Land

by Liam O'Flaherty

  Elizabeth sniffed. She was still very annoyed with her brother, so she bridled up at reference to him.

  “Tell me about the rainbow, my dear,” she said. “Is it distinct? At this time of year they can be radiantly beautiful.”

  “Oh! It’s very distinct,” Lettice said eagerly as she turned to look out the window once more. “It seems so near that I keep wanting to reach out my hand and touch it.”

  “I love rainbows,” said Elizabeth. “They are so delicate and graceful.”

  “I can see both ends,” Lettice said, “so close together that it’s like a big hoop perched on the sea. Oh! How sad!”

  “What happened, my dear?” said Elizabeth.

  “It’s gone,” Lettice said with a deep sigh. “It went suddenly, as if by magic. The people say that it’s a sign given to us by God, promising that the world will never again be flooded. Do you believe that, Aunt Elizabeth?”

  “No,” said Elizabeth. “That is merely a popular superstition.”

  “I believe it,” said Lettice. “I want to believe everything that is beautiful and harmless. The people are very fortunate in that way. They give a divine meaning to everything. That is because they have faith.”

  “Faith is the greatest gift that God has given us,” Elizabeth said.

  “The people are very wise,” Lettice said, “in spite of being so poorly educated. Their wisdom is beautiful and without malice.”

  “You are getting fond of them,” said Elizabeth.

  Lettice now turned around completely towards her aunt. She wrinkled her forehead in thought and smoothed out the skirts of her grey dress.

  “It’s not so much that I’ve become fond of them,” she said, “as that they have become fond of me. I wanted to be friends with them ever since I came from France. Yet I felt that they were hostile towards father and myself, even though they were invariably polite. Now it’s different. They gather round me when I go to the village, as if I had suddenly become very dear to them. They have become equally fond of father. As a result, I am certain that he has been happier during the past few weeks than I have ever known him. I really believe that he has finally begun to write his book.”

  She laughed gaily and said:

  “Ever since I can remember, he has been on the point of beginning to write that book. It’s very mysterious. He never talks about it and he keeps his notes under lock and key.”

  “I knew this would happen,” Elizabeth said gloomily. “It’s because we failed to do our duty. The people now feel that we are their accomplices. They have finally managed to drag us down to their level.”

  Lettice stared at her aunt in surprise. It was the first time that either of them had referred, even indirectly, to O’Dwyer’s presence in the kitchen on the day of the shooting. Indeed, Elizabeth had taken to her bed, on the evening of that day, owing to the peremptory manner in which Raoul had ordered them both never to mention the incident. What had irritated Elizabeth particularly was the fact that he issued this command in the servant’s presence, including the servant and putting her on the same level as his daughter and sister. This was precisely what Elizabeth meant, when she spoke of “being dragged down to their level.”

  “Dear Aunt,” Lettice said, “surely you don’t mean to say that father should take sides with the landlords against the people.”

  “I most certainly do,” said Elizabeth sharply.

  “May I ask the reason?” said Lettice.

  “Your father is a gentleman,” Elizabeth said, “even though he is no longer in enjoyment of his estates. His duty as a gentleman commands him to help maintain law and order.”

  “I can’t understand you,” said Lettice in a low voice.

  “Why not, child?” said Elizabeth.

  “But the landlords are Protestants, nearly all of them,” Lettice said, “and you are a Catholic. So are the people Catholics. Surely, it would be your duty to side with people of your own religious persuasion against …”

  “Religion has nothing to do with it,” Elizabeth interrupted. “I am a Catholic because my father made me one. My becoming a Catholic had nothing to do with rebellion against authority. Quite the contrary. My father, when God gave him grace to find his way back to the true faith, was merely putting an end to a period of rebellion. All the troubles of modern times come from rebellion against the authority of Christ’s vicar on earth, the Pope of Rome.”

  “How interesting!” Lettice said. “Please tell me about grandfather’s conversion to Catholicism. It must require a most profound spiritual disturbance to make a mature man change his religion. Especially here in Ireland, where people take their religion so seriously.”

  “It was during the famine,” Elizabeth said. “The shock of seeing people die of hunger and cholera influenced him. God spoke to him through the agency of an old woman, whom he met on the road. The old woman told him about the curse.”

  “What is that curse?” Lettice said. “I have heard you speak of it several times, as if it were something in which you really believe.”

  Tears suddenly began to flow down Elizabeth’s cheeks and her upper lip quivered.

  “Come and sit near me, child,” she said. “I don’t want you to think ill of me, because I love you dearly.”

  Lettice came over to the bed, lay down and put her arms around Elizabeth’s neck. They embraced. Then Lettice put her head on the pillow and stroked Elizabeth’s hand.

  “Please tell me about your parents,” Lettice said, “and how you lived when you were young. Father has told me nothing at all about them. I think he wanted me to grow up in complete ignorance of Ireland and of my forbears. Oddly enough, he has talked to me a great deal during the past weeks about Manister and not a word about my forbears. Yet what he told me about Manister is very romantic, about traders coming from Crete and Egypt thousands of years ago to take away the gold of its streams, about great oak forests that covered what are now naked hills, about the university and the cathedral that were here in the eighth century, with students coming from over all the known world. Can you believe it, Aunt?”

  “If your father says so,” Elizabeth said. “He is a learned man.”

  “I’m sorry you distrust the people,” Lettice continued, “because I want to feel that I belong to them, that I am of their blood and they of mine, that I belong to their earth and their history. In France there were no people to whom I wanted to belong. Father and I only knew exiles like ourselves. It was very lonely. My mother’s parents were both dead when she married father. She, too, was of Irish blood. Her father, Colonel O’Brien, was an ardent Irish patriot, even though he had never seen our country. I barely remember my mother. She died when I was four. I had only portraits for relatives. Why did father want to forget about Ireland? Did something very unpleasant happen before he went abroad?”

  “It’s a sad story, child,” Elizabeth said. “To begin with, a curse was put on the St. George family, when they became Protestants at the time of the Reformation and drove the monks from the great abbey of Manister. Since that day to this, misfortune has pursued the family. The Abbot cursed them by bell, book and candle light.”

  “Really?” said Lettice. “It was only natural that he should have been angry at being evicted, poor man.”

  “The curse said that disaster would fall on all heretics who would ever live on monastery lands,” Elizabeth continued.

  “That means Captain Butcher,” Lettice said. “That is why you said the curse had fallen on him.”

  “This house also belonged to the monks,” Elizabeth said, “and the farm.”

  “I see,” Lettice said. “You mean that father and I, being heretics, are liable to be affected by the curse.”

  “It was all mother’s fault,” said Elizabeth. “Were it not for her, your father would have been baptised with Julian and myself. When my father ordered the whole family to get baptised, mother tried to abduct Julian and myself. Father galloped after the stage coach and rescued us. Mother went on to Dublin, wh
ere Raoul was then attending the university. She persuaded Raoul to ignore father’s urgent letters, thereby committing a grievous sin. Remaining a Protestant might be excused, but there was no excuse for denying the benefits of holy baptism to her firstborn son.”

  “But she may have believed strongly in the Protestant faith,” said Lettice.

  “Grandfather Curran was a bigoted Protestant and a wealthy man,” Elizabeth continued. “Mother went to his house in Dublin and pleaded with him. She persuaded him to bestow an annuity on Raoul, but only on condition that he did not embrace the Catholic faith. Raoul accepted the annuity and did not return to Manister to get baptised. Father was very naturally furious. To cap it all, Julian had to be given a sound whipping before he would consent to be baptised. The poor boy was only twelve at the time and already delicate, but he was headstrong, like all of our blood. He wept in my arms throughout the whole night before the ceremony.”

  “What a strange tale!” Lettice said. “And you, Aunt Elizabeth? Did you, too, rebel?”

  “A woman’s first duty is obedience,” Elizabeth said. “The peace of God descended on me, from the moment I was admitted to the true Church. Yet God began to try our faith almost at once. We lost Manister House and came here to the Lodge. The blow was too much for father. A man of inordinate pride, he could not suffer the thought of a common person like Captain Butcher living at Manister House. So he died within a few months of chagrin. Mother then came from Dublin to look after Julian and myself. She was like a stranger to me, from that day until her death, even though I prayed for her constantly.”

  “How sad!” Lettice said. “What a sad story!”

  “Raoul was even more a stranger to me than mother,” Elizabeth said. “She was merely bigoted and perverse, like Grandfather Curran, but Raoul had become a violent rebel against all authority. Even while still a student, he had become a member of seditious societies. Yet God had given him all the talents necessary for a brilliant career. And he was so handsome in those days. You’ve no idea, child, how handsome your father was as a young man.”

  “But he is still very handsome,” Lettice said.

  “In his youth,” said Elizabeth, “he had the fire of genius in his eyes. Everybody expected him to sweep all before him at the Bar. Instead, he wasted his great gifts on defending rebels. The curse had fallen on him. He had to leave Ireland within a few years in order to avoid getting arrested.”

  Lettice raised her head from the pillow and looked at her aunt with hostility. Then she got to her feet quietly and walked over to the window almost on tip-toe.

  “Now he’s beginning all over again,” Elizabeth said, in a tone that had become bitter and querulous. “I’m terribly unhappy about it. I had hopes that he would come to a sense of his responsibilities after all those years abroad. He has you to consider now. You are on the threshold of your life, with your marriage to be taken into …”

  “Please, Aunt Elizabeth,” Lettice said, as she looked out the window with her back turned. “You mustn’t talk like that about my father.”

  “I refuse to be silent any longer,” Elizabeth cried angrily.

  Lettice swung round and faced her aunt. Her cheeks were now almost as red as her hair.

  “I share all my father’s views,” she cried proudly. “All of them. He is a very wonderful and courageous man. It is stupid and narrowminded to find fault with him, simply because he believes in freedom of thought.”

  Seeing that her aunt was on the verge of tears, she at once felt remorse for having spoken so harshly. She ran across the room and threw herself on her knees beside the bed. She grasped Elizabeth’s worn hand and kissed it tenderly.

  “Dear Aunt, forgive me for having said such cruel things,” she whispered in a tremulous voice. “I love you so much and you are so gentle. It was most shameful on my part.”

  Elizabeth did not answer for some time. She was looking at her niece fixedly, as if she had become afraid of the girl.

  “I forgive you, child,” she said at length. “You have a pure heart.”

  “Thank you,” Lettice whispered.

  She put the palm of Elizabeth’s hand against her forehead and added:

  “You have suffered so much in your life. So much.”

  “May God protect you, child,” Elizabeth said, stroking the girl’s hair tenderly. “May He show you, too, that real happiness comes from bowing …”

  She was interrupted by a loud knocking at the hall door. Lettice jumped to her feet at once. Elizabeth shuddered.

  “I must answer the door,” Lettice said. “Annie has gone to the village.”

  On reaching the head of the stairs, Lettice looked down and saw that her father had already opened the hall door to a man of extremely odd appearance.

  Chapter VI

  The visitor was a priest named Francis Kelly, long since barred from exercise of his duties by edict of the Church. He had been living in the tavern of his brother-in-law at Clash for the past twelve years. That he made his home in a tavern was no indication of the reason why disciplinary action had been taken against him. In fact, he was of a most ascetic nature. He had been punished for taking part in the abortive insurrection of 1867.

  Now in his forty-sixth year, he was short of stature, very thin, with extremely bowed legs that made his arms and back look unnaturally long. His large head hung forward a little, causing his shoulders to stoop. This physical ugliness was due to a disease contracted as a child, which was known as famine fever. His face was triangular in shape, dark-skinned and haggard, with sunken eyes. His hair was grey and he wore it cut close like a monk. His clerical costume was very shabby. He wore hob-nailed boots and he carried an ash plant that was almost as tall as himself.

  Raoul was astonished to find such an odd-looking man at the door.

  “Are you Mr. St. George?” Father Francis said.

  “Yes,” said Raoul. “Who might you be?”

  “Francis Kelly,” said the priest. “I’d feel obliged if I could have a few words with you in private.”

  Raoul led the way into his study, a small room that opened off the hall. Father Francis raised his feet high when he walked, on account of his heavy boots being too large for him. He went direct to the hearth, on which a small turf fire was burning. He sat down, laid his ash plant on the floor carefully, held his hands to the blaze for a few moments and then rubbed them together. He remained hatted. Presently, he took a plug of tobacco and a knife from his pocket. While paring some tobacco on to the palm of his hand, he glanced all round the room.

  There was only a meagre light, the two windows being somewhat obscured by the trellis vines and bushes outside. The walls were lined with books, right up to the ceiling. On the floor, also, there were piles of books. A deal table that stretched almost the whole length of the wall was littered with manuscripts and writing materials. A pipe stand and some chairs completed the furnishing. The floor was naked.

  “Ha!” said Father Francis, turning towards Raoul after he had finished his examination. “I see you are a writer. What do you write?”

  “You said you had a message,” Raoul said curtly.

  He was annoyed by his visitor’s casual manner.

  “I write ballads,” Father Francis said imperturbably. “That’s why I asked what you were writing. I mean no offence. You may think that ballads are vulgar things of no consequence. If you think so, you are wrong. Ballads are very important, because people sing them if they are any good. They are the poetry of the people. Poetry should be sung. That’s the only way it can become part of life, what it should be, instead of being buried in books. Ballads can overthrow empires and bring new nations into existence.”

  Raoul sat down opposite the priest. He stroked his beard and smiled. He was beginning to feel attracted by his strange guest.

  “Who are you?” he said.

  “I told you that my name is Francis Kelly,” said the priest. Raoul shrugged his shoulders and said:

  “Names are unimportant.”
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  “You are right,” Father Francis said. “It’s impossible to give a name to the human soul.”

  There was silence for a little while. The priest took a clay pipe from his pocket and stuffed the pared tobacco into the bowl. Then he took a live coal from the fire with the tongs, held it against the bowl and sucked hard several times. When clouds of smoke began to issue from his mouth, he threw the coal back into the fire and wiped his lips with a large red handkerchief. Then he looked at Raoul, half-closed his eyes and spoke in a mysterious whisper, hardly opening his lips.

  “Would you care to have a talk with young O’Dwyer now?” he said.

  “I don’t follow you,” said Raoul cautiously.

  Father Francis laughed.

  “I don’t blame you for being careful,” he said. “Everybody in the county knows that I’m a Fenian, but I might be a government spy as far as you know. Spies often dress like priests.”

  “I’m sure you write excellent ballads,” Raoul said with a smile. “I’m looking forward to reading them. Unfortunately, I can’t sing.”

  “You can do far more important things,” said Father Francis. “That was an important thing you did a month ago, when you found O’Dwyer unconscious at the bottom of the settle-bed in your kitchen. You made many a friend among the people that day. If you had a mind, you could do far more important things still.”

  “You interest me,” Raoul said.

  “O’Dwyer said you invited him to visit you,” the priest continued.

  “Where is the young man?” Raoul said.

  “He’s outside there,” said Father Francis, nodding towards the window, “waiting for a signal from me.”

  “Really?” said Raoul. “Why didn’t he come with you?”

  “I wanted to see if the coast were clear,” the priest said. “Your sister doesn’t sympathise with us and you yourself might have changed your mind. Then again, O’Dwyer is in a bad state of mind. The Government people are playing with him, the way a cat plays with a mouse. Having no evidence that could convict him before a jury, they are pretending to look the other way. Yet they watch him the whole time, ready to pounce when it suits them. That sort of thing is hard on a young man like O’Dwyer. He’s in a bad state. I thought I’d tell you that first, so you wouldn’t be offended by his strange manners. By your leave, I’ll call him now.”