The Return of Fursey

by Mervyn Wall

  “I must say,” she commented in a tone of icy exasperation, “that after all the trouble Magnus went to, to bring the Abbot here; and after the hardship the Abbot himself endured in travelling such a distance at his age, it’s most annoying that you should calmly refuse his offer to take you back to the monastery. What will the Abbot think, I’d like to know?”

  Fursey stared at his plate, too miserable to attempt a reply. There was a low grunt from Magnus.

  “Leave me out,” he growled. “I enjoyed the ride to Clonmacnoise and back.”

  “Why did you refuse to go?” persisted Maeve.

  Fursey raised his eyes to her face. It seemed to him that never had she looked as beautiful as now, with the pale flame of anger flushing her cheeks. He felt as if he must burst into tears. Magnus lifted a bone from his plate and cracked it between his teeth.

  “Leave the man alone,” he said indistinctly. “What he does with his life is his own affair, and no one else’s. Maybe he doesn’t like psalm-singing. I know I wouldn’t.”

  He flung the end of the bone into the corner, and heaving himself from his chair, lumbered across to the doorway. He picked up his sword as he went and, wandering across the yard, passed through the wicket in the thorn fence. Fursey saw him crossing the field, idly cutting the heads off the thistles and nettles.

  Fursey crept out of the house too the moment Maeve had turned her back. He circled the hut almost on tiptoe and, gaining the road, wandered some hundreds of paces along it, until he found a convenient bank on which to seat himself. He remained there for a long time listening dully to a carefree bird tinkling in the hedge. He knew that as far as Maeve was concerned, he had worn out his welcome in the cottage and that it was expected of him that he would take his leave. He wondered how much longer he could stay before they put him out. It was obvious that he should without further delay proceed to the quenching of Magnus. But how was he to kill Magnus without Maeve knowing it and perhaps even denouncing him to the authorities as a murderer? The affair must be made to look like an accident. His thoughts raced ahead, and he saw himself gently comforting the widow, one manly arm about her waist as she sobbed on his shoulder, while Magnus lay in the corner looking very dignified in his martial furniture, and the neighbours thronged the cottage shaking their heads and saying what a nice fellow he had always been. But how was the affair to be made look like an accident? One scratch of the poisoned bodkin would be enough. If only it were later in the year, he could perhaps persuade Magnus to go picking blackberries with him, and when Magnus wasn’t looking, scratch him deftly with the poisoned bodkin on the thumb. But as yet it was only the month of May, and it was in the highest degree unlikely that he would be permitted to remain in the cottage until the blackberries had ripened in the autumn. Maybe he could persuade Magnus to come for a swim, and could scratch his back as he was letting himself down some thorny bank into the water. Magnus would think it was a straying bramble that had injured him, and would think nothing of it until he found himself unexpectedly in his death throes. It didn’t seem a very good idea, but Fursey was unable to think of a better. He sighed as another difficulty came into his mind. How would he set about winning Maeve’s affections when Magnus was safely under the clover? Fursey had not the remotest idea as to how one set about making love. He rose to his feet and began to pace nervously back and forward. He realised that he must set in motion every bit of brain he had, for he was at a crossroads in his life, and his future happiness depended on his now using his share of wit to the best advantage. Yes, he must seek instruction in the matter of engaging Maeve’s affections. But from whom? Why, obviously from the man who had gained them already—from Magnus. He had been successful with Maeve. Fursey must therefore defer quenching this valuable source of information until he had learnt how Maeve’s maiden heart had been beguiled by her present husband. He turned and walked slowly back towards the cottage, secretly pleased that the inevitable assassination had been deferred for the time being, for at the back of Fursey’s mind there lurked the uneasy thought that his onset on Magnus might fail and result in the outraged Magnus killing him.

  When he re-entered the hut, Maeve had a splinter of burning wood in her hand and was lighting the taper on the table. Magnus was sprawled before the fire, heavy with food or thought. It was snug and comfortable within; and as Fursey’s eyes accustomed themselves to the thick peat smoke, he looked appreciatively around the kitchen at one object after another, the hearth, the chairs and table, the plates and the food, and all the other furnishings of a home. He gazed longingly at the stout walls and the door. Outside was night and terror. Uncertain things were abroad, men and beasts, equally dangerous. But in here there was safety. He told himself that, come what might, he would obtain possession of this cottage and never wander the unfriendly roads again. He looked across at Maeve. How graceful she was as she moved lightly to and fro intent on the final tidying of the house before she laid herself down for the night. What a contrast, he thought, to her dull, thickset husband. It seemed to him that he had rarely seen an uglier piece of merchandise. He was like a bullock you’d see looking at you over a hedge, trying to assemble its thoughts and not succeeding.

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Fursey aloud; “I’ve been thinking of my position here. I feel that I should not trespass any longer on your hospitality. I feel that it’s time for me to leave.”

  Maeve turned her head. Her face was bright. “It’s late now. Wait till to-morrow morning anyway.”

  “Thank you,” Fursey replied quietly.

  As he rose to go over to his bed in the corner, he saw that Magnus’ eyes were fixed on him. The soldier said nothing, but rose some moments later and yawned.

  Fursey slept little. It was only when he was lying on his bed that he realised how hurt he was at Maeve’s ready acquiescence in his departure. The realisation that he wasn’t wanted was a bitter one. He knew now that he would have to leave on the morrow, and he considered desperately whether he would go back to Cuthbert on the mountain and beg him for a love philtre. But he realised that such a course would be the merest madness. He was convinced that Cuthbert’s exasperation on seeing him return would be such that powerful magic might well be set in train with deplorable results. He wondered dolefully what it would feel like to be turned into a frog and spend an uncertain life beside a stream dodging the birds, or worse still to be imprisoned for a thousand years in a bottle. The thought of such a fate affected him powerfully and his forehead became damp with sweat. He dismissed from his mind all thought of the accursed mountain and, rolling over, pressed his hot face into the pillow. In an agony of self-pity, he asked himself where he would go and what would become of him. Before long the ebb and flow of Magnus’ snoring began to shake the air of the cottage. Fursey listened indignantly, his plump fist clutching the hilt of the poisoned bodkin in his pocket. As the jarring note attained a high pitch and stumbled once or twice before receding, Fursey formed a desperate resolution. On the morrow he would somehow or other kill Magnus, having first questioned him as to how he had won Maeve.

  He rose very solemnly on the following morning and shaved himself with Magnus’ flint razor. The master of the house was friendly, making breezy remarks on the fineness of the day, a fact which any fool could see for himself. Maeve moved about the cottage demurely. Fursey spoke little, but kept his hand in his pocket and watched Magnus closely for an opportunity to give him a surreptitious nick with the bodkin. He felt that the situation was desperate, and was quite prepared to kill Magnus and forgo previous questioning as to how a woman’s affections are best won. As the breakfast neared its end he had made up his mind to drop his knife on the floor, and when under the table recovering it, to draw the bodkin and prick Magnus in the hindquarters so gently that the lethal nick would be mistaken for the action of a splinter in the chair. But before he could put the plan into execution the soldier pushed his plate away from him and, rising, stretched himself with a mighty yawn. The unpleasant fellow was constantly st
retching himself as if the house was too small for him and as if he wanted to push off the roof. Fursey rose, too, and went around the table so as to be near his host. His right hand was closed tightly over the handle of the weapon in his pocket.

  “I’ve made up a package of food for you to take with you on your journey,” said Maeve to Fursey.

  Magnus turned and looked over his shoulder with affected surprise.

  “What journey?” he asked.

  “Fursey is leaving now.”

  “Nonsense,” retorted Magnus. “You can’t turn a man out on to the road when he hasn’t made up his mind where he wants to go. Stay a week, Fursey. That will give you time to look round you. You want to stay, don’t you?”

  Fursey glanced from the broad, smiling face of the soldier to the set countenance of the wife. Her lips were drawn in a thin, hard line.

  “Yes,” he replied softly, “it would suit me to remain for a few days more.”

  Magnus clapped a huge hand on his shoulder. “Then stay. I like to see a man about the house.”

  Maeve turned her back and went quickly to the corner, where she began moving and gathering plates. One fell from her hand and smashed itself on the floor.

  Magnus moved lazily through the doorway into the fresh morning sunlight outside. Fursey trailed out after him.

  “Women!” said Magnus contemptuously, and he gave Fursey a broad wink.

  CHAPTER X

  During the ensuing days Magnus spoke little; he seemed preoccupied, full of heavy thoughts. He was considerate and kind in his dealings with Fursey, but Maeve remained formal and polite. Fursey tried to make himself useful, he fed the hens and chatted to the cows, knowing that cows yield the most milk when kept in good humour. From time to time he seized a broom and swept the floor with such thoroughness that Magnus began to complain of the gritty quality of the porridge, and Maeve had to take the broom from Fursey and tell him that she preferred to perform that office herself. Fursey, when he was alone, shook his head and told himself that she had become a very managing kind of woman, and thereafter confined his labours to the hens, amongst whom he became very popular. They soon realised that he always had his pockets stuffed with food, and they came tearing from all directions the moment he was sighted. He hoped vaguely that by making himself useful about the little farm he might prevail on its owners to retain him as farmboy, and that he would so gain time and could wait for a suitable opportunity to execute his fell purpose. It came into his mind from time to time that perhaps Maeve was in love with him and that her anxiety to get rid of him had its roots in feminine psychology, which, he was beginning to realise, was in the highest degree peculiar. When this possibility first struck him he made his way along the nearby stream until he found a deep pool surrounded by trees. He studied his countenance in that green mirror. It reflected a round, foolish face, thatched with prematurely white hair. He noted that his snub nose was without character, and had to admit that his general expression was far from intriguing. Whatever way he contorted his features they stared back at him with a look compounded half of astonishment and half of fright. He sighed and sadly admitted to himself that his looks were not such as to beguile a woman’s heart. Still, the thought remained with him, and he often sat by himself pondering the possibility. He remembered how she had come to be affianced to Magnus. Her father had wished to re-marry, and she had felt that there was no room for two women in the one house. Magnus had been attentive and masterful, and so it had come about. Perhaps she had never really cared for Magnus at all. Much of his time Fursey spent in day dreaming. He saw himself in heroic attitudes. He imagined one of the cows going mad and coming rampaging into the cottage where Maeve, unconscious of her danger, was calmly making a pie. He heard her screams and burst in the door. In a moment he had the infuriated beast by the horns, and the two of them were in death grips on the floor. So powerfully was he taken up by his dream that he went round to the back of the house and looked over the stockade at the two cows to see whether he could detect any signs of incipient insanity, but he had to admit that they were the most harmless looking pair of browsers he had ever seen, seemingly incapable of even a bad thought.

  One night as he lay on his bed with his mouth wide open watching the curious play of the firelight on the ceiling, he heard Magnus and Maeve deep in argument. She spoke rapidly and with determination, insisting that Fursey must leave the house. Magnus answered growlingly that it would be inhospitable and unchristian to turn out on to the road a man who had no means of subsistence. As Fursey held his breath and listened, the thought again struck him that perhaps Maeve was in love with him and was trying with womanish wile to keep the wool down over Magnus’ eyes. Perhaps all this time she had been striving to keep her deplorable brute of a husband in ignorance of her real feelings while she waited for Fursey to do the manly thing. A wild impulse gripped him, urging him to spring out of bed and run across the floor at Magnus, brandishing the bodkin, but caution supervened. He detected a note of genuine bitterness in Maeve’s voice as she persisted in her entreaty. At last he heard Magnus impatiently and wearily consenting.

  “All right, all right,” he said. “I’ll tell him that he must go in a couple of days.”

  Fursey lay motionless and played with a new thought. Could it be that Maeve, cleverer than her husband, divined Fursey’s tender regard and distrusted her own strength in resisting any advances which he might choose to make. This was a pleasant thought. It made him see himself as a formidable lover. He shook his head at himself for being such a sad rogue and, smiling happily, fell asleep. He slept the whole night through with a self-satisfied smirk on his chubby features. When morning came he sat up in bed, remembered the argument of the previous night and told himself coldly that he would kill Magnus that day.

  He chatted affably during breakfast and announced his intention of leaving the territory on the morrow. He said that he once more felt the itch to wander abroad, and he understood that the scenery in the south was very remarkable. Landowners would no doubt be glad of his services now that the peat-saving season was at hand, and later in the year there would be the harvest. Perhaps some farmer with a shrewd eye for a good workman would entrust him with the care of a flock of sheep. He had always wanted to be a shepherd and learn to blow music through a rustic pipe. A man of spirit, he asserted, need never be in fear of hunger. If the worst came to the worst, he could always join some gang of gallant bandits or offer his services as a fighting man to some robber lord, such as The Wolf of Ballybunion. Magnus and Maeve listened in silence to his flow of talk until it petered out at last somewhat lamely. Magnus emitted a windy sigh.

  “We’ll miss you,” he said heavily.

  Maeve said nothing, and Fursey plunged hurriedly into a further account of the gay and careless life which might be enjoyed by a man of lively mind like himself, who had no responsibilities. He prattled on, the words stumbling over one another, for he was embarrassed by Magnus’ apparent sincerity. When they rose from the table, he suggested gaily to Magnus a last walk together to a lonely tarn in the mountains a couple of miles distant from the hut. The soldier readily consented, and they set out, Fursey full of self-confidence and delighted with the success of his guile. It was a grey, cheerless day. The sky was overcast as they crossed the waste of bog and swamp and came at length to the tarnside. Fursey chose for their seat a spot at the lake’s edge, from which the rock dropped sheer into the waters below. He had continued to chatter amiably during their walk, the moody Magnus scarcely answering his absurdities; but now as they sat with the deep, still water beneath their feet and the awful cliffs rearing themselves above, Fursey talked less and in a more subdued key, until at last he too became silent. It was a lonely spot, an area of gloom, where no birds ever sang and where winds rarely came to stir the long grasses by the lakeside. To Fursey the tarn was familiar. He had visited it several times during the preceding week and had chosen it as a fit spot for the terrible deed which he contemplated. Both men sat motionless. Fu
rsey had sunk his right hand deep in his pocket and fastened it over the hilt of the fatal weapon. It seemed to him that the wild beating of his heart must surely be heard by his companion. It was a relief to him when Magnus spoke.

  “So you’re really determined to go away to-morrow?”

  “Yes,” he replied softly.

  Magnus frowned down at the water.

  “Well, I suppose I can’t hold you against your will. But I’m sorry that you’re going, and I’ll certainly miss you. Apart from the fact that I like the company of men, I’ve come to have a great liking for you personally.”

  Fursey stirred uncomfortably and changed the subject.

  “I’m not a man who will ever settle down for long in the one place,” he declared. “Though you mightn’t think it, I have a considerable dash of the adventure spirit in my system. Roads lure me, and the hope of finding adventure around the bend.”

  Magnus bent his heavy brows on his companion.

  “You surprise me. I shouldn’t have thought it.”

  “Oh, yes,” squealed Fursey, “I love adventure. In the course of an interesting career I’ve bested many a dragon and noonday devil; but, strangely enough, success with women has always evaded me. You’re a man of the world. Maybe you can explain the reason for that?”

  “Women?” responded Magnus. He spoke with difficulty as if the subject filled him with almost unutterable gloom.

  “Yes,” chirruped Fursey, “females, those amiable and gracious creatures who crown our lives and efforts.”

  “ ‘Crown our lives’ is right,” said Magnus lugubriously; “more efficiently than a warrior might do with a two-handed sword.”