Chapter I

All Abbey Dowling’s neighbours thought she was the very foolish woman to let her good-for-nothing father-in-law establish himself in her house again after his return from America, and many of them told her so frankly, but fruitlessly. This was not surprising, as everybody agreed that the Dowlings were always as headstrong as mules. Everybody agreed, too, that her poor husband’s people were none of them worth much, and that this old Patrick Mulrane, though not without some companionable qualities, was worth as little as any. Drinking and raising rows had hitherto been his constant occupation, and the whole parish of Clochranbeg knew what lives he had led his son and daughter-in-law, until, upon the death of the former, off he had gone to the States, whence nothing had been heard of him for the next dozen years and more, while the young widow was struggling to keep herself and her three sons, and her invalid sister, on their stony little bit of land. “So now, when the boys are grown big, and able to be workin’, back he flourishes wid the notion he’ll have them supportin’ him in idleness, and he after lavin’ all of yous to starve, for any thanks it was to him. Raison you’ll have to repint it, if you take him in. Fightin’ wid the lads he’ll be, and frightenin’ poor Maggie there, and drinkin’ their earnin’s on you, besides learnin’ them all manner of villiny--that’s every hand’s turn he’ll be doin’ for you, ma’am, mark my words!” Her old and respected friend, Mrs O’Hagan, tramped down a long and rough way to exhort her thus. But the words might just as well have been spoken to the sea-gulls skirling about Mrs Mulrane’s door.

If her neighbours’ remonstrances had any effect at all, it was merely to make her the more proudly careful that they should seem uncalled for; and the remoteness of her dwelling, out of the way on the shingly strand, helped her to keep up appearances. Yet she was not so successful but that some signs and many rumours of domestic troubles were soon in existence. Undoubtedly old Mulrane himself was often to be seen in various public-houses, drinking and brawling; his grandsons looked ragged and poverty-stricken, even when they were known to have sold a couple of beasts advantageously, or to have done not too badly at the mackerel fishing; and their mother’s aged and harassed aspect, her beggarly attire, and her miserable marketing, became the veriest commonplaces of local gossip. As for reports of the old man’s violence and intemperance, of screeches and roars heard in the vicinity of the Mulranes’ house, and of raging warfare and patched-up truces within it, they were rife incessantly.

Things had been going on thus, if not quite so ill as some people declared, yet certainly quite ill enough, for six or seven years, when one autumn afternoon the three young Mulranes were away on the shore gathering sea-wrack. It had been washed up by a heavy ground-swell in great rolls all along the shingle reef which spans a gap in the cliff wall, making a rough causeway, for at the end of it next to the Mulranes’ cabin sea-water rushes under a natural rock arch to fill a small, land-locked basin, never empty even at the lowest ebb. To-day a spring tide was flowing, and nearly at its height; in fact the boys had for some time been expecting every minute to see it turn; but the band of foam kept on seething further and further up, and their last bundles were lifted frothy and dripping. They were heaping the dark weed on a little low plateau, covered with rough, tussocky sward, which just there sinks down to the water’s edge, in steep continuation of the pasture land cresting the cliffs; and red Paddy had remarked to his black brothers, Art and Dan, that he thought they had nearly a boat-load in it now, when a woman came rushing straight down the grassy slope. To judge by the silvering of her rough hair, and the intricacy of her wrinkles, she was an old woman, but she moved with youthful agility and vigour as she abruptly set about shovelling up the weed, carrying and piling it, all in silent, breathless haste.

“You’ve no call to be killin’ yourself, mother,” Paddy said presently. “We’ve got our plenty gathered, or very nigh. What kep’ you till now?”

“Nothin’ at all kep’ me,” said Mrs Mulrane, “good or bad.”

“She had to come round along by the high path,” said Art. “It’s drownded she’d be if she was down under the cliffs.” Seldom does it happen that one could not get thither dry-shod, over the shingle and boulders at their base, from the cabin some quarter of a mile away. But that short-cut was clearly impossible now, as waves were tumbling at a height which did not leave footing for a goat. “Quare full tides there are in it to-day,” said Art.

“Turnin’ it is the now, anyway,” said Paddy. “And we might better be loadin’ up, or else we’ll be bothered pushin’ off th’ ould boat. It’s runnin’ out of the channel there this last five minyits.”

“Ah hould your gab talkin’,” said Mrs Mulrane angrily, panting as she shook down a dank armful. “We’ve a right to get a good bit more while we’re at it, and where’s the hurry to be goin’ back there this long while yet?” She turned away with a flounce, while her sons’ three heads nodded together in recognition of her crossness, for which they thought they could account as usual.

But at the same moment a creaking of oars was heard, and a small boat darted into sight from behind a screening rock. As soon as the two men who were rowing her saw the Mulranes, they made for the shore, shouting loudly all the way, but the lads were prevented from listening by their mother’s behaviour. For she instantly sprang to them, and caught hold of Art and Paddy, hooking one arm through Dan’s, so as to include him in the group, and dragging them all as closely together as possible, while she adjured them in a desperate whisper: “Boys--boys dear--let me tell yous first--it’s after findin’ him they are, and they’re come bawlin’ it to us--bad luck to them. For the love of God, don’t be lettin’ on I wasn’t tellin’ yous before. Ay, it’s your grandfather’s drownded on the strand up at our place. He come in a while after yous goin’ out, and was grabbin’ at poor Maggie’s bit of baker’s bread I had in it, put away for her on the dresser, and when I bid him let it be, he made at me wid the knife--troth did he--and swore he’d have me in littler bits than the bread; mad drunk he was. So out I run, thinkin’ I’d aisy get away from him, and he took out follyin’ me, and very prisently down he come wid his foot caught fast between two big stones; ne’er a hit there was on him, only he could’nt wranch it out, and he all the while cursin’ cruel.

“So says I to meself he might better be stoppin’ where he was for a bit, till he got a trifle sinsible, the way he wouldn’t be doin’ murdher on Maggie and me, and ’twould be soon enough for yous to let him up when ye come in to the supper. For there wasn’t a sign of the say next or nigh him then--I swear it. But by-and-by I noticed the unnatural height it was risin’, and I thought belike I had a right to be callin’ yous to him, for ne’er an offer could I make by meself to be liftin’ the weight of him or the stones; and I legged it the quickest I could up behind the house to look was yous on the point here yet; and ’twas then I seen the big waves rollin’ widin a couple of leps of him.

“But says I to meself, they’ll be over him wild agin the lads could git round to him, and God knows the whole of them might be swep’ away into the deep say, and they tryin’ to raich him. And it’s foolish-like I got wid the fright, for I hadn’t the heart in me to be stayin’ or goin’, and I run this way and that way up there in distraction, till I was sartin-sure I might as well hould me whist till doom’s day. So down I come to yous, and I niver said a word. But these Behans are apt to be seem’ me and him below on the strand; for, now that I remimber, they were fishin’ about all day. And if ye let on I niver tould yous, they’ll say I left him drowndin’ a purpose--”

“You did so, bedad,” said Dan, drawing his arm out of hers.

“And the best thing maybe could happen us,” said Art, pressing into his place. Paddy stood passively, as if dumfoundered.

Time failed for further opinions, as the Behans’ boat was already bumping on the shelving, grassy ledges, and Larry Behan’s voice over-bore every other.

“Och, Mrs Mulrane, it’s too late you are now entirely; drowned dead he is, poor ould Paddy. Ne’er a spark of life was left in him by the time we come, and he lyin’ in scarce twelve inches of water; but great work we had gettin’ the foot of him free of the stones, that had him gripped like a rabbit in a trap. Sure we seen him wid you on the strand a while ago, for lurkin’ up and down the bay we are since mornin’, and some roars we heard, but we’d no notion anythin’ was amiss. And when we seen you above on the cliff path, we knew ’twas here you’d be goin’ to, ’cause we noticed your sons workin’. But next time we drew in shore a bit, we heard him shoutin’ woeful, so we pulled up, and near swamped we were among the heavy rollers; and over him they were, and had the breath choked out of him, before we found him, by the one arm crooked up above his head. So we left Johnny Rooney wid him, and come along straightways to tell yous--stone dead he is. There’s no use hurryin’ now. But, och to goodness, ma’am, it’s the very-little-good-for pack them lads of yours are, that you couldn’t get them persuaded at all to thry save their poor ould grandfather, while there was a chance. Afraid of the rough water they were, belike, and waitin’ for the turn of the tide--and lavin’ him there fast by the leg--the cowardly young man-trappers.”

“For pity’s sake whist,” interrupted their mother. It was not clear to which party she appealed; but her sons stood in silence, looking down, as if a wave were actually passing over their heads.

And it was thus that they got the name by which they were to be known for many a long day in Meenaclochran.