Land

by Liam O'Flaherty

  He came over to Lettice and took her by the hand.

  “Your aunt has taken me to task several times about you,” he said. “You see, this annuity that I have expires with me. I have saved nothing. If anything should happen to me …”

  “Please, don’t talk about money,” Lettice interrupted. “It is completely unimportant.”

  Raoul sat down beside her.

  “I’ve educated you very badly,” he said. “You are just as irresponsible as I am.”

  “You have taught me how to think and how to appreciate beauty,” said Lettice. “That is all that is necessary for happiness.”

  “Poor Lizzie!” Raoul said. “I feel criminal about getting her involved in what must appear utterly obscene to her. Now we must go to bed. I’m very tired.”

  He yawned, got to his feet and stretched his arms above his head. Then he suddenly got excited once more.

  “Amazing fellow, that priest,” he cried, as he stared at the floor with his fingers to his beard. “I envy him. He was a very normal parish priest until he became involved by accident in a stupid insurrection twelve years ago. His brother, a colonel in the American army, came to Ireland after the Civil War, in order to take part in the insurrection. Father Kelly was parish priest of the district where his brother, the colonel, was about to attack a British military barracks. He went out to the assembly point of the insurgents, trying to persuade his brother to abandon the hopeless enterprise. While the two brothers were arguing passionately, the British carried out a surprise attack on the insurgent camp. The insurgents fled. Father Kelly went with them. As soon as the firing started, he told me, he forgot that he was a priest and opposed to rebellion against authority on moral grounds. He only knew that the same blood flowed through his veins as through those of his brother and of the other insurgents. When the colonel was killed in a raid, Father Francis took command of what troops remained. Finally, he was captured and pardoned because of his cloth. His superiors deprived him of his parish and of the right to administer the sacraments. He has remained fixed ever since in that single act of revolt. He can neither advance beyond it, nor regain the state of mind that preceded it. He wanders about the country like a lost soul, trying to rouse the people to a repetition of his own tragedy. It really was a tragedy and yet I envy him his fixity of thought.”

  “No, Father,” Lettice said gently, as she got to her feet. “It was not a tragedy. He learned to love the people that day when the British attacked the insurgent camp.”

  Raoul stared at her in surprise.

  “And O’Dwyer?” he said after a long pause. “Do you think he, too, loves the people?”

  “I am certain of it,” Lettice said.

  Raoul sighed deeply and said in a dejected tone:

  “How wonderful it must be to feel noble!”

  Lettice threw her arms impulsively about his neck and whispered:

  “To me, everything you do and everything you say is noble and beautiful.”

  Raoul kissed her and said tenderly:

  “Thank you, child. You are the apple of my eye.”

  After she had got into bed and put out the light, she lay awake for a long time in excited thought. In the darkness, with the soft music of the sea coming in a constant rhythm through the open window, she felt wonderfully happy. It was like being taken in a dream to an enchanted place and waiting for the secret of the enchantment to be disclosed.

  All that she had hitherto found beautiful in life now appeared to have been merely a prelude to this passionate ecstasy of waiting, as each urgent beat of her heart brought life closer with the key of love.

  Chapter VIII

  Fenton poured whisky into his glass, drank eagerly and shuddered. He had drunk a good deal since finishing his lunch an hour previously. He was now quite tipsy without being at all aware of it. He felt even more depressed than before he began to drink. The whisky made him brood still more feverishly on Butcher’s visit of the previous night and the unpleasant incident at Sram during the forenoon.

  He sat perfectly still in an old leather-covered armchair by the window of his parlour, hoping that this last drink would have the desired effect of putting his mind at ease. Nothing of the sort happened. Irritated by his continued failure, he began to tap the arm of the chair nervously with the tips of his fingers. Then he suddenly took away his fingers and stared at the chair arm with a grimace of disgust. The used leather was torn. His fingers had come in contact with the horsehair stuffing. It was like touching something dead and corrupt. He jumped to his feet and glanced around the room, at the shabby carpet, at the dirty pieces of furniture, at the spider’s web in a corner of the ceiling. In his present mood, the condition of the room appeared degrading to him.

  “Cursed place!” he cried aloud. “It’s killing me.”

  Pulling at the collar of his uniform, to relieve the shortness of breath caused by his fit of temper, he put his head out the window and breathed deeply. The Royal Hotel, in which he had rooms, gave directly on to the river that flowed through the town of Clash. To the right, a stone bridge of considerable beauty spanned the river. Two women were quarrelling at the very centre of the bridge, indifferent to a heavy shower of rain that had just begun to fall. One of the women was enormously fat. She had a basket of fish poised on her head, above a coiled white cloth. With her bare arms stretched out to their full length, to defend herself against attack as well as to preserve the balance of her load, she circled slowly back and forth with the grace of a juggler. A thin woman with bedraggled hair, dressed in a skimpy black shawl, opposed the fat one. The thin woman, uttering fierce cries like a robbed bird, made sudden attacks, now from one direction, now from another, with bowed head, always falling short of her objective. Except for the two women and a solitary red cart, that rumbled over the cobblestones on the far side of the bridge behind a black horse, there was nobody in movement. Groups of loafers, in spite of the rain, leaned against the houses and against the walls of the river. The town square opened off the far side of the bridge. The principal shops and public buildings were there. The largest of them, formerly the Customs House, had collapsed. All that remained of it was a solitary chimney, rising gaunt and naked from the great heap of rubble, tipped slightly to one side at the very top, like the stripped skeleton of a giraffe. In the centre of the square there was a marble block, newly erected, inscribed with gold lettering, surmounted by the statue of an English general on horse-back. The head and left arm of the general had fallen. He had a drawn sword in his right hand, raised high above his headless trunk in grotesque belligerence. To the left, where the river debouched into the sea, the atmosphere of decay was still more in evidence. A row of buildings, which looked foreign owing to their age and imposing structure, lay completely in ruins along the river wall. They had been warehouses when Clash traded with Imperial Spain, at the height of the St. George family’s feudal power. Smoke rose from one of these ruined warehouses. Ragged clothes were hung out on a string across a gap in the upper part of the front wall. Evicted tenants from the countryside had taken shelter there.

  Looking at this scene, which he had grown to hate intensely, Fenton’s ill temper turned to apathy. He withdrew from the window, sighed and threw himself once more into the chair. He grasped the arms, no longer sensitive to contact with the foul stuffing that lay exposed. He closed his eyes, let his head loll to one side and drew in a deep breath. For a moment, as he exhaled slowly, he had the feeling of being pleasantly tired and sleepy. This pleasant feeling ended abruptly and he jumped to his feet in a state of panic. His mind had recalled with devilish clarity, in that instant of pleasant relaxation, his shameful experience at the hamlet of Sram.

  “I must go to her,” he cried aloud. “Otherwise I’ll go mad.”

  Relieved by having decided on a course of action, he quickly regained control of himself. He carefully brushed his hair and his uniform, put a clove in his mouth to neutralize the smell of alcohol, locked the whisky in the cupboard and went downstairs.
His eyes were blurred and his legs felt somewhat unsteady, but his handsome face gave no sign of the commotion within him. If anything, he looked more cold and contemptuous than usual.

  While he waited downstairs for his horse to be brought around, he was accosted by two men of his acquaintance. One of them was a barrister called James Stagg. The other was Fintan Corbett, owner and editor of the local government newspaper. Both of these men were noted in the district for their drunken and lascivious practices. Stagg was still young and attractive, with laughing blue eyes and a splendid body. Corbett was short and corpulent, with a repulsive face. When they halted before Fenton in the hall and invited him hilariously to drink with them, the District Inspector saluted coldly and stepped aside to let them pass. He had scrupulously avoided the company of the more dissolute among the supporters of the British Government since his arrival in Clash. He knew very well that failure to follow that rule was fatal for English officials in Ireland.

  Seeing that Fenton was intent on snubbing their friendly approaches, Stagg and Corbett became hostile.

  “Look here, Fenton,” Corbett said, “you’re not in a position to lord it over anybody.”

  “Damned if he is,” Stagg said.

  “As editor of the Clash Sentinel,” Corbett said, “I hold you in the hollow of my hand.”

  “And that’s putting it mildly,” Stagg said.

  “This morning’s affair at Sram …” Corbett continued.

  “Now run along, you two,” Fenton interrupted haughtily.

  “I don’t like your attitude, Fenton,” said Stagg. “It’s not that I want your company. Far from it. It’s simply that I refuse to take insults from an Englishman.”

  Stagg was an Englishman himself, having come to Ireland as a child. In his sober moments, which were not frequent, he was a loyal subject of the Queen. In drink, however, he became perverse and invariably abused his own race.

  “I can break you like that,” Corbett said in a vindictive tone, as he slowly closed his small fist before Fenton’s mouth. “You bungled the Manister outrage. Even the town dogs know the criminal, yet you can’t lay hands on him.”

  “True and even too true,” said Stagg.

  “There was a leading article in The Times,” Corbett continued, “asking why there were no arrests in Manister. I’ll give you the answer. Fear, sir, is the answer. We have a coward in charge of our Constabulary.”

  “Enough of that,” Fenton snapped, losing his self-control. “Run along at once, or you’ll regret your insolence.”

  “Indeed!” cried Stagg, assuming a belligerent pose. “Is the hero of Sram threatening us with violence?”

  “Sram will go down in history,” said Corbett, raising his voice, “as the scene of a most gross insult to the honour of Her Majesty’s forces. The humble village of Sram, hitherto the most obscure hamlet in our county, if not in the whole world …”

  “I’m giving you a last warning, Corbett,” cried Fenton.

  “Take care, Fenton,” Stagg shouted. “I don’t like threats. You’re behaving like a cad.”

  Corbett, who had been pushed to the rear by the gesticulating Stagg, now plunged forward and tapped Fenton sharply on the uniform with his knuckles.

  “Can you deny having struck an old man?” he shouted. “A feeble old man in his dotage. One word from me in the Sentinel and you are a ruined man. I’m read in influential quarters.”

  One of the hotel servants, a powerful man with prominent upper teeth, now seized Corbett by both arms from behind and rushed him smartly off towards the bar.

  “A feeble old man in his dotage,” Corbett shouted furiously as he was being frog-marched, with his feet barely touching the ground. “You struck him on the top of his head with your whip-handle.”

  “Hey! You!” cried Stagg, dashing after the servant. “Let go my friend, you insolent dolt.”

  With a drunken shout of glee, he thrust out his foot and tripped the fellow who frog-marched Corbett. Both Corbett and the servant rolled to the floor. A group of English commercial travellers, attracted by the commotion, came from the bar at that moment. Seeing Corbett on the floor beneath the hotel servant, they mistook the nature of the struggle. They came to grips with the servant before the fellow was able to explain. Stagg now took sides with the man he had tripped. He began to address the commercial travellers in most offensive language.

  “You are a gang of ruffians,” he cried, “spreading like a rash over the world, carriers of shoddy goods and vulgarity. You are microbes, bearing the foul disease of capitalism. You are the personal enemies of good taste.”

  Fenton’s horse having arrived, he mounted the animal and rode away in haste, in order to escape from this unfortunate adventure. The rain had now ceased, leaving the ground in a very muddy state. As he crossed the bridge, he rode close to the two women that had been quarrelling. They were now seated on the pavement, with the basket between them, sharing the fish that had been the cause of their struggle. The horse threw mud on them as he passed close to the pavement. One of them cursed him with vigour. This slight incident, coming immediately after the scandalous scene at the hotel, made him lash his horse at a breakneck gallop through the town, much to the astonishment of those who chanced to recognise him. He did not draw rein until he had gone half a mile along the Manister road. After a brief spell he again spurred the animal, seeking escape from his thoughts in violent movement. Both the horse and himself were perspiring heavily when they reached the police barracks at Manister.

  He inspected the garrison hurriedly, in order to give his journey the appearance of a routine visit. Then he rode on to Manister House. He now let the tired horse walk slowly up the rising ground. He sat with his head drooping, in a melancholy stupor, rolling from side to side in the saddle.

  Six weeks had passed since he was last in the demesne. The trees on either side of the smooth drive were now in full leaf. They made a closed arch with their branches over the road.

  Everything was very different from that other day. Now there was no feeling of exaltation in the air. The earth no longer gave forth a disturbing scent. The sky had remained overcast after the rain. It looked sinister. A sharp wind came whispering down from the hills.

  Chapter IX

  Barbara stood by a bay window that gave on to the lawn. With her head turned a little to one side, she listened in passionate absorption to a song that came from the direction of the stables. She was dressed in black. She did not turn round at once when the butler announced Fenton’s entrance.

  Agitated by the sensual effect that her presence always had on him, Fenton almost tripped over the carpet several times as he marched down the drawing-room.

  “Did Stapleton tell you that Neville is away?” Barbara said in a very casual tone as he approached.

  “I already knew,” Fenton said as he bowed over her hand.

  “Oh!” Barbara said, turning her eyes once more in the direction of the stables.

  “Captain Butcher called on me last night,” Fenton said.

  “Do sit down,” Barbara said without looking at him.

  Sobered by the sharp gallop from Clash, the District Inspector now felt acutely sorry that he had come.

  “What on earth led me to suppose that she would be sympathetic?” he asked himself. “I know she despises me.”

  In fact, Barbara did not seem inclined to pay any further attention to her guest after her first few bored remarks. She continued listening to the song in unconcealed rapture. The silence became so painful for Fenton that he finally asked her the identity of the singer, simply in order to make conversation. Barbara responded at once.

  “It’s Andrew Fitzgerald, the new groom,” she said, taking a chair opposite Fenton and smiling radiantly. “His voice has a rare quality. Don’t you think so?”

  Fenton pretended to listen to the song for a few moments with attention. It was a Gaelic love-song, rendered with passion in a tenor voice. He felt that it lacked any of the rare quality that Barbara professed
to find in it.

  “He’s very good,” he said politely. “Fitzgerald, did you say?”

  “He came last week to take Murphy’s place,” Barbara said. “Poor Murphy got frightened during the attack on my husband. He has run away. It seems that one of the bullets grazed his neck and he couldn’t sleep as a result. Then last week he saw Michael O’Dwyer, whom everybody says is the culprit, down at the pier. That was too much for him. He bolted that night.”

  The butler came into the room with wine and whisky on a tray, just as the groom reached the climax of his song. As he took some whisky, Fenton noted with displeasure that Barbara made no attempt to conceal from the butler her passionate absorption in the groom’s wild cry of love.