Irish Portraits

by Liam O'Flaherty

  Irish Portraits

  14 Short Stories

  LIAM O’FLAHERTY

  Contents

  The Painted Woman

  Your Honour

  The Fall of Joseph Timmins

  The Terrorist

  The Bladder

  Mackerel for Sale

  The Inquisition

  The Outcast

  Selling Pigs

  The Fireman’s Death

  The Doctor’s Visit

  The Struggle

  At the Forge

  Blackmail

  Colic

  The Painted Woman

  One lone star was following a little half-grown moon across an open space in the dark sky. All round, the firmament was full of sagging clouds. Some were black with hanging tails of rain that fell in far-off lands. Others were pale with the light of waning day. The stark earth was swept by a bitter wind. The dying light of the hidden sun lay brown upon its back, like the shroud upon a corpse.

  Yet birds were singing in the wintry dusk. They smelt some tender current in the bitter air, telling them that spring was coming with sunlight and with flowers; as if a strange spirit passed upon the wind over the bleak rocks and the naked fields, whispering:

  “Soon. Soon now. Lambs are kicking in the womb.”

  Already people were preparing the ground for the sowing of their crops. Since an hour before dawn, Martin Bruty and his brother Patrick had been carrying seaweed on their mare to a field where they were going to plant potatoes. Now they were coming home, exhausted and drenched to the skin by the showers of hail that had fallen. Their hands were numb. Their sodden clothes were stained with the congealed slime of the weeds.

  The mare walked quickly, with her neck stretched forward, shivering. Her hair was as smooth as a seal’s fur. She was straddled. A long piece of canvas stuffed with straw lay on her back from tail to mane, with a basket hung on either side from the two pegs in a wooden yoke. Wisps of straw from the straddle’s packing trailed under her belly.

  Martin Bruty sat sideways on her haunches, reclining on the canvas as on a couch, his left forearm encircling the wooden yoke. He was forty years old, tall, lean, ungainly, with big muscular limbs and a beautiful face. His eyes were soft and wistful like those of a child. His countenance was pure, like that of a young virgin. His hair was grey at the temples. He looked at the sky, at the dim, stark land, at the horse and at passing birds with wonder and awe. Whenever a bird sang, he looked towards the spot whence the sweet sound came and his lips parted. He looked simple, kind, gentle, without care.

  Patrick walked behind the mare, stepping very quickly in order to keep pace with her. He was five years older than his brother, yet he looked much younger. He was small and stout, with very short legs. He walked nervously, taking tiny steps and looking in all directions without noticing anything. He frowned and sniffed. There was a greedy look in his little blue eyes. His large white eyebrows moved up and down and he twitched his forehead when he sniffed. His cheeks were as red as beetroots. His cap was stuck at the back of his round skull, showing a bald patch over his forehead. He looked restless, unhappy, unpleasant, completely out of harmony with nature that was whispering of spring, young buds, sunshine and happiness.

  He carried two pitchforks on his left shoulder. In his right hand he had a can of milk. They walked in silence. The canvas of the straddle creaked against its wooden yoke. The horse’s hoofs rang against the loose stones of the road. The wind whistled. The sea moaned in the distance. There were sounds of other horses, afar off, coming home and of people calling, in the village, at the top of the winding road that was bound by grey stone fences, ascending. The village was dimly visible at the summit of the hill, on the border of a wide barren crag. People were lighting their lamps and fowls were cackling as they waddled home from the pond.

  Near the village, they overtook a woman who was walking with a little boy. She answered their salutation in a gay voice. They passed on. When they had rounded a corner, Patrick leaned against the fence and said to his brother:

  “I’ll be up after you. Bring the horse to the field. I’ll light the fire and have tea ready when you come back.”

  “All right,” said Martin, without looking at his brother.

  He rode on. After a few yards, he suddenly sat erect, struck the horse in the flank with his foot and urged her on with an oath. She broke into a quick trot. His face darkened. He rode into the village at a gallop.

  Huddled together, surrounded by stone fences, the houses were coloured like the savage wilderness about them, grey and bleak. In the dusk, their thatch and their whitewashed walls, drenched with rain that dripped from their eaves, looked as grey and desolate as the stones. The wind howled among them, sweeping across the naked crags from the cliffs beyond. To left and right, the rocky land rose in terraces to the black horizons. There was a smell of peat on the wind, acrid, making the scene still more melancholy.

  Yet there was peace there and birds sang upon the gables of the houses, singing of golden, mellow summer dusks.

  He rode the mare, through a gap in the fence, into the yard of a house in the centre of the village. The mare halted at the closed door of a barn on the left side of the yard. She shuddered and began to munch at wisps of straw that lay on the ground. Martin dismounted, opened the barn door, brought out a dish of raw potatoes and gave them to her. She whinnied and began to gobble them up, gripping them with difficulty between her soft, thick lips. He uncovered her. She spread out her four legs, shook herself and cleared her nostrils with a loud noise. Then he rubbed her from head to foot with a bunch of straw. Where the straddle had lain, her hide was hot and moist with perspiration. There was a big bay patch there. The rest of her hide was dark with rain. Everywhere he touched her hide, rubbing her, the hide trembled violently.

  Now and again, while he worked, he glanced over his shoulder down the road. Each time his face darkened and he muttered an oath. Then again, as he turned to the mare, his face grew tender and he spoke to her as he rubbed her.

  He bound up the straddle with a rope, hung the baskets on pegs in the barn wall, put the straddle into the barn, closed the door, mounted the mare and rode away. Now the mare snorted, straining at the halter, trying to break into a gallop. He brought her to a field among the hills, a mile from the house. It was pitch-dark when he returned.

  There was a light in the house. Smoke rose from the chimney. Smoke also issued in gusts through the door, buffeted by a contrary wind. The house looked dreary. There were no curtains on the windows. The yard was wild, muddy, overgrown with weeds. The walls were almost black for want of whitewash.

  When Martin entered, Patrick was on his knees on the hearth, blowing at a newly-made peat fire, over which a kettle was hanging from an iron hook. Little red flames ran to and fro among the sods of peat when he blew. When his breath died away, the flames vanished and a cloud of smoke arose from the fire. He did not look up when Martin entered.

  “This fire is enough to break the heart in a stone,” he said. “The rain must have come in on it in the barn. Strain the milk.”

  “Isn’t the kettle boiled yet, then?” said Martin. “Is it only now you’re lighting the fire?”

  “How could I have it lit?” said Patrick angrily, without looking up. “I’m only just after coming in.”

  “What kept you then?”

  “I had business.”

  “Blood an’ouns.”

  Martin strode to the dresser and seized the can of milk violently. His eyes were flashing.

  “You had business,” he muttered. “A fine business you had. The parish is talking about you.”

  Patrick went on blowing the fire.

  “Throw a little paraffin on that,” said Martin, as he poured the
milk through a cloth into another can.

  “No,” said Patrick, jumping to his feet. “I’ll go out to the barn and chip a few slices of that plank we got from the wreck last year. It’s no use wasting paraffin.”

  Martin looked after him angrily as he went out. He muttered to himself:

  “We could buy a lot of paraffin with all the money he spends on drink and chasing after every strip of a woman in the parish.”

  When Patrick returned with the chips, he said:

  “This is no life, returning hungry to an empty house.”

  “I’ve heard you say that often enough,” said Martin. “We weren’t put on this earth to enjoy ourselves, but to save our souls.”

  “Ach!” said Patrick sourly, as he stooped over the fire with the chips. “A man would be better dead than listening to your grumbling.”

  “Who is doing the grumbling?” said Martin.

  “That’s enough of it,” said Patrick. “That’s enough now. Be putting the things on the table.”

  “I’ll take off my wet things first,” said Martin. “’Twill be years before that kettle boils.”

  He began to strip off his clothes.

  The fire blazed up, making a brighter light than the tin paraffin lamp that hung on a nail in the wall. The delft on the dresser shone. Now there was no smoke. Patrick shut the door. Then he too began to strip.

  “These three years since mother died,” he said, “are worse than all the hardship I ever had in my life. A house without a woman is worse than hell.”

  “Say Lord have mercy on her, when you speak of her,” said Martin.

  “Every damn thing I say, you pick me up,” shouted Patrick. “What have you against me? Eh?”

  Naked, Martin walked to the hearth and took dry clothes from a line that stretched across the chimney.

  “Mind that kettle,” he said. “It’s going to boil.”

  They both dressed in dry clothes and hung their wet ones on the line. They laid the table for a meal of tea and bread and butter. Patrick made tea. They sat down to eat. The table was without a cloth. The cups had no saucers. The loaf lay on the naked board. The butter was also lying on the board, with a bedraggled thin paper about it. The milk lay in the three-quart can into which it had been strained.

  They ate hurriedly, in silence. Then Patrick went on to the hearth to refill his cup from the teapot. At the fire he said:

  “I’m not going to stick this any longer. One of us has to stir.”

  “Pour some into this,” said Martin, reaching over his cup.

  Patrick returned to the table and continued to eat. He kept glancing at his brother furtively, his white eyebrows moving up and down.

  “What did you say?” he muttered after some time.

  “Me?” said Martin. “I said nothing.”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said?”

  “What did you say?’

  “I said it was time for one of us to get married.”

  Martin pushed away his empty cup, put the can of milk to his head and drank a large quantity of the milk. He wiped his mouth, crossed himself and went to the fire.

  “You have something on your mind,” he said. “Out with it.”

  He took a piece of tobacco from his waistcoat pocket and bit it. Patrick also drank some of the milk, crossed himself, put on his cap and came to the fire. He lit his pipe with a coal. They both sat in silence, on stools, one smoking his pipe, the other chewing.

  “Well!” said Martin at length, spitting into the fire. “Out with it.”

  “Well!” said Patrick. “I have this on my mind. It’s time for one of us to bring in a woman here. A man would be better dead than living this way. There’s nobody to clean or wash or get a meal ready for us after the day’s work. We haven’t had a pig this last year. There’s money lost. Potatoes are going to rot in the barn. I’d rather let them rot than sell them for the few shillings they give for them in the shops. We could feed ten pigs in the year. Sheep too. We can’t keep a sheep because we have no time to run after them over the rocks. We’re losing money, along with the loneliness and misery of an empty house.”

  “Money!” said Martin. “You can’t bring it to the grave with you. Haven’t we enough to eat? But you may do as you please. You’ve been driving at this a long time and I’d rather have anything than hearing all the tongues in the parish jeering at our name on account of your blackguarding.”

  “What blackguarding?” said Patrick angrily.

  “You and Kate Tully,” said Martin in a loud voice. “You follow her wherever she goes.”

  “Well!” said Patrick. “I’ll follow her no longer. And less of your tongue, I’m telling you. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “How?”

  “How? This is how. I asked her coming up the road and she agreed.”

  Martin spat his chew into the fire, looked at his brother with open mouth and then said:

  “Tare an’ ouns! You asked Kate Tully to marry you?”

  “I did. What about it?”

  Martin’s face suddenly lost its angry look. His eyes became sad and weary. His jaw dropped.

  “Eh?” said Patrick. “What’s the matter? Were ye … were ye thinking of asking her yerself?”

  “Me?” said Martin, flushing and raising his head. “I’d rather lie with a dog than with the woman,” he added fiercely.

  “Be careful of what you are saying,” said Patrick in a low voice.

  “I’ll say what’s in my mind,” said Martin. “Now is the time to say it, isn’t it? She’s been fifteen years in America without tale or tidings of her. Then she returned last year with a boy and no husband.”

  “Her husband is dead,” said Patrick angrily. “What are you driving at?”

  “Maybe he is,” said Martin. “A woman doesn’t go about here with a painted face, though, if she is right. What for does she paint her face and lips and terrify every decent man with her language and her free ways, unless …”

  “Unless what?”

  Martin shuddered and became silent. Patrick was watching him with glittering eyes.

  “God knows,” said Martin sadly, “it’s hard to think badly of her, after what she was before she went away. Ye’d stand in the snow looking at her lovely face and she was so shy and modest that she blushed when a man bid her the time of day. Now she is…. Ach!”

  “Now, listen to me here,” said Fatrick. “I’ve had enough of this. Remember what I’m saying. I’m going to marry Kate Tully. If you don’t like it, there’s the door. You can take your share of the land and money and get a wife for yourself.”

  “You’re not marrying her,” said Martin. “You’re marrying her fortune of three hundred pounds.”

  “Well, there you are now,” said Patrick. “Think over it. I’ll have no argument. I’ve wasted the best of my life, each of us watching the other. You always had a sour mouth whenever I thought of a woman. But I’ll wait no longer.”

  “Marry her then,” said Martin, jumping to his feet. “Marry her. But I’ll stay here. This is my father’s house. You can’t put me out of it. Marry her and the devil take you and her.”

  He strode to the door. Patrick jumped up and shouted:

  “Where are you going? Take back what you said.”

  Martin turned back and looked at his brother gloomily. Then he shuddered, bent his head and murmured sadly:

  “I’m sorry, Paddy. I… I… Tomorrow we can … I’ll go out for a bit.”

  He went out. Patrick sat down again by the fire and smoked. His face twitched. Then he also jumped to his feet and left the house. He visited his uncle. He returned at midnight and went to bed. Martin had not yet returned. At two o’clock in the morning he was awakened by hearing Martin come into the room.

  “Where were you till this hour?” he said.

  “I was over to the cliffs to see was there any wreckage,” said Martin.

  “How could you see in the dark, man alive?”

  “Never mind,” said
Martin. “I was listening to the sound of the sea.”

  “Ugh!” said Patrick, turning towards the wall. “You’re out of your head.”

  “Maybe I am,” said Martin.

  He got into bed beside his brother, but he lay awake all night, thinking.

  Next day, while they were at the seashore loading seaweed on the mare, Martin said to his brother:

  “Have you still got a mind to do what you were talking of last night?”

  “I have,” said Patrick.

  Martin brought the loaded mare to the field, dropped the load and returned. Then he said:

  “Very well. We better go home at noon and dress ourselves. A settlement has to be made

  “We’ll do that,” said Patrick, “in the name of God.”

  “I hope God will bless it,” said Martin gloomily.

  In the afternoon, Patrick went on the mare to the town and returned with a bottle of whisky. After dark, they went with their uncle and another man to the house where Kate Tully lived with her married brother. They made the match. Martin agreed to everything they said. He appeared to be quite satisfied. It was decided to have the marriage in a week’s time. Next day they went to the parish priest to sign the agreement.

  There were thirty acres of land, a horse, a cow, a bullock, a yearling calf, the house and furniture and a boat. Martin gave his share of all this property to his brother, excepting his share of the boat. The boat was to be owned in common by the two of them. In return, Patrick gave Martin his share of their common savings, which amounted to four hundred pounds. It was arranged that Martin should go on living in the house until he married. He was to receive one-fifth of the house’s earnings, in return for his work.

  The priest tried to point out to them that this arrangement might cause some difficulty later on and that it was better that Martin should at once set about making a home of his own, but Martin refused to hear of it. He said he was now too old to marry.

  Kate Tully also had a clause inserted in the agreement to the effect that, in case of her death, her son Charles should inherit the property equally with any children she might have by Patrick. Patrick agreed to this after some argument.