughter went to America. She kept in touch with the homeland. They had letters from her frequently. They expressed a crude but sincere affection for the parents. It was a lonely life that the old people dragged out in the home by the bohreen. This loneli- ness fell more heavily on the mother, for Janaes Vasey had the distraction of his life and work on the cemal. It was, however, a great shock and a 184 THE GOLDEN BARQUE great change to him when his wife died after a few weeks' illness. James Vasey wrote to his daughter in . America announcing the death of her mother. The memory of the lonely old man no doubt moved the girl, and she returned to Ireland. She brought some money with her. With it they were able to secure a little land and a little stock. The daughter was a good womein, a capable manager, and'they were able to live in certain comfort. When the tirhe came that James Vasey left The Golden Barque for ever, unable for further work, they had the little place to fall back upon. It was then he came to be known to his former fellow- voyagers as the Derelict. It was the opinion of the Boss ihat the Derelict had always been a miser. His manner of securing tobacco and other little luxuries in life at the expense of other boat- men was cited as proof of this. It may be true, but it was also true that James Vasey had no opportunity of amassing wealth. His profession did not permit of it. But his passion for loans of tobacco, together with his fdilure to keep up his individual end of the expense of enjoyments in The Haven, THE GOLDEN BARQUE 185 had made him unpopular among the demo- cracy of the canal. He had actually scraped together a sum of ten pounds. The knowledge of this he had kept secret even from his own daughfer. As he grew older, we may take it that he hcindled the money with twitching liands, a cackle in the old voice ; that he fondled and doted over it in secret like the theatrical old man in " Les Cloches de Corneville." If he did not rise to that dreimatic enthusiasm, we may ^ake the more homely view that he tied it in the comer of an old stocking, hiding it away in various places like a cat with a kitten. He would probably die with it under his pillow, obsessed with his secret, fighting death at the last in defence of his hoard — only for what happened. It was a night in early winter. The foli- age had fallen from the trees, the wind swept the leaves in a heap in the bohreen. They made a stir there like impatient souls that wemted to be at rest. The canal gave an air of chilliness to the landscape, the desolation of the bog-land to the west looked 'ike an open wound in .the side of the country. The dismal note of a curlew overhead was like a voice from some suffering land. A drooping N i86 THE GOLDEN BARQUE shoot of a rambler-rose fell over from the porch cind made a constant swaying beside one of the windows of the Derelict's home. AH was silence within. It was his custom, and the custom of his daughter, to go eeirly to bed and to be early about. The hours of the night went by in a great peace, save for a dull glow by the kitchen hearth that stealthily made its way to the brown heap of sods by the wall. At this time the Derelict was troubled with the first stages of his asthma. The " compression on his chest " made his sleep restless as the early dawn approached. He became troubled with his cough. It per- sisted, until at last it robbed him of his sleep. He drew his old frame up in the bed, pushing his shoulders up on the pillows amd barked for some time. He grew conscious that the atmosphere was heavy, that it was difficult for him to get his breath. " Sara," he called out to his daughter. There was no response. The air became more stifling. He struggled out of the bed, and it took him some time, for his thin- legs were stiff and reluctant. He called his daughter's name again. He grumbled when she did not THE GOLDEN BARQUE 187 answer. Like all hard workers, Sara Vasey slept soundly. There was no sign of her stirring in the little room at the other end of the house. The Derehct struggled to the door leading to the intervening kitchen and opened it. The place was filled with smoke, heavy, pungent smoke. Through it a wisp of light descended from the roof to the floor, shed- ding some sparks when it struck the ground. He stood looking at it for some time stupidly. Then a crackle over the chimney and another drift of spaurks caught his eyes. He gave a little cry, turned back, groped for his clothes, and went out into the kitchen. A noise with ominous little cracks and snaps grew in volume until it made a dull hum, as he made for the front door and passed out through the pdrch. A cutting wind passed him and filled the kitchen, and he- saw flames driven across the renters. He drew on some of his clothes, his gums hammering against each other, his hands trembling. He was grumbling and cryiilg as he hobbled around to the window of his daughter's room. He cracked his knuckles on the glass. " Sara !" he cried. A spurt of flame ate i68 THE GOLDEN BARQUE its way through the thatch above him, and he drew back with a cry. Then his daughter came ruishing out of the porch in her night-dress, calling on his name. "Father!" she called out, "are you safe?" She rtished at him, hugging him in her arms hysterically, holding him in her arms protectingly from this calamity that had suddeijly overtaken them in the quiet of the winter's night. It was while his daugh- ter held him in her arms, and that he gazed in fear over her shoulder at the burning house, that the mind of the Derelict jumped back to the memory. of his money. " Sara," he- said, "I'm seife and you are safe." " Thank God, thank God," she cried, her teeth chattering, her eyes on the flames lick- ing the thatch. " But I left something behind tne, daugh- ter." He drew back from her embrace. He began to wring his hands. " I'm lost, I'm surely lost if I don't get the little stock of hioney." " The stock of money?" She had never heeird of it until now. " Yes, daughter. I had a little bit put by. It is in the tin trunk under the bed." THE GOLDEN BARQUE 189 "Oh. father!" " I thought that maybe you might reach it. You are active on the limbs, Sara. Save that much for me." " But look at the smoke, the flames. 1 stumbled in the kitchen coming out. It was like a dead weight pressing me down." . " Sara, before it is too late. My God, my little' store of money ! What matter is any' thing else !" " Let us call the neighbours. Maybe something could be done." "The neighbours!" the old man ex- claimed, looking about him with sudden fear. Then he turned on his daughter, resentment in his voice. "Is it to bring Tom Nolan to this place and tell him of my money? Damnation! Oh, I'll go in my- self." He made somie steps towards the house, whining in a low voice. " Father, don't attempt to go in. You will be burned," the girl said, going to his '""OK,wGod,"h.cnea,",Ke«a„,. are making for the room. It is designedly. Look at the wind blowing them along the §tra.w. My little money will be lost. . . I 190 THE GOLDEN BARQUE minded it well all the years . •. . . Sara, don't give it to say you let it be destroyed before my eyes. . . Do as I bid you ! " A note of command, heirdness, crept into his voice. The girl drew back from him. " Do you hear me?" he shouted. His voice changed to one of sudden desperation. She only shrank the further from him. He hobbled after her. She made an effort to avoid him. He clutched her night-dress, then buried his hard fingers in the flesh of her arms. " Damn you," he cried, " I will make you do my liking. Don't you see the way the flames are making for the room?" She clung about his neck. His breathing was hard, his eyes riveted upon the burning thatch as his face hung over her shoulder. " Let it go, father. It can't be saved now. I did not know you had it." The words only stung the Derelict to new fury. A glowering, wolfish look came into his eyes. He pushed the clinging girl back from him. " Let the lock of money go, is it?" he shouted. " Is that the respect you have for my earnings? In with you and bring it out to me." " Later on, father." ' THE GOLDEN BARQUE 191 Later on ! The house will be burned to the floor. I will be a ruined man for ever." " It will be saved in the trunk." " It can't. . . It is in notes : fine crisp notes that I know the feel of in my hands. ... I could tell them in the darkness of the night. They were as known to me as the nails on my fingers." His voice had risen to a hoarse cackle. He pushed the girl before him as he spoke. She clasped her hands in despair, then turned to break away from him. He lurched after her. A strand of her loose Ihair flew behind her as she went. This he. clutched, and she shrieked, bending heir knees as the pressure from the hair brought her to a stop. When he laid his hands on the girl's arms again she was sob- bing. They were on the verge of the smoke that enveloped the house in dense vapour. He pushed her forward, and they were two vague figures struggling in the smoke. A flock of wild birds wheeled overhead, cry- ing in their strange voices, then vanished into the night. Father, for pity's sake ! You are fool- ish, mad." The girl appealed to him. 192 THE GOLDEN BARQUE " My little stock of money !" he cried. He gave her a drive in front of him. She stumbled against the porch. of the house. A blast of wind sent the smoke from about them in long, sinuous streaks, clearing a space. In that space he saw for a moment the white figure of his daughter, her iace ghastly in the vivid yellow glare from the house. He (thought he caught a look of defiance, scorn, hatred, in her feyes. She made a quick movement, and he concluded that she was about to escape him. He raised an angry arm, his fist closed. "By God Almighty!" he shouted. The fist remained above his head for a moment, then fell to his side, for the white figure had vanished through the porch to the house. He stood there, mumbling and shivering, his eyes still wolfish. The noise of a crack- ling beam inside made him limp away, whining. He cleared the smoke, then turned back to the house with a cry. "Sara!" he called, "what is delaying you ? Come on quick with the money. The flames will be upon it." There was no reply. He limped around to the window of the room, his suspenders streeling behind him, his trousers hanging THE GOLDEN BARQUE 193 about his quivering, crooked, half-naked limbs, a human Derelict against a back- ground of flames that were thick enough for hell. " Sara !" he shouted at the window. He pushed his ashen-lined facfe close to the glass. He had a confused sense of a clouded interior with sitruggling shafts of flame through it. He burst in the little window. A rush of thick smoke struck him in the eyes, filled his mouth. He drew back, gasping. " God, it will Icill me," he cried. " What is delaying her at all? Has she put her hands to my money?" With a new horror in his mind, he struggled back to the window. As he did so he heard, above the low boom in the house, the sharp noise of the tin trunk being drawn across the floor. He gave a little triumphEint cry. " Blessings on you, girl," he cried. He clapped his thin hands, stag- gering about in the smoke in a weird move- ment that was a tragical parody of a dance of delight. The tears were streaming down his face. "Sara," he said, "you were always the good daughter. There was never one like you ; for goodness and for bravery 194 THE GOLDEN BARQUE you were the best. Your motKer in Heaven is directing you this night. May every bless- ing be showered upon you — for you are the one that will save my little store of money." A cry that was half a scream, half a moan, broke from the house. He stood stupefied for a while, then staggered to the window. He s&w a figure' vaguely inside, then a hand made a blind drive at the window. He was alert in a moment. He knew the heind was trying to push the notes to him through the window. He raised his arm and made a grab, but Ithe hand inside never reached beyond the inner ledge of the window. It scraped along the wall and vanished. There was a thud of a body falling in a dead fleshy weight and then a sudden touch of light made the whole place jump to his gaze, vivid as a horrible nightmare. He shrieked, clawing the wall of the window with his hands, his nails tearing the hot mortar from the stones. " Sara ! " he cried. " Give me the money. What is wrong with you? Hell to your soul, give out m}' money. Look at them leaping upon the bed like devils. What has come over you at all?" He was still clawing the wall when foot- THE GOLDEN BARQUE 195 steps came running to the house. He felt a hand on his shoulder and, turning round, saw Tom Nolan, his next neighbour. " James, what on God's earth has hap- pened?" " My place is in a blaze. I am destroyed, Tom. The world will have pity for me." " Where is Sara?" " She's within in the room, Tom. I was striving to direct her. What way will 1 be at all after this? I'll be destroyed forever." Tom Nolan did not wait for any more. He went through the door. The old man limped after him, paused at the porch, passed it, mumbling, whining. "Tom," he said, "wait for me. I'll be with you now." He made little circles in front of the porch, hobbling on his old limbs, his hands pulling the streeling trou- sers up upon them. But he never ventured any farther. Tom Nolan staggered through the porch, a white burden in his arms. "James!" he shouted, "I found her lying under the window." The old man followed him as he brought the girl beyond the range of the smoke and heat, then suddenly fell upon the limp figure. He took up one of the dangling arms, run- 196 THE GOLDEN BARQUE ning his quivering fingers along it until he reached the hand. The hand was open and empty. The old man dropped it with a low wail. Tom Nolcin left the inert figure of the girl on the grass. She looked black and terrible, some of her half burned nightgown still smoking, in the light that was now breaking over the eastern sky. The old man pounced upon the other arm; it was black- ened down from the elbow. " I'm afraid, James, she's burned," Tom Nolan said. But James Vasey, the Derelict, was not listening. He turned *up the scorched hand. The fist "was tightly closed* He endeav- oured to open it, falling on his knees beside the figure of the girl. " Let out of it, you bitch !" the old man shouted. He got his bony knuckles between the fingers of the closed fist and screwed them about, his eyes blazing, his gums be- ginning to hammer together again, a dribble falling from between his lips, his whole face twitching eis it leered over the helpless figure. The neighbour who saw that sight at the dawn was too stupefied to speak. At last the fist was forced open. A little crisp ashes, v/ith no semblance to the ori- THE GOLDEN BARQUE 197 ginal pai>er notes, lay in the palm. They jumped up when the pressure upon them was released. A vagrant wind blew them from the girl's hand along the wet grass. The Derelict knew, in spite of his delirium, what had happened. He knew that there were only two five pound notes in the tin box, and he knew that they had been burned while the girl endeavoured to pass them to him through the window. His old frame quivered, he mocuied like one in mortal pain, he rose from the ground beating his heinds together, the sweat streaming all over his face. Then with a shout he fell on his face on tKe ground, his hands blindly tear- ing at the ashes of the lost treasure, his furious drives burying it in the red clay of the earth, the figure of the girl lying all the time quietly in the shining grass. Sara Vasey recovered, but went about for the rest of her life with a right arm useless from the elbow down. The Derelict, her father, also recovered. Everything in the house by the canal was lost. Tom Nolan gave them all the shelter they needed until they were able to re-arrange their manner of life. The people, however, noted a great 198 THE GOLDEN BARQUE strangeness in the manner of Sara Vasey. She was' given to brooding, silence, sudden and — to her neighbours — unaccountable bursts of hysiterical weeping — and avoided her father as much as possible. When the affeurs of the little farm and a new cottage were set to rights she bought ' her ticket back to America. She went sud- denly, quietly, without any send-off or leave- taking. The Derelict did not know she was going. One morning when he wakened up he found himself alone in the house. The neighbours said Sara Vasey was an imnatural daughter. When Billy the Clown heard this story of the Derelict — in different words — from the Boss he had a vivid memory of the old animal who had come prowling out of his jungle, his mind troubled over the loss of his goat. " Who christened him the Derelict?" Billy asked. " Calcutta," the Boss replied. Billy looked at the figure of Calcutta', black and slender and sinister, against the pale light of the sky. Billy wzdked up to him. " Shake," he said, putting out his hand. THE GpLDEN BARQUE 199 Calcutta, a little bewildered, shook, then his head swung round the funnel, his dull eyes bent on Hike, eind Billy noted the tobacco spit which sang like a bullet in the direction of the hunched driver. THE MAN WITH THE GIFT. I OR twenty- five years the Boss had gone up and down the worn cabin steps without a worry. His fists had grown accustomed to the feel of ropes, to the rolling up and down of barrels, and the swinging of boxes, at the loading and discharging of The Golden Barque. The motion of his limbs had come to be part of the ritual of the deck. He exhaled an odour of tar. His feet had flat- tened, his hands had rounded, his neck had developed a curve, throwing his face for- ward. His eyes were palely yellow, like the water of the canal. His vision had become concentrated, drilling through the landscape like canals. His temperament was placid. His emotions rose and fell as mechanically as if they were regulated by invisible locks. He was as tame as a duck. His name was Martin Coughlan, and he was known, by stray words that followed his speech like a memory, to have come from the North. THE GOLDEN BARQUE 201 That torch of democracy— organisation- one day reached the backwash of existence. It found by its strcinge devices, of all people, Martin Coughlan. Up to that h^ had no sense of responsibility for the wrongs of the world, no brooding of the spirit in the pro- blems of his day. His interests began at one harbour and ended at another. The things that he saw from the deck made up his world. They were good, ' Eind he was satisfied. But then they came to him and told him he had been elected on the Committee. He beamed at the announcement, for he grasped, though vaguely, that he was a man chosen, one to whom honour was paying her respects. He walked into the shed where they held the Committee meetings with his slow lurch, his mind a blank as to the purpose of the assembly. He made no inquiries. He sat down with the others and looked around him. A man at a table read something out of a book- Martin CoUghlan laughed, and felt the others staring at him. A deep voice, with a note of admonition, if not tragedy, called out " Order." Martin Coughlan poked the ribs of a neighbour to O 202 THE GOLDEN" BARQUE show that he appreciated the humour of the situation. Then a man rose at the head of the table. He was a spare man with drooping mous- tachios, a penetrating eye, a voice that sounded high and sharp in the shed. Maartin Coughlein stared at the speaker. Something rare and unsuspected- had touched his life. He wondered where this ^pare man had got all the words. They came out in a steady flow. He was obviously aiming at something, but what it was Martin Coughlan did not know., anfl, indeed, did not care. It was sufficient for him that the words came on and on. He had never heard any mortal before keeping up such a sustained flood of speech. Martin Coughlan leaned back, delight on his face. Another mcin rose. He spoke even better. He gesticulated with energy. The others began to slap their limbs with their hands. Martin Coughlan slapped his limbs, feeling he was privileged. He had begun to live. A thick-set man followed, His voice "wakened echoes all over the place. His eyes flashed around, seeking one face now, another again. Suddenly the eyes fell on THE GOLDEN BARQUE 203 Martin Coughlan; the man addressed him as if he were appealing to an intelligence ! He argued with him, made gestures at him, deposited all his logic at his feet. Martin Coughlan's blood began to heat. He felt a tingle at the curve on the back of his neck. He couglied to relieve the ten- sion. Then the speaker's gaze wandered to somebody else. > The talk' went on fbr some hours. Men grew excited. Several spoke at the same time for pregnant minutes. Martin Coughlan began to perspire. Once he shouted, "Hear, heeu:" because the words had begun to sound familiar. When the Committee meeting broke up he went back to the boat, his cheeks flam- ing, feeling that he had done it all himself. He passed Hike on the way. The little driver looked up at him with respect. The dark-faced man was sitting on a box by the stern. "The meeting over?" he asked. "Yes," Martin Coughlan said. His voice sounded hoarse. His throat felt dry. He went down to the keg and ■drank a mug of water. Afterwards Martin Coughlan paced the 204 THE GOLDEN BARQUE deck with a new air. He became pre- occupied. Once they saw him gesticulat- ing at ai bush on the bank. He took a new tone to the lock-keepers. He was zdways clearing his threat. A few times at the meals they thought he was about to make a speech. But some- thing always overcame him. When they sounded him as to the Committee proceed- ings his face beamed. , "There was speech-meiking," he would say. "What did they say?" Martin Coughlan rose. He caught the lapel of his coat; struck an attitude. An inspired look CEune into his face. But no words followed. Instead he took up a bucket and went on deck. "He's a great man for the Committee," they said. "He won't give the show away." "Aye, man, but that fellow is knowing. He could hold a Cabinet secret." One day the dark-faced man loaned a paper at a village. "TKey don't give the speeches," he said, "but there is the name right enough — Martin Coughlan." THE GOLDEN BARQUE 205 Martin Coughlan took the paper. His eyes swam as he spelled out his name. He pored over the sheet for long spells throughout the rest of the evening. When the men wreie turning in he said : "Boys, but she's a brave wee paper." He got a candle, and sat over it, spelling ever3^hing out, _ including the advertise- ments. ' Then he sat up, delight on his face, the look in his eyes of a man who knew he had achieved something. "Men," he said, "I've overhauled her, beam and aft, stem to stern " But the only answer was a chorus of heavy snores. He turned in with a grumble. There "was another Commiittee meeting soon after. The speeches fell on his head like dew from the heavens. Language ! Why, the world had never yet heeird the like. Moreover, he became conscious that the other men were deferring to him in their views. He sat there as solemn as a judge, the greatest listener who had ever arrived in the shed. The speakers felt that they had at last got hold of an audience, a man of appreciation. Now and then he nodded his head in approval. It was worth 206 THE GOLDEN BARQUE a yard of debate. When lie shook his head in disapproval it excited the speakers. They went on and on, fighting, arguing, playing for his opinion. But Martin Coughlan held to his silent views with wonderful pugnacity. He was not to be cajoled. "What were they at last night, Martin?" one of the men asked afterwards. "That," said Martin, after a pause, "is a secret." "He's too close-minded," they said. "He keeps it all in for the Committee. It must be something to hear him when the cork is off." The dark-faced man was fond of the paper. He got it regularly in the village. "Here we are," he said, with sati;sfaction. "They give us the speeches this time. Now ■we'll know what Martin Coughleui had to say for himself." But there was no speech from Malrtin Coughlan. Everybody had said something except the re][)resentative from The Golden Barque. The dark-faced man made a complaint. "Don't mind the paper," Martin THE GOLDEN BARQUE 207 Coughlan said. '-She is no gocxl. I knew from the first she had sprung a leak." But he felt that the men were dissatisfied. He struck an attitude on the deck, ancJ Scdd : "Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, — i venture to think." He paused. "To my mind," he added. There was another pause. "I say, standing hejre to-night." He looked vaguely over the landscape. "I beg to propose." And then he took a little run up and down the deck, rubbing his hands with delight. "He's too clever," one of the men said. "He thinks to put us off by play-acting. It won't do." Before the proceedings of the next Com- mittee meeting began, Martin Coughlan took the secretary aside. The secretary was a shrewd person. There was a motion on the agenda to give him a salary. "John," said Martin Coughlan, with familiarity, "I want you to tell me how it is done." "How is what done?" "The speeches, you know; the language, the words, the talk they do have." John was puzzled. Then a light broke upon him. 208, THE GOLDEN BARQUE "Well," he said, "a man must have it in him." "Have Virhat in him?" John hesitated, thought, and said, "The gift." . ^ Martin Coughlan was crestfallen. He felt there was something in life he had let slip. "Where would there, be likelihood of getting the gift?" he asked at last. "I don't know," the other replied. "It comes from within." "Oh, I see," Martin Coughlan said, more cheerfully. Then he confided, "John, I have it I within in the inside of me. Lcin- guage, great language. But I can't get it out." "Have courage," the other said. "Take your chance. Get up on your legs. Face them. When you do that the words will flow out of you." "Do you think they will, John?" "Sure." John was a man persuasive, one who caried conviction, inspired hop& — . and drew salaries. "Then there is that wee paper, John. If I'd come out with the^ words, they would be there, of course. They do be reading THE GOLDEN BARQUE '209 her, looking out for what a man might say. '*Oh, that's it, is it, Martin?" John asked, then patted the other on the back. "That will be all right, old man. Leave that to me. Vote straight on the salary question, and the, goods will be delivered to you on the paper," "Thanks, John; I will." At a critical moment in the debate, Martin Coughlan rose. He went over to the table, rapped his knuckles upon it to command attention, jerked the collar of his coat about his neck. He struck the attitude he had rehearsed aboard. It was re- miniscent of various statues erected to the memory of great orators. He looked up and down the shed. A hush fell upon the assembly. Men leaned back to he^r what the silent man, the audience, the one man of reticence among them, had to say at this crisis. "Mt. Chaimian and Mr. Genitlemen," Martin Coughlan began, blundering through nervousness. There was a laugh. Martin Coughlan moistened his lips with his tongue, for they were dry and inclined to stick. One of his 210 THE GOLDEN BARQUE knees struck against the other. Then he had to clear a lump from his throat. "John, our secretary," he said at last, "told me that if I stood up on me legs the words would flow out f romi within the in- side of me." He hesitated, looking about ' him in a panic, a queer feeling of collapse in his brain-. He smiled a ghastly smile. "Go on," said the chairman. "He said," Martin Coughlan resumed, his voice falling to an echo, "that if 1 faced you they would flow out of me. But — by heavens — they won't." He sat down. There was a burst of laughter and ap- plause. The men stared at Martin Coughlan. There was that mixture of scepticism, en- joyment, malicious delight, in their glances that fasten upon all fallen gods'. They were taking their fun out of an exposure, the showing up of an emptiness that wore a mask, the betrayal of that discretion which is only a dullness. Martin Coughlan was too heated, too full of confusion, to notice their crude, levity. By the time he had recovered himself they had dropped him. They no longer de- THE GOLDEN BARQUE 211 ferred to him. He was no longer appealed to as an intelligence. He drew back in- stinctively to the shadows, and he sat there ; until the nieeting broke up. When he reached his boat the men greeted him with deference. He muttered something and w^ent down to the cabin. He stayed there for the rest of the night. "The Committee," he said to the dark- faced man next day, "is a jotten Com- mittee." "I thought that all along," the other re- plied. "But I didn't like to say it, seeing you were a great one on it." "And an ignorant Committee," Martin Coughlcin added. "It i« that." But by the end of the week the paper ,vas out. The dark-faced man, after reading it, looked up at Martin Coughlan and then went Up to him. "Look here. Boss," he said, putting out his hand, "shake hands." They shook hands, Martin Coughlan ner- vously. "It was a great speech," the dark-faced mam said. "You're wasting your time on this boat." 2.12 THE GOLDEN BARQUE Martin Coughlan blushed; his gaze was uncertain. The other left him the paper. He sat on a barrel and opened the sheet. There was his name in print again ! He spelled it out slowly. "Mr, Martin Cough- Icin, who was received with loud applause, said ." and there followed over a column of type, of words, of language, of a speech. He read it over with a thumping heart. It was dotted with "hear, hear," "applause," and "cheers." When he finished he stood up and walked the deck, his thick limbs outspread, his flat feet solid on the planks, his chest out. "Is it a good report. Boss?" they asked. "It is very fair, very fair, men," he said, -with toleration. "Man, but I'd like to hear it coming out." "No doubt you would." "We'll hear ybu some time." "You will, why not, to be sure." " He ran his fingers through his hair. He drilled spaces, vague spaces, through the familiar landscape with his gaze. His blood rose gradually, eventually flooding Tiis face until it grew purple in colour, rising as steadily as if somebody had lifted the sluice of a flood-gate. THE GOLDEN BARQUE 213 "God, the language of it," he repeated to himself over and over again throughout the day. For the first time in his life, he refused to go into The Haven when they had made the journey across the bog. Instead he went into the cabin, and, alone spelt the speech over and over again. \ Gradually his mind got over the habit of thinking of it as something apart, some- thiiig outside his own life. He no longer said, "God, the language of it." Instead he muttered, "Great language; splendid talk • just the thing. That's it. That's what I'd say. That's the very word I'd say. I declare I think it was the word I said. It was going through my head at the time. I must have feaid that very word. If I did not, I intended it. But I forget what I said. Maybe I said it. To be sure I said it. Of course 1 said it. Why not ? The very word ; no, but the very words. If I said one word I must have said another. I could not help, following up one word with another. What was to stop me? Nothing. I went on that very way. One word borrowed another. What else could it do. To be sure I said it. In fact, it's all what I said, word for word." 214 THE GOLDEN, BARQUE He went on persuading himself until the others came back from The Haven. He went up to the dark-faced man. "I tell you what it is, it's a very fine report ; a very good report; a tip-top report. Word for word there it is, in black and in white." He struck dne fist in the other, "Boss," the other said, something almost approaching reverence in his long, narrow face, " you're a great one, a gifted one. For to turn round and say the like of what you said, a man must have the gift." "To be sure he must," Martin Coughlan agreed taking some steps along by the cargo covered with great oil-cloths. "I told John, the secretary, I had it within in the inside of me. And what had I within in the inside of me, I ask you, men? The gift !" "Well, thank God we'll all hear you soon," the dark-faced man said. " There's a public meeting coming on." Martin Coughlan drew a long breath. ^' You don't tell me so?" " I do. We had word of it in The Haven. There is to be speech-making, and great speech-making. We'll expect you that day to show the great gift that's in you." " You will, to be sure," Martin Coughlan THE GOLDEN BARQUE 215 said, but without enthusiasm. He ran his fingers through his hair. Then he walked away from the others, standing at the^prow of the boat, his- sturdy figure solid against the water. " A great one he is for the gab," the grotesque-looking man said irreverently. " Look at the two powerful limbs he has holding him up from the ground." After that Mairtin Coughlan grew very subdued, silent, avoiding the topic of the coming meeting. The men said he was bblttling himself up for the big occasion. Thiey noted that he still pored over the paper that contained his speech. He would lie back in his burik at night, a c&ndle fixed by his sidie, drilling through the speech. Once or twice the men heard him muttering to himself like a boy grappling with a lesson. In these days it was noted that some of the colour left his face. A certain pensiveness crept into his expression. " Boss," one of the men asked him, " are you in pain?" "I am," Martin Coughlan answered, and walked sadly away. Once the men wakened to hear him pacing the deck in the middle of the night. The 216 THE GOLDEN BARQUE dark-faced man, went up the ladder and popped his vignette over the hold^ He came back after a time. " He's on deck in his shirt," he said. " The moon is shining on him, his legs are like two white pillars under the tiller. He has that paper with him. I heard him giv- ing out a few words. He was losing them, trying to catch them up again, stumbling and staggering over them like a mcin that would be raving. Then, he would run his hands through his hair, and the wind blow- ing the shirt about the white pillars." "Be the powers," said the grotesque man, turning over in his bunk, " it's a chilly sort of a night, and I'm glad I have not the gift." As the day of the meeting approached, and it became more and more a topic of conversation, Martin Coughlan's depression increased. Something seemed to weigh him down. He took the dark-f£iced man aside. I " You know this meeting is got up by the Committee?" he said. " And you can call to mind what I told you of that Committee a long while ago. I said it was a rotten Committee." THE GOLDEN BARQUE 217 " You did. I remember that." "And I seiid it was an ignorant Com- mittee." "You did, right enoiigh." " You agfreed with me. We were at one as regards this Committee. Very well, I'm not going to give that Committee the satis- faction of meiking a speech for them." " Now, that would be a pity and you having the gift." " There you are ! That's what makes me do it. How can a man of gift speak for a rotten, ignorant Committee?" To the dark-faced man this was a poser. Perhaps in that moment of expediency, of pressure, Martin Cdughleui showed that he had, after all, some taleiit for politics. He walked down the deck with a stride. "Never!" he exclaimed with decision, waving his arms. The meeting came off without Martin Coughlan. He did not even attend. He "sent word" to strike his name off the Committee. " We will, indeed," one of the men sziid. Little good any such tame ducks is to anyone," The men from The Golden Barque were P 218 THE GOLDEN BARQUE disappointed that Martin Coughlan did not pour forth his eloquence at the assembly. They somehow regeirded him as in some way wronged. But he became more cheer- ful himself. He begem to whistle again as he moved around the boat. His flat feet became more than ever a part of the ritual of the deck. The curve at the back of his neck threw out his head another degree. His eyes became more palely yellow. They went on digging imaginary canals in the leindscape. He was as happy as a duck in the water. Once the dark-faced man asked : " Boss, what became erf the paper with your speech in it?" "Oh, yon rag!" Martin Coughlan made answer. " I rolled her up in a stone, and she's at the bottom a wheen of weeks."