Chapter II (1)

When Padna called on the shoemaker for the boots that had been left for repair they were almost ready. The tips only remained to be put on the heels. Padna sat down in the little workshop, and under the agreeable influence of the place he made bold to ask the shoemaker if he had grown up to be a shoemaker as the geranium had grown up to be a geranium in its pot on the window.

"What!" exclaimed the shoemaker. "Did you never hear tell that I was found in the country under a head of cabbage? No! Well, well! What do they talk to you at home about at all?"

"The most thing they tell me," said Padna, "is to go to bed and get up in the morning. What is the name of the place in the country where they found you?"

"Gobstown," said the shoemaker. "It was the most miserable place within the ring of Ireland. It lay under the blight of a good landlord, no better. That was its misfortune, and especially my misfortune. If the Gobstown landlord was not such a good landlord it's driving on the box of an empire I would be to-day instead of whacking tips on the heels of your boots. How could that be? I'll tell you that.

"In Gobstown the tenants rose up and demanded a reduction of rent; the good landlord gave it to them. They rose up again and demanded another reduction of rent; he gave it to them. They went on rising up, asking reductions, and getting them, until there was no rent left for anyone to reduce. The landlord was as good and as poor as our best.

"And while all this was going on Gobstown was surrounded by estates where there were the most ferocious landlords--rack-renting, absentee, evicting landlords, landlords as wild as tigers. And these tiger landlords were leaping at their tenants and their tenants slashing back at them as best they could. Nothing, my dear, but blood and the music of grape-shot and shouts in the night from the jungle. In Gobstown we had to sit down and look on, pretending, moryah, that we were as happy as the day was long.

"Not a scalp was ever brought into Gobstown. No man of us ever went out on an adventure which might bring him home again through the mouth of the county jail. Not a secret enterprise that might become a great public excitement was ever hatched, not to speak of being launched. We had not as much as a fife-and-drum band. We did not know how to play a tin whistle or beat upon the tintinnabulum. We never waved a green flag. We had not a branch of any kind of a league. We had no men of skill to draft a resolution, indite a threatening letter, draw a coffin, skull, and cross-bones, fight a policeman, or even make a speech. We were never a delegate at a convention, an envoy to America, a divisional executive, a deputation, or a demonstration. We were nothing. We wilted under the blight of our good landlord as the green stalk wilts under the frost of the black night.... Hand me that knife. The one with the wooden handle.

"In desperation we used rouse ourselves and march into the demonstrations on other estates. We were a small and an unknown tribe. The Gobstown contingent always brought up the rear of the procession--a gawky, straggling, bad-stepping, hay-foot, straw-foot lot! The onlookers hardly glanced at us. We stood for nothing. We had no name. Once we rigged up a banner with the words on it, 'Gobstown to the Front!' but still we were put to the back, and when we walked through this town the servant girls came out of their kitchens, laughed at us, and called out, 'Gobstown to the Back of the Front!'

"The fighting men came to us, took us aside, and asked us what we were doing in Gobstown. We had no case to make. We offered to bring forward our good landlord as a shining example, to lead our lamb forward in order that he might show up the man-eaters on the other estates. The organisers were all hostile. They would not allow us into the processions any more. If we could bring forward some sort of roaring black devil we would be more than welcome. Shining examples were not in favour. We were sent home in disgrace and broke up. As the preachers say, our last state was worse than our first.

"We became sullen and drowsy and fat and dull. We got to hate the sight of each other, so much so that we began to pay our rents behind each other's backs, at first the reduced rents, then, gale day by gale day, we got back to the original rent, and kept on paying it. Our good landlord took his rents and said nothing. Gobstown became the most accursed place in all Ireland. Brother could not trust brother. And there were our neighbours going from one sensation to another. They were as lively as trout, as enterprising as goats, as intelligent as Corkmen. They were thin and eager and good-tempered. They ate very little, drank water, slept well, men with hard knuckles, clean bowels, and pale eyes. Anything they hit went down. They were always ready to go to the gallows for each other.

"I had a famous cousin on one of these estates, and I suppose you heard of him? You didn't! What are they teaching you at school at all? Latin grammar? Well, well!... My cousin was a clumsy fellow with only a little of middling kind of brains, but a bit of fight in him. Yet look at the way he got on, and look at me, shodding little boys like yourself! I was born under a lucky star but my cousin was born under a lucky landlord--a ferocious fellow who got into a garret in London and kept roaring across at Ireland for more and more blood. Every time I thought of that old skin of a man howling in the London garret I said to myself, 'He'll be the making of my cousin.' And so, indeed, he was. Three agents were brought down on my cousin's estate. State trials were running like great plays in the courthouse. Blood was always up. They had six fife-and-drum bands and one brass band. They had green and gold banners with harps and streamers, and mottoes in yellow lettering, that took four hardy men to carry on a windy day. The heads of the Peelers were hardly ever out of their helmets. The resident magistrate rose one day in the bosom of his family, his eyes closed, to say grace before meals, and from dint of habit he was chanting the Riot Act over the table until his wife flew at him with, 'How dare you, George! The mutton is quite all right!' Little boys no bigger than yourself walking along the roads to school in that splendid estate could jump up on the ditch and make good speeches.

"My cousin's minute books--he was secretary of everything--would stock a book-shop, and were noted for beautiful expressions. He was the author of ten styles of resolution construction. An enemy christened him Resolving Kavanagh. Every time he resolved to stand where he always stood he revolved. Everybody put up at his house. He was seen in more torchlight processions than Bryan O'Lynn. A room in his house was decorated in a beautiful scheme of illuminated addresses with border designs from the Book of Kells. The homes of the people were full of the stumps of burned-down candles, the remains of great illuminations for my cousin whenever he came out of prison. I tell you no lie when I say that that clumsy cousin of mine became clever and polished, all through pure practice. He had the best of tutors. The skin of a landlord in the London garret, his agents, their understrappers, removable magistrates, judges, Crown solicitors, county inspectors of police, sergeants, constables, secret service men,--all drove him from fame to fame until in the end they chased him out the only gap that was left open to the like of him--the English Parliament. Think of the streak of that man's career! And there was I, a man of capacity and brains, born with the golden spoon of talent in my mouth, dead to the world in Gobstown! I was rotting like a turnip under the best and the most accursed of landlords. In the end I could not stand it--no man of spirit could.

"One day I took down my ashplant, spat on my fist, and set out for my cousin's place. He gave me no welcome. I informed him as to how the land lay in Gobstown. I said we must be allowed to make a name for ourselves as the producers of a shining example of a landlord. My cousin let his head lie over a little to one side and then said, 'In this country shining examples ought only be used with the greatest moderation.' He looked out through the window and after some time said, 'That Gobstown landlord is the most dangerous lunatic in all Ireland.' 'How is that?' said I. 'Because,' said my famous cousin, 'he has a perfect heart.' He put his head over to the other side, looked at me and said, 'If Gobstown does not do something he may be the means of destroying us all.' 'How?' said I. 'He may become contagious,' said my cousin. 'Only think of his example being followed and Ireland turned into one vast tract of Gobstowns! Would not any fate at all be better than that?' I who knew said, 'God knows it would.'

"My cousin sighed heavily. He turned from me, leaving me standing there in the kitchen, and I saw him moving with a ladder to the loft overhead. This he mounted and disappeared in the black rafters. I could hear him fumbling somewhere under the thatch. Presently down he came the ladder, a gun in one hand, and a fistful of cartridges in the other. He spoke no word, and I spoke no word. He came to me and put the gun in my hand and the handful of cartridges in my pocket. He walked to the fire and stood there with his back turned. I stood where I was, a Gobstown mohawk, with the gun in my hand. At last I said, 'What is this for?' and grounded the gun a little on the floor. My cousin did not answer at once. At last he said without moving, 'It's for stirring your tea, what else?' I looked at him and he remained as he was and, the sweat breaking out on the back of my neck, I left the house and made across the fields for home, the cartridges rattling in my pocket every ditch I leapt, the feel of the gun in my hand becoming more familiar and more friendly.

"At last I came to the summit of a little green hill overlooking Gobstown, and there I sat me down. The sight of Gobstown rose the gorge in me. Nothing came out of it but weak puffs of turf smoke from the chimneys--little pallid thin streaks that wobbled in the wind. There, says I, is the height of Gobstown. And no sound came up out of it except the cackle of geese, and then the bawl of an old ass in the bog. There, says I, is the depth of Gobstown. And rising up from the green hill I made up my mind to save Ireland from Gobstown even if I lost my own soul. I would put a bullet in the perfect heart of our good landlord.

"That night I lay behind a certain ditch. The moon shone on the nape of my neck. The good landlord passed me by on the road, he and his good wife, chattering and happy as a pair of lovers. I groped for the gun. The queerest feeling came over me. I did not even raise it. I had no nerve. I quaked behind the ditch. His footsteps and her footsteps were like cracks of this hammer on my head. I knew, then, in that minute, that I was no good, and that Gobstown was for ever lost.... What happened me? Who can say that for certain? Many a time have I wondered what came over me in that hour. I can only guess.... Nobody belonging to me had ever been rack-rented. I had never seen any of my own people evicted. No great judge of assize had ever looked down on me from his bench to the dock and addressed to me stern words. I had never heard the clang behind me of a prison door. No royal hand of an Irish constabularyman had ever brought a baton down on my head. No carbine had ever butted the soft places of my body. I had no scars that might redden with memories. The memories I had and that might give me courage were not memories of landlords. There was nothing of anger in my heart for the Gobstown landlord, and he went by. I dragged my legs out of the ditch and drowned my cousin's gun in a boghole. After it I dropped in the handful of cartridges. They made a little gurgle in the dark water like blood in a shot man's throat. And that same night I went home, put a few things in a red handkerchief, and stole out of Gobstown like a thief. I walked along the roads until I came to this town, learned my trade, became a respectable shoemaker, and--tell your mother I never use anything only the best leather. There are your boots, Padna, tips and all ... half-a-crown. Thanks, and well wear!"

THE RECTOR

The Rector came round the gable of the church. He walked down the sanded path that curved to the road. Half-way down he paused, meditated, then turning gazed at the building. It was square and solid, bulky against the background of the hills. The Rector hitched up his cuffs as he gazed at the structure. Critical puckers gathered in little lines across the preserved, peach-like cheeks. He put his small, nicely-shaped head to one side. There was a proprietorial, concerned air in his attitude. One knew that he was thinking of the repairs to the church, anxious about the gutters, the downpipe, the missing slates on the roof, the painting of the doors and windows. He struck an attitude as he pondered the problem of the cracks on the pebble-dashed walls. His umbrella grounded on the sand with decision. He leaned out a little on it with deliberation, his lips unconsciously shaping the words of the ultimatum he should deliver to the Select Vestry. His figure was slight, he looked old-world, almost funereal, something that had become detached, that was an outpost, half-forgotten, lonely; a man who had sunk into a parish where there was nothing to do. He mumbled a little to himself as he came down to the gate in the high wall that enclosed the church grounds.

A group of peasants was coming along the yellow, lonely road, talking and laughing. The bare-footed women stepped with great active strides, bearing themselves with energy. They carried heavy baskets from the market town, but were not conscious of their weight. The carded-wool petticoats, dyed a robust red, brought a patch of vividness to the landscape. The white "bauneens" and soft black hats of the men afforded a contrast. The Rector's eyes gazed upon the group with a schooled detachment. It was the look of a man who stood outside of their lives, who did not expect to be recognised, and who did not feel called upon to seem conscious of these peasant folk. The eyes of the peasants were unmoved, uninterested, as they were lifted to the dark figure that stood at the rusty iron gate leading into the enclosed church grounds. He gave them no salutation. Their conversation voluble, noisy, dropped for a moment, half through embarrassment, half through a feeling that something alive stood by the wayside. A vagueness in expression on both sides was the outward signal that two conservative forces had met for a moment and refused to compromise.

One young girl, whose figure and movements would have kindled the eye of an artist, looked up and appeared as if she would smile. The Rector was conscious of her vivid face, framed in a fringe of black hair, of a mischievousness in her beauty, some careless abandon in the swing of her limbs. But something in the level dark brows of the Rector, something that was dour, forbade her smile. It died in a little flush of confusion. The peasants passed and the Rector gave them time to make some headway before he resumed his walk to the Rectory.

He looked up at the range of hills, great in their extent, mighty in their rhythm, beautiful in the play of light and mist upon them. But to the mind of the Rector they expressed something foreign, they were part of a place that was condemned and lost. He began to think of the young girl who, in her innocence, had half-smiled at him. Why did she not smile? Was she afraid? Of what was she afraid? What evil thing had come between her and that impulse of youth? Some consciousness--of what? The Rector sighed. He had, he was afraid, knowledge of what it was. And that knowledge set his thoughts racing over their accustomed course. He ran over the long tradition of his grievances--grievances that had submerged him in a life that had not even a place in this wayside countryside. His mind worked its way down through all the stages of complaint until it arrived at the _Ne Temere_ decree. The lips of the Rector no longer formed half-spoken words; they became two straight, tight little thin lines across the teeth. They would remain that way all the afternoon, held in position while he read the letters in the _Irish Times_. He would give himself up to thoughts of politics, of the deeds of wicked men, of the transactions that go on within and without governments, doping his mind with the drug of class opiates until it was time to go to bed.

Meantime he had to pass a man who was breaking stones in a ditch by the roadside. The hard cracks of the hammer were resounding on the still air. The man looked up from his work as the Rector came along; the grey face of the stone-breaker had a melancholy familiarity for him. The Rector had an impulse--it was seldom he had one. He stood in the centre of the road. The _Ne Temere_ decree went from his mind.

"Good-day, my man," he said, feeling that he had made another concession, and that it would be futile as all the others.

"Good-day, sir," the stone-breaker made answer, hitching himself upon the sack he had put under his haunches, like one very ready for a conversation.

There was a pause. The Rector did not know very well how to continue. He should, he knew, speak with some sense of colloquialism if he was to get on with this stonebreaker, a person for whom he had a certain removed sympathy. The manner of these people's speech was really a part of the grievances of the Rector. Their conversation, he often secretly assured himself, was peppered with Romish propaganda. But the Rector made another concession.

"It's a fine day, thank God," he said. He spoke like one who was delivering a message in an unfamiliar language. "Thank God" was local, and might lend itself to an interpretation that could not be approved. But the Rector imported something into the words that was a protection, something that was of the pulpit, that held a solemnity in its pessimism.

"A fine day, indeed, glory be to God!" the stonebreaker made answer. There was a freshness in his expression, a cheerfulness in the prayer, that made of it an optimism.

The Rector was so conscious of the contrast that it gave him pause again. The peach-like colourings on the cheeks brightened, for a suspicion occurred to him. Could the fellow have meant anything? Had he deliberately set up an optimistic Deity in opposition to the pessimistic Deity of the Rector? The Rector hitched up the white cuffs under his dark sleeves, swung his umbrella, and resumed his way, his lips puckered, a little feverish agitation seizing him.

"A strange, down-hearted kind of a man," the stonebreaker said to himself, as he reached out for a lump of lime-stone and raised his hammer. A redbreast, perched on an old thorn bush, looking out on the scene with curious eyes, stretched his wing and his leg, as much as to say, "Ah, well," sharpened his beak on a twig, and dropped into the ditch to pick up such gifts as the good earth yielded.

The Rector walked along the road pensive, but steadfast, his eyes upon the alien hills, his mind travelling over ridges of problems that never afforded the gleam of solution. He heard a shout of a laugh. Above the local accents that held a cadence of the Gaelic speech he heard the sharp clipping Northern accent of his own gardener and general factotum. He had brought the man with him when he first came to Connacht, half as a mild form of colonisation, half through a suspicion of local honesty. He now saw the man's shaggy head over the Rectory garden wall, and outside it were the peasants.

How was it that the gardener got on with the local people? How was it that they stood on the road to speak with him, shouting their extravagant laughter at his keen, dry Northern humour?

When he first came the gardener had been more grimly hostile to the place than the Rector himself. There had been an ugly row on the road, and blows had been struck. But that was some years ago. The gardener now appeared very much merged in the life of the place; the gathering outside the Rectory garden was friendly, almost a family party. How was it to be accounted for? Once or twice the Rector found himself suspecting that at the bottom of the phenomenon there might be all unconscious among these people a spirit of common country, of a common democracy, a common humanity, that forced itself to the surface in course of time. The Rector stood, his lips working, his nicely-shaped little head quivering with a sudden agitation. For he found himself thinking along unusual lines, and for that very reason dangerous lines--frightfully dangerous lines, he told himself, as an ugly enlightenment broke across his mind, warming it up for a few moments and no more. As he turned in the gate at the Rectory it was a relief to him--for his own thoughts were frightening him--to see the peasants moving away and the head of the gardener disappear behind the wall. He walked up the path to the Rectory, the lawn dotted over with sombre yew trees all clipped into the shape of torpedoes, all trained directly upon the forts of Heaven! The house was large and comfortable, the walls a faded yellow. Like the church, it was thrown up against the background of the hills. It had all the sombre exclusiveness that made appeal to the Rector. The sight of it comforted him at the moment, and his mental agitation died down. He became normal enough to resume his accustomed outlook, and before he had reached the end of the path his mind had become obsessed again by the thought of the _Ne Temere_ decree. Something should, he felt convinced, be done, and done at once.

He ground his umbrella on the step in front of the Rectory door and pondered. At last he came to a conclusion, inspiration lighting up his faded eyes. He tossed his head upwards.

"I must write a letter to the papers," he said. "Ireland is lost."

THE HOME-COMING

Persons:
Mrs. Ford
Donagh Ford
Hugh Deely
Agnes Deely

Scene: A farmhouse in Connacht.

Hugh: They'll make short work of the high field. It's half ploughed already.

Donagh: It was good of the people to gather as they did, giving us their labour.

Hugh: The people had always a wish for your family, Donagh. Look at the great name your father left behind him in Carrabane. It would be a fine sight for him if he had lived to stand at this door now, looking at the horses bringing the plough over the ground.

Donagh: And if he could move about this house, even in his great age. He never got accustomed to the smallness of the hut down at Cussmona.

Hugh: When I was a bit of a gosoon I remember the people talking about the eviction of Donagh Ford. It was terrible work used to be in Carrabane those times. Your father was the first man to fight, and that was why the people thought so well of him.

Donagh: He would never speak of it himself, for at home he was a silent, proud man. But my mother used to be telling me of it many a time.

Hugh: Your mother and yourself have the place back now. And you have Agnes to think of.

Donagh: Agnes is a good thought to me surely. Was she telling you we fixed the day of the wedding yesterday at your uncle's?

Hugh: She was not. A girl like her is often shy of speaking about a thing of that kind to her brother. I'd only be making game of her. (_A cheer is heard in the distance outside. Hugh goes to look out door._)

Hugh: Here is the car coming up the road with your mother and Agnes. They're giving her a welcome.

Donagh (_looking out of window_): She'll be very proud of the people, they to have such a memory of my father.

Hugh: I'll run out and greet her. (_In a sly undertone._) Agnes is coming up. (_He goes out laughing. Donagh hangs up harness on some pegs. Agnes Deely, wearing a shawl over her head and carrying a basket on her arm, comes in._)

Agnes: Donagh, your mother was greatly excited leaving the hut. I think she doesn't rightly understand what is happening.

Donagh: I was afeard of that. The memory slips on her betimes. She thinks she's back in the old days again.

Agnes (_going to dresser, taking parcels from the basket._): My father was saying that we should have everything here as much like what it used to be as we can. That's why he brought up the bin. When they were evicted he took it up to his own place because it was too big for the hut.

Donagh: Do you know, Agnes, when I came up here this morning with your brother, Hugh, I felt the place strange and lonesome. I think an evicted house is never the same, even when people go back to it. There seemed to be some sorrow hanging over it.

Agnes (_putting up her shawl_): Now Donagh, that's no way for you to be speaking. If you were to see how glad all the people were! And you ought to have the greatest joy.

Donagh: Well, then I thought of you, Agnes, and that changed everything. I went whistling about the place. (_Going to her._) After coming down from your uncle's yesterday evening I heard the first cry of the cuckoo in the wood at Raheen.

Agnes: That was a good omen, Donagh.

Donagh: I took it that way, too, for it was the first greeting I got after parting from yourself. Did you hear it, Agnes?

Agnes: I did not. I heard only one sound the length of the evening.

Donagh: What sound was that, Agnes?

Agnes: I heard nothing only the singing of one song, a lovely song, all about Donagh Ford!

Donagh: About me?

Agnes: Yes, indeed. It was no bird and no voice, but the singing I heard of my own heart.

Donagh: That was a good song to hear, Agnes. It is like a thought that would often stir in a man's mind and find no word to suit it. It is often that I thought that way of you and could speak no word.

Agnes: All the same I think I would have an understanding for it, Donagh.

Donagh: Ah, Agnes, that is just it. That is what gives me the great comfort in your company. We have a great understanding of each other surely.

Hugh (_speaking outside_): This is the way, Mrs. Ford. They are waiting for you within. (_He comes in._) Donagh, here is your mother. (_Mrs. Ford, leaning on a stick, comes to the door, standing on the threshold for a little. Hugh and Donagh take off their hats reverently._)

Mrs. Ford: And is that you, Donagh. Well, if it is not the fine high house you got for Agnes. Eh, pet?

Agnes (_taking shawl from her_): It is your own house Donagh has taken you back to.

Hugh: Did you not hear the people giving you a welcome, Mrs. Ford?

Donagh: Don't you remember the house, mother?

Mrs. Ford: I have a memory of many a thing, God help me. And I heard the people cheering. I thought maybe it was some strife was going on in Carrabane. It was always a place of one struggle or another. (_She looks helplessly about house, muttering as she hobbles to the bin. She raises the lid._) Won't you take out a measure of oats to the mare, Donagh? And they have mislaid the scoop again. I'm tired telling them not to be leaving it in the barn. Where is that Martin Driscoll and what way is he doing his business at all? (_She turns to close the bin._)

Hugh (_to Donagh_): Who is Martin Driscoll?

Donagh: A boy who was here long ago. I heard a story of him and a flight with a girl. He lies in a grave in Australia long years.

Mrs. Ford (_moving from bin, her eyes catching the dresser_): Who put the dresser there? Was it by my orders? That is a place where it will come awkward to me.

Agnes (_going to her_): Sit down and rest yourself. You are fatigued after making the journey.

Mrs. Ford (_as they cross to fire_): Wait until I lay eyes on Martin Driscoll and on Delia Morrissey of the cross! I tell you I will regulate them.

Donagh (_to Hugh_): Delia Morrissey--that is the name of the girl I spoke of. She was lost on the voyage, a girl of great beauty.

Agnes (_to Mrs. Ford_): Did you take no stock of the people as you came on the car?

Mrs. Ford: In throth I did. It was prime to see them there reddening the sod and the little rain drops falling from the branches of the trees.

Hugh: They raised a great cheer for you.

Mrs. Ford: Did you say that it was to me they were giving a welcome?

Donagh: Indeed it was, mother.

Mrs. Ford (_laughing a little_): Mind that, Agnes. They are the lively lads to be taking stock of an old woman the like of me driving the roads.

Hugh: The people could not but feel some stir to see what they saw this day. I declare to you, Donagh, when I saw her old stooped dark figure thrown against the sky on the car it moved something in me.

Mrs. Ford: What are you saying about a stir in the country, Hugh Deely?

Hugh: Was it not something to see the planter going from this place? Was it not something to see you and Donagh coming from a miserable place in the bog?

Mrs. Ford (_sharply_): The planter, did you say? (_Clutching her stick to rise_). Blessed be God! Is Curley the planter gone from Carrabane? Don't make any lie to me, Hugh Deely.

Hugh: Curley is gone.

Mrs. Ford (_rising with difficulty, her agitation growing_): And his wife? What about his trollop of a wife?

Donagh: The whole brood and tribe of them went a month back.

Agnes: Did not Donagh tell you that you were back in your own place again? (_Mrs. Ford moves about, a consciousness of her surroundings breaking upon her. She goes to room door, pushing it open._)

Hugh: It is all coming back to her again.

Donagh: She was only a little upset in her mind.

Mrs. Ford (_coming from room door_): Agnes, and you, Hugh Deely, come here until I be telling you a thing of great wonder. It was in this house Donagh there was born. And it was in that room that we laid out his little sister, Mary. I remember the March day and the yellow flowers they put around her in the bed. She had no strength for the rough world. I crossed her little white hands on the breast where the life died in her like a flame. Donagh, my son, it was nearly all going from my mind.

Agnes: This is no day for sad thoughts. Think of the great thing it is for you to be back here again.

Mrs. Ford: Ah, that's the truth, girl. Did the world ever hear of such a story as an old woman like me to be standing in this place and the planter gone from Currabane! And if Donagh Ford is gone to his rest his son is here to answer for him.

Donagh: The world knows I can never be the man my father was.

Mrs. Ford (_raising her stick with a little cry_): Ah-ha, the people saw the great strength of Donagh Ford. 'They talk of a tenant at will,' he'd say, 'but who is it that can chain the purpose of a man's mind.' And they all saw it. There was no great spirit in the country when Donagh Ford took the courage of his own heart and called the people together.

Hugh: This place was a place of great strife then.

Mrs. Ford: God send, Agnes Deely, that you'll never have the memory of a bitter eviction burned into your mind.

Donagh: That's all over and done now, mother. There is a new life before you.

Mrs. Ford: Well, they had their way and put us across the threshold. But if they did it was on this hearth was kindled a blaze that swept the townland and wrapped the country. It went from one place to another and no wave that rose upon the Shannon could hold it back. It was a thing that no power could check, for it ran in the blood and only wasted in the vein of the father to leap fresh in the heart of the son. Ah, I will go on my knees and kiss the threshold of this house for the things it calls to mind. (_She goes to door, kneeling down and kissing the threshold._)

Hugh: It is a great hold she has on the old days and a great spirit. (_A low murmur of voices is heard in the distance outside._)

Donagh: They are turning the ploughs into the second field.

Mrs. Ford: What's that you say about the ploughs?

Donagh (_going to her_): The boys are breaking up the land for us. (_He and Hugh help her to rise. They are all grouped at the door._)

Agnes: It was they who cheered you on the road.

Mrs. Ford: The sight is failing me.

Donagh. I can only make out little dark spots against the green of the fields.

Donagh: Those are the people, mother.

Mrs. Ford (_crossing to fireplace_): The people are beginning to gather behind the ploughs again. Tell me, Donagh, what way is the wind coming?

Donagh: It is coming up from the South.

Mrs. Ford (_speaking more to herself_): Well, I can ask no more now. The wind is from the South and it will bear that cheer past where HE is lying in Gurteen-na-Marbh. It is a kind wind and it carries good music. Take my word for it every sound that goes on the wind is not lost to the dead.

Hugh: You ought to take her out of these thoughts.

Agnes: Leave her with me for a little while. (_Hugh and Donagh move to door._)

Mrs. Ford: Where are you going, Donagh?

Donagh: Down to the people breaking the ground. They will be waiting for word of your home-coming.

Mrs. Ford: Ah, sure you ought to have the people up here, _a mhic_. I'd like to see all the old neighbours about me and hear the music of their voices.

Hugh: Very well. I'll step down and bid them up. (_He goes._)

Mrs. Ford: You'll have the anxiety of the farm on your mind from this out, Donagh.

Donagh: Well, it is not the hut, with the hunger of the bog about it, that I will be bringing Agnes into now.

Mrs. Ford: Agnes, come here, love, until I look upon the sweetness of your face. (_Agnes goes to her, kneeling by her side._) You'll be in this place with Donagh. It is a great inheritance you will have in the name of Donagh Ford. It is no idle name that will be in this house but the name of one who knew a great strength. It will be a long line of generations that the name of the Fords will reach out to, generations reaching to the time that Ireland herself will rise by the power of her own will.

Agnes (_rising_): You will only sadden yourself by these thoughts. Think of what there is in store for you.

Mrs. Ford: I'm an old woman now, child. There can be no fresh life before me. But I can tell you that I was young and full of courage once. I was the woman who stood by the side of Donagh Ford, that gave him support in the day of trial, that was always the strong branch in the storm and in the calm. Am I saying any word only what is a true word, Donagh?

Donagh: The truth of that is well known to the people. (_He goes to door._)

Mrs. Ford: Very well. Gather up all the people now, son. Let them come in about this place for many of them have a memory of it. Let me hear the welcome of their voices. They will have good words to say, speaking on the greatness of Donagh Ford who is dead.

Donagh: They are coming out from the fields with Hugh, mother. I see the young fellows falling into line. They are wearing their caps and sashes and they have the band. I can see them carrying the banner to the front of the crowd. Here they are marching up the road. (_The strains of a fife and drum band playing a spirited march are heard in the distance. Mrs. Ford rises slowly, "humouring" the march with her stick, her face expressing her delight. The band stops._)

Mrs. Ford: That's the spirit of Carrabane. Let the people now look upon me in this place and let them take pride in my son.

Donagh: I see Stephen Mac Donagh.

Mrs. Ford: Let him be the first across the threshold, for he went to jail with Donagh Ford. Have beside him Murt Cooney that lost his sight at the struggle of Ballyadams. Let him lift up his poor blind face till I see the rapture of it.

Donagh: Murt Cooney is coming, and Francis Kilroy and Brian Mulkearn.

Mrs. Ford: It was they who put a seal of silence on their lips and bore their punishment to save a friend of the people. Have a place beside me for the widow of Con Rafferty who hid the smoking revolver the day the tyrant fell at the cross of Killbrack.

Donagh: All the old neighbours are coming surely.

Mrs. Ford (_crossing slowly to door, Agnes going before her_): Let me look into their eyes for the things I will see stirring there. I will reach them out the friendship of my hands and speak to them the words that lie upon my heart. The rafters of this house will ring again with the voices that Donagh Ford welcomed and that I loved. Aye, the very fire on the hearth will leap in memory of the hands that tended it.

Donagh: This will be such a day as will be made a boast of for ever in Carrabane. (_Agnes goes out door to meet the people._)

Mrs. Ford: Let there be music and the sound of rejoicing and shouts from the hills. Let those who put their feet in anger upon us and who are themselves reduced to-day look back upon the strength they held and the power they lost.

Donagh: I will bid the music play up. (_He goes out._)

Mrs. Ford (_standing alone at the door_): People of Carrabane, gather about the old house of Donagh Ford. Let the fight for the land in this place end where it began. Let the courage and the strength that Donagh Ford knew be in your blood from this day out. Let the spirit be good and the hand be strong for the work that the heart directs. Raise up your voices with my voice this day and let us make a great praise on the name of Ireland. (_She raises her stick, straightening her old figure. The band strikes up and the people cheer outside as the curtain falls._)

A WAYSIDE BURIAL

The parish priest was in a very great hurry and yet anxious for a talk on his pet subject. He wanted to speak about the new temperance hall. Would I mind walking a little way with him while he did so? He had a great many things to attend to that day.... We made our way along the street together, left the town behind us, and presently reached that sinister appendage of all Irish country towns, the workhouse. The priest turned in the wide gate, and the porter, old, official, spectacled, came to meet him.

"Has the funeral gone?" asked the priest, a little breathless.

"I'll see, Father." The porter shuffled over the flags, a great door swung open; there was a vista of whitewashed walls, a chilly, vacant corridor, and beyond it a hall where old men were seated on forms at a long, white deal table. They were eating--a silent, grey, bent, beaten group. Through a glass partition we could see the porter in his office turning over the leaves of a great register.

"I find," he said, coming out again, speaking as if he were giving evidence at a sworn inquiry, "that the remains of Martin Quirke, deceased, were removed at 4.15."

"I am more than half an hour late," said the priest, regarding his watch with some irritation.

We hurried out and along the road to the country, the priest trailing his umbrella behind him, speaking of the temperance hall but preoccupied about the funeral he had missed, my eyes marking the flight of flocks of starlings making westward.

Less than a mile of ground brought us to the spot where the paupers were buried. It lay behind a high wall, a narrow strip of ground, cut off from a great lord's demesne by a wood. The scent of decay was heavy in the place; it felt as if the spring and the summer had dragged their steps here, to lie down and die with the paupers. The uncut grass lay rank and grey and long--Nature's unkempt beard--on the earth. The great bare chestnuts and oaks threw narrow shadows over the irregular mounds of earth. Small, rude wooden crosses stood at the heads of some of the mounds, lopsided, drunken, weather-beaten. No names were inscribed upon them. All the bones laid down here were anonymous. A robin was singing at the edge of the wood; overhead the rapid wings of wild pigeons beat the air.

A stable bell rang impetuously in the distance, dismissing the workmen on the lord's demesne. By a freshly-made grave two gravediggers were leaning on their spades. They were paupers, too; men who got some privilege for their efforts in this dark strip of earth between the wood and the wall. One of them yawned. A third man stood aloof, a minor official from the workhouse; he took a pipe from his mouth as the priest approached.

The three men gave one the feeling that they were rather tired of waiting, impatient to have their little business through. It was a weird spot in the gathering gloom of a November evening. The only bright thing in the place, the only gay spot, the only cheerful patch of colour, almost exulting in its grim surroundings, was the heap of freshly thrown up soil from the grave. It was rich in colour as newly-coined gold. Resting upon it was a clean, white, unpainted coffin. The only ornament was a tin breastplate on the lid and the inscription in black letters:

Martin Quirke,
Died November 3, 1900.
R.I.P.

The white coffin on the pile of golden earth was like the altar of some pagan god. I stood apart as the priest, vesting himself in a black stole, approached the graveside and began the recital of the burial service in Latin. The gravediggers, whose own bones would one day be interred anonymously in the same ground, stood on either side of him with their spades, two grim acolytes. The minor official from the workhouse, the symbol of the State, bared a long, narrow head, as white and as smooth as the coffin on the heap of earth. I stood by a groggy wooden cross, the eternal observer.

The priest spoke in a low monotone, holding the book close to his eyes in the uncertain light. And as he read I fell to wondering who our brother in the white coffin might be. Some merry tramp who knew the pain and the joy of the road? Some detached soul who had shaken off the burden of life's conventions, one who loved lightly and took punishment casually? One who saw crime as a science, or merely a broken reed? Or a soldier who had carried a knapsack in foreign campaigns? A creature of empire who had found himself in Africa, or Egypt, or India, or the Crimea, and come back again to claim his pile of golden earth in the corner of the lord's demesne? If the men had time, perhaps they would stick a little wooden cross over the spot where his bones were laid down....

The priest's voice continued the recitation of the burial service and the robin sang at the edge of the dim wood. Down the narrow strip of rank burial ground a low wind cried, and the light, losing its glow in the western sky, threw a grey pall on the grass. And under the influence of the moment a little memory of people I had known and forgotten went across my mind, a memory that seemed to stir in the low wind, a memory of people who had at the last got their white, clean coffin and their rest on a pile of golden earth, people who had gone like our brother in the deal boards.... There was the man, the scholar, who had taught his school, who had an intelligence, who could talk, who, perhaps, could have written only--. The wind sobbed down the narrow strip of ground.... He had made his battle, indeed, a long-drawn-out battle, for he had only given way step by step, gradually but inexorably yielding ground to the thing that was hunting him out of civilised life. He had gone from his school, his home, his friends, fleeing from one miserable refuge to another in the miserable country town. Eventually he had passed in through the gates of the workhouse. It was all very vivid now--his attempts to get back to the life he had known, like a man struggling in the quicksands. There were the little spurts back to the town, the well-shaped head, the face which still held some remembrance of its distinction and its manhood erect over the quaking, broken frame; that splendid head like a noble piece of sculpture on the summit of a crumbling ruin. Forth he would come, the flicker of resistance, a pallid battle-light in the eyes, a vessel that had been all but wrecked once more standing up the harbour to meet the winds that had driven it from the seas--and after a little battle once more taking in the sheets and crawling back to the anchorage of the dark workhouse, there to suffer in the old way, in secret to curse, to pray, to despair, to hope, to contrive some little repairs to the broken physique in order that there might be yet another journey into waters that were getting more and more shadowy. And the day came when the only journey that could be made was a shuffle to the gate, the haunted eyes staring into a world which was a nightmare of regrets. How terrible was the pathos of that life, that struggle, that tragedy, how poignant its memory while the robin sang at the edge of the dim wood!... And there was that red-haired, defiant young man with the build of an athlete, the eyes of an animal. How bravely he could sing up the same road to the dark house! It was to him as the burrow is to the rabbit. He would come out to nibble at the regular and lawful intervals, and having nibbled return to sleep and shout and fight for his "rights" in the dark house. And once, on a spring day, he had come out with a companion, a pale woman in a thin shawl and a drab skirt, and they had taken to the roads together, himself swinging his ashplant, his stride and manner carrying the illusion of purpose, his eyes on everything and his mind nowhere; herself trotting over the broken stones in her canvas shoes beside him, a pale shadow under the fire of his red head. They had gone away into a road whose milestones were dark houses, himself singing the song of his own life, a song of mumbled words, without air or music; herself silent, clutching her thin shawl over her breast, her feet pattering over the little stones of the road.... The wind whistled down over the graves, by the wooden crosses.... There was that little woman who at the close of the day, when the light was charitable in its obscurity, opened her door and came down from the threshold of her house, painfully as if she were descending from a great height. Nobody was about. All was quietness in the quiet street. And she drew the door to, put the key in the lock, her hand trembled, the lock clicked! The deed was done! Who but herself could know that the click of the key in the lock was the end, the close, the dreadful culmination of the best part of a whole century of struggle, of life? Behind that door she had swept up a bundle of memories that were now all an agony because the key had clicked in the lock. Behind the door was the story of her life and the lives of her children and her children's children. Where was the use, she might have asked, of blaming any of them now? What was it that they had all gone, all scattered, leaving her broken there at the last? Had not the key clicked in the lock? In that click was the end of it all; in the empty house were the ghosts of her girlhood, her womanhood, her motherhood, her old age, her struggles, her successes, her skill in running her little shop, her courage in riding one family squall after another! The key had clicked in the lock. She moved down the quiet street, sensitive lest the eye of the neighbours should see her, a tottering, broken thing going by the vague walls, keeping to the back streets, setting out for the dark house beyond the town. She had said to them, "I will be no trouble to you." And, indeed, she was not. They had little more to do for her than join her hands over her breast.... The wind was plaintive in the gaunt trees of the dark wood.... Which of us could say he would never turn a key in the lock of an empty house? How many casual little twists of the wrist of Fate stand between the best of us and the step down from the threshold of a broken home? What rags of memories have any of us to bundle behind the door of the empty house when the hour comes for us to click the key in the lock?... The wind cried down the narrow strip of ground where the smell of decay was in the grass.

There was a movement beside the white coffin, the men were lifting it off the golden pile of earth and lowering it into the dark pit. The men's feet slipped and shuffled for a foothold in the yielding clay. At last a low, dull thud sounded up from the mouth of the pit. Our brother in the white coffin had at last found a lasting tenure in the soil.