Land

by Liam O'Flaherty

  “Could be that, sir,” Hopkins said.

  At that moment, Tim Ahearn came running along the square from the direction of Manister Lodge. He ran so fast that he had reached the courthouse before the carriage came to a halt. He took up position to the left of the door, holding his hat high up against his left breast. Those present stared at him in surprise, since that was the position usually occupied by petitioners. His neat appearance also astonished them. He was wearing a good black suit, that had obviously been given to him by his master. It was of foreign cut and the coat reached half way down his thighs. He was clean-shaven and his whole face had been scrubbed so hard that it shone. His hair was heavily greased and carefully parted at the side.

  He took a pace forward and made an awkward bow as Neville advanced to the courthouse door.

  “Begging your honour’s pardon,” he said.

  Neville looked at the fellow with suspicion. Usually there would be a dozen or more people standing here in a row to solicit favours. They would beg for a new roof to a barn, for seed potatoes, for a remittance of rent, or for the services of his prize bull. He was always generous to these petitioners. Having risen from a humble origin to a position of authority, it gave him intense pleasure to play the part of a feudal lord in public.

  He knew very well, however, that Raoul’s servant had not come with the object of giving him either honour or pleasure.

  “What do you want?” he cried angrily. “State your business and look sharp.”

  Ahearn pulled a large white envelope from the inside breast pocket of his jacket, offered it to Neville and said:

  “With the compliments of Mr. Raoul Henry St. George and may God spare your honour’s health.”

  He thrust the envelope into Neville’s hand and walked away hurriedly. After he had gone about five yards, he put on his hat, spat on his palms, hunched his shoulders and ran as fast as his powerful thighs could carry him.

  “Where’s everybody to-day?” Neville said as he tore open the envelope.

  Sergeant Geraghty took a pace forward and glanced at Fenton, as if asking for permission to speak. Then he addressed Neville in a low and furtive tone.

  “There is dirty work afoot, sir,” he said. “All the people that were summoned to appear before you have been kidnapped during the night.”

  Neville had not heard a word of what the sergeant said. On opening the envelope, he discovered the documents relating to the guilt of Michael Bodkin. He lost colour and glanced at Fenton. The District Inspector had seen what was in the envelope. He was smiling faintly, as if politely enjoying the joke played on Neville by Raoul. Neville turned quickly to the sergeant.

  “What did you say, Geraghty?” he said. “I asked you what has happened to all the people that are usually here.”

  “You did, sir,” Geraghty said, “and I …”

  “Allow me to explain,” Fenton intervened. “It seems that those summoned to appear in court have been purloined during the night.”

  “Purloined?” said Neville.

  “Looks like rebellion, Captain Butcher,” said one of the solicitors from Clash.

  “They were taken out of their beds by masked men,” Sergeant Geraghty said.

  Daggett, the process-server, an old soldier with a blotched red face, came smartly to attention and said to Neville:

  “I served nine men and four women with a summons to appear. Every summons was properly served, sir, according to regulations.”

  “All we know, sir,” Sergeant Geraghty added, “is about the four that live in the village here and two others a little way out on the east road. There is no sign of any of them. My men are out now in the country, investigating the others.”

  “Have you questioned the relatives of those taken?” said Neville.

  “They won’t say a word,” Geraghty said.

  “In my opinion, Captain Butcher,” said another of the solicitors, “this is a Fenian conspiracy.”

  “Could I have a word with you in private?” Fenton said to Neville.

  Neville glanced with hatred at the smiling face of the District Inspector. Then the two men walked up the flagged path leading to the little courthouse. It was a shabby, one-storied building, with grey mortar showing through the yellow paint on its front wall. Stephens, the petty sessions clerk, came forward with a troubled look on his face as they entered.

  “Get outside,” Neville said.

  The clerk bowed and shuffled out of the court-room, closing the door after him softly.

  “What the devil are you grinning at?” Neville said to Fenton when they were alone. “Last time I saw you, it was quite a different story.”

  Fenton now smiled broadly. There was a strange glitter in his eyes and he stood with his head thrown very far back.

  “That was a long time ago,” he said.

  “Have you gone completely insane?” said Neville. “I saw you only four days ago. Have you forgotten already?”

  “It was a very long time ago,” Fenton said. “Now it’s your turn.”

  “My turn?” said Neville.

  “As far as I’m concerned,” Fenton said, “there have been important developments that have materially changed the situation in my favour.”

  “What developments do you mean?” cried Neville angrily. “These kidnappings?”

  “Just a moment,” said Fenton. “I want to say a few words, first of all, about to-morrow’s evictions. Pardon me. It’s not the evictions to which I object, but the garden party that precedes them.”

  Neville was now staring at the District Inspector in horror, as if he really had become convinced of the man’s insanity.

  “It’s a frightful mistake,” Fenton continued, “a gross blunder, together with being in bad taste. It really is overstepping the mark, to invite the police to a garden party, to give them cakes and ale, prior to throwing unfortunate wretches out of their hovels. You may think that sort of bad manners is going to be mistaken for firmness by the Irish and that it will cow them. Lord Mongoole may think so, too. If you do, I assure you that you are both wrong. Well! There it is. I’ve had my say, just for the fun of the thing.”

  He leaned back on his heels and laughed outright.

  “Furthermore,” he added, looking slyly at Neville, “I know what was in that envelope. St. George has a sense of humour. I must get to know the fellow.”

  Neville suddenly moved up close to the District Inspector’s face and sniffed several times.

  “I should have known,” he said in disgust. “You’re dead drunk.”

  Fenton’s face became sombre. His eyes were now a trifle bloodshot. He began to sway backwards and forwards slowly.

  “I used to be afraid of you, Butcher,” he said. “Not any more, though. Not since this morning. It’s odd that such a trifling development should make so much of a difference. Yet it definitely has done so.”

  “What are you talking about?” Neville said, now becoming very nervous. “Speak up before I lose patience with you.”

  “The Bodkin incident is closed since nine o’clock this morning,” Fenton said in a casual tone.

  “Closed?” said Neville. “How?”

  “Not at all the way you wanted it to close,” Fenton said. “He was found hanging from a hook in the ceiling of his tavern room at thirteen minutes past nine this morning. He appears to have stood on the table, removed the lamp, put a cord through the lamp ring, fixed the noose around his neck and jumped. Dr. Waldron examined the remains and said that he died at …”

  “He’s dead?” Neville interrupted.

  “Quite dead,” Fenton said. “You see, it makes a difference, as far as I’m concerned. Do you understand?”

  Neville nodded several times. Then he suddenly grasped Fenton by the tunic with both hands.

  “Blast your rotten soul to hell,” he cried as he shook the District Inspector. “You’re dead drunk when I need you most.”

  Then he looked into Fenton’s eyes and added in a pathetic tone, as he let go the tu
nic:

  “For God’s sake, pull yourself together. Do you hear?”

  Fenton swayed backwards on being released, almost losing his balance. He righted himself with difficulty, smiled faintly and then bowed.

  “I grant you that I’m drunk,” he said in a most friendly tone. “I’ve been drinking without interruption all morning. I’m as drunk as a lord.”

  Chapter XXII

  The tent was oblong in shape. Five centre poles were required to sustain its spread of canvas. The skirts were raised, showing the taut peg ropes criss-crossed outside like the mooring threads of a spider’s web. The cropped grass on the floor looked black, except where the sunlight entered below the skirts and made a clear-edged margin of green brightness. Up above, near the apex of the roof, there was a patch of canvas that seemed about to come apart. It was the full power of the noonday-sun, coming through a gap in the tall trees of the demesne, that made the rugged cloth transparent at that place.

  A long narrow table, set on high trestles, was laden with great quantities of meat and drink. Five men of Lord Mongoole’s household staff distributed these victuals among more than two hundred guests. Three of the servants carried trays of beef and ham sandwiches. The other two carried buckets of ale. One hundred and fifty men of the Royal Irish Constabulary, the majority of them brought from other districts for the evictions, stood facing the table in orderly groups, They ate and drank with the sombre dignity of their profession. Their splendid physique and wholesome faces were in marked contrast with a group of civilians that stood to the rear. These latter men were convicts and town bullies, mainly recruited in the capital and carried around the country at Government expense to perform the more repulsive tasks connected with evictions. The people gave them the nickname of “the crowbar brigade,” because the demolition of cabins was part of their duty. Their ghoulish faces were heavily scarred.

  By the open doorway, where the carbines were stacked under guard, four officers stood chatting in subdued whispers. They were rosycheeked young Englishmen, very smart and gay in their dress uniforms. All four of them had been sent down quite recently from the training depot in Dublin, to serve with flying columns of this sort on special missions. They came to attention as Fenton strode into the tent.

  “Seen my Head Constable?” Fenton enquired of them.

  One of them pointed towards the far end of the refreshment table and said:

  “There he is. The lucky dog is cheerfully wetting his rather large whistle with a quart of good ale.”

  Fenton beckoned to one of the men guarding the carbines.

  “Send Head Constable Reilly here at once,” he said after the man had approached.

  The constable saluted and then trotted smartly down the tent, one hand on the empty scabbard of his side-arm.

  “Awfully decent of Mongoole to give a party of this sort for the men,” said another of the young deputy inspectors to Fenton. “Makes them feel that their work is appreciated. That sort of thing helps discipline.”

  Fenton’s troubled eyes narrowed as he looked at the young man who had spoken.

  “That’s all rot,” he said bitterly.

  The young man looked puzzled and embarrassed.

  “Oh!” he said in confusion. “I merely thought that …”

  “Good idea not to think when you’re on this sort of work,” Fenton interrupted.

  “I see,” said the young man, now blushing deeply.

  Head Constable Reilly, a thin man of great height with moustaches that reached out at least three inches on either side of his mouth in a perfectly straight line, came to a halt two paces from his superior. There he stood rigid as a post. His blue eyes were as keen and ruthless as those of a hawk.

  “Yes, sir?” he said.

  The four young officers looked at one another sheepishly as Fenton moved away to converse in private with the Head Constable. They had been put ill at ease by the boorish remarks of the District Inspector.

  “Look here, Reilly,” Fenton said in a low tone, “I want you to see that the men don’t drink too much. We’re going to have plenty of trouble to-day.”

  “Looks like it, sir, by all reports,” Reilly said.

  “Wouldn’t do to have the fellows in any way groggy,” Fenton said, “under the circumstances.”

  “You may rely on me, sir,” Reilly said.

  Then he inclined his head slightly towards the group of civilian rowdies, as he added in a somewhat contemptuous undertone:

  “What about our friends beyond there? They are lowering the stuff by the gallon. I have no authority to stop them.” Fenton’s face darkened.

  “Let those swine drink until they burst, if they feel that way inclined,” he cried in a tone of most unseemly passion.

  Reilly’s sharp blue eyes looked astonished. He had been twenty-seven years in the armed forces, partly as an infantry man in the army. This was not the first time he had seen a man’s nervous system reach the breaking point under heavy pressure. He cleared his throat loudly, took a short step to his rear, clicked his heels and saluted.

  “Very good, sir,” he said.

  Fenton returned the salute and strode out of the tent, followed by the four deputy inspectors. The five men fell into line and marched across the close-cropped level sward, beneath tall trees, with long, rhythmic strides. Their lean, disciplined bodies moved in perfect unison. The metal of their helmets kept flashing in the sunlight. Out here in the open their uniforms looked black against the emerald grass and the grey bulk of Killuragh Castle that rose majestically in front.

  “When you fellows have been a little longer in this country,” Fenton said bitterly, after they had marched about twenty paces from the tent, “you will realise that it’s useless making gestures of this sort towards the Irish.”

  “But I wasn’t referring to the Irish,” said the officer who had spoken about the party. “I was referring to our fellows.”

  “They’re Irish, too,” Fenton said. “They hate us, even though we have put them in uniform and made them swear allegiance to Her Majesty. They obey us as long as we pay them, but they hate us just the same.”

  He suddenly tugged at the collar of his uniform and added in a tone that was almost hysterical:

  “I tell you they all hate us. All of them.”

  The four men glanced at him in the way the Head Constable had done. They were shocked by what they saw. They looked to their front again hurriedly, just as if they had inadvertently come upon something obscene. In their world, there was no provision made for the existence of personal tragedy.

  Killuragh Castle was a building of great size, standing above a range of steep cliffs that overlooked the sea and the town of Clash. To the rear lay a broad, fertile plateau, bound by mountains to the east. It was not a house of beautiful design, like the Norman fortress that had preceded it on this site for many centuries, during the reign of the St. George family. In the course of one hundred years, however, the crude lines of the new castle had become endowed with romantic charm by the rains and the fierce blows of the Atlantic storms. Its walls were now half covered with ivy.

  Having walked round the house, the officers entered an Italian garden through a small bronze gate that was set in a highly ornamented wall.

  “I say!” cried one of the deputy inspectors. “What a marvellous place! Must have cost a barrel of money.”

  “Exactly as my father described it,” said another with boyish excitement as he looked about him. “He visited Killuragh several times, when he was in Ireland with the Lancers.”

  The host and hostess received their guests beside a large pool, built of exquisite Connemara marble and filled with crystal-clear mountain water. They stood halfway up a row of steps that led to a band-stand.

  “Come and see us any hour, day or night,” Lord Mongoole said vaguely to each of the five men.

  The fourth earl of that name was an insignificant little man of thirty-seven, with sad eyes, a sallow face, a bald crown and an exceptionally long n
ose. He had the harried look of a man that is in debt up to his ears. Of all the vast fortune that his great-grandfather had brought back as loot from India there was scarcely a sovereign left in ready cash. That was why he was now compelled to evict three villages of peasants, in order to get a few thousand guineas from Captain Butcher as down payment on a ninety-nine-year lease of their holdings. His wife was a lean woman of very ugly features, except for really beautiful grey eyes. She kept talking to another woman, in a high-pitched voice that was rather engaging, while she received the young men. She looked very smart in a black dress and a fine pearl necklace.

  Fenton drifted away from his companions on reaching a marquee where champagne and a buffet lunch were being served by a large number of liveried servants. He took a glass of wine and drank it all, hoping to get rid of the horrible depression that had lain heavy on him since awaking that morning. The wine merely intensified his unhappiness by reminding him of his love for Barbara. Ever since his unfortunate interview with her at Manister House, he had tried to put her out of his mind. He now gave free rein to his passion once more, feeling that all was lost and that further effort was senseless.

  “My love!” he whispered to himself in despair as he wandered about among the guests, hoping to catch sight of her. “My darling love!”

  More than one hundred people had already arrived. Others kept coming in a steady stream. Like all the great landowners of that period, the Mongooles spent only a few days each year on their Irish estate. They came to Killuragh about this time each summer, gave a party for the local gentry and then returned to England. It was like an annual memorial service for a feudal system that was moribund. The local members of the English “garrison” flocked to the castle for these receptions with the pathetic eagerness of provincials. They came dressed in finery that only saw the light on very exceptional occasions, for they were mostly people in somewhat modest circumstances. Here they were, moving about among the flowers and statues, or sitting under broad umbrellas at little tables, chattering like a flock of migratory birds that have settled to rest for a little while at some place alien to them. The perfumed dresses of the women, the bright uniforms of the Hussar and artillery officers of the district garrison, the elegant morning clothes of the landowners and officials gave an impression of aristocractic splendour against the background of the vast grey castle and its lovely garden.