Enchanting Cold Blood

by Petya Lehmann

  Chapter XXIII.

  Ireland is a remarkable country for the transmission of news. Good news, bad news — it flies by no process palpable to sense and doubtless by some peculiar connivance of the friendly gods. Hardly had the fatal scuffle taken place near the ford of Clonkeen, hardly had James Fitzmaurice's head been removed from its shoulders by his own friends, before all Munster had heard of it. The news was carried in the air; it was repeated by the birds; it was whispered about amongst the reeds and rushes upon the bogs.

  To say that Dr. Saunders and the Desmond brothers rejoiced over the dismal intelligence would be to lay oneself open to a charge of historical libelling. To say that it was a fact not without consolation for them is to keep strictly within the mark. To the Legate, Fitzmaurice had his faults. He was very obstinate — extremely obstinate, for instance, in his views about the treatment of prisoners; his dealings with declared heretics were not at all what they ought to have been. He had expressed great disapproval of his cousin's recent feat at Tralee, a sentiment no doubt inspired by unworthy jealousy; he had shown great discourtesy to the Seneschal* of Imokilly; he was capable of even treating the representative of his Holiness himself with a cool indifference which was not merely insulting but impious.

  (* Chief steward in a great noble household.)

  The Desmond brothers had no need of such refined elaborations to prove to them that James Fitzmaurice could perfectly well be spared. Whatever he might be as patriot, soldier, or churchman, as a kinsman his loss was one that they could endure with a remarkable amount of philosophy. Sir John of the Pikes especially was aware of this. He leaped into the vacant saddle and looked about him with the air of a man who asks, “Who now shall contradict me?” By way of first taste of liberty and as a pledge of what he would do if time and opportunity were allowed him, he began by killing the prisoners — harmless pilots for the most part, whom Sir James had left behind under protection — informing the world that he did so in revenge for the said James's death. His next proceeding was to look around and see which of his cousin's immediate retainers it would be well as opportunity arose to get rid of. Amongst these — they were not, after all, very numerous — Maelcho was perhaps the most conspicuous. As a rival, Maelcho was naturally nowhere. But all Munster knew that for the seanchaí there was and could be but one master in the world, quite irrespective of the fact of whether that master was alive or dead. Now, Sir John of the Pikes did not care to be reminded that there had ever been greater and more God-like leaders than himself. He had no intention of killing Maelcho, for that would have been dangerous, as well as extremely unlucky, but it would be a satisfaction, he felt, if he could be got away from Smerwick for a time. There was a good friend of his own not far off, whom he felt sure would keep him safely, if only he could once be got into his hands.

  The difficulty was how to get him away in the first instance. As to inducing him to leave the children and their mother of his own accord, that would have required wild horses. Unluckily, poor Lady Fitzmaurice was persuaded without any great difficulty to lend her own aid to the little manoeuvre. She was pining to get away from the place herself, and it was suggested to her that if she could send word by a safe messenger to her kinsmen in the north of the county, they would doubtless be ready to give harbourage to her and her children before the troubles grew still bigger than they were at present. The bait was too tempting to be resisted. It was only a two days' ride there and back, and she decided, therefore, to send letters by some trusty hand, and Maelcho's were the only hands that answered that description.

  When he understood what he was to do, his own objections to going were both loud and deep, but then they hardly counted. What could he do? He was only a clansman. An Irish clansman of that day had about as much power of saying “No,” when his masters said “Go,” as a gun has today of refusing to go off when its owner touches the trigger. Not only was he to go, but he was to go at once. Sir John of the Pikes was thoughtful enough to provide him with a horse, one of the many superfluous garrons of the troop, a certain old white mare, good at carrying burdens, but not much to be relied upon in the matter of pace.

  It was still only four o'clock of the morning of the day on which he was to start, when Maelcho awoke in his own particular lair close to the door of the shanty upon the cliff. The letter he was to carry had been given to him overnight, and, as dressing was not an elaborate affair with him, there was nothing to hinder his starting at once. He looked out from his corner towards the sea, yawning, his brown face still on a level with the stones, his mind still hazy, not having as yet bethought himself of what lay before him. Below him, the Atlantic rollers swept to the foot of the cliff — long, green, lazy waves, which broke with a hollow resonance upon the beach. The horizon was still muffled with vapour, but higher up, the sky was pearly-tinted and transparent looking. The seanchaí's brain was more or less in a cloud, for he was a great dreamer and his dreams had a sort of sharp-cut distinctness. He had been dreaming a few minutes before that he and Sir James were back in Rome, and that the Pope had suddenly come upon them in his white robes and had told them that Ireland had been given up by the English, and that Stukely was to be its king. And he had not known whether to be glad or sorry at this news, until, looking at Sir James, he had seen that his face was contracted with a spasm of anger, a spasm so violent that it seemed to change him, as if he was melting into some other man. And with that queer, noises had come, and strange clouds of unknown shapes overhead, and a hissing like a pot boiling. One of the clouds had burst suddenly and enveloped the Pope and Sir James and himself, and they had all gone rolling together down hill. As he looked back, he had seen a great moving bog behind them, with the church of St. Peter's set on the top of it, only set slopingly, which made it look odd. And the church and bog, and he and Sir James and the Pope, had rolled over and over, first one and then another uppermost, like porpoises playing in the bay, until he had suddenly awakened with a start. As his brain began to grow clearer, he presently remembered that his master was dead, and that he himself had to leave Smerwick that morning at cock-crow. With this new thought in his mind he sat up on his haunches like a dog, and, like a dog with a suddenly remembered grievance, he whimpered a little to himself, for he disliked his errand greatly. Then he bethought him of his little lady-girls and crept hastily away on hands and knees into the interior of the hut to see if they were safe.

  They were sleeping side by side in a sort of improvised crib which he had made for them out of some wreck wood. One had her hands folded under her little chin and lay sideways with her mouth close shut, so that she seemed hardly to breathe. The other was on her back and seemed, like himself, to be busy dreaming, for she moved her head to and fro and frowned, and her small red button of a mouth was open, and her hair fell behind her in a tumbled brownish cloud. To poor Maelcho, they were exactly what two little blue and pink images in a shrine are to some exceptionally pious contadino,* only that his little images were alive and all the more adorable. He crept along, still upon his hands and knees like a thief, till he was close beside their crib. Here he squatted down, staring hard at them and wondering how anything so wonderful and beautiful could ever have come into existence. The elder child, half awoke, opened her brown eyes and looked sleepily at him. Whether she took him for her father, come back at last, or whoever she took him for, she suddenly put up her rosy little mouth for him to kiss it. A choking sob broke from the seanchaí's breast. He hesitated; then, with a guilty look all round him, he stooped and did kiss the little rosebud face, just where the soft eyebrows sprang out of the milk-white skin. The child's breath came up warm and sweet to his lips, and his foolish heart began to thump, and thump, as if it was going to jump out bodily then and there on to the floor at his feet; his lips quivered, and next the tears began to start out of his eyes and drop down one by one upon the ground. He remained squatting there in the same attitude for some minutes longer. At last, he crept away upon hands and knees to the entrance; stopped there again
and looked back for a moment, the tears still standing out over his brown cheeks like drops of water upon a piece of bark. Finally, he left the ledge and went down the rocky track to the camp, where he found the old white mare awaiting him, and, having mounted her, he rode away.

  (* Italian peasant.)

  He went quickly at first, meeting with various small adventures by the way. His heart still kept thumping ridiculously up and down in his broad breast, the tears every now and then starting to his eyes and dropping. The image of these two little creatures in their crib hung suspended before his eyes like some beatific vision.

  Maelcho's first business was to carry out the errand that had been entrusted to him. By six o'clock on the following afternoon, he had finished it, had delivered one letter and received another, and was returning back to Smerwick, his heart now light, for his face was set in the right direction. He had got into rather a choked bit of country just then. As his task was done, and it was too late to get back to Smerwick that night, he let the old white mare take her own pace, which was a very sedate one. Now and then, she would stop altogether in order to catch at some temptingly succulent morsel, munching it slowly and enjoyingly in her lean old jaws as she walked on again. Maelcho let her take her time and munch as she would, for he was in no hurry. The sun fell sleepily between the branches and lit up the path with a speckled radiance. Large grey limestone rocks rose here and there, crowned with patches of pinky ling. Bees explored the hollows and fussed over what they found with a booming croon of approval. The trees seemed large and glad. The summer was still strong, and the joy of it entered into the seanchaí's vagrant soul, so that he, too, in spite of all that had been and that was to come, felt glad at heart and at his ease.

  It was getting to be time for him to settle upon some spot to pass the night in. He came to where two paths forked and after a little consideration, took the left-hand one and rode on along it, until the old mare's back began to disappear down a leisurely incline of heather, beset with boulders and fir-trees. When he had quite disappeared, a very rascally looking face, with a pair of very rascally looking eyes in it, might have been seen to push between the branches of one of the firs, look after him carefully for a minute, then disappear silently in the opposite direction. The seanchaí rode on, unsuspicious of harm. He came to a spot which seemed somehow to invite him to stop at it, so got down and, having turned loose the old mare to find her own supper, made his bed in the leaves, as he had made it thousands of times before. After this, he searched in his wallet for some scraps of food, drank at a stream hard by — the wanderer has happily never far to go for a stream in Kerry — glanced at the tree tops by way of orison, settled himself with his back against one of the trunks and prepared to go to sleep.

  He did not sleep, however, for some time, but remained contemplating the narrow landscape, as it grew gradually narrower in the darkness. From his lair, his eyes roamed from side to side — big, prominent, far-seeing eyes, like those of some big forest beast, only a well-meaning beast, with no present desire to devour anybody. They were eyes that saw many things. The ears that went with the eyes were open too, to many things; to the private stories told in the depths of the forest. The muttering of half-choked streams escaping through bits of turf; distant conversations going on amongst the burrows and rabbit runs; the sudden squeaky remarks of bats, so shrill as to be beyond the reach of the tympanum; the papery rustle of moths following one another in ghostly procession, their wings just striking for a second and then parting. These and thousands of other matters, more intangible and less obvious, were all open to him; they spoke a language he knew; they belonged to a plane of existence which he had never left.

  Maelcho went to sleep at last, safe, happy, and free, a born man of the woods. He awoke two hours later, helpless, desperate; a man undone: a prisoner! Treacherous feet had stolen up; treacherous hands had laid hold of him as he slept; had bound him with new withes. Arms, legs, body, every bit of him was bound, almost before he had had time to realise what was happening to him. Plunge as he would, roar as he would, struggle as he would, he was helpless, he could do nothing. His strength was as useless to him as the strength of an ox that has been marked for the shambles. He was laid flat; his bonds were tied still tighter; he was lifted like a sack and laid across the back of the guiltless white mare. And then began a long dreary march, he knew not where, he knew not in what direction, he knew not by whose orders.

  His destination was back to the coast, but it was not back to Smerwick by any means. Kerry has many long brown arms, which run out into her seas, as well as many long white arms which run far into her sides, and it was to the end of one of the former that Maelcho was bound. He was going to prison, but it was to a very peculiar prison, for it was one with a widely open door. Prisons have played a considerable part in the history of Ireland. Now and then, it happened that a man was found inconvenient to his acquaintances whom it was not expedient to kill off at once. The O'Neills, for instance, had an excellent prison at the bottom of their castle. In this prison, a little before this time, the husband of the lady known as the Countess of Argyll had spent many years up to his knees in water, while his wife and Shane the Proud made merry above his head. Sir Morogh O'Flaherty had a good solid prison twenty feet or so below the level of the lake in his castle of Aughnanure. The O'Connor, the O'Toole, and most of the other great chiefs, possessed prisons also, prisons which for filth, blackness, and the rapid disposal of those confided to them went far to emulate those at the bottom of the Castle of Dublin itself.

  The Seneschal of Imokilly's prison, to which Maelcho was bound, was from a prisoner's point of view an improvement upon most of those, for it was at least thoroughly well ventilated and even well drained. It was a rather long but not very lofty cave, set in the side of a perpendicular cliff, a cliff so perpendicular that no gull had ever tried to set up housekeeping on it, and so wave-washed that no seaweed — at least none of the larger sort — could ever find a root-hold at its base. Seventy feet above the last of the mussels yawned the open mouth of the prison, having in front of it a broken ledge projecting in much the same sort of fashion as a doorstep projects before a door. On to this doorstep, Maelcho on his arrival was carefully lowered by means of a rope, which must have made him look from below like some very big spider at the end of a just palpable thread. When he had reached the ledge, one of the men who had been charged with his capture went down and carefully cut his bonds, which were no longer wanted, then escaped to the ledge, was drawn up to the top by his friends, and Maelcho was left alone.

  It was really the most beautifully simple prison, as well as one of the safest in the world. Besides the great widely-open door in front, there was a tiny crack at the inner end of the cave, down which a thread of light sometimes stole. This, like the former, was of absolutely no avail, however, for the purpose of escaping, seeing that Maelcho could hardly have put one of his big fists through it, let alone his whole body. Had he not been a sacred sort of person in his way, he would infallibly have been left to starve. That misfortune, however, did not happen to him. Food was dropped with pretty fair regularity, either on to his ledge in front, or through the crack at the end. Sometimes, when it was being brought to him, he could even hear the voices of those who brought it — ghostly voices they sounded, like those mysterious voices which sometimes travel down to us through wide chimneys upon winter evenings.

  These ghostly voices overhead and the brown slanting sails of stealing across the half-circle before his door were the nearest approach to humanity that for the next seven months ever came in the poor seanchaí's way. For company and recreation he had the gulls sweeping and squalling in front, he had the wet white gleams following one another across the floor of his prison; he had the small, continuous sound of water dripping down its walls; he had the much louder, though more intermittent sound of the roar, throb, tumble, clatter of the waves at its base; above all, he had his own most lamentable thoughts.

  The poor Child-man's brain
was not of the sort to stand out long against such an ordeal. It sank under it, slowly but steadily, as one solitary interminable month followed another. The sheer physical suffering inflicted by such imprisonment is doubtless worse at the beginning, because at the beginning the nerves and muscles are still laid out for other work and still crave the work they are used to. It is, however, later, when the pain is getting less, that the worst sapping and undermining probably begins, begins and goes on until, given certain circumstances and certain temperaments, everything — mind, body, soul, spirit — goes and the suffering man sinks daily nearer and nearer to the level of the suffering beast.

  So it was with Maelcho. In his waking moments, a little more uncertainty both as to where he was, but also as to who he was; a little longer extension of the interval, always with him a long one, between sleep and life; in the interminable afternoons, a little nearer approximation to the condition of some closely shut-up dog, craving for a companionship it never gets; in his recurrent fits of fury, a little more of the self-destructive rage of the same dog, when it bites and howls and flings itself against its chain. Maelcho had no chain, but he too flung himself about, he too howled loudly and frantically, his howls rising upon the breeze and being carried far away across the headlands into the open Atlantic. There was no one to hear them, except some passing cormorant, wandering round in search of garbage. Those who knew he was there and were sorry for him could do nothing to help him, and those who could do anything to help him were not in the least sorry.