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presented to

Xibrar?

of tbe

University of Toronto

From the library of the late
A.M. Stewart, Esq., K.C.
(University College, 1891)

A STORY-TELLER'S HOLIDAY

A STORY-TELLER'S
HOLIDAY

GEORGE MOORE

r ,
f

LONDON

PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY BY

Currunn <$e,dn-eoU|f MA /i-

1918

5O4

A LEAVE-TAKING

A LEAVE-TAKING this certainly is of a great many
readers, but I have faith in the good sense of all my
readers, for they are not a heterogeneous crowd, but a
family, and every one of the family knows how steadfast
the persecution of my writings has been since the publica-
tion, forty years ago, of a little volume of poems entitled
Flowers of Passion.

As I write I can hear a reader saying to himself as he
paces his room : it is not two years since somebody sub-
mitted to the Court at Bow Street that The Brook Kerith
should be interdicted but the magistrate refused to issue
a warrant ; and last November in the Law Courts the jury,
after having listened a whole day to a libel action, returned
a verdict of no libel and no damages. But the fact that
the magistrate refused to grant a warrant and the jury to
convict is not sufficient compensation for the proffered
insults, and our author has done well to retire into a
literary arcanum where he will be able to practise his
art in dignified privacy.

Another reader crosses his legs and meditates : George
Moore was never welcome in Grub Street for he wished to
write for men and women of letters, and this class is not
recognised by the libraries as readers of books ; strange
that it should be so, but it is so, for whilst there are books
for astronomers, for scientists, for doctors, for lawyers, for
golfers, for cricketers, for chess players, for yachtsmen,
and as for young girls in their teens, voluminous literature
awaits them every year, there are no books written for
men and women of letters exclusively. By private print-
ing our author has cut himself off from many readers, but
the alternative was for him to cease writing.

A STORY-TELLER'S
HOLIDAY

This edition consists of 1000 copies,
numbered and signed.

This is

^sMV* w<.>Wii>M - v*VV

.-V, -

A STORY-TELLER'S
HOLIDAY

CHAP. I.

THE Irish mail passes out of Euston Station with the
easy movement of a deep, smooth river, or of a reptile
gliding over soft grass, and the feeling of contentment and
well-being, almost of happiness, produced by the vague
rhythm of the train is augmented by the beauty of the
fields and their hedgerows unfolding mile after mile
under the languor of a June sunset. And all this while
the traveller perceives the elms showing fine design on
the fading day, rising out of the may with noble gesture,
almost like sculpture, he murmurs, as he yields himself to
admiration of the trees advancing and retiring, forming
into groups at the corners of the fields and collecting into
woods on the hill-sides. And no sooner have they collected
themselves into woods, he says, than they disperse to
gather themselves again into thickets, shaws and copses.
Going to Ireland, he continues, is like travelling through
a forest with clearings in it. The word forest, however,
does not satisfy him ; it is too evocative of wild and un-
couth nature such as we have not here, he adds. A chase,
perhaps, but even a chase conveys an idea of almost wild
landscape, and this one is deliberately wooded ; it is a
well-ordered domain through which the train carries us
like a smooth river. And the feeling of contentment
and well-being, almost of happiness, that began to take
possession of him soon after the train left London returns
A 1

now exalted by what remains of the sunset ; a faint flush
seen through grey clouds ; a bygone sunset, the traveller
remarks, taking pleasure in the words. We pursue the
sunset, he mutters to himself, and, amused by the thought
that himself and his fellow-travellers are raiders in pursuit
of the sunset's gold, he begins to dream a romantic fable,
and the paragraphs end so prettily in his dream that he
thinks he has written the story, and experiences on arriving
at Rugby some faint surprise when the newspaper boy
does not offer to sell him a book entitled Sunset's Gold,
with his name upon it — just published, sir.

The dreaming traveller is none other, O reader, than
thy friend George Moore, come to entertain thee once
more ; and having robbed the sunset's gold, reader, we
are now flying through the night, pursued by the Dawn,
who would recover the gold robbed of her sister. Thou'lt
forgive this attempt to entertain thee with a literary
sequel as false as such things usually are, and thou shalt
not be imposed upon. Between London and Rugby we did
seem like travellers in pursuit of the sunset, but when
the train rolled out of Rugby we became commonplace
travellers on our way to Dublin, myself ashamed of my
fable, at least of the second part of it, and glad to know
that nobody need ever hear anything about it, not even
my publisher.

The evening paper was opened, but it proved itself to be
so eventless that I was compelled into a deep scrutiny
of the man sitting opposite to me, but despite my study
of him, he has passed out of my mind I fear for ever.
All I can recall in present time is a tall man of rather
common appearance, who spoke with a brogue and

told me that he travelled for Again my memory

is at fault, I cannot remember if he was in the dry
goods or the whisky line, but am persuaded that our con-
versation began with : I hope, sir, we shall have a fine
crossing.

Of course, I answered, we shall have a fine crossing,
how can you doubt it? At which my fellow-traveller's
face became overcast, and after a pause he said : may I
ask, sir, why you're sure we shall have a fine crossing?
Because I am I, an alarm-provoking remark that I sought
to quieten later, saying that having crossed the Irish
Sea so many times without seeing anything like a
wave I had come to regard the Irish Sea as waveless.
Elsewhere there are waves, no doubt ; we read of waves
in the newspapers and in books, and my friends have
spoken to me about waves, but so far as my own experi-
ence goes waves do not exist. And after all, I added, one
must be guided by one's own experience rather than by
what one reads and hears ; isn't that so ?

My fellow-traveller looked at me inquiringly, and as if
dissatisfied with his examination of my face returned to
his newspaper. But soon after I began to notice that he
was watching me again over the rims of his spectacles,
and like one who is unable to conquer his curiosity he
said : I believe you when you say that the Irish Sea is
always calm when you cross it, and that you have crossed
it some hundreds of times, but will you tell me what
conclusion you draw from the uninterrupted good luck
which has attended you ? I answered that I submitted
the facts to him and that it was for him to draw con-
clusions, and he asked me if he would have my approval
if he concluded from the facts before him that the sea
did not wish to destroy me. On the contrary, I answered.
The sea is kind to those whom it has selected to destroy.
My life will end in the sea, but not necessarily in the
Irish Sea. It is a relief, however, in a way to know what
one's end will be. Have you never received tidings?

My fellow-traveller returned to his newspaper and it
was some time before he made another remark. You
believe then, sir, that life and death is determined at
birth and that none can escape his fate? Before I can

answer you I must ask if you're a Protestant or a Catholic.
But it doesn't matter which, in either case you believe
that not a sparrow falls to the ground without it is his
will. Isn't that so ? He answered that he believed God
to be all-knowing, and again returned to his paper. At
Crewe, however, he laid it aside and poked his head out
of the window. I think you're right, sir, we shall have
a fine crossing. Didn't I tell you, sir, that there are no
waves when I cross the Irish Channel ? You're unbelieving
and incredulous, yet you wear the credulous Catholic face.

As my fellow-traveller admitted himself to be a Catholic
it seemed to me pleasing to relate that Protestantism and
Catholicism were founded the same day at Antioch, and
till the Menai Bridge interrupted my narrative, I made
plain the differences that existed between Peter and Paul.
But as no trace of the objections he raised to my theology
between the Menai Tunnel and Holyhead is discover-
able, however diligently I search my memory, I presume
that we wearied a little of each other during the journey
across Anglesea : or else we became so absorbed by the
beauty of the twilight that we forgot Peter and Paul, as
excellent a thing to do as it is to remember them, for had
it not been for Peter and Paul I might not have been able
to abandon myself wholeheartedly to the beauty of the
almost transparent veil that falls across the sky in June,
dividing night from day by not more than two or three
hours, and to the almost equal beauty of the twilit sea.

In another hour the first gulls will be flying round us,
I said to myself, and sat with my eyes fixed on the east
till I beheld bars of silver and a great phantom ship
looming through the dusk. The night, I said, has
begun to evaporate like a pale curl of blue smoke; it
was not much more, I added, and dropped into dreams
of the romance of sails rising, yard after yard, the top-
gallant yard melting into clouds and the sails drawing
the great ship charged with many destinies away, whither ?

Perhaps to end by the firing of a German torpedo. At
these words I felt for the tube whereby my life-belt
was inflated, saying, and saying well : if we be torpedoed
I have as good a chance to be saved as another, for as
soon as the torpedo crashes into us I shall blow out the
life-belt and shall be picked up in not less than an hour
or two of immersion in the cool sea, somewhat exhausted
but alive.

CHAP. II,

IT must have been soon after this pleasing thought
that the gentleman in the dry goods or the whisky line
who had travelled with me from Rugby took the seat
beside me, and began : well, sir, as is usual the sea is
waveless, and I answered him that if he wished it to be
waveless when he returned he had better return with me.
The suggestion seemed to appeal to him, but from a
certain embarrassment in his manner I judged that he
was minded to put a question.

Have you ever been for a long sea voyage ? he asked,
and I answered him that I had never been across the
Atlantic, but that I had been six days out to sea from
Marseilles to Port Said. And never seen a wave ? he
inquired. At most a slight swell, a wave implies a white
crest, I replied, and seeing that he was not averse from hear-
ing an account of my voyage I began to tell a dream that
has murmured in me ever since my father took me on his
knee to tell me his travels. As far back as I can remember,
I said, the Mediterranean has appeared always in my
imagination as the bluest of seas and as the birthplace
of all beautiful legends and stories. The bluest and
beautifullest of seas, I said, hoping to cow my fellow-
traveller with alliteration. But he was eager for some
information regarding Marseilles, and I told him briefly

of the strange white shore that we sailed past, chalk cliff
or salt, ghostly shores, I said, on which nothing grows.
A rabbit could not pick up a living, I interjected. But
weren't you curious to know if it was a promontory or an
island that you sailed past? I had no mind for geo-
graphical details, I was thinking of Sicily, for it was in
Sicily that rugged Polyphemus peering over some cliffs
discerned Galatea in the foam, and it was on the Plain of
Enna that Proserpine was raped while gathering flowers
with her maidens ; but none of my fellow-travellers could
be persuaded to listen to these stories, and I swore that
when I descended to the dusky halls where she sat
beside Pluto I should not forget to bring her a bunch of
asphodels to remind her of this world's beauty, almost
forgotten by her. None, I continued, had a thought for
these beautiful legends ; they were interested to see a
vulgar volcano eruptive on the horizon. I begged of
them to remember that we should soon be passing the
very place where Jupiter disguised in the form of a bull
carried away Europa for his pleasure and for hers. But
you, sir, are perhaps as indifferent to these stories as
they, yet the garlanded bull, stemming the waves, Europa
keeping her seat on one shoulder by the help of a horn,
the sea nymphs singing hymns and throwing their tresses
for joy in the air while Tritons blew conch shells, was a
finer sight than a volcano. But, said my companion, you
don't believe in these legends ? Nobody knows what
he believes, I replied, and nothing is certain but our
attachment to the legends that represent our ideas and
help us to live. Moreover do not all mythologies rely
upon the union of divinity with the mortal ; and does not
Deity in all the mythologies take the form of s»me beast
or bird ? In one story the Deity is a bull, in another an
eagle, in a third a dove, two women at least were trodden
by birds. I looked into my companion's eyes and waited
for an outburst. But he sat unmoved. Have I said

anything that seems unreasonable to you ? I asked. I'm
thinking, he rejoined, that you'll not find many in Ireland
that will appreciate the stories you've been telling me.
You're not going there preaching, are you ? for if you are
be advised by me and turn back. No, I answered, I'm
not going to preach anything. Then you're going to
Ireland to see the ruins ? And I answered that I always
took an interest in ruins wherever I might find them and
that it was for its ruins that we all loved Ireland. And
this remark led us straight into the Ulster question.

Without Ulster, my companion said, there can be no
Home Rule, and I asked him if he could tell me why the
Catholics were so anxious to get Ulster, and if he could
explain how Ireland could be free if Ulster was to be
coerced. My fellow-traveller stiffly repudiated any desire
on the part of the Nationalist Party for help to coerce
Ulster, and begged me to believe that the National Party
only desired Ulster because Home Rule would be
impossible without Ulster. Neither coercion nor cajolery,
he cried ; let them come in like men and help us to build
a new Ireland. We became strenuous, and continued
strenuous till I began to perceive we were missing the
sunrise. The dawn is breaking, I said ; tell me if you
think there are tones as beautiful as those flower-like
blues on any painter's palette, or a rose as pure as
those little puffy clouds like Cupids. I agree with you,
he replied ; but without Ulster there can be no Home
Rule ; we must have a business head.

Let us not talk of Home Rule, but admire the morning
sun. And now a word of advice : if Roman Catholics
could think more of the sunrise and less about Ulster there
might be a sunrise in Ireland. Look, I said, how the sun
flashes above the horizon. You don't believe then, he
asked, that through a rising tide of discontent Mr Asquith
will bring about a settlement ? You'll have to define the
word settlement before I can answer you, I said. Nothing

is ever settled in this world. Everything is becoming.
We can have no knowledge of anything, for nothing in
this world is permanent, unless talk. In Ireland talk is

permanent and yet But I have no wish to criticise,

I withdraw that last remark. And you'll do well to
withdraw the remark you made about Mr Asquith who
visited a hospital and addressing himself to a wounded
Sinn Feiner said : what do you think now of the re-
bellion ? The wounded boy's answer was : well, I think
it was a grand success. And why do you think that ?
was the unabashed Minister's next question. Well, sir,
because you're here. You must admit that the Irish
have not lost their wit? But are you sure that the
boy's answer did not come out of an innocent heart?
I inquired, and my fellow-traveller no doubt gave an
answer, but it must have been a flat one else I should
have remembered it, and bidding my fellow-traveller
good-bye I said to myself: I'll consult the jarvey that
drives me from the station.

What will content you ? I asked.

Sure we don't want to be contented, he replied, and
it seemed to me that he had, unwittingly, expressed a
human feeling.

CHAP. III.

A FEW hours later the young doctor who supplies Dublin
with jokes entertained me on the steps of the Shelbourne
Inn with his views, telling me that it was the rebellion in
Dublin that had given the English army a chance of
redeeming its credit. In every other encounter it has
come off second-best, he said, but in Dublin it can claim
a victory, a plausible set-off for the defeat of Kut. He,
too, represents another phase of the Irish mind, the one
that sees a joke or an epigram in all circumstances,

thereby contriving to survive an habitual discontent. But
are there no ruins in Stephen's Green ? I asked, and he
told me the finest were to be seen in Sackville Street,
adding, that the oven changes many an ugly carcass into
a sweet-smelling roast. The oven improves us all —
houses as well as men and beasts, fishes and birds, and
potatoes are better baked than boiled. Good-bye till
dinner-time. And after dinner? I said, I will go to
see the ruins; they will be looking their best after
sunset, I interjected, catching something of my host's
flippancy.

But dinner was prolonged with conversation until the
moon rose, and then, remembering a phrase of Balzac's,
" In the moonlight the Place de la Bourse is a dream of
old Greece," I said to myself: ruins are best by moon-
light. But my host continued to talk on many subjects
till long after midnight, and the moon was waning and
The Irish Times was printing when I reached the Liffey
and saw the great skeleton fa9ades lifting themselves up
in the night.

Many of the buildings, the Imperial Hotel and the
Post Office, appeared at first sight uninjured, but at
second sight it was plain that they were but empty shells.
I shall have, I said, to wait for the sunrise to see these
ruins. At present they are but phantoms, a city that
has passed away — shapeless mounds that might be of
Babylon. I shall have to wait for another hour for some
traces of Dublin to appear, ruined portico or broken
column, which ? But martial law still prevails, I con-
tinued, and arrest, though it lasts but a minute, is un-
pleasant. I will adjourn to the office of The Irish Times
and write paragraphs till dawn ; and though rubble heaps
afford but slight pasture for the picturesque pen, it may
be that I shall discover something. Nature is so various
that I cannot fail to find something unexpected and
significant if I search long enough. Even if the space in

to-morrow's paper be filled he might like an article — on
what ? I asked myself. And in the hope that a subject
would come into my mind while talking I went upstairs
unabashed (the editors of Irish papers receive visitors
while waiting for proofs), and it was not till one o'clock
that I began to notice that the editor began to weary of
conversation. My proofs are late to-night, he said, but
they cannot be long delayed ; and the finest ruins are be-
yond Rutland Square. You might walk round that way ;
and his last advice to me was to look out for a building
that had been shelled near Amiens Street Station.

Ten minutes' walk took me there. But how am I to
describe picturesquely a wall twenty feet high by forty
feet long with a hole in it ? I asked myself, and returned
to Henry Street wondering what the descriptive reporters
attached to the newspapers had written about the ruins.
They can describe anything, even a boat race, I said;
it's their business. And it was while thinking about
their art and Marius among the ruins of Carthage that
I escaped as by a miracle from falling into a cellar
in which I should certainly have died, discovered by my
stench at the end of a week, and whoever found me
would go back to the office of the Times with excellent
copy. A lugubrious story truly of a reporter who died
in a cellar in Henry Street, and one that soon changed
to a story of a reporter who committed suicide amid
the, ruins because he could not describe them. Not
being able to produce copy he became copy, I said,
and I'm minded to follow his example, for have I not
promised to write an article and up to the present have
discovered only a strip of wall-paper hanging from a ruined
wall which I could have seen in London any day : pathetic,
no doubt, but poor pasturage for the picturesque pen.
All the same, the mantelpiece up above is a fine specimen ;
and with much literary sympathy I fell to examining a
broken mantelpiece over which hung an overmantel, its

mirror still intact and a piece of ornamental crockery
and a little French clock still upon its shelves. Here
is my symbol, I said, somewhat commonplace, but the
best I shall find. A pleasant home, no doubt it once was,
and in my imagination I saw a family collected round the
fender after the evening meal, mother reading a tale
from a popular magazine to the children, the cat purring
upon her knees. A somewhat commonplace subject for
an article, I said, but one that will please the readers
of The Irish Times. A plaintive " Miaw " reached me,
and a beautiful black Persian cat appeared by the fire-
place. A cat is almost articulate, and Tom asked me
to explain to him the meaning of all this ruin. He has
found his old fireplace, I said, and tried to entice him ;
but, though pleased to see me, he would not be persuaded
to leave what remained of the hearth on which he had
spent so many pleasant hours, and pondering on his faith-
fulness and his beauty I continued my search among the
ruins, meeting cats everywhere, all seeking their lost
homes among the ashes and all unable to comprehend
the misfortune that had befallen them. It is true that
the cats suffer vaguely, but suffering is not less because
it is vague, and it seemed to me that in the early ages
of the world, shall we say twenty thousand years before
Pompeii and Herculaneum,men groped and suffered blindly
amid incomprehensible earthquakes seeking their lost
homes, just like the cats in Henry Street. We are part
and parcel of the same original substance, I said, and
then my thoughts breaking off suddenly, I began to
rejoice in Nature's unexpectedness and fecundity. She
is never commonplace in her stories, we have only to go
to her to be original, I muttered, as I returned through
the silent streets. I could have imagined everything else,
the wall-paper, the overmantel, and the French clock,
but not the cats seeking for their lost hearths, nor is
it likely that Turgenieff could, Balzac still less.

CHAP. IV.

A WEEK goes by easily amid renewals of friendship, and
verifications of the people of "Hail and Farewell," one
after the other — a roll-call in fact, all answering their
names except Bailey and Yeats ; Bailey died a few months
ago of a gun-shot wound, and already Dublin society has
forgotten him. His gift was atmosphere. He brought
an atmosphere of happiness into the room; a precious
gift truly for the conduct of life, but one so easily ap-
preciated that it is forgotten as easily as the passage of a
pleasant breeze coming and going in and out of a garden.
Yeats now lives, or is going to live, in a ruined castle in
Galway, for the sake of the spectres — such is the report,
which, however untrue, is an acceptable explanation of his
strange choice of dwelling — himself having become a myth
from too long brooding on myths, and myths being, if not
spectres, at least of the same kin. Another report avers
that his retirement may be attributed to his belief that
the poet should apply himself as soon as his poetry is
written to the weaving of a "Poetic Personality." And
at once the ruined castle rises before our eyes, for has it
not been said that a poet must live in a cabin or a castle,
these two dwellings representing the poles of humanity ?
Yeats' belief in his relationship to the Duke of Ormond
precludes the cabin, and piecing the two reports, or shall
we say the two myths, together, we seem to be justified in
imagining him in the vaulted hall of the castle of Ballylee
— weaving the myths that will preserve his works when all
life has departed from them, passing the shuttle to and
fro, weaving industriously, Lady Gregory standing by him,
distaff in hand.

And these twain visionaries recall my old friend, the
Comte Villiers de L'Isle Adam, for Villiers believed himself
to be the heir to the great name, and the conviction strikes

root immediately that he would have welcomed Yeats as
a dream for himself or as a subject of a story for others,
summarising our poet in some melancholy and ornate
phrase spoken by Yeats as he rises from the loom of poetic
personality one sultry summer afternoon before going
down to Coole. Though my heart be empty of all else,
he would say, his eyes wandering over the escutcheoned
walls (escutcheoned in his imagination), though my heart
be empty of all else, I bear in it at least the sterile glory
of many forgotten dukes.

CHAP. V.

YOU are going by the Limited Mail, sir? the porter
asked overnight, and I answered that I hoped there would
be in me the needful strength of will to turn out of bed
before six ; but it was doubtful. No fear of that, sir, the
porter replied ; I'll get you up, and if you leave here at
twenty minutes to seven you'll be in time. But it will be
as well to order the car for half-past six; these carmen
are always late and the horses on the night shift are a
sorry lot, hardly able to pull the cars behind them.

There'll be neither breakfast nor bath, I murmured,
and went to my room dreading the mental struggle that
would befall me in the morning.

Nor was it a less tough one than I had imagined it, and
had not the porter stood over my bed I should have slept
for hours. My father was the same before me, one to
whom an early rise was intolerable, only to see a horse
gallop could he manage it.

At last I threw my legs out of bed and began to seek
my clothes. The worst moment is over, I said, and at
seven minutes past the half-hour a car arrived drawn by a
horse that only a goat-herd could distinguish from a goat ;
and seeing that his horse, for it was one, did not inspire

belief in his power to reach the station in time, the driver
began to condone his appearance, saying it was the worst
part of him, and amid many assurances we drove away,
leaving the last glimpse of the flowering green behind us
when we turned into Grafton Street, a desert as all streets
are at seven in the morning. But the emptiness of Grafton
Street surprises us more than the emptiness of any other
street, so accustomed are we to see it filled with thronging
passengers. Its faint descent tried the power of the horse
to keep back the car, and so feeble were his totterings
that I began to fear we should miss the train, but forgot
my fears as soon as we emerged from its narrowness, for
the beauty of the day appeared in a delightful blueness
overhead and in shadows falling westward from the
pillared porticoes of the noble bank. How delightful it
will be in Kildare, I said to myself, if we catch the train,
and to the jarvey, that no more than a dozen minutes
remained before the train started.

We'll be there in time, he said, and I contemplated
once more the destruction of many a back-yard. A more
than usually foolish revolution, I muttered ; truly Catholic,
I added, and was about to beg the jarvey not to whip his
horse so cruelly, but before the words could be spoken
the thought crossed my mind that if he did not urge his
heavily laden horse up the hill-side I should be confronted
to-morrow with the necessity of rising at six. It behoves
him to suffer, I said. We suffer differently, but we all
suffer. It is my suffering to witness his ; he will forget
but I shall remember ; and as soon as we arrived at the
station I applied myself to the elucidation of many
irrelevant matters connected with my journey westward,
and helped by the almost impenetrable dullness of the
railway porter succeeded in ridding myself of all memory
of the scarecrow horse. But no sooner had I comfortably
settled myself in a seat than his pitifulness reappeared,
and remained with me till the train had rolled some little

distance into the country, and it might have remained
with me all the way to Mullingar if a sudden memory
of the beautiful flowering country we should soon be
passing through had not blotted out his unwelcome
image. After all, I said, we arrived, and by getting me to
the station he achieved his destiny ; and with the same
industry that he applied himself to his, let me apply
myself to mine, which is clearly to recall the city as it
was all last week engarlanded with chestnut, laburnum
and lilac bloom ; yes, and with hawthorn trees leaning
over every railing. White, pink and rose hawthorn, one
as beautiful as the other, I continued, and fell to thinking
how last year travelling through the same country it had
pleased me to imagine myself in the part of Paris ! with
this difference, that my trouble was not to discriminate
between three beautiful women, but three beautiful trees
— a more difficult task than the one accomplished on
Mount Ida. . . . The white may be the beautifullest, but
which smells the sweeter, the pink or the rose ? I asked
myself. And mile after mile of hawthorn bloom passed
by unobserved, the reality blotted out by the potent re-
membrance of the hawthorns that had bloomed ten years
ago in my garden in Ely Place. The blooms in memory
are always sweeter than the blooms on the bough, I said ;
and on awaking fully from my meditation, I saw.

A country passing by me and in such incomparable
bloom that it seemed like madness. The madness of
May, I said, for the 6th of June is as much May as June,
and on this remark or aphorism, whichever it may be, my
thoughts fled away like the cuckoo at the end of June.
Whither they went I know not, nor do I know whither
the cuckoo goes or the salmon, only that bird and fish
return, and that our thoughts return too, sometimes bear-
ing in their beaks new thoughts, if thoughts have beaks,
and who will say they have not, and sharp claws.

And presently my thought of May returned, bearing

in its beak a memory of Rossetti : one from the Blessed
Damozel, the lady who leaned out of heaven with three
lilies lying asleep along her bended arm — a gift for the
Virgin. A better gift for the Virgin would have been a
wreath of hawthorn, one that would have reminded her
more intimately of the beauty of earth than the lilies.
An oversight on the part of Rossetti. . . . But, no, there
are no hawthorns in ruined Galilee, and as likely as
not that is why everybody was so discontented with his
life in Galilee and failed to understand that our life is
beautiful because it is transitory, and that the joys of
heaven would weary us before we had been listening to
sonatas for ten thousand years. But if there had
been hawthorn in Galilee all might have been different,
March in Galilee is May in England and had there been
hawthorn in Galilee I should have noticed it at once.

And then, a little cross with myself for thinking of
Galilee, a country that is responsible for more wasted
time than any other, I said : the white, no doubt, is more
beautiful than the pink, and yet the pink tree that has
just fled past is extraordinarily beautiful. I remember
it from last year, and in my memory it exhales a more
subtle scent than perhaps the white. But am I sure that
this preference is not a prejudice sprung from the fact
that a large tree of pink grew in my garden when I lived
in Upper Ely Place ? And once again I fell to thinking of
the hawthorns that had bloomed for me ten years ago in
my garden. The blooms of yester year haunt us, I cried,
and awaking suddenly I saw a country passing, beautiful as
antiquity. And my thoughts turning to Thessaly I said :

Thessaly is too hot in June. Its nymphs and fauns, and
Silenus, should migrate here at the end of April and tempt
the druids of Maynooth out of their celibacy ; and then,
imagination taking the place of reason once again, I
began to believe that a nymph would reveal herself to me
if I were to keep my thoughts fixed on those dim sunny

fields passing by, and sure enough I very soon espied one
reclining in a drift of haze that curled and went out
along the edge of a pond.

Goddess or cloud, God knows which, I cried, and asked
myself if I should allow the occasion to pass without stop-
ing the train to inquire, for to let such an occasion pass
without inquiry, I meditated, would be folly surely. But,
alas, at the moment of starting to my feet to pull the cord
of communication I foresaw the guard's face and the faces
of many passengers agleam with various anger at the
only worthy reason ever given by a passenger for the
stopping of an express train — that he had been vouchsafed
a glimpse of a goddess in a garment of drifting haze. And
almost as distinctly as the altercation between me and
the guard, the scene in the police court appeared to me,
with myself in the dock pleading justification for my
action, saying, and saying well, if a man may not stop
the Limited Mail to see goddesses in drifting haze, for
what may he stop the train ? A belief in goddesses being
essential for the maintenance of the world. If that were
so the world would have ended long ago, his Worship raps
out. But your Worship saw a goddess in the haze. Never
saw such a thing in my life, his Worship answers. But I
thought that your Worship married beautiful Miss Lynch
from Partry. At which remark a cloud gathers in his
Worship's face, and he declares that I am wasting the
time of the Court, but not before I succeed in interject-
ing : your vision vanished like mine, and am I to under-
stand that because yours endured a little longer than
mine I am to be condemned to the cells while you go
scot free ?

Forty shillings or a month, the magistrate cries, inwardly
pleased but unable to escape from the toils of the law.

And in such characteristic Irish fashion the adventure
would have ended : forty shillings or a month ! But forty
shillings have often been wasted on things as unimportant

as the stopping of a train to see a goddess. My thought
melted into a dream of the subsequent assemblage of the
passengers, many of whom have been prone to search the
hedge-rows. Too late, too late, I cried ; my goddess is
now many hundred yards behind me . . . drunken up
perchance by the sun.

As if to console me, a poem arose out of my very legitimate
despondency, and in it Pan as he went down the Vale of
Maenalus singing pursues a maiden and discovers a flute
in one of the reeds into which he could pour his grief;
and then I fell to thinking of the name Maenalus, but
Maenalus is not a more beautiful name than Avoca ; Greece
lacks our incomparable haze — the only fitting garment
for a goddess if she be not wholly ungarmented. Ah !
if it were not for our incurable love of druids, Ireland
would be teeming with nymphs and dryads. The last
one was Etain, and we are told that the sweetness of
her legs pierced one of our elder poets to the heart, and
Mary whom we received in exchange has no legs, being
a virgin, or if she had any, nobody saw them, not even
her husband, so does a majority in this county aver,
whereas the majority in the county I have come from
says he did. An important question truly and one not
less difficult to decide than the hawthorn.

CHAP. VI.

I SUPPOSE the climate is answerable for the virginity
of our goddess, I said to myself, and the words might
have given rise to some pleasant fancies if my eyes had
not caught sight of a man in gaiters following a path
through a field in which a long herd stood up to their
knees in buttercups : one of our immemorial herdsmen,
I said, and some thought concerning him expressed in
Salve came upon me suddenly, and for a long time I sat

chewing the cud of it, that the Irish herdsman divined
the steak in the bullock's rump with the same intuitive
perception as the Greek did the statue in the marble.
A long passage followed, one of my best, the point of it
being that the Irish should be content with having pro-
duced the finest herdsmen in the world. And the witticism
was continued into the sauce, for though the Irish had
discovered the steak the sauce Bernaise was beyond the
genius of the race.

A truly admirable appreciation of one's own country
and countrymen, and after having enjoyed it I cannot do
else than lose myself in admiration of the man's measured
gait, and approve his project, which doubtless was to
change the pasture of his herds. And having chosen the
field in which his cattle are to graze, I said, he will
stand leaning over a gate till dinner-time, an unending
exemplar of Ireland. He was in the beginning and ever
shall be, world without end. A race, I continued, that
does not change ; and at that moment an indolent priest
was being driven swiftly along a pleasant road bending
round a hill-side, and I added : he, too, is an exemplar
of the Irish race as it always was and always will be,
world without end. And whither goes he? To a con-
vent to shrive some helpless nuns, or is he on his way
to Maynooth, where the meals are in accordance with
long ecclesiastical usage ; or to some rich farmer's house
chosen by him for stations ?

The priest to his nuns and I to my reveries in a train
that jolts and hurtles along at a fine rate by the side of
an old canal full of reeds and rushes. We passed a lock-
house seemingly in ruins. MacCan, I said, believed in
the revival of the waterways, but since his death the
canals have fallen into idleness, which is a pity, for the
life of the canal is in keeping with our unaccentuated
climate. But the ruin of the canal is not complete, I
cried ; for yonder comes a horse urged forward by a

sapling freshly torn from the hedge. In Ireland nothing
disappears, all is that ever was ; and pleased with the
raciness of my thoughts, my eyes return to the landscape.
England, I said, does not fade out of Ireland until we
reach Mullingar, and after leaving Mullingar behind us
we pass many spots almost undistinguishable from English
scenery, for wherever the land rises out of bog rich fields
begin and the trees emerge like vapours. Corot should
have painted an Ireland. But why should his name have
come into my mind, for I am weary of spinnage and vapour.
A lonely country, sir. The words startled me, and I
could only answer my fellow-traveller : yes, sir, a lonely
country. But gathering from his face that he seemed to
expect something more from me than a mere repetition
of the words he used, I roused into some sort of mental
activity. The cattle aren't lonely; they're always in
company like the monks and the nuns, I said, for in
Ireland the first thought in a railway carriage is — am I
travelling with a Protestant or a Catholic? His smile
told me he was a Protestant, and from his speech and
appearance I began to guess a landlord's agent, a man
between fifty and sixty, tall and lean, reminding me of
Don Quixote, and the Don's appearance is but the symbol
of the Don's credulous soul; whosoever has been given
the body has received the soul, or some part of it ; and
I was therefore grateful to hear before we reached
Mullingar that he, too, had projects for the advancement
of Ireland, all of which I had heard before, but which he
seemed to exalt a little in the telling. And giving my
ear to him I heard again the project for the establishment
of factories for the compression of peat, which when com-
pressed would yield as much heat as coal ; with compressed
fuel Ireland will become a great industrial nation, he said,
and I answered that Ireland is so winning among her ruins
that it would be a pity to reform her. She has rejected so
many reformations that it would be a pity if she now — I

was going to say if she put off her Catholic rags and
appeared in clean Pauline linen ; but a cloud seemed to
gather in my fellow-traveller's face, and instead of con-
tinuing my native protestantism, with a deft turn of words
I whisked the conversation back to economic difficulties
and professed sympathy with the building of piers, the
laying down of oyster beds and a tunnel under the sea
uniting Scotland with Ireland. Portpatrick and Galway,
I said, could be connected by a line of railway and the
bay thereby turned into a great Transatlantic port. A
big job, he said. True, quite true, I answered, but realis-
able in the end. It might, however, be better to begin
by setting up a bacon factory in Castlebar.

Every pig breeder, he said, could take a ten-pound
share, and in Mayo, he continued, every cottager owns a
pig. But can cottagers afford a ten-pound share ? I
interjected ; and will you guarantee a minimum price for
the pigs ? and of all is the Mayo pig the kind of pig that
produces the London rasher ?

My questions seemed to vex him, and we might not
have spoken again during the journey had it not been for
the rashers. It was their succulence that prompted him
to address me again on the advantage a bacon factory
would be to Castlebar and to Mayo generally, and wishing
to hear his views I assumed so pleasant an air of acqui-
escence that before long the bacon factory was lost sight
of and we were talking of the great changes that had
come over the country since we were young men.

In former times, my traveller said, there was the big
house, and the villagers always coming and going on some
errand or another ; the women coming up at midday with
their husbands' and sons' dinners. A poor one, it is true,
five or six potatoes tied up in a cloth, and a noggin of
buttermilk which they would get from the dairy-maid.
But in those days the people were contented with very
little, they never tasted meat but once a year and that

at Christmas time, which they boiled in a pot, the
only knowledge of cooking they knew. When the
potatoes rotted in the famine years, the people had
nothing, there never having been any factories for the
making of cheese in Ireland. For some reason or another
the Irish are not cheese eaters. The Welsh, I believe,
are, and work all day nourishing themselves from time to
time with a bite of cheese and a sup of beer. And then
the Welsh are dissenters and radicals, whereas the villagers
here are Catholic and like the big house for the hum of
life always going on : the smithy with its clanging anvil
and snoring bellows; the carpenter's shop, its threshold
heaped with shavings — Micky Murphy in the background
making a door or a window sash, and more ready than the
smith himself to pass the time of day with whosoever
might have a moment to spare. And I mustn't forget
the sawyers, one of them in the pit and the other above
him, sawing some balks of timber for Micky Murphy, who
wanted timber for gates and door-posts. Always some-
thing going on, you see. And as likely as not some of the
house servants had come up from the village: their
fathers and mothers and their sisters and brothers were
all welcome. And then there was the landlord hanging
about the stable-yard with a couple of setters at his heels,
and he always willing to speak to the tenants on Saturdays,
hearing all their complaints, and when they had no
complaints, which very often happened, they came up
just for the sake of a talk. You see with all those things
going on the country was never lonely, but now all I am
telling you about has passed away and the people are
beginning to feel the loneliness of the country very sore
upon them.

But it was the tenants who wished to get rid of the
landlords, I interjected. Yes, that is so, my friend replied,
but you see the rents in former times were too high and
they couldn't pay them. But they'd like to have their

landlords back again., with smaller rents, mind you. Yes,
they would and leppin*. They'd sooner be bringing up
their notes as in old times to the big house than sending
them to the Board, which is a harder task-master than
ever Clanricarde was, and altogether without considera-
tion of special cases and circumstances. The way it is
now is that the tenant just pays and if he fails to pay he
goes, eviction in Ireland being easier than ever it was,
without police and sub-sheriff. For you see if the Bishops
agree, and there are a dozen on the Board, that a man
must be put out, out he is put, for there isn't a man in
Ireland that would dare to raise his voice against a
Bishop. Out he goes and there's an end of it. Well,
all that is contrary to the spirit of the Irish people, who
have no taste for offices and clerks and routine work, and
who like to know with whom they are dealing, as they
have always done, and as their fathers before them : a
clannish people, sir, who have not yet forgotten the
chieftain they have gone to battle for. As I was saying to
you, sir, the people miss the hum of life that was always
going on around the old country houses. In exchange
they've got the land.

Well, a very fair exchange, I interjected. But how
long will they keep the land ? Isn't it always passing
from them again and again, for the Irish are a religious
people and every man will leave a sum of money to the
priest to say masses for his soul to keep it out of purgatory,
though this much must be said, it isn't the peasant class
that gives away to the priest but the small shopkeeping
class ; and the land it has gotten from the peasant goes
in masses for the repose of souls.

The news that the land of Ireland had been wrenched
from the landlords with so much trouble and was passing
into the hands of the clergy interested me deeply, putting
into my mind the thought that a third of the land of
England was Church property in Reformation times. It

was, I said, the riches of the clergy that had set the
people saying — the kingdom of heaven may be for us,
but the kingdom of earth is for them. On that they
began reading the Gospels, and it would be a wonderful
thing surely if the avarice of the clergy turned the Irish
into Protestants, the same as it did the English. Be this
as it may, what Ireland needs is a new religion, and I pray
that she may get one. Which ? It matters not, but let
her get one quickly, I muttered, and almost immediately
after my traveller's voice awoke me from my reverie, and
the truth became apparent that all the while I had been
dreaming he had been telling a story.

It behoved me to reconstruct the first half from the
beginning, for it was beyond my courage to say : what you
told me about the passing away of the Irish land from the
tenants to the clergy interested me so profoundly that I
missed a good deal of the story you are telling : would you
be kind enough to repeat it all over again ? He might
very well answer my request : if you didn't care to listen
you must go without, and return to his paper, leaving me
looking out of the window at the landscape regretting I
had entered into conversation with him. All the same, I
said, it was stupid of me to miss the beginning of his
story ; and it will be more stupid still if I do not give my
ears at once to what he is telling about Joseph Appley.

CHAP. VII.

PM sure I heard him say that Joseph Appley was from
Wiltshire, my fellow-traveller repeated, and I tried to look
as if the evidence pointed to Wiltshire. I have often
heard Sir Hugh say that he picked him up in Wiltshire.
Joseph was a boy at the time, he said, and a boy is picked
very much like a berry from a hedge, like a berry ; I've
often heard Sir Hugh say that he picked him from the

hedge and that he became immediately after the best cab-
boy in London. No matter what time Sir Hugh came out
of a theatre his cab drove up, Joseph on the box ready to
hop off it on the instant to open the door for Sir Hugh.
I have heard Sir Hugh say that he couldn't understand by
what process of thought Joseph divined his movements.
He seems to know them instinctively, were Sir Hugh's
very words to me.

But not having heard the beginning of the story I did
not know who Sir Hugh was; an Irish landlord, I judged
him to be by inference, but could not tell in what county
till my fellow-traveller mentioned that Sir Hugh had won
the Chester Cup with Tomboy, and the Cambridgeshire
with Makebelieve. You must have heard of these horses,
he said, and I answered that the names recalled a past
time to me. A few moments after I remembered that
Makebelieve had won the race carrying nine stone, which
was considered in those days an extraordinary performance
for a three-year-old. In those days, my fellow-traveller
continued, Sir Hugh was coining money on the race-course.
There was Chimney Sweep, another great horse of his, and
Bayleaf was a fast mare, that won a great deal of money,
and would have won a great deal more if she had been
able to get the mile, but she always began to stop at the
three-quarters. Joseph Appley was doing pretty well too,
not a long way behind his master, not farther than a valet
should be ; a great pair surely in the old days, looked out
for at the cock-pit, the prize-ring and the race-course.
Sir Hugh thought the world and all of Joseph Appley,
who began, as I have told you, as a cab-boy and afterwards
became the best valet Sir Hugh ever had in his life. A
little extravagant, Sir Hugh would say, Joseph's maxim
always being that the best was good enough for me. Nor
was Joseph quite satisfied even with the best ; he'd always
tell the tradesman : now if you do this extra well, I'll
give you a little more. But, said my fellow-traveller, at

the time I am telling of, a little extravagance more or
less didn't matter; a few pounds one way or the other
make no difference when you're winning big handicaps.
But the day came when Sir Hugh's horses were not so
fast as they used to be, and perhaps that was the reason
he took to himself a wife ; her fortune paid some of his
debts and allowed him to run horses again, for at the time
of his marriage he hadn't paid off his forfeits ; he owed
money to Weatherby ; and after his marriage — well, there
were politics, and in those days elections cost a lot of
money ; Sir Hugh's politics were not very popular, and he
had to spend a great deal in making himself popular :
the stud was expensive, and his lady wasn't content to
live at Muchloon alone while her husband was away in
England. She had people staying in the house all the
time, and with Joseph running the house on the principle
that the best of everything was good enough for Muchloon,
it is easy to imagine the great hump of debt that began to
rise up on Sir Hugh's shoulders. At last the day came.
I'm going back to London, Appley, to economise. Joseph
muttered (he always muttered a little) that he had
never heard of anyone going to London to economise
before. But wouldn't you like to come to London with
me ? he asked. Joseph said he was too old. But I
should have thought that he would have liked to return
to his own country, I interjected. My fellow-traveller
rapped out that England was far behind Joseph by this
time and Ireland as far as ever ahead of him, though he
had married the lady's maid, a Catholic, who, of course,
couldn't marry him unless he promised to bring up his
children Catholics, which he did ; and when the family
left him alone in charge of Muchloon he made the last
effort to become an Irishman that an Englishman can
make : he became a Catholic ; but this change didn't alter
matters, for I think he was more English after the change
than before it.

What sort of woman was his wife? I asked, for
Joseph's unfortunate life began to interest me. A long,
melancholy woman, my fellow-traveller answered, and her
daughter as lank and melancholy as herself. The son
was a bit podgy like his father — well-meaning but good-
for-nothing. I think Joseph was always ashamed of his
family, the females especially : for- I remember it always
seemed to irritate him if his wife and daughter were met
on the kitchen stairs on their way to the pantry. A pair
of long-faced, cringing women were the two of them ;
and the wife couldn't have been different from the
daughter; yet Joseph was mad to get her. A strange
infatuation that refusals couldn't cool. Propinquity I
suppose it was, she being the lady's maid at Ardath

and Sir Hugh always going to Ardath Master after

mistress and valet after maid, I jerked in. Something
like that, my travelling companion answered. I don't
want to revive old scandals, but there was a story going
that one of the ladies there loved Sir Hugh in his
bachelor days, and this I know for certain, that she was
the only untitled lady at the great dinner he gave after
winning the Cambridgeshire.

A curious piece of evidence to adduce, and altogether
insufficient it seemed to me to be ; I should have liked to
put a few questions, but withheld them, afraid to lose the
tale of Joseph Appley's misfortunes.

Well, one of his misfortunes was this : you see when Sir
Hugh died, the heir was a minor and wanted money to
spend on his pleasure in London, and to get this money
he applied to Joseph, who negotiated a loan from one of
the tenants, and when her ladyship heard that Joseph
had done this, she sent him packing into the village, and
Joseph in an Irish village was a sad spectacle. Every-
body liked Joseph, but an alien he was, never was there
such an alien before as Joseph, and to this day I'm
wondering how he endured the two years he spent in

the village, and he was fully two years in Ballyholly
before the heir, who was then the owner of Muchloon,
restored him to his pantry. It was pleasant to see him
back in it; he put him back into his pantry, paid him
his wages, and these were spent on the farm, which was
a failure, for his two sons were, as I have said, helpless
boys, wastrels I suppose you'd call them. Some sort of
misfortune was always falling upon them, and it was
always some new misfortune they had to tell. The Irish
are very fond of sad stories, and the Appleys could tell
how the mare and foal had died on them, but they always
forgot to tell they were leaving their old father to starve in
the great Georgian mansion. Poor boys, they were starv-
ing themselves ; and it was fortunate that I went there one
day else Joseph might have died of hunger. What's the
matter, Joseph ? says I. You're looking thin and pale. I'm
starving, sir, was all he answered. What could I do but
put my hand into my pocket and give him five pounds ?
But, on looking closer, his face told me he needed food at
once, and remembering I had brought some luncheon with
me I sent down to the stables for it and shared it with him
in his pantry, on the table on which he used to brush his
old master's clothes and clean his boots. He wanted to
open up the dining-room, but I wouldn't let him. We'll
just have a snack together, said I, and a talk about the
horses and the spring handicaps. Have you seen the
weights for the City and Suburban? Joseph said he
hadn't seen a newspaper for a long time, and I took one
out of my pocket, a copy of The Sportsman, a paper he
knew nothing about. Joseph's paper was Bell's Life. If
I came into the pantry unexpectedly he'd put the paper
into his press, into his wonderful press, out of which
everything seemed to come. You couldn't ask Joseph
for anything he couldn't produce from that press. His
press was a great wonder to me when I was a boy ; I used
to try to peep over his shoulder when he opened it. But

Joseph was careful never to allow anybody to look into
his press. He'd just give what he was asked for and lock
the press abruptly. But one day I espied a packet of
newspapers, not one packet but many, and all tied up
with string very carefully. So you keep the file, Joseph,
if not all of it of the time when you and Sir Hugh were
about together and when you very nearly challenged the
Game Chicken to a fight you not knowing who he was ?
You see I remember everything you tell me. Even
Joseph could be flattered, but it required a little pressure
to get him to admit that he had a complete Bell's Life ;
why he kept it God knows. I've often imagined him
reading the prize-fights and the race-meetings and the
cock-fights all over again in the long evenings at Muchloon.
I supposed that was it, but he never told me that was
why he kept them, the most secretive little man ever
known: you might tell him anything and be sure that
he would not repeat it.

A little man ? I said. I imagined him as a tall, lean
hungry man. You got that idea, my fellow-traveller
replied, from what I told you of his wife : a tall,
melancholy woman. No, he married the very opposite
to himself. Joseph was a short-necked, full-bodied, white-
faced little man, rotund in later life. Don't I remember,
my fellow-traveller continued, the short fleshy nose and
his running walk ? And did he live all alone in Muchloon ?
Did all the servants go away with Sir Hugh to London ?
I asked. Not all, my fellow-traveller answered. The
old cook and housemaid remained with him, but they
were very old and died a few years afterwards, blessing
the master because he left them on board wages.
Servants were very grateful in former times and thought
a great deal was being done for them if they were not
left to starve. And there were no complaints about the
dinners they were given, nor the rooms they were put to
sleep in. The servants always slept in large roomy

subterranean dwellings in Muchloon, at the end of the
kitchen passage ; the eighteenth century in Ireland, and
perhaps elsewhere, did not look after their servants as
well as the nineteenth.

Is Joseph still alive ? I asked, for my imagination was
now filled with the personality of the old servant, whom
I could see in my mind's eye taking the air on the weed-
grown terrace, and in my mind's ear was the peacock, the
last of a hundred, uttering doleful cries from the branches
of a great cedar.

No, said my companion, Joseph is dead ; he died in his
pantry five years ago. I saw him three weeks before
his death ; he was then eighty but still thinking of the
autumn handicaps, and as he fancied a horse for Cesare-
witch I said : Joseph, I'll put you on ten shillings. The
horse won, but Joseph was not here to receive it. I'm
sorry, for I'd have liked him to have won his last bet, I
said. It didn't matter. The ten shillings that I put him
on at twenty-five to one illuminated the last day of his
life, and perhaps he died seeing in a vision his horse
passing first beyond the post. An honest death-bed
vision that would be. A man's death should be part and
parcel of his life. So Joseph died English to the last ?
Yes, my companion answered, Ireland failed to assimilate
him, and then, anxious to make amends at the end of the
story for my inattention at the beginning, I asked for
news of Joseph's sons, and learned that they had sold
their interest in the farm and purchased some cars and
horses. They were now car-drivers in Athenry, and
Muchloon stands empty on its green hill top, the
present owner not being rich enough to live there. The
most he can do, continued my fellow-traveller, is to keep
a caretaker in the house. When he goes the next man
will sell the lead off the roof, and Muchloon will be added
to the ruins of all sorts that encumber Ireland. . The
finest assortment of ruins the world can show. From the

fifth century onwards every century is represented ;
English and Irish ruins, ruined houses and ruined lives.

At the next station I was bidden good-bye, and lay back
in my seat with a very vivid impression in my heart of a
man that lived in the world unhappily.

CHAP. VIII.

ATHLONE was the destination of my travelling com-
panions, and when they were gone I had the carriage to
myself, but only for a few minutes. Just before starting
a man entered, and he came in so quietly that I did not
raise my eyes but continued my meditations. Neither
cough nor sneeze nor shuffle of feet nor rustle of news-
paper nor match was struck to disturb me: it was the
silence that awakened me from my dream of the old
English servant who had always remained a stranger, an
alien in the country whither chance had carried him.

My new travelling companion was a frail old man of
seventy: a priest, I said, grown old in his craft, and I
began to scrutinise his face, reading in it only obedience
to rule : like one asleep in his instinct, I added ; and asked
myself if he were ordered by his Church to commit some
act that raised his conscience in revolt would he accept
his conscience as his guide or would he place his Church
above his conscience? The answer my reason returned
to this question was that the dilemma I had formulated
could not arise, for it was plain from the man's face that
he had long ago accepted the Church as his conscience.

He sat at the further end of the railway carriage, his
face bent upon his breviary and almost hidden in the
shadow of a large-brimmed hat. It was this partial view
of his face, a silhouette in which little appeared but a long,
finely cut nose, that reminded me of a face I had seen
many years ago ; and in the shadow of a hat, I said. I

never knew more of the face that I am trying to re-
member, only the pointed oval and the long, finely cut
nose. The eyes I never saw, they were always averted
from me, just like the priest's eyes are now. If it should
be the same priest! The word "priest" stirred my
memory, and of a sudden it became certain that the old
man reading his breviary at the further end of the railway
carriage was none other than Cunningham's spiritual
director; the priest who used to wait on Cunningham's
doorstep when I lived in Upper Ely Place — a tiny cul de
sac — five little eighteenth-century houses built on a sort
of terrace overlooking a garden, a square, about a rood of
ground belonging to No. 4, the house I lived in. A quiet
little old-world spot shut off from the grand houses of Ely
Place by tall iron gates ; marked off, I should have said,
for the gates were always open, and the rare sight-seer
led by chance into this forgotten corner of the city must
have often wondered why the gates were ever put there,
for what purpose — to defend Ely Place against the robbers
that used to descend from the Dublin mountains to raid
the city as late as the eighteenth century ? The sight-
seer's fancy may have wandered into this explanation of
the gates and out of it into another equally absurd, but
it could not have occurred to anybody in the twentieth
century that the gates were merely ornamental, designed
with no other view than beauty ; he may, however, have
failed to notice that they added to the seclusion, and were
never shut for the reason that it were vain to shut gates
on a forgotten corner.

Often from my windows have I watched the vagrant
sight-seer pace the little pavement the length of my
garden and seen him stop perplexed by the old-world
beauty of the place, by the little alley of lilac bushes,
the laburnums, hawthorns and the great apple-trees ; the
flower walk filled with old-fashioned flowers, and the
pump by the elder bush under the fig-trees, could not fail

to stir even the most sluggish imagination. Myself, too,
pacing the sward, my hands behind my back composing,
or idly at work in the flower beds on either side of the
gravel walk, or listening to the sparrows quarrelling in the
hawthorns or flying from the bees that often pursued me,
or thinking of my neighbours whilst sitting under the great
apple-tree, must have added to the romance.

At No. 5, a household of elderly women with a boy
destined for the Church, already morose. At No. 4,
myself. At No. 3, Cunningham, the man whose story I
am about to relate ; at No. 2, a couple of noisy girls with
a taste for brogue, dogs, bicycles and whistling. At
No. 1, a celebrated lawyer of retiring presence, without
a story, if that be possible. We all no doubt have stories,
and death is a tragedy which finds its way into every life
sooner or later, slowly or swiftly, and I know of no more
moving tragedy than the death of my next-door neighbour.

I often guessed him to be a retired tradesman, without
however being able to fit him into any trade. He would
not do for a grocer — grocers are men of serious mien, and
Cunningham, to put it bluntly, was a comic little fellow,
suited to the music hall stage, one whose turn could be
relied upon to revive the drooping spirits of an audience
after a sentimental song with harp accompaniment. A
butt of a man, as we say in Ireland ; thick-set, with a large
head and the rolling gait of a dwarf when he fared forth
after his dinner about three o'clock, always dressed the
same, in a yellow overcoat and wide grey trousers, a
corpulent cigar always in his mouth and a white flower in
his button-hole, a jolly little fellow to the casual observer,
but to me, who saw him every day, his humour seemed
superficial and to overlie a deep-set melancholy — the
melancholy of the dwarf, somebody once said, and the
words put a thought of Velasquez's dwarfs into my mind.
In earlier centuries he would have drifted into the palace,
but how did he escape the music hall, I often murmured,
c

and set to snail hunting while considering the little man
whose life was as strange as his appearance, for he seemed
to be without any friends, nobody ever crossed his thres-
hold except his servant, an old woman who always bade
me the hour of the day ; and it was from her I learnt that
when Cunningham went forth in the afternoon he would
not return until seven in the evening : and all that while
he'll be walking round Phoenix Park, she said, talking to
the many people he meets with on the way, for the
master is well known to everybody in the city of Dublin,
But he never asks anybody to his house, I said. No, she
answered ; no one comes here. But he's well known and
respected in the city of Dublin.

When we passed each other in the street he always
averted his eyes, and if I had been polite I should have
imitated him, but I could not keep myself from looking
into his comical eyes turned up at the corners, and
wondering at the great roll of flesh from ear to ear, and
at the chins descending step by step into his bosom. But
my knowledge of Cunningham did not exceed the facts
observed by myself and related by his housekeeper: till
one day, some months later, I was kept waiting at Sir
Thornley Stoker's, my presence causing the doctor some
embarrassment, for there was some shutting of doors and
a hurried exit through the hall that set me wondering
who the man or woman could be that Sir Thornley Stoker
did not wish me to see. The faint surprise this caused
was increased by the doctor's hilarity when I was admitted
into his study. He lay back in his Chippendale arm-chair
overcome by some uncontrollable mirth. At last in reply
to my demands of an explanation he blurted out : you've
just missed seeing Cunningham. I asked him to stay to
meet you but at the moment your name was mentioned
he snatched up his hat. It's a pity you don't know
Cunningham. Cunningham is Dublin in essence. You
see, read and understand Dublin in Cunningham. An

epitome, an abridgment, a compendium of Dublin. But
why won't he know me ? The doctor seemed unwilling
to answer my question, and this made me very curious to
hear the reason, but I soon began to perceive that the
doctor did not know exactly the reason of Cunningham's
aversion. Very likely because we're next-door neighbours,
I said. There may be something of that in it, the doctor
answered, and all the while his lips trembled with
laughter. At last he could control his hilarity no longer,
and I watched him roll over in his wonderful Chippendale
chair. Now what is it ? I asked, and he began to tell me
that Cunningham was possessed of all the drollery of the
world and could control any meeting, do what he liked
with it, and then the doctor began to repeat himself,
telling me that Cunningham knew everybody and was
always overflowing with comicality, and seized by a sudden
memory the doctor exploded with laughter. If you had

only heard him just now telling But do tell me. I

can't tell you. It's the Dublin accent and the Dublin
idiom. It was all about Evelyn Innes. You don't know
what you've missed, and he turned over in his chair
to laugh again. No, there's no use my trying to tell
it ; you should hear Cunningham. But I can't hear
Cunningham ; he won't know me. At last, apologising
for spoiling the story, Sir Thornley told me that I must
take for granted the racy description of two workmen
who had come to Upper Ely Place to mend the drains
in front of my house.

After having dug a hole, they took a seat at either end,
and sat spitting into it from time to time in solemn silence,
until at last one said to the other : do you know the fellow
that lives in the house forninst us? You don't? Well,
I'll tell you who he is ; he's the fellow that wrote Evelyn
Innes. And who was she ? She was a great opera singer.
And the story is all about the ould hat. She was lying
on a crimson sofa with mother-of-pearl legs when the

baronet came into the room, his eyes jumping out of his
head and he as hot as be damned. Without as much as
a good-morrow, he jumped down on his knees alongside
of her, and the next chapter's in Italy.

The crimson sofa, I said, with the mother-of-pearl legs,
and the baronet " as hot as be damned " would be about
as much of the story as a Dublin workman would be likely
to gather from the book.

But if you had heard himself tell it, the doctor chortled.
He always speaks of you as " George," the doctor added,
and he again became speechless. Thompson, he said at
last, knows Cunningham better than I; he pulled him
through a long and serious illness when he was landlord
of the Blue Anchor in Abbey Street. So he's a retired
publican, I answered. I always saw a retired tradesman in

him but But what ? the doctor said. Only this, that

he reminded me more often of the chairman in a music
hall ; he can troll out a song, I hear him sometimes of a
Sunday morning through the wall; and behind the bar
he would be as popular as in front of the footlights. A
dangerous trade his for an Irishman, the doctor said, for
the host must drink with his customers, a sort of assurance
that the quality of the whisky is all right. So he's a
retired publican, I continued. And a very successful
publican, Stoker interjected. He brought seventeen
thousand pounds out of the business. But Thompson
will tell you more about him than I can.

Sir William Thompson was Sir Thornley Stoker's brother-
in-law, and on my next visit to 54 Stephen's Green I
heard that there was nobody like Cunningham to raise
a laugh against the clergy. Our clergy? I said. His
own clergy, Thompson answered, and he recalled some
of Cunningham's sallies.

But if he knows Catholicism to be so unworthy,
how is it that he has not discovered himself to be a
Protestant ?

Ah ! Sir William answered, you ask that question
because you haven't yet learnt to understand Ireland.
Cunningham was sent to confession when he was seven
years of age, and his confessor so kneaded hell into his
mind that neither drink nor women could enable him to
forget it afterwards. There's too much punishment in
our theology, and it is even more prominent in Catholic
religious education, for the Catholics have purgatory. I
don't know where they get it from, but purgatory is the
boy that robs the widow and the orphan for them, and
purgatory and hell work together in Catholic picture
books and prayers — red-hot devils stoking the fire, lakes
of boiling pitch, and with the excellent result, from the
priest's point of view, that the Catholic mind is paralysed.
With the front of his mind Cunningham sees that his
clergy think more of possessing themselves of the
property of their parishioners than of anything else ; that
they haunt death-beds and despoil widows and orphans
without mercy. Every month a will in which a man
leaves all his money for masses for the repose of his soul
is contested in the Law Courts. Cunningham knows all
this; he's a shrewd man, he would not have brought
seventeen thousand pounds out of the Blue Anchor if he
hadn't been a shrewd man, but at the back of his mind
there is fear of hell and purgatory. The doctor stopped
speaking, his face becoming grave and thoughtful. A
moment after he broke into a smile. To appreciate
Cunningham, he said, you must hear him talk ; a spring
of natural humour which you say you have never met
with in Ireland and which you deny exists. I'd like you
to meet Cunningham, but he's afraid of you, I think. But
why, I asked, should he be afraid of me ? He's a little
queer, but nothing serious, the doctor answered.

A little later Stoker returned to Cunningham's humour
and tried to explain it, telling that it flowed along like a
brook, as spontaneous and as natural, rising up out of

himself without artifice. Yes, I think I understand ; with
the smack of spring water on it, I answered, and the
doctor told of Cunningham's power over an audience ; how
he captivated it and held it by the raciness of his wit. I
should like you to meet him, he repeated. But if he
won't meet me there's no help for it, I answered. And
bidding the doctor good-bye I returned home, remembering
more distinctly than anything else what the doctor had
said about Cunningham's fear of hell.

Yes, I said to myself, that is the characteristic of Ireland,
fear of hell, and I fell to thinking of the Irish publican,
saying to myself, his seventeen thousand pounds may
develop easily into scruples of conscience, I wonder !

CHAP. IX.

THE days melted into weeks, as their wont is, and the
weeks accumulated, and from my doorstep this year as
last year I saw Cunningham start forth every afternoon,
rolling down the pavement as one of Velasquez's dwarfs
might, a white flower in his button-hole, a corpulent cigar
in his mouth. He returned after having accomplished
several miles to a lonely dinner and a long evening by
himself. Sometimes, I said, he has the old woman up
in the drawing-room and chats with her. And little by
little the desire to discover a theme in which Cunningham
would display himself began to fidget me, and when the
sanitary inspector condemned my drains I sent his report
to Cunningham, who returned the report just as if he were
able to see into my mind and had read there that I could
not do else than look upon him as a type. If we met in
the street coming from different directions he avoided my
look, and he never stopped to gaze into my pretty garden,
and there were times when my garden was a very pretty
one, especially in early spring when the apple-trees were

in bloom, and later the hawthorns, and afterwards in late
summer, when the sweet-pea was in flower. But he never
looked at my flowers, and nobody ever came to see him,
until one day I saw the grey stony face of the priest sitting
opposite to me in the train on Cunningham's doorstep,
and fell to wondering what his errand might be. A few
days after I caught sight of the priest again, and hence-
forth not many days passed without my seeing him ;
every week he appeared on the doorstep, and the stony
face put thoughts into my mind of the terrors it was the
duty of the priest to foster : however much he might
deprecate as a man the despoiling of widows and orphans
he must not impugn the advantage it is to the sinner to
leave money for masses for the salvation of his soul.

The priest's face never changed expression, nor did he
look up at me ; and though I often passed by him and
strove to attract his eyes, they remained fixed on the door-
step whilst he waited for the servant to open the door for
him. And the grey, stony face of the priest on the doorstep
pursued me during my walks, setting me thinking of the
drama in progress, only a wall, I said, separating me from
it: a poor little man of unbalanced mind rapidly losing
his wits at the thought of the almost endless ages he will
have to spend in purgatory, expiating the sins of his youth,
unless he leaves the money he acquired in the Blue Anchor
to the Church for masses for the repose of his soul. Sad
alternatives : to despoil one's relations or remain in purga-
tory, and in imagination I could see the twain sitting
opposite each other ; a look of horror on the publican's
face, the priest's grey and immovable.

CHAP. X.

ONE day as I came down to breakfast I heard a woman
talking to my servants and there was from time to time a

great wail of grief in her voice, and in grave apprehension
I asked myself : what strange and doleful story can she
be telling, and my heart beat faster as I descended the
kitchen stairs.

What is this, what is this ? I cried, and a moment after
I recognised in our visitor the woman who looked after
poor Cunningham.

Oh, sir, she exclaimed ; O Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the
master is after hanging himself this morning out of the
banisters, and she continued her story, sobbing and wail-
ing from time to time, and by degrees I learnt that on not
finding him in his bedroom when she took up his cup of
tea in the morning, she waited, expecting that he was in
the closet, but as he did not return, and not hearing him
about she began to be alarmed and started looking for
him, and it was from the banisters of the top storey that
she found him hanging.

You don't sleep in the top storey ?

No, sir, I sleep in the basement.

Was he dead when you found him ?

Maybe he wasn't ; he must have gone up the stairs to
hang himself only a minute or so before I brought him up
his tea.

And he was dead before you could get a knife to cut
him down ?

There was a knife on the tray, sir ; but I didn't like to
cut him down for fear that he would hurt himself in the
fall, and I ran out without my cap or anything to fetch
the police.

But for what reason did he hang himself? I asked.
He wasn't in want of money ?

No, sir, that wasn't it. He left the money a while back
to the Church for masses to be said for his soul. But you
see, sir, the priest used to be telling him that he couldn't
keep himself from the drink. Maybe you saw the priest
standing on our doorstep, sir ?

Yes, yes, I answered.

The poor master often fancied himself a bit queer in
his mind, though, indeed, he was not, sir. He was not,
indeed ; he was as sane as you or I. It was easy to twist
him so that he'd go out of his wits, and he afraid that he
might lose the wits when there wasn't a priest next or
near him to hear his confession ; it was that was troubling
his mind. And that's what they would be talking about
upstairs, the priest urging him to go into John-o'-God's
and be looked after there.

John-o'-God's, I repeated ; what a strange name.

Yes, sir, but you must know it, the asylum up in
the woods by the Scalp. And it was fear of going there
that drove him to the hanging, I'm sure of that. For
only the night before, when I was sitting in the drawing-
room with him, he said to me : they'll never get me
as long as I have this hand, and they'll never get me
there.

It was at that moment that the front door bell rang.
My secretary, I said. She came down to the kitchen
and heard the story over again from the old woman, and
going upstairs together she said to me : I saw Mr
Cunningham last night returning home, carrying some-
thing under his coat, and his face frightened me. He
must have been planning it then.

Carrying something under his coat ?

Yes, one end of it was showing ; a rope it seemed to
me to be.

No, it wasn't a rope, a strap, I said. He must have
gone down to buy it and returned home as you were
leaving, about seven o'clock. Afraid of John-o'-God's he
hanged himself — only in John-o'-God's could he escape
from temptation, and only there could he be sure of
having a priest to shrive him at the last moment, and only
in death could he escape John-o'-God's. And once in
John-o'-God's he could not unmake his will. It's neat, I

said, and the girl's eyes returned to me as we stood looking
at each other.

A moment after my eyes returned to the priest sitting
in the railway carriage, to the thin, refined face in which
there was neither cruelty nor kindness, only an impersonal
will, the will of the tooth in the cog wheel of the machine,
no more than that ; and I watched it till pity of Cunningham
turned to pity of the priest and a dream began to unwind
of the intimate horror that possesses a man when he begins
to realise that he is no better than a priest.

The train was stopping and the priest left the train at
Castlebar to continue his ministrations where and how I
have no knowledge.

CHAP. XI.

NO passenger for Westport entered the carriage at Castle-
bar to distract my thoughts from Cunningham's last days,
and for some time, how long I cannot say, I was con-
sidering how the idea of hanging himself had grown in
his mind, taking possession of it till nothing else seemed
real, or true, or worth thinking about. At times, I said,
he must have been attracted by the idea of escape, as a
hunted animal might be, and there must have been other
times when he remembered that to take one's life is a
mortal sin for which there is punishment. Yet despite
all the descriptions of hell that his mind had been
terrorised with, the fear of John-o'-God's was greater.
But how can one know what passed in that failing brain ?
He must have suffered vaguely and intensely, as a lost
dog suffers who knows not whither his master has gone
or if he will ever return, or like the bee that has gotten
into this carriage and strives to escape through the sunlit
pane. A poor bumble bee, a silly insect compared with
the bees that used to work in my garden forming combs
with such economy of space that the mathematician is

obliged to say it could not be done better. But the silly
bumble bee merely makes a round hole, and therefore is
not able to lay up sufficient store of honey for the winter.
My knowledge of bee life here ended, and my thoughts
went to the poor bumble anxious to escape from the train.
It has been carried long past its hive, I said, if the bumbles
have hives, and will not find its way back. It will
wander among the furze of yon hill and die at season's
close, but that is better than to be slashed down by
the porter's towel at Westport ; and forthright I began
a chase of the bee, handkerchief in hand, catching
the insect at last and throwing it from the window. A
moment after it seemed to be back again, or another bee
had come in, and overcoming some reluctance to continue
the chase, I began it again and the insect was put out to
seek sufficient honey for its life among the low rocky
hills ; if it could not gather honey, to die as bees die,
very much as we do, I said, and in the enjoyment of my
satisfied conscience fell to wondering at the natural pity
that had compelled me to risk being stung for so faint
a result as the prolongation of a bee's life — a week at
most, I said, in some fragile bloom. By some odd connec-
tion of ideas the bee recalled to my mind a nun that I had
not dared to set free, and to help the time away I sum-
moned the circumstances of the happy sunny morning
that I started from Paris to meet a lady who was coming
from Etretat. We were to spend the day together at
Rouen ; and, being an adept in the mystery of time-tables,
she had informed me of the departure of a certain train
from the Gare St Lazare which would arrive at Rouen at
a few minutes past midday and she hoped to find me
waiting for her on the platform.

It had been arranged that we were to breakfast
together and visit the Cathedral afterwards, and to this
happiness I had been looking forward, and not less
eagerly to the hours between the Cathedral and dinner :

for our courtship had lasted a long while, delayed by the
lady's sense of sin and its consequences, but of late it had
seemed to me that her sense of sin had weakened, and
so seriously that there was no saying what might not
befall her between Cathedral and dinner unless clerestory,
nave, aisle or ambulatory should cast her back again
into past and present perplexities of conscience. And
with the danger of the Cathedral well in my mind,
which could not be avoided, but would have to be faced,
I repaired to the railway station and waited in a dusty
station, enlivened only by the cackling of peasant women
and several crates of ducks and geese. The fowls, being
packed too tightly for comfort, cackled in terrified accents,
thrusting their heads forth, withdrawing them quickly to
avoid the caresses of a small boy ; and the same pity that
had compelled me to release the bee afflicted me again. I
should have liked to have given the fowls their freedom,
but this was impossible, and I walked perturbed and
wearied by the monotonous cackle of peasant women and
fowls, till at last a nun lifted her eyes to mine as she
passed me by : a strange glance of inquiry it was, a look
that I could not do else than to interpret as the appeal
of one human being to another for help. That her look
was one of appeal I am certain now, after many years, but
in the railway station it was different. I remembered as
I walked back and forth that I had heard of prostitutes
disguising themselves as nuns, but I did not believe the
nun who had raised her eyes to mine was a prostitute. If
I had, her image would have worn away like the image
on a coin, whereas her image is as clear in my mind as
the image on a coin just come from the mint ; a long thin
pointed oval face, well-shapen grey eyes illuminating a
white formal pallor, a long thin nose and a small chin ;
a plain woman it is true, but her plainness was an
interesting plainness. The habit she wore was black,
without white forehead band ; and I remember the well-

wrought cross hanging on her breast ; she was a young
woman who might be twenty, and was not more certainly
than twenty-three or four. She passed without loitering,
her eyes inviting speech, with a view, I said, to obtaining
my help. It cannot be else. But I shall know for certain
the next time she passes, and when we crossed each other
again as before her eyes threw out the same inquiry.

There were only a few peasant women in the railway
station when I arrived. She must have come in a few
minutes after me, I said, and if she looks again I'll speak,
and, on a resolve to offer help to the nun if she should ask
for help, my eyes went to the clock : the hands pointed
to three minutes to twelve and I said : if my lady were
to find me engaged in conversation with a nun, my
chances of getting her will be prejudiced maybe.

The nun passed out of the station, and I hesitated
whether I should follow her. She can't deceive me, I
said ; half-a-dozen words and I shall know all about her.
Moreover, it isn't likely that a Rouenaise would rely
on such a romantic deception pour faire un homme, an
expression that Balzac appreciates as le sublime argot des
Jilles. Moreover, were she a punk she would not come
to an empty railway station to ply her trade ; and if she
did she'd wait for the express from Etretat to come in.
It may be that I did not think quite so clearly at the time
as I am thinking now, but I'm certain the woman wasn't
a punk disguised as a nun. The moment was an anxious
one, so anxious that I remember the wide rough open
thoroughfare rising slightly, with trees on either side,
and at the head of the road the bridge which she crossed
on her way back to the convent — she left it after long
resistance, for she could not believe else than that the
impulse compelling her to return to life was but a tempta-
tion of the devil. She looked back once and the moment
remains on my mind in as clear outline as the face of the nun.
The instinct of life, I said, at last broke the chains of

prejudice and convention, the door stood invitingly open;
she passed out ; her courage carried her to the railway,
and what is more likely than that in her soul crisis she
forgot she had no money for her journey. Nuns have
no money ! At sight of me hope blossomed again in her
heart. I looked like one who would sympathise, who
would understand, and who could lend her the sum of
money she needed.

She would have said: as soon as I reach home my
relations, my friends, will return you the money you so
kindly lent me, and my answer would have been : a letter
from you telling me how you fare will be preferable.
The debt, if you will let it remain one, will be a gift
inestimable.

These words we might have exchanged in the few
minutes before the train arrived from Etretat ; they
would have been treasured like jewels and would have
cheered me when myself seemed to myself no more than
a shameful incident in the stream of life. The words
we would have exchanged would have helped me to
remember that I was worth at least one good action, but
the good action drifted by me as the saving plank
drifts by a swimmer. Nor is it too much to say that her
words would have brightened my death-bed. But I missed
my adventure, remaining hypnotised by an imaginary fear :
my lady would have loved me better for my action when
she heard the story, and it would have rendered her
immune from the influence of the Cathedral. But why
think of her, she is no part of the story that filled my
heart to overflowing on the way to Westport.

Her chance gone by for ever, I said, she will return to
her convent to weep till her heart becomes dry; the
piercing will at first seem unendurable, but it will die
down till she feels nothing of the old desire, no faintest
echo of it, and she'll be glad and believe the peace she
is enjoying comes from God, unsuspicious that it is

the absorption of the individual will in the will of the
community.

CHAP. XII.

WE were now within three miles of Westport, its hills
unveiling crest after crest to eyes that rejoice in outline.
How is it, I asked myself, that we can always tell if an
artist has drawn a hill badly ? — a hill may be of any shape,
yet we can say always if a hill in a picture is well drawn.
It would not be true to say that the Dublin mountains
are ill drawn, though they are as shapeless as pillows and
bolsters, in a bad light, and no better than waves in a good.

Now if Monet had drawn them But would he draw

what was not laid out for drawing ? As there is a great deal
in nature that is not laid out for drawing, the first business
of the artist is to select ; a head, badly placed in the canvas
and badly lighted, demands all the skill of a great artist,
and even he may not be able to do what Nature has set
her face against his doing. We must not, I continued,
enter into competition with nature, and all the lack-lustre
pictures painted in the eighties rose up before my eyes :
the strips of grey sky and the sage-green foregrounds we
used to admire. We used to admire Watts, who entered
into competition with Titian ; but all competition is to be
deplored, I cried out, somewhere between Castlebar and
Westport, aesthetic reverie after aesthetic reverie helping
the time away till a beautiful bridge came in sight of ten
or a dozen tall arches spanning a deep valley, the tallest
arch rising to at least a hundred feet.

The straight parapet reminded me of Waterloo Bridge.
Waterloo Bridge passes into slums, I said, but on the thither
side this bridge is engulfed in woods — an admirable bridge,
a delightful contribution to a beautiful town, declining, it is
true, but are not all neighbourhoods declining ? Piccadilly

is now a mart consisting principally of tobacco and jewellery
shops, interspersed with clubs — the clubs were once the
dwellings of the aristocracy of England— Lord Palmer-
ston's house only ceased to be his house in my boyhood ;
and for long afterwards Piccadilly was a great residential
quarter. Park Lane, once so dandy, has fallen into a
vulgar thoroughfare through which many hundreds of
buses pass daily. And if we cross the Channel we find
the same decadence. The Champs Elysees is a mere show
of motor cars, and the Place Vendome a market for
picture bonnets, gowns and jewellery. And let us not
think of the great Palais Royal and who lived there, lest
we burst into tears at the thought of its ruin. And our cafe,
the flHHHHHHH nas become the haunt of panders
and punks. As all the world declines visibly it would be
vain to expect Westport to be exempt from the general
declension. But this may be said : Westport declines
beautifully; abandoned mills may be a sad spectacle in
the eyes of the merchant, but in the artist's eyes these
warehouses rise up "like palaces in the dusk," and no
ugly one, though the sun be shining and an east wind
blowing, for saplings have grown up and birds have
discovered a paradise amid the ruins.

A river, spanned in the principal street by stone bridges,
flows through Westport, and the stream is lined with
noble elms, with seats between the trees for the vagrant,
and some beautiful houses for his regalement. The bank
was once the house to which the Dowager Lady Sligo was
wont to retire on the marriage of her son, and to this day
it is known as the Dower House. Her journey, no doubt
accomplished in a coach and four, was not a long one, for
the gates of the domain faced the little river that proceeds
through the domain out into the sea. It is sad that the
beautiful house, with as noble a sweep of staircase as any
in Merrion Square, should have been turned into a prosaic
bank, and we seek consolation and find it in the domain

wall, a great piece of feudal masonry that ascends hills
and drops into valleys mile after mile.

Westport strikes off to the right and left sporadically,
with here and there a house, telling that in former times
Westport had some culture ; a quiet life of sedate em-
broideries no doubt nourished behind finely propor-
tioned windows of which only a few remain. About
four beautiful houses remain, I said, and the car turned
up a street that put the eighteenth century clean out
of my mind : here at least, I said, there can have been
no declension, for what I see is Ireland in essence —
broken pavements with a desolating tide of children
pouring over the thresholds of almost underground
dwellings. And the street ends characteristically, I
added, in some shards and splinters of cottages.

We passed some school buildings where a pastor was
engaged in admonishing the little flock before the lambs
returned to the ewes for dinner, and the sight of him
reminded me of another pastor, a few hundred yards
away, in the street leading up the hill to the rectory.
He, too, is anxious, I said, that there shall be no stray-
ings ; that the flock shall depart in good order and keep
to the straight road.

And this opposition of Catholics and Protestants puts
into my mind thoughts of Stevenson in the Cevennes and
the aphorism that he so often heard on the lips of the
mountaineers — it is a bad thing for a man to change.
And so convinced is he of the truth of this aphorism that
he repeats it in his narrative two or three times, saying
that a man's religion is the poetry of the man's experi-
ence, the philosophy of the history of his life, and that
a man may not vary from his faith unless he can eradicate
all memory of the past, and in a strict and not conventional
meaning change his mind. The glitter of the words and
the sentimentality captivate the reader till he lays aside
the book and begins to remember that the Cevennians

were Catholics before they were Protestants, and that
before they were Catholics they were heathen — facts that
disturb his enjoyment of Stevenson's style, for it would
seem impossible to admire words, however prettily they
may flourish, if they put forth an untruth.

In his pursuit of style Stevenson seems to have for-
gotten that for the enjoyment of the religious stagnation
he recommends we must wait for the next world ; it has
never existed in this and would seem to be contrary to
the conditions of our mortal life. " We cannot bathe
twice in the same river," a philosopher said long ago, and
his disciples added afterwards : " we cannot bathe once
in the same river." Scotsmen are almost proverbially
metaphysical, but a great man is an exception in his own
country ; were it not so Stevenson could not have failed to
perceive that Protestantism and Catholicism are states
of soul, the possessions of mankind rather than of any
particular race or family, rising up in the same country
and in the same family spontaneously and without apparent
cause. Peter was a Catholic and Paul was a Protestant,
and a thousand years before Peter and Paul were born
there were Protestants and Catholics. So in the strict
sense there is no conversion ; we merely discover in our
hearts what we brought into the world with us, a dis-
position leading us to pious practices or an inly sense
of divinity.

A striking illustration of a man becoming possessed of a
sudden sense of divinity is given by Stevenson in the very
pages that I am criticising. Stevenson had cast his camp
under some chestnut-trees where he had slept ill, the
ground being full of ants ; and there being no water in
the garden he made his toilet in the waters of the tarn
before continuing his journey through a valley, overtaking
an old man, who walked beside him talking about the
morning and the valley. Connaissez vous le Seigneur ?
the old man asked. And as if averse from giving a

direct answer Stevenson asked him what Seigneur. The
peasant only repeated the question and Stevenson
answered : now I understand you. Yes, I know him.
He is the best of acquaintances ; and delighted at this
answer the old Plymouth Brother cried, striking his
bosom : it makes me happy here. A truly Protestant
state of feeling, so much so that the words bring a
responsive thrill into the heart of every Protestant that
reads them. Of this Stevenson seems to have been aware,
but he does not seem to have understood that this peasant
might have a son who would be more moved by the motion
of a priest's finger giving him a blessing than by the
spectacle of the sun-rise.

The old Plymouth Brother follows Stevenson to the
inn and listens to him in admiration and delight, feeling
for the first time the spiritual intimacy of which he has
been long deprived, his lot having been cast in the
Catholic village. There are many of us up yonder, he
said, none here. Stevenson draws a comparison between
his own feelings regarding this man and the feelings of
the excellent friar whom he met road-making on the
summits leading to the monastery, "Our Lady of the
Snows." I have not got the passage before me, but I
think that my memory does not betray me. Stevenson
admits that with some reservations he can make common
cause with the Plymouth Brother ; but he finds himself
aloof in the company of the friar, though he is con-
strained to allow that the friar is as worthy a man as the
Plymouth Brother. This seems to me to be true. If a
man be of a Protestant kin he is at home and at spiritual
communion with all Protestant sects — Congregationalists,
Quakers, Wesleyans and Methodists and Unitarians. He
is not separated from them as he is from Papists. An
Agnostic, too, is at home with all Protestant sects.
Whether a man stays away from church or goes to church
is a matter of no importance. He may be an atheist and

still feel himself to be of the same communion as
Protestants, for atheism and Protestantism rest on the
same foundation — the right of private judgment. Nor
can theological differences concern us Protestants very
acutely, for no man knows what he believes, moral
differences are more important, and it follows that if we
surrender our right of private judgment we become if not
immoral at least unmoral ; and that is why Protestants
feel themselves so strangely aloof among Catholics.
Any curtailment of the body operates on the mind, and
the stinted mind soon begins to put on a different com-
plexion, as none can have failed to notice that keep cats.
The Tom from next door is manifestly ill at ease in the
company of my Blackie, who has been to the butcher,
and I have often thought that the embarrassment he feels
is not unlike mine when I happen to drift into the com-
pany of Papists.

The falsetto scream that comes out of Ireland and a
certain untrustworthiness in the national character may
be traced back to the relinquishment of the right to
private judgment ; without it a man is not wholly a man,
I said, and striving immediately afterwards to mitigate
the thought that had come into my mind, I continued :
but all is not black or white ; grey is the primal colour.
There are Protestant Catholics, and there are Catholic
Protestants. But are there? I asked. And is grey as
interesting in live animals as it is on the painter's palette ?
And are the all-buts more interesting than the pure
neutrals ?

CHAP. XIII.

THE house stands at the foot of the hill between the
end of the street and the high wood, hidden behind walls,
only its long Ipw rpof showing, the passenger along the

foot-path getting no more than a glimpse of it through
the tall gates, open only for carriages and motors, our-
selves coming and going by the wicket. A somewhat
gloomy residence it must seem to him who stops before
the gates, the charm and life of the house being on the
other side, about a lawn shelving steeply, and rising up
as steeply to the high wood. A river is heard muttering
in the valley, and its banks come into view presently
describing a curve so formal that our thoughts are carried
back into the eighteenth century, when labour could be
obtained for sixpence a day. It was then, we say, the
river was deviated from its natural course to make a
beautiful little domain.

A foison of briers and ash saplings has grown out of
the river's walls and is pitching them stone by stone
into the river, adding to its picturesqueness. And for a
week, I say to myself, as I hand the carman his fare, I
shall listen to the brown river bubbling past a great
cedar ; and when I go to the tennis ground I shall cross
it by a plank bridge.

From the tennis ground the lawn slants upwards,
pleasantly diversified by bunched hawthorns, casting, I
say to myself as I wait on the doorstep, having rung the
bell, round beautiful shadows about five o'clock in the
afternoon.

About the house are tall ash-trees and beeches, and these
are filled in June with young rooks trying their wings
from branch to branch. If the breeze shakes the branch
too violently they fall into the shrubberies, where the
parent bird, who would feed them, may seek them and
find them. One of the girls shoots the young rooks with
a pea rifle as they swing ; and this always seems to me
a cruelty ; for rooks are not eaten in Ireland. It may
matter little to the dead birds whether they are thrown
to cats or dogs, or whether they are baked in pies ; but
the same might be said of ourselves, that it matters little

to a man whether he lies in a vault or is thrown on a
dung-hill; yet we cannot detach our hopes from vaults,
wherefore then should not young rooks be prejudiced in
favour of interment in pies, for it were surely more
honourable to lie with hard-boiled eggs and bacon, under
a dome of well-kneaded pastry, than to be dragged about
a greensward by a dog — too often the fate of thoughtless
young rooks, I said last year, and shall say the same this
year as I sit on the shelving lawn convinced that there
is nothing in this world more beautiful than the round
shadows of hawthorn-trees dropping down a grassy hill-
side, and of all when the grassy hill-side ascends towards
a high wood.

Only in this house and on this lawn and during the
June weather do I escape from literature, from secretaries,
from manuscripts, from proofs, and surrender myself to an
almost thoughtless idleness, and to snatches of conversa-
tions with my friends, who have too many projects of their
own to attend to one who has no project outside of his
dreams.

A girl rises from the breakfast-table saying she has a
bicycle ride of many miles in front of her ; another speaks
of a fishing-party, and when the family collects about the
dinner-table, one narrating the adventures of her ride,
another telling how a fortnight hence she and another
girl will be camping out on one of the islands in the bay,
I begin to think that I should be a different George
Moore if I were married. There would be a difference
certainly, and a very real difference, and in this house
the difference appeals to me as a subject of a story ; the
invention of my married self would be a real flight of
the imagination, and the struggle between myself and
circumstance a piece of literature. The wife I should
choose for aesthetical reasons may be revealed to me in a
sudden flash as I sit on the sunny lawn if the day be fine,
or if it be wet, as I read in the billiard-room looking

forward to my walk through the most musical wood in
the world, a river tumbling round and over the boulders,
a sort of ground-base accompaniment to the songs of
blackbirds and thrushes.

A river flowing through a high wood awakens our child-
hood, not dead but sleeping; our primal imaginations
return to us — dragons, giants anid elves ; and so eager are
we to escape from the present back into the past that we
begin to feel an annoyance creep up in us as we descend
the shelving lawn. The old-fashioned flowers whose
names are familiar do not let us from the past, but the
flowering bushes — certain pink flowers whose name is
perhaps begonia — impede us, and a strange word " calceo-
laria," a plant or bush, bearing some ugly yellow flower
or berry, we know not which, bars our way, and imprisons
us in the present. But the wood will give back our
childhood to us ; in this moment of crisis we remember
at the bend of the river some dark spiky foliage favoured
with a name so beautiful that our memory should have
retained it without difficulty from one year to the next ;
but again it has passed out of our mind. But as soon as
this dense growth is behind me, I say to myself, I shall
be among forest trees, the humble cow-parsley and
lowly blue-bells and the winning speedwell running in
and out between the tall grasses will set me thinking
once again that there is no flower that speaks as plainly
as the speedwell, not even the wild geranium which I
shall find higher up in the wood overhanging the stream.

As I approach the woodland I continue to enumerate
the flowers I shall meet there : the speedwell will
brighten my way, and I shall catch sight of rocket here
and there amid the tall grasses, and peonies white and
pink and purple. Rhododendrons are all through the
high wood. I shall see again a tall spray of rhododendron
flowering in the lonely twilight of a wooded island, maybe,
and for sure I shall walk under pale green foliage filled

with noisy rooks, talking of course, but of what ? Ah ! if
we knew.

CHAP. XIV.

MY every step produces a clamour of wings in the
greenery above me : the jackdaws have nests in the boles
in the elm and their caw is softer than the rook's, and as
I walk I regret not being able to take back a jackdaw
to London for a pet, for no bird is more inclined to
domesticity than he is, quitting his kind for our kind if he
receive any slight encouragement to do so.

In a moment, and without my being conscious of the
departure of rooks and jackdaws, two birds that the
gardener told me last year were dippers engage my
attention, and I remember that the name he put upon
them did not satisfy me, and how pleasurable it was to
seek them out in an illustrated book and to discover the
almost tailless birds shapen like wrens, with white waist-
coats, to be water-ousels — birds that had merely a Words-
worthian reality for me till I saw them in Westport.

It is delightful to meet in life what one is a little
weary of meeting in poetry ; to watch the rapid beat of
their wings as they fly, resting every twenty or thirty
yards upon a boulder, now and then plunging into the
water, to run along the bottom in search of worms, so the
book informed me, and it became a passion in me to try
to verify the fact.

The birds go under water in search of food, there
could be no doubt of that, since they did not seek their
food on land; but the nature of the food they sought
could hardly be worms ; for worms do not live under
water; and standing like a stock I apply myself to the
observation of the birds without, however, gathering a
single fact except that their flight is short and rapid like

the kingfisher's; and I say to myself: to note anything
new about them I shall have to discover their nest ; for
they have a nest here surely, though the season is late.
One only meets them on the island, if I may call it such.
An island it was certainly in the mind of the eighteenth-
century designer, but the channel he dug has filled up
with mud, but with mud still sufficiently liquid to justify
the appellation of island to a very beautiful and romantic
spot protected by mud on one side and a river on
the other from sight-seers beguiled to trespass by the
tranquillity of these woods, and the high ruin hanging
over the crest of the hill. None knows that island except
the water-ousels, I say to myself as I walk thither ; and
birds who do not frequent trees nest in old walls.

But how beautiful are the trees in their island seclusion ;
and with unwearying fondness my eyes wander among
the tall stems and out upon the branches, admiring the
anatomy and the architecture, convinced, and my conviction
is ecstatic, that in this world there is nothing so admirable
as a tree, or so mysterious. Small wonder, I say, that
men have worshipped them ; would that I too might
worship, and upon the wings of a perfervid desire of
worship my thoughts melt into a thoughtless contemplation
of an overhanging tree that a boy would have liked to
use as a bridge, but being no longer a boy I meditate on
the noble gesture, saying to myself: a fallen or falling
tree humanises a wood.

The ousels have disappeared into the nest that I shall
never find ; and I move up the path that I may get a
better view of the great white wall of an ancient mill
pierced with many windows, through which the sunset
will pour as the last train rattles over the viaduct on its
way to Achill, emphasising the solitude of the wood as
it ascends amid high rock.

It could not have been else than here, I say, that my
infantile eyes would have espied dragons, giants and elves

in the twilight of overhanging clefts ; and who can say
they are not here still ? Tis our former selves that have
vanished ; we are always losing and winning something ;
nothing is permanent within or without. In childhood
I saw dragons, giants and elves, and now I see high trees,
ivy clad, lifting themselves with lovely gesture out of a
tangle of hawthorn, with the pale pink rhododendron
blossom resting atop of its tall stem in the solitude of a
wooded island — the same as last year. Of what have I
to complain? — we only change our visions; and my
philosophy is confirmed a few yards farther on by a group
of laburnums venturing into the river for all the world like
a group of golden-haired nymphs.

The hart's tongue and the Royal Osmunda should do
well here, I say, and my eyes begin a search for the tall,
pale, reed-like fern of which there is not one about, and I
pause, for at that moment an otter slides into the river
noiselessly ; and seeing the dark animal come up with a
fish in its mouth and disappear into the bank, I begin to
think of the hungry cubs at the end of a hole about three
feet deep, of all I had read about tame otters, and of the
stiffness of the ascent up the hill-side — an ascent that a
few years hence I shall undertake with some little difficulty,
but which to-day is pleasant exercise.

The path leads through tall boles rising like spears, a
beech wood ; and soon after I find myself beset as of yore
by thoughts regarding a wall some twenty feet high
descending steeply into a lovely hollow and rising up
again as steeply, saying to myself: a strange thought it
was surely to build a wall twenty feet high through a
wood: but it adds to the mystery of this little domain
designed so finely by Nature, one that, Le Ndtre would
have said, I can neither add to nor curtail.

And on coming out of the wood I find myself on a sort
of terrace or terraced walk overlooking the deer park — a
deer park of twenty acres ! In the eighteenth century a

deer park was a necessary adjunct to every gentleman's
residence, and in Ireland the eighteenth century did not
end till 1870, therefore, in my boyhood, almost every
residence of distinction in Mayo had a deer park — that
Moore Hall should be without one was a source of shame
and regret to me ; and it was not infrequent for me to
drop into meditations regarding a possible extension of the
Stone Park. As late as the sixties there were deer in
Castle Carra ; and the great mass of brushwood (through
which we used to wend our way with our luncheons — a
picnic in the ruined castle was a pleasure looked forward
to eagerly) might be purchased from Sir Robert Blosse
if one of our race-horses would win a big race. And
these dreams of long ago were revived by the miniature
deer park of s Westport Lodge — a deer park of twenty
acres, in which the last stag was shot some years ago
on account of his refusal to share his paddock or park
with a jackass ; the jackass was required for the children,
and the stag was an old friend that lived on excellent
terms with everybody but the jackass, what was to be
done ? And the perplexity the stag caused in his life
did not end with his death ; nobody would eat this
noble and affable friend. He was given to the dogs,
I believe. But away with such memories.

Above me rises a wall of great height covered with a
thick green creeper, heart-shapen papery leaves forming
an obscure growth at the foot of the wall, and filled with
a blue flower so uninteresting that it is called periwinkle ;
nor does it deserve a nobler name, and only a man lacking
in the finer instincts would stop to consider it on a terrace
commanding so admirable a view — the wooded park
descending in many beautiful shapes, and beyond its
trees the roofs of the town showing against the dark
sides of the Westport hills; hill after hill rising up in
rugged outlines like bastions designed as if to support
the almost too perfect symmetry of St Patrick's Hill. A

peak as regular as the famous volcano that the Japanese
painters spent their lives in the eighteenth century
drawing and redrawing, and saying to each other : if we
live for another fifty years we may produce a drawing
that will satisfy us. But in Ireland nobody draws, and
popular imagination was satisfied by the building of a
tiresome church on the top of it, whither pilgrims go
wearing their shoe leather away and emptying their
pockets. A whilom volcano, so it is said, in the back end
of time, some five hundred thousand years maybe before
the birth of man. I had once thought that with five
hundred tons of dynamite the regularity of the peak
might be undone, but to-day it seems to me that the
peak is all right in its landscape. I would change
nothing, not even the church that has been built atop
of St Patrick. In God's good time the people will weary
of prayers and turn to drawing, and what a vision of
outlines for their pencils. On looking into the gap
between the trees and the Westport hills, we see a faint
blue line of dentilated hills almost lost to view in about
five and twenty or thirty miles of distance, the first chain
of the Connemara mountains.

CHAP. XV.

AT this moment Jim comes panting to heel, having failed
to get on the trail of a rabbit.

Jim is May's dog; and I may have been guilty of an
error in composition in not having introduced the reader
to the lean, long-legged fox terrier who finds it at first
difficult to remember me over the long interval of eleven
months. He sniffs and sniffs again, his memory returning
with every sniff, and at the fifth or sixth he barks, and
there is no mistaking the bark; it says as plainly as
words : you're the gentleman who takes me out rabbiting.

And from that moment he waits and watches, and when
I raise my eyes from the book I catch his eye, and after
a time I say : Jim, you've been waiting a long time, the
book that I'm reading must seem very tiresome to you,
let us go. At these words he utters a most joyful bark,
and scampers round the billiard-table. If I put on my
hat he is nearly sure he is going to be taken out, if I take
the stick he is certain, and away we go in the hope of a
rabbit.

There is a record, or at least a legend, of Jim having
succeeded in catching a rabbit on the hill-side, but within
my knowledge the triumph has always been missed, the
rabbit succeeding in escaping down the gullet out of
which he came from Lord Sligo's domain.

The first time that I witnessed the escape of the rabbit
was about three years ago. Jim, who had brought a fine
scent into the world with him, got on the trail of the
rabbit at the beginning of the wood, and went away, his
nose to the ground, at full gallop without posting me,
as he should have done, to cut off the retreat, and being
ignorant of the nature of the ground, it fell out that I
stopped unhappily at some ten or a dozen yards from the
gullet, instead of at the entrance of the gullet itself : ten
yards higher up the hill, ten yards nearer to the gullet,
I should have been able to turn a rabbit back who seemed
no wise in a hurry, the dog having lost the scent, and the
rabbit seemingly aware of the loss stopped, meditated a
moment, and before I could intervene hopped leisurely
into the little drain and passed up the gullet. The dog
arrived a few seconds afterwards and began the fruitless
digging. Poor Jim was disappointed, and it was with
difficulty he was persuaded to renounce the task, which in
his heart he must have known to be hopeless, of digging
out the rabbit. On many other occasions I bade Jim to
heel till I was fairly stationed at the gullet and then bade
him hunt, but on all these occasions there was no rabbit.

It was not till last year that a rabbit bounded out of the
undergrowth with Jim after him yelping like a Red Indian
on the war-path, and I following down into the dell and
up again striving to reach the gullet before the rabbit.
It may be that 1 arrived too late and it may be that the
rabbit bounded back and escaped by another gullet, all
that can be said definitely is that the rabbit escaped.
More than that would be surmise, conjecture.

This year as last year Jim will accompany me, but I
shall not lend him my aid to catch the rabbit by standing
myself at the gullet, I shall entertain the hope that the
rabbit will continue to escape, for were the rabbit taken
the hill-side would lose some of its wonder, some of its
mystery, some of its adventure. But no such misfortune
as the taking of the rabbit will befall us ; the rabbit is
never taken in Ireland, and let us hope that the future
will be like the past, and that the history of Ireland will
continue to be marked by the escape of the rabbit ; for
were the rabbit taken the country would sink into such
stupor and lethargy as would frighten God in His high
throne in Heaven.

CHAP. XVI.

ONE day in my walks in the high wood I spied a man
standing on a boulder in the midst of the river, seemingly
undecided whether he should jump to the next one ; and
knowing the pool to be deep between the boulders I tried
to dissuade him.

There's no chance of drowning, he cried to me, but if I
miss my step I'll be up to my belt. I called out that to
cross the river he would be trespassing on private rights,
but he did not heed my warning. He jumped again ;
and, laying hold of a protruding root, began to climb the
bank, telling me as he made his way up that the master

(the gentleman in whose house I was staying) would have
nothing to say against the gathering of a few ferns along
the river's bank.

A fern - gatherer, I said, and followed him asking
questions, not so much for the answers he gave as for
the pleasure it was to listen to his low, musical voice,
a tenor voice, in keeping, it seemed to me, with his pale,
almost affectionate eyes, shining like jewels in a pointed
oval face ; a young man who had just passed out of his
first youth ; an Irish peasant, but far from the typical, I
said, when I left him to his search and continued my
walk through the beech wood, not able to forget his
spare chestnut beard, his moustache and his comely,
well-knit figure. These, so it seemed to me, I had seen
before and many times, but where I had seen them I
could not remember, and it was not till after long soul
searching it occurred to me that I had seen him in
pictures. Yes, I murmured to myself, he is the Jesus
that has come down to us from the fifteenth century,
imagined first perhaps by Fra Angelico, and repeated
ever since by many thousands of painters, inclining more
and more to the feminine and epicene type, becoming a
woman in Holman Hunt's picture, The Light of the
World, Miss Christina Rossetti, with a blonde beard and
moustache. But, I continued, my fern-gatherer does not
reproduce the fond emptiness of Jesus's face ; he is with
it all a man ; and there can be no doubt that I am doing
him an injustice by associating him with Holman Hunt's
version of Christina Rossetti in a blonde beard. My fern-
gatherer is a man and altogether himself in the life he
has chosen for himself. A romantic figure, I added, one
which does honour to the town of Westport.

He had already captured my imagination by dinner-time,
and at the first pause in the converation, when the girls'
narratives of the day's doings had ceased, I related our
meeting, and learnt that legends had already begun to

collect about him. His name ? I asked anxiously, feeling
I should be disappointed if his name were among those
that one wearies of in Ireland — Higgins, Walsh, O'Connor,
Murphy. That it might not be Murphy I prayed inly. Alec
Trusselby ! It would be strange, indeed, I exclaimed, if
legends had not begun to collect about a name like that,
and begged that all that was known about him should
be told to me at once. Everybody was willing to tell,
and the biographical scraps uttered from different ends
and sides of the dinner-table were in keeping with his
name.

I learnt from one member of the family that Alec had
been to America and had suffered from sunstroke, from
another that he lived in the woods all the summer-time,
bringing back beech and oak ferns to Westport and getting
for them a fair share of money; and from another that
his voice and manner were so winning that it was difficult
not to be his customer, and as every customer became a
patron, Alec had no cause for complaint. Even if he
had he is not the kind of man that would complain, a
girl suddenly interjected, and turning to her I asked :
how is that? She replied that he was a very shy man
who would remain silent for long intervals to break
into speech suddenly like a bird. This seemed to me a
good description, but I had not seen enough of Alec at
that time to be able to vouch for its accuracy. A girl told
me the report was that Alec had built himself a summer
dwelling in a great tree, and I answered that what she
said did not surprise me. Lying in his bed under the
boughs, I said, he caught his style from the moody black-
bird who fills the wood at dawn with his exalted lay ;
more likely still from the meditative thrush. But how
does Alec live through the winter? I asked, and it was
delightful to hear that in the winter he related stories
about the firesides in the cottages, and that no one refused
Alec bed and board if he could help it ; Alec's company

was sought for by everybody ; and a suspicion was abroad
that to treat him ill was to bring ill luck upon oneself.
Gathering ferns in the summer and telling stories in the
winter, I repeated, becoming possessed in a moment of
an absorbing interest in Alec Trusselby. Is he an Irish
speaker ? I asked, and heard that he was one of the best
in the county of Mayo. But, a girl cried across the table,
mind, if he suspects you of laughing at him he will run
away at once, and don't tell him you're a Protestant,
he might refuse to go into the woods with you. With a
heretic ? I added.

A custard pudding interrupted the conversation about
Alec, but as soon as everybody had been helped it returned
to him, and I learnt that the gentle winning personality
that had awakened fellow-feeling in me was only one side
of Alec Trusselby ; there was another, and one well known
to the Westport police — staunch friends of his, always
ready to take his part when Alec's less reputable associates
mocked him in the street after drinking his money away
in the public-house, their joke being to try to grab the
Murrigan, not an easy thing to do, for it never left his
hand, and where the Murrigan was concerned Alec was
resolute and strong.

The Murrigan ? I interjected. He calls his blackthorn
the Murrigan, one of the girls answered ; but we don't
know what the word means, whether it's an Irish word
or a word invented by himself. I wonder if the police
could tell me ? I said. Now why should the police be
bothering their heads with what Alec means when he
calls his stick the Murrigan ? my friend, the girls' father,
blurted out ; and he laughed the short, quick, intelligent
laugh whereby I remember him. Haven't they enough
to do to keep him out of jail ? And he told a story how,
returning home late one night, he had come upon
Trusselby and the police — the sergeant and the constable
engaged in trying to persuade Alec to return to his

lodging. You see, Alec, you're free to follow them if you
like : the constable has let go your arm, the sergeant
was saying. But if you take my advice you'll be taking
yourself and the Murrigan home like the quiet, good man
that you are, the divil a better. If they insult you again
we'll let yourself and the Murrigan at them, but this time
we'll be asking you to let them pass on, for to break their
skulls with the Murrigan would be conferring too much
honour upon them. You see, said mine host, we have all
a kindly feeling for Trusselby, myself as well as the police ;
to keep him out of jail takes us all our time, and we
haven't that much over to be ferreting out the meaning
of all the talk that goes on between himself and his stick
as he walks the roads. But he's not half-witted ? I
asked, looking round the dinner-table, preferring a general
to an individual opinion, and the company was agreed
that Alec could not be held to be a loon. And his stories ?
I asked ; but none at the table had felt sufficient curiosity
to ask him to tell them one. I'd give a great deal, I said,
to hear Trusselby tell a story, and was warned not to offer
him a great deal of money, but to wait an occasion to
win his confidence. If you offer him a sovereign to tell
you a story you'll frighten him ; he'll begin to suspect
some evil and you'll get nothing out of him. But I may
not meet Trusselby again, and if I did, to the end of my
visit is not a long time to win his confidence — I shall be
leaving in a few days. You can stay as long as you like,
my host and my hostess interjected, we would like to see
you friends with Trusselby before you leave.

The next day one of the girls rushed into the room in
which I was writing : Trusselby is coming down the hill,
she said, and I bolted out after him. You sell ferns,
don't you? I asked; he answered that he did, and I
asked him to get me some. He said he would and passed
on, and I returned to the house disappointed. But luck
was with me, and two evenings later, returning home

after dining with a friend, I met Trusselby at the river-
side, whirling the Murrigan and apparently in a convivial
mood. Well, Alec, I said, have you come upon the
royal or the hart's tongue in your walks? You're the
gentleman I met the other day up at the old mill, aren't
you ? he asked. I answered that I was, and we walked
on together, myself making conversation, afraid every
moment that Trusselby would say : I must be wishing
you good-night, sir, or I'll be locked out. But it was
unlikely that Trusselby had a latchkey, it was more
probable that he contemplated spending the night out,
which would be no great hardship, for the night was
warm and still, and were it not that a bench is a hard
bed, the most home-loving and respectable man in West-
port might have liked to have lain out of doors, sooner
or later to be hushed to sleep by the almost inaudible
sound of water rippling past and the soft cawing of sleepy
rooks. A night it was that would keep anybody out of
his bed till midnight at least, except, perhaps, a dry old
curmudgeon. A breathless night, full of stars, and per-
chance stories, I said to myself, and then aloud to Alec :
yes, we met up at the old mill, but you didn't find the
ferns you were looking for ? Is it the royal you're after ?
Alec asked, and I answered that that was what I had in
mind, and having listened to Trusselby for some time on
the rarity of the fern, I broke in with the remark that I'd
never seen a finer blackthorn than the one he was carrying.
He had come upon it in a brake, he said, in a thicket
that often served him as a bedroom in a summer's night
when his quest for ferns had led him far from Westport.
And it was one morning at sunrise that I spied her ; she
was no thicker that morning than one of my fingers, and
I said to myself: in about three years' time that stem will
be the finest in Ireland if the top be cut at once so that
it may be throwing out little knots and spikes. The
knots begin almost at the top, sir, and at every knot there

is three spikes. You would be lost if you started counting
them, just as you might be if you were to start on the
stars in the skies. It was the blessing of God that I
saw the Murrigan that morning, for a year later it would
have been too late to cut the top. I was only in time,
and there it stayed for its three years sprouting, with
three spikes coming out on every knot. You can see
them, sir, all the way up. Faith, there isn't half-an-inch
of the stick without its three spikes. But if somebody
had gone into the brake and seen the stick before you ?
I asked. I had to risk that, sir, for it takes three full
years for the stick to furnish, and often I didn't like
going to the brake for fear a person might spy me and
be wondering what I was after and perhaps be coming
in behind me and find out the stick ; but sure I had the
luck all the time and nobody came. In three years to
the day, your honour, I was down in the dingle cutting
my stick, my heart filled with joy so furnished was it.
Mind you, sir, the seasoning of a blackthorn isn't under-
stood by every man, for when you've cut your stick you
must season it, and the place I was living in then had a
fine old chimney with a flue inside of it on which you
could rest a stick, and there the Murrigan rested
seasoning. After six good months I took it down and
gave it a rub with an oil rag, and I'll tell you, mister,
it was good for sore eyes to see the way it was coming ,
up. Take a look at it yourself now and tell me, is there
a bit of Spanish mahogany in the country is its equal for
colour. To this I agreed, and asked : is that the reason
you call it the Murrigan? Well, it isn't, your honour.
Do you see, Murrigan means " great queen " in the Irish,
and my stick here is the queen of the fair this many a day.
The stick knows it too, for if I'm not at the fair off goes
the Murrigan without me ; I look round in the morning,
but not a stick can I see, so I say : the Murrigan' s gone,
.and she'll be breaking the head of some poor chap out of

sheer light-heartedness and divilment. That's the way it
does be, sir, for after she's gone there's somebody has a
cracked head somewhere. No one knows who breaks it,
barring the Murrigan, and she tells nobody, but just flies
back unbeknownst to anybody, and finds her old place
in the corner just as any creature would. And there I
find her, waiting for me. Have a look at the Murrigan,
sir, for you'll never see another like her. She's as
beautifully ornamented as the Brooch of Tara itself, and
she has the finest colour in Ireland or out of Ireland.

Faith and troth I never did. So the Murrigan goes to
the fair by herself ?

She does so, your honour, and she flies round the heads
of the people, urging them on the way the old Murrigan
used to do when Brian Boru was in it, waking up the
spirit of fight in them. The Murrigan whirls like an
eagle over the heads of the people, prodding them here
and poking them there, and putting them at each other.
When I'm there, and the Murrigan with me, I feel my
hand rise up and my head is that elated I don't know
whether it's me or the Murrigan is doing the deeds, and
I don't know if the stars that are in my head aren't
thicker and twice as thick than they are in the sky. All
I can see is the Murrigan about me and she whirling like
a bird, but never leaving me five fingers ; a faithful thing
the Murrigan, bless her soul, and she saved my life many
a time, good luck to her !

Trusselby kissed his blackthorn and we leaned our
backs against the parapet of the bridge, looking up into
the sky, the town asleep, nothing to be heard about us
but the ripple of the river. Trusselby seemed to have
forgotten me, and I wondered of what he could be
thinking, of some battle long ago, I thought, in which
doubtless the Murrigan played a great part, and seeing
a smile playing over his bland, almost holy face, I said :
there used to be great fighting long ago ? It was about

fighting I was thinking, your honour, a great fair at
Castlebar, when there were more two-year-olds than three-
year-olds about.

To check the story that was on his lips with a question
would have been fatal, so I held my peace, hoping
to learn whether the fair was lacking in two-year-old
bullocks or two-year-old colts and fillies.

He began again after a pause. You see, sir, in the
old times when your ancestors were in it, God rest their
souls, in the days of your grandfather, there was an
O'Brien sold a heifer to a Fitzgerald for a two-year-old,
but the heifer itself was a three-year-old ; and the next
fair day there was a fight between Fitzgerald and O'Brien ;
and at the next fair the Fitzgerald brothers and the
O'Brien brothers were fighting; and the fair day after
that the cousins were in the fight, and after the cousins
the friends came in on one side and the other, until it
was a dangerous thing to hold any fair in the country at
all, so great was the fighting; after whacking with all
the blackthorns in the country over all the skulls in the
country for more than fifty years the war finished, and it
was only at the heel of the hunt that I strolled in one
fair day to Castlebar. There was a man there, and some-
body made a cake of his skull with a tap of a stick.
Nobody knew who did it. He said it was the policeman,
and he took out a summons against the policeman. Well,
I was a witness in the case, your honour, and I couldn't
see an innocent man condemned even if he was a peeler
itself. When I came before the magistrate he asked if I
was standing by at the time. I was, your Worship, says
I ; and he says : was it the policeman broke the man's
head ? and I said : it was not, your Worship ; the policeman
didn't hit the man that tap. A tap, you call it, said the
man, Michael Joyce was his name, and he lifted up the
bloody bandage that was upon his brow. 'Tis more than
a tap, your Worship, says I, it's a clout ; but tap or clout,

it wasn't the policeman gave it to him. You're on your
oath, Alec Trusselby, he said. And I said : before God ?,
and I gave a swear that it wasn't the policeman. Now
what do you think but the magistrate was looking into
Joyce's face, and he saw three little weeney holes around
his eye, and he took notice of them three little holes, and
when I picked up the Murrigan and was going out of the
box he said : let me have a look at your stick, Trusselby,
so I gave it to him, and he said : wasn't it you gave the
man the tap ? And I said : it was so, your Worship. Tell
me, says he, why did you strike that blow ? So I ups
and I told him the story of the two-year-olds and the
three-year-olds. Which was he, said the magistrate, was
he a two-year-old or a three-year-old? Your Worship,
says I, he was like myself, he was a two-year-old. And
why did you assault and batter the man ? Well, you see,
your Worship, says I, there was only a few of us in that
fair. We was outnumbered altogether by the three-year-
olds, and Joyce yonder was saying he'd like well to see
the man who'd tread on the tail of his coat, and seeing
that there would be a fight in which we might be worsted
I just gave him a tap to make him quiet like, and to keep
him out of harm's way.

So that's the story of the Murrigan ? It is, your honour,
I've told you the whole of it. A wonderful stick she is ;
look at her ; every knob with three little spikes like the
blessed shamrock that St Patrick picked so that he would
be able to explain the Holy Trinity to the pagans. A
beautiful stick, I said, and a very interesting story.
You know many stories, Alec, and can tell them better
than any man now living. It's puffing me up with pride
and goster you'd be, your honour, and after reminding
him that he had promised to bring me some beech and
oak ferns we parted, myself regretting that my shyness
had prevented me from asking Alec to tell me a story.
The night is fine, I said, and he was in the humour ; he

wouldn't have refused, but I've missed my chance unless
I fortune to meet him again before leaving Westport.

It was two days afterwards that I met Trusselby speed-
ing down the road from the woods, his hands full of ferns,
and accosting him with a pleasant good-morning and a
reference to our talk by the bridge under the elm-trees I
invited him to come up to the high wood with me. You
may have overlooked some ferns, I said. He did not
answer, but his eyes said plainly enough that he didn't
believe he had overlooked any. Well, come with me, I
said. If we find some ferns so much the better, if we
don't I'll reward you for your afternoon all the same.
Well, if it will please your honour, I'll come up with you.
We found no ferns, but, as if to compensate me for my
factitious disappointment, Alec proposed to go to Ilanaidi
to search for the royal, and, after visiting all the moist
banks and hollows of the town-land, we returned with
some fine specimens of beech and oak ferns, some
specimens of the hart's tongue — a beautiful tall fern
flowing out like a ribbon, Alec's own description of it —
and in our hearts the hope that on another day we might
be more fortunate and come upon the royal. And to the
gate of my friend's house Alec continued to assure me
that it had been heard of between Ilanaidi and Castlebar.
At the wicket I gave him to understand that I was ready
when he was for a day in the woods and fields. Till
to-morrow, were my last words to him, and as soon as
they were spoken my face changed expression, for Ilanaidi
was four or five miles from Westport, and there and back
would be a long way for a man of letters.

CHAP. XVII.

DID Alec tell you any stories? my friend asked, and
his short, ironical laugh jarred a little. No ; I heard no

stories, but patience is the virtue of the folk-lorist. You
don't mean that you're going for another tramp with Alec ?
Yes, we start to-morrow at nine. Well, you're an extra-
ordinary fellow, my host said. Every man is extraordinary
to his fellow, I answered ; our quests are different ; and the
next day I went forth again, to return with an increased
knowledge of ferns but without any stories. Indeed, I
had almost begun to believe that a joke was being put
upon me. It was often on my tongue to say : in the
winter evenings I suppose you tell stories in the cottages,
but I had restrained myself, and it is not unlikely that it
was to break through my studied reserve that he began to
speak, some days later, of Liadin and Curithir, saying they
used to meet by the druid stone under which we were now
sitting eating the food we had brought with us. And
who may they be ? I asked. You don't read their names
in the stories that are going round about old Ireland,
he answered, but 'tis many and many's the time I've
heard my father say that there wasn't the like of that
pair for the making of poems.

The names seemed to kindle a new personality in him.
The lantern is lighted, I said ; we shall see whither it
leads us.

In the years back, he continued, it was a favourite story
with the people, but they don't care much about it here.
It is out of their minds now like the rest of the old
shanachies, and all they have a taste for is the yarns they
do be reading in the newspapers and the like ; stuff with-
out any diet in them. They are not like the story I'm
talking of, the story of Liadin aud Curithir. But I
would be wearying your honour with it. You might not
be caring for old stories. There's nothing to my mind
better than an old story, I answered. The birds are
singing overhead ; the time is for story- telling ; go on,
Alec.

CHAP. XVIII.

WELL, since your honour is so pleasant I'll tell it. At
the first going off, let you know that Liadin and Curithir
were two great poets, as great as any that ever went the
round in Ireland, though there has been more talk about
others than about them. Usheen was the biggest of the
lot, and I'm not comparing Liadin and Curithir to himself.
All the same Curithir was a fine poet and Liadin wasn't
far behind him for the telling of stories and the singing
of songs in the courts of the kings, and the like, where
they'd all be clamouring and shouting for her at the end
of their feasts. She was from Corkaguiney, or, as they call
it now, the County Cork, and she was on her way there
when she met Curithir, who was on his rounds to the west
and would be going north shortly with his thousand stories,
for he had a stiffer memory than Liadin's, although his
songs weren't as soothing to men after drinking a gallon
or more of ale. A gallon was nothing to people in those
days ! And so it was with these two that I am telling
your honour about, and they sharing the glory of Ireland
between them.

Every spring of the year they would be passing this
stone, beside which your honour is lying, as they were
bound to, it being the mereing. And every time they
passed it Liadin said to herself: Curithir knows more
poems than I do but my own songs are sweeter than
Curithir's. And every time Curithir passed it he said:
many's the time I've gone by here thinking to meet
Liadin, whose songs make game men of all men, though
what they be at is love or war, strutting and striving
to outdo one and t'other, trailing their coats like a
cock his wing. She passes this way every year like I
do myself, Curithir said; and we always missing each
other as if it was the will of God. And while he was

thinking away like I'm telling you, a feeling came over
him that it would be well for him to bide his time, it
being about the season that she would be on her way
to the south. Nor had he long to wait, for before the
light was gone he saw two women coming through the
dusk, and he knew them to be Liadin and her tiring
woman, for no one else would be wandering through
a lonesome place at nightfall, unless it was herdsmen
that were come to bring the cows home for the milk
to be drawn out of them. Isn't it true, says Curithir, to
himself, she is coming to touch this stone like everybody
that travels north or south ? but though he said to himself
— it is she — he wasn't sure that it was, and his heart was
fluttering as if it would burst his breast open and lay
him stiff before her. With every step she took the cold
sweat was starting on his forehead, and his face was
gone as pale as the grass beyond will be in the heel of
the year; and then, as she came nearer, and the sight
of her face became plain, a great swimming came behind
his eyes and he might have fallen, she was that beautiful.
He said: her body is like a first night's snow, her hair
is curly as the wool on a ram's head, her lips are red
as the rowan berry, and her voice is sweet and low like
the wind whispering among the reeds when the summer
is coming in.

At last I am looking at yourself, Curithir, and it is not
too soon that I set my eyes on you, for every spring-time,
a day, or at the most a week, has been coming between
our two bodies and our two souls. Faith, Liadin of the
songs, I've been thinking that myself, and it was a good
thought bade me a while back to wait here where I am
lest you might be passing. Do you hear that, Lomna
Druth ? Curithir asked, turning from Liadin to his dwarf
who was cocked up on the druid stone with the poet's
singing robe in a purple bag lying beside him. I've half
a mind to leave you cocked up there, so that you may be

breaking one of your little legs trying to climb down, or
if there be no heart in you to dare to climb down, to
die up there, and you howling for a bite or a sup and none
coming. But my happiness is so great now that I'll even
forgive you for urging me to my journey and making me
miss her whom I've been waiting for this long time, and
who is before us now. He would have said more than
that to Lomna Druth, for he was angry at the thought
that he had been near to missing Liadin again. But at
the sight of her there was no more thought in him for
Lomna Druth, and turning from the ugly little fellow he
stood gazing and gaping at the beautiful woman before
him without a word to say to her, for his throat was like
a lime-kiln and hers was hardly better. A spell seemed
to be on the two of them, caused by the long waiting and
by the spring of the year. At last she got out the words :
Brigit, my tiring woman, was to sleep here by this stone.
But if you and the Lomna Druth have chosen this place

for your bed we would not be Faith, said Curithir,

wouldn't it be the poor thing if we could not spend one
night listening to the stories that every person in Ireland
has heard but our two selves alone.

But not a story, nor the beginning of a story, could
either tell the other, so great was the longing and the un-
easiness and the torment that was in them. While they
were that way the Lomna Druth was snoring away like a
stuck pig, with his mouth wide open, and the moon staring
down his gullet ; nor was Brigit far behind him, and the
noise them two were making with their snores and their
snorts put all the stories out of Curithir's head so that he
could not remember one of them at all and was stumbling
and forgetting himself until Liadin took pity on him. So
she said : let us leave these people where they are and
we will go and look out for a quiet place in the wood
where we can talk. He knew what was in her mind,
and got on his feet, and she came after him saying : I

cannot go with you, and he answering : you can, you can,
indeed, overcoming her with the story of a place where
the grass was thick under the larches : where, he said, we
shall be missing the droppings of the rooks, for they have
their nests higher up on the hill-side. So cosening was
his talk she could not say no to him, and that night they
lay with their lips seeking each other's lips always, his
hand never wearying of the shape of her body, nor his
eyes wearying either, for the moon shining through the
tasselled branches gave light enough for him to enjoy
her with his eyes. So he not wearying and she nothing
loth spent the night together, taking their joy of each
other until the rooks began to clatter out of the high
wood and went away one by one and two by two down
the valley filled with mist for all the world like a lake.
No person, he said, looking from her, would know the
mist from a lake that had come in the night to divide us,
and she said : a lake come to divide us ! And he answered
her reproof : no, we're together for as long as this flesh
lasts. On speaking these words there came a piercing
in him with the knowledge that he would lose Liadin.
How he would lose her he did not know ; but there was
fear in him that he would lose her surely. It was in her
too, but being a woman she kept the thought to herself.

My Brigit and your Lomna Druth, she said, will come
this way searching for us ; it would be as well that we
should go to them instead. It would be as well indeed, he
replied angrily, but I wish all the same that the warning
had not come from you, and without saying any more
they went back in search of their servants. Curithir,
guessing Liadin's thoughts, said : from this day our life
will be lonesome for us two, and not one of us knows how
we lived our lives up to this day, and we not seeing each
other every day and every night ; so hazy is it all that I
do believe it was but a dream that a reality broke last
night. I'm feeling like that myself, she said, but I would

have you make your meaning plainer to me. Says he :
is it not plain enough what I say that you are the greatest
poetess Ireland has ever known and I am the greatest
poet ; let us go off together for good and all, and we will
have a son to our name who'll be greater than the two
of us. I like well, she answered, that you should be
thinking such things, but if I said yes to that all my trysts
would be broken and your trysts too, and you have many
of them in the north and I elsewhere. We have to keep
our bonds with the people in whose houses we've eaten
and whose presents we've taken. And this seeming to
Curithir well spoken, he kicked his dwarf out of slumber
and said : come, follow me ; the day has begun and our
way is northward. With the same words but without the
kick Liadin awoke Brigit : put the harp on your back and
sling the bag with my singing robes over your arm and
be after me quickly, for there's a long road in front of us.
Brigit did as she was bid and was soon ahead of her
mistress, whose thoughts were not on the road before her
but back in the pleasant covert where so much delight
had come to her. And every step she took away from
the place the nearer it was to her, so that to get rid of
the languish that was interfering with her journey she
began a cronan and a singing to herself, and it was the
way that the words and the tune came unknown to her,
word for word and note by note, so that she wondered.
The like of this never happened to me before, she
murmured, though the verses usually came easily to me ;
nor was the first stretch of the road they were going
done with when lo ! and behold you ! a second and a
third song came to her and she not looking for them or
thinking about them at all ! Other things she was think-
ing of. Mistress, you'll be making the king wait for
the new songs you promised last year. But to Brigit' s
screechings Liadin gave no heed. She continued in her
thoughts until they arrived at the Court, where there was

a great gathering to meet her. It was proud she was
that time, and when she took the harp from Brigit she
made a song about love under the larches the way that
everyone who heard her that night were troubled under
their robes and stood gaping and gazing, every man
looking at every other man's wife and every woman with
her eyes at another woman's husband. Wherever she
went it was the same story, from king to serving boy,
men were stabbing each other in the streets, and women
tearing each other's hair in the parlours, with Liadin
standing by unconcerned about the mischief she was
making ; rejoicing maybe in the bottom of her heart,
for she was wild and raging wild that she hadn't had
a second night with Curithir under the larches. A year
is a long time, said she, but if I kissed another man that
would spoil it all, and as soon as any man tried to put a
hand on her she out with a knife on him. Let you be
listening to my songs, she would say, and let you be off
and do the same thing underneath the larches, but let
me be, for in this world everyone keeps to their own
people, the kings with the queens, the poets with the
poetesses, and so on that way.

The kissing and the strife continued until the priest
hearing that bad work was being done in the courts said :
Ireland will go back to the devil and the druids if we
don't put a stop to that one, and from that day out they
gave her neither peace nor ease, but kept on talking to
her, and preaching to her and barging at her about her
soul that would be lasting always, and about the wasting
of the flesh and the wasting of all things in the world. It
was the truth they were telling her, and she did well to
listen to them, for who have we but the clergy to come
to us when we're on the broad of our back, on the last
day, with oil to rub on our feet, and strong prayers for the
resting of our souls ? The time will come to you, Liadin,
said the priests, when your voice wijl be no better than

the screeching of gravel under a door, and your fine hair
will be no better than seaweed, and it lank and stinking ;
and your teeth, if they are little itself and like the snow-
drops this day, will one day be lengthy and yellow, and
after that maybe there won't be a tooth in your head at all.
And not a day but will see the vanishing of a bit of your
beauty until there is none left, said the priest. It's that
way and with them arguments they talked to her, and there
was no stopping them once they began ; and then you will
be thinking, Liadin of the fair hair, about the mischief you
did in Erie and in the world, and about your wantoning in
the dry ditches in the summer nights, and the fighting
and battling you set going up and down the streets of
the five provinces. Repent while you've got the chance,
said they, or it'll be the worse for you. What would you
have me do ? said she. Is it to be hanging up my harp on
a nail at the back of a door, and leaving it there ? she
asked them. And they said : it wasn't that, but to put
a good tune on the harp and to make songs about the love
of God and the glory of the holy saints and angels : that,
said themselves, is what we'd have you do. But if the sort
of songs you like do not come into my mind, what way
will I be singing them and I thinking of other things ?
she asked. And that was her gait all the time, till one
day a great man, Fergus by name, took his death-blow
with a bill-hook in a dispute and a quarrel with another
man about her singing.

It was after that she began to listen to the priest :
it's a filthy, bad, black passion is in yourself, and all
for another singer, a wanderer and a story-teller of your
own kidney. The children you'll get that way wouldn't
be saints at all but little devils, and the sins they
commit will be added to your own ones for the punish-
ment. And so they kept at her until they got the girl
frightened. What would I be doing to escape the punish-
ment ? she asked, and the words warmed the priest's heart,

for he knew that he'd got her tight. There is only the
one, he said, and that's the vow. And she, being shook
in her mind and tormented, took a vow to break with
Curithir, but not content with that, the priest would have
had a promise from her not to as much as see him. But
she stood up to the priest at that, saying : if I have
pledged a vow to meet him at the druid's stone I must
keep my vow to him, and no amount of talking out of the
priest could get it into her head that one vow wasn't as
good as another. The priest promised that grace would
come to her in a convent. But who will be getting me
out of the convent when once I am inside of it ? she asked,
and the priest wasn't able to answer that question, so she
said : no ; I'll not go into a convent until I have seen
Curithir, and she stuck to that. The priest in his turn
answered her stiff enough that if she didn't take the pledge
to see Curithir no more she would be clapt into a convent
with her will or without her will ; so she took the pledge
of the priest with a " bad cess to you " in her heart all the
while she was pledging herself not to keep her tryst, saying
to herself: a vow that is put on a person by force is no vow
at all, which is true enough, God knows. But a vow is for
ever getting its grip on you like a growing disease and
you're tied up well before it's done with.

Not long after that Liadin hung her harp up on the nail.
And the king himself couldn't get a song out of her, no
matter how much he gave. As silent as them old rocks
she was in the king's hall, but when she was alone she
could be heard crooning away to herself at one of the old
songs. She never got to the end of any one of them, for
she would start a prayer in the middle of the song, and
not being able to go on with the prayer either, the tears
would come rolling down her cheeks. That's the way it
was with Liadin, and it was no better with Curithir. His
mind was wrapped up and lost in the whiteness of Liadin's
body, and that was, as I've just told you, as white and

whiter than a first night's snow, and a smile would come
to his lips when he remembered the red of her lips that
put him in mind of the rowan berry he had seen hanging
over Cummins' cell. Cummins, I must tell you, was a
hermit, and he lived that time in an island on Lake
Carra, no distance from Ballintubber. You know it well,
your honour. As if these thoughts of Liadin were not
enough, there was the track of her teeth in his neck, for
she had bitten him and drew blood from him the way he
would never forget her in his wanderings. The wound
was sore enough, and many's the time his hand went to
it, and the thought was never far away that she had
rubbed some colour into it that could not be taken out
no matter how many times he might wash himself in the
River Shannon or any other river. He was glad of the
track of her teeth in his neck, and whenever he came to a
pool he stopped to admire it, saying : for all the money in
the world I would not give up these tracks of her love for
me. But misfortune often goes foot by foot with fortune,
and while he was thinking so much about Liadin he forgot
about his stories, and as he walked the road he was always
striving to catch up with them and they always fleeing
before him the way the clouds fly before the wind ; some-
times he thought he had gotten them again, but when
he stood up to tell them there was nothing in his head
but herself and nothing before his eyes, neither the king
nor his court, but Liadin's face only.

The king in whose court he was, knowing nothing of
these things, cried to his servants to put Curithir out of
the gate, and Curithir let them do this just as a child
might, often enough not knowing what they were doing
to him, so taken up was he with his memories of Liadin.
And when the gate was shut behind him he didn't look
back but kept on walking the road, not minding what the
world was saying : the great poet, Curithir, is without a
story in his head, and the Lomna Druth, his dwarf, tells

tales for him. He travelled ahead, wrapped up in his
dreams, to the next king's court ; but when he stood up in
the hall before the people it was the same thing as before,
he could only gaze and gape about him, and when the
king said : we're tired of waiting for your story, Curithir
answered : I cannot remember any story. If you've no
stories to tell us, you've no business here. Put him out of
the gates. As the servants were catching hold of him
Curithir said : I could tell a story to you and it would be
better than all the stories I've told you before this. Tell
your tale, said the king. By my faith and my troth I cannot
do that until I've seen Liadin. Liadin of the songs ! the
king answered, and Curithir said it could be no one else,
and that he was waiting for the springtime to see her
again.

The man is a fool, said the servants ; there isn't a story
in his head. What was it that happened to you, Curithir,
tell us that now ? The greatest luck, said he, that ever
happened to a man. And he went his way cheerfully,
though he had nothing in the wide world, barring the
memory of a night he had spent with Liadin under the
boughs, and the hope in his heart that he might spend
another one with her in the same place, which was a
poor enough life for any man living on alms and what-
ever he could find. It was fairly easy while the summer
lasted ; it wasn't so easy when the summer wasted into
autumn; and it was hard enough when the autumn
dwindled into the cold weather. But Curithir knew
neither time nor season until the season of love came
round again, and he could say to himself: here is the
month coming when I'll see again Liadin of the beauties.
And down he knelt, and he prayed that God would put
the stories that he had forgotten back into his head so
that he might earn enough to dress himself and be decent
when he would meet her. But sure God took no notice
of him ; why would he indeed ? and he could remember

nothing but Liadin, and he kept on walking ahead, not
seeing a thing in the world but springtime only. There
wasn't a green branch he passed but it put him in mind
of the love night that awaited him, and every bird
reminded him of the same thing. He crossed from
Sligo into Mayo, praying that his waiting for Liadin at
the druid stone might not be long, and in Mayo his
heart gave a jump and a lep, for there she was at the
druid stone, and by herself, without even the servant
Brigit.

She got there before me, so much does she love me,
he said, stretching out his arms towards her, and he
thinking, the poor man, that she would run into them.
Great was his grief indeed when, instead of running to
meet him, she put the druid stone between them, and
kept it there while she told him, across it, all that had
befallen her and how things were. Is it a dream I'm
dreaming, or am I hag-ridden ? he said, and will you
awaken me now, unless, indeed, I'm to die where I am and
as I am ? God help me, Curithir, she said, I've taken a
pledge to break with you entirely. I was hard put to it
to come here this day at all, and me badgered and
tormented and cross-hackled the way I was. Will you
hear the story of my escape from the priests ? From the
priests! he said, and with that he bent his face down
into his hands, with nothing coming from him but now
and then a moan or a groan, or a hard curse belike, while
Liadin told her own story and all about the way she
escaped from the priests of Corkaguiney. All that, he
said, doesn't matter, and nothing matters since we are
to be parted, bad luck to the ones that hate the poets,
said he, and it only hardened his heart against the priests
to hear her tell that Mary's own son had suffered on a
cross to save the souls of men and women. All he could
do was to moan out : the only soul I have is my love of
you, Liadin, and the only soul you have is your love of me.

Wicked words, indeed, your honour ; but the man wasn't
in his mind at the time, so that he could only think of
the minute he had and couldn't think at all about the
eternity that was ahead of him. If you tell me any
more, he said, I shall be like a tree knocked down by
a big wind. Aren't all my roots snapping under me?
And such is my torment that I cannot listen any longer
to that kind of talk. Hold your tongue, Liadin, I tell
you now, and let you be saying that you'll come after
me into the forest, and stay with me there, where neither
priest nor Protestant can find us, but only the squirrels
and the forest cats and the small kind birds. Let you
hear me out, Curithir, she replied. Didn't they take the
pledge from you under a threat? he asked, and she
answered : They did, indeed, and they said they would
put me into a nunnery, and lock me in it unless I took
the pledge ; and God knows it was hard to get away from
them to meet you here. But a pledge is a pledge. What
are you telling me ? he interrupted. Is it that we're not
going to lie together under the boughs of that larch- tree ?
Is it to me, with the mark of your bite, and the track of
your teeth on my shoulder, that you're telling these things?
And with that he commenced to cry, the creature. All
that we done under the larches is done, said Liadin, for
it would be flying in God's face to break a vow we have
given to him. At this Curithir burst out again, and the
tears dropped down on to his cloak until it was as wet
as if it had been dragged in the river. Wringing wet
I am with the tears you've drawn out of my eyes, but
no matter the tears, and he continued like that until
she came around the other side of the druid's stone to
try and comfort him, and she took his hand, saying they
might be marching a bit of the road together. The time
hasn't come for parting yet, were her words, and it was
hand in hand like that they marched on, till Curithir
said : we are leaving the larch-tree behind us. Let the

pair of us turn now, and go back to the larch-tree. I'll
not do that, said she ; and, tell me now, said she, is there
a man on the top of the earth would break a vow was
made to God? Said he, if I take you to a holy man,
and a very holy man, will you be minded by him, and
will you do as he bids you ? I will, in troth. Well, then,
there's a man on an island in Lough Carra, a holy man
surely, for he has lived on that island by himself these
fifty years. Cummins, son of Fiachna, is his name. Let
us go to him now, for what better thing could the young
people do than go to the old people in their trouble ? Fine,
the island that man lives on, not a prettier one in Ireland,
with birds and beasts flying and skipping in the glades,
waiting for the holy man, and they following him from
his cell to his chapel as if they were his children ; which
they may be, for as everything that lives, the flying and
the crawling and those that walk on four legs, and those
that walk on two, are children of the God that made them.
Come, do not delay any longer, Liadin, for our trouble
is a bad trouble, and if there's a man in Ireland can
cure us and help us that man is Cummins Mac Fiachna.
Let us be off now. The walk will not be long passing by,
for it's but seven miles from here to the Abbey of Ballin-
tubber, which was built by Roderick of Connaught, as
you know well. And Cummins' island is opposite the
shore of Cam, the great wood ; you must have heard tell
of it, for the same place had a bad name for wolves. Come
now with me and we'll be beside the lake, calling for
Cummins to fetch us in his boat, before the sun goes
down behind the Partry mountains. And so sweet was
Curithir's talk that Liadin could do no less than follow
him, although in her heart she knew all the time she
was doing wrong. Sooner than she expected, they were
passing by the skirts of the great wood and going
down the hill-side and hollowing across the lake for
Cummins. He didn't keep them waiting. Only three

times had they to shout before a boat was put out
from the island, and Cummins, though he was then past
seventy, could pull a good stroke as well as another, and
in five minutes or less he was taking Liadin and Curithir
into his boat and reading in their faces that theirs was a
bad case of love. He was not minded to ask them any
questions yet, but rowed on steadily till his boat was by
the little quay that he had built for it. You seem in
great trouble, my poor friends, he said; and they
answered that that was their case, and sitting by the door
of his cabin, the two of them began talking together.

Let one of you tell the story. And which shall it be ? the
hermit asked. Let Liadin tell it, Curithir answered, and
Cummins said : I would sooner hear it from her, though I
wouldn't be doubting your word either, Curithir. All
the same Curithir was not pleased with Liadin' s telling
of the story ; he thought he could have done it better
himself, but he let her go on with it right to the heel, and
then he went on his knees before Cummins, saying : is
there no power on earth to take away the vow she entered
into against her own free will ? I say there is and that
you are the man to do it. Rise to your feet, my son,
Cummins said, and listen to what I'm going to tell you,
and if you search your own heart you will find that I am
not telling a lie nor making a mistake. We have no
thought that you would be lying to us. Well, my son,
not lying, perhaps, but making more of the thing than
it really is. Well, I will not be doing that either,
but just telling you the simple truth, which is, that
from our childhood all things are passing away from us.
The thoughts of our childhood die, and thoughts of
boyhood enter into us ; these die themselves and the
thoughts of manhood get their grip ; and these die after
having their time. Our possessions and our health pass
away from us ; all things pass away from us except one
thing only, for everything goes away except the love of

God. Everyone comes back to the love of God just as
you yourselves have done. You have come back to God
with tears, with sighs, and laments about things that
would leave you if you did not leave them. This leave-
taking is a harder thing for the man than it is for the
woman, Mac Fiachna said, for he was great at reading
faces. And another word to yourself, Curithir : the bond
she has entered into may lie sore upon her this day, but
it will be easier on her to-morrow. Curithir looked to
Liadin, thinking that she would say no to the hermit;
but she stood saying nothing, her eyes cast down as if
she was ashamed. You see, my son, how she stands, her
eyes turned away from you and she in fear of temptation.
No, Liadin cried. All you have spoken may be the
truth, but that is not the truth. I do not fear temptation.

Let that be as it will be, said Cummins, I'm going to
put you to the test this day, and you will see by morning
that the love you think is part of yourself, and is going to
last for ever and ever, and beyond this world and through
all eternity, is held to your senses the way a tree is tied
to its roots, and as the tree's roots loosen so your senses
will loosen ; take one of these senses away and some part
of your love goes off with it. You think this is not so ;
well, we shall see. Which of our senses will you take
from us ? said Curithir, and the hermit answered : I will
put that question to you — which will you choose now : to
see each other and not to speak, or to speak and not see
each other ?

Liadin and Curithir were of the one mind about that,
and they said it was better to see each other and not to
speak than to speak and not to see each other. The
choice being that way, the hermit brought them to a hut
that was cut into two rooms with a window in the middle,
so that they could look in at each other. He hung a
lamp in each room the way they would have light to
see by, and he left his altar-boy with them to see they

did not talk. Inside of five minutes they had feasted
their eyes enough, and turning away from the window
each cried : it is a tiresome thing and a silly thing to be
gazing and not saying a word. Five minutes, am I saying ?
Three was more like the time that they took pleasure in
each other's shapes. In three minutes they were as
weary as a fish taken out of the lake might be, and he
waggling at the bottom of a boat. And looking at each
other, their eyes said plainly : eyes are no good unless we
may be telling what our eyes see. But they could not do
this, for they had given a pledge and a vow to Cummins
that they would not speak, and the altar-boy was there
into the bargain. The last words they heard before the
door was shut on them was the hermit telling the boy
that if he closed as much as one eye he would know about
it, and be made to feel his fault with a cudgel cut from
the hazel copse in front of Cummins' cell. Out of fear
of the stick, not an eye did that boy close for the livelong
night, and in the morning the three of them were worn out
with watching ; and when the hermit came to unlock the
door the words he heard were : father, our choice was
a bad one; we should have chosen to speak and not to
see. Now is that so ? said the hermit. You will have that
test to-night, and as the pair of you have such a wish to be
talking together, I'll give you, Curithir, this side of the
island to regale your eyes with, and Liadin she shall have
the other, and you must pledge your word to me that
you will keep the trees between you both, and that
there shall be no whispering through the branches.
You'll have plenty of that to-night ; keep your talk
for the dark hours and your eyes for the light. tYou
see, your honour, Church Island, the name it is known
by to-day, is the largest island on Lake Carra, and
it has about ten acres, maybe a dozen, and among the
trees are tall rowans and ash and some beeches. I know
the island from my boyhood, I interrupted; but go on

with your story. Well, your honour, I have come to the
most interesting part of it. I wouldn't be too hard upon
you, Cummins said ; you won't be the whole day without
seeing one another. At Mass you may meet again, for
I'll offer up prayers to preserve you from temptation this
night that is to come, and all other nights, if you like it.
My Mass will be in two hours from now, and, until then, I
shall be praying for you both, and praying for myself and for
the rest of the world, for it is the world needs our prayers to
save it from God's anger, he being distressed at the wicked-
ness that is going on among you from year's end to year's end.

Listen, both of you, now, to what I am saying. For
the next two hours I'll be saying my prayers, and after
that I'll be reading the Mass that you are to hear in the
chapel, and after that I'll be in my cell, beautifying
the scrolls, the missal I am painting, my present to the
Abbot of Ballintubber, to whose kindness I am indebted
for this comfortable island. I cannot be away from my
work an afternoon if I would finish it this year ; and while
I am at work, weaving garlands and finding nooks and
corners for the birds and the weasels and the squirrels
and badgers and the foxes of my little domain, my cat
will be watching for mice as patient as myself. I am
telling you this, for I wish you both to imitate me and
my cat, each on different sides of the island.

It's a hard test and a cruel one you're putting us to this
day, said Curithir, for we are two young people and you are
an old man. That is true, Cummins answered him. The
old forget a great deal of youth's needs and feelings, and it
is truer still that the young know nothing at all of what the
old people are thinking. You see, Curithir, Liadin makes
no complaint, and he asked Curithir why he didn't take
example by her, but the tears were flowing down Curithir's
cheeks one after the other as rain falls from the eaves,
and there was no voice in him, so thick were his sighs.
Away with you now, the hermit cried, and let each keep

to his and to her side of the island, and any transgressions
will be reported to me by my little altar-boys. As he
said these words Cummins fixed his eyes upon them, and
the sight of Liadin's calm and contrite looks satisfied him
that the bond would not be broken by her ; and he pitied
Curithir, for he knew what was passing in Curithir's heart
better than he did what was passing in the woman's, being
a man himself, and he said : life is bitter to him now but
the bitterness will pass and what was once bitter will
become sweet, but if I let them go their gait what was
once sweet will turn to worse bitterness. And Curithir,
who understood the hermit's mind, kept saying to himself,
as he walked by the lake shore : 'tis the old that make life
bitter for the young, and they make it betimes so bitter
that the young would escape from them through death's
door. But there was no courage in him to divide himself
from Liadin, which wasn't the same with Liadin, whom
Curithir could see between the trees betimes sitting on a
rock, looking across the lake. Thinking of what ? he asked
himself, but he dared not call out to her for fear the little
boys might hear and tell on him. Will she have the
courage to drown herself, which I haven't to-day, though
talking with Liadin without seeing her may be no better
enjoyment than feasting my eyes on her without speak-
ing ; and he wished the lake to rise up and carry them
away, for living, he said, is bitter as a sloe, and he cast one
out of his mouth. Will this day never end ? he asked ;
and, moaning, walked the shore, till at last the hermit's
bell summoned them to his cell.

So, the hermit said, you have chosen to speak but not
to see each other? And he drew a curtain across the
window and left them with the altar-boy, who was told to
report if either peeped from behind the curtain. But
without sight of each other they wearied of talking
almost as soon, but not quite as soon, as they had wearied
of gazing at each other. They wearied all the same,

and though now and again they woke up from a doze
and began talking again they were as unhappy the second
day as they were the first.

Lad, the hermit said, have you waked or slept ? And
the lad answered : I may have dozed a bit, Father, but
should have heard them, and the hermit looked at the
curtain, and seeing it as he had left it, said : now, my
children, tell me, isn't human love, as I said it was,
different in this from the love of God, that we can
lov* God without sight of his face or the sound of
his voice ? And Curithir, answering Cummins, said he
would not endure another night of talking without
sight or sight without talking. And is it the same
with you, my daughter? the hermit asked. But Liadin
did not answer him, and he said : praise be to the great
God, she has passed beyond temptation already. She
has thrown the tempter out of herself, and you must
strive, my son, to do likewise. Tell me, the hermit
continued, turning to the woman, is it the way I've
said ? and she answered : it is just as you have said.
I could bear a harder test than the one you gave us ;
I could indeed, and I could lie without sin beside
Curithir there from dusk to dusk. Without temptation
rising up within you ? the hermit asked. Without any
temptation that I could not throw out easily. Liadin,
Liadin, that such words should have come from you,
Curithir cried, turning his face aside, and her cruel
talk brought such tears to his eyes that the hermit
was sorry for him. You would be putting a great test
upon yourself, my daughter, for the flesh is strong in
the night-time and the spirit weakens towards morning.
But to know if you speak truly, and have put temptation
well away, I'll let you lie with Curithir. Curithir covered
his face with his hands to keep the hermit from seeing
his joy. The hermit's eyes were upon Liadin, and he
said: I wouldn't put you in doubt or danger, my child,

but I'll do this to give you a chance of earning greater
glory by holding out, and for that reason, and to give you
good help, I'll make my altar-boy sleep between you.
On hearing these words Curithir's happiness turned to as
great sorrow, and he was near running to the lake to
drown himself, but, catching sight of Liadin's face, he held
his breath. Was this a trick of hers ? he asked himself.
Had she a spell to put on the boy so that he would sleep
like a top, and would neither see nor hear them, and they
crossing over each other in the night ? And feeling that it
would be better to have a little patience, for he would
know all these things later on, he said no word but
followed Cummins to the hut.

What happened to them, your honour ? You may guess
that when I tell you that in the morning they were waked
by the little boy crying to them, saying : look now at the
trouble you've shoved me into, for yonder is our father
cutting a stick in the hazel copse to beat me if I refuse to
tell him the truth. But you'll be helping me out of this
trouble, for the one that gets the pleasure should get the
pain. Before Curithir could answer him, the door was
opened by the hermit, who began to read their faces, and
being almost sure he had read them truly, he turned to
the boy, saying : you see this stick ? This stick is for you,
and not a whole inch of hide will I leave on your back
unless you tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing
but the truth, for I think there was bad work done in this
place last night. Cummins was, as I've said, seventy at
this time, and the boy could have cast him to the ground,
but there isn't a boy in Ireland, God be praised, that would
raise his hand to a priest, for one is never sure that he
mayn't have the sacred elements about him somewhere.
It matters little to him if he tells you the truth, Curithir
said, for if he opens his lips to tell lie or truth I will have
his life. At this the boy began to weep, and Cummins
answered that he should not have put this great trial upon

them, but what has happened cannot be undone, he said,
and the fault is with the man ; so come with me, Curithir,
and I'll put you on the shore with a letter in your pocket
that you'll take to the holy father in Rome ; he may be
able to shrive you for the sins you've committed last night,
which is more than I can do for you. Go to him at once
with all speed, make your way to Rome lest God take you
in your sin and plunge you into hell for the entertainment
of the big devils that dwell below. And while you're
walking to him I will be praying for your soul and for the
soul of the poor woman beside us the way she won't be
lost for ever if she repents and if you repent of your
deceiving ways. Sorra deceiving, said Curithir, and you
might have known what would happen. We won't
argue that, said Cummins : get you into the boat. And
you, he said to the altar-boy, stay here with the woman
until I return. Get you into the boat, he said again, for
Curithir was loth to leave Liadin. But he dare not
disobey the hermit, and Cummins laying himself to the
oars like a young man, God putting a strength into
him that wasn't natural, so that in a few minutes the
keel was grating on the sand beyond. Out of my boat
with you now, and do penance for your sins and pray
that the holy father may shrive you, but never let me
see your face on this island again, not till your beard
be whitened and all the wickedness gone out of your
heart.

Cummins took up his oars again and in a few minutes
he was back to the island, and what do you think was
the first thing he saw ? Liadin lying in the lake, dead
and drowned, where she had fallen from a rock, she
having climbed it to try to see the last of Curithir. This
is a bad day for all of us, the hermit murmured to
himself, and taking the boy by the scruff of the neck
he beat him severely, saying : take this and take that,
for it's through your fault the woman is dead and

drowned and maybe in hell at this moment, unless
the great God in his mercy knows that she repented
before she tumbled into the water. Now be off with
you, you limb, he said, and all the rest of the day he
was busy digging a grave.

And it is in that grave that Liadin is lying to this day,
with the rowan-tree growing over her, for all that man
could say to the differ. And for the hind end of the
story I've to tell that long after Cummins was dead
Curithir came back, old and broken with travelling the
world. As he came through the great woods to the lake
the people didn't know him, and nobody in all Ireland
knew him to be the great poet Curithir who had gained
such glory for himself in the courts of kings. He was
white and ragged, for age and wolves had hunted him,
and he had barely escaped with his life, and would not
have done that if maybe the God above him had not
wished him to stand at Liadin' s grave. Is there no
hermit at all on the island ? he asked. Not a one at all,
they told him ; that island is as empty as a tin can with
a hole in it, but the hermit's boat is beyond still. He
got into the boat and laid to the oars, and he found the
grave after much searching for it, and when he did find
it he lay down beside it, saying : well, I've come to my
meering. There he breathed his soul away, and the
hermit, looking down, prayed such a prayer for him that
God could not choose but hear. As he did not come
back the villagers sought him out on the island, and they
dug a grave and stretched him in it, and not many years
afterwards the rowan-trees planted above the grave
reached across one to the other, their branches getting
together and intertwining as a token of the great love
that was lying under their berries, that were red as
Liadin's lips. Her lips were like that, as red as the
rowan berry. That is the end of my story, maybe it
wasn't too long, your honour. Your story, Alec, I said,

is to ray mind a beautiful relic of the Middle Ages, as
lovely as the Tara Brooch, and like the brooch it brings
back Ireland to me, the vanished Ireland, the Ireland
of my dreams. How long ago do you think it was that
Liadin met Curithir by this stone? I've often asked
myself that question, your honour, but from what I
remember, and from what my father used to be saying
that his father said, it was long ago indeed. It might
be a thousand years ago.

And then in the pleasant, resinous odour of the larch-
trees, that a random breeze flying in and out of the
wood carried towards us, and in the hum of the bees
making for their hive, and in a consciousness of the
beauty of the long grass waving in the wind, Trusselby
and I talked of ancient Ireland as well as we knew how,
myself prompting him with memories of what I had picked
up in conversation with Kuno Meyer and Trusselby falling
back on what he heard from his father and his grandfather
of what Ireland had been.

A country of great loneliness ; of monks who had
monasteries everywhere, and who sat in their cells
beautifying the gospels with ornamented scrolls, filling
them in with strange, wonderfully drawn patterns, garlands
of leaves and wreaths, with nooks and corners for the
birds and the squirrels. That part of the story, Trusselby,
in which the hermit tells Liadin and Curithir how he
will sit in his cell continuing the illumination of the
gospels, as patiently as his cat waits for the mice, is
delightful. May God rest his soul, father used to tell it
the same as I am after telling it to you, and he got it
from his father, Trusselby answered.

It may have been the perfumed shade of the larches
and the murmur of the long grass that won my thoughts
out of the present till I looked into the Ireland that was
before the Danes came— a quiet, sunny land, with trees
emerging like vapours, with long herds wandering through

the haze, watched over by herdsmen. In that land all
was a dream for beast and herdsman ; for the monks
in their cells patiently illuminated the gospels with
strange device while their cats waited patiently for the
mice behind the wainscoting. A brooding, sacred peace
reigned over the land that I looked into; and I under-
stood that in those halcyon days Ireland lay immersed in a
religious dream that the world never knew before or since,
without stirs or sign of danger except when a galley's
prow showed in the estuaries. And for a long time the
Danish pirates ravaged only the coast-lands. A land of
forests and of marshes with green uplands, I said aloud,
and Trusselby, as though he had been dreaming my dream,
answered : one half of this land must have been no
better than a big bog, and worse than a bog, sir, a marsh
full of reeds and bitterns with ducks by the million. And
snipe, I said. And we fell to talking of the great snipe-
shooting in Ireland at the beginning of the nineteenth
century. Trusselby could tell of many great shots. The
best was a Mr Keyes, the same gentleman that had two
thoroughbred stallions snorting round the country in
your own time, your honour. It was a bad day he didn't
bring home his forty or fifty brace. My father, Trusselby,
was a good snipe shot, and he told me that many a time
he brought home fifty-nine and a half birds, but he could
never get the thirty brace. I wouldn't be saying a word
against your own father, God be his rest, Mr Moore, but
I've heard from my father that Mr Keyes often brought
back fifty. There isn't much left of our forests now, and
one time they covering all the Burren mountains. It was
Cromwell, bad cess to him, that downed the timber, for
it gave shelter to the ones that would be rising and strik-
ing a blow for Ireland. I don't know, Trusselby, when
the last wolf was shot in Ireland ; somewhere in the
seventeenth century, wasn't it ? Aye, the wolves went
off when the trees went off. In those days Ireland was
a

the land of trees, I've heard my father say, and his father
before him told the same story. There was many a strip
left here and there of the old forests in his time, but
there's not much left of them now.

We fell to talking of the wolves, and how hard it must
have been for the ancient folk to protect their flocks.
Sure they hadn't that trouble : hadn't we the finest wolf-
hounds in the world, your honour, and plenty of them
too?

The Irish wolf-hound is a subject on which we were
both eager to talk, myself having heard that the last of
the true breed were seen at Westport House about 1 825
or 1830. After that the breed was allowed to die out,
and what they have been doing since to revive it is
but a mockery. Great Danes crossed with Russian deer-
hounds ; there might be a touch of the mastiff too, and
very like in appearance to the old wolf-hound they be,
your honour, but I wouldn't trust them to go against
a wolf — no, nor against a good strong fox. How did
we get the wolf-hound ? Did we breed him ourselves ?
We did that, but I'm not saying that we didn't help
the strain by blood from beyond in the Pyrenees, where
wolves are as plentiful as nuts. For another thing, my
father used to be saying that the monks that lived at
Bregen were fair destroyed by the wolves. I mean their
flocks, your honour, not themselves, for the wolf is a
cowardly creature, and unless he's got the other ones with
him he wouldn't dare look at a man. It's the innocent
sheep them fellows do be digging their jaws into, and it
isn't until the whole flock be torn and mangled that they
get off with themselves into the forests, and up and away
among the hills that you see around us now. The same
hills used to be all scrub and forest, and there's plenty of
hiding in the holes of the rocks for them fellows, and they
with tails like a pot-hook, and with pointy ears and long,
jmouty chaps to their jaws, and up and down them jaws

teeth, be God, that would give you the jigs to look at, all
sizes and sorts, terrible once they get inside the flesh, like
Micky Murphy's big cross-saw when himself and his
brother do be pulling at it, Micky in the pit and Pat
above on the balk : only the saw cuts cleaner ; the wolves
snap and snatch away, that's the way they fight, snatching
and tearing until the bit comes out, not like the dog, that
holds on to his bite. But the dog is quick to learn, and
what made the Irish hound a great fighter was the same
snapping trick that he got off the wolves.

You were telling, Alec, about some hounds that came
over from the Pyrenees. I'll be at the story presently,
your honour, or maybe it would do me as well to
go on where I left off. And where was that? I
disremember it now. You were telling about the de-
struction of the flocks belonging to the monks that
lived at Bregen.

I was, indeed, your honour; they were terribly cut
about by the wolves, and the monks lost their best
hounds in the fighting that was always going on. There
was only an old bitch left, and they without a dog to line
her on account of a falling out they had with the king
about a piece of land. While they were, telling each
other about their losses, and planning snares and pitfalls,
what do you think but there came into the Abbot's mind
the thought of a young Irish monk who had left Ireland
a while before that to teach Latin and Greek to the folk
beyond there in the Pyrenees. I wouldn't give a rotten
nut, says he, for the snares they do be setting. There
isn't a wolf will go into them, except an odd one, and it
blind with old age or hard of the hearing, or without a
smell in his nose. Far better it would be to send a letter
to the Pyrenees asking the Abbot beyond if he has a few
hounds he could be sparing, or a pup maybe. He won't
like to part with his dogs, though he had them from us a
matter of ten years ago, so it's only fair if he gives us a few

100

of the pups to pull us through. He did that. The French
Abbot told them in a letter that he was sending three
dogs to Bregen bred from the stock that had come to them
from Ireland ; each of the three, he said, was a match for a
wolf. Mind you, it's a good dog will face the wolf and
the pair of them all alone.

The monk he was sending with the dogs was Marban,
a young fellow of the Gael that had gone to the Pyrenees
with his share of the Latin and the Greek the way he'd
be teaching. The Abbot had to send him, for nobody
could travel easy in Ireland, and they not knowing the
language of the country. How long would your honour
say it would be from this place to the Pyrenees ? About
a thousand miles, Alec, I'm thinking. And a thousand
miles, with three dogs under your hand, Alec answered,
would be a journey of about a couple of months if he
came through the Frenchmen's country. Which is not at
all likely, I rapped out. It's more likely he took ship at
Bordeaux and landed at Waterford. Waterford itself is a
good step from the county of Mayo. Alec interjected :
it is ; it's a long, weary walk, and it's full of dangers. A
man might easily lose himself in the forests at that time.
My grandfather was never tired of talking of Ireland in
the days gone by, and of the forests that were everywhere
except where there were bogs. Some of the hills were
free from trees, of course, or the people wouldn't have
been able to live at all, for they hadn't a thing barring
the sheep and the cattle, just like now.

Perhaps there's no part of the world that is changed
less than Ireland herself. In those times there were four
great roads, one running from north to south, and another
going from east to west, and the people were divided
between the ones that lived in the monasteries and the
ones that drove the cattle from this pasture to the next
one. Over the lot of them were a few warriors who rode
in chariots. The houses were made of wood, and that's

101

why there's none of them left now. They were all burned
or battered down by the foreigner. Has your honour
ever been to the Arran Islands to see the big fort ? And,
mind you, that was built before Patrick came, when the
men were pagans.

Well, putting it all together, it was no easy time young
Marban had, doing his twenty miles a day, for if he did
less than that the wolves wouldn't have left a sheep in
the county of Mayo. So he struggled on, thinking about
the monks that were losing their flocks, asking his way
from this monastery to the next one, and sometimes
holloing for an advice to the wild lads on the hills, and
getting, perhaps, only half an answer from them. Many's
the time he must have lost himself between forest and
bog, and it was only the best of good luck or the pro-
vidence of God itself that got him across the Shannon.
After crossing it he had to ask his way through the
county of Roscommon, a fine big county, and Mayo is
a fine big county too, and Bregen wasn't many miles
from where we are now sitting. He must have had a
hard time, eating berries out of his hand, and the dogs
themselves picking up whatever was going in the way
of a stray rabbit or a hare, and in that way Marban and
his dogs came out at day-fall from a great wood in West
Mayo. In front of him there was a marsh covered with
wild-fowl, and more coming in at every minute : every
kind of duck ; gulls would be there too. Faith, they're
in it still and plenty of them, but there was more then,
and herons and bitterns were as common as children are
now. 'Tis a lonesome place a marsh at the close of day,
and the boom of the bittern would put a traveller's heart
crossways, and he listening to it in the dusk. I believe
there were bears, too, in Ireland; and 'tis said the hug
of a bear makes pudding of a man's insides. Bears are
not partial to flesh, they like berries better, and that's
a queer thing for such a bulky lad, but there isn't an

102

animal that came out of Noah's Ark that dislikes being
interfered with or meddled with more than a bear does.
At the time of Marban's arrival, I'll be bound the deer
were skipping down to the rivers to drink, but I needn't
be wasting my breath on these things, it's only that I'd
like you to hear the story the way I heard it.

Well, as Marban was going back to the wood, wishing
to tie up his dogs to a tree and make himself as easy as
he could up in the fork of a bough, he saw a light, and
after following it for some time he said : maybe that isn't
a natural light at all. Maybe that is a will-o'-the-wisp that
will lead me to my destruction. He was wrong there ; it
wasn't to his destruction the will-o'-the-wisp led him, but
to his safety, if you can call it that when you've heard the
story out, but God knows what might have happened to
him if he had done the night in that wood.

When he was going back into it he caught sight of
another light, and he said : that looks a better one, that's
a fine steady light ; that's the light from a window, and
wherever there's a window there's a door, and wherever
there's a door there's a roof, and wherever there's a roof
there's a bed ; and for this night any sort of bed will do
me. But the poor man didn't know the sort of bed he
was going to, he was that full of hope, and every step he
took he said to himself : no doubt at all but it's a house
I'm walking to this minute, or it's a monastery, or maybe
it's the court of a king. He tried to remember who were
the kings in Mayo, but he had been so long out of the
country that he couldn't think of their names. Well, said
he, small the thing whether I sleep in a castle or a nunnery,
or the court of a king this night, if only I can put a bit
into my own mouth and the mouths of the pups here ;
and if I get a pillow underneath my head I'll be well
contented. I need no more and ask no more. God be
praised, I'm saved ; I am so, glory be to God, he cried,
and he hit a thump on the gate.

103

It was at the third knock that the Mother Abbess
poked her head out of a window, and not three minutes
afterwards there were three other heads poking out of
other windows. Good, decent women they are, and of my
own race, the monk said. They won't be grudging me the
bit to eat and the sup that washes it down. He wasn't
wrong there, for as soon as the Abbess heard his story and
his tale she bid him wait till she had got some clothes on
her back. We've been in bed, young youth, this half-hour,
she said ; but I'll let you in. When she had slung a cloak
on she opened the door and let himself and his dogs in, and
she saying : the blessing of God on yourself and on these
three fine dogs that are sniffing at my feet this minute.
Badly they're wanted. The boys up the hill will be glad to
have them three the way the wolves have been making
havoc and destruction amongst the flocks. There isn't a
flock left in the country, my son, not a shepherd but has
his share, some of them two, and some of them three, and
some of them the good half of a flock, but with the help of
God and these three fine dogs, we'll have mutton to our
bread on Sundays and holidays and odd times as well.
We haven't tasted much meat lately, but here's a bit left,
she continued, from last night, and we depriving ourselves
of it, little thinking that you would be wanting it more
than we do after your long travel, my poor young man.
Was it Marban you said you were called ? A good name it
is surely in this country.

Such was her canter while she cut the bread and poured
him out a noggin of ale. We don't drink ale ourselves,
she said, but we have it for strangers, the ones that do
be wanting it. While talking she kept on looking at the
lad, taking stock of his size and his shape, and from what
father told me and what he heard from his father before
him, Marban was a fine young fellow when he was in it,
a long-legged lad with spreading shoulders to him, with
red lips, and a mouthful of teeth as white and as strong

104

as the ones inside the faces of his hounds that were
already stretched and snoring by the hearth, too tired
for even their feed.

She seemed to be well pleased with the traveller, and
kept on putting questions to him about himself and the
ways of the monastery he had left behind in foreign parts.
She wasn't a woman you would be calling young, and
she wasn't an old woman either : a youngish woman
falling into flesh as the roses will be doing in a month's
time, when they open out like small cabbages. She only
had a few clothes on, being in a hurry to open the door
to him, one of the long blue cloaks you might have seen
worn by the married women when you were a boy, and
it slipped on over the gown she'd gone to bed in. Well,
she was so full of the lad eating at her table that she
had no heed of herself, more often than not showing
herself away up her legs and down into her bosom,
puzzling the young monk, who did not know how to
let on he wasn't taking notice of her. You will under-
stand how this was right well, your honour, when I tell
you that one of the questions she was haggling at was
the distance between his monastery and the nearest
nunnery ; and great was her surprise when she heard
that there wasn't a nunnery closer to him than twenty
miles. Sure that's ridiculous, said she. How do you be
getting your temptation? said she. Tell me that now,
said she. What good are we doing here if we be not
overcoming strong temptations? she said. And barring
the women, what temptations are there in this world for
monks who have the height of eating and drinking, and
aren't called away to fight for any king ? There aren't
any, said she. And the young man not answering her,
she went on that way all the time, until at last, by dint
of arguing, she got him to fall in with her way of thinking
instead of the one he was used to, and he told her that
all she said seemed to be true enough, and that the

105

sticking of yourself into the way of temptation so that
you'd get a prize for standing out against it used to be
practised in the monastery of the Pyrenees long ago, but
had been reneged by the Church because lots of the folk
hadn't been able to shove back the temptation quick
enough to save their souls from the danger. But as I've
been telling ye, the Mother Abbess answered him : what
good is it to be living at all if it isn't to be overcrowding
the devil ? And if a few should fall back into his claws, isn't
that their own sin and their own folly and their own look-
out ? Is there to be no thought for the ones that be
striving to get a place up in heaven and they not having
any longer the ways and means, temptation having been
forbidden by the Church. Tis a poor thing, I say, and
a hard thing when the strongest are held back by the
weakest, and the fine places in heaven are empty, there
being no person to win them.

As the remark came the door opened and Sister Blathnat
came, and she so tidily dressed that the Mother Abbess
couldn't keep her tongue quiet and snapped out that she
had been too long delaying to bid the stranger welcome.
And when will the rest of the sisters be coming in?
They'll be here, Sister Blathnat answered, inside a minute
or two minutes. And strange things they will be hearing
when they do come. And when all had forgathered the
Abbess repeated all the monk had just told her: that
there wasn't a nunnery with a female in it within twenty
miles of his monastery in the Pyrenees, and that they
didn't want one, it having come to pass that a man is
forbidden to put himself into temptation for fear he might
be bet. Did you ever hear the like of that story before,
Sister ? And isn't it the great nonsense ? As I was
telling Brother Marban here, our work in the world is the
overcoming of the devil, and if we aren't at it all our lives,
what chance is there for us to get a place in heaven at all,
to say nothing of a fine easy one ?

106

Sister Blathnat was a tall, sloping woman, with soft eyes,
such as one sees in a deer. Her hair was like silk, brown
with a yellow shine in it, and the longest legs a woman
ever had, measuring them from the knee to the ankle,
and wonderfully sweet were they, the sort that would stir
up the heart of any man to be at her. And she gained
great advancement with her legs, moving them while she
spoke, her eyes fixed on the monk, crossing and uncrossing
them as she'd a right to do, for all this was her business,
and his business was to think of our Lord Jesus, who had
died for him on the cross, and she too would have to think
of the same thing, and be saying prayers while all this
was going on.

The nun sitting beside her, Sister Muirgil, was a small
woman, with round, inquisitive eyes, which she kept raising
and lowering as if she'd set the monk thinking that it
might be harder for him if he were put to it to resist her
than Sister Blathnat. After her there came another nun,
Sister Brigit, a thin woman that at first sight you might
be taking for a girl, so rosy were her cheeks, and the
finest head of hair she had in the county of Mayo, it
ringletting about her neck like the ferns in May, and her
eyes were kindly, yet she was in no way good-looking,
barring that she made a fine shape through her gown.

Other men found that they were better helped up the
difficult way to heaven by Sister Eorann, a girl as brown
as a berry she was, with crinkly hair and merry eyes and
with much pleasant talk. She was the last but one to get
out of bed and come down, and Marban guessed that she
was someone in the nunnery, for she joined in with the
Mother Abbess, interrupting her telling Marban that God
allowed the devil to test men with temptations, but
measuring these always to their strength. The women,
said she, are the best temptation of all the temptations ;
everybody knows that, and it is only the great and good,
the ones that are worthy of high places in the kingdom of

107

heaven, that can resist the women without going to the
tub. The monks from Crith Gaille come down and they
stretch beside us as quiet and gentle as lambs beside
their ewes, and no evil in them at all. Of course they
are burning all the while, and well they may, but it is
only by burning here that we escape the burning and
the blazes of hell. Is it not the same with you women ?
Brother Marban asked. And the Mother Abbess answered
him : it's the same for us as for them. Burning we do
be, and mighty uneasy, for are we not always tempting
each other, and together overcoming our temptations,
thereby winning great rewards? 'Tis like going up the
ladder, we begin at the lowest step and end at the top
one. For myself, being forty years of age, the young men
lie with me, who, though no longer young, am still able
to stir their blood ; but the old monks lie with the sisters
until they contrive power over themselves and great
resistance to any of us. Any, Sister Blathnat said, except
Sister Luachet, who hasn't yet lain with a man. The
Abbot, said the Abbess, picking her up, will lie with
Sister Luachet if he recovers from the sickness that is on
him. He's very sick, the poor man, and he's as old as the
hills. It will be his last temptation. He'll not be long
with us, and I'd like to have him high up in heaven, ready
to receive us all when the time of temptations is over and
done with.

The talk went on about Sister Luachet till she came
into the room, and when she came in the monk saw the
prettiest girl he ever did see. Her hair was the colour of
the corn before the reaper goes in with his sickle, and her
eyes were well set in her head, and round and blue and
pleading, and her shape was pretty throughout. Small
breasts she had, and straightened flanks, and round thighs,
and ankles as pretty as a young donkey's. She had a live
smile on her face, something that put one in mind of a
bird and of a flower, and of pleasant harmless things.

108

The Mother Abbess told Luachet to strip herself, so that
Marban might see what a trial she would be to the devil
in times to come, and she winning high places in heaven
for the monks, and he not getting one monk of the
monks for his realm below.

Isn't that so, my little Luachet ? said she, and the girl
clapped her hands, saying : it is, Mother ; I'll be making
saints and saving saints in the times to come. The
Mother Abbess continued her canter : but we'll wait till
she fades a little, the girl, before we allow her to lie with
the monks at Bregen, only with the Abbot himself if he
comes out of the sickness, and it will take little Luachet
to stir up a flame in him, poor old man, and he seventy-
five if he's a day, so that he may win a place in heaven
will do honour to Ireland. And now, the Reverend
Mother continued, slip into your gown, child, and your
cloak, for the night is chilly.

In the Pyrenean monastery, the place this man comes
from, there is no nunnery within twenty miles, and the
monks live there without temptation from a woman year's
end to year's end, eating their fill and drinking their load,
but not a chance nor the ghost of a chance for them to
conquer themselves. Strange ways the Church has fallen
into, and strange times for the world. Ah ! it's only in
holy Ireland, I'm thinking, that the saints are still living.

Mother, interrupted Brother Marban, in the South the
blood is hotter than it is in the North. Ah ! the Mother
Abbess grunted ; true for you. It's in holy Ireland only
that strength is given to man to best temptation, and
now, for it's getting late, which of us is going to lie with
Brother Marban to-night, and he not having had a tempta-
tion to strive with for this long while back ? Any one of
you might strike up a flare in that kind of flesh. Brother,
though you do look like a virtuous and a holy young man,
I'll lie with you myself this night, for I'm older and wiser
and better able to be staunch if the devil tries to cut any

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capers beyond the ones that we expect from him and are
used to. We've managed to keep him out of this place
up to now, so don't be worried or frightened, for he won't
pass the doors and windows, sprayed as they are with holy
water, nor will he try the chimney, for the vane itself is
the form and shape of a holy cross, protection enough.
Maybe you have an extra crucifix handy, Mother, said
Marban, and there is great virtue in that indeed.
I have, she answered. I will put this one round your
neck, the way you'll hold it in your hand and be kissing
it while you're in the bed, for that's what will give you
courage to hold out against the temptation. And now,
my children, good-night to the lot of you, she said to the
other nuns. Out with you, and leave me here to my trouble
with this young man.

When she had the door shut behind them she came
over to Marban and told him to kneel down alongside
herself and say a prayer ; so they did that, but she prayed
so long that the boy thought his knees would break away
from under him. Tender you do be about the knees
when you're young. First he lifted up one knee and
then he lifted up the other one and there wasn't the
smell of a prayer left in him when the nun got up with
a grunt and gave her leg a shake. Now, said herself,
we'll be getting into bed. Do you begin to strip, and
I'll not be long behind you.

The young man was in travelling dress, and there were
boots to be unlaced, and brooches to be unhooked, and
many other things, and while he was laying his clothes
aside and folding them up, he had his back to the Abbess,
for he wasn't used to this kind of thing ; but she had
little on her, barring the cloak and the shift, and when
the cloak was off she says to him : now, Brother Marban,
none of this dodging your lawful temptations ; turn round
here and take a look at me and don't be afraid, for God
will give you grace to resist me. He found she was very

110

like what he thought she would be, like one of those
big cabbage roses, all pink and white, thick about the
thighs, too big in the belly for sightliness, or, as they
say, beef to the heels like a Mullingar heifer. But a
fine woman all the same, and when they were side
by side together, she gave him a prod and said she again :
face round here to your temptations, and face them bravely,
for your guardian angel is always beside you. But, says
he, if the devil should be stronger in me and overcome
the angel ? You mustn't talk like that, said she. The
monks in the monastery above would come down here and
drive you out into the wilderness with clouts of a stick

if they thought They'd kill me, he interrupted. I

wouldn't go as far as to say that, she said, but they would
do a damage to you, and they'd have no further truck
with you. The wilderness is a bad place at night, the
way it's so full of bears and wolves. Be thinking of that
now and you're safe. But you mustn't be thinking of the
other things, for everything comes out of your head,
and if you don't let the thought into your head, you're
as safe as I am. You're quiet enough as it is. There's
nothing to fear, my good boy, and the nun passed her
hand over him, and finding him slack everywhere, she
said : there's not much temptation in you, young man,
so let you lie now in my arms, and look into my eyes,
and whatever temptation there may be about will rise
up and you have the chance to scoop it out of yourself.

If I get away from this place with my life, said the
young man to himself, they won't catch me here again
for ever, and I won't stop running either until my feet
give out, and until there are nine twisting miles of scrub
between myself and themselves here in this house of
God. The monks up yonder would be hard men with
no pity in them for them that tumble. God be praised
that I did my forty miles this day through tough country,
and me with three healthy dogs pulling out of me, for

Ill

the same journey would leave the sinfullest man with
little humour for a bit of tallow at the end of it, to say
nothing of a cleric and he guaranteed by the grace of
God. But never a word of all this to the nun that was
in his arms, and she thinking that nothing but the power
of God could make him so like a dish-cloth. You've
conquered your temptation before you came here, said
she. But we must find a better one to rouse you. The
devil a one here will do that, said the lad to himself. At
daybreak I'm away to the monastery, and maybe I'll
be safer there.

CHAP. XIX.

HE was asleep the minute after the door closed behind
her, and he didn't rouse or budge until the sun was high
up in the heavens and the nuns had been knocking at
his door more times than once. Nor was it till the third
or fourth knock that he opened his eyes, but at the fifth
or the sixth ; and seeing the sun that strong in the room,
he said to himself: I'm done for; I've slept it out. I'll
be kept here by the women, and if I'm fresh and vigorous,
and lying with one of the younger ones in the night that's
coming, the lord will be put to the pin of his collar to
save me from the devil. I'd do well to kiss the crucifix,
said he, and dragged on his clothes, for he could hear a
gathering of them beyond his door, and thinking they might
be coming in upon him, he bounced out into the very
middle of them and very soon Sister Eorann was stuck on
him like a burr. You remember, your honour, the almost
crooked little figure with crinkly hair and grey eyes, a
babbling little nun, that was soon telling Marban to his
face of his grand success last night. As quiet as a lamb
you were, said the mother to me, and you inside her arms
and well in, and that we'd have our work cut out to

112

work a temptation in you. But it's grand work, indeed,
getting the better of the devil.

Before Marban could answer her she was telling him
the story of their nunnery: how a hundred years ago
Suibhne MacCalmain, king of Dal Ariadhe, was mad and
distracted by a great sickness that was on his wife, and
no one could cure her, though all the wise women in
Connaught had been by her bed-side giving her every kind
of medicine, and no good coming to her out of it. Sorra
one of them could tell what was the matter with her, only
that she was wasting away, and she was no more than a
dead bird at the bottom of a cage with its legs poked up
when MacCalmain came running out of the house to throw
himself into the river and drown himself therein. On the
way he met three nuns, and said they to the king : where
are you off to, MacCalmain ? I'm off to throw myself into
the water. What's that for ? said they. It's to drown
myself, said he ; for the wife is dead, said he, or she's
dying on me. How do you make that out ? said a nun of
the nuns, and MacCalmain said: there's hardly a grip
of her left. All the same, said the nuns, her life isn't
done with yet. How is that ? said the king. What do
you mean by that ? said he. Do you not know, said the
nun, that the angels are gathering this minute of the
minutes above there in the clouds, blue and white they
be, to bear her soul to God ? I know that same, said the
king; I know it well. Good for you, MacCalmain, said
the nun. And tell me this now, said she : do you want
to separate yourself from herself for ever ? Is that it ?
Separate myself from herself, it is not that, said he ; and
he stood gazing and gaping without a word in him. As
soon as he got hold of a few odd words he said that he
was off to his drowning in the river because he couldn't
live without her. Live ! said a nun of the three nuns. We
don't live on this earth at all, it's a dream ; our own life
is heaven itself, close to the Lord God, and he in the

113

middle of the holy saints. Come away from the river,
MacCalmain, and pray to have your sins forgiven and you
to be restored to your wife when she's wearing a better
crown than the one you gave her. Don't say a word
against the crown, says the king, for he was a proud man,
and he got the crown made himself; but all the same the
words of the nun struck him as being wise words, and he
was going off to do their bidding when one of the three
nuns called him back. We are going to pray to God the
way you'll get back your wife. Do that same, said he,
for heaven itself would be a poor place to me if I couldn't
plant my seat alongside the seat of Etain, the one I gave
my crown to and my heart, and all my wishes and my
wants. And now tell me, he said, since you understand
these things so well, will he be giving her to me plump
and hearty, the way she was last year, or will she be all
skin and bone, the way she is this year ? A foolish question,
to be sure, but the man was ruined with the grief, and
even the holy faces of the nuns, and they looking side-
ways at him, could only pacify him bit by bit, until the
truth dawned on him that life on this earth is no more
than a shadow of the long life that's stored up for us in
heaven. If it's that way, said he to himself, the less I
think about earth the better, for I'm getting on and there
can't be many more years in front of me. But if I get to
heaven I'll have an eternity with Etain, and that's a long
time. So here goes for Etain.

With that he gave up the kingdom and went and joined
the hermits that do be in the wilderness, passing his
kingdom over to his brother Guaire and giving the nuns
a whacking lump of his forests and glebe for the building
of a nunnery, they bargaining to be offering up prayers,
and good ones, so that he might meet his wife, her body
and soul, in heaven.

It wasn't long after that he began to study the Latin,
and as soon as he had enough of the tongue to get through
H

114

Mass they made a priest out of him, and with his cassock
on his back he was the proud man, thinking small, rough
potatoes of his brother Guaire, the new king. You have
a soft silk shirt on you like I used to wear when I was a
king and a sinner, but my cassock scratches my skin,
making many a sore place, but every one of these scabs
will be lifting me up nearer and nearer to the blessed
Etain, and she, if it's the will of God, a saint among the
saints. Whereupon the two brothers went up to where the
nuns were building, and MacCalmain put off his cassock
and dug into the work of collecting wattles and driving in
stakes with a hammer, and Guaire watching him, wishing to
do the same, but of course he couldn't, for that's no king's
job. But he was proud of the brother all the same, and
he thought a lot of the nuns too. Great women were the
nuns of old Ireland, content at first with little enough,
a church, a refectory, a kitchen, a library, a workshop, a
guest-chamber maybe, and to get these built, great labour
was needed. My father was apt at telling a story how
St Patrick, going the road from Mayo to Ulster, cried
like a baby when he saw the blood on the woodmen's
hands, the tears rolling down his cheeks in two great
streams. The nuns would never have been able to clear
the land of forest if MacCalmain had not asked his brother
Guaire to send up help ; sure, they couldn't do it. The
nuns, he said, haven't time to say as much as a prayer, and
my poor wife and I are lonely one for the other, she away
there in heaven and I where 1 am in this place. Send
these nuns good help the way they'll get their building
finished and be able to say their prayers. The wife may
be in purgatory yet for all we know. Send up some good
help, Guaire, and we'll all get a prayer said for us against
the time we'll be in purgatory, for there will all of us be
sooner or later, this day or the next, and God knows for
how long.

All that I'm telling your honour Marban heard from

115

Eorann, and when his turn came to speak he said : you've
heard, Sister, that in heaven there is neither marriage
nor giving in marriage. We read the same words in the
gospels, Eorann answered, but it is the Abbot beyond
explains hard things to the laity ; and sure it is only just
and reasonable that we should be rewarded in the next
world for the temptations that we conquer in this one.

To this Marban could only answer: 'tis true for you,
Sister. 'Tis true indeed. And he wondered at her blab-
bing little tongue, her round, childlike eyes, and it was
with an uneasy mind and an itchy body that he followed
her round the lands of Crith Gaille, asking himself, if
he had to lie with every nun in the nunnery, would he
be strong enough to resist the lot of them the way
he did Mother Abbess, or would he have to give in.
Let me out of this place, he said to himself, and I'll
take care not to put one foot of my feet into it again.
I would never have come back to the old country if
I dreamt that such trials and goings on were in pickle
for me. You're not listening to me, Marban, the little
nun was saying. I am, indeed, said he; and to prove
it, you're telling me that when a school is added huts
are built round it for the students, and that the Mother
Abbess was often of the same family as the founder,
the office coming down from father to son. Isn't that
what you said, or isn't it ? And Eorann had to give in that
he did know what she was talking about. But what is
there on your mind ? she asked. For there is something.
I'm thinking about the difference there is between the

Ireland I left and the one I've come back to. What
difference can you be seeing, for you were no better than
a child when you left Ireland ? she answered. And you've
come back to the same Ireland as always was and always

will be, praise be to God for ever and ever.

They hadn't walked very far before he said : we've got

out of the way of putting ourselves into temptation, and

116

she answered him : is it how the Mother Abbess made
you out to be holier than you are and that you're afraid
of us ? It isn't that, said Marban. It is not that indeed.
What else can it be, said Eorann, that would stop a man
from winning a high place in heaven and he getting the
chance ? He might be a humble sort of man, said Marban,
and he might be one would be content with a small place.
You won't be talking like that to the sisters whom I see
coming towards us, for they will be expecting you to look
upon the temptations we are laying out for you as your
heavenly fortune.

You never could be sure with Eorann that she wasn't
making fun of you, for there was a sting at the back of
whatever she said, and Marban felt that he didn't like
her. As she went off, he said to himself: well, it won't be
that one will give me a fall. And he threw an eye over
the others that were now round him, talking to him, each
one trying to get him to herself, for they all wanted to
hear about the monastery in the Pyrenees, and what sort
of men the foreign monks were, and if he liked speaking
the French better than he did the Irish ; and they wanted
to know if the prayers and the fastings were long beyond
there in the Pyrenees, and what penances they got, and
if the Abbot called up every monk in turn to receive
many stripes on the hand. We get two hundred, one
said to Marban, in the days before Lent, to remind us
that we are at the beginning of the year's penance. But,
said he, your prayers here don't seem to me to be out
of the way long. You had matins at midnight the same
as there is in every convent, and I said Mass for myself
at seven. The monks at Bregen, said he, don't seem to
be coming down to fetch their hounds. We didn't send
them word, Blathnat answered. And we won't send them
word yet a while, Muirgil rapped out, for we want to have
you here to ourselves so that you may be getting great
glory for us.

117

Now Marban didn't give her an answer, for he was
brooding on the dangers that Crith Gaille held for him,
and wondering how soon he'd be out of the place, and
wondering if he could hit on a plan to trick the nuns and
make off. So he kept turning and twisting the ways of
escape over in his mind, but nothing came of it until he
thought of the dogs. Wouldn't you like, said he, to have
a look at my fine hounds ? So they went round together
to the outhouse where the dogs were tied, and when he
called out Cathba, a great baying and scratching answered
him. Crede's welcome was an impatient whimper, and
Marban bade the nuns hearken. The finest tongue of all
is Duban's, he said. And when the doors were opened
the three great hounds rose up on their hind legs, straining
at their chains, and the nuns cried out and ran and hid
themselves behind the doors ; but Marban said : you could
trust a child with them, 'tis only the smell of a wolf raises
up their bristles. So eagerly did the hounds strain against
their collars that Marban could hardly loosen them from
their chains, but once they were free it was a fine sight
to see them at play, jumping over each other and over the
nuns, up on the shoulders of everybody, licking their faces
and away again, smelling round the tree-trunks, and
relieving themselves ; going down on their haunches and
then scattering the earth and leaves in a great tumult,
jumping, barking, and galloping ahead of Marban, who
was chewing away at the idea of how, in the name of this
and that, he was ever to get away from Crith Gaille. It
would be a fine thing, he was saying to himself, if I up
and told these fine ladies : my dogs are on the trail of a
wolf; I must after them. And that's the very thing he
would have done if he'd any luck. But a wolf that was
lying in a thicket was startled out of it, and the three
dogs overtook him at the end of the glade. A good fight
it was, for the wolf was in his prime, and had there been
but two dogs at him instead of three he might have

118

overcome them and got away. But he couldn't fight his
way past three. He broke Crede's paw in a snap, and took a
lump out of Cathba's throat, but while he was doing them
deeds, Duban got him by the windpipe, and the wolf
gave in. Terrible animals wolves ; and the Irish wolf was
as bad and worse than the Pyrenean fellow.

I never saw a wolf fight like that one, said Marban.
But what ailed the beast to be lying out in that copse ?
he said to himself, for he has knocked my plans upside
down.

The rest of the day went doctoring Crede's broken paw
and Cathba's wound. So busy was he attending the dogs
he forgot night was coming on, and he had no more eaten
his supper when the door opened and Blathnat came in,
and she in her night-shirt. We go to bed early in this con-
vent, she said. Does it be like that with you away in the
Pyrenees ? Marban was hard set to answer her, so dry was
his throat, and his heart misgave him, for Blathnat 's voice
was winning, and he liked the pale brown hair showing
under the coif she was taking off her head. Seeing that
the monk was beginning to shiver and shake she stopped
undressing to reprove him, saying, in a quiet, even voice,
that he must smother that look of fear on his face, and
that he could count on her to see him through the worst
of the temptations. Do you be putting your trust in me,
she said, and leave shivering and shaking, for while I'm
here there's nothing can harm you. But before we lie
down tell me what happened last night between yourself
and herself, Brother Marban. He told her the truth,
only leaving out that perhaps it was the fatigue of his
journey had made him able to lie alongside the Mother
Abbess's side without a kick in him. I understand you
well, Sister Blathnat said. After forty no woman is what
she used to be, though for her age there isn't a finer
woman in Ireland than herself, and there was a day when
she would raise up temptation in the stones. Sister

Blathnat, the young man answered, from one year's end
to the other, we don't see a woman in the cells beyond,
and we think it well enough to live without sin. Now if
there is no temptation there's no merit, not a scrap, she
said, and he replied to her that he had talked that
question over the night before. This is what 1 want to
ask you now, said he. Is it true that none of the monks
from Bregen have fallen into sin ? Tell me that now,
said he, and the question seemed to fall so innocently
from his lips that it startled Sister Blathnat so much that
she said : if that be the way you're going to talk, per-
haps another nun had better lie with you, and she was
making her way towards the door when Brother Marban
said :

Oh, Sister Blathnat, if it must be that I lie with any,
let it be with you, for you've a kind face and you'll keep
the devil out of my mind. And she said: the same
words prove you to have a good disposition anyway.
Maybe I made a mistake, so I'll lie with you without
tempting you much. But before lying down together we
will say a little prayer, and Marban prayed for his life,
being sore afraid both of her and of the monks up at
Bregen.

I hope, the nun said, I've not kept you too long on
your knees. You have not, said he ; not so long as herself
last night. She always was a long one at her prayers,
said Blathnat. We'll strip now, said she, and on these
words he put off the cloak and unloosened his tunic.
Look at me, said Sister Blathnat. Tell me now if I'm
not nicer than dear mother about the bosom ? And the
monk, turning round, thought that he never saw two
breasts prettier or whiter than Sister Blathnat's. Like
two white birds they are, he said, being a bit of a poet.
And as innocent, she added. Now kiss the crucifix about
your neck, and then kiss me, and pray that the temptation
that will rise up in you shall be overcome. I will pray

120

indeed, he said. I'll pray for all I'm worth. Faith and
troth, you are a holy man, she said, after a while, for
you're lying as quiet and easy by my side as a man
would lie by the side of his brother. I've met them that
were more restless than you, and they advanced in years.
Great will be your reward. And creeping in closer,
she began telling him that he might seek her shape
behind and in front, and between her limbs, wherever
he pleased; in the moss about the ditch; now your
fingers are in it, she said, and you not tempted at all.
I am tempted, indeed, said Brother Marban, and what 1
see in front of me is three years and half a year and me
eating dry bread and drinking water at every one of my
meals. Starved I'll be, God help me. Then have recourse
to your crucifix, she replied, and you'll win out. Get the
best of the devil, said she, and keep your grip on me.
That's right. Now lie quietly and doze a little. But
there was no doze upon him that night, and if he had not
the bread and water and three years of it to think about,
there's no knowing what would have happened. After a
while she took him in her arms and kissed him, saying :
Brother Marban, I'll be leaving you now, the devil has
been worsted this time for good and all, though one
moment I did think I'd got a sniff of him from under the
door. Marban agreed to that, and said that he too had
smelt the old boy, and that it was well for both of them
the windows and doors to be barred the way they were.

And then they fell to talking of the crevices the old man
could get through if he were so minded, till Sister Blathnat
said: take your hands from my breasts. You've been
tempted enough, Brother, and God would not wish a person
to be tried beyond his strength. Sleep well, now, like I
will myself, and good-night to you, she said, looking at him
from the door before closing it. It's just as well that he
didn't, she said to herself, as she stood on the stairs ; it's
always better in the end. For what is the value of the poor

121

life we're living ? And it isn't I that would be bringing
disgrace upon it, God help me, and on myself, and on our
own convent. She said this for she couldn't get it out of
her head that Marban was a fresh young lad, and it wasn't
more than half-an-hour after getting into her bed before
she woke up with a scream out of her, and starting out of
her bed with one leap she got to the middle of the floor,
the other nuns coming to her, saying : what is it,
Blathnat? Tell us what it is now. But all she could
do at first was to stare at them, her senses coming back
to her slowly, saying: it was only a dream, thank God.
That was no more than a dream. And they, guessing that
she had been dreaming of the young man, got round the
bed, and she told them all she had done, the way she had
put herself up against him and telling him that he must
take her in his arms, and to be sure and say a prayer lest
the devil should be getting the better of him. You weren't
tempted yourself at all, Sister? said one of them, with
a look. I was, faith, said she, and who knows what
would have become of me, for there was a swimming
behind my eyes? But I gave a Hail Mary and got rid
of it, glory be.

CHAP. XX.

WELL, there they were, sitting round Sister Blathnat's
bed just as I'm telling you, and they settling which of
them was to give the poor lad his share of trouble on the
next night. The monks will be here on Saturday, so you
three can lie with him, Sister Eorann, Muirgil and Brigit,
one after the other ; as soon as one comes out the other
goes in, and if he lies quiet while you're with him, there's
no doubt but they've sent us a great saint and one that
will do honour to Ireland. He's a holy man, indeed. He's
a very holy man ; you couldn't stir him up with a stick,

122

said the Abbess. These were her very words as they have
come down to us in the old stories.

But which of us shall be the first one to lie with him ?
the nuns asked, and the Mother Abbess answered : you'll
draw lots, and on this she got three straws and put them
in a box. Whoever draws the smallest one will be the
first to lie with him. And the first, your honour, was
Brigit, and the second Muirgil. And the third Eorann.
That was the way of it. And Brigit, as I told your
honour, was a thin girl, with red hair ringletting down
her rosy cheeks, who if she hadn't been nun she might
have been as wicked as the old woman of Blair, she that
lay with more kings than any other woman in Ireland
till she got old and couldn't manage anything. But we
mustn't be getting into another story, Alec said. Well,
Marban had all he wanted in the way of trouble from
that one. She was a great torment, indeed, turning all
his senses reeling, and setting his soul fluttering in him,
but he stood his ground, for the grace of God was on him
that night. And when the Abbess gave a ring of the bell,
Brigit said : 'tis time for me to be off; you're a great man
and a holy man, for you've lain very quietly by me con-
sidering everything. I tried you deeply, Brother, but I
wouldn't have done it only they were bragging about the
piety that is in you, and in you it surely is.

The door opened, and as Sister Brigit went out Sister
Muirgil went in, saying, as she passed the other one : I
can see by your face, Brother Marban, I can see that you've
been greatly tried by Sister Brigit, who is famous all over
Ireland for the tests and the trials she puts on the men.
While saying these words she slipped off the gown ; and
she stood up, one of them round figures, with plenty of
shape despite the flesh that God has put upon them, and
with one shape in her that struck the saint's eyes : she did
not go in at the knees, her thighs sloping down into her
ankles, and from that out into her feet. And when his

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hand passed over the limbs and between them, anything
might have befallen him if she hadn't been a kind-hearted
woman. But seeing the trouble he was in, she folded
him in her arms just as his mother used to when he was a
gossoon, and said : we'll say Our Father together. A Hail
Mary might bring me more relief, he answered. Muirgil
laughed at that, and tossed her hair from her little roui\d
forehead, and for the rest of the time she told him stories
about the monks at Bregen, and how anxious they all were
to be tempted by her and to resist the temptations, for all
thought of this earth, said she, was gone clean out of their
minds, only of heaven do they be thinking, and that's what
puts the great strength in them. And she told him she
got into the same way of thinking herself, but there were
times when she could only get a grip on the things of this
world. And then the things of the other world didn't
seem worth a lot, which put a great fright into the monk's
mind that while she was with him she might be thinking
too much of the things of this world and not enough of
heaven ; but it was all to the differ, for after a bit she
quieted down. Now I must be leaving you, she said, for
Sister Eorann will be here in a minute or two, rousing you
up again and doing her best against you. But you will be
a match for her, won't you, now ? You don't fear her. Do
you now ? Ah ! It's a shame, so it is, for you're only a
boy, and she's educated. You're not afraid, are you ? said
she, and she gave him another kiss.

Not a great deal, he answered cheerfully, for he was
like a man close to the top of the hill, or one that had
come very nearly to the top, and sees the ring of day
breaking all around him. He was proud, to be sure, and
that sort of pride is what the clergy calls the spiritual
elation that comes on a man when he has beaten the
devil. And well he might be proud, I say, for himself
and four fine women had defeated and murdered the devil
in four great battles. As he gave a twist in the bed, he

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remembered that his fight had been stiffer than any the
monks had waged, for weren't they and the nuns all
known to each other for years past as confessors and
penitents ? And with that thought he got twice as proud.
The fresh enemy is the stiffest to conquer, said he to
himself, and now the old boy is to deliver the last assault,
which will be, I am thinking, no great matter for me to
overcome. She isn't to my liking, and that's no gain to
me, but I've won such a load of honour as it is, that God
himself will be hard set to find a reward that he can offer
me without shame to himself. Here she comes, the hind
end of the temptations, and he drew the blanket up to
his chin and let on to be asleep.

Asleep you are, Marban, said Eorann, when her turn
came, or is it only falling asleep you are without a thought
for me at all ? The other ones wore you out, but them
ones would make anybody tired. I drew the bad number
myself. Number three it is. A holy number and lets
you in for all the poor jobs. Won't you wake up now and
let me into your bed ? I'm nearly as tired as you are with
the time I was waiting and all. Even if there's no
temptation between the pair of us, said Marban, you can
get into the bed. After a while, said she : have you got
no eyes for me at all, or a pair of hands on yourself? I've
all them, Marban thought, but he didn't say a word, for
he couldn't think of what to say, and being a polite man
he didn't like to say : lie quiet in the bed now like a good
girl, and let me be. His weakness was kindness, and so
he took her into his arms and kissed her and said : I've
said that many prayers this night that the devil is driven
out of the convent entirely ; not a sniff of him do we get,
not one is upon you nor is there one upon me. We're
wasting time, said Eorann. She commenced to cry with
her head on Marban' s shoulder, and soon her tears were
running down his neck, first hot and then cold, and then
tickling him like a troop of fleas. He asked her what she

125

was crying for, and she said : I did hope to get a great
reward with you in heaven, but you won't not so much
as look at a girl. 'Tis a poor thing and a hard thing to
be a nun in this place. Just because I happened to pull
the wrong straw, bad luck to the same straw, I'm left
without any way of earning a place in heaven. It would
make you think that heaven itself, like earth, is all
favouritism.

You must not be talking like that, Sister. 'Tis easy for
you, full of glory the way you are this night, but here's
myself with nothing to do. And she bent down her head
on to his shoulder and whispered : can't you tempt me a
little ? and handling him freely, she said : it's not so bad
after all, for you're beginning to be restless, and that's a
sign, and when you're a little more so, we'll have to begin
to say our prayers, or we're a lost pair. What is that I
hear? Marban cried. 'Tis only myself talking to you.
But I hear a sound from the forest ! 'Tis nothing, she
said. 'Tis the hunters following the wild swine at the
ring of day. Don't mind them, but mind myself.

A great and wonderful music there is, he said, in the
sound of a horn heard far away in the depth of the forest.
A fine sound it is for the laity to be listening to, she
replied, but we should be thinking of the trumpets of
heaven which the angels will be sounding to awaken us
from the dead, and our Lord coming on the clouds to
reward us. And let me tell you this, there won't be as
much as the ghost of a reward for me if you lie there
with your ears cocked listening to the horn the way
you're doing now. The horn is nearer now than it was,
Marban answered. 'Tis only the echo of the horn that
you do be hearing, and on this earth there's nothing
more treacherous than the horn, and she sent a wet
stream of tears down into his neck the way he thought
he would have to be swimming for his life in another
minute.

126

Let me up, he said. Let me up out of this bed. One
horn, two horns, three horns, and they sounding from
different sides. Tis a company that must be hunting
after the boar. Forget the boar, she cried, and lie here,
and take your ease. He was sorry for her, but he said
to himself: I've earned a big enough reward.

The monks at Bregen he began. But she rapped out :

what good are they to us ? And what good are you ? I'm
only wasting my time here. Good-bye, Marban, and 'tis
the great talk I shall be having with the Abbess about
the great power that God has given you, and the prayers
you have offered up with me. We haven't said many
prayers, said Marban. If we haven't said them out we've
said them in, she added, and hurried away to tell the
Mother Abbess about the holiness of the man she had
been lying with and that they all should be thankful to
the Lord for sending them such a man.

CHAP. XXI.

NEVER have I lain with man as quiet as this one,
Eorann repeated, as she went upstairs. I might as well
have been in bed with my mother. Will you be telling
me, said the Mother Abbess, who was waiting at the head
of the stairs, that he didn't leave his bed once to dip
himself in the cistern ? I will so, said the nun ; he lay
by my side talking to me about horns that he was hearing
far out in the forests. That's a great saint, I'm thinking,
said Mother Abbess. That's a very great saint, surely.
There isn't a monk of the monks at Bregen is holier than
him, not the Abbot himself, though perhaps I shouldn't
be saying it, and he earning great glory with all of you
these last ten years ; and with myself off and on for the
last twenty. But he isn't as big a saint as that lad, I'm
thinking. True enough we're stale to him now, and men

127

that are seventy-five take a deal of stirring, but a little
virgin like Luachet might set up a great burning in him
that our Lord would be greatly gratified to see overcome.
'Tis a great thought surely that has come to you, dear
Mother. Let Sister Luachet lie with Brother Marban.
It would be a poor thing indeed if a holy man like him
should be denied all the chances that the earth can give
him of getting a good place up above. I am in the one
mind with you, the Mother Abbess answered. But what
about the Abbot ? He'll be missing his last chance. Why
should he be missing it indeed ? Won't Luachet be the
same coming from Marban's bed as she went into it?
Blathnat asked. She will not, the Mother Abbess
answered, for 'tis the thought that she has never lain by
a man's side before that I'm counting on to stir up the
devil in our good Abbot, for the last time; the man's
years are three score years and ten, and for a while back
he hasn't been looking himself at all. Ah ! well, I

remember the time when he

But you needn't be telling him, cried Sister Blathnat,
butting into the middle of the Abbess's recollections.
I wouldn't say that, the Mother Abbess answered ; once
you begin telling lies there's no end to them. Won't
Luachet be getting her experience from Marban ? Eorann
murmured slyly. True for you, replied the Abbess. A
little knowledge of mankind in her won't be amiss when
it comes to her turn to get into bed with the Abbot, if
it ever does come, for it was a bad account we had of him
a week ago, and the cough's worse. But isn't it the truth,
said Sister Blathnat, that the Abbot would like a man
that had resisted all of us, and we all fresh to him, to be
allowed the advantage of Luachet ? I wouldn't be saying
he wouldn't, the Abbess answered. A man's luck is his
own luck, and isn't it a great thing that he should come here
and show all that holiness ? It would be no good thing for
us if we denied him what God wishes him to receive. Now,

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my dear, and she turned round to Luachet, you've been
listening to what we said, and as the day is done, put
aside the vestment that you're making for the Abbot, and
go to the oak chest yonder and take out of the orris root
and lavender the finest linen garment, and remember that,
lying by our brother, you will be as pleasing in God's sight
as you are here stitching a vestment for the holy Mass. A
beautiful one it will be, she continued, and she held up
the white satin chasuble, embroidered with gold, for the
nuns to admire — the one the Abbot was to wear on his
seventy-fifth birthday, when he would celebrate High Mass
for them all. Tis Luachet is the fine stitcher, God be
praised, our little Luachet ; but a much finer offering than
the vestment she will be herself beside the holy man
below stairs, and on these words she took the child to
her bosom and asked her if she was afraid.

Afraid, Mother? Why should I be afraid, since it is
you who are sending me to this stranger, a holy man, as
all the sisters here have proven him to be ?

Could the child say better than that ? the Mother Abbess
said, turning to her nuns. And they all said she couldn't
and that no one could. She turned again to Luachet : get
yourself ready now. Wash your hair the way there'll be a
gloss on it. Look at the gold that is shining through it,
and isn't she as nice and as graceful as a little kitten ? A
great temptation, surely, that none should venture into
but the holiest. Go and get ready, Luachet, and don't be
shy, for there's no good in that ; let him win the greatest
prize of all. Do you hear me now, she said ; be not shy
but push yourself up against him and kiss him in the nape
of his neck. You may do that, for it's your business to
wake up the old man in him if you can, and we'll be pray-
ing for you while we are getting to our beds, and till we
fall asleep prayers will be on our lips. We shall be chanting
the psalms at midnight, and from lauds to complin, thank-
ing God for the honour we shall be earning, for to-morrow

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every nun of the nuns in this place will get from me fifty
smacks of the ferrule on her hand. Go, dear child, and
remember all I've told you, for there is nothing that gives
more pleasure in heaven than seeing the man denying
himself the woman and they both in the one bed.

'Tis time for us to be going to our rest, she said, turn-
ing to the other nuns ; but you won't forget, my children,
what I told Sister Luachet, to be praying well for her,
and all the nuns said they would do that and that they
would do it well until the sleep came.

CHAP. XXII.

NOR did one of them break her promise, and out of bed
the whole lot of them were at midnight, chanting the
psalms, till at last the Mother Abbess said : now, children,
here's the day beginning in the east. The time has come
for me to use the ferrule on to your hands. On these
words she turned to the press in which she kept the
thong, and all the nuns wincing and watching, knowing
well the length of the handle and the breadth and the
hardness of the leather, and being faint-hearted, as all
women are, they would have been glad to do without the
bit of merit they would earn if they could be let off the
slaps, for the morning was bitter cold.

Maybe your hands are sore, the Mother Abbess said,
as the last nun retired, holding her bruised hands between
her knees, but my own back is broken the way I have
to leather the lot of you into heaven. 'Tis I myself
should be getting whatever recompense is going, for my
loins are cracked on me and I've a pain in my head.
Now will you have finished with the moaning and the
tears, and think a bit of the way the Lord suffered on the
cross, and of the way Marban is suffering now and he up
against our little Luachet's thighs. She is staying with

130

him a long while now. Too long, indeed, for there ought
to be an end to everything, and great saint as the man is,
he shouldn't get it too heavy. Are they chanting psalms
together ? We might do well to hear them, for to see or to
hear the holy is next door to being holy.

Down went the lot of them, stepping on the tips of
their toes for fear they might disturb the saints in their
mutual devotions. Devotions it is, said the Abbess, for
we can hear their voices mingled in sweet sighs. But
after listening a little while longer she turned to Blathnat
and said : your ears are better than mine maybe, what I
hear doesn't sound like psalms. Let you listen now, and,
giving her place to the nun, she waited. After listening,
Blathnat said : Mother Abbess, it's no psalm I'm listening
to. That's no psalm at all. Then what can they be
doing to each other? And it isn't prayers that I hear
either. Them's not prayers.

Then give your place to Brigit, who may hear better.
Yes, let me listen, said Brigit, and she cocked her ear
to the keyhole. Sister Blathnat is right. There isn't
a psalm in it of all the psalms. After Brigit it came to
Eorann to put her ear to the keyhole, and having more
courage than the rest, she turned to the Mother Abbess,
saying : it's like the doves on the roof they are. Like
the doves on the roof? cried the Mother Abbess, and with
a great fear in her heart she put her ear to the door,
and hearing a scream that could be none else than a
love scream, she cried out : 'tis profanation of our holy
convent. And together with the nuns she bumped herself
against the door until they got it down. Faith, sir, the
pair within were in the last round before the Abbess
could pull the clothes from off the bed, and tear them
asunder. 'Tis all over, said she ; the tallow is spilt, said
she, her maidenhead is lost to the Lord, the sheets testify
to it, said she. Woe is woe. Woe to the Abbot. Come
out of it, daughters ; come out, I say, for the devil is here,

131

and here he may stop. Sin, sin, she said, and sin on the
top of sin. It's not the first ; it won't be the last. Come
out, children. Come out with yourselves from this cell
of sin. Innocents ye are. Get out, I say. Isn't that
one the divil ? Isn't that one the divil ? Ah, you'll pay
for it. You'll pay for it. Hell's your portion. Hell and
hot water. Get out, I say. I'm ruined. I am so. I'm
ruined. Will ye get out, or will ye not get out? I'll
skin you if you don't get out. Ah, you divil ! Ah, you
divil !

The nuns followed her out to the terrace, and the five
of them walked there, never addressing a word the one
to the other in their sorrow, till the monks began to come
from Bregen. I see them coming, Mother, Blathnat
cried ; and now they've stopped at the foot of the hill,
for the Abbot is out of puff. How am I going to tell
the holy man about that pair? God help me, said the
Abbess. What am I going to say to him at all ?

I think I mentioned to you, sir, that the Abbot was
at this time seventy, and maybe a few years over. My
grandfather wasn't sure but it was eighty. Thin he was,
and lean and shadowy, frail as a sick bird, he used to
say. I liked to hear him tell Marban's story, and he
told it so often to me that there was a time when I had
this part of it off by heart. But it is a long time since
I've told this back end of the story. It not being to
the liking of them that do be asking me for stories, I
leave it out.

Don't leave it out on my account, Alec. Very well,
sir, I'll tell the whole of it.

My daughter, said the Abbot to the Abbess, who had
just mentioned that she had a tale to tell him sadder
than any he had ever heard, it must be a very sad tale
indeed, for I've heard my share of sad stories. But before
you hear the story, said she, tell me, did the medicines
I sent you do you any good ? You've got the cough on

132

you yet. Thank you, my daughter, for the medicines;
I did not take them, feeling sure that I'll not be better
than I am this side of Jordan. But won't you come
inside, she said, for there's a wind stirring in the trees ?
A pleasant wind, he answered her. Get me a chair to
sit in. She cried to Blathnat : find py Lord Abbot a
chair, and bring a rug for him as well. '

When he was seated in the chair, and the rug tucked
round him, he said : there's one thing good about a wolf,
and that's his fur. Once his fur is taken from him there's
no evil in him ; and he dipped his hand into the fur as he

might into the holy-water stoop itself. My Lord Abbot

the nun began, and she stopped as a horse will at a heap
of stones on the road. Go on, woman, he said : there are
words for everything; out with your story. Well, she
said, you know about Marban. Know about Marban?
said the Abbot. Why, wasn't it myself that wrote to
the Abbot in the Pyrenees to ask him to send Marban
with the wolf-hounds? Is he here? and how many
hounds has he with him ? He has three hounds, the
Abbess replied. Then all is well. What! Has he
been wounded on the way ; go on, woman. But instead
of doing as she was bid she started asking him if he
had taken his medicine, and other foolish questions,
setting him coughing again. Go on, woman, he cried,
as soon as he could get his breath. Go on, woman;
go on.

How long has Marban been here ? Go on with your
story, and be delaying no longer if you'd have me hear it.
You see the state I'm in. And afraid to delay any longer,
though there was nothing she liked better than dragging
a story out by the heels, she told him that Marban had
been with them for three or four days. But no further
could she go, saying that she'd rather be lying dead at his
feet than that her mouth should be telling the dreadful
story, and much more rubbish of the sort, angering the

133

Abbot, setting him coughing till he might have choked
as much with anger as phlegm.

Oh, my blessed convent ruined, disgraced by him whom
we took to be the holiest man in Ireland, saving your

Reverence's presence He may be easily holier than

I am without being the holiest man in Ireland. Go on,
my sister, say what you have inside your mouth. Then,
with many sobs and waving of hands, for she was one of
them high-flown women, she told the story, watching the
Abbot's face out of the corners of her eyes all the while.
But so distracted was he by his cough that it wasn't till
she came to telling him how she wished to benefit him
that she knew for sure he'd been listening to her, for
then he gave a little smile, but it soon died away and his
face darkened again.

It's the custom of our country to put ourselves into
temptations, said he, so that we may be more pleasing in
God's sight. I've done as others have done ; and with
God's grace came safely through many perils. I thank
you for your heavenly thoughts of me, but I'm glad I was
spared the pain of refusing the last trial, as I would have,
for it's God's truth that it would have been no trial to me
at all, as my condition makes plain to you. You're not
satisfied with what I did, my lord, said she, I am so,
the Abbot answered, but I've often had my doubts about
the wisdom and the humanity of these same trials, and
wondered if they were as pleasing in the sight of God as
we think they are, and if we hadn't better accept mankind
as God made it without trying to remake it for him our-
selves. Let me see Marban and hear what he has to say
for himself. Bring Luachet to me too ; she may have a
word to put in about her own trangressions. But as a
stock she stood before him, having lost her wits entirely.
Woman, will you be doing my bidding ? And she went
away, sure to find them, for hadn't she the sinners under
lock and key ?

134

We're greatly afeared, said the nuns one to the other,
as soon as she was gone, that the news may be the undoing
of the last thread of life. Now will you be looking at
him dozing in his chair — wasted like the hills themselves,
the monks answered. But will he be turning them into
the wilderness as Abraham did Hagar ? Blathnat asked,
and before the monks could give her an answer the
Abbess came back with the two of them — the girl
crying, for she was right frightened, but Marban with a
face on him grey as a stone until he caught sight of
the Abbot.

I'm sorry, my Lord Abbot he began.

I'm at the end of the plank, Marban, but don't be
thinking about my cough ; pay no heed to it. We pray
that God will spare you to us for many years, Marban
answered. There are few years in front of me if there's
a year itself, said the Abbot. But this is a bad tale
they've been telling me about you. It is, indeed, a bad
tale, so it is, in their minds, was the answer the Abbot
got from Marban. Would you have me think that they
have told it falsely ? the Abbot whispered. Stories are
told and taken the way we understand them, Marban
answered, and these women look on me as an evil-doer,
it being true that I've broken the rule. But an evil-doer
by nature I'm not, as you can learn for yourself if you'll
write a letter to my own abbot. The monks beyond
know me there day in and day out, and no man can be
fooling a whole monastery day in and day out for ten
years, as you will know, none better than yourself, my
Lord Abbot ; and they'll tell you that I was decent ever
since I went to live with them and that they wouldn't
take me nor make me out to be what the nuns think.

You would plead, Marban, said the Abbot, that there
are temptations against which no man's strength is enough ;
that the temptation might be increased till the saints
themselves fall. But St Anthony

135

I'm not comparing myself with anyone, my Lord Abbot.
All I want is to tell my tale and get it out of me. The
Mother Abbess has told hers, and you've a right to tell
yours ; go on with it, said the Abbot. I thank you for
that, Marban answered, my Lord Abbot, and as for my
story, you know most of it yourself as well as I do myself :
that I left this country no more than a gossoon, not know-
ing a word about the way they crucify the body in this
place for the love of God and to win a prize in heaven.
I went away knowing nothing at all of the customs of the
old country, and returned as ignorant of them as the day
I took ship for Bordeaux, as I told the Mother Abbess,
and likewise too did I tell her that the custom of the
temptations had been stopped in France in the years
back, it not having been found to work well at all in
France. But she told me Ireland was the land of saints
and France was the land of lechers and wantons ; and she
said that I'd have to prove myself, and show what I was,
and that, being a young man, she would let me off from
the young sisters and would lie with me herself to give
me an easier time.

I was shy, and that prevented me from saying no to her
offer of the bed. I should have said no ; but she would
have thought I meant that what she said about France
was true. I've no answer to make against the charge of
cowardice nor any excuse on that head. And I've no
answer to make against the charge of vanity, for after
having proved I could stand up against the flesh and the
devil in five combats I may have said to myself that I'd
show these nuns how a man may live in holiness out of
Ireland as well as in Ireland.

This idea of mine was helped maybe by the fact that
I've lived a chaste life ever since I told to you, long ago,
my lord, that I wanted to dedicate my life to the service
of our Lord Jesus Christ. You can get the truth of it
from my own monastery, and you can get the proof of it

136

here from the nuns themselves ; ask of the nuns that lay
with me, and every one'll tell you, if she doesn't tell a lie,
that our embraces were according to the rule. It's not
a small thing, my lord, and I'm telling you what you
know yourself, for a young man to stand out against five
women, one after the other, and all of them naked in his
bed. If I'd been a bad one I'd have given in at the first
go off to the lusts that every woman awakens in every
man, but the nuns can tell you the same thing. I resisted
the whole lot of them as well as the monks there around
about you, and as well as you did yourself, my Lord Abbot.
My son, said the Abbot, after he got a venomous cough
up out of his throat, we have all resisted the nuns at Crith
Gaille. You were all well known the one to the other,
my lord, and where there's no novelty there isn't much
temptation, for it's novelty and strangeness is the devil's
strongest weapon against man. The women here were all
new to me, but I resisted them all, though I'm younger
and a lot younger than the youngest man I see in front
of me, and 'tis for that I'm confident and sure that I only
speak the truth when I say that last night I fell to her
who was destined for my arms, for my lips, and for my
usage only.

Luachet is beautiful, but it wasn't her body altogether
that drew me. Well, this much I can say with truth, that
there is something beyond the lust of the eye and the desire
of the flesh, something that is beyond the mind itself, and
maybe that thing is the soul ; and maybe the soul is love,
and whosoever comes upon his soul is at once robbed of
all thought and reason, and becomes like a flower. It was
like that with me when my mother told me about our
Lord Jesus' appearance in Galilee, and about his suffering
and his death, for you'll remember it, my Lord Abbot, that
I went to yourself and told you that the love of Jesus was
in my head ever since I heard the story from my mother,
and that I wanted to lose myself in love of him. And

137

last night I was carried away just as I was on that first
occasion, and I somehow cannot believe it true that my
love of her will rob me of my love of Jesus, nor that her
love of me will rob him of her love, for in our hearts it is
all one and the same thing, and aren't we more sure that
God made our hearts than of anything else ? It may be,
Marban continued, after he had had a look round, that
I did not know this always. It may be that yesterday
I would have denied the truth of what I'm now saying
to you all. All the same it is the truth I'm telling you,
that when the door opened and Luachet came into the
room, the light of the candle that was in her hand shining

on the white scriptures

The scriptures tumbled out of her hand, the old Abbot
interrupted.

They did not, my lord. She gave them to me, and they
made plain to me that she is herself a good part of me,
my scripture for ever, as long as this life lasts in me and,
if I may say it without heresy, she'll be that for the life
everlasting that's to come with our Lord Jesus Christ. As
good doctrine as I've heard this many a day, said the Abbot,
and what's true in it God will be no doubt taking into his
own consideration when the time comes, but what answer
will you be making when he comes to ask you about your
broken vows ? God knows as well as your Reverence that
the ones that put on the vows can take off the vows, and
as the journey before me is a long one, I'll be starting on
it and it will hearten the pair of us to have the blessing of
your hand and your voice if you will be giving it.

I can and I will give it. I'm with you both in this much
that I hope the temptation that was put upon you will be
put on no one else in my diocese.

My Lord Abbot, jerked in the Abbess, I'm thinking that
you shouldn't be staying longer in the air, for there's a
keenness in it, and a great draught, and your soup is ready
in the house. My soup, I thank you for reminding me

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of it, Mother Abbess. Have you only scolding for me
this day, your Reverence, and I sinking under the trouble ?
she said. Scolding? Have I not said, Mother Abbess,
that I'm at the end of the plank, and the flesh is liable
to a shiver or two when it comes to the last lep. Is it
scolding you I am ? I've this much to say, Mother Abbess,
that I've had my doubts about these temptations for a
long time, and it's often in my mind that at the heel of
the hunt some poor girl would be left on her back.

He knew, said Alec, how to speak up to her, and as
small as a mouse making off through a chink in the wain-
scoting, she brought him up to his soup in the big room,
tied a napkin round his neck, and sat watching him while
he drank it. At another table the nuns were giving the
monks their bit, saying : take a little piece of this, Father
Bhendan ; that bit won't lie heavy on the stomach. But
there was no need at all, for they were all men of fine
appetites and had gathered a lot of cold air into their bellies
coming down from Bregen. It was Blathnat alone that was
a bit forgetful of the guests, and seeing her making off, the
nuns began to ask what she was after, passing on a wink and
a word and a saying that she always had something in her
head, but not guessing at all that Blathnat was thinking
that it was a long journey from Mayo to Waterford, and a
dangerous one, everybody except them in the monasteries
going his own gait, and a lot of unfriendliness in the
country, the same as now.

Well, she overtook them on the fringe of the forest and
pushed a basket of bread over Marban's arm. It will soon
begin to weigh heavy, said she, but Luachet will take her
turn at it, and turn and turn about' s fair play, and there is
here within this basket what will take you to the Shannon
if you're careful about the teeth. Now I must be off with
myself; good luck to you. And with that she gave them
both a kiss, and away with herself on her own road.

They stood watching the glimpses of her habit flying

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through the trees, and they silent enough, and when
there was no more of her to be seen they stepped out on
their journey that would take them long weeks, long
months. We'll get to Waterford before the summer is
out, said Marban, according to our luck. But Luachet,
for she was no more than a child, didn't care how long
the journey lasted, she being with her sweetheart, and
the quiet forest all round them. They had not gone far
before Marban remembered his hounds, and he would
have turned back for them but Luachet wasn't a bit sure
that the Mother Abbess would let her go with him the
second time, and she said she would die of fright if he
left her in the forest by herself. Marban could only
listen to her pretty talk and look down into her clear,
childish eyes — still childish, for up to last night she knew
nothing of life at all. And so they walked and wandered
in the month of May, seeing the ferns uncurling and the
speedwell showing between the ground ivy ; and listening
to all the singing birds and eating their bread where the
banks were mossy.

We still hear the squeal of the badger in these parts,
Alec said, and there were many more animals in ancient
Ireland — bears, I believe, and wolves in plenty for sure,
and it was the thought of these same beasts, and every
one of them with a jowl and a jaw, that put the shadow
on Marban's face — a shadow that distressed Luachet
when she came running back to him with her hands full
of ferns and wildings. You're not sorry you came away
with me ? she asked. He took her in his arms then and
kissed her, and walking on together through the woods,
they began speaking about the trees, and I can remember
to this day the wonder that rose up in me when 1 heard
my grandfather say that while sitting under a great oak,
where they were to sleep that night, Luachet said to
Marban : I don't like the oak ; there's no welcome in it.
The oak doesn't invite us to sit beneath its branches as

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the beech does. But Marban answered her : you mustn't
be saying anything against the oak. And she said she
would never speak against the oak again when she heard
from him that the ribs of the ship that had brought
Marban to Ireland were cut out of an oak-tree, and that
the ribs of the ship that would take them to France
would likewise be made of the oak. It's a good tree then,
Luachet replied, and I shall be loving it better. But why
don't you love it now ? Marban asked her, and she replied .
it's that I'm thinking that there seems to be an un-
friendly spirit inside of the tree we're sitting under.
That's a queer thing to be saying, he said, and I'm think-
ing that you're saying hard things about the oak because
it's leafless in the month of May ; but in the heel of the
season, when the acorns do be dropping through the still
air, it is a rich and hospitable tree enough. Let the oak
be friendly to the pigs but I would sooner be sitting
under a beech-tree, was her answer to him. Well, that
is strange, for the pigs love beech mast as well as oak
mast. Now, Marban, will you be telling me what tree
you're most disposed to, she said, for they must be all
well known to you and you walking along through the
forests from Waterford ? What tree am I most disposed
to ? Marban said. Well, taking all in all, it's the holly,
for it sheltered me in the cold March nights. And he
called her to admire one near by under whose branches
they would find it hard to squeeze themselves. And
Marban never said a truer word than this, Alec inter-
jected, as I know well myself; the holly is as good as a
broken house to a man on a winter's night. Luachet
thought that the leaves looked dark, and she didn't like
the thorns, and later in the evening she stopped before a
birch and said : that tree is more beautiful than the
holly. And Marban answered her that the birch rose up
as sweetly as Luachet's own body, and he said that the
wind in the tree was as soft as her voice. It's the most

141

musical of trees ; his very words as reported by my grand-
father, who got them from a book. Now what tree is
that naked one? Luachet asked. That one, Marban
answered, is the ash, the last one in the forest that the
summer clothes. The most useful of the many that God
has given us, he added, and to help the time away he
told her it was the ash that furnished the warrior with
fine spears. And when they came upon a hazel copse,
he told her of the nuts that would be ripe for gather-
ing in the autumn. And when they came to some
poplars, he said the poplar and the aspen were useless
trees, one as the other, the poplar giving but poor
shade to the wayfarer, and the aspen not doing much
better, a ragged, silly tree, shivering always as with
ague. I like the willow better to-day than I did
yesterday. How is that? she said. And he answered
her that as soon as they came to a willow he would
tell her. See, he said, how faithfully they follow the
brook, as faithfully as I shall follow you, Luachet,
listening to your talk of your mouth, bending my ear to
it, the way the willows listen to the rippling water. And
she asked if there was no tree he did not love at all.
He said there was one, the pine, for it sheds only a
fibrous litter in which nothing grows. A pine wood is
without birds or animals, the marten is the only animal
one meets in a pine wood. My grandfather knew more
about trees than any man I ever knew, and he'd go on
telling about their qualities until you'd be tired. Alec,
he'd say, you've been away ; I'll talk to you no more.
No, no ; I've been listening ever so hard. Then tell me
the quality of the alder. I remember it all but can't
put words upon it; and then I'd tease him to tell me
again of the ruined fort, in which Marban and Luachet
spent the night, to be driven out of it at daybreak by
the eagles, a nesting place it was for them birds, and at
dawn they were screaming, frightening Luachet so that

142

she couldn't do else than to climb into the limb of a
tree overhanging the fort. And Marban was driven to
follow her out by the birds.

A fine story that was to tell a boy, how, creeping out
on the limb of the tree after her, she cried to him that
the branch was breaking; but she cried out too late,
and down the two of them tumbled, through a thicket
much like the one in which I spied the Murrigan, coming
down in the dry bottom all bleeding and torn ; they were
hardly able to drag themselves down to the brook, where
they stripped themselves of what clothes was left to
them ; and a fair sight it was to a boy's mind, the pair
picking each other clean, or as clean as may be, for after
a drop through a blackthorn thicket 'tis hard to get the
last spikes out of you, as hard as it is to get the last
rabbit out of a ditch. There's always one left, and it
itching somewhere and in the sorest place in your body,
you may be sure.

They journeyed on and spent the next night in a sheel-
ing by a lonely lake, but there was a friendly woman in
it, who shared a couple of eels with them. But begorra
I'm forgetting to tell you about the fawn they took charge
of. The wolves had had the doe, and the fawn was dying
in the ditch ; but the woman in the sheeling milked her
goat, and after that drink of milk the fawn would not
leave them, but kept springing after them, jumping over
the bushes in front of them, delighting them with his
agility and lying down by them at night. I don't
rightly remember what became of this fawn ; you'll have
to look it out for yourself, sir, when you go to Dublin,
in one of the old books where my grandfather found it,
and you'll read in them some of the tales he used to be
telling me of the madmen. Yourself must have known
not a few of them in your childhood, for not later than
fifty years ago they were common enough, the idiots going
about the country with the beggars, an encouragement

143

to the people to put their hands in their pockets You've
seen them, haven't you? And I answered that I had.
Well, you can easily imagine, your honour, at the time I'm
relating, when there was no madhouse at all in Ireland,
but a great deal of wilderness, that the mad would be
going astray from their relatives, living upon sloes and
holly berries and nuts from the hazel-trees, and cress from
the springs, and how they would be finding but little
nourishment from these and would be crying about the
travellers they might come across for bread and meat; and it
was one of these madmen maybe that robbed the fawn from
Marban and Luachet, who had come to love it, thinking of
the time when they would be taking it back to France
with them, and keeping it till it grew into a fine stag with
horns upon it, reminding them of the eagles and the
branches they had fallen through into the dry bottom, for
though hurt, Luachet said herself, they would be thinking
of this fawn and this journey to the day of their death.
It must have been the madmen that stole the fawn from
them, but I disrem ember.

And there was much more my grandfather used to tell
of their adventures in the wilderness, how they came
upon some women beating flax by a river-side, and how
one laid down her scutch, saying she was feeling uneasy,
as well she might, for she was going to have a child ; and
as she stood watching the river going by it dropped from
her like an egg from a hen ; there was no more about it.
But your honour should have heard my grandfather tell
of all the adventures that befell them in the monasteries
on their way to the Shannon, how — but it would be weari-
some to relate all the odds and ends : how they got across
most of the road in safety from Magh Line to Magh Li,
from Magh Li to Ana Liffey, and passed through the
wooded brow of Sliabh Fuaird till they reached Rathmor,
and over Magh Aoi and across bright Magh Luirg until
they stepped across the mering of Cruachan, and how

144

they footed it from Cruachan to Sliabh Cua and off
again through Glaisgaile and southward through stony
hills and curving paths until they were within a couple of
days of the seaport.

A big ship will take us off there, he said, for now
Luachet was sore in all her bones, and weary of the great
wilderness they had been through, and weary of the
monasteries they had rested in. Only one more forest,
he said, lies between us and the sea ; and after that the
world is all fair valleys and pleasant hills and beautiful
trees that we shall sleep under in comfort and in love.
And so did he comfort her and encourage her to bear the
fag end of the journey. Now we're at the skirt of the
last forest, he said. But he didn't say that it was in that
forest he had heard wolves howling and snarling when
he came up from Waterford on his way to Crith Gaille,
and that he might have left his bones there had it not
been for the hounds that were with him. His hope was
that the wolves might be seeking their food in some other
forest, so he said nothing until, as the day drooped and
the darkness gathered into the branches, he stopped to
listen.

There's a howling near by, she said ; would that be a
wolf or a dog ? A wolf it is, he replied. It's on our
own tracks; and he's calling to his fellows, and they'll
be after us soon. We must be looking round, Luachet
said, for a tree to climb into. But this wood is a pine
wood, said she, and there isn't a branch of the branches
within our grip. Oh, Marban, are we to be eaten and
devoured by wolves ?

CHAP. XXIII.

SO Luachet and Marban were devoured by wolves, Alec ?
I'm sorry for that. All the rest of your story I like very

145

much — the Bregen monks sending to the Pyrenean
monastery for hounds, they having themselves run out
of hounds owing to a dispute with a king about a piece
of land; that motive brings Ireland up before us — a
quarrel over a piece of land ! Excellent. And all the
different episodes told faithfully and candidly without
immodest insistence. Excellent ! And the last, Marban's
vindication, a masterpiece ! Your honour is very kind
to speak to me like that, but tell me why you don't like
the end of the story as well as the beginning. Because,
Alec, I suspect that an ecclesiastic unleashed the wolves.
It would never do to allow a pair of lovers to go away to
the Pyrenees to live happily in broken vows. So you
think, your honour, that the story did not come down
unchanged from father to son ? I'm not saying it didn't,

Alec, only But isn't yourself the great story-teller, and

should be knowing better than another what end a story
should be taking? How would you have me alter the
story ? Faith and troth, Alec, in that question you have
me bet, for Ireland was full of wolves at that time, and
it would be well-nigh a miracle not to be overtaken by
a pack of them fellows. . . . Let me think. The alterna-
tive is: babies in the Pyrenees. Marriage bells there
could not be, unless Marban went to Rome and got
relief from his vows. Now that I come to think of it,
the end of your story seems to me to be the right one.
A sad and a cruel end ; but it may have fallen out just
as you relate it. The only thing I regret is that we
have not all the adventures of the lovers in the wilderness
before the end came.

Well, sir, I've told it the way I got it from the grand-
father, just as he used to tell it when he was in the
humour for dreaming over the old Ireland of long ago,
and he had it from his father or from the old writings,
for he was reading every evening in the National Libraries
in Dublin, leaving me after his supper to go away to the
K

146

library, or maybe taking me with him : 'tis many an hour
I've spent sitting by him, kicking my heels and wearying

of the place. Your grandfather I began. — was away

in the country looking after the farm. You see, sir, the
grandfather was the second son, and the elder brother,
Patrick, got the farm ; and when he died without children
he left it to his wife, and when she passed away, God be
merciful to her soul, the farm came to the grandfather,
who had been a clerk in Dublin ever since he was twenty.
Before that he was a clerk in Castlebar, without knowledge
of the country at all. He would have sold the lease,
thirty-one years and three lives, only that my father, who
was then a lad of seventeen, said : let me go down and
work the farm for you. Which he did, making a fair profit
from the first. He got married soon after that. I was
born and reared on the farm, but was always a botch at
a fair, and, seeing how it was, the father thought it would
be better for me to follow after my grandfather, who got
me a job in his office when I was about fifteen, and I was
a messenger boy there till I was twenty. Then that
grandfather died, leaving me just what took me to
America in search of a fortune. At that time people used
to be talking about America, and the great things that
were doing there. So you went to America, Alec ? I
did, your honour, and was at all sorts of work, till the
sun caught me in the nape of the neck, and I travelling
in the dry goods line in Mexico.

But so empty is my mind of any Mexican memories that
my attention must have been drawn from Alec's narratives
by the rising and falling lines of the Westport hills, all
beyond reproach except perhaps the too symmetrical
Croagh Patrick, for the next time I heard him he was
saying that he didn't believe that there was another such
queer place as 'Ireland anywhere in the whole world. I
replied : I am with you, and not less queer in the past
than in the present. Ireland is a poor place, he said,

147

compared with what she once was, and we talked politics
for a while. But in no place, he interjected suddenly,
has there been such grand saints as in Ireland. Where
else would you find ?

All the same, Alec, in the stories you've told me
they've shown themselves as weak as ourselves might
have been if we had been exposed to the same tempta-
tions. Isn't that so ?

Alec seemed unwilling to commit himself to an opinion
on this point, and, after some equivocation, began to tell
me there had always been grand saints in Ireland, men who
had gone into temptations, the temptation of food and
drink and of women, and had resisted them all. Did your
honour never hear of Father Scothine ? he said suddenly.

I had to confess that I had not, and the admission,
although given reluctantly, with apologies for long years
of absence from Ireland, seemed to cause him some
disappointment and drew from him the reflection that
Irishmen live out of Ireland the best part of their lives
usually. But Ireland, I said, is always with us wherever
we are, and perhaps Ireland was never nearer to you than
the years you were in Mexico. True for you, he inter-
jected ; and Ireland, I continued, is always in my mind,
whether I live in Paris or in London. I'm sure it is, your
honour, for your father was a good Irishman, God rest his
soul.

And now will you be telling me the story of Father
Scothine ?

His eyes, of uncertain blue, were fixed upon me, and
I said to myself: he is asking himself if he ought to tell
the story of Father Scothine to a man who has been so
long out of Ireland, who is no better than an English-
man ; or is he, I continued, thinking the story out afresh,
shaping it to the idea that holy Ireland entertains of
herself, putting a good skin on the lie, as himself would
word it ; and to interrupt him in the fabrication of a

148

homily, if he were engaged on one, I asked him suddenly
if he could tell me what kind of man Father Scothine
was. A story, I said, gains in interest if we can see the
characters plainly; one should have them in one's mind
all the time whilst listening to a story.

CHAP. XXIV.

I'VE always heard my grandfather say, he answered, that
Father Scothine was the strongest man in the County
Mayo in his young days, great at hurling and throwing
the stone and in all the sports ; six feet and some inches,
he was, with a head on him as round as the balls that top
the pillars before a landlord's gateway. Big hands, long
feet and the eyes of them that fear hell, for though he
was the holiest man in or out of Ireland, Scothine lived
in fear of hell always, and it was this fear sent him out
of his village, and away from his chapel, into the
wilderness.

And did he learn in the wilderness, 1 asked Alec, that
he was not to go to hell, and was it the knowledge that
he was saved brought him back to his village ?

I'm not able to answer that question, sir, Alec answered.
I can only tell you the story the way I got it from the
grandfather, and from what he said I think Scothine
didn't bother himself a lot about miracles or visions, but
that he was troubled with a great fear of hell that now
and again slackened and left him in peace and at other
times gripped him entirely and sent him climbing the
trees for a lodging out of the way of the wolves. That
was how he used to live out in the crags and up in the
trees when the fear took hold of him, along with the
thought that he was losing his soul in village idleness,
doing nothing but saying a mass now and again when
the people required it. But when the fear wasn't on

149

him he was as soft and quiet and sensible a man as you
could meet in a long day's walk. A thick, heavy lump
of a lad, taking things easy and saying his mass like
another priest on Sunday. The only difference between
him and the other priests was that it was rare he missed
saying Mass on weekdays. His eating and drinking, it's
true, was never the same as other men's, for when he was
in the village he lived very much as he did in the
wilderness, his diet being seldom more than cress, which
he would gather himself from the spring, and a few
acorns from the oaks in autumn and a fistful of hazel
nuts. When there were no more of these he lived on
rye bread, and didn't touch the meat except on Christmas
Day. That puts me in mind of the leg of mutton. He
ate one, and it tormented his conscience the way he
took the pledge never to chew meat again, but not
wishing to make Christmas Day like any other day, he
would let you give him a trout from the river on Christmas
Day or an eel out of a bog hole. The rest of the year
he went meatless, lowering his health until he got
sick, and it being dinned into his ears that he was
killing himself, which no Christian is permitted to do,
he let them give him a pot of broth. The same
broth did him a power of good, and he got back the
health in a few days, but no sooner was he on his legs
again than his conscience began to worry him about the
broth, and once more the thought caught hold of him
that he must be hiding to save the soul he would be
losing if he stayed another day in the village. Off he
went to hide in a place called Glenn o' Goshleen. You
may have seen it, sir, for it was part of your father's
property ; it was sold in the famine years ; a beautiful
place that was in Father Scothine's time, with woods all
over the Partry hills, and in these woods he hid himself;
and there he lived for months, dodging away from every-
body, afraid they might bring him things to eat, or put

150

a roof over his head, which they might have done too
if they could have found him, for he was well thought of.
But being as artful as a pet fox, he was able to keep his
distance, and when people began to think he was dead in
the woods, and to forget him, he was making his way
round the bend of the lake across the country, never
stopping till he came to the naked crags above the salt
water, a place that is now known as Oldhead, but what
they called it in the time gone by I disremember. He
lived there on gulls' eggs and the mussels and winkles that
he picked up on the shore, lying out every night on the
naked crags, doing penance for his sins. What they were,
sir, I cannot tell you : vapours of the brain, I'd say, and no
more than that. One day the vapours left him, and he
went back to his parish and did his share of shriving and
saying Mass and reading the gospels, as quiet a man as
you'd find in the whole of Ireland, and everybody thinking
the old madness had left him. He was the same mind
himself, if he thought about it at all. All we know is
that his mother came to see him, and she said : everything
must seem to you like a dream. And he said : like a dream
it is, maybe, but our dreams are as much a part of ourselves
as our waking moments. And a solemn look came into his
face, and his big eyes rolled in their sockets. It would
be better, mother, said he, according to the talk that's
going, not to be judging anything, but to be always doing
something and mortifying this flesh, which will drag souls
down into hell if we are not subduing it day in and day out.
You see, sir, his mind was the same as it always had been,
only hell wasn't quite so plain to him as it was the time
he ran off to Glenn o' Goshleen or got among the crags
at Oldhead. He was always a bit afraid that he was
doing wrong, and it was at this time of quiet, the greatest
he ever knew in his life, that a vision came to him, and
he sitting underneath an oak-tree by the river-bank,
watching the water go by. A pleasant place the same

151

place is now, for that matter. The same oak may be
standing yet, for I've heard tell that an oak will live a
thousand years. A willow is not so lasting a tree, but
belike them that are now standing are from the seed of
those that were dropping to the river in Scothine's day.
That was his favourite place for hatching out his
thoughts, and seeing him sitting there so much at home
among the birds, the word went that he had learnt
the talk of the birds in Glenn o' Goshleen, which is a
strange story enough, but not stranger than that a man
should build himself a nest in the fork of a tree, and
that the pigeons in the branch above him should come
and go and feed their chicks without minding him.
As much as the birds he loved the beasts — the foxes and
the badgers — and they came to him out of their holes,
and the gulls came to him from the sea ; and there were
ducks and geese and wild swans on the river, and he would
listen to them chattering away at each other when the
south wind blew. And there were otters in the stream,
and he used to be sorry when the otter slid down into the
water and came up with a fish in his mouth, but he never
interfered with them. I take the water- grass and he
takes the fish, he would say. But he liked the badgers
that lived up in the woods better than the otters, for
the badgers ate the roots and hurt no one. You see the
sort of man he was, a gentle and happy lad, fearing his
own kind more than he feared the wolves and the bears,
for in Scothine's days bears and wolves were as plentiful
as weasels are nowadays, and martens were hopping from
branch to branch in the pine-trees, and they after the
birds. He was unhappy when he found the wings and
the breast feathers of a wood-pigeon, and would look at
them sadly, saying : was it a marten that did the deed,
or was it a hawk ? As for the robins, they never left
him alone ; the blackbirds and the thrushes knew him
and trusted him, the way that they would take bread out

152

of his hand when he had any to give, which was often
enough, for he used to go without the bit himself so that
he might have something for the shuler and the wandering
rogues, and he'd only keep for his own jaw a few acorns
that he'd pick up ; a poor diet, and many's the belly-ache
he got on the head of it, I'd say. But he didn't mind,
claiming that God knew better what was good for him
than he did himself. It was on one of these fast days,
while sitting under the oak, with his eyes on the river,
and he not seeing it at all, for his thoughts were away
in the desert whither Jesus, our Lord, had gone to be
alone, and where he met the devil, who told him he'd
give him all the kingdom of earth if he'd fall down and
adore him, a great lie, your honour, for the devil hadn't
got the kingdom of earth to give our Lord Jesus Christ,
who is himself possessed of all that is in the heaven
above and in the earth beneath and in the waters under
the earth. I mayn't have the devil's own exact words, your
honour, but I'm thinking the gist of it was that if our
blessed Lord would bow down and worship him he could
have whatever he liked in this world; perhaps no
mention was made of heaven at the time. Scothine
was thinking the devil must have been a bit artless that
time, and should have known that Jesus would answer
him : thou must not tempt the Lord thy God, the way
he did answer him. All the same, said Scothine to
himself, it must have been a great temptation to the
Lord Jesus not to turn the stones into bread, and he
doing a fast for forty days and forty nights, and hungry
enough, I'll go bail, at the end of it, but he had promised
his Father that the spirit should not yield to the flesh,
and he wouldn't go back on that, and his Father had
promised to reward him by raising him from the dead
after three days' burial.

It was while thinking on this temptation that Scothine
came to say to himself: I wish God would send the

153

devil to tempt me, and I sitting here, so that I would
make sure of resisting the temptation, and getting a high
place in glory hereafter for my own self. Let the devil
appear, he said, and I'll manage somehow to give him a
fall.

It was in the shape of a black man with goat's feet and
a scut of a tail that Scothine expected to see the devil,
but the devil suits his shape to the job he's on, and this
time he took the shape of a beautiful woman, come up
through the willow-trees from the river. She stood, in
his vision, smiling, and beckoning him to follow her into
the woods. Maybe his mind was wandering, and maybe
he was upset by the hunger, but he got on his feet and
took after her up the path. He hadn't gone far before
she disappeared into the willows, and he heard a mocking
laugh that gave him the fright of his life, and set him
wondering if God had answered his prayer and sent the
devil to him indeed. He wasn't sure either that he had
rightly resisted the devil, for hadn't he looked after the
vision eagerly, and the one that looks after a woman hath
committed adultery with her in his heart ; the same being
what our Lord said, or nigh to it. Scothine would have the
words off better than I. He went home with his heart
going pit-a-pat, like a duck's foot in mud, from the fright
he got, and he thinking and asking himself whether he
ought to go back to the crag of the gulls and live there
for a year on raw eggs or the leavings of the fish that the
birds didn't want, guts and the like ; or if he ought to go
to Glenn o' Goshleen and eat water-grass and oak apples,
and sleep up in a tree at the heel of the day out of harm's
way of the wolves, the prowlers. The morrow would
settle all that, said he, but something ought surely to be
done at once in the way of penance and mortification.
He could not think of a thing except to strip himself to
the buff and, going to his cupboard, he took out the
scourge ; but he could not do more, it seemed, than to

tkfcte hnmself with the lash, and the man that he used to
p*v wages U b<*t aim bc^Um**, utttil the blood would
hfe liam* aiid his shanks, had gone back with
to his own parts* Seothine had no mind, and no
tin** to go baking for another man to lay on with the
scourge, he was that worried by the persecution going on
in las head, one time his thoughts saying that it wasn't
*n%M§auii«ii oak-fills, nor prayers at all hours of the
n|ajht and day, nor seourgings and wettings by his own
hand or the hand of another that he wanted, but a big
temptation that he might be standing out against, and so
he giving great pleasure to God Almighty. And the
hunger of this great temptation became stronger day after
day, till the prayer was never off his lips that God would
send tfedevfl back to him. Night and morning he would
cry to God in his prayers: give me my chance now. Give
me another chance. And he spent a deal of time thinking
of the words he would utter out against the devil, and he
didn't take as much as a walk without a bottle of holy
water to dash in the deviTs mce, or without a rosary to
cast over man if he came near enough, ^cotnme had a
plan how he would lure the devil near till he could lasso
him with the rosary, like they lasso and catch the wild
cattle in Mexico. Won't he give a kick and a lep when
he feels it drooping over his ears, he kept saying to him-
sett For the rosary he had brought out with him had been
blessed by the Pope of Rome, and while he was wriggling
out of it, Scothine thought that he d spit in his mce and
jeer at him, and call him n imiif

This prank that he was going to play on the devil made
him as happy as a lark, until at last he began to say to
the year wastes after July, and I wish God
give me my chance before the year is out. He
i*t forgotten that the devil came to him looking like a
woman; and he was real vexed to think he had gone after
her, for he wasn t sure by any means that he had the

155

rosary in mind at the time. It was just cariosity, that's
what it was, he muttered to himself, on his way to his
favourite seat under the oak. Still, and all the same he
was bothered and vexed, for his thoughts were like a swarm
of bees in his head the way he couldn't tell himself what
he was thinking about, one thought flying away and
another one coming into his head at the same moment,
so that there was never such a going and a coming in
this world before. At one moment it was the great
reward he would be gaining in heaven, and the minute
after it was the great punishment he would be getting in
purgatory, or singeing and grizzling on the hob of hell,
for mind you, Scothine was not sure at all that if the
devil had come along with horns and hooves, and a nose
like a chimney, all smoke and smuts, and his tail hanging
out, that he would have been so anxious to get up and
go after him the way he went after the woman. I might
have let my liver drop out of me with the fright, he said
to himself, and I wasn't frightened a bit. How was that
now ? Why was it, said he, that I stood all up and down
like a poplar-tree to look at a woman with her clothes
off? He used to keep his eyes sideways and baw-ways
when he was talking to a woman, the way he wouldn't
see her, even if it was his own mother. . . . Yet the
memory of this woman's larky eye, and the two breasts
lifting out of her, could not be rooted out of his mind
anyhow, nor the memory of her backside, that was like
a great white mushroom, as she vanished away through
the willows. But the breasts were better in his memory
than all the rest of her, and maybe it's the breasts is the
part a man has to struggle against if he wants to get the
old soul safe for an eternity of happiness : God above the
lot ; Jesus on the right-hand side, his blessed mother on
the left, and all the angels parading around, and they
having the great time.

While he was thinking these things he heard a splash

156

in the water, and there he saw a girl with a pair of the
finest tits a man could wish to be looking at. Scothine,
thinking the devil had come back to him, felt in his girdle
for the holy water and the rosary, which was to make the
devil get into his own shape. He got hold of both these
weapons against the Evil One, and he stole down to the
edge of the river and made ready. Faith and troth, said
he, that's not the devil, bad luck to it, but it's the eldest
daughter of the female that lives in the cottage at the
bend of the river. Up he lepped again on the bank and
away with him to the ford, stepping gingerly over the
stones, as a man must on his way to salvation, fearing he
would be drowned before he was saved. Now, says he,
to the woman who was feeding her pigs, leave feeding
the pigs, let the pigs be, for I've come to talk to you
about a thing that's more important than pigs. Sure, I
can be listening to you while I'm throwing the food to
the animals, and they ready to eat their own ourbeens off
with the hunger, she said. Well, said Scothine, for there
was nothing in his head but the idea of how to get a soft
seat in heaven, a red and golden chair, with a doeskin
pad filled with goose feathers: is there another red-
headed girl in the parish beyond your own daughter?
There is not, she answered, not one with a head of hair
like that head. She's in the river, said Scothine. She
is so, said the woman, since the dawn of day, leaving me
to do the work ; she and her sister, as big an idler as her-
self, the pair of straps ; up and down, and in and out of
the same river they do be going, splashing about all the
summer-time as if it was ducks they were, and not Christian
females. It's a great loss to me, the bathing. Did they
go and interrupt your Reverence, and they splashing, for
if that's what you've come about, I'll give them a leather-
ing when they come home, and it won't happen the second
time. It isn't that, Scothine answered, that I've come
to talk to you about, but to tell you this, that your daughter

157

has a pair of breasts on her would raise great tempta-
tion in a man. That's the truth itself, the woman said ;
they're the fullest I've ever known on a girl of her age, as
I'm always telling the clergy that comes here seeking a
temptation. Is that the way it is ? said Scothine. There's
them have been after her before me. But which of them
has that right to lie with her as I have earned myself by
such terrible fastings and prayers in more woods and
wildernesses than you could reckon on your fingers and
toes ? Who has a better right ? Will you tell me that
now? That much I'll say for myself, so you may send
her to me, and to no one else. Why should I send
her to you, more than to another ? Distracted I am and
moidhered with people asking for the loan of my daughters
to be a temptation to the flesh, and it all comes from the
sporting and tumbling they do be going on with in the
river. I'll put a stop to it. I will so. They won't see
water again as long as they live ; they will not. My good
woman, Scothine answered, don't be forgetting that it was
God put the breasts on the women. Are you telling me
that ? said she. And what do you think he planted them
there for ? For she was one of them who wasn't backward
in coming forward, even to the priests. For the suckling

of babes, I always thought, but to listen to yourself

It was for that surely, Scothine interrupted, and for more
than that ; for, let you deny it if you dare, that God in his
wisdom knew about the temptation they might be before
the children came, and what I've come for is to ask you
to let me have the loan of your daughter to lie with me,
for, from the peep that I had through the bushes, her
breasts are just the ones that might awaken the devil in
me, if there's any devil left in me.

Woman is the temptation of the temptations, so I've
heard, not from knowledge, mind you, having been busy
till now with the conquest of my belly ; all temptations
rise out of the belly, the woman as well as the victual

158

and the drink. The pleasure of food and drink I've
passed and done with, for I live on water-grass from the
spring and oak balls from the oaks, as well as you do
yourself with the meat and the mead. Plain water I
drink without as much as a wish rising in me for a
slug of ale. Nor are the scourgings and weltings I give
myself any use ; my flesh doesn't heed them, and the man
who would scourge yells out of me one time has left the
country ; gone he is, and here am I without a temptation
to my name unless you let your daughter lie with me ;
you won't get out of it yourself, my good woman, unless
you send her to me, mind you that; for it is on me
you've got to reckon to be readying your place in
heaven for you. And, said he, if I get lazy and lob
around with my bum on a warm stone, I'll be in
purgatory for my sins after you are dead yourself, and
what's going to intercede for you or to bother their
brains about you at all. Get me to heaven as quick
as it can be managed, or maybe you'll howl in hell like
a dog with hot water on his tail.

You're a great saint, Father Scothine, said the woman ;
you are so, and high enough will you be perched up in
the kingdom of heaven without making a step-ladder of
my daughter's two breasts. 'Tis on my shoulders you
and your daughters will be hoisted up, that's the way it
is, each one helping the other and the priests helping
the most. You're wiser, I'm thinking, about the way to
get a crown on your head than I could be, that have
never known anything but a handkerchief tied under
my chin, but I'll not be giving my daughter to lie
with you. I will not ; and there I leave it. God knows
what might happen to her in a sudden weakness such
as we're all liable to, and it in the blood. Now, my good
woman, I'm not sure if you're thinking about me or about
your daughter. I think the thoughts are in my own head,
and this I say, Father Scothine, that the sin is the same

159

to the one that is atop as to the one that is below. You
might be in the right of it, Scothine answered humbly,
for he was one of those men who think the next one
to him is wiser than himself, and to escape from the
persecution of his thoughts, which were about him again
like a swarm of bees, he turned away. Don't be in that
much of a hurry, the woman cried after him. My curse
on the bathing in the river, but I'll give you your
chance the way we'll all get to heaven. Wouldn't it do
you as well to lie between my two daughters ? They would
be keeping each other company in the temptations and
helping each other to make it hot for you, and to keep
out of it themselves. Ah, said Scothine, you're cutting
my danger in two halves, and I the sort that likes to
feel the bones and the brunt of the business, but since
it cannot be, send me the pair of them to-night, and I'll
have them again on Saturday week, and every Saturday
from this on, if I feel the strength in me to stand
temptation. Not a sparrow is hatched in the nest but
the Lord provides food for it, and he will provide me
with strength once a week to resist and hold out and
get over the temptation. Send the pair of them to me
at the close of day. Well, said the woman, when the
priest was out of sight, heaven must be a great place,
since a man has to go through all the fastings and
prayers that Father Scothine has been through, and
now he's putting his head into a noose.

I must be telling Dare and Lalloc not to pull that
noose too tight, or by this and by that, with breasts
like Dare's even him that feeds upon water-grass and
nuts, like a pet lamb, might be learning the tricks of
a buck goat, and who knows that my girl might not
fall in with him just at the right time, and then there
would be the devil to pay surely. But whichever way
we look, danger there is, and the saint must have his
temptations ; he must indeed ; he refused a shoulder

l6o

of kid last week ; he'd refuse anything, that man
would.

As soon as her girls came up from their dipping she in-
structed them : they were to lie with the saint on Saturday
night for the good of his soul, and as we are walking to
Mass, says she, you'll be telling me what happened to you,
without forgetting anything, or I'll break both your backs.
Without forgetting as much as a nod or a wink, they
answered her, and the story they told of the great fight the
saint put up against temptation was so wonderful that she
sent them up every Saturday night to him. And in this
way Scothine rose every Sunday morning from his bed
greater in the eyes of the Lord than the night before.

But you know, sir, there are bad tongues wagging
everywhere, and when the news of the saint's martyr-
dom, and of miracles performed by him and the girls
themselves, who came in to him with red coals in
their bibs, the coals not scorching them at all, reached
the Bishop, he began to scratch his head and to think he
must try and put a stop to the talking. He sent his
chaplain, one Brenainn.

Can you tell me, Alec, what sort of man the chaplain
was ? I'd like to have the two priests before my eyes.
Sure I can, Alec answered blithely. He was a spongy
little man, with eyes like sloes, and great red lips that he
kept licking with a big coarse tongue all the while. You
could hear him licking, for he licked with a click, setting
Scothine against him at first. But he was a friendly
fellow, and the friendliness in his heart couldn't be held
back. And he was a merry chap too, so these qualities
made up for the looks which were against him, and it
wasn't long before Scothine began to feel that life was
lying easier upon him. The sun was shining into the
room, and the sweet air, going and coming in and out of
the half-door, and Brenainn was telling so pleasantly that
the Bishop didn't believe the report, but would like to

161

have it from Scothine direct that he didn't lie every
night between two girls with pointed breasts.

Not every night surely, for the man isn't alive in
Ireland that could be without his night's rest all through
the week, and he in pain, in restlessness, and in such dis-
comfort that I cannot put words on it, Brenainn. It is
only the Mass I say on Sunday gives me the courage to
bear up at all. So that is the story I'm to carry home to
the Bishop ? Brenainn said. That's the tale, and the story,
and the truth. The truth is sometimes hard to believe,
Brenainn answered ; but, my dear Scothine, I do not doubt
a word of it, and getting it from yourself, but those that

get it from me What will they be saying ? Scothine

answered. But what matters it what they will be saying
if I'm winning a place in heaven for myself? And let you
be doing the same, Brenainn, this night of all nights, and
God giving you the chance. Not a sparrow falls without
his will, well you know it. It was for this you were sent
here, to lie between two girls with pointed breasts. Why
not, he continued, if thereby you please God? Aren't
we here for that ? Brenainn turned his eyes from
Scothine. You're not saying anything, Scothine said.
And Brenainn, who did not wish to be behindhand, or to
show himself a coward before Scothine, replied : well,
since you say there are two, I'll try it, and with the help
of God I'll come out on the right side of the bed. Brave
words are these, Scothine answered, but mind you,
Brenainn, her breasts are round and white, for all the
world like little mushrooms come up in the night at
the ring of day, and her backside like a big one ; and
he kept on telling of her temptations, not to make
himself out a great man for having overcome them
but to frighten Brenainn, for though Scothine was the
gentlest of human beings there was malice at the
bottom of the box, and he enjoyed the fear that he
was reading all the time on Brenainn' s face while he
L

162

kept the talk going, asking Brenainn if there was any
word in his parish about Brian Boru, who had come out of
the forest with a remnant of his followers to redeem
Ireland from the Danes. But it doesn't much matter to
the story I'm telling what their talk was about. As
likely as not it was stray talk, that people drop into
when they have something else on their minds, and it
went on until each felt he wouldn't be able to bear it
much longer.

So it was a relief to both when the girls poked their
heads through the half-door. But when they saw Father
Brenainn up went their eyebrows, and round they popped,
and away with themselves. Scothine called after them,
but they were half-way across the field, and he had to
pick up his cassock and go after them. You would run
away, would you ? You would leave a holy man without
his temptation, you would do that ? he was saying, as he
brought them in. Sure we didn't know, Father, the girls
cried out; and let go our ears, or we'll never give you a
tempt again. Now sit you down, will you, and I'll give
you a news will surprise the pair of you. How would you
like to hear that the talk going round is that the three of
us are living together in sin ? Would they say the like ?
the girls yelped out together. Aren't there the wicked
people to say the like of that, and we giving up all fun
and diversion and breaking our backs to get here every
Saturday night, and getting pains in our heads trying to
torment yourself the way God may be pleased, and you
holding yourself in ? It's no work for a girl, or a pair of
girls ; it is not, and God knows it. That sounds like the
truth, don't it? Scothine asked Brenainn. It does so,
said Brenainn. That has the ring. I'm satisfied with
that. And my little sister too, said Dare. Let you
Lalloc here be telling the truth to the Bishop's legate,
about the temptations we've been giving to Father
Scothine, and how hard put we were to keep them up

163

and we wanting to go asleep. There's no need for her
to tell him, said Scothine, for you'll be lying with him
this night instead of with myself, and I'll back you to
give him as good as you give me, and good you gave it.
We'll do that surely, the girls replied. Isn't it plain to
you now, Brenainn, that they are talking out of their own
mouths and not out of mine? It's plain, Brenainn
answered ; it is plain. And he said he wished he was as
sure of heaven as Scothine, but that he wasn't a bit sure,
and he would have been out of the house and away on
the minute if Scothine hadn't got a grip of his arm. The
Bishop mightn't believe you, said Scothine ; he might
say, or there's them might say it for him, that we'd been
fooling you up to the two eyes. Lie with the girls to-
night ; do the deed the way I did it, for only in that way
can we keep our characters in this world of the tongues,
and be straight with the Bishop. Out of your own sight
and hearing, said Dare ; and, wiping her eyes, Lalloc re-
peated : the only fair way, your Reverence. If you don't
our characters will be lost for ever, and a girl without
her character has no chance in life.

He'll do it, Scothine said, and, pushing Brenainn
before him up the stairs, he called to the girls to light
the censers. What are the censers for? Brenainn asked.
We will pray together that strength may be given to you,
and no sooner were these words out of his mouth than
the girls came up the stairs singing a psalm, as was their
wont when Scothine was the penancer, and after seeing
that the bed was easy if Brenainn should escape from his
tormentors in sleep, which might happen, for he had come
a long way on foot, Scothine bade them all good-night and
closed the door behind him, rejoicing, good man though
he was, at the suffering and the trouble would be put on
Brenainn that night.

But he wasn't more than half-way down the first flight
of stairs when he was stopped by a sudden little whisper

164

in his ear. It was his good angel come to tell him that
he had been listening to his bad angel all the time,
taking one for the other, as you can easily do if you're
not careful, for the bad one puts on the whisper of
the good one at times, and after listening for a while
Scothine thought he ought to go and offer his peaceful
bed to Brenainn and lie himself in the hot place, he being
better able to bear the temptation. But there seemed to
be a hand in the darkness keeping him back, pushing him
down the stairs, and down he went step by step saying to
himself that after all he wasn't putting anything on the
man that he hadn't borne with himself; and asking him-
self why should he be patting himself on the back and
thinking that he was a grander man than Brenainn. It
is the evil angel surely putting these evil thoughts into my
mind, he said ; and it wasn't long before he was asking him-
self whether it was because he wanted to get the better of
Brenainn that he had shoved him into danger. Get the
better of Brenainn ! Scothine cried out as he stood by his
bed-side. Why should I want to do the like ? But there's
no help for it now, what is done is done, and there's the
end of it, he said, and he lay down in the bed. But his
thoughts kept him awake, tumbling over each other all
the night like waves in the bay, so afraid was he that he
might have done the wrong thing in landing Brenainn
into the midst and middle of temptation, a thing which
is permitted to no man to do, for no one knows another
man's strength, only God knows that. But if the devil
should worst him in the battle my prayers and fastings
will be wasted, and it will be an easy job for him to lose
the game with a girl like Dare lying alongside of him.
But is that sure ? She'll tell him if he gets wild that he
must lift up the window and stand in the cistern till he
gets cool ; but if Dare should fall asleep the devil may
get hold of the little one, who would put her arms about
Brenainn' s neck and tempt him to sin with her, for she's

165

but a child, and has no more than a smattering of religion
as yet, and if Lalloc falls asleep Dare may stick a tempta-
tion on to poor Brenainn which his strength is not great
enough to resist. We're all liable to strong weaknesses,
Dare like the rest, like her mother Eve.

If I was wrong, O great and merciful God, in whose
girdle is the key of purgatory's gate, tell me if I've done
wrong in letting Brenainn lie in my place to-night.
There's no key to hell's gate, I know, for it's always open ;
wide it is, and gaping, but it isn't hell that I've been
deserving, for my act wasn't heinous, but only a while in
purgatory, and out of that dismal place thou wilt give me
a free pass. Well I've earned it by my fastings and prayers
which are written down in the Great Book, and the days
I spent on the crags picking up a gull's egg out of the
nest or a clutch of dulce from the shore.

And when Scothine had come to the end of the prayers
and his lamentations he gave a great cry out of him, and,
unable to bear with his fears any longer, he jumped out of
the bed, saying : I can stick it no longer. I must find out
whether God or the devil got the best of it in the next
room or if nobody won yet. But no sooner was he on his
legs than a weakness fell upon him which he couldn't
understand, for there was little strength in him and he
couldn't as much as walk away from the bed. It seemed
to him that it must be the devil was holding him back.
Gripped I am and held I am, he said, and he was shaken
with a great fear and a queamy feeling in the insides, so
that he did not know whether he ought to go back to his
bed or what to do. I'll pray, said he. I'll pray, for that's
the last resource of the sinner, and falling on his knees
he began praying, without knowing what he was praying
about, and his prayers went on and on, himself all in the
dark about them. He didn't feel his knees under him,
though the hours of the night were going by, nor the
cold of the morning, though he was in his pelt.

166

CHAP. XXV.

THE sun had risen above the mountains and he was still
praying that Brenainn might come out of the fiery
furnace a better man than he went in. Dear God, let
him not be tempted too much, he was saying to himself ;
not above his strength, dear God, for I've been thy
faithful servant this many a year, and the temptation of
pointed breasts and smooth limbs is great to a man of
his years, although he be but a roll of lard to look at;
he's young, dear God, he is young and unprepared for
the temptation by a long diet of water-grass and nuts.
Another long cry burst from him, and he was starting
off on another prayer, when a knock come on the door.
Scothine rose to his feet, and, thinking it was the girls
come to give him news of Brenainn, he went to meet
them. But it was Brenainn himself come to tell him
that the girls had gone home an hour ago and that
Scothine ought to be dressing himself if he was going
to say Mass.

I've stayed on a bit, he continued, so that I may
be serving your Mass for you. You had a fine easy
night of it, Scothine, he said, and have overslept yourself.
Overslept myself! said Scothine. Why shouldn't you
be oversleeping yourself, and you lying quiet in the
comfortable bed? said Brenainn, and he turned away
gloomily. The thought was in Scothine that the gloom
on Brenainn's face might be the shadow of the sin he
had committed during the night, but he said nothing
about that, only: I'll be with you presently. Brenainn
hadn't been out of the room long before Scothine fell on
his knees again to pray to God that any sin Brenainn
had committed might not be visited upon him. But
what's done cannot be undone, he said to himself: there's
the end of that, he said, whatever way it went, and

167

rising from his knees, and beginning to dress himself, he
shouted over the banisters to Brenainn that he wouldn't
be delaying long and that Brenainn might start off to
the chapel and ring the bell.

CHAP. XXVI.

THE people up from the village, as they watched
Scothine reading the Mass to the right and to the left,
thought that his face was pale and full of weakness,
and they feared he would be overcome and that Brenainn
would have to finish the Mass for him. But he stuck
it out and went right on. And when he came to the
Communion it was a relief to him to put the Host on
the tongues of Dare and Lalloc, for he didn't think
they'd have taken it if there had been sin, and he
continued to put his trust in God till the end of the
Mass. And after the Mass the two priests went into
the house and ate their breakfast without a word pass-
ing, until Scothine said : and what message will you
be taking back to the Bishop about me ? You're the
greatest saint in Ireland, Brenainn answered, and that's
what I'll tell the Bishop. I'll tell him that same. I hope
that some part of what you say is the truth, Scothine
answered, and he ate two or three mouthfuls of oat-
cake. In those days oatcakes was the breakfast fare,
with a noggin of ale or milk, for not a drop of tea was
in Ireland, as your honour knows, till centuries after.
Scothine only drank water himself, but he had a noggin
of milk to offer Brenainn, who seemed glad of it. He
may be a saint after all, Scothine said to himself ; and my
innocence must be plain to him by the maidenheads of
the girls ; but he didn't like to ask Brenainn about the
thing, though his heart was sick, and his thoughts were
teasing him like bees, one stinging him here and another

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there till he was stung all over. At last Brenainn said :
well, I must be going ; the day wastes after midday and
I've a long way before me. I'll take a cake along with
me. Take two ; take three or four ; you won't be at your
door till dark, and now the thought is upon me that your
way through the forest is full of danger. You may be
overtaken by the evening wolves, or you may fall in with
robbers. What do you say to preparing yourself for
your death by kneeling down there and making your
confession ?

Faith, he said, I will ; and down he plumped on his two
knees. Wait a bit, Scothine cried, till I get my stole,
and when he had it on he was sure of knowing the truth.
Now tell me, how did things pass with you last night?
I didn't know, Brenainn answered, till the door was shut
upon myself and the girls that I would have to lie with
them and keep myself from temptation the best I could.
Nor did I know if I'd be able, and when they were
stripped, I said :. glory be to God, will I get out of this,
or will my soul be roasted on me for the pleasure of a
night ? It wasn't so much the little one.

I understand that, Scothine said; I understand that;
get on with your confession.

It was the big one that perplexed me and drove me
as wild as a puckaun for the first half-hour. But the
backside, the red hair, the round eyes shining like stars
can be overcome by prayer, said Scothine. It's true,
indeed, Scothine, but she was at me all the while, saying :
for the temptation thou resistest to-night thou shalt receive
a great reward in heaven. That's where you should have
meditated on the cross, Scothine whispered. I did that,
you may be sure, Scothine, and she, knowing my great
torment, said : keep on saying your prayers, or turn to
my little sister, for she won't be stirring you up as I seem

to do. But the little sister was asleep She was

asleep, was she ? Scothine cried out. She was that, and

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every moment I thought that I was a lost man. Such
restlessness, Dare said, is not in the bond. If you're
as bad as this in the first hour, what will you be later
on when I wake my sister and we begin the greater
temptations ? Are there greater ones than these ? I
asked. There are, surely, she said, and you must
prepare for them by the tub, the way Scothine does
when he's hard hit. The tub! I cried. Yes, she said;
up with you and I'll show it to you. And taking me
to the window she told me to climb into the cistern,
and I stood in the cistern up to my neck for the best part
of half-an-hour. It wasn't till then I was let back into
the room, and the pipes were given to me. You can play
them ? Dare said. I can that, I said.

And you stood the test of the dancing, did you?
Scothine asked.

For a while ; but I had to make a lep for the cistern to
prepare myself for the game of leap-frog, and the greater
temptations.

And you withstood them all without incontinence,
voluntary or involuntary ? I did so. Well, then, let us
pray together, and let us thank God that you were able
to keep the devil out of the bed, for I was afeared for
you, and on my knees I prayed all the night long that
you might be swung up to heaven in a golden scarf and
not let down into hell on a black pulley. Brenainn, it
may be that my prayers saved you. Why should you be
taking all the credit to yourself, Scothine, believing, in
your vanity, that you're the only man in Ireland that can
lie with two young women without sinning with them,
if you be not on your knees in the next room praying
that strength may be given unto him ? A sore place this
would be for God to rest his eyes on if I were the only
one, Scothine answered, and Brenainn turned his eyes on
Scothine, trying to understand him. Then why were you
praying for me ? Hadn't you been with the girls yourself

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and didn't you know all their tricks ? I've only dared the
temptations after a diet of water-grass and acorns, but you
overcame the temptation of the thighs and the temptation
of the breasts, and the feast of the eyes that the dancing
affords, and the game of leap-frog, with a full belly, for
I'm not forgetful, though I was at the moment, of the
great big trout that we ate for our dinner. It was the
thought of the trout kept you awake all night praying for
me? Brenainn asked. It was that and nothing else, for
why should you not succeed where I have succeeded ?
Scothine continued. And your thought all the time, my
poor friend, was that I might lose my soul through you.
That is so. I was asking myself all last night what
would happen to me at all if my share of the thing had
lost your soul, Brenainn. But let us say no more about
it. You threw out the temptation after eating the trout,
and it weighing two and a half pounds if it weighed an
ounce. I couldn't get that trout off my mind, and my
conscience was sorely stricken that I should have led you
into temptation after eating the trout, and all the night
on my knees my entrails were wambling, and my head so
light that I hardly knew what kind of prayers I was
saying, the way they were coming and going like sparks
from a smith's anvil. But I'm talking too much. Tell
me at once that there was no incontinence. There was
none, Brenainn replied. Then you're a great man and a
holy man indeed, a great glory to Ireland herself; you're
all that, and I'll shrive you this instant of the venial sins
you've committed, for there are always venial sins, and it
were better that the earth and sun, moon and stars should
fall out of their places, and the skies be for ever empty,
than that the least sin should be committed, so great is
the least of these in God's sight. And Scothine began
the Latin prayer, mumbling through it quickly, his voice
getting clear at the words " absolve te." And these being
pronounced, Brenainn rose from his knees. And now,

171

Scothine, one last question : tell me, when we're in
heaven together, will these two girls be given to me or
will they be given to you ? If they're given to anyone,
Scothine answered, his face clouding a little, they should
be given to me. But you didn't resist them with a trout
weighing two and a half pounds in your belly ! Didn't you
eat half the trout yourself, so there was only a pound
and a quarter after all. Don't let us be arguing about
what's going to happen to us in heaven, but do you be
looking out and searching in your own parish for two
other girls that may tempt you as mine have tempted
you, and get you up into the front row. I'll do that if the
Bishop lets me, but, Scothine, in heaven there is neither
marriage nor giving in marriage. We've read that in the
scriptures. You're a great story-teller, Alec, and I fell to
thinking that the priests departed from each other in
happiness, and with a little regret at the back of the
happiness which neither could understand, so entirely
without cause did it seem to both of them.

CHAP. XXVII.

WE had left Westport in plenty of sunshine, but as
soon as we came to the great bog, lying between West-
port and Loch Conn, squalls, charged with stinging rain,
rushed down upon us from the hills, dun-coloured hills
frowning under their cloud caps ; and the road we were
following seemed so unlikely to lead us towards woods
filled with rhododendrons (now in their decline, my host
said, as we started, the flush of June being over ; a sort
of evening hour of beauty gone, I cried back to him)
that when I found myself crouching behind a turf stack
for shelter, the suspicion rose up quite naturally that we
were being befooled. Alec, I said, do you think Mr
Ruttledge is putting a joke upon us ? Mr Ruttledge isn't

172

the man would make it a joke to send you off to Loch
Conn for a wetting, Alec answered. I've never been in
this part of the country myself, but I've heard of the
rhododendrons, and we shall be among them soon if your
honour will have patience ; you see the weather is mending,
the clouds are lifting from the tops of the hills yonder.
But the bog, I said. It seems as if it was going on for
ever. That is the way with a bog, your honour ; it ends
and begins without any warning. I've remarked the
same thing myself, I answered, and we trudged for two
miles more, weary travellers at last rewarded by the
sight of green hill-sides. Now wouldn't this be the
domain Mr Ruttledge was talking about ? Alec asked,
and my surprise was great, for the woods seemed to me
to become more beautiful as we proceeded into them,
rising steeply from the shores of the lake, and full, as
my host had told me, with declining bloom, white, pink,
purple and mauve, with one great tree flaunting so
insolently over the ruin of the gate lodge, or steward's
house or cabin (it matters not which, once a human
habitation) that it was pleasant to pass into the demure
woods ; the world we live in being a green one, our eyes
return to green eagerly after too much colour.

We had been told that we should find the Royal
Osmunda by the lake-side, and the owner conducted us
from terrace to terrace till we came to a plank bridge, a
crazy structure that had been built out into the marsh ;
there were gaps in it, but with the aid of stepping-stones
we reached the corner in which the great fern grew, but
alas, it grew in such profusion that we took little pleasure
in it and returned inland disappointed, depressed perhaps
tells my feelings better. I shall expect you back at
tea-time, the owner said, after giving us leave to roam
his woods whither it might please our fancy, calling
us back to advise an excursion to a ruin. We should
find it, he said, if we followed the lake shore for about

173

half-a-mile. But I do not know that it's worth visiting,
he added on consideration ; very little of the original
convent remains. But the evening looks like clearing*
and if you meet an old peasant ask him to tell you
the story of a nun who is buried there. I've only
heard it hinted at. A saint it appears she was. You
may be more successful than I have been ; you see I'm
a stranger, an Englishman living on good terms with
the people but looked upon as an alien. We'll try, I
said, turning my eyes towards Alec. A moment before
it seemed to me that I had descried an awakening of
interest in his face. He knows the saint's story, I said to
myself, and hoping to hear it from him, I thanked the
owner and entered his woods again; a beautiful and
silent domain, I said, not a bird singing in it, for the
rain is threatening still ; a strange day, not a wave on
the beach nor patter of hare or rabbit among the leaves.
Sorra one, said Alec. And we walked idly to the little
pier, almost forgetful of the ruin we had been invited
to go in search of. A boatless pier, I said. What
has become of the owner's boats ? Alec was unable to
answer me and we stood gazing across the lake. Not a
gull, nor a sand-piper, nothing but the gaunt shores
yonder. A lake famous for its trout, I added, hoping to
tempt Alec into an observation. It was once the finest
water in Ireland for trout, he answered, but it is no good
since they got rid of the pike. But the pike ate the
trout, I said. All the same, Alec replied, where there
are no pike there are no trout : they've ruined the lake.
He nudged me and pointed to a great heap of stones by
the little pier. Stoats, he whispered, and in response to
an imitation given with his lips of a rabbit wounded or
in distress, four little red heads peeped out. The game-
keeper will be able to get them all by the end of the
week ; catch the bitch first and then the young ones
will come looking after her and trot into the trap.

174

It seemed to me sad that the pretty litter of red animals
should all be struggling in traps before the end of the
week, and to rid myself of the doleful spectacle I began
to ask questions about the ruin ; a famous convent it was,
no doubt, in the years back. You've heard of it, Alec ?
I've heard of it surely, he muttered, and we walked on
in silence through wet stones and tussocks and juniper
bushes. A poor country, I said, grey lake and gaunt
shores, naked everywhere save whence we have come.
But Ireland was once called the island of woods. I've
always heard it was here, he said, interrupting my
meditation ; and I found myself beside an ivied ruin.
" Ruin " seems an exaggerated expression, for there was
little more than a heap of stones covered with a thick
mane of ivy, but a closer examination of the ground
disclosed traces of ancient walls that the earth had not
yet overgrown. Yes, it was in this place, he repeated,
that one of Ireland's greatest sons was done out.

The story is coming, I said, but dared not ask Alec
to continue it lest he might take fright. He came here
from the wilderness when he was getting a bit too old
to live on water-grass and cockles. You remember
Scothine, your honour ? He that put the great trial on
Brenainn, making him lie between two virgins with round
breasts and after dining him on a fine trout. Well,
Moling was another such a saint as himself before he
came to the convent, and there's no saying that he
wouldn't be as high in heaven to-day if it hadn't been
— ah, well, 'tis true what they do be saying, that no man
is safe from temptation till he's dead.

There's a story on his mind without doubt, I said to
myself, and I could listen to it with more comfort in
these woods than on a gusty bog trying to keep my hat
from blowing away. Don't you think, Alec, that we're
going too far? I asked, and tea waiting for us in the
house beyond. Faith, a cup of tea would be better than

175

a blow of a stick, he answered cheerfully ; but I thought
your honour might like to see one more twist of the lake.

I've heard of the view beyond that hill There are

few things, I interrupted, more beautiful than a fine
evening after the rain. Whatever your honour likes.
Perhaps the tea would be better, I answered, and as soon
as we came to the ruined wall on our way back I began
to examine it, without, however, putting any questions
to him. I'm slow to go beyond this spot, said Alec,
without getting down on my two knees, wet and all as
the ground is.

An ill-judged word might stop the story on his lips,
and to say nothing at all might allow it to pass away.
All but that corner wall has disappeared, I mentioned
casually. True for you, Alec murmured, the ground has
grown over most of the convent, all but her grave and
the clay will never climb over that, for wherever there's
been a great wickedness done there's a scar left. The
story is coming, he will tell it, and how suitable these
woods are for the telling of a story, these quiet, almost
soundless woods, only the raindrops falling from the
leaves, I said, and began to admire the architecture of
the trees — tall boles of elm and beech with the hills
showing through the top branches, and, I said to myself,
the misted lake through the lower. A beautiful wood
whose monotony is relieved by a rough pine — that one
making a break in the pale greenery.

But the story Alec was cherishing of the saint who
came out of the wilderness in search of temptations,
like Scothine, but who, unlike Scothine, failed to conquer
them, diverted my attention from the trees to Alec's
anxious face, and putting together all my knowledge of
Alec, gathered, it is true, in a week's intimacy, and
adding to it my instinctive comprehension of what is
lowly and remote, I concluded, rightly or wrongly, I
know not which, but I concluded that outside of his gift

176

of story-telling he differed in no essential fact from any
casual peasant picked out at Westport on market day ;
and that if I pressed the analysis a little further, we
should come to this : that very little of his gift of story-
telling is personal to him — to himself. But can anyone
say : this much belongs to me and to no one else ? Is not
all reflection and derivation? My refusal, however, was
firm not to be led into this blind alley, and fixing my
thoughts firmly on Alec, striving to see him steadily and
to see him whole, as a good mid- Victorian should, I said :
his gift of story-telling amuses me because it is new to
me, but it is as old as the hills themselves, flowing down
the generations since yonder hills were piled up. Sheep
paths worn among the hills. His grandfather or grand-
uncle, whichever the Dublin scholar was, trimmed these
paths a little. Sheep paths, nothing else. Alec is a
creature of circumstance, and like myself can be accounted
for. He tells stories against the priests and nuns of the
twelfth century, for these are not far removed, in his
knowledge and imagination, from druids and druidesses.
It was only a few centuries before the twelfth that the
druids began to discard the oak leaves for the biretta ;
but in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries they were
full-bellied Roman priests; by that time the word had
become flesh ; it is just touch and go if he tells me the
story he is brooding over or refrains from telling it. I
can do nothing.

On this thought I raised my eyes for another look at
him, and as I did so Alec said : mind he must have been
one of the greatest saints that ever fell out in Ireland, for
it was the great deed he did, saving a soul from the devil
himself. I told your honour, as I should have done, that
it was at the end of his life ; he came out of the wilder-
ness where he had been along with the hermits, since he
was a bit of a gossoon living on cress and gulls' eggs. It
was after twenty years of the tough eating that he came

177

to rest his bones in the convent that you saw this day.
A man between fifty and sixty, yet the diet did not seem
to have taken a feather out of him, for his hair was as
black as you like, and it hung down on his shoulders in
fine curls, and the pair of eyes in his head were as shiny
as a young cat's. A spare, wiry little man that no one
would believe to be so old. But it was just as I'm
telling you. He came out of the wilderness between
fifty-five and sixty to hear the confessions of nuns by the
lake beyond; he came down from the crags above Old
Head. You know Old Head, your honour. Mr Ruttledge
goes there every summer with the children to swim. It
was there Moling had been living many a year the way
I told you. A queer place it is too, and he thought that
his rest was well-earned anyhow. But there was no rest
for him in this world, poor man, from the day he waved
his hat at the crags above Old Head, and came down at
the trot to Loch Conn to confess the nuns of Cuthmore.
And then didn't the bad luck start up in the most un-
likely place, in the mind of Sister Ligach, as pious a one
as ever wore out a pair of knees on the top of this earth.
I've come, Father, she said, dropping down on the same
bones, I've come with a great sin stuck in my conscience ;
but I've faith in the sacrament to relieve me. Well you
might, said Moling, for you are the one got well instructed.
On these words, he settled his stole and cocked his ear,
and wasn't it a relief to him to learn that the only thing
that was wrong with her was this, that she wasn't able
to pray to the saints to put in a word for herself and the
sisters in the convent. A light sin, surely, but being a
priest he had to blame her, and tell her she'd be better
off remembering the saints that stand by us when the
word of death is in our throats, singing and praying round
the throne of God to spare them that do be passing away
from the world, or if that cannot be owing to mortal sin,
getting their share of purgatory a bit easy.

178

After saying all this he thought he had done with
her and that she would get up from her knees, but there
wasn't a move out of her. My child, said he, what are
you waiting for? Well, Father, said herself, what good
would it be for me to be leaving you and I not making a
clean breast of it ? I confessed that I can't pray to the
saints any longer, but I've worse than that in my head.
Well the priest puckered up his lips and a thoughtful
look came into his eyes. No more than to the saints am
I able to pray to the holy virgin to succour us. Are you
telling me that you can't pray to the holy virgin, the
mother of the blessed God ! said the priest, and he in a
fright. Not to herself who bore the son of God in her
womb ? It is like that, Father, indeed. The priest next
to jumped out of his skin at that, and the chair he'd
been sitting on fell behind him. Pick up your chair,
Father, and hear me out, said Ligach, or you'll be sorry
afterwards. I can pray to no one but to Jesus himself,
said she. To no better could you nor anyone else be
praying, said the priest; but don't forget that there is
no one could put in a word better or quicker for you and
for us all than his own mother. Tell me, my child,
who would he be likely to be listening to more than to
his own mother ? To which Ligach replied : the truth
indeed, Father, but I've no thought for anybody but
himself, and there's no use giving a prayer when your
thoughts aren't in it. I wouldn't say so far as that, said
the priest, for by saying the prayers themselves the sinner
brings himself under the rule of the Church, and the
frozen waters of his heart will loosen and burst. It is
as you say, Father, but you haven't heard all yet. I can't
say a prayer at Mass ; my thoughts aren't on the Mass
that you're saying, but out in the garden.

At the words "out in the garden" Moling's brow
blackened, and maybe it was the quiet drawl of the girl
got him on the raw as much as anything else. Is it that

179

your thoughts are out gallivanting in the garden when
I'm calling down God into the bread and wine? But,
Father, isn't it much of a much ? Isn't it the same thing ?
Jesus gave us the sacrament, and if .I'm thinking of him
I'm thinking of what is going on at the altar too. It is
of the upper chamber in which he ordered the sacrament,
cried the priest, that you should be thinking ; and it
would be better still if your thoughts were on the miracle
and me at it. My child, I'm afraid I don't understand
you. I haven't got the rights of it yet. Well, it's like
this, Father ; all the time you're saying your Mass I'm
thinking of Jesus on the cross, and he suffering great
torments for me. A very good thought that is, Moling
answered ; a holy thought indeed ; but you ought to be
thinking too that it was himself ordered the apostles to
celebrate Mass when he was gone. I believe all that,
said Ligach, but it's the way that his suffering on the
cross puts every other thing out of my head, for am I not
his bride whom he will take in his arms? That's true
for you, said the priest, but you mustn't be thinking too
much of your meeting with him in heaven. It is well
enough for you, Father, to say that, but 'tis of our meet-
ing in heaven I'm thinking all the time, and there's
nothing will ever get that thought out of my mind.

All the same I won't be refusing you absolution, said
he. But, Father, will you be hearing me out first, for
I've not told you the lot of it yet ? A great part of my
prayers to Jesus is that he will be giving me a sign, a nod
of the head or the like. Faith, said the priest, I do not
come to this place to listen to nonsense and rameis. Say
your prayers and obey the rule, and let me be hearing the
rest of the parish. How many more are there waiting to
come in to me ? Three of us, Father. And now, Ligach,
if you want my absolution, bend your head ; for you see,
your honour, Moling was a hot-tempered man, and Ligach
one of those that would work up a passion in the greatest

180

saint in heaven. All the same, said she, I'd be glad of
a sign. But what would the like of you be wanting a
sign for ? Haven't you heard that humility is the top of
the virtues ? Be off with you. But Ligach wasn't to be

outdone. I'm afraid, Father, without a sign Without

a sign of what ? snapped out Moling. The day may come,
Ligach continued, when I shall not feel as sure as I do
now that he suffered all those torments for me. I want
to believe always and to be sure of it, never thinking of
anything but my belief in the son of God our redeemer.
You're wanting a lot and plenty, said the priest — to live
on earth as we shall live hereafter in heaven. But it's
not a bit too much, surely, when we remember the death
he died, which I never can let out of my thoughts.
You're a good little nun, said the priest; I used to be
like that myself in the years back. You'll give me
absolution, Father? Faith, I will, said the priest, startled,
for he'd been away.

Other penitents were waiting ; he shrove them all
without giving much of his mind to their sins, for he was
thinking of Ligach all the time, and on leaving the chapel
who did he meet but Ligach and the Mother Abbess
coming in from the garden, Ligach dripping like a spaniel
that had been in the river. Father, cried Mother Abbess,
I'll ask you to refuse her absolution if she doesn't give in
and be biddable. Look at the way she is in, and you
wouldn't guess where I found her in three guesses — in
front of the cross kneeling down in a pool of water. See
the way she's in — out there in the teeming rain, catching
her death of cold. Go and change your clothes at once,
my child, and remember that the first duty of a nun is to
give in to her superiors. To back up the Mother Abbess,
Moling said he never remembered so severe a winter,
and when Ligach came to confess to him he wasn't a
bit surprised to hear a bad cough. The cough was
followed up by another, and before she could confess one

181

of her sins, she was taken with such a fit of coughing and
sneezing that Moling said : my child, that's the bad cold
you've got, and a cough on the top of it. Yes, I suppose
I got it in the garden, for it's been wet enough there
lately. But didn't I hear the Mother Abbess tell you that
you weren't to go there ? You did, Father. But it was
for a sign I was praying, and if I do not get one I may
fall into a worse sin than that of disobedience. Now
what sign are you wanting ? asked Moling. A sign that
he is waiting for me in heaven. You've got a bad cold, a
very bad one, the priest repeated. Faith, I have, but a
cold is a small matter compared to what he suffered on
the cross. 'Tis true for you, said Moling, but a cold may
put an end to you just as well as a thrust of a spear.
You wouldn't be comparing myself to himself, would you ?
said the nun. Of course not, the priest snapped out, and
began to speak hard and stiff about her folly in wanting
God to grant her special favours. You're sinning in the
sight of God, said he, by endangering your life in the
way you're doing. Be off with you now ; and Ligach just
bowed her head, and her cough was so bad as she left the
chapel that the priest would have taken his words back
if he could, and not being able to do that, he rang the
parlour bell as soon as he had had dinner and asked for
herself.

Now, said he to herself, Ligach has as bad a cough as
I've ever heard in my born days, and the Mother Abbess
answered : true for you, Father ; it keeps us all awake at
night. We can hear her all over the convent barking,
and now there are three other sisters and the lot almost
as bad as Ligach, and there will be more laid up, for be it
wet or cold, they're all kneeling round the cross catching
their full of cramps. Well, I was like that myself once ;
and Moling began to tell of the years he spent among the
gulls on the crags above Old Head, and the twenty- three
years in the woods living on water-grass. For thirty years

182

I didn't sleep under a roof, but as the years go by we
begin to weary of the things that we hung on to in our
youth. But our lives are in God's hand ; we belong to
God, who has given life into our keeping, and expects us
to look after it. I'm altogether of the same idea as your-
self, the Mother Abbess replied, but it will be no change
while that same cross is left in the garden. A better
place for it, said the priest, would be in the chapel. Now
you've said it, Father, and as soon as we can get a little

help we will have the cross Put up in one of the side

chapels, the priest interjected. I'll show you the place.

And it was a fortnight after the shifting of the cross
that Sister Ligach crawled out of her cell more dead than
alive ; the others were well before her. And what did
she do ? Out with her into the garden to kneel down in
front of the cross that had nearly cost her her life, and
finding it gone out of the garden, she cried : how are we
to keep our thoughts from wandering from him who
died for our sins and waits for us in heaven? Do we
know that he got the best of health always when he
lived on this earth ? Not a word in the scripture ; not
a word. And such was her canter till Mother Abbess
had to say: now, Ligach, obedience is the first rule in
a convent. But, Mother, think what he suffered for me
and I not allowed into the garden for his sake. Well,
that is my rule, said herself, but to make matters lighter
for Ligach, she gave the young nun permission to rise
out of her bed at eleven o'clock and go into the chapel
and do an hour's devotion before the nuns rose out of
their beds for matins. At which indulgence the tears
came into Ligach' s eyes, and she said : may the Lord
have mercy upon you for that. It is all I can give you,
the Abbess answered ; make the best of it, Ligach. Faith
and troth I will, and you won't be left out of the prayers,
Mother Abbess. And every night Ligach was on her
knees before the cross praying for a sign. But not the

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sign of a sign nor the ghost of a sign came near her, and
when she next went to confession, she said : no sign
has come to me, Father, and the temptation is always
pushing me from behind. What temptation is that one,
my child ? the priest asked. The devil himself and not
one of his bailiffs either, telling me always that if I can't
get a sign from Jesus, I must be getting one from himself,
which would do me as well. My child, my child, do you
know what you're saying ? I do indeed, she answered,
and I cannot help myself much longer. Every time
the thought comes into my head I shake it and say :
Hail Mary, but it doesn't help me at all. If I were
you I'd give myself a pinch in some soft spot, said the
priest, or a pin I'd stick into me when the temptation
came around ; here's one for Satan, you will be saying,
as the pin goes into your thigh or your bosom ; and if
you aren't hurt enough push the pin into the sorest
place you can find, under one of your nails, and if that
doesn't stop the black fellow I'll have to put on my
considering cap and think it out, but do what I tell
you first.

It must be the devil, he said, as he walked home
thinking what he could do to save her soul ; and if, said
he, his thoughts taking a sudden turn, I were a bit
of a carpenter I might make something with a pulley
that would let the head nod at her when she's on her
knees asking for a sign ; a nod of the head is all that's
wanted to save her soul. But bad luck to it, for I am an
unhandy man, said the saint — for he was a saint, or a sort
of a saint, your honour, though a sinner into the bargain.
I'm no good at carpentering ; there isn't one in the town
of Westport that could learn me in a year what the little
boy playing among the shavings knows already. So I
needn't be getting a pain in my head thinking about
pulleys and the like. I'll get another thought soon, and a
better one. Nor was he long waiting for a second thought ;

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in five minutes, neither more nor less, he had it, and it
frightening the life out of him — the queerest thought that
ever came into a man's head, one that left him without a
prayer to throw at the devil. Let me at all events be
pulling myself into a shape of prayer, he said, and if the
thought isn't driven off while I'm down on the knees, I'll
know for certain it was sent to me by the Lord Jesus — for
what he was thinking was that he had just the figure for
the deed.

It is as like as not, he thought, his hair was as black
as mine, he being from the country of the Jews, but they
always paint him with fair hair. But maybe she'll be too
deep in her prayers to take much notice of the colour of
my hair, if any colour be showing. As soon as she lifts
her eyes to me I'll give a nod of the head to her from
above and she'll get enough faith out of that nod to last
her till she's called up before the throne of God. But if
she comes kissing my feet and begging me to come down
to her it will be the great temptation I shall be over-
coming, getting thereby a higher place in paradise than
them gone before me ; and for a chance like this one it was
well worth my while to have come out of the wilderness.

The priest's thoughts broke off suddenly, and after one
or two more turns up and down his garden he went back
to the house with the fear on him that Jesus might not be
wishing his cross interfered with. How do I know that it
isn't Satan is tempting me ? he asked, and going to the
holy-water stoop he splashed nearly all the water in it
about him. But aren't I the fool ? said he ; for why should
the devil be prompting me to save a soul and he wanting
as many as he can get hold of ? It is God himself is putting
this thought into my head, relying on me to outdo the
devil, who has a mighty big wish on him at present to
get Sister Ligach's soul, one of the beautifullest that ever
looked out of a human face. A great prize she'd be to him,
surely. The face of a saint if there be one walking about

185

on two legs in holy Ireland. But if I lose my soul in the
saving of hers ! cried Moling. But it is the old boy himself
that is putting that fear into my head, for whoever lost
his soul while at the work of robbing the devil of a soul he
set his heart on ? I'll lead her out of the chapel quietly,
and bid her tell no one. Risks there are, he said a few
minutes after, in every hour of life, but a holier one than
mine, which is to rob the devil, I don't know of. Now
can anybody tell me it won't be Jesus himself that
will be thanking me for the robbing on the day of judg-
ment. . . . But I'm bet after all — how will I fix myself
up on the cross? The image is nailed there — nails in
the hands and the feet ; but my feet aren't made of
wood, and must have a support; and for my hands I
must have two rings of rope, and Moling, not being much
of a handy man, as I've said, spent many hours more than
another would have done making them rings.

At last they were twisted and hidden away in the
chapel, where he was himself at half-past ten, removing
our Lord from his cross and fixing himself up in his place,
which he had just time to do before Ligach came in to her
devotions ; and he might have dropped down from the
cross so great was his fear that she might see the loin-
cloth was missing from his body, for he'd forgotten it in
his hurry, and, says he to himself, if Ligach wasn't
innocent of the difference in the make of a man and a
woman, I'd be fairly caught. But he was safe enough,
Ligach having no thought but for him that is in heaven.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ
on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise. Thou'lt not
deny me a sign, said she, lifting her eyes to the cross ; it
will increase my faith in thee till thou shalt be in him
that sees me, in him that I see, in him that speaks to me,
in him that I am speaking to, in him that I hear and in

186

him that hears me. And seeing and hearing naught but
thee, so would I live and die aloof from all else, from the
world. Dear God, I would be unto thee on earth as I
shall be in heaven. A sign, a sign of thy love of me. A
sign that will save me from the temptation of thinking
that the devil would answer me if I were to pray to him.

On hearing them terrible words the priest took such
a fright that he slipped his hands out of the ropes and
came down to her, sure and certain that he'd be able to
quiet her. But while he was telling her of the great
meeting it would be for them both up in heaven, she
kept saying : am not I up in heaven now ? the sparks
flying out of her eyes all the time as you might see
them in Jimmy Kilcoin's forge when he pulls at the
bellows. Am not I Christ's bride? she kept calling
to the poor man, trying his best to get to the holy
water; and if he'd got there 'tis a different story I'd
be telling, but the senses failed on him, and he no more
than a yard off the stoop, and when they came back
the nun was beside him in a faint so deadly that he
mistook it for her death. It's a poor thing to be tempted
like this, surely, says he ; but no more than a venial sin
can it be, for 'tis the intention that counts. But I must
be attending to her, and it took a lot of sprinkling and
calling into her ears that she must obey him before her
lips opened and she muttered : thy will be done, Lord.
Open your eyes, Ligach, said he ; and she opened them,
but only to see what she was minded to see, and, led to
the door of the chapel, she heard him say : what has fallen
out this night must be kept to yourself. One word of
it to anybody and the sign that you got to-night will lose
its power, and the blessing will be changed into a curse
altogether. Return to your cell, Ligach, and close the
door behind you.

And no sooner was she out of the chapel than the priest
put the image back and made off with himself in the great

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fright of his life, as well it might be, for by dint of
what had passed he didn't seem to know himself rightly
at all ; his thoughts were all astray, and he couldn't get
them together in his poor head. At one moment he
was thinking that he had planned the lot from the
beginning, and the next that if he hadn't got down off
the cross and made her his bride she would have come
to her right reason and found out what a trick he was
working on her. Her faith would have gone for good
and all, he cried out, and instead of saving a soul I'd
have well damned one for ever. As soon as she came
to kiss my feet, I was bound to come down. But the
rest ? All right from her side, but maybe my soul is lost.
But it is the intention that counts; and all night he
was asking Jesus if a sin committed with a good intention
could be a sin. The sins of the flesh, he began again,
are small ones compared with the sins of the spirit ; her
sin was of the spirit, mine was of the flesh. The flesh
has redeemed the spirit, a thing which doesn't often
happen, for it is usually the spirit that redeems the flesh.
But in this world things often fall out contrary-like.

She won't tell anybody, not even myself, he murmured ;
she will keep her sin dark; but there was no sin on
her side, only on mine, and on mine but a venial sin,
if my intention was to save a soul, which it was, and
a man should be judged by his intentions, so it is
said.

CHAP. XXVIII.

BEFORE long it seemed to the nuns that Moling hurried
them up in their confessions ; they missed the bits of kindly
reproof, and left him wondering, saying : his mind is off;
our sins don't seem to matter to him. It's your turn now,
Ligach ; and seeing a light on her face that made them

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think of the sun shining on the sea, they said : what's
wrong with Ligach this time ?

Father, she said, dropping on her knees, a sign has
been given to me, and a greater one than I hoped for,
and, the nun went on : he came down from his cross and
took me in his arms. But no sooner were the words
across her lips than a great fear and a great fright came
over her. Oh, but I've been told not to speak of all this ;
he put a bond on me, and I've broken the bond. It
would have been broken, the priest answered, if you'd
spoken to anybody but myself. Every secret is safe with
me. Don't you know the seal of the confession has never
yet been broken and never will be ? But, Father, a bond
was put upon me never to reveal what passed between us
by himself at the door of the chapel. Am I not the
representative of Christ on earth ? Moling asked, and when
you tell me what happened between you, you're telling it
to himself. Haven't I the power to bid him come down
from heaven into the bread and wine ? Must he not obey
me ? I know that, said Ligach, I know it well. And
don't I absolve sins that are committed ? 'Tis true for
you, said the nun. But it is hard to tell.

He came down from his cross, and he took me in his arms,
and made me his bride in life as he will afterwards in
heaven. Tis a great honour he did to you, surely. It is that,
she replied, and one that I wouldn't have dared to think of
if it hadn't happened to me, but it is just as I told it to
your Reverence, just as I told it, and no way else. But
not a word out of you about this, cried the priest. I won't
say a word, Father, Ligach replied, for I was told not to.
And now, said Moling, I'll be giving you absolution. But
would you be giving me absolution for being visited by
himself? I forgot that, said the priest, but mind what
I'm telling you : let not a word out of your mouth to
anyone of this, or he'll never visit you again. Visit me
again ? said Ligach ; what would he come to me again for ?

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though indeed I'd be glad if he did. The priest did not
answer, and she repeated : for what, I'm asking you,
Father, would he visit me again? And the priest still
not saying a word she kept on at him. For what, I'm
asking you ? for why should he be treating me different
from Mary, who was visited only once so far as the
scriptures goes. True, true, said Moling, he will never
come to you again. But something will come to me, for
it wasn't for nothing he came down from his cross. Time
will prove me right. I was forgetting, said the priest.
A strange thing to be forgetting, a thing that doesn't
happen once in every thousand years, she replied.

CHAP. XXIX.

WHAT did she say, Moling asked himself, when Ligach
rose up from her knees and left the chapel ; what did she say
about expecting ? Will there be a child ? he asked. And
on his way home he asked himself if he came down from
the cross because he was afraid that if Ligach did not
get the sign she had been praying for so long her belief
might fade. Did she not tell him that the temptation
was pressing her from behind that if she addressed herself
to the devil she'd get an answer ? O Lord, have mercy
upon me, he muttered, and he knew that all the colour
was out of his face, and that his hand was trembling.
I'm bet and bothered with it all, said he. If I've sinned,
forgive me, Lord. But who is to tell me if I be in
mortal sin or venial sin ? Not a bishop in Ireland could
tell me that, nor the Pope of Rome himself, for what
happened last night never happened to anybody in this
world before. He walked on a bit and then stopped
again. I'm the most miserable man in all the world,
and will not be able to pull through this business. He
went on walking ahead, mile after mile, without a

190

prayer in his heart and his thoughts tormenting him,
buzzing in his poor mind like flies, stinging him, stopping
him in his walk, making him drop his knife and fork
out of his hand when he was at his dinner, leaving
him staring across the room, thinking of the good days
he spent with the hermits living on water-grass, and
the better ones when he was on his own picking
seagulls' eggs out of the rocks.

Them were fine days, he said, and I had the good
health then, but it is all going now, though I'll not be
what you would call an old, ancient man for a good while
yet. It is the fear that I am in mortal sin is destroying
me and wasting my bones. And then he would stop to
ask himself what she meant when she said that something
would happen to her. Was it a child ? Of course it was
that same, and he hadn't much longer to wait for the
news from herself in the convent. Father, I think I'm
with child. Women that live in chastity are often
troubled with fancies, and to speak of such a thing and

it not the truth might How could it be else, said

Ligach, he after coming down from his cross to me ? All
the same keep it to yourself till the child leaps in your
womb, if 'tis there he is, he said to her, and to himself :
the news will soon be out ; the nuns will soon know all
about it. Highly favoured, they will say, is our convent.
And, Ligach, now will you be telling the others that I can
hear no more confessions to-day. Oh, my Lord Je,sus Christ,
cried Moling, as soon as the nun closed the door behind
her, the torture is in the waiting ! And from that day
out he'd be saying : another day has gone by and I'm one
day nearer to the day when the Mother Abbess will come
with her nuns, Ligach in the middle of them, to tell me
about the great miracle : Ligach in the family way though
she has never known a man.

The weeks went by and he counting them till the
week came when he said to himself : she must be seven

191

months gone, yet the nuns haven't come to me, though
her appearance is great. As these very words were
passing through his mind the parlour door opened and
in came the Mother Abbess, surrounded by her nuns,
with Ligach in the middle of them. Father, said the
Mother Abbess, we have come to tell you something
you will find it hard to believe, yet it is true. It's a
miracle, surely, said Moling, after he had heard the
Mother Abbess, and at these words the nuns were so
overjoyed that they linked their hands and danced round
Ligach for all the world like a lot of children. It is not
for me, said Moling, as soon as a little quiet had been
gotten, to discourage your faith in the miracles that
God grants to us sometimes so that we should not
altogether forget him, but I call upon you to be mindful
that you all keep this a secret among yourselves, for if
the miracle you speak of should not prove to be as great

a miracle as you think it is, we shall be But, Father,

they began, it is either a great miracle or it's no miracle
at all, and you're the last man that should say a word
against Ligach. I am indeed, said Moling, the very
last in the world ; her sweet face tells that she knew
no kind of man any more than the virgin herself did
till the birth of our Lord. But in this world it's not so
easy to find believers; there are always gabby tongues,
and this neighbourhood is not freer from them than
another. But who, Mother Abbess asked the priest, would
say a word against our little Ligach, whose conception is
as miraculous as Mary's ? and the priest, without a word
in his chops, stood looking at the nun.

Her conception is certainly a great mystery, he said at
last, and until we learn more about it my advice to you
all is to keep this secret from everybody. But, said
Mother Abbess, what do you mean, Father Moling, when
you say till we know more about it ? Well, this is what I
mean, said he, that the boy himself will be proof enough of

192

his miraculous birth when he grows up. Let us hope so.
But we don't know, said Mother Abbess, whether it will be
a girl or a boy. A boy, a boy, cried the nuns, clapping
their hands, and they began to argue that it could not
be else than a boy, for that no woman had ever borne a
girl miraculously. Oh, said the priest, I'm afraid we're
travelling on a road that will carry us into a fine heresy ;
but after thinking a while he saw he was mistaken, for
St Anne herself wasn't conceived miraculously, only without
sin. There will be a child for sure, but, as I've told you
already, until we learn more about it, I'd be advising you
to speak to none about the miracle that God has been
pleased to work for us. The Mother Abbess was of the
priest's way of thinking, and having gotten a promise from
them all in the name of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the priest
said to himself: well, God knows how all this will turn out,
and we must leave it to him.

At times he was tempted to hope that she might die,
for only her death and the death of his child could stop
the scandal ; but he was a saint as well as a sinner, and
every time the thought came he shook his head, for he
knew it was the devil that sent it, and he kept the holy
water going about him all the time. His real torment
was that, thinking over the reason for his sin, he didn't
know if he was guilty of a mortal sin or venial sin, or of
no sin at all. Be this as it may, he often said : I'm doing
a good share of my purgatory on the earth, and these were
the words he was speaking to himself the day the Mother
Abbess came in to him with the joyful tidings that Ligach
had been delivered of a fine boy, and with no more than
two hours' trouble before he came : no more than a little
uneasiness.

Didn't we tell you, cried the nuns, that Ligach would
bear a boy and not a girl ? and the priest, not knowing
what to say to all this, asked if the child was a weakling ;
and, a bit surprised that he should ask that, the Mother

193

Abbess answered : there's nothing weak about him barring
that he has a strong weakness for the breast, even if it was
a virgin bore him into the world. Is a virgin's child
different ? he asked, not knowing very much what he was
saying, and the two of them fell to talking of the christen-
ing, which was to be at the end of the week, the priest
thinking his mind would be easier when it was over. But
from this hour out he never got an easy minute, and he
put in 'a week before the christening thinking of his
sermon, which would all be about miracles and mysteries.
Said he : I mustn't say a word against one or t'other, for
the sisters are right in this, that to say her case was not
miraculous is much the same as taking away her character
and she a nun enclosed in the Convent of Cuthmore. And
he began to think of the men they'd suspect if the miracle
were denied, but he could think only of the gardener and
the gardener's boy. No one, he muttered, would believe

that Ligach The nuns won't be cheated out of their

miracle, and the best I can do is to persuade them to let
the child be put out to nurse. We can say it was found
by the convent door ; left there by someone that didn't
want it. A moment after, he remembered a woman down
the road who had lost her child: she would be glad to

rear it for us, if Ligach But will she consent to be

separated from her child ? And the nuns give in to part
with it ? Not a chance of it, poor childless women, and
they are looking forward to this child, and not one of
them but is already a mother in her heart ; the most I'll
be able to do will be to get them to promise to keep the
secret of Ligach's miraculous conception to themselves till
the boy begins to show what sort of a man he'll be stretch-
ing into; and mind you, he kept on telling them, for
though the way she got him is a miracle we don't know
for sure and certain who he was got by. But, Father,
would you have us think that Satan had a finger in it ?
cried the Mother Abbess, and the nuns dropped their

194

hands and eyes. I'm the last man in the world who'd be
putting a sore thought into your minds, said Moling. I'm
all for taking things easy, saying nothing about the miracle
and letting him grow up naturally without any cramming
up of Latin and Greek. But, Father, he must get the
education.

The priest heaved a big sigh, for he knew well there
was to be no rest for him on this earth, and hardly was
the boy four years of age before he could read his native
Irish tongue, and when he was seven or eight he could
con the Latin and Greek; and between ten and eleven
he was running down to his father's house taking out the
books into the garden, reading and learning and refusing
to be a shepherd or a carpenter or a blacksmith. Not one
of the decent trades that Moling offered him could he be
got to take up. It was only books that he had a thought
for, and it was great delight to the nuns when he began
to read the scriptures to them, and he only fourteen years
of age. After this proof of his learning there was no
holding the good sisters, and nothing the priest could say
could stop their blabbing tongues. One and all of them
went about telling how the boy had given out the scriptures
to them in the Greek and the Latin, asking if that wasn't
sign enough that a great prophet he would be in time to
come : one who would hunt the heretics out of Ireland ?
Prophet ! said the priest, who was now at his wits' end to
quiet them. And what would there be wonderful in that ?
said the Mother Abbess. Only this, said the priest, if
Ligach conceived miraculously it would not be a prophet
that she'd bring into the world but a Messiah ; and no
sooner were the words out of him than he saw he had
made a mistake, for, as Mother Abbess put it to him and
to the nuns, by means of the Holy Ghost God begot a son
that was neither greater nor lesser than himself, and full
equal to the Ghost. But we're not asked, said she, to give
in that the Son, with or without the help of the Ghost, can

195

beget himself a son ? Sure, being God, the priest answered,
he could do anything. That is so, said the nun, but this
is the vexation : have we got to believe that our little
Martin is God's grandson ? If we believe him to be a
grandson aren't we upsetting the Trinity, a thing that no
person here would have hand or part in ? Bothered and
badgered we are, thinking out the same question, and I'd
like to know if the doctrine, as I'm giving it to you, will
hold good at the Court of Rome.

Well, now, said the priest, I'll think that over, for it's
a tough point indeed, and one that won't be untied in
a month of days, with the parishioners dropping in, to say
nothing of yourselves banging away at my door on one
business or another. A knotty point which a man must
give the whole of his head to. And where, would you tell
me, can a man give his mind to a deep matter like the
Trinity, unless it's in the wilderness that I came out of
years ago, and where I am going back to think the whole
thing out ? If I make any head on it I'll come back with
the news. But the nuns were very fond of Father Moling,
and at that they started in to weep and wail and cry
aloud, a fair keening it was ; all ochon ee 6 go deo, and
woeful is the day, very distressful to the priest, who, to
quiet them, reminded them of the forty days Jesus spent
in the desert. We'll pray that God will not keep you
waiting, cried the nuns. And I'll make a prayer too, he
said, that will be the dead image of the one you're making,
and now my blessing be upon you all, and on our little
Martin, whom I give into your charge, and if you don't

see my face again We will, we will, they all cried,

for be the word, and the Mother Abbess took a grip and
a swing out of his cassock, but he hauled it off her with
a rip in it maybe, and their eyes rested on him for the
last time as he stood for a moment at the edge of the
wood with his bundle on his shoulder, and he waving a
farewell sign to them,

196

May God speed him, cried the Mother Abbess, on his
way, and help him to untie the knot, for it's a knot of
the knots, and I'm dead sure that he is too old to
stand the hardships of the wilderness, with them joints
and them bones. May God send him back safe to us,
said another nun. I'm thinking now, said the Mother

Abbess And the nuns cried out to know what she

was thinking. What will we be doing ourselves without
a priest and he gone ? Without confessions, without
Mass we will be lost entirely. True for you, said a
nun, and the others added : we never thought of that,
Mother. We'll have to write to the Bishop, and tell him
of the loss of our pastor, who has gone into the wilder-
ness to think out a hard bit of doctrine, one so knotty,
said the Mother Abbess in her letter, that he may be
away for long enough. So we should be glad of a
temporary priest if it would be convenient to your
lordship to send us one.

CHAP. XXX.

THE man that goes into the wilderness in his youth
returns to it in his old age, and I doubt if they'll ever see
him again, the Bishop remarked, as he passed the letter on
to his clerk. A man of seventy-five hasn't got it in
him to spend his nights on the hill-side in draughty
huts. But no more than that did he think about it,
except, of course, to send them a priest, and when the
priest came, Manchin was his name, the first talk was
about the disappearance of Moling into the wilderness,
and the great and holy man that he was. The last
words his lordship spake to me, said he to the nuns,
were : the wilderness is no place for a man of his age, and
all the nuns cried out that they thought the same. But
there was no holding Moling with them for the knot he

197

had to untie What knot ? said Manchin. And bit by

bit the story came out, the priest's face getting more and
more troubled and queer-looking, till at last the Mother
Abbess cried out : I can see by your Reverence's eye that
you'll have none of the miracle, and that you think our
little Martin is somebody's leavings. I wouldn't be say-
ing that, said the priest, and he had a long talk with
Ligach, who gave him the story as well as she could for
the water in her eyes, and she guessing that the priest
didn't swallow much of her story ; and afterwards he
wrote to the Bishop saying that a great heresy might
arise out of this story that was going the round, and
a great many souls be lost in it. The Bishop was
fairly put out by the news, and wrote to his brother
bishops, and seven or eight of them came, and they
went at it.

The news had travelled far and wide ; pilgrims were
coming all the time, the whole country was talking of
the miracle, and nothing else. As the bishops didn't
want to disappoint the people there is no knowing what
mightn't have happened if, just as the bishops were leav-
ing, their mitres on their heads and their crosiers in their
hands, three long-bearded old men hadn't come down out
of the wilderness and began talking. The story they had
come to tell was that Father Moling was doing penance for
the great sin he had fallen into in the years back with a
nun of the name of Ligach, whom he had deceived and
had a child by. Enough, enough, cried the bishops ; it was
God sent you, lest a great heresy should eat the Church
the way a wolf eats a lamb. And the nuns and the
bishops and all the country went after the Archbishop
into the church, which was fuller that day than it ever
was before or since.

Well this is the way it was : the Archbishop began to
tell them out of the pulpit that it must have been God
sent the three hermits with the news of Moling's sin, and

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that they didn't come a bit too soon either, for they, the
bishops, were about to give it up as a bad job without
coming to any judgment, none of them liking to say a
word for or a thing against the story of such an out-of-
the-way miracle as a miraculous conception, though
there wasn't a man jack of them but agreed that such a
thing was less likely than one of the little miracles the
Church is always willing to accept, such as the curing of
palsy with a touch, the giving back of sight and hearing
with a spit, the setting of one that has not been able to go
about without crutches for years on his feet again ; for not
like any of these little miracles are the greater miracles,
such as the lifting of a dead man alive out of his tomb, or
a woman that has never known a man bearing a child ;
these great miracles were done once in the Eastern world
for the saving of the world. So it isn't likely that God
would let his greater miracles happen again : for if a
woman bore a child all by herself, or if a corpse lifted him-
self out of the tomb alive, the great truth of the Church
would not be the plain pikestaff that it is to everyone that
cares to open one of his two eyes. You may be sure and
certain, my brethren, you may give in to it once for all,
that no woman will get a child that way again, and who-
soever says she has done it is just trying to disturb people
in their faith. It is with sorrow that I give it out, but
Father Moling was guilty of the crime ; but let it be re-
membered always that he was punished for his sin year
in year out, day after day, minute by minute, expecting
all the time, and sure and certain of it, that something
would happen to drag the secret out of him, till at last he
could bear the torment no longer and took himself off to
the wilderness to pray for forgiveness.

The people were reminded by the Bishop that God had
forgiven Moling, and that they were bound to believe
this, for Moling had confessed his sin and sent three holy
men with tidings of his confession to them, the only thing

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he could do to make up for his sin. The three holy men
will tell you of Moling's repentance as they heard it from
the lips of Father Moling himself. They will stand up. Up
the hermits, said he, but not a hermit of the hermits moved,
and as nobody stirred the people began looking here and
there for the men, but they were not in the chapel, and so
the Bishop sent out to see if they were in the yard. But
they were not in the yard either, and all the news that they
could get about them was from a shepherd who had seen
them sloping away with themselves into the wood ; thinking,
the Bishop said, their mission was finished. Which it was
indeed. All that was wanted, he went on, was proof that
no miraculous conception had fallen out in this parish, and
they had that. I would have liked you all to hear the
story again from their lips, but it isn't the will of God that
you should : for these holy men have gone back to the
wilderness they came out of.

The Bishop was a great hand at a sermon, and he said
much more than I'm telling your honour, and would
have said more than he did if a commotion had not
begun in the chapel, Ligach suddenly falling faint or
dead, it wasn't certain at first; so white and still was
she, that many began saying that the news that her son
was a by-blow had finished her. Water was sprinkled
on to her face, and she was well rubbed; they got a
drop of whisky between her teeth, and as soon as she
opened her eyes the Bishop began to take pity on her,
and he told the people that she wasn't a bit to blame
nor a scrap in the wrong. She had been, he said, a
victim, and next door to a martyr, but a victim she was,
one of Satan's many victims, for the devil never flinched
from doing a big wrong if he could only get his own
way, which, in this case, was the soul of a man who,
until he gave in to temptation, had been a good man
and a very good man; one who had left the wilderness
because the health failed on him, who had sinned, but

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we must not judge a man by a single case, but by his
whole life; Moling had sinned, not a doubt of that, but
he had gone back to the wilderness to repent, he had
not hummed nor hawed about it, old man though he
was, and the Bishop churned on till Ligach had another
faint.

This time her son carried her to the door of the
church, putting back all the people who would help
him, saying to them : let none lay a finger on my mother,
I am here to care for her and to stick by her. At the
chapel door he kissed her and at that she opened her
eyes, and they put words in his mouth, and leading her
back till they were on the threshold, he stood up to
the Bishop in the pulpit, asking his lordship was a story
told by three hermits to be believed rather than the
story that the nuns of Cuthmore had known to be true
for the last fourteen years. If the hermits had the rights
of it why have they disappeared like evil spirits? he
asked, and the people thought well of that, and the
priests were frightened. Let the Bishop call the
hermits back. At that the Bishop interrupted Martin,
and said that he didn't know a thing about these hermits.
Then why, asked Martin, do you believe them before
the words of every sister in this convent? Women my
mother lived with from her young youth, always known
to them to be as pious as any nun of the nuns, often
going stricter than the rule of the convent in her wish
to please God, putting her life in the danger too. My
mother's life is well known, so it is, and you said yourself,
my lord, that a man's life ought not to be judged by a
single deed. Why then should the whole of my mother's
life be struck out as nothing ? No one accused your mother
of sin : we hold her to be blameless, cried the Bishop
from the pulpit. And by that you hold her to be a silly
woman who believed a living man got up on the cross
and let on to be God himself. My mother has never

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been known as an omadhaun, and if it was true would
not the hermits have stood their ground here and had
it out with me ? If they went off with themselves it is
because they were afraid of my questions ! Let them be
called back here if they are hermits itself, coming here
and dropping their bad egg and skedaddling off with
themselves. All the people gave in to the rights of
that, saying : true for you, my boy, more power to the
gossoon, and who hid the hermits ?

The mistake Martin made was speaking of the hermits
as if maybe they weren't hermits at all ; for that gave the
bishops the handle they wanted and they called on the
people not to hear another word from the man who
accused the clergy of calling the devil to give a hand,
which was the way the clergy got the people over to
their side, and seeing that he and his mother hadn't a
defender in the world, Martin said : I'll go on the track
of the hermits and I'll bring Father Moling back with
me too, and he'll tell you that the three hermits told a
lie. So off he went with himself into the wilderness,
and if I were to begin to tell your honour of the
adventures he met and the queer things that happened
to him we'd be here until the day after to-morrow
morning ; for Ireland was a wild place in the days gone
by, and it was through the wildest parts he had to be
trotting his boots in search of the hermits and Moling,
looking for them in the forests and glens, along the
naked seashores and from lake island to lake island, but
sorra sight or light he could get of one of them, for
Ireland is too big a place for one man to go visiting the
whole of it ; and it was with a belly full of disappoint-
ment and a grown man that he came again to Loch
Conn, the only place in the wide world he had a memory
of. His heart was sick and sore, I'm telling you, as he
stood in the place you stood in to-day, your honour, and
he looking on a few ruined walls. Is it, says he to the

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goatherd that was passing by at the time, is it that
these walls are all that are left of the Convent of
Cuthmore ? There was a convent here one time, I've
heard tell of it, the goatherd answered ; but the nuns
left it years ago because a nun of them thought she had
been put in the straw by the Lord himself, but it turned
out to be by a robber that came through the chapel
while she was praying before the cross.

The woman that is buried here was my mother, said
Martin to the goatherd, and I have gone Ireland up and
down and back and forth for the last seven years of my
life, through forests and mountains, trying to come up
with the hermits that brought the news that killed her.
Bad and real bad the same news must have been, said the
goatherd; what kind of news was it at all, and it that
deadly ? It was the news that Moling, who was the priest
in the convent while my mother was carrying, went to the
hermits in the wilderness to repent his sin, and confessed
to them that he was my father, and they came along
afterwards and told the bishops. It's not likely at all,
said the goatherd, for who ever heard in the world of a
confession being told; if Moling had told that to the
hermits they couldn't have told it to the bishops, and you
can take it from me that if the nun buried under this
stone was your mother indeed, then your father was a
robber that done a climb in through a window on a dark
night and played his trick ! Not a bit of it, said Martin,
and a great argument and a great row began between the
pair of them, and how it would have turned out I don't
know, only that the goatherd had to make off after his

As soon as he got the one hobbled that was setting the
others astray, he came back to ask Martin who the this
and the that was his father, if it was neither the priest
nor the robber, and they must have talked a bit before
they separated ; but the man my grandfather had the story

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from, and who got it from his father before him, told my
grandfather that Martin believed his soul had come down
from a star and went into Ligach's body while she was
at her prayers — it's the queer thoughts do be in the heads
of them heretics. Heretics, Alec ? Heretic he was, sir,
surely, though I wouldn't be saying anything about the
soul coming down from a star, for can't the power of the
devil work up above as well as down below ? But he told
the goatherd that his mother's name was under his own
special care, and that everybody would believe in her
virginity, for it was part of the new religion he was going
to set up, with himself at the head of it.

And the new religion ? I asked. It is said that Martin
went off to Germany, Alec answered, and that he got
married there to an escaped nun, for you couldn't set up a
new religion or do any of them tricks in Ireland. Are you
telling me, Alec, that he married Catherine Bora ? That
might be her name indeed, for the religion itself was no
better than a whore. You don't mean that Ligach's son
was Martin Luther ? Faith, I wouldn't be saying anything
or too much, and we standing at the edge of her grave, still
and all the German Martin might easy have been one of
the sons of our Martin, but here's the grave beside us,
and you have the story as well as I can give it to you.

CHAP. XXXI.

AN excellent tea awaited me in the parlour, cakes of
different kinds and many various jams, and Alec was
speaking in praise of the tea he had been served with
in the kitchen, when Mr Ruttledge's car came to fetch
us. Its arrival was opportune, for another ten miles'
walk, and five of it through a gusty bog, was more than I
should have cared to undertake in the days of my youth,
and now I looked forward to leaning back among comfort-

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able cushions, and following in imagination the young
man as he strove through the uttermost of night, hearing
the stars, as he ascended the hill-sides, telling him that
his mother's womb was quickened by a celestial visitant
— an explanation of the mystery of his birth which he
received eagerly, for he was one whose mother's virginity
was dearer to him than his own life ; one who would
forgo his life rather than possess it at the price of his
mother's maidenhood : a sentiment commoner than we
think for, for who amongst us is there that has not looked
at his father with hatred, or a grudge, in his heart ?

A story, I said, that would have won its way into Pater's
heart ; and I fell to thinking how he would have written
it, beginning perhaps :

And oh, the pity of it! the young man returning to
the Convent of Cuthmore after long years of vain
searching for Moling and the three hermits, only to
find her grave — her grave and his birthplace (the
goatherd had told him that Ligach was buried in
the cell in which she had lived all her life) and
to stand by it, hopeful, looking on himself as the vin-
dicator of her sad cause, his life devoted to that end —
a long knight-errantry — and on the religion he would
found as the warrant he needed of her virginity and his
own Messiahship !

A beautiful story, I muttered and, catching sight at
that moment of Alec's face, out of which all expression
had vanished, I said : when he is not telling a story he
is as common, as witless, as any man picked out of the
streets of Westport. How very strange ! and how un-
important ! Not himself but his beautiful story is worth
considering — the beautiful story whose origin we must
seek further back than the Middle Ages, whose counter-
parts we shall find certainly amongst the rudiments of
the world ; in the story of Bacchus, who visited Semele's
grave before he set forth on his pilgrimage to found a

205

new religion, and in the story of Hippolytus, the son
of Antiope, the Amazon queen who fell in love with
Theseus, King of Athens, for he too believed his mother
to have been a virgin who was impregnated by some starry
influence as she lay sleeping in a mountain cleft.

Alec, I cried, irritated by the sight of his impassive
countenance, your story revives my interest in the Celtic
Renaissance, and when I return to Dublin the first person
I will tell it to will be dear Edward ; it will strengthen
his belief in the Renaissance. Who might he be? said
Alec.

CHAP. XXXII.

ALEC accompanied me to the wicket, and before parting
with him I said once again : I'm sorry I shall not see
you all next week. You've told me some wonderful
stories, and without doubt are the great shanachie of
Connaught. Many's the one that has said the same to
me, your honour, but if they were right itself, it isn't
much of a brag to be above those going up for the
competitions with no more than two and three and a half
a story between the lot of them ; and the fellows stutter-
ing and stammering them out. But, compared with the
shanachies that were in it in the old time, your honour,
I'm not so much maybe.

I begged him to believe that he was unjust to his gifts
and inspirations, and suppressed the smile that I felt
to be at hover about my lips. I've never, I said, heard
better stories than those you have told me, or a more
spirited relation. So much have your stories pleased
me that I don't know how the time will pass while you
are away. I'm longing to hear more stories. And what
shall I be doing while you're away ? It would be a great
honour to me to hear a story from yourself, your honour,

206

and all the week I'm away you can be turning it over in
your mind. But you see, Alec, my stories are intended
to be read ; my stories are eye stories, yours are ear
stories, and at an ear story you beat me easily. I'm far
from thinking that, your honour, but whichever of us
may come out first, I'd like to hear you tell a story.

Alec's blue, almost forget-me-not, eyes were fixed upon
me and, cowed by them, I promised him a story. But
you mustn't expect too much from me, I called down
the road, for already I had begun to feel that I should
be worsted in the contest.

He lifted his hat and went away, laughing, I thought,
as if he were sure I could match his stories. But as I
turned in the wicket it seemed to me that Alec had
gone away laughing at the thought of my being able
to match his grandfather's stories. Not an easy task,
I said, especially the Marban story. An hour remains
between now and dinner, I continued, and bethought
myself of the high wood as a likely place to find a subject ;
and turning to Jim, I said : how often have you believed
in the rabbit and been disappointed? It may be, how-
ever, your luck will be to get the rabbit, and mine to
return with nothing in the shape of a story. You can
come with me ; we'll go hunting together ; and Jim, lean
and eager and hopeful, rushed ahead, leaving me to follow
after, doubtful and already a little despondent, saying to
myself : to match his stories I shall need a very striking
subject.

A story of modern life wouldn't impress Alec. He'd
be more interested in a wonder tale — a legend or fairy
tale, a fairy tale being better than a legend. But is
there any difference between fairy tales and legends ? I
asked, and wasted some time considering the question
from a literary point of view, awaking from my reverie
with the words : a wonder tale, on my lips. A wonder
tale it must be, and if I tell him an astonishing story he'll

207

speak up for me in the ale-houses : no shanachie will be
put in front of me, saving himself, of course. Something
dramatic will impress him more than a story of every-
day life, however good it may be. A murder story ! and
I bethought myself of a woman whom a verdict of not-
proven saved from the gallows and imprisonment, leaving
her free to pick and choose a husband from out of a crowd
of supplicating suitors ; and, as if determined to close all
possible avenues of further romances, she chose the
dowdiest. But it would seem that romance was her lot
in life, for after twenty years of virtuous married life her
husband became possessed of the belief that she was
planning how she might rid herself of him, and the fact
that her interest was to keep and not to rid herself of
him did not help him.

Day by day and night by night the most trivial
accidents of life started his mind on the trail of some
fresh suspicion, till at last he was driven to asking
his wife to go away whither she pleased so long as she
left the county. He gave her the choice of the child
she would take with her (there were two), and it was
not till the mother and child reached Chicago that her
husband drew a happy breath. A striking subject, I said
to myself, but one more suited to Nature's handling than
to mine, for it is, shall we say, sufficient in itself. An
unliterary subject — the opposite to Esther Waters —
and I remembered how a single sentence in a newspaper
gave me the subject of Esther Waters. We're always com-
plaining of the annoyance that servants occasion us, but
do we ever think of the annoyance we occasion servants ?
were the words that set me thinking of a young lady in
love with her footman. The subject was rejected as un-
worthy, and a moment after it seemed to me that some-
body anxious to learn a trade was the character that enticed
me. A kitchen-maid, I said. A kitchen-maid's adventure
is an illegitimate child. On fourteen pounds a year she

208

cannot and on sixteen pounds she can rear the child.
The life of a human being at two pounds is my subject,
and before I reached the Law Courts, distant about two
hundred yards, the story of Esther Waters was decided
upon.

The story of The Brook Kerith discovered itself as quickly
one evening in the National Library. John Eglington
spoke to me of something he had been reading in
which the theory that Jesus had not died but merely
swooned on the cross was put forward, and the dream
began instantly that if he did not die on the cross
nothing was more likely than that he returned to the
Essenes and met, years after, Paul, peradventure, in the
cavern above the brook.

Accident furnished me with subjects for both books, but
no literary accident may befall me in this lonely wood.
My thoughts are wilful ; I cannot fix them : the trees are
beautiful and lean over the stream with noble gesture.
The water tumbles from boulder to boulder merrily;
without, however, mooting a story, I said. Blackbirds
and thrushes are singing, but of what do they sing, of
themselves or of nothing? My thoughts fled out of the
high wood, crossed the seas, and in a second I was in
Medan seeking a story in an account of a flood that we
had just been reading in a newspaper. A whole family
was drowned in it, all except an old man of eighty. Zola,
impressed by Nature's indifference, wrote the story, and
I wrote it too, but who wrote the better story could
not be decided, Zola not knowing English (mine was in
English) and I not caring to read his lest I should find
it superior to mine.

But I'm now composing a story in competition with
Alec Trusselby, and shall not find one if my thoughts will
not come to heel.

All night I lay awake ; and all the next day I spent in
the high wood, seeking a subject, my thoughts distracted

209

constantly in the wood by the beauty of the trees, by
the birds in the stream and in the branches ; and when
I emerged from the wood, the hills set me thinking that
if they would break their lofty silence they could tell me
the tale of a beleaguered castle, with a fair-haired woman
ascending the stairs, built between the walls. It is well to
be fair-haired but it is not enough. Something must happen
to her ; she must be carried away by a rival chieftain ; the
battle must be waged from island to island. An Irish
Helen, I said, and began to curse myself for wasting time
upon tawdry Walter Scott nonsense, as poetical as a story
about a burning mill and no jot more so, one in which the
author has not forgotten to include a strong love interest.
But sneers at Fleet Street are no help, and at the end
of a short walk the story of a burning mill was dismissed
as unworthy. The story I need, I continued, is a story not
less perfect than those Alec told me, nor less complete,
and dropped into a new consideration of the old woman
who wouldn't give her money to the priest to rebuild the
walls of his church, her need being a stained-glass window.
The word " need " reminded me of my own great need
of a short story while writing The Brook Kerith — of
a short tale complete in itself, relating the adventures
of Jesus while in search of a ram of a particular breed.
The same fear was upon me then as now ; but the
needed tale was vouchsafed to me the same afternoon
in the train on my way to Epping. But will the needed
tale be vouchsafed to me again ? I asked, and watched
my thoughts scouting at adventure, one of them at
last espying an old monk who had just finished telling
the story of Lilith on the balcony overlooking the Brook
Kerith. A Talmudic tale, I said, a lilt, such as a reaper
might sing while reaping — a folk-tale told over the fire-
side, hardly as much. She is mentioned in Faust.
Faust asks Mephistopheles : who is that yonder ? and he
answers : Lilith, Adam's first wife. Beware of her, for
o

210

she excels all women in the magic of her locks. If a
young man should get entangled in them she will never
set him free again.

Michelangelo seems to have painted Lilith as an
eternal temptation; Rossetti translated Michelangelo's
design into verse, but neither seems to have perceived
the story that the old chronicler's lilt stands for. As
likely as not the old chronicler didn't guess that a
great story lay behind his brief record. The meaning
of the story was perchance forgotten when he wrote,
and his summary is but a cocoon left over to be un-
wound by me. And the more I considered the cocoon
the more full of thread it seemed to me to be. And
all the next day and all the day after were spent in
the high wood by the babbling water, unwinding,
forgetful of Alec, absorbed in the story, happy in the
conviction that were I to search the world over I
should never find a woodland more like the Garden of
Eden than this one.

These trees, I said, sheltered our first parents : if not
these trees their progenitors, and who knows that Lilith
and Adam may not have drunken from this stream ? If not
from this one, from one like it. I am walking in Eden
without a doubt of it ; the only difference between this
wood and the woods of Eden is that there must have
been fruit trees in Eden and there is none here, not
even a nut bush, some hips and haws only. But it's easy
to imagine a few fruit trees ; besides, this is but a corner
of the domain that God gave to Adam and into which
Lilith came from the underworld. The story is coming,
I said, the story is coming, and at the end of the week
I went to relate it to Alec in the woods of Ilanaidi. A
pretty adventure, I said, on my way thither, and I
stopped to consider the style in which I was to tell
it; and while looking round admiring the far-away air
of the plaintive little country, it seemed to me that

211

every language, except its own, the beautiful Anglo-
Irish idiom, odorous as the newly upturned clod of
earth, would be inappropriate, and knowing myself to
be as imitative as a monkey, I asked myself if I should be
able to pipe my tune in it : with some outbreaks into
Fleet Street, of course, I said. But he'll be listening to
the story and will not hear the outbreaks, and if he
does hear them they will seem to him the very thing he
should admire, alas !

And in regretful mood I continued walking, but very
slowly, for there was a thought at the back of my mind that
hesitated to come into words. At last I asked myself if it
were wise to translate a Hebrew story into peasant idiom.
As well might I translate Congreve's Comedies into the
same, I added, a little further on ; derisively, of course :
and the passer-by must have descried an expression of
perplexity upon my face, for I had begun to think that
if I told my story in Anglo-Irish all the characteristics by
which Alec knew me would disappear, and, worst of all,
he might think I was putting a joke on him. But related
in London idiom my story will be like music played on
a worn-out piano. Good heavens ! I said, I shall make no
sort of a match in this competition, and might have run
home if Alec, who was before me by the great stone,
sacred in my memory, Liadin and Curithir having met
there, hadn't at that moment risen to his feet.

CHAP. XXXIII.

IT seemed at first as if he had forgotten my promise to
relate a story, and I honestly hoped that we might go
fern-gathering instead. But at last the words came :
have you brought the story with you, your honour ? Yes,
I answered ; I've a story to tell you, and it's of Adam's
first wife. But Adam's first wife was Eve, he rapped out,

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and more energetically than I had expected ; and to quiet
him I said that many stories related to the famous garden,
and that the one I was going to tell was from the Talmud.
The name at once quelled any rebellious spirit that may
have been in him, and he allowed me to inform him that
there are two sacred books of the Hebrew law, one known
as the Bible, an inspired work, and another work, which is
the Talmud, uninspired and four times as large as the
Bible. And from the Talmud, Alec, we learn that Adam
had a first wife, and there is a broken relation which I
have pieced together, the right of every shanachie, as you
know well. Who should know better than yourself how
stories are spun and woven, you the great shanachie of
Connaught ? The stories you tell me you learnt from your
grandfather : he read them in books, but added to them,
and you developed them just as the Hungarian gipsy
develops on his fiddle the snatches of song that he hears
the reapers singing in the cornfields. I think I under-
stand, sir, Alec said, and without leaving him time for
reflection out of which might spring thoughts of his parish
priest, who had never heard of Lilith, I began :

A great temptress she was, greater than our neighbour's
wife, greater than the scarlet woman, and the daughters
of Baal of whom you have no doubt heard in church.
Sorra one of any of them names have I heard of, your
honour. But all the same I'd like to hear the story of
Adam's first wife, no matter the book she comes out
of. A great trouble, I said gloomily, she always was to
Adam, leaving him often without ever saying when she
was going to return, going away like a bird, still better
as a wreath of mist which melts in the morning sun, and
returns when the sun sinks behind the mountains. And
once she was gone there was silence, nobody to bid him
the hour of the day or to say : here's a fine fig here, or
would you like a rosy peach better ? Nor anyone to say :
I'm as dry as a limekiln, and could drink a jug of water

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at a draught, if you'd go to the river for me. His life lay
like a lump of lead upon him, and his legs got too shaky
to bear his body ; he would come tottering down the path,
his knees knocking together, not knowing how to bear
with his grief, for Lilith had gone once more from him,
and as was usual with her, without saying whither she was
going or when she was coming back. She has gone, he
said to himself, and henceforth the memory of her will
be burning in me always ; and he walked back and forth,
unable to comprehend how he could go on living day after
day in this garden, which already had begun to lose its
beauty in his eyes, never seeing or hearing of her again.

He could no longer wander through the garden taking
pleasure in the graceful trees, the shady dells and sunny
glades, for every spot was associated with her. The
flowering bank beneath the fig-tree reminded him of
many sweet midnight visitations, and he thought that the
moss still retained the impress of her head. A great big
sigh escaped him, and he turned away from the beauti-
fullest parts of the river, for since her departure the river
was running very shallow indeed between long gravel
reaches, and he wearied of the pair of ousels that flitted
from boulder to boulder : they are faithful to each other,
why did she abandon me ? he said, and fell to thinking,
asking himself if Lilith came to him from Lucifer's domain
by lahveh's order or if she were sent by Lucifer to tempt
him from his allegiance. None can answer these questions
but lahveh himself, he said, and he turned into the twist-
ing path that led up the hill-side to the praying stone that
he had raised there. lahveh, Alec, was the first Hebrew
God, and I don't think I'm going too far if I say a sort
of tribal God.

Adam threw himself on the ground, and bowed himself
three times : my God, hearken to me, for I come to thee
in great distress of mind and body, not having seen the
golden-haired Lilith for many days, and without her the

garden in which thou hast placed me has become a
wilderness in my eyes; bid her return to me, else I
perish. My God, my God, hear thy servant Adam, for
he calls to thee to save him from his wretched plight.
My God, my God, hearken to thy servant, again Adam
cried out, but he had to cry many times before he could
rouse lahveh, who was dreaming in his golden chair of
the last stubborn fight before the archangels were able
to shut Lucifer up in hell.

At length Adam's prayers awakened him, and a mutter-
ing began in his great beard. Adam calls me, lahveh said,
and having gained his ear, Adam rose to his feet and spoke
outright, telling lahveh that Lilith had left him without
saying she would return, as she had done many times ; but
now I know, Lord, that she will never return to me again,
unless thou commandest her to do so. Left thee for ever?
lahveh replied, and there was some tone of astonishment
in his voice that perplexed Adam. Lilith ! lahveh
repeated, as if he had forgotten her, and when he in-
quired of Adam, Lilith' s reason for leaving, Adam related
the story : that Lilith left him because he prayed morn-
ing and evening at the praying stone and inquired all
things of God. Thereat God was moved in the imagina-
tion of his thoughts towards his servant Adam, and raised
up by God's praise Adam continued his doleful recitations,
saying that Lilith never avouched whether her visits were
within God's knowledge or outside of it, in a measure
embittering the pleasure that I took from her ; for, Lord,
I would obey thee in all things, and have now come to
ask if Lilith, by thy good will, may return to me. But
if it be not thy will I will try to bear my life of loneliness
in resignation, repenting all my days of the great sin I
was guilty of towards thee in heaven long ago. Lilith,
lahveh answered, for now he remembered her, was one
of the angels like thyself, Adam, who neither took sides
for nor against me. All these have been condemned to

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wander on a gloomy border-land. All but thou. I have
placed thee in a beautiful garden, thy transgression being
lighter than theirs. lahveh is a just God.

But, Lord, is it by thy will that Lilith comes forth from
gloomy glens and sterile clefts to visit me in the garden ?
Neither for nor against my will, but lahveh is well
pleased with his servant Adam for not having listened
to the coaxing voice of the temptress who would have
beguiled him from his lord God. My lord, if I have
earned thy praise, reward thy servant with Lilith, and be
sure that although I shall take pleasure in her golden
hair I shall not cease to offer prayers to thee morning and
evening by the praying stone that I have raised to thy

honour. Offering will I bring My servant, Adam, I am

well pleased with thee, lahveh answered. Return to the
shadowy peacefulness of thy garden and leave me to con-
sider how Lilith may best be persuaded to return to thee.

The silence of the sunny mount was not broken again.
Adam prayed, inly thanking God for his great mercies, a
great sigh, however, escaping from him as he lay upon the
ground, lifting his head from it from time to time, bowing
and rejoicing to himself that his humility should have won
from God a promise to use his power to persuade Lilith
to return to Eden, for lahveh couldn't compel Lilith, she
having passed beyond his power into that of Lucifer.
But Adam did not doubt that lahveh would be able to
persuade her. It may be that if she refuses he will
thrust her out of the border-land into hell; and he
found great pleasure in his thoughts, for at the back
of his mind was the certainty that very soon Lilith would
be given back to him, whether in the middle of the
night or when he dozed on the sunny bank he did not
know, and it mattered little when, so long as she was
returned to him.

As he descended the twisting path to the dell he
remembered a corner by the river's brink in which

216

he could dream of Lilith more intently than elsewhere,
under the spotted branches of some plane-trees that
were, however, still full of leaves. The river swirled
by almost silent, and the willow weed wilted, its life
having been lived ; only a few faded and torn blooms still
clinging to the stalks. But Adam had seen the flowers
return : the word return had a significant beauty for him :
Lilith was about to return, he said, and he watched the
water ousels fly up and down the stream, alighting on the
boulders with the same eagerness as when he had
watched them while waiting for Lilith to appear to him.
The sky, too, entranced him, for when he raised his
head he could see between the mottled branches white
clouds unfolding. A squirrel cracked a nut in the
branches above him, the shells fell at his feet and he
said : the season of the nuts has come ; Lilith and I
will share them together, and he remembered the different
parts of the garden where the different nuts grew large
and rich. Nuts and fruit we shall have in plenty this year,
he continued, and suddenly his thoughts broke away and
he began to ask himself what lahveh's designs might be.

He will send forth angels to seek her if she be on
earth, but if she have returned to Lucifer God cannot enter
the portals of the world below and say that she must be
given up. We shall have to wait, and ages will pass by.
His heart failed him a little, but revived soon after, for
it seemed to him that he could hear the sound of wings
in the air. He is sending his angels. Doubtless Michael,
Gabriel and Raphael have been chosen for they are the
swiftest of God's messengers.

CHAP. XXXIV.

THE sound I hear is not the sound of wild geese speed-
ing northward, he said, and his ears had not deceived him :

217

the wings he heard were those of Michael, Gabriel and
Raphael come from the battlements of heaven,, flying
over continents and seas, and always in circles, lest any
corner of the earth wherein Lilith might be hidden should
escape their eyes. But there may be days, and weeks,
and months, Adam said, before they find her. It was as
he had said, days and weeks and months passed before the
angels flying over the earth cried to one another: night
is coming on, the clouds are thickening ; soon there will
be no more light ; it might be well for us to descend. A
fair island lies in the sea below us, Michael said ; one
that we have often overlooked. And Gabriel answered
Michael: as likely as elsewhere she may be yonder.
Raphael and myself will be glad to rest our wings ; and
balancing themselves like the gulls, they descended, and
alighting on a long reach of white strand, they sat there
resting, and watching the warm breeze coming and going,
shaking the juniper bushes with which the tussocked grass
was sprinkled, shaking them and leaving them still again.
The earth is not without its beauty, the angels were
thinking, as they sat listening to the waves creaming up
into the bay over the ribbed strand, retiring and advanc-
ing, and creeping up to the angels, obliging them to retire
to some rocks whither the tide did not come. A beautiful
evening, Michael said, for beyond the bay, seaward, there
was a bar of gold and a flush of crimson. There are
pleasant things to be seen in this world, Michael
continued, and this island seems a spot that our witch
might choose to hide herself in. It seems to be filled
with woods, and we may find her in some clough or dell
tressing her hair, a favourite occupation of hers, so it is
said. And then they began to talk about the neutral
angels and the miserable lot assigned to them to wander
always in the border-land between earth and hell. All
are there except Adam, and Lilith is sometimes in the
deepest circles of hell with Lucifer himself, whose aider

218

and abetter she is, and sometimes wandering over the
earth scheming how she may embarrass the lord. Whereas
Adam is a poor, weak creature, said Gabriel. The only
one, Michael responded, whose sin was so slight that to
our lord lahveh the border-lands seemed too great a
punishment for him. So our lord and master placed him
in a garden, Michael continued, and methinks that Lilith's
visits thither were decreed not by him but by Lucifer,
whom we threw into hell after many great battles : you
remember how my spear struck him between the eyes as
he led his legions against us up the battlements. It was
Michael's way to ramble on, and, heedless of him, Gabriel
and Raphael watched the moon, like a white moth, that
had fluttered peradventure out of the earth's orbit, till
at last the waves rushing over the white strand wetted
the shingled bank on which the angels were seated.
We had better be looking out for some cave inland
where we can pass the night, Gabriel said ; and Raphael
answered he was cold though he had drawn his wings closer
round him.

A great bird went by : he, too, seems cold, Raphael
cried, and is seeking a warm roost ; let us go up into the
island and find a quiet corner in the woods. Raphael's
counsel was approved by Michael and Gabriel, and
lahveh's three messengers retired from the shore, and
picking their way through the juniper bushes they
penetrated through the brambles into the clough, and
lifting a curtain of trailing plants, Gabriel said : behold !
the cave we are looking for. And stooping their heads
the angels passed under a woof of flowers and tendrils
into a great 'hall, in which lay a pool and in it the moth-
like moon they had seen without; at which the angels
were astonished ; but on looking up through a fissure in
the rocks and seeing the moon still in the sky they were
at one that there was a beauty on earth that seemed lacking
in heaven ; whereupon Michael said : we have been in the

219

atmosphere of the earth now for forty days, flying in
search of Lilith, and have lost some of our angelic nature ;
let us hope that we may find her and return to heaven
lest we become contaminated.

Gabriel and Raphael did not share Michael's fears and
were glad of the white sand with which the floor of the
cave was covered : we shall awaken to-morrow as celestial
as the day when we left the ramparts of heaven. lahveh
would not have sent us on this errand if we were to be
contaminated, Gabriel said. We are immortal, Raphael
answered, and he asked Michael if that weren't so, but
Michael answered nothing, he being asleep. But it was
not many minutes before he began to moan and toss
himself in his sleep, setting Gabriel and Raphael wonder-
ing : what has befallen our brother ? for he murmurs now
in his sleep, so loudly that we cannot hear the doves in
the clefts of the rocks, Gabriel whispered. He murmurs,
Raphael said, somewhat like the doves ; and Gabriel
replied : but now his cooing has changed into cries :
the doves go away out of the clefts with a clang of
wings ; what can have befallen our brother ? The island
is enchanted, Raphael whispered ; let us away. But,
Gabriel answered, we cannot leave our brother in the
power of the enchantress.

At that moment a great cry broke from Michael and
he rolled into the moonbeam and lay in it gazing at the
moon, recovering himself at last sufficiently to overlook
his brethren who were pretending sleep. And they
seeming to him to be in deep sleep he ventured to his
feet and passed under the curtain of trailing plants out
of the cave. Is our brother playing us false? Gabriel
whispered to Raphael. Has she bidden him to her in
a dream ? Raphael asked ; and the twain rose, and going
to the mouth of the cave they stood .like stocks and
watched their brother in amazement, and he walking
down to the sea and bathing therein like one who

220

wished to purify himself after sin. Michael must not
know that we have observed him, Gabriel said. The
spell of the enchantress has certainly fallen upon him,
Raphael muttered ; let us to our beds, and, convinced
that his brethren slept, Michael laid himself down. But
they had not slept long before Gabriel began to sigh in
his sleep, and very soon his sighs became moans ; he
tossed himself, lifting himself bridge- wise, falling back
again, at last rolling over on his side.

She has visited brother Gabriel in his dream, Raphael
whispered to Michael, and Michael said : hush ! Let
us pretend to be asleep, and just as Gabriel and Raphael
had seen Michael go down to the sea to bathe himself,
they saw Gabriel do the same, and were astonished
thereby.

Now when Gabriel returned to the cave he spied upon
his brethren to make sure they were sleeping and had
learned nothing of what had befallen him, and they
feigning sleep so well that he believed them to be
asleep, he laid himself down. But sleep had not long
obtained hold of him when Raphael was overtaken by
a dream of the enchantress ; his sighs and moans were
the same as his brothers' had been ; and when at last his
desire was eased in one sharp pang, he did as they had
done ; he went to the sea for purification, and believing
his brethren to be really asleep when he returned to the
cave, he chuckled, saying to himself: in the morning I
will question them, and they will give evasive answers,
but I know that Michael dreamed of her ; Michael knows
that Gabriel dreamed of her, but none knows that I too
was taken in her net of pleasure and of pain ; and while
thinking how he might discern between the twain he fell
asleep listening to a nightingale singing in the vine in the
fissure of the rocks. Other nightingales began soon after,
and the birds awakened the tired angels. We have no
such music in heaven, Gabriel said ; and Michael answered:

221

we might take one of these birds to teach our choristers.
And Raphael muttered : we must not let our thoughts
dwell on the pleasures of the earth, for our habitation
is with God among the peaks ; let us not forget that
we are the angels of the lord.

These admonitions from Raphael were felt to be un-
called for and unjust, but the three angels were overcome
by the desire of sleep ; they slept despite the chorusing
of the birds and it was broad daylight when they
awoke. We have overslept ourselves, said Michael, and
lifting the curtain of creeping plants, he added : a lovely
morning awaits us. On these words Gabriel and Raphael
arose, and blinking still, they stumbled into what seemed
to them the most beautiful day that had unclosed before
their eyes since lahveh sent them on their errand. And
thanking God for having sent them on it, they walked
about the island admiring the woods, the dells within the
woods, the reaches of white sand leading to the sea and
the rocks rising above the sea. We have not alighted as
often as we should have done ; we have wearied ourselves
flying from dawn to sunset, Raphael murmured to himself,
with the intention that his companions should hear him,
which they did, and Michael, remembering how he had
admonished them overnight, lest their thoughts should
linger on the many beauties they beheld in the world,
answered him : yesternight my words were that we should
not think overmuch of what we saw and heard in this
world, but remember always that we are archangels. The
beauty of the morning refreshes the eyes, and the air is
sweet in the lungs, Raphael answered, and the angels
stopped on the outskirts of the woods, so that they might
watch the love dance of the butterflies. Shall we cross
the flowering plain, Gabriel asked, and Michael answered :
yes, for in that ring of trees she may be sitting; and
Raphael, the slyest of the three, asked his brother why,
having searched the earth all over in vain for Lilith, he

222

should think to find her in that ring of trees. Enchant-
ment was abroad last night, Michael answered ; didst find
it so, Raphael ? And Raphael answered : I heard sighing
and moaning as of doves ; and they were speaking of
the songs of the nightingales when they entered the
ring of trees in the middle of the plain, in the centre
of which was a well, and by it, as Michael anticipated,
Lilith sat combing her locks. So you've found me at
last, she said to the angels, and Michael answered : thou
talkest as one that expecteth visitors. And she replied :
expecteth you, yes, and a long time past, for many is the
time I've caught sight of your wings in this well, and
expected your alighting in the flowering meadow, but
you went away north and south, leaving me waiting for
you here.

I have watched your pursuit of me, for in this well all
things are mirrored ; and from this spot I need not turn
to know everything that befalls the world.

And last night said Michael. Last night, Lilith

interrupted, I saw you sweep down and alight on to the
firm sand after long flying. You went up the beach
together in search of a cave, and I was with you during
the night in dreams, she continued, causing the angels
to hang down their heads ashamed. But Lilith being
among the fallen angels was in no wise ashamed, and
extorted from Michael a confession that he had followed
a white phantom in his dreams, and overtaking her among
the woods, she had whispered to him : seek some soft bank
of flowers. They had wandered in search of this bank and
were always on the point of discovering it, but the flowers
vanished. At last a pang of pleasure or pain, he knew not
which, divided them. I saw thee no more, he said. And
now, Gabriel, emulate the truthfulness of thy brother's
words, and tell me in what form I came to thee, in what
form thou sawest me. Thou earnest upon me, Gabriel said,
as I was on my way to obey a summons to attend upon

223

our lord the mighty lahveh ; thou earnest upon me, and I
begged thee to allow me to answer his summons, promising
to return to thee. But thou wouldst not hide thy bosom
with thy hair, and we sought to hide ourselves behind a
cloud ; but Michael and Raphael, who were jealous of me,
dissolved the cloud into rain. And now, Raphael, Lilith
said, tell thy dream of me, for I was with thee too. And
Raphael, who was filled with subterfuge, stood by more
embarrassed than his brethren, and tried to elude the
witch's examination, but Lilith pursued him with questions,
and the companions turned upon him and said : we were
awakened by sighs and moans; we feigned sleep, but
through our half-opened eyelids we saw thee leave the
cave and go down and bathe thyself in the sea. Where-
upon Raphael, seeing that further concealment was
unavailing, answered that all he had seen or felt of the
temptation that had visited him in the night were two
red lips, winged lips, he said, that hovered over me and
sank upon my lips, sending a sting between at which
all my flesh shuddered : for a moment it seemed to me
that I was lifted into an ecstasy more intense than
heaven: I seemed to dissolve. At last thou hast found
the truth, Raphael, Lilith said, and it was thus in many
shapes that I visited Adam on the flowering bank in Eden,
between sleeping and waking, and in deep dreams.

We have come, said Michael, interrupting Lilith
suddenly, to ask thee if thou wilt return to Adam ; we
have come from the lord lahveh, shall we say thy God ?
Say it not, said Lilith. You have come from lahveh to
ask me to return to Adam, and my answer is that my
lord is Lucifer and he would not have me obedient to any
other God. Not to exact obedience, said Raphael, have
we come ; not to exact obedience, Gabriel insisted. And
standing on either side of Lilith, who continued combing
her golden locks, regaling herself with her beauty reflected
in the still waters of the well, the angels besought her to

224

return to Adam ; and she answered : I cannot abjure
Lucifer, he has power over me as the lord hath power
over you. It is by his will that I visited Adam and it is
by his will that I left Adam. A last word we would have
with thee, Michael said. Knowest thou, Lilith, that if
thou wilt not return to Adam, lahveh will create out
of earth a fairer woman for Adam's enjoyment and
companionship in the garden ? A fairer woman than
I am, Lilith answered, raising her head from the well,
and it is you who were with me last night that say it ?
I doubt the power of the lord in heaven to do what you
say. And the angels who were smitten with doubt
whether she had not spoken the truth feared to look
upon her longer lest their doubts should be strengthened
regarding the power of the God they served.

We will return, said they, to the lord with thine insolent
answer, and she saw the angels spread their wings and
depart up into the beautiful morning sky, passing over the
clouds into the blue spaces beyond. They will reach the
ramparts of heaven before many hours have passed, she
said to herself.

CHAP. XXXV.

IAHVEH is impatient and restless, Lilith said, for she
could see him in her well looking over the battlements
awaiting his archangels; and she could see too the
scouting cohorts of seraphim and cherubim that he had
sent forth, seeking the wings of their brethren on every
horizon. At last one of the winged messengers stood
before the lord. Michael and Gabriel and Raphael have
been seen by our distant brethren, he said, and they
have passed the word on to us. I have arrived with the
news for the lord, glad to be the first to bring it. At
these words the angels broke into song, and spreading

225

out their wings they formed circle-wise around the lord,
who, after thanking them, dismissed them abruptly, his
mind being perturbed and beset with thoughts of the
news that his archangels were bringing to him.

All things were reflected in his wisdom ; he was dis-
traught thereby, and Michael, Gabriel and Raphael dared
not advance from the battlement on which they had
alighted. Our lord lahveh, said Michael, after many
wanderings we return to thee. Is Lilith returning to
Adam? the lord asked. We were flying one night

above an island Michael began. Her words were,

Lord, Gabriel interjected, that she was one of Lucifer's
vassals and obedient only unto him. Whereat a cloud
gathered on the lord's face, and Michael and Raphael
regretted Gabriel's admission that Lilith had vowed her-
self unto Satan, for lahveh's face was like the whirlwind,
terrible, and the mountains shook with his voice. She will
not return to Adam, the Lord repeated, and the subaltern
angels hid themselves in the clefts. A companion must
be given to Adam, for I have promised him one. Tell
me of your discovery of Lilith ; and begin thy narrative,
he said, raising his eyes to Michael. Michael began.
But God was listless and gave a poor ear to the story
of the great flying excursion, wonderful though it was ;
and Gabriel, seeing that Michael was speaking dryly,
began to grow impatient, and might have related the
curious dreams that befell them in the cave if the Lord
had not dismissed his archangels suddenly, saying : leave
me to meditate. And for many days the Lord sat in his
golden chair, his brow darkened by the shadows of
coming difficulties, his thoughts revolving in memories
of his wars against the highest and best-beloved of the
archangels.

Lucifer had plotted against him, and the cohorts had
been at battle pursuing the foe or being pursued by the
foe, aeon after aeon. Heaven was without music of harp
p

226

and lyre, only the clash of swords and shields was heard
echoing from spears, aeon to aeon, while the war was
pursued from star to star across the sky and down the
sky, angels falling into the pit and rising out of the
pit to renew the fight. But at last the Lord's angels
discovered a way to victory : the evil angels were enclosed
within the gates of hell, and when the gates clashed
upon them, the Lord said : we are at peace again ;
the weariness of battle is over, and a happy peace
broods once more in heaven. But my perplexities are
not over yet. I have created an earth so that I may
have a garden in which to place Adam, whom I wish to
separate from the other neutrals. Let my will be done,
said the Lord, and instantly Adam found himself in a
garden with Lilith for his ghostly visitor, till Lucifer,
who still plotted against the Lord, bade her away from
Adam, for in his evil heart he hoped through Adam to
bring lahveh's kingdom to naught. He must have a
companion, said the Lord, for after his great victory over
Lucifer the Lord's heart was softened, and he was moved
to abide in peace in his heaven among the angels, listen-
ing to their glorifications, to their praise, to their songs, to
the music of harp and of timbrel year after year, century
after century, aeon after aeon. But over lahveh himself
is a law, and by virtue of that law I am compelled to
create, to equalise all things, to pair all. Again the Lord
was troubled, and he asked himself in vain why this was
so, for was he not, since Lucifer's overthrow, almighty?
Almighty, yes ; but he must create though his creations
might lead to his own destruction in some distant time.
A fate there is behind the gods surely, he muttered once
again and, compelled by his fate, he descended one night
into the garden of Eden and reached out his hand to take
a rib out of the side of Adam, and with that rib he
made a creature like unto Adam, and when Adam woke
in the morning he found God's last work, Eve, sleeping

227

by his side. God was pleased with his work, and Adam
wondered at it, Eve's sloping shoulders surprising him,
and her bosom even more so; he could not under-
stand why she should bulge under her throat; and he
said : she is so heavy about the hips that she'll never be
much good at the climbing of trees after fruit ; I shall
have to climb and shake the branches for her. The
other differences in her shape seemed to him still more
strange ; she seemed to him incomplete, and wonder-
ing at her incompleteness he walked towards the river,
thinking that she seemed to need washing and would
smell the sweeter after plunging. As he was about to
turn back to ask her to come to the river with him he
remembered that to rouse her would be unkind, so
peaceful was her sleep and so healthful did it seem.
So he turned towards the river again, but his steps had
awakened Eve, who, sitting up on her buttocks, watched
him, and the instinct of pursuit arising in her in an
instant, she followed him, stumbling over the ground in
her great hurry.

Over the brink he went head foremost into a deep
pool, and she, knowing nothing of water and its dangers,
tumbled in after him, making a great plop, fortunately
causing him to look round, and, seeing what had
happened, Adam dived. He didn't recover her, and
dived again, and this time he managed to get hold of
her by the hair, and by it he towed her to the bank
and laid her out, wondering why she lay so still. It
might be well to let some of the water run out of
her, he said to himself, so he turned her over, and
when she had vomited forth her eyes opened, and it was
not long before she was sitting up and asking Adam to
tell her what had fallen out. Thou art Eve, he answered,
the companion that lahveh promised me. We are in
Eden ; and the river is for swimmers, and until thou hast
learnt to swim thou must not venture into the deep pools.

228

But I will teach the art to thee ; and it pleased Eve to
hear that she was going to learn from Adam. But shall I
go under the water? she asked. Adam answered that
he would support her. She liked to hear that his hand
would be under her chin. But her thoughts turning
from to-morrow suddenly, she said : but thou hast
not told me how I came hither. Adam looked forward
to telling her the whole story, for since he had washed
her as she lay unconscious on the bank, and disentangled
her hair, she had begun to seem different in his eyes, and
they went through the garden together, Adam showing
the fruit trees that abounded, giving her fruit to eat,
and Eve gathering flowers wherewith to weave a wreath
for her hair.

lahveh gave thee to me for I was lonely in this garden,
he said, and her eyes brightened, and she said: who is
lahveh ? Hush, said Adam, the sacred name must be
spoken more reverently ; he put his fingers to his lips,
and the alarmed twain stood gazing at the pillared fir-
trees that grew round the stone altar, their skins drying
quickly in the warm air. A touch of autumn was in it,
but the sun was glowing, and when the lonely cloud that
had hidden the sun for a minute passed on, the garden
by the spell of contrast seemed more beautiful than before.
Come thou with me to his altar, Eve : I would thank him
for his gift to me of thee, and they went up the path, and
as soon as he had thrown himself on the ground and
bowed himself three times, and muttered in his beard, he
arose and, taking Eve's hand in his, he said : by lahveh's
altar I will tell the story of lahveh's wars against Lucifer.

Eve listened because Adam's voice pleased her, but she
would rather have heard his voice on a subject nearer to
them than the clashing of shields of long ago, the whirling
of swords and the thrusting of spears in the abyss ; and
despite her desire to please Adam her thoughts were
often away from the conflicts that had taken place in

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the middle air over against the ramparts of heaven and
about the gates of the pit.

Adam was at this time a young man of comely presence,
tall and lithe, and Eve would not have had his shoulders
different from what they were. They flanged out from the
neck nobly, and she liked his long, thin, sinewy arms, and
the big hands that she could see were stronger than hers.
His chest is flat and the hips narrow ; his legs are long
and sinewy, not round, like mine, she said. I like his
shape, she murmured, and hoped that he liked hers. Now
of what are you thinking ? he said. I was thinking, she
answered, that if thou hadst headed the army of Lucifer
thou wouldst have conquered lahveh. Adam's face filled
with shadow, so lightly did she speak the name, and he
said : thou must not think such wicked thoughts, and
leaving the altar he paced before her. His steps pleased
her, so strong and rhythmical were they, and she enjoyed
his back, so strong did it seem. Thou art the most
beautiful thing in this garden, she said, and my eyes will
never weary of overlooking thee. Now what is this hairy
thing I see, and what use is it ? she said. And Adam did
not answer her. He was thinking the while of the great
battles of long ago, the clashing of the shields and the
dense array of spears, but at last her hands awoke him
from his reverie. Don't pull it so, he said, and she loosed
his beard. Why have I not one ? she asked ; my poor face
is bare. But it is more beautiful bare than hairy. I have
often wished to be without my beard. But I would not
wish thee without it, she answered, and each was a gazing
stock to the other. Adam's muscles were Eve's admira-
tion, and the sweet roundnesses of Eve's limbs, Adam's.
Why these breasts? he said. Dost not like them? she
asked. Yes ; they are beautiful. How flat and shapeless
am I. Say not so, thou art very beautiful, Adam. How
much stronger, how much fleeter, and she continued to
find pleasure in Adam as they walked along and across

230

the garden under the fruit trees, eating of the purple figs
and the pink peaches, Adam showing how the fruit must
be skinned before it can be eaten and Eve doing as
she was bidden : though her appetite had not yet begun
to awaken she ate the fruit, for she could not do any-
thing except that which she thought would please Adam.
But thou wilt not listen to the valour of the angels, said
Adam. I will listen, she replied, when I grow weary of
looking upon thee. But wilt thou grow weary of me?
Adam asked. And they fell to pondering on the chance
words that had been uttered. At last Eve asked :
whither leads that path ? It leads, he answered, to the
fig-trees, under whose shelter I sleep at night. Let us go
thither, for I would share thy bed, she said. Thou shalt
share it, Eve, but before we lie down together thou must
learn to pray to lahveh.

Eve had little heart for learning prayers, and his face
telling his disapprobation, she said: thou art not satis-
fied with me. And on these words they fell asleep on
the flowering bank. And they slept till morning arose
on the garden, as children do.

CHAP. XXXVI.

IT was the sparrows twittering in the vine that awoke Adam,
and laying his hand on Eve's shoulder, who was still asleep,
he said : the day is beginning ; come, let us offer thanks
to lahveh for the joyful light, and Eve, rousing herself from
her sleep, said : thy will be done, and she followed Adam
up the hill-side, and imitated him in all things, throwing
herself on the ground and bowing herself three times ; and
when this ritual was accomplished she gave ear to Adam's
prolonged mutterings, and strove to understand them, but
soon her brain wearied, and she might have renounced the
task of trying to follow his repentance for the sins he had

231

committed in heaven if she had not suddenly heard the
name of Lilith. Now who can Lilith be ? One of the
angels of whom Adam tells such long stories ? she asked
herself. Somebody he knew before the fall, she added,
and resolved to await an occasion when she could inquire
of him who Lilith was. Nor was it long before she heard
him speak again of Lilith's visits to the garden. By whose
orders did she come to the garden : lahveh's or Lucifer's ?
she asked herself, and the question would have been put
to Adam if he had not been muttering prayers, and if the
thought had not come to Eve that it might be well for her
to get a confession from Adam that the memory of the days
he had spent in the garden with Lilith were still dear
to him. lahveh is but a blind, she said, as she set the
peaches and figs she had gathered before Adam ; and
while he ate thereof she began to speak to him of their
thanksgivings, and offerings of fruits, and to tell the hope
she cherished that the day's work before them would
be pleasing to lahveh, making herself pleasing to Adam
thereby and advancing herself still further in his favour
when she returned to the stories he had told her yesterday
as if she had been considering them ever since : the
clashing of the shields when lahveh's angels descended to
give battle unto Lucifer ; how Gabriel whirled his sword
and an entire legion fell before it, and how a plump of
spears fell back before Michael's spear. On these feats and
on the recital of Raphael's ruses in outflanking the enemy,
Adam relied to engage her mind, and remembering how
languidly she had listened yesterday he was overjoyed at
seeing that he had in the main misjudged her, and began
to relate the story over again from the beginning, watch-
ing her carefully all the time ; but her attention never
relaxed, and she showed desire to be instructed, saying :
thou wast wise not to join with Lucifer's angels, for
lahveh is all-powerful, and knowing him to be all-
powerful, thou hadst the wisdom to refrain. I knew the

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power of lahveh the almighty, Adam answered her.
And Lucifer, she said, must have known that too. Yes,
he too knew him to be an almighty God. Then why,
she asked innocently, did Lucifer rebel against that
which he knew to be almighty ?

At this question a cloud came into Adam's face, and he
began a tangled explanation to which Eve listened, know-
ing well that the thing she desired to hear would soon
be made known to her. So she had patience with Adam,
and listened to his prolix relation that although God was
almighty he had, as it were, delegated the administration
of evil to Lucifer, reserving to himself the administration
of all good things. This was the first circle of thought
into which Adam descended. He descended into still
further circles, and with Eve's eyes upon him he couldn't
doubt that she listened. But did she understand ? he
asked himself, and was satisfied that she did. And then,
as if picking up her thoughts a little farther on, Eve said :
thou wast lonely in the garden before he gave me to
thee ? and Adam answered innocently : not lonely, for
there was Lilith. At which she opened her eyes as if she
had not heard the name before, and asked : who is Lilith ?
Who is Lilith ? Adam answered ; and he seemed to drop
back into a past time and away from her.

The sound of her name carried him as a sudden breeze
carries a barque from the shore out into the sea. He
seeme<| to forget the woman by his side, and when he
spoke it was not Eve that prompted him to speak but a
sudden memory. Lilith, he said, was my wife before
thou earnest. We were angels in heaven before the fall.
Adam's thoughts seemed to die away, and Eve had to
awaken him with her voice. And she came to visit
thee in the garden? She came to me, he answered,
between waking and sleeping and in dreams. Didst
never see her in the noonday as thou seest me? Eve
asked. And Adam knew not how to shape an answer

233

that Eve would understand, for Lilith was clear to
Adam only so long as he did not try to express her in
words, or think about her too closely.

The mist at the edge of the stream vanishes in the
morning when the sun's heat is strong, and the mist returns
to the edge of the stream when the sun sinks behind the
hills. She was evanescent, Alec, as the mist, yet she was
very real, more real than Eve sitting by him ; Adam could
not put his thoughts into words and Eve would not
have understood him if he had said : Lilith is the reality
behind the appearance. By appearance I mean all that our
senses reveal to us. An orange will serve for an example.
We know an orange only through our senses — sight,
hearing, touch and smell — but it may be held that there
is something behind the appearance and that if we
willingly forgo the appearance we reach reality, that
which is behind the appearance. You find it difficult
to follow this, Alec, but the hermit that you told me of,
Scothine, who lived in the woods on water-cress and on
the crags by the sea on gulls' eggs, may have gained the
reality that is perhaps behind the appearance. Be this
as it may, that was his aim : he was, in something more
than the conventional sense of the words, a seeker of
reality. We are always told, Alec answered, by the
clergy that the world we live in is but a shape of the
real world that is beyond heaven, is it that you would be
telling me, sir ? Well, not exactly that, Alec, but some-
thing like that. And now, to get on with the story.
Eve listened to Adam, trying to puzzle out his idea of
Lilith to her, all the while mad jealous she was of this
ghostly playmate who used to come to him in dreams,
bringing such anguish of delight with her. But she was,
begob, too wise a woman to show her jealousy, and she
continued to listen to Adam, who, she could see, gained
great pleasure from his narrative, he being one of those
who retired into the past as some do into a church. At

234

times we'd all like to get the world behind us. And in
these moments we're all seekers of reality, Alec. I think
that I'm beginning to comprehend, he answered. But
women aren't like that, I'm thinking ; for them life is all
in the present.

CHAP. XXXVII.

IF thou wouldst learn swimming, come with me to the
river, said Adam, and Eve followed Adam thither, doubt-
ful, without enthusiasm, one might say in fear, for suice
yesterday her memory of the suffocating moments that
she had passed under the water was more distinct.
But Adam was firm with her; and supporting her with
one hand, he bade her put her trust in him, and told her
that in a little while she would cross the river as easily
as the animal swimming in the current yonder. Ah, now
he has gone«under. Drowned, said Eve. No ; he has come
up yonder. He has caught a fish. Eve had not yet seen
any fishes, and began to be interested in them, and in the
animal that had caught the fish. Trust thyself to me,
Adam said ; and let thy legs and hands move together.

Eve was now tired, and begged to be allowed to return
to the bank, but after resting, the swimming lesson was
continued, and with so much success that hope was held
out to her that she would be able to cross the river in a
few days, a thing which she very much wished to do, for
the brown animals they had seen diving in the current
brought the fishes they caught in their jaws to a great flat
rock, and Eve was curious to learn what became of the
fishes they brought thither. She could see four little
brown spots, but did not know that these were the otters'
cubs ; nor that otters lived upon fish. And evtfry morning,
to please Adam, she applied herself to the task of learning
to swim in the pool, and, as he had foreseen, in a few days

235

her arms and legs began to move together, and in a few
days more she was on the other side of the river, wading
very quietly towards the rock on which the cubs waited.

The otters had already distributed some fishes among
the cubs, and these were eagerly disputed with a strange
whistling noise, each holding a fish in his forepaws, and
eating his way from the head down to the tail which he
discarded. Adam and Eve could see the fishes did not
like being eaten, for the fishes struggled, but the cubs held
them tightly in their paws, and continued to gnaw them.
I wonder what the fishes taste like, Eve said ; but neither
had eaten flesh, and they were loth to take a piece from the
cubs, which they could have easily done, for one of the
cubs had shown such signs of friendliness that he almost
offered them a piece of fish, but they were loth to accept
his gift, for they were suddenly possessed of a strange
premonition, a sort of instinctive knowledge it was that
the larger animals were responsible for the coming into
the world of the smaller animals, and these smaller
animals were being fed by them upon fish. But what
becomes of the fishes ? they asked themselves ; for they
that are now within the otters were swimming in the
river, leaping in the sunlight a while ago, and feeling that
neither could explain the mystery to the other, Adam
and Eve retired to their own side of the river, perplexed
and unhappy.

It was some days later, while they were bathing in the
river, that they caught sight of the otters with their
four cubs in the river, daddy and mummy teaching the
younglings how to pursue the fishes under the water, and
a great commotion they were making, the terrified fishes
striving to escape from their enemies in all directions,
some of them darting up an inlet in which there was so
little water that Adam and Eve might have picked them
out with their hands. One of the cubs followed these,
and presently he caught a fish, and Adam and Eve

236

expected to see him return to the river and bring his spoil
to the rock in front of the den and eat it there, but a
second thought seemed to come through his mind, and
instead of returning to the river he trotted up the bank
and laid the fish at their feet.

He allowed them to stroke him; he jumped round
them, and then, remembering that his business was to
pursue fishes, he returned to the water, and they saw no
more of him till next day. Will he bring us a fish again ?
Eve said, and they waited at the head of a creek. He
had not forgotten them and, not content with giving them
one fish, he returned to the water and began the hunt
again. Adam and Eve thought they would see no more
of him, and with the fish he had given them they
returned to their dwelling under the plane-trees in
the clough or dell, out of reach of the winds ; and great
was their surprise when they saw the otter following
them with a fish in his mouth, and, as if to encourage
them to eat the fish he had brought them, he laid it
before them and began to eat another, one they had
picked out of the shallows; and he ate with a relish
which they accepted as wilful exaggeration, his purpose
being to win them over to his mode of life. We shall
do well to imitate the animals, Eve said, for they know
more than we do, isn't that so ? she asked, as she sliced
a fish with a sharp stone and gave half of it to Adam.
The animals must know more than we do ; it could not
be else, he said, they having lived upon the earth always,
and as he said these words a shadow overran his face,
and to disperse it she called to Othniel, the name they
had given the otter, and he came trotting round her
feet, and jumped upon her knees. Look at our little
swimmer, she said, who didn't need any teaching. Is
he not asking us to take him down to the river? We
must, for his diet is fish, and we cannot catch them
for him. But he has just eaten, Adam answered, for he

237

was thinking that it might be better to wean Othniel
from the river, if that were possible. But as his diet
is fish we cannot keep him from the river, Eve replied,
and all three went down to the river together, Othniel
passing into the stream silently as oil, and showing
himself a faster swimmer than his wild brethren, and a
more expert fisher.

He remained so long under water that Eve clasped her
hands, certain he was drowning ; a moment after they
caught sight of the beloved brown-whiskered face coming
towards them, a silver fish in his jaws. But though he
seems to prefer us to his brethren, the river will tempt him
away from us, Adam said. Thou art thinking of Lilith,
Eve answered, and Adam denied that this was so, saying
that he was dreaming of weapons whereby he might
take the fishes from the river, and, possessed by this idea,
he began to sharpen flints. But the fishes were swift
and sudden and eluded the spear till Othniel, as if he
would save Adam from humiliation, began to drive
them towards Adam. At last a frightened fish fell to
Adam's spear, and over this fish Othniel started a great
gambol ; nor would he be gainsaid of his fun, and his pretty
ways and intelligence took such a hold on their affections
that they lived in dread lest they should lose him, a not
unreasonable dread for he was often unable to subdue his
mood to remain in the river: he would raise himself
half-way out of the water, acknowledging their calling
by the gesture ; and by a sudden dive he sought to tell
them that they need not expect him yet awhile. They
sought the little runaway up the river where the water
rushed over the boulders; he allowed them to capture
him after a long frolic in the warm autumn nights,
and in turn they carried him to a comfortable bed
of leaves in the cave. But if his mood was for deep
waters he kept down the stream and they called
and swam out to him in vain; to swim after an

238

otter is vainer than to call to him ; and the alarmed
twain stood watching the current swirling almost silently
past the walls that lahveh had built round the garden,
widening as it flowed, looping round islands, dis-
appearing into forests, seeming by times to lose itself
in marshes and fens, but recovering itself always and
threading its way into the grey autumn hills safely.
But going whither? they asked themselves, forgetful of
Othniel ; but only for a moment : the river brought him
to us, Eve said, and the river has taken him away. lahveh
is greater than the river, Adam answered, therefore we
must pray that he may bid Othniel return to us. The
words were on Eve's lips to reply : lahveh cannot do that,
but her feet turned into the path and they prayed at the
stone altar on the hill-top that Othniel might be given
back to them.

lahveh is in no mood to listen to us to-night, Adam
said : we cannot awaken him. And Eve answered :
though he doesn't answer us, he may have heard us, and
certain that he had heard their prayers and would answer
them favourably they slept lightly, awakened often, first
by sighings that seemed to come from Othniel's bed.
Eve's ears were quicker than Adam's, but in answer to
her Adam said : it isn't he, but the wind sighing in the
trees. Again Eve awakened Adam, saying : hearken,
arid Adam answered : it is not he but a pebble fallen
from the roof. Again they were awakened : a bird or
bat, Adam said, may have come, but it has gone again.
Sleep on.

A day passed and another without seeing him, and
they had begun to despair of ever seeing him again,
when their despair passed into joy for they saw him
coming towards them thinking more of his warm bed
of leaves than of them. But he had come back, and
they excused his heartlessness, Eve saying : he has been
thrown about by the current and is well tired. This

239

might well have been so for the river was in flood,
and even an otter cannot swim against a current flowing
heavily against him. Let him lie and rest himself,
and while he is resting, Eve continued : do thou be
fishing for him in the river with the new spear, and
if thou canst catch fish for him we may keep him in
the cave always. And Eve waited while Adam fished,
but he brought no fishes home with him, and Othniel,
waking hungry in the evening, was taken to the river.
Canst not see, Eve said, how turbulent is the water ? the
river is no longer the same river; the banks are over-
flowed and the edges thronged with birds — birds we
have never seen before. These come up the river, Adam
answered her, when the cold weather is near.

CHAP. XXXVIII.

THE rainy season began soon after, and the river rose
steadily day after day, till Adam was of a mind that it
would be safer to move up the hill-side to lahveh's altar
than to remain in the clough in which they might be
easily drowned ; even Othniel, Adam said, great a swimmer
as he was, could not contend against the waters as they are
now running. Again and again Adam thrust his spear into
the pools, but the fishes had sought to escape the force of
the flood by sinking to the bottom, and to get himself
a dinner, Othniel ascended the river and remained away
for days over the hill-side, fishing being easier higher
up the stream; and when he returned he was so tired
that it seemed as if he would not be able to sleep off his
weariness. They were glad of this for the storms con-
tinued despite their prayers to lahveh; it were better,
they said, that Othniel should fast than that he should
drown ; and he was very hungry indeed when a south wind
began to blow over the garden. He caught his dinner

240

quickly, and they thought to persuade him to leave the
river; but he lingered by the brink, loth to leave it;
for him every breeze seemed to be laden with tidings ;
and with beating hearts they watched him sniffing
through the reeds. He is not seeking fishes, but his kin,
Eve said, and a few days after, an otter that had doubt-
less scented him from afar, belike from the banks of
the islands beyond the walls, met him in the current,
and the otters went away together.

The river brought him to us, Eve said ; the river has
taken him from us ; under yonder bank they will beget
young. As these words were spoken it fell out that
Adam's eyes should meet Eve's and they knew that the
same suffering as had befallen Othniel was upon them.

Adam's tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and it
was with an effort that he threw out some words to
Eve, hoping thereby to hide his trouble from her. He
will weary of his mate, Eve, he said, and he would have
continued to reassure her, but Eve's eyes were upon him.
It is, perhaps, lahveh's will to enlighten us, he said : so
let us go to his altar, and pray that he may do so. We
were there this morning, Eve answered. But we did not
pray that we might be enlightened, he replied. Our
prayers this morning were not heart-felt prayers, there-
fore lahveh did not hearken to us. And so that we may
be enlightened, Eve said, I will cast myself before him
and bow myself three times, and repeat the prayers thou
hast taught me. Let us go to the praying stone, and they
went thither, and so heart-felt were Eve's utterances of
the prayers he had taught her that Adam, on rising to
his feet, was moved to draw her to him, and to kiss her
again and again ; and the emotion that their prayers to
lahveh had caused continued while they descended the
hill-side.

It was on their way to the fig-trees that Adam said :
see, Eve, how large the leaves are already, and in my

241

prayers on the mount I heard lahveh command that we
weave garlands and wear them about our middles. Eve
asked if the garland she had woven for her hair were
not enough. Adam answered : he said about our middles.
When we go fishing, Eve persisted, may we not leave
our garlands on the bank ? Adam could not answer her,
nor when she asked if the water were to wash away
their garlands would they be answerable for the loss of
them. While climbing up the bank, she persisted, we
shall be naked. No matter, the cold water will subdue
us, Adam said. Eve was minded to reply : the water will
grow warmer, which it did, and when in it our troubles
will begin, if perchance shoulder should touch shoulder.

The lord punishes us, Adam cried, for our trans-
gressions. But we have not transgressed, Eve answered.
Why should he punish us ? The ways of the lord are
mysterious, we may not strive to look into his heart,
Adam replied, words that brought no distinct meaning
to Eve's mind, but she wished to please Adam, and in
accordance with his wish she did not gaze upon him
as she often wished to do, but kept her eyes averted.
It was her eyes that caused the rising of the flesh
of which he was ashamed, for the lord had not vouch-
safed the knowledge to him that he had bestowed
upon Othniel. But the day will come when he will
reveal the secret to us, said a voice within him, and with
tears rolling down his cheeks he fell upon his knees and
prayed till Eve could no longer keep her thoughts fixed
on the great throne in which God sat, watchful over
his creatures, lest they should transgress his will. So
Adam had told her, this was his belief, and it was her
desire to share his belief, but a bird in the lilac distracted
her thoughts from God, for she perceived the bird was
building itself a little house in the bush. It came with
fibre in its beak, which it wove into the moss, and the
inside of the nest was plastered with clay, and when
Q

242

the nest was finished Eve could see the bird flattening
itself out in the nest, the head only appearing above
the rim, the black eyes shining through the green leaves.
She told the story of the nest to Adam one day after
prayers, and they went to the lilac bush and, finding five
eggs in it, Eve said : let us not disturb her nest, for we
know not what her design may be.

The mate that had helped to build the nest now sat
upon the bough above the nest, and Eve said : he sings
to pass away the time of her labour. But of the design
of the birds Adam could not tell Eve ; for he had never
noticed the ways of birds before, and was astonished when
Eve said : Adam, the bird returns with worms to the nest ;
come, let us look into it, for it may contain something that
our eyes have never seen.

As you have already guessed, Alec, the nest contained
chicks all gaping to be fed. Adam said to Eve : this is very
wonderful, and the wonder of the twain seemed to deepen
when a cat came about their tree, and the parent birds
came down on to the pathway and challenged it to fight,
shrieking at it, bidding it go hence. Their eyes are like
the sparks we see in the fire, Adam said, so angry are
they. How they must love their young ! Eve answered,
and a great sorrow fell upon Adam and Eve, and he to
himself and she to herself said : why have we no offspring
like the animals we see about us? The squirrels and
the cats, and the rats and the mice, and the birds have
offspring, and love their offspring ; only we are alone.

And Lilith, who saw all these things in her magic well,
said : my time has come to go to the garden and finish the
story.

CHAP. XXXIX.

HE will be somewhere about here, she said, watching
for his chance, for all that is going on in the garden he

243

knows well ; and we shall come upon each other before
long for sure if I keep marching up and down these
woods. A pleasant place enough for walking they are,
she continued, looking round, well pleased with the
woodland she was in, for though the trees were close
together up above, there was plenty of room for walking
between them — long, tall boles they were, as in the park
over against Westport where I met you, Alec, for the
first time, jumping from boulder to boulder, and climbing
up the bank, saying you were sure that the master would
not mind your having a look round for ferns. That was
in the weeks back, and ever since we have been telling
stories as friendly as any two men in the country. It
seems strange that it should be so, but so it is ; and now
I must be getting on with my story of my lady Lilith,
who was, at the time I'm speaking of, walking under the
trees outside the garden, mindful of Lucifer, whom she knew
to be about somewhere, and not far off, for she could get
a smell of him in the air, and walking on whither her
nose led her, she said : 'tis thicker about here, a sour
smell like that of a snake. But it cannot be that, and
walking on farther, looking round at every step she
took, she said : something is here but my eyes cannot
find it, and they have searched everywhere for it. She
walked on, her eyes always set on the ground, never
thinking that the one she was seeking might be in
a tree till she heard a voice speaking to her, saying :
Lilith, raise thine eyes and thou shalt find me, and when
she raised her eyes, what do you think she saw but a
big green and golden serpent coiled about the branches
of a cedar with one great branch stretched out from the
tree itself right over the garden wall, and the thought
passed through her mind that it was a convenient branch
for whomsoever would pass over the wall into the garden,
and that perhaps that was the reason why Lucifer had
changed himself into a big serpent, a serpent being able

244

to glide and lift himself, whereas a four-footed beast, or a
two-footed, for a matter of that, would be making no
progress at all. Thou hast guessed rightly, he said,
answering her thoughts, for Lucifer being an archangel
could see into the mind, and having knowledge of all
that was accomplishing on earth, said : right well thou
didst answer them, meaning the angels of the Lord.

Adam and Eve are at variance, he continued, each with
the other, and with lahveh, who has refused to tell how
Adam must conduct himself with Eve so as to get offspring
from her. It is odd surely that he should desire offspring
of that puny creature with sloping shoulders and wide
hips, short legs and very dirty, Lilith rapped out, forgetful
of the presence of her lord. It is true that Eve as she
came to Adam from lahveh' s hands was not agreeable
to his sight and smell ; but a great change has come
over Adam since he washed her and tressed her hair,
Lucifer replied ; and her legs are not shorter than thine,
not in his eyes. Then, said Lilith, lahveh has put a
great spell upon him, blotting my image from his mind.
But as soon as he sees me he will forget her; lahveh's

spell is My plan is better than a garden broil,

Lucifer answered, and when Lilith asked him what
these plans were, he said that his design was to provide
Adam with the knowledge that God withheld from him.

I was telling before the interruption Master, forgive

me, Lilith cried, and Lucifer continued : Adam went to
the praying stone and besought lahveh to tell him how
he should love Eve, but he only got commandments from
lahveh : speak not of cocks and hens to me, said lahveh ;
thou shall not tread thy wife as a cock treads a hen, nor
line her as a fox lines the vixen, nor cover her as the
stallion covers the mare. How then ? said Adam, and at
this question lahveh was angry, and with the temper
flying out of both his eyes he bade Adam give his
commandments to Eve, who was waiting to hear the

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joyful tidings as to the manner in which it is pleasing
to lahveh that mortals should obtain offspring.

Did Eve weep, master, when she heard that she was
not going to bear children ? No, Lucifer, she answered
Adam in words which she knew would please him,
that he would do well to observe the will of God,
and to make it easier for him, she said she loved him
sufficiently to live with him though he might never
make a woman of her. Cunning little minx, Lilith cried,
she tries to keep the man by agreeing with him in every-
thing he says, and submitting to him in all things. But
why, she asked, does lahveh refuse to allow Adam and
Eve to have children ? For that he is tired of the long
struggle he had before he was able to throw us into hell,
Lucifer replied, and yearns to live at peace among his
angels, but the victor is never altogether victorious.
Ever since our overthrow Adam has been a perplexity
to him, and the perplexity has deepened since Adam
asked him how he might procure offspring. lahveh is
afraid that the new race may take our side, and together
we might succeed in giving him a fall. lahveh, Lucifer
continued, is great at present, but there is a fate over the
God, and he that is now on high lives in fear of a race of
unbelievers ; and to save himself he would forbid man to
eat of the tree of knowledge. I will cross the garden wall
and reveal the secret, Lilith cried. But, said Lucifer,
Adam will know thee as his dream of old time. God
has put a spell on him, said Lilith. Maybe he did, but
I'm not sure of it, Lucifer replied. Well, what shall we
do ? she asked, and Lucifer said : by a stealthier method
than by giving Adam the choice between thee and Eve,
for remember that if he were to choose Eve we should be
undone. I have thought of a better way, and for it I
shall confide my snake shape to thee ; in it thou shalt
cross the garden wall, and as soon as Adam passes by the
tree in which thou art hidden thou shalt lean out of the

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branch, and say : Adam, why so downcast, why so hope-
less ? Give thine ear to me and learn the secret.

CHAP. XL.

BUT before going on further with the story, Alec, I
think I would like to give my legs a stretch. If your
honour has a match about you I'd be glad to have a
shaugh at the pipe. I'd like a smoke too, I answered, a
cigarette ! A cigar will take too long ; and to keep Alec
in good humour I spoke of Liadin and Curithir and the
throbbing love night they had passed together, and Alec
promised to give me his opinion of my story when I had
finished it. I like the stipulation ; and, Alec, you're a
good listener. A story-teller must know how to listen, he
answered, for 'tis out of stories a story comes. A maxim
that deserves all my congratulations, I said, and as soon
as we had finished smoking, I reminded him that Lilith,
after exchanging shapes with Lucifer, coiled herself into
a tree within hearing distance of the flowering bank on
which Adam and Eve were sitting, Adam looking into
the depths of the wood disconsolate, making up a story
about a little bird that might come hopping along the
branches and let out the secret to him. A welcome bird
he would be, by my faith, cherished by the two of us,
and allowed to eat his fill of the fruit trees. But neither
bird nor beast will come to our aid, and Adam continued
to sit with his eyes averted from Eve, who, having pity
for him, was thinking what she could say to console him,
but everything that came into her head she threw out
as likely to wound his feelings; till at last the silence
seemed to her to be worse than anything she could say,
and convinced that she could not leave him thinking any
more she began talking to him about Lilith. And as soon
as the name passed her lips she began saying to herself

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that Adam would not like to speak of Lilith, who might
have left him for the reason that he did not know what
the birds knew and all the beasts. But she was wrong
in this, for Adam liked talking about Lilith, and Eve
was glad to see his face brighten, although it was
hard to keep her jealousy from gathering in her face.
She talked about Lilith soothingly, saying that she
believed her to be a woman tall and thin as far as one
could see through the mist that was about her always.
'Tis as if thou hadst seen her, Adam chimed in, for she
would steal upon me like a mist in which I could see
only a beautiful line of chin and ear; like those hills
far away in the blue distance, he said. It was never in
waking but in dreams that thou knewest her, Eve said.
In dreams and between dreaming and waking. . . . Yet
we walked in the garden together. You spoke together ?
Eve queried, and Adam told Eve that he remembered
Lilith's voice and her silences. I do not know how she
came, or whether it was out of the sky or out of the
trees, but she came to me. And thou wast happy
with her? I was happy and I was unhappy, Adam
answered. Dost think, Adam, Eve asked sadly, that I
was made to make thee unhappy? Ah, Eve, thou art
blaming me now as Lilith used to do, Adam answered,
and I'm thinking that all women are alike. I will try
to tell thee everything, but it is hard to tell Lilith, for
she is only clear to a man when he is not thinking about
her at all. As soon as he tries to see or hear her she
has gone. I would tell all I know lest thou shouldst
think that I am keeping something back. Adam, I
understand. But I haven't told thee that my love for
thee is different from my love for her. I only loved her
as we love the clouds ; thou'rt here and kind and good, but
Lilith was cruel and wicked, and when she was here she
was yonder too. I could not lay hold on her, but thee
I can hold and see and hear. She was only a beam of

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moonlight. I read in thine eyes that a gleam from the
moon is better than the shining of midday to a man.
Why wouldst thou put thoughts into my head that were
never there ? she said. If I am satisfied, why shouldst
thou be dissatisfied ? I will try to be satisfied, he replied,
and if anybody can help me it is thou, with thy sweet,
gentle eyes and kindly hands. Lay thy hand upon my
forehead for my head is hot, I would sleep a little, but
before I sleep, tell me, Eve, that knowledge is not always
better than ignorance and that if we knew what the
birds and beasts know and the knowledge gave us off-
spring our happiness would not be greater than it has
been. And he gazed into her eyes as if he would read
her answer therein. I love thee well enough to live
with thee, though my life go by without offspring, her
eyes said.

At that moment two doves came down from the
branches, love being easier on the ground than at perch.
If he turn his head, she said, and see those birds, the
sight of them will recall lahveh's commandment. Would
that they were not so noisy in their love, she continued
to herself, the wood resounds with their kisses ; if he
turn his head he will deem the birds were sent to make a
mock of him. Alas, said Adam, turning* at the moment
when the cock was treading the hen, these birds are
more knowledgeable than we are. Shall we take our
knowledge from them, and kiss as they kiss ? And Eve,
nothing loth, took Adam in her arms, and having kissed
as they had seen the doves kiss, and suffered thereby
many great and terrible piercings, she fell back in front
of him like the hen. But Adam in this last moment
remembered lahveh's commandment, and a gloom beset
his face. It may be that we shall be guilty of some
great transgression, he said. Of what transgression shall
we be guilty ? Eve asked. Adam could not answer her,
and so they sat estranged from each other until, unable to

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bear the estrangement any longer, Adam ran away through
the trees up the steep path to the praying stone, leaving
Eve absorbed in the thought that it might fall out that the
end of all this would be that they would live on different
sides of the garden, seeing each the other in glimpses
only ; and she asked herself if the meaning behind it
all was that lahveh created her so that he might punish
Adam because he had not joined him against Lucifer.

The thought that it might be so brought tears to her
eyelids and she retired into the grove to weep un-
restrainedly; and when there were no more tears for
her to weep, her heart was moved to a great pity for the
man who could not live enjoying things as they went by,
but must needs pray. He will not come to me, said her
failing heart, but she waited for him till the moonlight
vanished. He will not come to me ; he fears lahveh more
than he loves me. Ah ! now he has fallen back, overcome
with weariness, but as soon as he awakes he will pray
again. If I do not leave some fruit for him he will not
eat to-morrow.

CHAP. XLI.

HE has put the river between us, and we shall not see
each other again but in glimpses, Eve said, as she walked
absorbed in the mystery of God and man, asking herself
why lahveh should trouble himself as to their conduct
on earth ; for having exiled Adam, it would seem that
he should be content to allow them to live according to
the ways of the earth. She repeated the sacred name,
and her unconcern in it reminded her of Adam's alarm
when she had repeated it casually after hearing it from
him for the first time.

lahveh is always the centre of Adam's mind, she
muttered, and the stone altar came into her thoughts,

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and the day he had been propelled thither by fear of
lahveh ; but there had been no fear in her mind ; she had
prayed because she had to live with Adam, and having
to live with him, she must make herself according to his
likeness as far as possible. But if lahveh comes between
us always, there is no life for me ; and the task of winning
him from lahveh seemed beyond her strength. But if
I can discover the secret he withholds from us, his power
over Adam will be lessened, she said ; and she roamed
the garden, continuing her search, sure at noon that
love was stronger than hate, but at night, lying where
they had so often lain together on the bank under the
fig-trees, she cried : lahveh is over all ; and missing Adam
by her when she awoke, tears flowed over her eyelids
again ; she often thought that her heart would break,
and it might have broken if her courage had been less
than her love. My task is to save him, she said, from
lahveh, and if I am borne away and dashed against the
rocks, and whirled on and on till darkness falls over me,
our troubles will be ended.

It was with these very words, Alec, that she turned down
the hill-side towards the river, and finding a place that
seemed shallow she waded into the stream, but did not
reach the middle of it, when she slipped into a deep
swirl of waters against which she strove, but was sucked
under and came up again and sank again, all the while sore
afraid that she would never look upon Adam again, which
she would not have done if he had not come to her and put
his hand under her chin, in that way upholding her.

Neither to that bank must I take thee, Adam said, nor
to the bank on which I left thee. But there are rocks in
the middle of the stream, and upon them thou and I can
talk if thou wishest to talk to me. If I wish to talk to
thee ? she repeated, and her look smote him to the heart.
Why didst thou venture into the river and it in flood ? he
asked, when they were seated on the rocks. I was looking

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for thee, she said. The fruits I left for thee by the pray-
ing stone were untouched, so it cannot be else, I said to
myself, than that he has put the river between us. And
was not that well done ? Adam replied. Should we not
be thankful to lahveh that he set a river flowing through
Eden : for it is his will that we must live asunder like a
pair of trees lest we break his commandment.

Everything must be as thou wouldst wish it to be,
Adam. But how are we to live apart ?

We shall have to make two hoards of fruit, Adam replied,
on which we shall live through the winter when there is
little fruit, or none at all, on the trees. But I know not
how to make a hoard. I will teach thee. The grapes will
be ripe in a month from now, and they must be gathered
and dried in the sun ; the figs the same. The apples too
may be saved. We shall sit on these stones, for this is
the meering ; and thou'lt learn from me how these things
may be done and to live without me. Thou'lt be lonely,
no doubt, without me; the days will seem long and
the nights too; but there is no other way. It shall be
as thou sayest, she answered, and her arms went about
him : it shall be as thou sayest. But do not make it
harder for me, Adam said, and to disguise his great
love of her he plunged into the pool. But after a little
while he returned to her. We must try and bear our
lives and live them as lahveh seems to have willed
that we should live them. Thou shalt live on the right
bank of the river and I on the left bank, but we shall
meet here on these rocks, he said, and I will instruct
thee about the drying of fruits and thou canst make
thyself comfortable in the hut that we built last autumn
together. I shall build another hut on my side. But
tell me, she said, how I may reach my bank. The
current frightens me. I will swim with thee through
the places where the river is deep and strong, and
when thou'rt on the gravelly bank I will return unto

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the river, and remain on my side of it till thou comest
out on to those rocks, which thou wilt do when thou hast
need of me.

It would have been better, Eve thought, as she returned
to the grove in which they had spent so many happy
hours, if he had left me to drown in that pool, for it
would seem that man is made to make woman unhappy.
But must we, she asked herself, be always unhappy ? It
cannot be that there is no way out of this trouble. It
cannot be that we who are more intelligent than the
birds and beasts should not find it, and she went about
the garden watching all these, and when she was not
watching the beasts and birds, she gathered such fruits
as were ripe, and stored them as he had bidden her to do,
and took pleasure in so doing, for she was doing his will.
But the nights were long, and the calm dawns miserable
to behold. At last remembrance came out of misery :
he had told her that he would show her how the fruit
should be stored !

Adam ! Adam ! she cried. And she had not to speak
his name a third time before she saw his head above the
water, and he rushing through it like a fish, so eager was
he to be with her.

As soon as he had climbed up beside her and shaken
the water from his hair and beard they began to talk of
the fruit she had gathered and the roof of the house in
which she lived. At last he said : thou hast wandered
much in the garden. Yes ; and have seen much, she
answered him ; birds and squirrels and mice and rats,
cockchafers, beetles and the ordinary fly. But we are not
as these and have been commanded to abstain from imi-
tating them in their swyvings, he said. Cats, she said,
come over the wall screaming after each other. But we
are commanded, he said, by the God, to abstain till he

reveals the secret of love And of offspring, she

interjected. She had seen from a gap in the walls a herd

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of great animals with long hairy tails on their rumps and
on their necks a yard of hair.

Among these was one taller, handsomer, more powerful
than the others, a sort of master among them ; and one
day she said he came whinnying, his ears cocked to meet
a female. I judged her to be one, she being smaller,
smoother, daintier than he was, like unto him as I am
to thee, Adam. A strange match they made as they
stood nosing each other, she shy, diffident, he eager
and valiant, yet gentle with her always, though she was
rough and angry with him, squealing betimes and kicking
at him till at last, like one that accepts another's will,
he drew away from her, regretfully, I thought, and then
like one that had forgotten he began to graze a bit
away. But he was only pretending to have forgotten
her, for when she came forward, trying to entice him
back to her, I could see that he was watching her, and
every moment I expected him to leave off feeding, but
it was a long time before she could get him to notice
her. At last she managed to entice him from his feed ;
and this time he was bolder with her, beginning at once
to bite her in the chest, in play, of course; licking her
sides and biting her again. She seemed to like this play ;
his cozening seemed to her taste ; but when he came to her
haunches she squealed and kicked, without striking him,
however, misdirecting her kicks perhaps of set purpose.
And this play was continued for several days, she always
inviting his intentions and never resenting them till he
tried to throw his fore-leg over her. So the days went by,
ripening her, and when her time was come he rose him-
self up and, gripping her by the neck, he went in unto her,
hugging her the while. And then? said Adam. Then,
Eve answered, he dropped exhausted on his hooves, and
they sniffed at each other once or twice before beginning
to graze, keeping together apart from the herd.

But of what concern to us are the ways of beasts ?

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Adam said, and hast thou forgotten lahveh's command-
ments ? It may be, she answered, that the God put a wall
round the garden, but when thou'rt not by me I forget
these things. I know of God only through thee, and am
different from thee inasmuch as thou wast an angel once
in heaven, but I'm a rib taken from thy side, else a handful
of dust. For thou knowest not exactly how God created
me, only that when thine eyes opened I was sleeping by
thee. Wouldst thou, Eve, have me return to the other
bank and live with thee like a beast? It shall be as
thou dost wish it, Adam. But it being my wish always
that thou shouldst be happy, or as little unhappy as may
be, I would have thee go to him with no desire in thy
heart but obedience to his will only. Adam, leave me,
Eve cried, but let me come to-morrow to these rocks,
for though they are hard to sit upon it is better to see
thee here than not to see thee at all.

Thou mayest come here if thou wilt strive to make

lahveh's will thine and What else, Adam, is upon

thy mind to tell me ? Only this, Eve, that having looked
over the wall, a thing that lahveh has forbidden, it may
fall out that in thy wanderings a voice may speak to thee
out of a tree. Hast heard a voice, Adam, speaking out
of yon trees ? And Adam answered that it had seemed
to him that he had heard a voice speaking out of a tree,
saying he had but to listen to hear the secret. And thou
didst not listen ? Eve said. lahveh forbid, he answered.
And then thou fleddest, she said, to the thither side,
leaving the praying stone without offering. I had hoped
to find another, he answered, and Eve, guessing that the
desire of prayer was again upon him, said : why not cross
the river for prayer? The evening skies are calm, and
thy prayer will go up to lahveh's nostrils and refresh him.

With words like these I'm telling she beguiled him over
to her side of the river, and as soon as she saw him
going up the hill-side with the fruits she had given him

255

for offering, her eyes turned to the trees out of which the
voice had spoken to him. The voice that he heard can only
be Lilith's, she said, who would not have Adam withhold
himself from me any longer, he having by now descended
altogether out of angel kind into man kind. So she
went to the tree that Adam had pointed out to her as the
one out of which he had heard the voice speak : whosoever
is in this tree, let her or him tell me how I may be Adam's
wife, and get offspring like the birds and the beasts, she
cried, and as soon as the snake heard Eve, she stretched
herself along the bough, and dropping a yard or two of
herself said : I am Lilith, who was Adam's first wife, but
in his mind rather than in his body. Lean thy ear closer,
lest lahveh should hear and send angels to hunt me into
hell again. Eve gave her ear, and having learnt from
Lilith the way of man with a woman, she waited for Adam
to return from the altar, all the while turning over in her
mind the delightful modes of love she had learnt from
Lilith.

Adam came to her full of God and unsuspicious, saying
that after prayer he had bethought himself of the house
they had lived in last winter, and how it might be
repaired. If the wind comes under the door thou'lt come
to the river and cry aloud for me, and it will not be
long before I'm swimming to thee, though the floods be
great in winter-time. The words came to Eve's lips to
thank him, but she kept them back, and they walked
to the house in silence. Thou'lt be building a house, she
said, for thyself as good as this one, one that will be
rain and wind tight, and he answered that it was as likely
as not he would be building something, but he did not
mind the wind and rain, he was pretty tough, he said.
But thou'lt find the cold weather hard to bear, and his
eyes going round the store of fruit she had laid in, he
said : thou hast not gotten enough of this fruit to feed
thee through the winter, more should be gathered ; and

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they went through the garden shaking the boughs and
gathering the fruit till the kindling of the evening star.

It was then in the dusk that Adam showed Eve how
she should store the fruit, and when it was laid by for
the winter the perplexed twain wandered from the house
to the bank under the fig-tree, and with Adam by her
side Eve was moved to tell him she had discovered the
secret, but she withheld it from him, afraid to speak to
him, so easily was he led away by words ; but in spite of
her silence, perhaps because of it, he began to speak once
more of lahveh's providence and his design, saying : Eve,
if it be within his design that we beget children the secret
how we shall beget them will not be withheld from us.
Adam, she answered, I cannot talk any more, and fell
back amid the mosses and he over her. Thou'rt not
upon my back for that is forbidden, yet we are mingled ;
belly to belly we lie, and guiding him a little she said :
therein is the secret, art pleased with it ? His ardour was
her answer, and his joy was so great that he could not
get a word past his teeth, and when relief came they lay
side by side, enchanted lovers, listening to the breeze
that raised the leaves of the fig-tree, letting the moon-
light through.

May we not, he asked, discover the secret again ? Will
the delight be as great ? And she answered : we shall
know that presently, and her arms went about him ; and
their delight was greater than before, and when they
returned to rediscover the secret for a third time, Eve
screamed she knew not whether it was from pain or
pleasure, and her scream was so heartrending that Adam
was frightened, and thinking he had killed his wife he
sat up on the bank of delight and began to pray. But see-
ing he had done her no harm at all, he said : it is against
God I have sinned, and my sin might never have been
known if Eve had not screamed so loudly in her pleasure
that she must have awakened lahveh dozing in his golden

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chair, and if that misfortune has befallen us he will
be sending his angels with flaming swords to sever off
our heads. You see, Adam was well learned in the ways
of God. But Lucifer, too, had had a long experience of
heaven; and while Michael, Gabriel and Raphael were
girding on their flaming swords he said : we must hide
Adam and Eve from God's angels, who will destroy them
and the seed of the new race that will bring about lahveh's
downfall in the years to come. Lilith answered : master,
as thou wilt.

CHAP. XLII.

BEFORE the ring of day Adam and Eve were hidden
beyond the walls of the garden in deep caves, where they
could not be discovered by the angels in search of them,
for when the angels came into one cave, Adam and Eve
found outlets into other caves, and as every cave had
two they went hither and thither, escaping the angels
always, suffering hunger and thirst, for outside of the
garden was all wilderness ; only a few berries and roots
could they find, but fruits nowhere. So it came to pass
that in their flight from the pursuing angels they were
several days without even a bilberry or a handful of cress
wherewith to quench their longing : we can go no
farther, Eve, the angels must take us here, Adam said.
And Eve answered : there is a way out of our trouble ;
and he asked her : which way is that ? and Eve replied :
the way that we came into it. And Adam said : I under-
stand thee not, and Eve said : was it not I that brought
all this trouble upon thee ? Was it not I that loved God
not at all and would not live according to his commands ?
But, Eve, thou earnest with me to the altar and prayed,
and we made offerings of fruit to lahveh. But my heart
was not in prayer, Adam, and the offerings to lahveh
R

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always seemed to me a waste. lahveh had no place in
my heart nor in my thoughts, and it was to divide thee
from lahveh that I listened to Lilith ; for in my foolish-
ness I said : if I bring the secret to Adam he will forget
lahveh. But lahveh is all-powerful and we are over-
whelmed with hunger and thirst. I would give thee
back to lahveh. . . . How can I be given back to
lahveh ? Adam asked, and Eve answered : my thoughts
are not wandering, Adam, but are set upon undoing the
wrong I have done, and the undoing can be accomplished
in that river if we can reach it. In the pool from which
thou didst save me I will drown, and lahveh's fallen
angel will be restored to grace, and he will be put back
into the garden ; he will be happy again amid flowers
and fruits, and the pleasant rays that fall upon the altar
at noon will draw him unto prayer. Prayers are dearer
to thee, Adam, than I ever could be. Lead me to
the river, Adam, let one be happy if both may not be.
I am nothing, I was made out of one of thy ribs or
out of a handful of mould by lahveh for thy companion-
ship. I am nothing, but thou wast once God's angel.
God is all-powerful. Let my death give thee back to
lahveh. But, Eve, there is no happiness for me on this
earth except with thee, and hast no thought of the child
in the womb ? And hast thou no love for him ? I have
love for my child, but my love of thee, Adam, is greater,
and my child must die with me that the world be redeemed
from sin. So it would seem. lahveh will accept my death
as an atonement. Lead me to the river, Adam.

As we have lived so we must die, Adam replied ; and
the twain sat side by side against the rocks, and folded
their arms and waited for the power of lahveh to fall
upon them. And they did not know how long they had
waited, for time seemed at a standstill, but in the midst
of their stupor they were awakened by a voice, and Adam
said to Eve : that is no angel's voice, and Eve said : who-

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soever's voice it be concerns us not, for the end is nigh.
Thy will be done, Adam, if it be that thou shouldst die
with me unrepentant. But the voice brought them life
in the shape of a lamb, one of the mountain sheep that
the angels had frightened with their flaming swords. He
had become lost in the caves, or maybe had been sent
thither, Alec, by Lucifer himself, who looked to the
race of men to bring about the overthrow of lahveh.
Whosoever sent the lamb, it was the lamb's blood that
saved the twain in the cave and assured the victory,
accomplishing slowly, but always accomplishing from
that day to ours, Alec.

Since there is no fruit in the wilderness, we must kill
and eat always, Adam said, and from henceforth his days
were spent fashioning weapons, and Eve's in weaving
nets, wherewith they were able to encompass beasts and
birds. So did the twain live, flying from the angels of
the lord from cave to cave, Eve bringing forth Cain in
the first year of banishment, and Abel in the second.
And when daughters were born to them, Cain took one
sister to lie with him ; she conceived and bore Enoch,
with whom Cain was so well pleased that he named
the city he built after his son. After Enoch came Irad,
and Irad begat Mehujael ; and Mehujael begat Methusael ;
and Methusael begat Lamech ; and Lamech took unto
him two wives, the name of one was Adah and the name
of the other was Zillah, and Adah bore Jabal. He was
the father of those that dwelt in tents, and his brother's
name was Jubal, and he was the father of harp and organ
players ; and Zillah bore Tubal-cain, the craftsman in
brass and iron, and the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.

Very soon the earth was covered with men, and the
angels looked down from heaven, and seeing that the
daughters of men were fair, they lusted after them, and
the child/en that were born of woman- and angel kind
were giants, and God said : the children of these giants

260

will join with Satan's legions and rise up against me.
My power will be overthrown ! So he called together
his cohorts, and gave the command unto Michael, Gabriel
and Raphael, and these going forth drove against the
celestial lechers, surrounded, overpowered and bound them,
and threw them into the centre of the earth for time
everlasting. And lahveh said unto his archangels : you
have done well, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, you have
redeemed my heaven of lewd angels ; but, he said, the
giants still abound, and ye are tired of long wars, so we
will open the sources of the sea and drown the world, and
make an end of man and his evil deeds. And the angels
replied : thy will be done, Lord, on earth as it is in heaven,
and the sources of the seas were opened.

But one man built an ark and it was with his progeny
that the earth was again replenished. God said, perhaps
fire will succeed better than water, and he showered brim-
stone and fire all over the world, and burned out every
man but one, Lot, and his daughters, and with these the
world was again replenished, the first daughter saying
to the younger: our father is old, there's not a man to
come in unto us after the manner of all the world. Come,
let us make our father drink wine and we will lie with
him that we may preserve the seed of our father. And
what the older had done the younger did ;the next night.
And seeing how all his designs had failed him, and
that the race of man was indestructible, lahveh bowed
his head, saying : my years are numbered. I am dying
and shall die, for the years are coming when men will
no longer believe in God.

CHAP. XLIII.

$vtt& JN'l*Hf i • », •• . •• r >!••;« -'*?iM .'''•'? •" »v/ (t"^tn '.'"> -s'l ' 4 ' ' '• '.''
NOW, Alec, that is the end of the story that I composed

last week, and you being the shanachie of old Connaught

261

1 should like to hear my story criticised by you, to hear
it blamed or praised, if there be anything in it that seems
worthy to you of praise or blame. Well, your honour,
there are fine things in your story, but I'm sure Father
Kennedy wouldn't have any truck with any story about
Adam and Eve that isn't in the Bible. The Talmud, I
interjected. But forget Father Tom and tell me what
you think of my story. A wonderful story, your honour,
for if I rightly understand you, it isn't more than a week
old ; the best I've ever heard at that age, and when it
has been seven or eight years in your head it will be as
good as ten-year-old John Jamieson. That's how it is
with mine. At first they are poisonous stuff, but year by
year they mellow, and after sleeping and dreaming in
my head, like the whisky in the wood, they come out
good, sociable and kind, and them that listen become as
good and kind and gentle as the whisky itself.

You think that my story will improve on keeping ? I
do, your honour. I think you're right, I felt that I was
relating only a rough and ready version. As I told you,
my stories are eye stories, yours are ear stories. But I
would not have your honour thinking that I was making
little of your story ; it's a grand story as you have told it :
Adam praying on his two knees in front of Eve : I have
killed her, I have killed her, she is dead and all ; all is
done and damn the deed! But of course he soon saw
that he had not done her a bit of harm, and that she was
ready for some more of the same trouble.

Faith, I give in to your honour ; the shanachie of London
has pounded the shanachie of Westport. There are grand
things in it, the great squeal of a screech that Eve let off,
and himself frightened out of his very life, and every cat
of the cats, and every creature of the creatures, in the
same fright— a grand hullabaloo — a squeal, a whoop and
a whistle, and then all silent again.

Faith and troth, Alec, it's yourself that should have

262

been the storyteller, for you have put a polish on Eve's
love cry that raises a black envy of you up into my heart,
and I wouldn't be surprised if Synge himself were stirring
in his grave at this very moment.

CHAP. XLIV.

A FEW days after the relation of the Garden of Eden
I caught sight of Alec under the walls of the old mill,
looking out for a safe place to cross the river. There's
not much water in the river, I said to myself; he can
step from boulder to boulder ; and my heart quickened a
little at the thought of the new story he was coming to
tell me. Is it a long one ? I asked, as soon as he had
scrambled up the high bank. His puzzled face was
sufficient answer ; he had not come to tell me a story,
but to bid me good-bye, having heard in the town that I
was leaving Westport at the end of the week.

But maybe I'm interfering with your honour in
coming to you now ; you may be composing another
story, and on asking him why he thought that, he said
there was no place for the unravelling of stories like a seat
by a brawling brook ; like water they come foaming and
swirling by, as if they couldn't get on fast enough. Yes,
Alec, it's like that by a brook, sometimes. But I'm sorry
you haven't come to tell me a story. Are you sure you
haven't one about you ? Well, no, your honour, it's just
the other way round; I thought I'd come to you for an-
other one ; I'd like to hear a story from you — one of them
stories the publishers do be ferreting in their pockets
for the notes and the gold to pay you for. I'd like to
hear one of them as it comes out of your head. I think
you must take me for a keg, Alec, always on tap as soon
as the spigot has been driven in. Isn't every shanachie
like that? he answered, and don't the country people be

263

asking me for stories till the last sod of turf has melted
away into ashes? A real story, Alec, without lahveh or
fairies, not even a priest in it nor devils nor serpents, an
English or an Irish story, which, Alec? I wouldn't be
sticking you to any one country, Alec answered, but I
think I'd be feeling more at home listening to an Irish
story than to an English one. And sure an Irishman the
like of yourself wouldn't be put to the pin of his collar
to tell an Irish story, for there must be manys the one
going the rounds inside your head, and you this many
a year away from us. True enough, I answered, so many
years that it ill becomes me to be telling an Irish story
to the shanachie of Connaught. Didn't you come out of
Connaught yourself? he asked, and from the heart of it,
from the county of Mayo like I did myself? Faith, it
will be the Ballinrobe cock against the Westport rooster.
I don't know that I can think of an Irish story, I said,

unless Unless what, your honour ? Unless I start out

of an old memory. The best stories babble themselves
out of them old memories, he said. But now I come to
think of it, Alec, the story I'd be telling you is Irish only
because it all happened in. Morrison's Hotel. Isn't that
the hotel Parnell used to be staying in ? Alec interjected.
It is so, I answered ; and the story has been muttering in
me ever since ; but I'm no way sure that it won't tangle
on me in the telling. You'll bear in mind, Alec, that this
is the first telling. You said yourself that stories ripen
in the mouth. They do, faith, he answered. The tongue's
the fellow to put a good skin on a story. In the third
or fourth telling the pink do be showing out upon it,
and ever afterwards it do be as juicy in the mouth as
a blackberry in Samhain.

264

CHAP. XLV.

WHEN we went up to Dublin in the sixties, Alec, we
always put up at Morrison's Hotel, a big family hotel at
the corner of Dawson Street, one that was well patronised
by the gentry from all over Ireland, and fine big bills
they would be running up in it, my father paying his
every six months when he was able, which wasn't very
often, for what with racing stables and elections following
one after the other, Moore Hall wasn't what you'd call
overflowing with money. Now that I come to think
of it, I can see Morrison's as clearly almost as I do
Moore Hall : the front door opening into a short passage,
with some half-dozen steps leading up into the house.
A dark entrance, so it was, the glass doors of the
coffee-room showing through the dimness, and in front
of the visitor a big staircase running up to the second
landing. I don't think the grand staircase went any
higher; I think I can see it looping somehow about
the head of the staircase, and I'm sure I'm right ;
it was always being drummed into me that I mustn't
climb on to the banisters, a thing I was wishing to do,
but was always afraid to get astride of them, so deep
was it down to the ground floor. I think I can see
the long passage leading from the stair-head so far
into the house that I didn't dare to follow it for fear of
losing my way. I think there was a little staircase at
the end of it, and I used to wonder whither it went. A
very big building was Morrison's Hotel, with passages
running hither and thither and little flights of steps in
all kinds of odd corners. So it was on the second floor and

on the third But we needn't be thinking what was

above the second floor, for we were always on the second
in a big sitting-room that overlooked College Green. I
can remember the pair of windows, their lace curtains,

265

and their repp curtains, better than the passages, and
better than the windows I can remember myself looking
through the pane interested in the coal carts going by ;
the bell hitched on to the horse's collar jangling all the
way down the street ; the coalman himself sitting, his
legs hanging over the shafts, driving from the wrong
side and looking up at the windows to see if he could
spy out an order. Fine horses were in these coal carts,
stepping out as well as those in our own carriage. I'm
telling you these things for the pleasure of looking back
and nothing else. I can see the sitting-room and myself
as plainly as I can see the mountains beyond, in some
ways plainer ; and the waiter that used to attend on us,
I can see him, though not as plainly as I see you, Alec ;
but I'm more knowledgeable of him, if you'd be under-
standing me rightly ; and to this day I can recall the
awful frights he gave me when he came behind me
awaking me from my dream of a coalman's life ; what
he said is forgotten, but his squeaky voice remains in my
ears. He seemed to be always laughing at me, showing
long yellow teeth, and I used to be afraid to open the
sitting-room door, for I'd be sure to find him waiting on
the landing, his napkin thrown over his right shoulder.
I think I was afraid he'd pick me up and kiss me. As
the whole of my story is about him, perhaps I'd better
describe him more fully, and to do that I will tell you
that he was a tall, scraggy fellow, with big hips sticking
out and a long thin throat. It was his throat that
frightened me as much as anything about him, unless it
was his nose, which was a great high one, or his melancholy
eyes, which were pale blue and very small, deep in the
head. He was old, but how old I cannot say, for every-
body except children seems old to children. He seemed
the ugliest thing I'd ever seen out of a fairy-book, and
I'd beg not to be left alone in the sitting-room ; and I'm
sure I often asked my father and mother to take another

set of rooms, which they never did, for they liked Albert
Nobbs ; and the guests liked him, and the proprietress
liked him, as well she might, for he was the most
dependable servant in the hotel : no running round to
public-houses and coming back with the smell of whisky
and tobacco upon him ; no rank pipe in his pocket, and
of all no playing the fool with the maid-servants. Nobody
had ever been heard to say he had seen Albert out with
one of them. A queer hobgoblin sort of fellow that
they mightn't have cared to be seen with, but all the
same it seemed to them funny that he should never
propose to walk out with one of them. I've heard the
hall porter say it was hard to understand a man living
without taking pleasure in something outside of his
work. Holidays he never asked for, and when Mrs
Baker pressed him to go to the salt water for a week
he'd try to rake up an excuse for not going away, asking
if it wasn't true that the Blakes, the Joyces and the
Ruttledges were coming up to town, saying that he
didn't like to be away, so used were they to him and
he to them. A strange life his was, and mysterious,
though every hour of it was before them, saving the
hours he was asleep, which wasn't many, for he was no
great sleeper. From the time he got up in the morn-
ing till he went to bed at night he was before their
eyes, running up and down the staircase, his napkin over
his arm, taking orders with cheerfulness, as if an order
were as good as a half-crown tip to him ; always good-
humoured, and making amends for his lack of interest
in other people by his willingness to oblige. No one
had ever heard him object to doing anything he was
asked to do or even put forwarfl an excuse for not being
able to do it. In fact his willingness to oblige was so
notorious in the hotel that Mrs Baker (the proprietress
of Morrison's Hotel at the time) could hardly believe she
was listening to him when he began to stumble from one

267

excuse to another for not sharing his bed with Hubert
Page, and this after she had told him that his bed was
Page's only chance of getting a stretch that night. All
the other waiters were married men and went home to
their wives. You see. Alec, it was Punchestown week,
and beds are as scarce in Dublin that week as diamonds
are on the slopes of Croagh Patrick. But you haven't
told us yet who Page was, Alec interjected, and I thought
reprovingly. I'm just coming to him, I answered:
Hubert Page was a house-painter, well known and well
liked by Mrs Baker. He came over every season, and
was always welcome at Morrison's Hotel, and so pleasant
were his manners that one forgot the smell of his paint.
It is hardly saying too much to say that when Hubert
Page had finished his job everybody in the hotel, men
and women alike, missed the pleasant sight of this young
man going to and fro in his suit of hollands, the long
coat buttoned loosely to his figure with large bone
buttons, going to and fro about his work, up and down
the passages, with a sort of lolling idle gait that attracted
and pleased the eye — a young man that would seem
preferable to most men if a man had to choose a bed-
fellow, yet seemingly the very one that Albert Nobbs
couldn't abide lying down with, a dislike that Mrs Baker
could understand so little that she stood staring at her
confused and embarrassed waiter, who was still seeking
excuses for his dislike to share his bed with Hubert Page.
I suppose you fully understand, she said, that Page is
leaving for Belfast by the morning train, and has come
over here to ask us for a bed, there not being one at the
hotel in which he is working ? Albert answered that he

understood well enough, but was thinking He began

again to fumble with words. Now what are you trying
to say ? Mrs Baker asked, and rather sharply ; my bed is
full of lumps, Albert answered. Your mattress full of
lumps ! the proprietress rapped out ; why, your mattress

268

was repicked and buttoned six months ago, and came
back as good as any mattress in the hotel ; what kind of
story are you telling me? So it was, ma'am, so it was,
Albert mumbled, and it was some time before he got out
his next excuse : he was a very light sleeper and had
never slept with anybody before and was sure he wouldn't
close his eyes ; not that that would matter much, but his
sleeplessness might keep Mr Page awake. Mr Page
would get a better stretch on one of the sofas in the
coffee-room than in his bed, I'm thinking, Mrs Baker. A
better stretch on the sofa in the coffee-room ? Mrs Baker
repeated angrily. I don't understand you, not a little
bit, and she stood staring at the two men, so dissimilar.
But, ma'am, I wouldn't be putting Mr Nobbs to the
inconvenience of my company, the house-painter began.
The night is a fine one, I'll keep myself warm with a
sharp walk, and the train starts early. You'll do nothing
of the .kind, Page, she answered ; and seeing that Mrs
Baker was now very angry Albert thought it time to
give in, and without more ado he began to assure them
both that he'd be glad of Mr Page's company in his bed.
I should think so, indeed, interjected Mrs Baker. But,
Albert continued, I'm a light sleeper. We've had enough
of that, Albert. If Mr Page is pleased to share my bed,
Albert continued, I shall be very glad. If Mr Nobbs

doesn't like my company I should Don't say another

word, Albert whispered, you'll only set her against me.
Come upstairs at once. It'll be all right. Come along.

Good-night, ma'am, and I hope No inconvenience

whatever, Page, Mrs Baker answered. This way, Mr
Page, Albert cried ; and as soon as they were in the room
Albert said : I hope you aren't going to cut up rough at
anything I've said; it isn't at all as Mrs Baker put it.
I'm glad enough of your company, but you see, as I've
never slept with anybody in my life it may be that I shall
be tossing about all night keeping you awake. Well, if

269

it's to be like that, Page answered, I might as well have
a doze on the chair until it's time to go, and not trouble
you at all. Troubling me you won't be, but I might be
troubling you. Enough has been said, we must lie down
together whether we like it or whether we don't, for if
Mrs Baker heard that we hadn't been in the same bed
together all the fault would lie with me. I'd be sent out
of the hotel in double quick time. But how can she
know ? Page cried. It's been settled one way, so let us
make no more fuss about it.

Albert began to undo his white necktie, saying he
would try to lie quiet ; and Page started pulling off his
clothes, thinking he'd be well pleased to be out of the
job of lying down with Albert. But he was so dog-tired
that he couldn't think any more about whom he was to
sleep with, only of the long days of twelve and thirteen
hours he had been doing, with a walk to and from his
work. Only sleep mattered to him, and Albert saw him
tumble into bed in the long shirt that he wore under his
clothes, and lay himself down next to the wall. It would
be better for him to lie on the outside, Albert said to
himself, but he didn't like to say anything lest Page
might get out of the bed in a fit of ill-humour ; but Page,
as I've said, was too tired to trouble himself which side
of the bed he was to doss on. A moment after he was
asleep: and Albert stood listening, his loosened tie
dangling, till the heavy breathing from the bed told him
that Page was sound asleep. To make full sure he
approached the bed stealthily, and overlooking Page,
said : poor fellow, I'm glad he's in my bed for he'll get
a good sleep there, and he wants it, and considering that
things had fallen out better than he hoped for, he began
to undress.

270

CHAP. XLVI.

-5*1 ihi^frii ! Jml .*&$ ^'n^^ vio? *??n jpfcikimn'l .4»V <• wr
HE must have fallen asleep at once, and soundly, for
he awoke out of nothingness. Flea, he muttered, and a
strong one too. It must have come from the house-painter
alongside of me. A flea will leave anyone to come to
me, and turning round in bed he remembered the look
of dismay that had appeared on the housemaids' faces
yesterday on his telling them that no man would ever love
their hides as much as a flea loved his, which was so true
that he couldn't understand how it was that the same flea
had taken so long to find him out. Fleas must be as partial
to him, he said, as they are to me. There it is again, trying
to make up for lost time, and out went Albert's leg. I'm
afraid I've awakened him, Albert said, but Hubert only
turned over in the bed to sleep more soundly. It's a mercy
indeed that he is so tired, Albert said, for if he wasn't very
tired that last jump I gave would have awakened him.

A moment after Albert was nipped again by another
flea or by the same one, he couldn't tell; he thought
it must be a second one, so vigorous was the bite : and
he was hard put to it to keep his nails off the spots.
It will only make it worse if I scratch, he said, and
he strove to lie quiet. But the torment was too great.
I've got to get up, he said, and raising himself up
quietly, he listened. The striking of a match won't
awaken him out of that sleep, and remembering where
he had put the match-box, his hand was on it at once.
The match flared up; he lighted the candle and stood
a while overlooking his bed-fellow: I'm safe, he said,
and set himself to the task of catching the flea. There
it is on the tail of my shirt, hardly able to move with
all the blood he's taken from me. Now for the soap,
and as he was about to dab it upon the blood-filled
insect the painter awoke with a great yawn, and turning

271

round, he said: lord amassy! what is the meaning
of this ? why, you're a woman ! If Albert had had the
presence of mind to drop his shirt over his shoulders
and to answer: you're dreaming, my man, Page might
have turned over and fallen asleep and in the morning
forgotten all about it, or thought he had been dreaming.
But Albert hadn't a word in her chops. At last she
began to blub. You won't tell on me, and ruin a poor
man, will you, Mr Page ? that is all I ask of you, and on
my knees I beg it. Get up from your knees, my good
woman, said Hubert. My good woman ! Albert repeated,
for she had been about so long as a man that she only
remembered occasionally that she was a woman. My
good woman, he repeated, get up from your knees and
tell me how long you have been playing this part. Ever
since I was a girl, Albert answered. You won't tell upon
me, will you, Mr Page, and prevent a poor woman from
getting her living ? Not likely, I've no thought of telling
on you, but I'd like to hear how it all came about. How
I went out as a youth to get my living ? Yes ; tell me
the story, Hubert answered, for though I was very sleepy
just now, the sleep has left my eyes and I'd like to
hear it. But before you begin tell me what you were
doing with your shirt off. A flea, Albert answered. I
suffer terribly from fleas, and you must have brought
some in with you, Mr Page. I shall be covered in blotches
in the morning. I'm sorry for that, Hubert said, but
tell me how long ago it was that you became a man.
Before you came to Dublin, of course. Oh yes, long
before. It is very cold, she said, and shuddering dropped
her shirt over her shoulders and pulled on her trousers.

272

CHAP. XLVII.

IJfeg^iifttffa -iii tav*> hid* wtF »f*m> i\i rm^i n> 'r>;* *•••
IT was in London, soon after the death of my old nurse,
she began. You know I'm not Irish, Mr Page. My
parents may have been for all I know. The only one
who knew who they were was my old nurse and she
never told me. Never told you ! interjected Hubert. No,
she never told me, though I often asked her, saying no
good could come of holding it back from me. She might
have told me before she died but she died suddenly.
Died suddenly, Hubert repeated, without telling you
who you were ! You'd better begin at the beginning.

I don't know how I'm to do that, for the story seems
to me to be without a beginning ; anyway I don't know
the beginning. I was a bastard and no one but my old
nurse, who brought me up, knew who I was; she said
she'd tell me some day and she hinted more than once
that my people were grand folk, and I know she had a
big allowance from them for my education. Whoever
they were, a hundred a year was paid to her for my keep
and education, and all went well with us so long as my
parents lived, but when they died, the allowance was no
longer paid, and my nurse and myself had to go out to
work. It was all very sudden : one day the reverend
mother (I got my education at a convent school) told
me that Mrs Nobbs, my old nurse, had sent for me, and
the first news I had on coming home was that my parents
were dead and that we'd have to get our own living
henceforth. There was no time for picking and choosing.
We hadn't what would keep us till the end of the month
in the house, so out we had to go in search of work ;
and the first job that came our way was looking after
chambers in the Temple. We had three gentlemen to
look after, so there was eighteen shillings a week between
my old nurse and myself; the omnibus fares had to come

273

out of these wages, and to save sixpence a day we went
to live in Temple Lane. My old nurse didn't mind the
lane ; she had been a working woman all her life, but
with me it was different, and the change was so great
from the convent that I often thought I would sooner
die than continue to live amid rough people. There was
nothing wrong with them, they were honest enough,
but they were poor, and when one is very poor one lives
like the animals, indecently, and life without decency is
hardly bearable, so I thought. I've been through a
great deal since in different hotels, and have become
used to hard work, but even now I can't think of Temple
Lane without goose flesh, and when Mrs Nobbs' brother
lost his berth (he'd been a band-master, a bugler, or
something to do with music in the country), my old
nurse was obliged to give him sixpence a day, and the
drop from eighteen shillings to fourteen and sixpence
is a big one. My old nurse worried about the food,
but it was the rough men that I worried about ; the
bandsman wouldn't leave me alone, and many's the time
I've waited until the staircase was clear, afraid that if
I met him or another that I'd be caught hold of and
held and pulled about. I was different then from what I
am now and might have been tempted if one of them had
been less rough than the rest, and if I hadn't known I
was a bastard ; it was that, I think, that kept me straight
more than anything else, for I had just begun to feel
what a great misfortune it is for a poor girl to find her-
self in the family way ; no greater misfortune can befall
anyone in this world, but it would have been worse in
my case, for I should have known that I was only bringing
another bastard into the world.

I escaped being seduced in the lane and in the chambers
the barristers had their own mistresses, pleasant and con-
siderate men they all were — pleasant to work for ; and it
wasn't until four o'clock came and our work was over for

274

the day that my heart sank, for after four o'clock till we
went to bed at night there was nothing for us to do but to
listen to the screams of drunken women ; I don't know
which was the most revolting, the laughter or the curses.
One of the barristers we worked for was Mr Congreve ;
he had chambers in Temple Gardens overlooking the
river, and it was a pleasure to us to keep his pretty things
clean, never breaking one of them ; it was a pleasure for
my old nurse as well as myself, myself more than for her,
for though I wasn't very sure of myself at the time, looking
back now I can see that I must have loved Mr Congreve
very dearly ; and it couldn't be else for I had come out of
a convent of nuns where I had been given a good educa-
tion, where all was good, quiet, refined and gentle, and
Mr Congreve seemed in many ways to remind me of
the convent : for he never missed Church, as rare for
him to miss a service as for parson. There was plenty
of books in his chambers and he'd lend them to me,
and talk to me when I took in his breakfast over his
newspaper, and ask me about the convent and what the
nuns were like, and I'd stand in front of him, my eyes
fixed on him, not feeling the time going by. I can see
him now as plainly as if he were before me — very thin
and elegant, with long white hands and beautifully
dressed. Even in the old clothes that he wore of a
morning there wasn't much fault to find ; he wore old
clothes more elegantly than any man in the Temple
wore his new clothes. I used to know all his suits, as
well I might, for it was my job to look after them, to
brush them ; and I used to spend a great deal more time
than was needed taking out spots with benzine, arranging
his neckties — he had fifty or sixty, all kinds — and seven
or eight great coats. A real toff, my word he was that,
but not one of those haughty ones too proud to give
one a nod. He always smiled and nodded if we met
under the clock, he on his way to the library and I

275

returning to Temple Lane. I used to look after him,
saying: he's got on the striped trousers and the em-
broidered waistcoat. Mr Congreve was a compensa-
tion for Temple Lane ; he had promised to take me into
his private service and I was counting the days when I
should leave Temple Lane, when one day I said to myself:
why, here's a letter from a woman. You see, Mr Congreve
wasn't like the other young men in the Temple ; I never
found a hairpin in his bed, and if I had I shouldn't have
thought as much of him as I did. Nice is in France, I
said, and thought no more about the matter until another
letter arrived from Nice. Now what can she be writing
to him about ? I asked, and thought no more about it till
the third letter arrived. Yesterday is already more than
half forgotten, but the morning I took in that last letter
is always before me. And it was a few mornings after-
wards that a box of flowers came for him. A parcel for
you, sir, I said. He roused himself up in bed. For me ?
he cried, putting out his hand, and the moment he saw
the writing, he said : put the flowers in water. He knows
all about it, I said to myself, and so overcome was I as I
picked them up out of the box that I was seized with a
sudden faintness, and my old nurse said : what is the
matter with thee ? She never guessed, and I couldn't
have told her if I had wished to for at the time it was no
more than a feeling that so far as I -was concerned all was
over. Of course I never thought that Mr Congreve would
look at me, and I don't know that I wanted him to, but I
didn't want another woman about the place, and I seemed
to know from that moment what was going to happen.
She isn't far away now, in the train maybe, I said, as I
went about my work, and these rooms will be mine no
longer. Of course they never were mine, but you know
what I mean.

A week later he said to me : there's a lady coming to
luncheon here, and I remember the piercing that the

276

words caused me ; I can feel them here still, and Albert
put her hand to her heart. Well, I had to serve the
luncheon working round the table and they not minding
me at all, but sitting looking at each other lost in a sense
of delight : the luncheon was forgotten; they don't want
me waiting about, I said : I knew all this, and said to
myself in the kitchen : it's disgraceful, it's sinful, to lead
a man into sin, for all my anger went out against the
woman, and not against Mr Congreve, for in my eyes he
seemed to be nothing more than a victim of a designing
woman ; that is how I looked at it at the time, being
but a youngster only just come from a convent school.

I don't think that anyone suffered more than I did in
those days. It seems all very silly now when I look back
upon it, but it was very real then. It does seem silly to
tell that I used to lie awake all night thinking to myself
that Mr Congreve was an elegant gentleman and I but a
poor serving girl whom he could never look upon as any-
body, except one to go to the cellar for coal or to the
kitchen to fetch his breakfast. I don't think I ever
hoped he'd fall in love with me. It wasn't as bad as
that. It was the hopelessness of it that set the tears
streaming down my cheeks over my pillow, and I used to
stuff the sheet into my mouth to keep back the sobs lest
my old nurse should hear me ; it wouldn't do to keep her
awake for she was very ill at that time ; and soon after-
wards she died, and then I was left alone, without a friend
in the world. The only people I knew were the char-
women that lived in Temple Lane, and the bugler, who
began to bully me, saying that I must continue to give
him the same money he had had from my old nurse. He
caught me on the stair once and twisted my arm till I
thought he'd broken it. The month after my old nurse's
death till I went to earn my living as a waiter was the
hardest time of all, and Mr Congreve's kindness seemed
to hurt me more than anything. If he'd only spared me

277

his kind words, and not spoken about the extra money
he was going to give me for my attendance on his lady,
I shouldn't have felt so much that they had lain side by
side in the bed that I was making. She brought a dress-
ing gown to the chambers and some slippers, and then
more luggage came along ; and I think she must have
guessed I was in love with Mr Congreve, for I heard them
quarrelling — my name was mentioned ; and I said : I can't
put up with it any longer, whatever the next life may be
like, it can't be worse than this one for me at least, and
as I went to and fro between Temple Lane and the
Chambers in Temple Gardens I began to think how I
might make away with myself. I don't know if you know
London, Hubert? Yes, he said; I'm a Londoner, but I
come here to work every year. Then if you know the
Temple, you know that the windows of Temple Gardens
overlook the river. I used to stand at those windows
watching the big brown river flowing through its bridges,
thinking all the while of the sea into which it went, and
that I must plunge into the river and be borne away
down to the sea, or be picked up before I got there. It
didn't matter which, for my trouble would be over, and
that was all I could think about, making an end to my
trouble.

I couldn't get the Frenchwoman out of my thoughts,
she and Mr Congreve sitting together ; and her suspicions
that I cared for him made her harder on me than she
need have been — always coming the missis over me. It
was her airs and graces that stiffened my back more than
anything else. I'm sure if it hadn't been that I met
Bessie Lawrence I should have done away with myself.
She was the woman that used to look after the chambers
under Mr Congreve's. We stopped talking outside the
gateway by King's Bench Walk, if you know the Temple,
you know where I mean. Bessie kept talking, but I
wasn't listening, only catching a word here and there, not

278

waking up from the dream how to make away with my-
self till I heard the words : if I had a figure like yours.
As nobody had ever spoken about my figure before, I
said : now what has my figure got to do with it ? You
haven't been listening to me, she said, and I answered
that I had only missed the last few words. Just missed
the last few words, she said testily : you didn't hear
me telling you there is a big dinner at the Freemason's
Tavern to-night, and they're short of waiters. But what
has that got to do with my figure ? I asked. That shows,
she rapped out, that you haven't been listening to me.
Didn't I say that if it wasn't for my hips and bosom I'd
very soon be into a suit of evening clothes and getting
ten shillings for the job. But what has that got to do
with my figure ? I repeated. Your figure is just the one
for a waiter's. Oh, I'd never thought of that, says I,
and we said no more. But after leaving her the words
kept on in my head : so my figure is just the one for a
waiter's, till my eyes caught sight of a bundle of old
clothes that Mr Congreve had given me to sell. A suit
of evening clothes was in it. You see Mr Congreve
and myself were about the same height and build.
The trousers will want a bit of shortening, I said to
myself; and I set to work, and at six o'clock I was in
them and down at the Freemason's Tavern answering
questions, saying that I had been accustomed to waiting
at table.

All the waiting I had done was bringing in Mr
Congreve's dinner from the kitchen to the sitting-room ;
a roast chicken or a chop, and in my fancy it seemed to
me that the waiting at the Freemason's Tavern would be
much the same. The head waiter looked me over a bit
doubtfully and asked if I had had experience with public
dinners : I thought he was going to turn me down, but
they were short-handed so I was taken on, and it was a
mess that I made of it, getting in everybody's way ; but

279

my awkwardness was taken in good part and I received
ten shillings, which was good money for the sort of work
I did that night. But what stood to me was not so much
the ten shillings that I earned as the bit I had learned.
It was only a bit, not much bigger than a threepenny
bit ; but I had worked round a table at a big dinner, and
feeling certain that I could learn what I didn't know,
I asked for another job. I suppose the head waiter
could see that there was the making of a waiter in me,
for on coming out of the Freemason's Tavern he stopped
me to ask if I was going back to private service as soon
as I could get a place. The food I'd had and the
excitement of the dinner, the guests, the lights, the talk
stood to me, and things seemed clearer than they had
ever seemed before. My feet were of the same mind,
for they wouldn't walk towards the Temple, and I
answered the head waiter that I'd be glad of another
job. Well, said he, you don't know much about the
work, but you're an honest lad, I think, so I'll see
what I can do for you, and at the moment a thought
struck him. Just take this letter, said he, to the
Holborn Restaurant. There's a dinner there and I've
had word that they're short of a waiter or two. Be off
as fast as you can.

And away I went as fast as my legs could carry me,
and they took me there in good time, in front, by a
few seconds, of two other fellows who were after the
job. I got it. Another job came along, and another and
another. Each of them jobs was worth ten shillings
to me, to say nothing of the learning of the trade, and
having, as I've said, the making of a waiter in me, it
didn't take more than about three months for me to
be as quick and as smart and as watchful as the best
of them, and without them qualities no one will succeed
in waiting. I have worked round the tables in the
biggest places in London and all over England in all

280

the big towns, in Manchester, in Liverpool and Birming-
ham ; I am well known at the old Hen and Chickens, at
the Queen's and the Plough and Harrow in Birmingham.
It was seven years ago that I came here and here it
would seem that I've come to be looked on as a fixture,
for the Bakers are good people to work for and I didn't
like to leave them when, three years ago, a good place was
offered to me, so kind were they to me in my illness. I
suppose one never remains always in the same place, but
I may as well be here as elsewhere.

Seven years working in Morrison's Hotel, Page said, and
on the second floor ? Yes, the second floor is the best in
the hotel, the money is better than in the Coffee Room,
and that is why the Bakers have put me here. Albert
replied. I wouldn't care to leave them ; they've often
said they don't know what they'd do without me. Seven
years, Hubert repeated, the same work up the stairs and
down the stairs, banging into the kitchen and out again.
There's more variety in the work than you think for,
Hubert, Albert answered. Every family is different, and
so you're always learning. Seven years, Page repeated,
neither man nor woman, just a perhapser. He spoke these
words more to himself than to Nobbs, but feeling he had
expressed himself incautiously he raised his eyes and read
on Albert's face that the words had gone home, and that
this outcast from both sexes felt her loneliness perhaps
more keenly than before. As Hubert was thinking what
words he might use to conciliate Albert with her lot,
Albert repeated the words : neither man nor woman,
yet nobody ever suspected, she muttered, and never
would have suspected me till the day of my death if
it hadn't been for that flea that you brought in with you.
But what harm did the flea do ? I'm bitten all over, said
Albert, scratching her thighs. Never mind the bites,
said Hubert, we wouldn't have had this talk if it hadn't
been for the flea, and I shouldn't have heard your story.

281

Tears trembled on Albert's eyelids ; she tried to keep
them back, but they overflowed the lids and were soon
running quickly down her cheeks. You've heard my story,
she said. I thought nobody would ever hear it, and I
thought I should never cry again, and Hubert watched
the gaunt woman shaking with sobs under a coarse night-
shirt. It's all much sadder than I thought it was, and
if I'd known how sad it was I shouldn't have been able
to live through it. But I've jostled along somehow, she
said, always merry and bright, with never anyone to speak
to, not really to speak to, only to ask for plates and
dishes, for knives and forks and such like, tablecloths and
napkins, cursing betimes the life one has been through,
for the feeling cannot help coming over us, perhaps over
the biggest as over the smallest, that all our trouble is
for nothing and can end in nothing. It might have been
better if I had taken the plunge. But why am I thinking
these things ? It's you that has set me thinking, Hubert.

I'm sorry if Oh, it's no use being sorry, and I'm a

great silly to cry like this. I thought that regrets had
passed away with the petticoats. But you've awakened
the woman in me. You've brought it all up again. But
I mustn't let on like this; it's very foolish of an old
perhapser like me, neither man nor woman ! But I can't
help it.

She began to sob again, and in the midst of her grief
the word loneliness was uttered, and when the paroxysm
was over, Hubert said : lonely, yes, I suppose it is lonely,
and he put his hand out towards Albert. You're very
good, Mr Page, and I'm sure you'll keep my secret,
though indeed I don't care very much whether you
do or not. Now, don't let on like that again, Hubert
said. Let us have a little chat and try to understand
each other. I'm sure it's lonely for you to live without
man or without woman, thinking like a man and feeling
like a woman. You seem to know all about it, Hubert.

282

I hadn't thought of it like that before myself, but when
you speak the words I feel you have spoken the truth.
I suppose I was wrong to put off my petticoats and step
into those trousers. I wouldn't go so far as to say that,
Hubert answered, and the words were so unexpected
that Albert forgot her grief for a moment and said : why
do you say that, Hubert ? Well, because I was thinking,
he replied, that you might marry. But I was never a
success as a girl. Men didn't look at me then so I'm
sure they wouldn't now I'm a middle-aged woman.
Marriage ! whom should I marry ? No, there's no marriage
for me in the world, I must go on being a man. But you
won't tell on me, you've promised, Hubert. Of course
I won't -tell, but I don't see why you shouldn't marry.
What do you mean, Hubert? You aren't putting a joke
upon me, are you ? If you are it's very unkind. A joke
upon you ? no, Hubert answered. I didn't mean that you
should marry a man but you might marry a girl. Marry
a girl ? Albert repeated, her eyes wide open and staring.
A girl? Well, anyway, that's what I've done, Hubert
replied. But you're a young man and a very handsome
young man too. Any girl would like to have you, and
I daresay they were all after you before you met the
right girl. I'm not a young man, I'm a woman, Hubert
replied. Now I know for certain, cried Albert, you're
putting a joke upon me. A woman ! Yes, a woman, you
can feel for yourself if you don't believe me. Put your
hand under my shirt ; you'll find nothing there. Albert
moved away instinctively, her modesty having been
shocked. You see I offered myself like that feeling you
couldn't take my word for it. It isn't a thing there can
be any doubt about. Oh, I believe you, Albert replied,
And now that that matter is settled, Hubert began,
perhaps you'd like to hear my story, and without waiting
for an answer she related the story of her unhappy marriage :
her husband, a house-painter, had changed towards her

283

altogether after the birth of her second child, leaving her
without money for food and selling up the home twice.
At last I decided to have another cut at it, Hubert went
on, and catching sight of my husband's working clothes
one day I said to myself: he's often made me put these on
and go out and help him with his job, why shouldn't I put
them on for myself and go away for good ? I didn't like
leaving the children, but I couldn't remain with him. But
the marriage? Albert asked. It was lonely going home
to an empty room : I was as lonely as you, and one day,
meeting a girl as lonely as myself, I said: come along,
and we arranged to live together, each paying our share.
She had her work and I had mine, and between us we
made a fair living, and this I can say with truth that
we haven't known an unhappy hour since we married.
People began to talk so we had to. I'd like you to see
our home. I always return to my home after a job is
finished with a light heart and leave it with a heavy one.
But I don't understand, Albert said. What don't you
understand ? Hubert asked. Whatever Albert's thoughts
were, they faded from her, and her eyelids dropped over
her eyes. You're falling asleep, Hubert said, and I'm
doing the same. It must be three o'clock in the morning
and I've to catch the five-o'clock train. I can't think now
of what I was going to ask you, Albert muttered, but
you'll tell me in the morning, and turning over, she made
a place for Hubert.

CHAP. XLVIII.

WHAT has become of him ? Albert said, rousing herself,
and then, remembering that Hubert's intention was to
catch the early train, she began to remember. His train,

she said, started from Amien Street at I must have

slept heavily for him — for her not to have awakened me

284

or she must have stolen away very quietly. But, lord
amassy, what time is it? And seeing she had overslept
herself a full hour, she began to dress herself, muttering
all the while : such a thing never happened to me before.
And the hotel as full as it can hold. Why didn't they
send for me ? The missis had a thought of my bed-fellow,
mayhap, and let me sleep it out. I told her I shouldn't
close an eye till she left me. But I mustn't fall into the
habit of sheing him. Lord, if the missis knew every-
thing ! But I've overslept myself a full hour, and if
nobody has been up before somebody soon will be. The
greater the haste the less speed. All the same, despite
the difficulty of finding her clothes, Albert was at work
on her landing some twenty minutes after, running up and
down the stairs, preparing for the different breakfasts in the
half-dozen sitting-rooms given to her charge, driving every-
body before her, saying : we're late to-day, and the house
full of visitors. How is it that 54 isn't turned out ? Has
35 rung his bell? Lord, Albert, said a housemaid, I
wouldn't worry my fat because I was down late, once in a
way don't hurt. And sitting up half the night talking to
Mr Page, said another maid, and then rounding on us.
Half the night talking, Albert repeated. My bed-fellow !
Where is Mr Page ? I didn't hear him go away ; he may
have missed his train for aught I know. But do you be
getting on with your work, and let me be getting on with
mine. You're very cross this morning, Albert, the maid-
servant muttered, and retired to chatter with two other
maids who were looking over the banisters at the time.

Well, Mr Nobbs the head porter began, when Albert

came running downstairs to see some visitors off, and to
receive his tips : well, Mr Nobbs, how did you find your
bed-fellow ? Oh, he was all right, but I'm not used to
bed-fellows, and he brought a flea with him, and it kept
me awake ; and when I did fall asleep, I slept so heavily
that I was an hour late. I hope he caught his train.

But what is all this pother about bed-fellows? Albert
asked himself, as she returned to her landing. Page
hasn't said anything, no, she's said nothing, for we're both
in the same boat, and to tell on me would be to tell on

herself. I'd never have believed if Albert's modesty

prevented her from finishing the sentence. She's a
woman right enough. But the cheek of it, to marry an
innocent girl ! Did she let the girl into the secret, or
leave her to find it out when

This was a question one might ponder on, and by
luncheon time Albert was inclined to believe that Hubert

told her wife before She couldn't have had the cheek

to wed her, Albert said, without warning her that things
might not turn out as she fancied. Mayhap, Albert con-
tinued, she didn't tell her before they wedded and mayhap
she did, and being one of them like myself that isn't always
hankering after a man, she was glad to live with Hubert
for companionship. Albert tried to remember the exact
words that Hubert had used. It seemed to her that
Hubert had said that she lived with a girl first, and
wedded her to put a stop to people's scandal. Of course
they could hardly live together except as man and wife.
She remembered .Hubert saying that she always returned
home with a light heart and never left it without a heavy
one. So it would seem that this marriage was as successful
as any, and a great deal more than the majority.

At that moment 35 rang his bell. Albert hurried to
answer it, and several hours wore away before a moment
propitious to reverie occurred again.

It was late in the evening, between nine and ten o'clock,
when the guests were away at the theatres and concerts,
and nobody was about but two maids ; it was when these
had ceased to trouble her with chatter that Albert, with
her napkin over her shoulder, dozed and meditated on the
advice that Hubert had given her. She should marry,
Hubert had said; Hubert had married. Of course it

286

wasn't a real marriage, it couldn't be that, but a very
happy one it would seem. But the girl must have under-
stood that she was not marrying a man. Did Hubert tell
her before marriage or after marriage, and what were the
words ? It seemed to her she would give a great deal to
know the exact words. After all I've worked hard, she
said, and her thoughts melted away into a long meditation
of what her life had been for the last five and twenty
years, a mere drifting, it seemed to her to have been, from
one hotel to another, without friends ; meeting, it is true,
sometimes men and women who seemed willing to be
friendly. But her secret had forced her to live apart from
both sexes; the clothes she wore smothered the woman
within her ; she no longer thought and felt as she used
to when she was a woman, and she didn't think and feel
like a man ; a mere appearance, nothing more ; no wonder
she was lonely. But Hubert had put off her sex, so she
said, and the suspicion that she had put a joke upon her
rose up in her mind and died away into a long dream of
what her home was like. Why had she not asked for
particulars ?

That's 54 again, one of the maids called from the
end of the passage, and when Albert received 54's
order and executed it, she returned to her seat in the
passage, her napkin over her shoulder, and resumed her
reverie. It seemed to her that Hubert had mentioned
that her wife was a milliner; Hubert may not have
spoken the word milliner, but if she hadn't, it was strange
that the word should keep on coming up in her mind.
There was no reason why the wife shouldn't be a milliner,
and if that were so it was as likely as not they owned a
house in some quiet, insignificant street, letting the dining-
room, back room and kitchen to a widow or to a pair of
widows. The drawing-room was the workroom and show-
room ; Page and his wife slept in the room above. On
second thoughts it seemed to Albert that if the business

287

were millinery it might be that Mrs Page would prefer
the ground floor for her showroom. A third and fourth
distribution of the "premises" presented itself to Albert's
imagination. On thinking the matter over again it seemed
to her that Hubert had not spoken of a millinery business ;
that was a mistake ; she had said her wife was a seam-
stress. Now if that were so, a small dressmaker's business
in a quiet street would be in keeping with all Hubert
had said about the home. Albert was not sure, however,
that if she found a girl willing to share her life with her,
it would be a seamstress's business she would be on the
look-out for. She thought that a sweetmeat shop, news-
papers and tobacco would be her choice.

Why shouldn't she make a fresh start? Hubert had
foreseen no difficulties. She had said — Albert could
recall the very words — I didn't mean you should marry
a man, but a girl. She had saved, oh ! how she had tried
to save, for she didn't wish to end her days in the
workhouse. She had saved upwards of five hundred
pounds, which was quite enough to purchase a little
business, and her heart dilated as she thought of her two
successful investments in house property. In six months'
time she hoped to have six hundred pounds, and if it took
her two years to find a partner and a business, she would
have at least seventy or eighty pounds more, which would
be a great help, for it would be a mistake to put one's
money into a falling business. If she found a partner !
she'd have to do like Hubert; for marriage would put a
stop to all tittle-tattle ; she'd be able to keep her place
at Morrison's Hotel, or perhaps leave Morrison's and rely
on jobs; and with her connection it would be a case
of picking and choosing the best: ten and sixpence a
night, nothing under. She dreamed of a round. Belfast,
Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford rose up in her imagina-
tion, and after a month's absence, a couple of months
maybe, she would return home, her heart anticipating

288

a welcome — a real welcome, for though she would con-
tinue to be a man to the world, she would be a woman
to the dear one at home. With a real partner, one whose
heart was in the business, they might make as much
as two hundred pounds a year — four pounds a week !
And with four pounds a week their home would be as
pretty and happy as any in the city of Dublin. Two
rooms and a kitchen were what she foresaw. The
furniture began to creep into her imagination little by
little. A large sofa by the fireplace covered with a chintz !
But chintz dirtied quickly in the city ; a dark velvet sofa
might be more suitable. It would cost a great deal of
money, five or six pounds; and at that rate fifty pounds
wouldn't go very far, for they must have a fine double-
bed mattress ; and if they were going to do things in that
style, the home would cost them eighty pounds. With
luck these eighty pounds could be earned within the
next two years at Morrison's Hotel.

Albert ran over in her mind the tips she had re-
ceived : the people in 34> were leaving to-morrow. They
were always good for half-a-sovereign, and she decided
there and then that to-morrow's half-sovereign must
be put aside as a beginning of a sum of money for the
purchase of a clock to stand on a marble chimney-piece
or a mahogany chiffonier. A few days after she got a
sovereign from a departing guest, and it revealed a pair
of pretty candlesticks and a round mirror. Her tips were
no longer mere white and yellow metal stamped with
the effigy of a dead king or a living queen, but symbols
of the future life that awaited her. An unexpected
crown set her pondering on the colour of the curtains
in their sitting-room, and Albert became suddenly con-
scious that a change had come into her life : the show
was the same — carrying plates and dishes upstairs and
downstairs, and taking orders for drinks and cigars ;
but behind the show a new life was springing up — a

289

life strangely personal and associated with the life
without only in this much, that the life without was
now a vassal state paying tribute to the life within.
She wasn't as good a servant as heretofore. She knew
it. Certain absences of mind, that was all ; and the
servants as they went by with their dusters began to
wonder whatever Albert could be dreaming of.

It was about this time that the furnishing of the parlour
at the back of the shop was completed, likewise that of
the bedroom above the shop, and Albert had just entered
on another dream — a dream of a shop with two counters,
one at which cigars, tobacco, pipes and matches were
sold, and at the other all kinds of sweetmeats, a shop
with a door leading to her wife's parlour. A changing
figure the wife was in Albert's imagination, turning from
fair to dark, from plump to slender, but capturing
her imagination equally in all her changes ; some-
times she was accompanied by a child of three or four,
a boy, the son of a dead man, for in one of her dreams
Albert married a widow. In another and more frequent
dream she married a woman who had transgressed the
moral code and been deserted before the birth of her
child. In this case it would be supposed that Albert
had done the right thing, for after leading the girl astray
he had made an honest woman of her. Albert would
be the father in everybody's eyes except the mother's,
and she hoped that the child's mother would outgrow
all the memory of the accidental seed sown, as the-saying
runs, in a foolish five minutes.

A child would be a pleasure to them both, and a girl
in the family way appealed to her more than a widow ;
a girl that some soldier, the boot-boy or the hotel porter
had gotten into trouble; and Albert kept her eyes and
ears open, hoping to rescue from her precarious situation
one of those unhappy girls that were always cropping up
in Morrison's Hotel. Several had had to leave the hotel last

290

year but not one this year. But some revivalist meetings
were going to be held in Dublin. Many of our girls attend
them, and an unlucky girl will be in luck's way if we
should run across one another. Her thoughts passed into
a dream of the babe that would come into the world some
three or four months after their marriage, her little
soft hands and expressive eyes claiming their protection,
asking for it. What matter whether she calls me father
or mother ? They are but mere words that the lips speak,
but love is in the heart and only love matters.

CHAP. XLIX.

NOW whatever can Albert be brooding ? an idle house-
maid asked herself as she went by, flicking her duster. Is
he in love ? is he brooding a marriage ? Which of us ? or
perhaps it's some girl outside !

That Albert was brooding something, that there was
something on his mind, became the talk of the hotel, and
soon after it came to be noticed that Albert, who till now
had showed little desire to leave the hotel, was eager to
avail himself of every excuse to absent himself from duty
in the hotel. He had been seen in the smaller streets
looking up at the houses. He had saved a good deal
of money, and some of his savings were invested in house
property, so it was possible that his presence in these
streets might be explained by the supposition that he
was investing new sums of money in house property, or,
and it was the second suggestion that stimulated the
imagination, that Albert was going to be married and was
looking out for a house for his wife.

Albert had been seen talking with Annie Watts ; but
she was not in the family way after all, and despite her
wistful eyes and gentle voice she was not chosen. Her
heart is not in her work, Albert said ; she thinks only

291

of when she can get out, and that isn't the sort for a shop,
whereas Dorothy Keyes was a glutton for work, but Albert
couldn't abide the tall, angular woman, built like a boy,
with a neck like a swan's. Besides her unattractive appear-
ance, her manner was abrupt. But Alice's small, neat figure
and quick intelligence marked her out for the job. Alas !
Alice was hot-tempered. We should quarrel, Albert said,
and picking up her napkin, which had slipped from her
knee to the floor, she fell to thinking of the maids on
the floor above. A certain stateliness of figure and also
of gait put the thought into her mind that Mary O'Brien
would make an attractive shopwoman. But her second
thoughts were that Mary O'Brien was a Papist, and the
experience of Irish Protestants shows that Papists and
Protestants don't mix.

She had just begun to consider the next housemaid,
when a voice interrupted her musing. That lazy girl,
Annie Watts, on the look-out for an excuse to chatter the
time away instead of being about her work, were the words
that crossed Albert's mind as she raised her eyes, and so
unwelcoming were they that Annie in her nervousness
began to hesitate and stammer, unable for the moment to
find a subject, plunging at last, and rather awkwardly, into
the news of the arrival of the new kitchen-maid, Helen
Dawes, but never dreaming that the news could have any
interest for Albert. To her surprise, Albert's eyes lighted
up. Do you know her ? Annie asked. Know her ? Albert

answered. No, I don't know her, but At that moment

a bell rang. Oh, bother, Annie said, and while she moved
away idling along the banisters, Albert hurried down the
passage.

No. 47 wanted writing - paper and envelopes ; he
couldn't write with the pens the hotel furnished, would
Albert be so kind as to ask the page-boy to fetch some
J's. With pleasure, Albert said ; with pleasure. Would
you like to have the writing-paper and envelopes before

292

the boy returns with the pens, sir ? The visitor answered
that the writing-paper and envelopes would be of no use
to him till he had gotten the pens. With pleasure, sir ;
with pleasure ; and whilst waiting for the page to return
she passed through the swing doors and searched for a new
face among the different young women passing to and fro
between the white-aproned and white-capped chefs, bring-
ing the dishes to the great zinc counter that divided the
kitchen-maids and scullions from the waiters. She must
be here, she said, and returned again to the kitchen in the
hope of meeting the new-comer, Helen Dawes, who, when
she was found, proved to be very unlike the Helen Dawes
of Albert's imagination. A thick-set, almost swarthy girl
of three and twenty, rather under than above the medium
height, with white, even teeth, but unfortunately protrud-
ing, giving her the appearance of a rabbit. Her eyes
seemed to be dark brown, but on looking into them Albert
discovered them to be grey-green, round eyes that dilated
and flashed wonderfully while she talked. Her face
lighted up ; and there was a vindictiveness in her voice
that appeared and disappeared ; Albert suspected her,
and was at once frightened and attracted. Vindictiveness
in her voice ! How could such a thought have come
into my mind ? she said a few days after. A more kindly
girl it would be difficult to find. How could I have been
so stupid ? She is one of those, Albert continued, that
will be a success in everything she undertakes, and dreams
began soon after that the sweetstuff and tobacco shop
could hardly fail to prosper under her direction. One
thing was certain : nobody could befool that girl. A girl
with a head on her shoulders, she continued, is a pearl.
I shall feel certain when I am away at work everything
will be all right at home.

It's a pity that she isn't in the family way. It would
be pleasant to have a little one running about the shop
asking for lemon drops and to hear him calling ns father

293

and mother. And it was with a wrench that Albert
renounced for ever hope of a son. At that moment a
strange thought flitted across Albert's mind — after all, it
could not matter to her if Helen were to get into the
family way later, when they were settled. But she wasn't
sure that it wouldn't matter. It is a man always that
divides women, and sets the friendship of years at naught.
It might be better to choose an older woman ; it might
be better, but Albert was unable to keep herself from
asking Helen to walk out with her, and the next time
they met the words slipped out of her mouth : I shall be

off duty at three to-day, and if you're not engaged

I'm off duty at three, Helen answered. Are you engaged ?
Albert asked. Helen hesitated, it being the truth that
she had been and was still walking out with one of the
scullions, and was not sure how he'd look upon her
going out with another, even though that one was such a
harmless fellow as Albert Nobbs. Harmless in himself,
she thought, and with a good smell of money rising out of
his pockets, very different from Joe, who seldom had a
train fare upon him. But she hankered after Joe, and
wouldn't give Albert a promise till she had asked him.
Wants to walk out with you ? Why, he's never been
known to walk out with man, woman or child before.
Well, that's a good one ! I'd like to know what he's after,
and I'm not jealous ; you can go out with him, there's no
harm in Albert. I'm on duty : just go for a turn with
him. Poke him up and see what he's after, and take him
into a sweetshop and bring back a box of chocolates ;
we'll share them together. Do you like chocolates ? Helen
asked, and, her eyes flashing, she stood looking at Joe, who,
thinking that her temper was rising, and wishing to quell
it, asked hurriedly where she was going to meet him. At
the corner, she answered. He's there already. Then be
off, he said, and his tone grated. You wouldn't like me
to keep him waiting? Helen said. Oh, dear no, not for

294

Joe, not for Joseph, it' he knows it, the scullion replied,
lilting the song.

Helen turned away, hoping that none of the maids
would peach upon her, and Albert's heart rejoiced at
seeing her on the other side of the street waiting for
the tram to go by before she crossed it. Were you
afraid I wasn't coming ? she asked, and Albert, not
being ready with words, answered shyly: not very. A
stupid answer this seemed to be to Helen, and it was
in the hope of shuffling out of a tiresome silence that
Albert asked her if she liked chocolates. Something
under the tooth will help the time away, was the answer
she got; and they went in search of a sweetmeat shop,
Albert thinking that a shilling or one and sixpence would
see her through it. But in a moment Helen's eyes were all
over the shop, and spying out quickly some large pictured
boxes, she asked Albert if she might have one, and it being
their first day out, Albert answered, yes ; but she could
not keep back the words : I'm afraid they'd cost a lot.

Helen's face blackened, and she shook up her
shoulders disdainfully, so frightening Albert that she
pressed a second box on Helen — one to pass the time
with, another to take home. To such a show of good will
Helen felt she must respond and her tongue rattled on
pleasantly as she walked, crunching the chocolates, two
between each lamp-post, Albert stinting herself to one,
which she sucked slowly, hardly enjoying it at all, so
worried was she by the loss of three and sixpence. As
if Helen guessed the cause of Albert's disquiet, she called
on her suitor to admire the damsel on the box, but Albert
could not disengage her thoughts sufficiently from Helen's
expensive tastes. If every walk were to cost three and
sixpence there wouldn't be a lot left for the home in
six months' time. And she fell to calculating how
much it would cost her if they were to walk out once
a week. Three fours are twelve and four sixpences are

295

two shillings, fourteen shillings a month, twice that is
twenty-eight; twenty-eight shillings a month, that is
if Helen wanted two boxes a week. At this rate she'd
be spending sixteen pounds, sixteen shillings a year.
Lord amassy ! But perhaps Helen wouldn't want two
boxes of chocolates every time they went out to-
gether If she didn't, she'd want other things, and

catching sight of a jeweller's shop, Albert called Helen's
attention to a cyclist that had only just managed to
escape a tram car by a sudden wriggle. But Albert was
always unlucky. Helen had been wishing this long while
for a bicycle, and if she did not ask Albert to buy her
one it was because another jeweller's came into view.
She stopped to gaze, and for a moment Albert's heart
seemed to stand still, but Helen continued her choco-
lates, secure in her belief that the time had not yet come
for substantial presents.

At Sackville Street bridge she would have liked to
turn back, having little taste for the meaner parts of the
city, but Albert wished to show her the north side, and
she began to wonder what he could find to interest him
in these streets, and why he should stand in admiration
before all the small newspaper and tobacco shops, till she
remembered suddenly that he had invested his savings
in house property. Could these be his houses ? All his
own ? and, moved by this consideration, she gave a more
attentive ear to his account of the daily takings of these
shops.

Albert was a richer man than anybody believed him
to be, but he was a mean one. The idea of his thinking
twice about a box of chocolates ! I'll show him, and she
began to regret she had not stopped in front of a big
draper's shop in Sackville Street and asked him for a pair
of six-button gloves, and resolved to make amends for
her slackness, and ask Albert for a parasol the next
time they went out together. She needed one, and some

296

shoes and stockings, and a silk kerchief would not be
amiss, and at the end of the third month of their court-
ship it seemed to her that the time had come for her to
speak of bangles, saying that for three pounds she could
have a pretty one — one that would be a real pleasure to
wear, it would always remind her of him. Albert coughed
up with humility, and she felt that she had "got him," as
she put it to herself, and afterwards to Joe Mackins.

So he parted easily, Joe remarked, and pushing Helen
aside he began to whip up the remoulade, that had begun
to show signs of turning, saying he'd have the chef after
him. But I say, old girl, since he's coughing up so easily
you might bring me something back ; and a briar-wood
pipe and a pound or two of tobacco seemed the least she
might obtain for him. And Helen answered that to get
these she would have to ask Albert for money. And why
shouldn't you? Joe returned. Ask him for a thin 'un,
and mayhap he'll give you a thick 'un. It's the first quid
that's hard to get ; every time after it is like shelling peas.
Do you think he's that far gone on me? Helen asked.
Well, don't you ? Why should he give you these things
if he wasn't ? Joe answered.

Helen fell to thinking, Joe asked her of what she was
thinking, and she replied that it was difficult to say : she
had walked out with many a man before but never with
one like Albert Nobbs. In what way is he different ? Joe
asked. Helen was perplexed in her telling of Albert
Nobbs' slackness. You mean that he doesn't *pull you
about, Joe rapped out ; and she answered that there was
something of that in it. All the same, she continued,
that isn't the whole of it. I've been out before with
men that didn't pull me about, but he seems to have
something on his mind, and half the time he's thinking.
Well, what does it matter, Joe asked, so long as there
is coin in the pocket and so long as you have a hand to
pull it out? Helen didn't like this description of Albert

297

Nobbs' courtship, and the words rose to her lips to tell
Joseph that she didn't want to go out any more with
Albert, that she was tired of the job, but the words were
quelled on her lips by a remark from Joe. Next time
you go out with him work him up a bit and see what
he is made of; just see if there's a sting in him or if
he is no better than a capon. A capon ! And what is
a capon? she asked. A capon is a cut fowl. He may
be like one. She resolved to get at the truth of the
matter next time they went out together. It did seem
odd that he should be willing to buy presents and not
want to kiss her. In fact, it was more than odd. It
might be as Joe had said. I might as well go out with
my mother. Now what did it all mean ? Was it a blind ?

Some other girl that he Not being able to concoct

a sufficiently reasonable story, Helen relinquished the
attempt, without, however, regaining control of her
temper, which had begun to rise, and which continued
to boil up in her and overflow till her swarthy face was
almost ugly. I'm beginning to feel ugly towards him, she

said to herself. He is either in love with me or he's

And trying to discover his purpose, she descended the
staircase, saying to herself: now Albert must know that
I'm partial to Joe Mackins. It can't be that he doesn't
suspect. Well, I'm damned.

CHAP. L.

BUT Helen's perplexity on leaving the hotel was no
greater than Albert's as she stood waiting by the kerb.
She knew that Helen carried on with Joe Mackins,
and she also knew that Joe Mackins had nothing to
offer Helen but himself. She even suspected that
some of the money she had given to Helen had gone
to purchase pipes and tobacco for Joe : a certain shrewd-

ness is not inconsistent with innocence, and it didn't
trouble her much that Helen was perhaps having her fling
with Joe Mackins. She didn't want Helen to fall into evil
ways, but it was better for her to have her fling before
than after marriage. On the other hand, a woman that
has been bedded might be dissatisfied to settle down with
another woman, though the home offered her was better
than any she could get from a man. She might hanker
after children, which was only natural, and Albert felt
that she would like a child as well as another. A child
might be arranged for if Helen wanted one, but it would
never do to have the father hanging about the shop : he
would have to be got rid of as soon as Helen was in the
family way. But could he be got rid of ? Not very easily
if Joe Mackins was the father ; she foresaw trouble and
would prefer another father, almost any other. But why
trouble herself about the father of Helen's child before
she knew whether Helen would send Joe packing, which
she'd have to do clearly if they were to wed — she and
Helen. Their wedding was what she had to look to,
whether she should confide her sex to Helen to-night
or wait. Why not to-night as well as to-morrow night ?
she asked herself. But how was she to tell it to Helen ?
Blurt it out — I've something to tell you, Helen. I'm
not a man, but a woman like yourself. No, that wouldn't
do. How did Hubert tell her wife she was a woman ?
If she had only asked she'd have been spared all this
trouble. After hearing Hubert's story she should have
said : I've something to ask you, but sleep was so heavy
on their eyelids that they couldn't think any more and
both of them were falling asleep, which wasn't to be
wondered at, for they had been talking for hours. It was
on her mind to ask how her wife found out. Did Hubert

tell her or did the wife Albert's modesty prevented

her from pursuing the subject ; and she turned on herself,
saying that she could not leave Helen to find out she

299

was a woman ; of that she was certain, and of that only.
She'd have to tell Helen that. But should the confession
come before they were married, or should she reserve it
for the wedding night in the bridal chamber on the edge
of the bed afterwards. If it were not for Helen's violent

temper And she fell to thinking : I in my nightshirt,

she in her nightgown. On the other hand, she might
quieten down after an outburst and begin to see that it
might be very much to her advantage to accept the situa-
tion, especially if a hope were held out to her of a child
by Joe Mackins in two years' time ; she'd have to agree to
wait till then, and in two years Joe would probably be
after another girl. But if she were to cut up rough and
do me an injury ! Helen might call the neighbours in,
or the policeman, who'd take them both to the station.
She'd have to return to Liverpool or to Manchester. She
didn't know what the penalty would be for marrying one
of her own sex. She'd have to catch the morning boat.

One of the advantages of Dublin is that one can get
out of it as easily as out of any other city. Steamers were
always leaving, morning and evening ; she didn't know
how many, but a great many. On the other hand, if she
took the straight course and confided her sex to Helen
before the marriage, Helen might promise not to tell;
but she might break her promise ; life in Morrison's
Hotel would be unendurable, and she'd have to endure
it. What a hue and cry ! But one way was as bad as
the other. If she had only asked Hubert Page, but she
hadn't a thought at the time of going to do likewise.
What's one man's meat is another man's poison, and she
began to regret Hubert's confession to her. If it hadn't
been for that flea she wouldn't be in this mess ; and she
was deep in it! Three months' company isn't a day,
and everybody in Morrison's Hotel asking whether she
or Joe Mackins would be the winner, urging her to
make haste else Joe would come with a rush at the

300

finish. A lot of racing talk that she didn't understand — or

only half. If she could get out of this mess somehow

But it was too late. She must go through with it. But
how ? A different sort of girl altogether was needed, but
she liked Helen. Her way of standing on the doorstep,
her legs a little apart, jawing a tradesman, and she'd
stand up to Mrs Baker and to the chef himself. She
liked the way Helen's eyes lighted up when a thought
came into her mind; her cheery laugh warmed Albert's
heart as nothing else did. Before she met Helen she
often feared her heart was growing, cold. She might
try the world over and not find one that would run the
shop she had in mind as well as Helen. But the shop
wouldn't wait, and at that moment she remembered the
letter she had received yesterday : the owners of the
shop would withdraw their offer if it was not accepted
before next Monday.

And to-day is Friday, Albert said to herself. This
evening or never. To-morrow she'll be on duty all day ;
on Sunday she'll contrive some excuse to get out to meet
Joe Mackins. After all, why not this evening ? for what
must be had better be faced bravely ; and while the tram
rattled down the long street, Rathmines Avenue, past
the small houses atop of high steps, pretty boxes with
ornamental trees in the gardens, some with lawns, with
here and there a more substantial house set in the middle
of three or four fields at least, Albert meditated, plan
after plan rising up in her mind ; and when the car
turned to the right and then to the left, and proceeded
at a steady pace up the long incline, Rathgar Avenue,
Albert's courage was again at ebb. All the subterfuges
she had woven — the long discussion in which she
would maintain that marriage should not be considered
as a sexual adventure, but a community of interests —
seemed to have lost all significance ; the points that had
seemed so convincing in Rathmines Avenue were for-

301

gotten in Rathgar Avenue, and at Terenure she came to
the conclusion that there was no use trying to think the
story out beforehand ; she would have to adapt her ideas
to the chances that would arise as they talked under the
trees in the dusk in a comfortable hollow, where they
could He at length out of hearing of the other lads and
lasses whom they would find along the banks, resting
after the labour of the day in dim contentment, vaguely
conscious of each other, satisfied with a vague remark, a
kick or a push.

It was the hope that the river's bank would tempt
him into confidence that had suggested to Helen that
they might spend the evening by the Dodder. Albert
had welcomed the suggestion, feeling sure that if there
was a place in the world that would make the telling of
her secret easy it was the banks of the Dodder; and
she was certain she would be able to speak it in the
hollow under the ilex-trees. But speech died from her
lips, and the silence round them seemed sinister and
foreboding. She seemed to dread the river flowing over
its muddy bottom, without ripple or eddy ; and she started
when Helen asked her of what she was thinking. Albert
answered : of you, dear ; and how pleasant it is to be
sitting with you. On these words the silence fell again,
and Albert tried to speak, but her tongue was too
thick in her mouth ; she felt like choking, and the
silence was not broken for some seconds, each seeming
a minute. At last a lad's voice was heard : I'll see
if you have any lace on your drawers ; and the lass
answered : you sha'n't. There's a pair that's enjoy-
ing themselves, Helen said, and she looked upon the
remark as fortunate, and hoped it would give Albert
the courage to pursue his courtship.

Albert, too, looked upon the remark as fortunate, and she
tried to ask if there was lace on all women's drawers ; and
meditated a reply that would lead her into a confession of

302

her sex. But the words : .it's so long since I've worn any,
died on her lips ; and instead of speaking these words she
spoke of the Dodder, saying : what a pity it isn't nearer
Morrison's. Where would you ha^e it ? Helen replied —
flowing down Sackville Street into the Liffey ? We should
be lying there as thick as herrings, without room to move,
or we should be unable to speak to each other without
being overheard. I dare say you are right, Albert an-
swered, and she was so frightened that she added : but
we have to be back at eleven o'clock, and it takes an hour
to get there. We can go back now if you like, Helen
rapped out. Albert apologised, and hoping that some-
thing would happen to help her out of her difficulty,
she began to represent Morrison's Hotel as being on the
whole advantageous to servants. But Helen did not
respond. She seems to be getting angry and angrier,
Albert said to herself, and she asked, almost in despair,
if the Dodder was pretty all the way down to the sea.
Helen, remembering a walk she had been with Joe,
answered : there are woods as far as Dartry — the Dartry
Dye Works, don't you know them ? But I don't think
there are any very pretty spots. You know Ring's End,
don't you? Albert said he had been there once; and
Helen spoke of a large three-masted vessel that she had
seen some Sundays ago by the quays. You were there
with Joe Mackins, weren't you ? Well, what if I was ?
Only this, Albert answered, that I don't think it is
usual for a girl to keep company with two chaps, and I

thought Now, what did you think ? she said. That

you didn't care for me well enough For what ? she

asked. You know we've been going out for three
months, and it doesn't seem natural to keep talking
always, never wanting to put your arm round a girl's
waist. I suppose Joe isn't like me then ? Albert asked ;
and she laughed, a scornful little laugh. But, Albert
went on, isn't the time for kissing when one is wedded?

303

This is the first time you've said anything about marriage,
Helen rapped out. But I thought there had always been
an understanding between us, said Albert. It is only now
that I'm able to tell you what I have to offer you. The
words were well chosen, and the girl's anger at Albert's
neglect was lost sight of. Tell me about it, she said,
her eyes and voice revealing her cupidity to Albert,
who continued all the same to unfold her plans, losing
herself in details that bored Helen, whose thoughts
returned to the dilemma she was in — to refuse Albert's
offer or to break with Joe ; and that she should be
obliged to do either one or the other was a disappoint-
ment to her. All you say about the shop is right enough,
but it isn't a very great compliment to a girl. What,
to ask her to marry? Albert interjected. Well, no,
not if you haven't kissed her first. Don't speak so loud,
Albert whispered ; I'm sure that couple heard what you
said, for they went away laughing. I don't care whether
they laughed or cried, Helen answered. You don't want
to kiss me, do you ? and I don't want to marry a man who
isn't in love with me. But I do want to kiss you, and
Albert bent down and kissed Helen on both cheeks.
Now you can't say I haven't kissed you, can you ? You
don't call that kissing, do you ? she asked. But how do
you wish me to kiss you, Helen? Well, you are an
innocent, she said, and she kissed Albert vindictively.
Helen, leave go of me ; I'm not used to such kisses.
Because you're not in love, Helen replied. In love?
Albert repeated. I loved my old nurse very much, but I
never wished to kiss her like that. At this Helen ex-
ploded with laughter. So you put me in the same class
as your old nurse ! Well, after that ! Come, she said,
taking pity upon him for a moment, are you or are you
not in love with me? I love you deeply, Helen, Albert
said. Love ? she repeated : the men who have walked
out with me were in love with me In love, Albert

304

repeated after her. I'm sure I love you. I like men to
be in love with me, she answered. But that's like an
animal, Helen. Whatever put all that muck in your
head ? I'm going home, she replied, and rose to her feet
and started out on the path leading across the darkening
fields. You're not angry with me, Helen ? Angry ? No,
I'm not angry with you ; you're a fool of a man, that's
all. But if you think me a fool of a man, why did you
come out this evening to sit under those trees? And
why have we been keeping company for the last three
months, Albert asked, going out together every week ?
You didn't always think me a fool of a man, did you ?
Yes, I did, she answered ; and Albert asked her for a
reason for choosing his company. Oh, you bother me
asking reasons for everything, Helen said. But why did
you make me love you? Albert continued. Well, if I
did, what of it? and as for walking out with you, you
won't have to complain of that any more. You don't
mean, Helen, that we are never going to walk out again ?
Yes, I do, she said sullenly. You mean that for the future
you'll be walking out with Joe Mackins, Albert lamented.
That's my business, she answered. By this time they
were by the stile at the end of the field, and in the next
field there was a hedge to get through and a wood, and
the little path they followed was full of such vivid re-
membrances that Albert could not believe that she was
treading it with Helen for the last time, and besought
her to take back the words that she would never walk out
with him again.

CHAP. LI.

THE tram was nearly empty and they sat at the far end,
close together, Albert beseeching her not to cast her off.
If I've been stupid to-day, Albert pleaded, it's because

305

I'm tired of the work in the hotel ; I shall be different
when we get to Lisdoonvarna : we both want a change of
air ; there's nothing like the salt water and the cliffs of
Clare to put new spirits into a man. You will be different
and I'll be different ; everything will be different. Don't
say no, Helen ; don't say no. I've looked forward to this
week in Lisdoonvarna. But Helen could not hold out
hopes that she would go to Lisdoonvarna, and Albert urged
the expense of the lodgings he had already engaged. We
shall have to pay for the lodgings ; and there's the new
suit of clothes that has just come back from the tailor's;
I've looked forward to wearing it, walking with you in
the strand, the waves crashing up into cliffs, with green
fields among them, I've been told ! We shall see the
ships passing and wonder whither they are going. I've
bought three neckties and some new shirts, and what good
will these be to me if you'll not come to Lisdoonvarna
with me ? The lodgings will have to be paid for, a great
deal of money, for I said in my letter we shall want two
bedrooms. But there need only be one bedroom, but
perhaps I shouldn't have spoken like that. Oh, don't
talk to me about Lisdoonvarna, Helen answered. I'm
not going to Lisdoonvarna with you. But what is to be-
come of the hat I've ordered for you? Albert asked ; the
hat with the big feather in it ; and I've bought stockings
and shoes for you. Tell me, what shall I do with these,
and with the gloves ? Oh, the waste of money and the
heart-breaking! What shall I do with the hat? Albert
repeated. Helen didn't answer at once. Presently she
said : you can leave the hat with me. And the stockings ?
Albert asked. Yes, you can leave the stockings. And
the shoes ? Yes, you can leave the shoes too. Yet you
won't go to Lisdoonvarna with me ? No, she said, I'll
not go to Lisdoonvarna with you. But you'll take the
presents? It was to please you I said I would take
them, because I thought it would be some satisfaction
u

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to you to know that they wouldn't be wasted. Not
wasted ? Albert repeated. You'll wear them when you go
out with Joe Mackins. Oh, well, keep your presents.
And then the dispute took a different turn, and was
continued till they stepped out of the tram at the top of
Dawson Street. Albert continued to plead all the way
down Dawson Street, and when they were within twenty
yards of the hotel, and she saw Helen passing away from
her for ever into the arms of Joe Mackins, she begged her
not to leave her. We cannot part like this, she cried ; let
us walk up and down the street from Nassau Street to
Clare Stfeet, so that we may talk things over and do
nothing foolish. You see, Albert began, I had set my
heart on driving on an outside car to the Broadstone with
you, and catching a train, and the train going into lovely
country, arriving at a place we had never seen, with cliffs,
and the sunset behind the cliffs. You've told all that
before, Helen said, and, she rapped out, I'm not going to
Lisdoonvarna with you. And if that is all you had to say
to me we might have gone into the hotel. But there's
much more, Helen. I haven't told you about the shop
yet. Yes, you have told me all there is to tell about the
shop ; you've been talking about that shop for the last
three months. But, Helen, it was only yesterday that I
got a letter saying that they had had another offer for the
shop and that they could give me only till Monday morn-
ing to close with them ; if the lease isn't signed by then
we've lost the shop. But do you think, Helen asked,
that the shop will be a success? Many shops promise
well in the beginning and fade away till they don't get a
customer a day.

Albert welcomed this show of interest in her project
and, hoping to turn Helen's thoughts from Joe Mackins,
she began an appraisement of the shop's situation and
the custom it commanded in the neighbourhood and the
possibility of developing that custom. We shall be able

307

to make a great success of that shop, and people will be
coming to see us, and they will be having tea with us in
the parlour, and they'll envy us, saying that never have
two people had such luck as we have had. And our

wedding will be Will be what ? Helen asked. Will

be a great wonder. A great wonder, indeed, she replied,
but I'm not going to wed you, Albert Nobbs, and now 1
see it's beginning to rain. I can't remain out any longer.
You're thinking of your hat ; I'll buy another. We may as
well say good-bye, she answered, and Albert saw her going
towards the doorway. She'll see Joe Mackins before she
goes to her bed, and lie dreaming of him ; and I shall lie
awake in my bed, my thoughts flying to and fro the live-
long night, zigzagging up and down like bats.

And then, remembering that if she went into the hotel
she might meet Helen and Joe Mackins, she rushed on
with a hope in her mind that after a long walk round
Dublin she might sleep,

CHAP. LII.

AT the corner of Clare Street, she met two women
strolling after a fare — ten shillings or a sovereign, which ?
she asked herself — and, terrified by the shipwreck of all
her hopes, she wished that she were one of them. They

at least are women, whereas I am but a perhapser

In the midst of her grief a wish to speak to them took
hold of her. But if I speak to them they'll expect
me to

All the same her steps quickened, and as she passed the
two street-walkers she looked round, and one woman,
wishing to attract her attention, said : it was almost a love
dream.

Almost a love dream? Albert repeated. What are
you two women talking about? and the woman next to

308

Albert said : my friend here was telling me of a dream
she had last night. A dream, and what was her dream
about? Albert asked. Annie was telling me that she
was better than a love dream, now do you think she is,
sir? I'll ask Annie herself, Albert replied, and Annie
answered him : a shade. Only a shade, Albert returned,
and they crossed the street together.

At the corner of Merrion Square a gallant presented
himself; he attached himself to Annie's companion, and
Albert and Annie were left together.

You haven't told me your name, Albert said, in
a sudden inspiration. My name is Kitty MacCan, the
girl replied. It's odd we've never met before, Albert
replied, hardly knowing what she was saying. We're not
often this way, was the answer. And where do you walk
usually — of an evening ? Albert asked. In Grafton Street
or down by College Green ; sometimes we cross the river.
To walk in Sackville Street, Albert interjected; and
he tried to lead the woman into a story of her life. But
you're not one of them, she said, that think that we
should wash clothes in a nunnery for nothing? Oh no,
Albert answered. I'm a waiter in Morrison's Hotel, and,
much relieved, the woman began to talk more freely.
As soon as the name of Morrison's Hotel passed Albert's
lips she began to regret having spoken about herself.
But what did it matter now? and the woman didn't seem
to have taken heed of the name of the hotel. Is the
money good in your hotel? she asked; I've heard that
you get as much as half-a-crown for carrying up a cup
of tea, and Kitty's story dribbled out in remarks, a simple
story that Albert tried to listen to, but her attention
wandered, and Kitty, who was not unintelligent, began
to guess Albert to be in the middle of some great grief.
It doesn't matter about me, Albert answered her, and
Annie being a kind girl said to herself: if I can get him
to come home with me I'll help him out of his sorrow, if

309

only for a little while. So she continued to try to interest
him in herself till they came to Fitzwilliarn Place ; and it
was not till then that Annie remembered she had only
three and sixpence left out of the last money she had
received, and that her rent would be due on the morrow.
She daren't return home without a gentleman, her landlady
would be at her, and the best time of the night was going
by talking to a man who seemed like one who would bid
her a curt good-night at the door of his hotel. Where
did he say his hotel was? she asked herself; and then,
aloud, she said : you're a waiter, aren't you ? I've forgotten
which hotel you said. Albert didn't answer, and, troubled
by her companion's silence, she continued : I'm afraid I'm
taking you out of your way. No, you aren't ; all ways are
the same to me. Well, they aren't to me, she replied. I
must get some money to-night. I'll give you some money,
Albert said. But won't you come home with me? the girl
asked. Albert hesitated, tempted by her company. But
if they were to go home together her sex would be dis-
covered. But what did it matter if it were discovered ?
Albert asked herself, and the temptation came again to
go home with this woman, to lie in her arms and tell
the story that had been locked up so many years. They
could both have a good cry together, and what matter
would it be to the woman as long as she got the money
she desired. She didn't want a man ; it was money she
was after, money that meant bread and board to her.
She seems a kind, nice girl, Albert said, and he was about
to risk the adventure when a man came by whom Kitty
knew. Excuse me, she said, and Albert saw them walk
away together. I'm sorry, said the woman, returning,
but I've just met an old friend ; another evening, perhaps.
Albert would have liked to put her hand in her pocket
and pay the woman with some silver for her company,
but she was already half-way back to her friend, who
stood waiting for her by the lamp-post. The street-

310

walkers have friends, and when they meet them their
troubles are over for the night ; but my chances have
gone by me ; and, checking herself in the midst of the
irrelevant question, whether it were better to be casual,
as they were, or to have a husband that you could not
get rid of, she plunged into her own grief, and walked
sobbing through street after street, taking no heed of
where she was going.

CHAP. LIII.

YOU can see the poor creature, Alec, walking through the
city back and forth, crossing the bridges, any whither, no
whither, distracted by grief, till at last fatigue brought
her to the door of Morrison's Hotel.

Why, lord, Mr Nobbs, whatever has kept you out
until this hour ? the hall porter muttered. I'm sorry, she
answered, and while stumbling up the stairs she remem-
bered that even a guest was not received very amiably by
the hall porter after two ; and for a servant to come in at
that time ! Her thoughts broke off and she lay too tired
to think any more of the hall porter, of herself, of any-
thing ; and when the time came for her to go to her work
she rose indifferently.

Her work saved her from thinking, and it was not until
the middle of the afternoon, when the luncheon-tables had
been cleared, that the desire to see and to speak to Helen
could not be put aside ; but Helen's face wore an ugly,
forbidding look, and Albert returned to the second floor
without speaking to her. It was not long after that
34> rang his bell, and Albert hoped to get an order
that would send her to the kitchen. Are you going to
pass me by without speaking again, Helen ? We talked
enough last night, Helen retorted ; there's nothing more
to say, and Joe, in such disorder of dress as behooves a

311

scullion, giggled as he went past, carrying a huge pile of
plates. I loved my old nurse, but I never thought of
kissing her like that, he said, turning on his heel and so
suddenly that some of the plates fell with a great clatter.
The ill luck that had befallen him seemed well deserved,
and Albert returned upstairs and sat in the passages
waiting for the sitting-rooms to ring their bells ; and the
housemaids, as they came about the head of the stairs
with their dusters, wondered how it was that they could
not get any intelligible conversation out of the love-
stricken waiter. Her lovelorn appearance checked their
mirth, pity entered their hearts, and they kept back the
words : I loved my old nurse, etc.

After all, he loves the girl, one said to the other, and a
moment after, they were joined by another housemaid, who,
after listening for a while, went away, saying : there's no
torment like the love torment ; and the three housemaids,
Mary, Alice and Dorothy, offered Albert their sympathy,
trying to lead her into little talks with a view to with-
drawing her from the contemplation of her own grief, for
women are always moved by a love story. Before long
their temper turned against Helen, and they often went
by asking themselves why she should have kept company
with Albert all these months if she didn't mean to
wed him.

No wonder the poor man was disappointed. He is
destroyed with his grief, said one ; look at him, without
any more colour in his face than is in my duster.
Another said : he doesn't swallow a bit of food. And the
third said : I poured out a glass of wine for him that was
left over, but he put it away. Isn't love awful.? But
what can he see in her ? another asked, a stumpy, swarthy
woman, a little blackthorn bush and as full of prickles ;
and the three women fell to thinking that Albert would
have done better to have chosen one of them.

The shop entered into the discussion soon after, and

312

everybody was of opinion that Helen would live to regret
her cruelty. The word cruelty did not satisfy ; treachery
was mentioned, and somebody said that Helen's face was
full of treachery. Albert will never recover himself as long
as she's here, another remarked. He'll just waste away
unless Miss Right comes along. He put all his eggs into
one basket, a man said ; you see he'd never been known to
walk out with a girl before. And what age do you think
he is ? I put him down at forty-five, and when love takes a
man at that age it takes him badly. This is no calf love,
the man said, looking into the women's faces, and you'll
never be able to mend matters any of you ; and they all
declared they didn't wish to, and dispersed in different
directions, flicking their dusters and asking themselves if
Albert would ever look at another woman.

It was felt generally that he would not have the
courage to try again, which was indeed the case, for when
it was suggested to Albert that a faint heart never wins
a fair lady she answered that her spirit was broken. I
shall boil my pot and carry my can, but the spring is
broken in me, and it was these words that were re-
membered and pondered, whereas the joke — I loved
my old nurse, etc. —raised no laugh ; and the sympathy
that Albert felt to be gathering about her cheered her
on her way. She was no longer friendless ; almost any
one of the women in the hotel would have married
Albert out of pity for her. But there was no heart in
Albert for another adventure ; nor any thought in her for
anything but her work. She rose every morning and
went forth to her work, and was sorry when her work was
done, for she had come to dread every interval, knowing
that as soon as she sat down to rest the old torment would
begin again. Once more she would begin to think that
she had nothing more to look forward to: that her life
would be but a round of work ; a sort of treadmill. She
would never see Lisdoonvarna, and the shop with two

313

counters, one at which tobacco, cigarettes and matches
were sold, and at the other counter all kinds of sweet-
stuffs. Like Lisdoonvarna, it had passed away, it had only
existed in her mind — a thought, a dream. Yet it had
possessed her completely ; and the parlour behind the
shop that she had furnished and refurnished, hanging a
round mirror above the mantelpiece, papering the walls
with a pretty colourful paper that she had seen in
Wicklow Street and had asked the man to put aside for
her. She had hung curtains about the windows in her
imagination, and had set two arm-chairs on either side
of the hearth, one in green and one in red velvet, for her-
self and Helen. The parlour too had passed away like
Lisdoonvarna, like the shop, a thought, a dream, no more.
There had never been anything in her life but a few
dreams, and henceforth there would be not even dreams.
It was strange that some people came into the world
lucky, and others, for no reason, unlucky ; she had been
unlucky from her birth ; she was a bastard ; her parents
were grand people whose name she did not know, who
paid her nurse a hundred a year to keep her, and who
died without making any provision for her. She and her
old nurse had to go and live in Temple Lane, and to go
out charing every morning; Mr Congreve had a French
mistress, and if it had not been for Bessie Lawrence she
might have thrown herself in the Thames : she was very
near to it that night, and if she had drowned herself all
this worry and torment would have been over. She was
more resolute in those days than she was now, and would
have faced the river, but she shrank from this Dublin
river, perhaps because it was not her own river. If one
wishes to drown oneself it had better be in one's own
country. It is a mistake, she said, to settle in a foreign
country. But why is it a mistake ? for a perhapser like
herself, all countries were the same ; go or stay, it didn't
matter. Yes, it did; she stayed in Dublin in the hope

314.

that Hubert Page would return to the hotel. Only to
him could she confide the misfortune that had befallen
her, and she'd like to tell somebody. The three might
set up together. A happy family they might make. Two
women in men's clothes and one in petticoats. If Hubert
were willing. But Hubert's wife might not be willing.
If Hubert's wife were dead ! Ah ! She had never been
so long away before. But she would return, and Albert
pondered that her own prospects of being allowed to go
and live with somebody depended upon the money she
could show.

And from that moment her life expended itself in
watching for tips, collecting half-crowns, crowns and half-
sovereigns. She felt that she must at least replace the
money that she had spent giving presents to Helen — and
as the months went by and the years, she remembered,
with increasing bitterness, that she had wasted nearly
twenty pounds — on Helen — a cruel, heartless girl that had
come into her life for three months and had left her for
Joe Mackins, and Albert thanked God that they were now
away in London.

She took to counting her money in her room at night.
The half-crowns were folded up in brown-paper packets,
the half-sovereigns in blue, the rare sovereigns were in
pink paper and all these little packets were hidden away
in different corners ; some were put in the chimney, some
under the carpet. She often thought that these hoards
would be safer in the Post Office Bank, but she who has
nothing else likes to have her money with her, and a sense
of almost happiness awoke in her when she discovered
herself to be again as rich as she was before she met
Helen.

It was found necessary to remove a plank from the floor ;
one behind the bed was chosen, and henceforth Albert
slept securely over her hoard, or lay awake thinking of
Hubert, who might return, and to whom she might confide

315

the story of her misadventure ; but as Hubert did not
return her wish to see him faded, and she began to think
that it might be just as well if he stayed away, for, who
knows ? a wandering fellow like him might easily run out
of his money and return to Morrison's Hotel to borrow
from her, and she wasn't going to give her money to be
spent for the benefit of another woman. The other
woman was Hubert's wife. If Hubert came back he might
threaten to publish her secret if she didn't give him money
to keep it. An ugly thought, of which she was ashamed
and which she tried to keep out of her mind. But as
time went on a dread of Hubert took possession of her.
After all, Hubert knew her secret, and somehow it didn't
occur to her that in betraying her secret Hubert would be
betraying his own. Albert didn't think as clearly as she
used to ; and one day she answered Mrs Baker in a manner
that Mrs Baker did not like. Whilst speaking to Albert
the thought crossed Mrs Baker's mind that it was a long
while since they had seen the painter. I cannot think,
she said, what has become of Hubert Page ; we've not had
news of him for a long time ; have you heard from him,
Albert ? Why should you think, ma'am, that I hear from
him? I only asked, Mrs Baker replied, and she heard
Albert mumbling something about a wandering fellow,
and the tone in which the words were spoken was dis-
respectful, and Mrs Baker began to consider Albert ; and
though a better servant now than he had ever been in
some respects, he had developed a fault which she didn't
like, a way of hanging round the visitor as he was
preparing to leave the hotel that almost amounted to
persecution. Worse than that, a rumour had reached
her that Albert's service was measured according to the
tip he expected to receive. She didn't believe it, but if
it were true she would not hesitate to have him out of the
hotel in spite of the many years he had spent with them.
Another thing : Albert was liked, but not by everybody.

316

The little red-headed boy on the second floor told me,
Mrs Baker said (her thoughts returning to last Sunday,
when she had taken the child out to Bray) that he was
afraid of Albert, and he confided to me that Albert had
tried to pick him up and kiss him. Why can't he leave
the child alone ? Can't he see the child doesn't like
him ?

But the Bakers were kind-hearted proprietors, and could
not keep sentiment out of their business, and Albert
remained at Morrison's Hotel till she died.

An easy death I hope it was, your honour, for if any
poor creature deserved an easy one it was Albert herself.
You think so, Alec, meaning that the disappointed man
suffers less at parting with this world than the happy one ?
Maybe you're right. That is as it may be, your honour,
he answered, and I told him that Albert awoke one
morning hardly able to breathe, and returned to bed and
lay there almost speechless till the maidservant came to
make the bed. She ran off again to fetch a cup of tea,
and after sipping it Albert said that she felt better.
But she never roused completely, and the maidservant
who came up in the evening with a bowl of soup did
not press her to try to eat it, for it was plain that Albert
could not eat or drink, and it was almost plain that she
was dying, but the maidservant did not like to alarm
the hotel and contented herself with saying : he'd
better see the doctor to-morrow. She was up be-
times in the morning and on going to Albert's room
she found the waiter asleep, breathing heavily. An hour
later Albert was dead, and everybody was asking how
a man who was in good health on Tuesday could be a
corpse on Thursday morning, as if such a thing had never
happened before. However often it had happened, it
did not seem natural, and it was whispered that Albert
might have made away with himself. Some spoke of
apoplexy, but apoplexy in a long, thin man is not usual ;

317

and when the doctor came down his report that Albert
was a woman put all thought of the cause of death
out of everybody's mind. Never before or since was
Morrison's Hotel agog as it was that morning, every-
body asking the other why Albert had chosen to pass
herself off as a man, and how she had succeeded in
doing this year after year without any one of them
suspecting her. She would be getting better wages as
a man than as a woman, somebody said, but nobody
cared to discuss the wages question ; all knew that a
man is better paid than a woman. But what Albert
would have done with Helen if Helen hadn't gone
off with Joe Mackins stirred everybody's imagination.
What would have happened on the wedding night ?
Nothing, of course ; but how would she have let on ?
The men giggled over their glasses, and the women
pondered over their cups of tea; the men asked the
women and the women asked the men, and the interest
in the subject had not quite died down when Hubert
Page returned to Morrison's Hotel, in the spring of the
year, with her paint pots and brushes. How is Albert
Nobbs? was one of her first inquiries, and it fired the
train. Albert Nobbs ! Don't you know ? How should
I know? Hubert Page replied. I've only just come back
to Dublin. What is there to know ? Don't you ever
read the papers? Read the papers? Hubert repeated.
Then you haven't heard that Albert Nobbs is dead ?
No, I hadn't heard of it. I'm sorry for him, but after
all, men die ; there's nothing wonderful in that, is there ?
No; but if you had read the papers you'd have learnt
that Albert Nobbs wasn't a man at all. Albert Nobbs
was a woman. Albert Nobbs a woman ! Hubert replied,
putting as much surprise as she could into her voice.
So you never heard ? And the story began to pour out
from different sides, everybody striving to communicate
it to her, until at last she said : if you all speak

318

together, I shall never understand it. Albert Nobbs a
woman ! A woman as much as you're a man, was the
answer, and the story of her courtship with Helen, and
Helen's preference for Joe Mackins and Albert's grief at
Helen's treatment of him trickled into a long relation.
The biggest deception in the whole world, a scullion
cried from his saucepans. Whatever would she have
done with Helen if they had married ? But the question
had been asked so often that it fell flat. So Helen
went away with Joe Mackins? Hubert said. Yes; and
they don't seem to get on over well together. Serve her
right for her unkindness, cried a kitchen-maid. But after
all, you wouldn't want her to marry a woman ? a scullion
answered. Of course not ; of course not. The story was
taken up by another voice, and the hundreds of pounds
that Albert had left behind in many securities were
multiplied ; nearly a hundred in ready money rolled up
in paper, half-crowns, half-sovereigns and sovereigns in
his bedroom ; his bedroom — her bedroom, I mean ; but
we're so used to thinking of her as a him that we find it
difficult to say her; we're always catching each other
up. But what I'm thinking of, said a waiter, is the waste
of all that money. A great scoop it was for the Govern-
ment, eight hundred pounds. The pair were to have
bought a shop and lived together, Mr Page, Annie Watts
rapped out, and when the discussion was carried from the
kitchen upstairs to the second floor : true for you, said
Dorothy, now you mention it, I remember, it's you that
should be knowing better than anybody else, Mr Page,
what Albert's sex was like. Didn't you sleep with her ?
I fell asleep the moment my head was on the pillow, Page
answered, for if you remember rightly I was that tired
Mrs Baker hadn't the heart to turn me out of the hotel.
I'd been working ten, twelve, fourteen hours a day, and
when he took me up to his room I just tore off my clothes
and fell asleep and went away in the morning before he

319

was awake. Isn't it wonderful ? A woman, Hubert con-
tinued, and a minx in the bargain, and an artful minx if
ever there was one in the world, and there have been a
good many. And now, ladies, I must be about my work.
I wonder what Annie Watts was thinking of when she
stood looking into my eyes ; does she suspect me ? Hubert
asked herself as she sat on her derrick. And what a piece
of bad luck that I shouldn't have found him alive when I
returned to Dublin.

You see, Alec, this is how it was. Polly, that was
Hubert's wife, died six months before Albert ; and Hubert
had been thinking ever since of going into partnership with
Albert. In fact Hubert had been thinking about a shop,
like Albert, saying to herself almost every day after the
death of her wife : Albert and I might set up together.
But it was not until she lay in bed that she fell to think-
ing the matter out, saying to herself : one of us would have
had to give up our job to attend to it. The shop was
Albert's idea more than mine, so perhaps she'd have given
up waiting, which would not have suited me, for I'm tired
of going up these ladders. My head isn't altogether as
steady as it used to be ; swinging about on a derrick isn't
suited to women. So perhaps it's as well that things
have fallen out as they have. Hubert turned herself
over, but sleep was far from her, and she lay a long
time thinking of everything and of nothing in particular,
as we all do in our beds, with this thought often upper-
most : I wonder what is going to be the end of my life.
What new chance do the years hold for me ?

And of what would Hubert be thinking, and she a
married woman ? Of what else should she be thinking but
of her husband, who might now be a different man from
the one she left behind. Fifteen years, she said, makes
a great difference in all of us, and perhaps it was the
words, fifteen years, that put the children she had left
behind her back into her thought. I wouldn't be saying

320

that she hadn't been thinking of them, off and on, in the
years gone by, but the thought of them was never such a
piercing thought as it was that night. She'd have liked
to have jumped out of her bed and run away to them ; and
perhaps she would have done if she only knew where they
were. But she didn't, so she had to keep to her bed ;
and she lay for an hour or more thinking of them as little
children, and wondering what they were like now. Lily
was five when she left home. She's a young woman,
now. Agnes was only two. She is now seventeen, still
a girl, Hubert said to herself; but Lily's looking
round, thinking of young men, and the other won't
be delaying much longer, for young women are much
more wide-awake than they used to be in the old
days. The rest of my life belongs to them. Their father
could have looked after them till now ; but now they
are thinking of young men he won't be able to cope with
them, and maybe he's wanting me too. Bill is forty, and
at forty we begin to think of them as we knew them long
ago. He must have often thought of me, perhaps oftener
than I thought of him, and she was surprised to find that
she had forgotten all Bill's ill usage, and remembered
only the good time she had had with him. The rest of
my life belongs to him, she said,' and to the girls. But
how am I to get back to him ? how, indeed ? . . . Bill may
be dead ; the children too. But that isn't likely. I must
get news of them somehow. The house is there, and lying
in the darkness she recalled the pictures on the wall, the
chairs that she had sat in, the coverlets on the beds,
everything. Bill isn't a wanderer, she said ; I'll find him
in the same house if he isn't dead. And the children ?
Did they know anything about her? Had Bill spoken
ill to them of her ? She didn't think he would do that.
But did they want to see her? Well, she could never
find that out except by going to see. But how was she
going to return home? Pack up her things and go

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dressed as a man to the house and, meeting Bill on the
threshold, say : don't you know me, Bill ? and are you glad
to see your mother back, children ? No ; that wouldn't
do. She must return home as a woman, and none of
them must know the life she had been living. But what
story would she tell him ? It would be difficult to tell the
story of fifteen years, for fifteen years is a long time, and
sooner or later they'd find out she was lying, for they
would keep asking her questions.

But sure, said Alec, 'tis an easy story to tell. Well,
Alec, what story should she tell them ? In these parts,
Alec said, a woman who left her husband and returned
to him after fifteen years would say she was taken away
by the fairies whilst wandering in a wood. Do you think
she'd be believed ? Why shouldn't she, your honour ?
A woman that marries another woman, and lives happily
with her, isn't a natural woman ; there must be something
of the fairy in her. But I could see it all happening as
you told it, the maidservants and the serving-men going
their own roads, and the only fault I've to find with the
story is that you left out some of the best parts. I'd have
liked to know what the husband said when she went back
to him, and they separated all the years. If he liked her
better than he did before, or less. And there's a fine
story in the way the mother would be vexed by the two
daughters and the husband, and they at her all the time
with questions, and she hard set to find answers for them.
But mayhap the best bit of all is when Albert began to
think that it wouldn't do to have Joe Mackins hanging
round, making their home his own, eating and drinking
of the best, and when there was a quarrel he'd have a fine
threat over them, as good as the Murrigan herself when
she makes off of a night to the fair, whirling herself over
the people's heads, stirring them up agin each other,
making cakes of their skulls. I'm bet, fairly bet, crowed
down by the Ballinrobe cock. And now, your honour,
x

322

you heard the Angelas ringing, and my dinner is on the
hob, but I'll be telling you what I think of the story
when I come back ; but I'm thinking already 'tis the
finest that ever came out of Ballinrobe, I am so.

CHAP. LIV.

ONE day Alec said, breaking a long silence : 'tis proud
of you they must be London for the great shanachie that
you are ; the greatest in all the world, I'm thinking. But
maybe, he continued, interpreting my silence as a con-
fession that London had not done justice to whatever
small talent may be mine, they are passing you over for
the bitter jealousy there is in England always of every-
thing that comes out of old Ireland. And didn't they
strip us of our lands and our laws, of our own language
itself? and aren't all the old houses being emptied now
of the fine furniture we made in Dublin ? and the pictures,
and the silver spoons and dishes, all our handiwork, sold
in London, bad cess to them ? And aren't they still at the
same old scheming, ferreting out our old stories, turning
them all into rags and tatters, for not understanding the
significance of anything in them. Isn't it the truth I'm
telling your honour ?

Before I could answer him, Alec began again: but
you're a Mayo man like myself, and if you should think
it worth your while to be writing out any of the stories
I've been telling you, it is meself that will be the proud
man, for it won't be taking back a pailful of potato skins
you will be doing like the lady in Galway, but fine spuds
in which there is a rich diet. Faith and troth that is why
I have opened my mind to you, for I wouldn't have our old
stories betrayed and destroyed any longer than 1 can help
it. 'Tis the nature of stories to be travelling ; always
footing it one way or the other. So 'tis no use trying to

323

keep them to ourselves, I know that, but I would like them
to appear in their emigrations clean and tidy, just that, so
that they may see over yonder that we have a shanachie
as good or better than their own. The stories you have
told me, I said, are the gift of the shanachie of Westport
to the shanachie of Ballinrobe. If your honour likes to
think of it in that way, he answered, 'tis a great honour
you're doing me by comparing me with yourself. Com-
paring myself with yourself? I rapped out. Why, Alec, we
have been telling stories one against the other, and the
best of the bunch is " The Nuns of Crith Gaille " ; and by
far. We will never be agreed about that, your honour.
Well, more is the pity, I replied, and if we aren't agreed
among ourselves I don't know how it is to be settled
unless we ring the chapel bell and call a meeting with the
priest in the chair.

At the word priest Alec's face turned grave, and it came
into my mind that I was just about to lose the original
Alec which it had taken me a fortnight to evoke. It
wouldn't be fair, I said, for me to tell stories against you
in your own parish, and the words had no sooner passed
my lips than I regretted them. We should do well not to
be talking about the priest at all, Alec said, for the clergy
do not take kindly to hearing stories told against them-
selves, even if they be in the years back. And not
another word could I get from him. He sat, as it
were, frozen in his meditations, and was not roused out
of them till at last I said : there have been great shanachies
in this world, Alec ; greater than we. Now do you think
there were any greater than yourself, your honour ? I do,
indeed, Alec, though I admire " The Nuns of Crith Gaille "
more than any of my own stories. You'll be turning my
head if you say any more about that story, he answered,
and he asked me who were the world's great shanachies.
Had I shaken hands with any of them ? With one, I have.
An Englishman? Alec interjected. No, Alec. The

324

Englishman, to my thinking, isn't a story-teller at all. He
tells of parsons and croquet lawns, and is home-sick when
he leaves them. He tells a tea-party well enough, and
has a quick eye to spy out the difference between one
woman's talk and another ; whether she visits the big
houses and if she has the talk of the gentry tripping on
her tongue. But there is no diet in the Englishman's
stories, if I may borrow one of your own expressive
phrases. But there was a great shanachie over in France
in the years back. Was there now? Alec interjected.
There has been one, troth and faith, I answered, one that
overtops all the others, wherever you may go looking for
them. Now, your honour, Alec cried, you will be delight-
ing me, begob you will, by telling me something about the
great shanachie. Balzac, I said. But no sooner was the
name out of my mouth than I began to regret having
mentioned him, for it is difficult to pick a story out of the
great Human Comedy that would appeal to an imaginative
uneducated fe]low and of all something that could be
related on a June morning in a sunny wood by an old
deserted mill.

But Alec was intent to hear one of Balzac's stories from
me, and as an earnest of Balzac's originality I began to
tell a half-remembered, half-forgotten story of a son that
acted as executioner to his family, striking off their heads,
one after the other ; besought, Alec, by every one of them
to be brave and to strike firmly and straight. You must
know that it fell out in Spain, when the Spaniards who
had been conquered by the French were conspiring to rid
themselves of their conquerors, and to do this it behoved
him on whomsoever the lot should fall to kill the sentry ;
the family are watching from a window : death if he fails.
The cry of a bird, some vague sound attracts the sentry ;
he turns ; all is lost. The Spaniard is seized. The
French general is a man of iron, and to make an end of
the conspiracies that were always hatching he decides

325

that not only the spy must be beheaded, but the entire
family. The blotting out of an ancient lineage, one
that was before the Arabs conquered Spain, is not easily
apprehended by us. A Spaniard alone could appreciate
the father's despair. All the same I think I under-
stand, Alec said, and I gathered from his tone he was
already interested in the story. The father beseeches,
he begs that one member may be spared to continue
the name — he asks for the life of his youngest son — that
is all ; if he could be spared, the rest don't matter ; for
individual death is nothing to a Spaniard; the name is
everything, and the family I am telling was, as I have
said, before the Arabs ; maybe fifty generations had
come and gone. The general, I have related, is a man
of iron. Yes, one member of your family shall be
respited, he answers, but on one condition. To the
agonised family, conditions are as nothing. But they
don't know that the man of iron is determined to make
a terrible example, one that will make an end of Spanish
conspiracy, and they cry : any conditions. He who is
respited must serve as executioner to the others. Great
is the price ; but the name must be saved at all costs,
and in the family council the father goes to his son and
says : I have been a good father to you, my son ; I have
always been a kind father, have I not ? Answer me that.
You will not fail us ; you will prove yourself worthy of
your great ancestor who defeated the Arabs, remember !
The mother goes to her son and says : my son, I have
been a good mother, I have always loved you ; you will
not desert us in this hour of our great need. The little
sister goes to him. One by one the whole family goes to
him and they kneel down and beg him to save the family
from death. He will not prove himself unworthy of our
name, they cry ; and on the fatal morning the father says :
take the axe firmly, do what I ask you ; courage, and strike
straight. The father's head falls into the sawdust, the

326

blood all over the white beard. Then comes the elder
brother, and then another brother ; and vthen the little
sister. She is almost more than he can bear, and his
mother has to whisper : remember your promise to your
dead father. Therefore he strikes off his sister's head ; his
mother lays her head on the block, but he cannot kill his
mother. Be not the first coward of our name ! Strike ;
remember your promise to us all. Her head is struck off.
The family is saved

And the son, Alec asked, what became of him ? He
was never seen, Alec, save at night, walking, a solitary
man, beneath the walls of his castle in Granada. And
he never married? You've guessed rightly, Alec. He
never married. 'Tis a great story surely, Alec muttered.
We walked a few yards in silence, and finding a comfort-
able bank to lie upon under the tall trees overhanging the
torrent, I related some of the droll stories, causing Alec to
chuckle, but only languidly. He prefers his own, I said
to myself, and we passed on to the war stories, and he
liked Adieu, and seemed to understand the pathetic figure
of the retired tradesman who lived in a garret so that his
daughters might make rich marriages and shine in society j
and I might have heard the story of an Irish Lear from
him if I had not been eager to tell another Balzac.

But Balzac, although appreciated by Alec, did not
capture his imagination as the Russian writers did.
Dostoieffsky discovered horizons more lurid. Tolstoy's
moralities, I said to myself, are not easy to deal with, and I
passed on to Tchertkoff, who pleased him, and in much the
same way as he pleases me. I longed to speak of Tour-
gueneff but dared not, afraid that the delicate rhythms and
almost pallid beauty of his stories would escape a rustic ear
and eye. In this I was mistaken ; for every one of the
Tales of a Sportsman was understood, and the Dream Tales,
who would have thought it, were a grand success. It was
while telling one of these that we passed out of the wood

327

on to the terraced walk overlooking the park, our eyes
fixed ; I say our eyes, for so beautiful was the airy prospect
that it was impossible for me to think that even Alec, who
had been watching it all his life, could keep his eyes from
the mountain range above the town — hills rising one above
the other, buttressing Croagh Patrick, leaving the perfect
outlines of the peak showing against a brilliant sky with
the shadowy outlines of the Connemara hills far away,
shadowy and far away as the tales that I had just been
relating.

At the end of a long silence, Alec said : was this the
great shanachie your honour shook hands with? Yes,
Alec, that was the one. And I told him how I had seen
this great man in the gardens of the 6lysee Montmartre.
Public gardens, I said, in which a band plays, and the
people dance in the open air under the trees, if it be
fine, and in a ballroom if the weather be wet. So it must
have been wet on the occasion that I saw this great man,
for he was walking down the ballroom, a great man and
a big one as well — as big as Maliche Daly, standing six
feet four at least, and with a head on him as white
as Croagh Patrick's peak after a fall of snow, upright
as a tree, and a walk on him like a stag: a noble,
knowledgeable man, one that had lived a long time in
the world, but standing apart like a mountain among
hills. Like the peak, your honour, said Alec. Just so,
I see you understand him : and his stories, too, are
as beautiful in outline as the hills, sometimes a little

dimmer, like Like the Connemara hills in the gap

beyond, Alec interrupted, and I answered: precisely,
I see you understand. Did he speak to your honour?
Alec asked. He was kind enough to speak to me,
though I was but a boy in those days; and I told
Alec that the great shanachie's words had remained with
me all my life, so wise did they seem; but as they
were spoken in the French language, and about books

328

that Alec had not read, it would be useless for me to
try to translate the shanachie's wisdom. Alec accepted
my judgment as to what could be told and what should
be left out of a narrative, and asked me which was the
greater of the two, Tourgueneff or Dostoieffsky. My
vote was given long ago to Tourgueneff,, Alec ; I plumped
for him. And myself wouldn't be saying that there
was anything amiss with that plump, Alec returned.
But would it be asking too much if I were to ask you
to tell me what t'other was like ? I never saw Dostoieffsky
in the flesh, but in the portraits that they publish in
his books he appears like an unhappy, almost afflicted
man from the working classes. There is a good deal
of Tartar blood in Russia, and Dostoieffsky 's flat, shallow
face, with insignificant features and eyes turned up
at the corners, recall the Tartar or Chinese type, and
were it not for the agitated eyes no one would suspect
he was looking at the portrait of a great man. But the
agitated eyes tell that something awful had happened
to him, and something very awful did happen to him
in the beginning of his life ; not many years after writing
Poor Folkt the book we were talking about yesterday, he
was on his way to the scaffold, on the scaffold maybe, when
the reprieve came, altering the sentence of death to one of
banishment to Siberia. His face in the portrait tells of an
unfortunate man, one who was unlucky from the begin-
ning ; an epileptic he was, and his life was lived in great
poverty ; in such poverty, Alec, that there was no time
for him to read over his manuscripts before they went

to the printer. Tourgueneff admired his genius, but

Were they friends? Alec rapped out. They must have
known each other, but they couldn't be friends, for they
were too different, coming from different classes, and out
of a different tradition. Nor were they even of the same
race, I muttered. Two great men writing prose narrative
in the same language, that was all. There are stories

329

going about, Alec, of a strange visit that Dostoieffsky paid
to Tourgueneff. Dostoieflfsky had come to Paris once to
arrange for the publication of his works in a French trans-
lation, and it is said, mind you, I don't vouch for the truth of
the story, but it has got about that one evening, overtaken
by his conscience, he rushed off to Tourgueneff to confess
a crime he had committed years ago in Moscow. There
being no priest handy, I suppose? Alec interjected. I'm
afraid neither of them set much store on priests, I replied ;
but even those who do not believe in priests like to un-
burden themselves sometimes ; a man who has committed
a crime cannot keep his secret always ; a secret will out,
as you've often heard, Alec. I've heard, Alec said, that
murder will out. A much worse crime than many murders
was the crime that compelled him to seek out Tourgueneff
in Paris. You must know, Alec, that houses in Paris are
very big ; and on every storey there are as many rooms
as in a whole house here. I suppose that this plan was
adopted with a view to fewer servants, for there is no
going up and down stairs in a flat ; the rooms open one
into the other, and Tourgueneff had come through the
folding doors from the dining-room into a white-painted,
low-ceilinged saloon, which would have seemed somewhat
finicky to Dostoieffsky if he had had eyes to see the grey silk
curtains and beautifully bound books. There were comely
little book-cases hanging from the walls and standing
in corners, filled with choice volumes which could not have
failed to attract anybody except a somnambulist, somebody
walking in a dream, and that was how Dostoieffsky came
into the room : like one in a trance. He knew Tourgueneff
was there, and that's about all — Tourgueneff only concern-
ing him. He was not aware of the hour, which, as I have
said, was an hour after dinner, somewhere about nine
o'clock. He was not aware that Tourgueneff was busy ;
nor of the embarrassment his name created when the
servant announced it : only aware of the torture he

330

experienced in the few minutes he had been kept waiting
in the ante-room. For every moment in that room was
terrible till the moment came for him to unburden his
conscience of the crime committed in Moscow years and
years ago. Remorse, he said, has got hold of me now as
it never did before, and he stood looking at Tourgueneff,
hardly seeing him at all ; Vera's face, the girl that had
sent him, was much clearer to him. Didn't Tourgueneff
offer him a chair or say something to him? Alec asked.
Yes ; Tourgueneff came forward with a chair, but Dos-
toieffsky waved him aside and walked up and down the
room, finding a way through the furniture instinctively
without falling over any chair or table, which was won-
derful, for he seemed like a man without eyes, and after
a while he found his way back to where Tourgueneff was
sitting. It was last night, he said : she was by me, and
it was she who sent me hither. The dead have a strange
power over us, and she is dead many years : ten years ago at

least. It was at Moscow. One night, Ivan Sergeivitch

Who is that one, Ivan Ser . . . vitch ? Alec rapped out.
Tourgueneff, I answered. Russians who are strangers

address each other as son of Like the Irish Mac, Alec

said, and I answered that it was so. And Tourgueneff
would address Dostoieffsky as Theodore Mikhailovitch. 'Tis
a terrible way of saying Mac, said Alec, and to escape
further questions I repeat Dostoieffsky 's last words. It was
one night in Moscow, at the hub of the streets, I met her,
after a long day's work, and so brain-weary was I that
I could hardly see or hear when a girl's voice awoke me.
I'm afraid I frightened you, the girl said. You startled
me a little, I answered : but my appearance must have
frightened you, my mind was far away. You're not even
awake yet, she said. Oh, but I am, I answered, and we
walked on together, myself listening to her story of herself,
glad to listen to it, to anything that took me out of myself.
She told me she wanted to learn English, and the only

SSI

way, she said, is to get a situation in England. I'm after
one, but I'm not certain that I shall be able to get it, for
you see, I've no reference. And how is that? You seem
a good little girl. I used to be, but I don't know that I
am any longer. How did it come about ? I was looking, she
said, after some children in a tradesman's family, and one
day in the park a dog attacked the children, and all three
might have been bitten if a student had not come forward
and driven off the dog. We met again the next day and the
next and the next, and all might have gone on very well
if one of the children hadn't walked into the pond after
his boat, and when I was asked to explain how I was not
by to prevent him doing such a foolish thing, one of the
children answered : Vera was talking with the student who
drove the dog off. The student returned again and again,
and. the upshot of it all was that I lost my situation,
being deemed, so it was said, unfit to look after children.
As I was in love with Ivan and he with me, I went to
live with him, and when he left Moscow I took on
with his friend, a Roumanian. And what then? I said.
When he left there was another and then another. And
then ? And then, she said, I found myself obliged to go
out into the thoroughfare to find somebody to whom I
might take a fancy and who might take a fancy to me.
As it happened to-night, if we have taken a fancy to each
other. But I've only been out here once before ; my word
on it ; and I assured her that I believed what she had told
me, though it seemed to me to matter very little whether
she had given herself to three men or to four, for money
or caprice.

She had a pretty face and an engaging manner, and
every word she spoke revealed a beautiful mind that
circumstances could not defile. Now what have you
been doing ? she said, to change the subject, which was
becoming a bit irksome to both of us, and I told her that
I was a man who wrote stories for a living, and had come

332

out to escape from the people of my imagination. But why
do you wish to forget them ? I would forget them, I said,
to-night, so that I may remember them better to-morrow,
and I'm grateful to you for speaking to me, for if it hadn't
been for this little talk with you, perhaps I shouldn't have
closed my eyes to-night. And to-morrow will be a day
of twelve or fourteen hours. Must you work as hard as
that ? I must, indeed, for I have no money except the
few roubles that publishers pay me for my stories. And
I don't know if life will ever become any easier. You see
I've only just returned from Siberia : I worked in chains
for five years, because I wished to free the people from
the police. So you're a convict, I heard her say, and I
expected her to drop behind. I don't mind that, she said,
for it was for having a better heart than another the police
were down on you. Perhaps you're right, I answered, but
I thought it well to tell you who I am, for it may do
you harm to be seen walking with an ex-convict. I'm not
afraid of that, and I saw that my confession, instead of
estranging us, as I had intended, seemed to unite us, which
is only natural ; the outcast only can speak intimately to
the outcast. We walked on, discovering ourselves one to
the other, and when I stopped to bid her good-bye it
seemed to both of us that for a night at least we were
destined for each other.

It was then that I began to look her over, and her
clothes, her accent, told me she was a workgirl, the
typical workgirl of Moscow, and, I said, she has told
me the truth ; she has been a nursery-maid and needs
money, and I've none to give her. You need money,
I said, and in coming with me you are leaving money
behind you. Never mind; I would sooner go hungry
to-morrow than lose you to-night. But I have some
money, very little it is true, so little, that if I were to
call that cab I should be ashamed to offer you what
remained. We can walk, she answered, and it was not

333

till we were fairly out of the city that her legs began
to ache. Let us rest awhile, she said. I shall be
able to go on presently. But your lodgings are not
very far off, she replied, her eyes fixed on the last
cab on the last rank. But I'm dead-tired, and it
wouldn't cost much to ride the rest of the way ; it
isn't more than half-a-mile. It's lucky it isn't more, I
answered, for the last cab looks as if it had already accom-
plished its last journey. The horse too, Vera said, is
near his end ; his head is sunk between his forelegs ; and
it was with a view to shortening his journey by a few
yards that we crossed the road. An absurd thought,
I remarked, and Vera agreed that the extra yards could
not make much difference, but like me she felt she
must save the horse from the labour of dragging the cab
across the street. And when we were in the middle
of the road the horse fell suddenly. He'll get up
when I've loosened the traces and drawn away the cab,
the driver muttered, as he bent over the harness. He
plied his whip, but the horse was dead, and we turned
away, frightened, myself wondering if we should accept
the horse's death as a warning, as an omen. I think
even little Vera was frightened, moved by the untoward
occurrence, but at fifteen one isn't given to the reading
of omens. You see she was only a child, and I listened
to her prattle, my thoughts wandering between the
magnitude of the universe and the accident that had
forced this long walk upon us, robbing me, perhaps, of
the love night that I looked forward to so greedily.
She will be too tired, I said, and that was all I thought
about : whether she would be too tired for love.

Vera, I'm trying to confess all. Have patience. Have
I not come to him to whom thou didst send me? Am
I not telling all? Thou knowest that I am concealing
nothing, not even the shameful lust that entered my
heart, when I heard thee say, with a smothered burst

334

of laughter, that the last candle-end had been burnt out
and we should have to undress in the dark. I had
looked forward to seeing thee unpin thy pins, and untie
thy bows, revealing each delicate form of thy body
to me, and so great was my disappointment that there
was no candle that I confided my disappointment to
thee, and having thought only for my pleasure, the
curtain was drawn ; it was thy hands that drew it, letting
the moonlight into the room.

I can see her still. Certain parts of her are before my
eyes, and her talk is ringing in my ears, and will ring in
them for ever. We may escape from the living but the
dead never relax their clutch, and it is more often a dead
hand than a living one that urges a man to his doom.
After all, did she not love me? But did I love her?
How could one such as I love her? To love one must
have leisure, and there was none in my life. For bare life
I had to sit at a writing-table for ten, twelve, fourteen
hours a day, and the police are always at the heels of an
ex-convict. My life was beset with difficulties, and as she
strove to detain me, her hand on the lapel of my coat, I
began to regret that we had met each other, for I foresaw
the necessity of breaking with her. When shall we meet
again ? she asked, in her simplicity. When shall we meet
again? I repeated, almost ironically. Have I not told
you, I said, folding her in my arms, that I am a penniless
convict from Siberia. Why should you wish to see me
again ? That I do not know, she replied, but do let me
come to see you; I promise I won't disturb you while
you're writing. I'll sit in a corner very quiet, reading
the pages as you throw them aside. I could see the
tears trembling on her eyelids, ready to flow over them.
But my life was so dark, without a gleam in it at that
time (it has always been dark, a hopeless life) that I did
not dare to invite her into the danger which I knew was
preparing. I cannot, I said : I'm a convict ; the police

335

are always watching me. You're a child, and If

you're afraid to let me come to see you, tell me where
you walk in the evenings, and, not foreseeing that we
should ever run up against each other in the Nikolskaya,
I told her that I walked there nearly every evening, and
bade her good-bye, going back to my garret, thinking, not
of her, but of the work that would have to be accom-
plished before the sun set again.

My work left me too tired to go out, and the next
day was the same, and the day after; but after several
days of work there came a swimming in my head, and I
went out to get the air, and to try to forget the people
my pen had been calling into life all day. It is necessary
to forget them sometimes so that we may not forget
them when the time comes for work again. The very
first thing that night was Vera looking into the faces
of the passengers, and turning away from them as soon
as she had scanned them, seeking somebody whom
she could not find, looking into their faces and turning
away again. She is seeking me, I said, and passed
up a side street, thinking to escape, for the sense that
she was a danger to me was stronger than ever. We're
a mutual danger, I said to myself, and perhaps it was
the sense that she was a danger to me that drew me
to her next day, for I walked out into the Nikolskaya,
asking myself if she was still looking for me. She was
there, and I saw her, as before, looking into the faces of
the passengers, turning away from them, refusing many
men who came and solicited her. She is refusing them,
I said, because I am upon her mind. My misfortunes
have attracted her. And then I began to argue with
myself, asking myself: what imagined doom can there
be for us ? A girl like any other girl, and, I repeated,
a man like any other man, but when I uttered these
words I knew I was speaking a lie. For I'm not like any
other; and, my thoughts travelling over my past life, I

336

sought to discover if I were as different as I imagined
myself to be, but after scanning the terrible history that
every year unfolded, I closed the book, frightened, and
fell to thinking of Vera. A thirst was upon me to see
her ; it was not the thirst for her body, not altogether,
but the thirst for companionship : my life was lonely,
lonelier than it had ever been in Siberia. I reasoned
with myself. I said: I must bear with myself, I am
done for, but let me not drag her down with me. And
I swear that I kept myself for days and weeks from
turning into the Nikolskaya lest we should meet. But at
last the day came when I began to feel that my dreams
were becoming me, and the hallucinations of my people
mine. I began to fear my people as one fears spectres.
I must escape from them, I cried, else I shall not be
able to recall them again. ... If I do not drive them
away to-night they may refuse to obey me to-morrow.

And as I jostled through the crowds, neither hearing
nor seeing, a voice awoke me suddenly. It was Vera. So
I have found you at last, she said. Why haven't you
walked here before? I looked into her eyes without
speaking. Aren't you glad to see me ? she said. Yes, I'm
glad to see you, I answered, but my mind is away, and I
neither see the people about me nor have I any mind left
to understand what is being said to me. You'll be better
presently, she answered. Let us walk on together.
Your mind will return to you presently. But if you work
so hard you will kill yourself, and then what shall I do ?
The words touched my heart and I awoke from my
dreams of a bastard son, an epileptic like myself; one
that had committed a murder and had forgotten it —
Smerdyakov.

I am myself again, I said, and remembering at the same
moment that I had money in my pockets, having sold
some manuscript, I said : let us go into an eating-house
and have some supper. I should be very glad, she

337

answered, for I'm hungry. You haven't eaten to-day ?
and she answered: I have not. It was unwise for me
to take her into an eating-house, for when she had eaten
and drunk there was only one thing to do, to take her
back into my garret, and after I did that, would I be
strong enough to turn her out of it in the morning ? I
knew that I should not turn her out, for reason is not
listened to in such moments. Were it listened to, the world
would have ceased long ago ; it cannot check even the
philosopher ; we belong to ourselves, to our instincts and
passions, and, forgetful of aught else, I listened to Vera,
who said she would be the happiest girl in the world if I
would share my garret with her ; and we were happy for
longer than I thought it possible that I could be happy —
for nearly three months. But all the time Vera's golden
ringlets and happy smiles were setting the tongues of
enviers and rivals wagging, and the police are adepts
at indirect means of compulsion. It may have been the
police and it may not have been the police, but objections
to my work began to arise. I lost some of my customers,
and feared that I should lose more. It was not an
imaginary persecution, I swear it. Every day it became
more intense and determined, till the old fear awoke in
me, and my thoughts began to talk to me again, saying
that I had dragged this poor child into a whirlpool of
misfortune, for you are that and nothing more, my thoughts
muttered. And I yielded to the belief that my life in the
world would drag on as it had begun, in disaster. Vera,
I said, I am as a leper ; you would do well to leave me.
Do you care for me no longer ? she asked. And there
was no strength in me to answer her : Vera, we have had
our time of life together ; be wise and leave me, for I can
only bring misfortune to you. Had I spoken these words
she would not have understood them. She might have
said : you're talking to me now as the people talk in your
books. So I said nothing. She asked me of what I was

338

thinking. Of you, darling, I said, but I was really thinking,
though I did not dare to tell her, that it were better that
she should return to the streets than remain with me, for
on the streets she might meet any evening an honest fellow
who would be tempted at first by her child beauty and
learn to appreciate her gentle nature and marry her.
Many men marry off the streets. Every good girl who
goes on the street marries ; we must believe that goodness
rises above prejudices and conventions. But to remain
with me would be certain ruin for her ; we had entered
the danger zone. We had been together three months,
and after three months the flesh wearies a little. It may
be that I am wronging myself and that it was the per-
secution of the police that forced me to persecute Vera.
Persecution begets persecution, and every day the desire
to get rid of her became more intense. I counted her
steps as she descended the stairs, saying : she is farther
from me than she was a moment ago, and when she re-
turned I counted her steps as she ascended the stairs,
saying : she is nearer to me than she was a moment ago.
Something had to happen. Oh, it wasn't murder. I should
never have had the strength to murder, I couldn't walk
upon a fly on the ground, but it would have been better if
I had murdered her, for she would have suffered less at
the time, and I should not have had to come here with a
tale of cruelty : determined, premeditated cruelty, intended
to drive her away. She never got a kind look or word from
me, till I told her one day that she must leave me to earn
my living ; and you would do well, I added, to be about
earning yours. She made no answer but left my rooms
without a word, and I continued to write, for ten thousand
words had to be written that day ; they had been promised,
and when the last sentence was upon paper, I stood asking
myself if I should have sufficient mind to address the
envelope correctly that was to contain the pages. It
seemed as if the racket in my brain would never cease,

339

and I said to myself: I cannot direct the envelope. But if
the pages do not go now, they will be laid aside, I con-
tinued, and it was while waiting for a moment of mental
calm to address the envelope that I heard her feet on the
staircase. She will be here in a moment, I said, and I
cannot look her in the face after my cruel words. I'll go
out. I may be able to steal away. But when I return I
shall find her waiting for me. There was no time to think
more. I listened, sitting quite still, so that she might not
hear me. The rooms in which we lived were divided by
a partition, so that I could not move without her hearing
me, so I sat very still, saying to myself: she thinks I
am out. At last I heard something drop, and what
dropped sounded like a coil of rope — a rope drops differ-
ently from any other object, and when I heard her pick
up the rope, I said : she has bought a rope to hang herself.
But, i said to myself, if she means to hang herself,
she will open the door to see if I'm out, and the
thought relieved my mind. At the sight of her face
all misunderstandings will be wiped away ; we shall fall
into each other's arms more truly in love than we had
ever been. . . .

But she has drawn a chair forward and is going to step
from the chair on to the table, I said, and when on the
table she will attach the rope — to what ? I asked myself,
and tried to remember if there was a pole above the window
to which she could attach it. But I could no longer think
clearly. My thoughts slipped away as thoughts do in a
dream, and just as the dreamer says : I'm dreaming, I too
began to think I was dreaming. It must be only a dream,
I said, and a little time went by. She is writing a letter,
I said, giving the reason for her suicide, and I became
strangely curious, asking myself what reasons she would
assign, and if she would find the right words. I must
have lost consciousness, if not for long, for some moments,
for I remember a table being kicked aside. She has

340

hanged herself, I said, and if I do not strive to shake
off this lethargy, and run to her and cut her down, she
will die and I shall be responsible. I cannot tell how
complete or how partial my possession of myself was
at the time. There are moments in every man's life
in which he is not himself, in which he loses possession
of his free will, if there be such a thing as free will.
Be this as it may, I could not move from my chair. I
must hasten, I said, lest I be too late, but I could not
move, and then the song began to sing in my ears : her
death will loosen her clutch upon my life, and in spite
of my efforts to rouse myself the time went by. I do
not know how it went, and when I awoke, for I felt
that I must have lost consciousness, I said : she is dead,
it is all over, and dipping the pen into the ink, I addressed
the envelope and walked to the office of the newspaper
and handed in my copy.

I said just now there was an interval between the
tying of the rope and the moment when she kicked the
table aside, and that interval was occupied in writing a
letter. That is so. She wrote a letter before hanging
herself, explaining her suicide. The porter came upstairs,
and the police came, and she was carried away, and
buried, and disappeared from every human mind except
mine. But in my mind she persists, becoming every
day clearer, more distinct, and more authoritative. I
feel her behind me in the streets; I wake up in the
night and see her in the darkness ; and last night she
bade me go to you : thou must go to Ivan Sergeivitch,
she said, and tell him all ; and I believe she sent me
to you, that I might get peace from her memory. But
it would seem that the dead do not know all, for you
have listened, not as she thought you would listen, but
as I knew you would listen, without pity, almost with
contempt. You are incapable, Ivan Sergeivitch, of a
noble action, or of a noble thought except when you

341

are interpreting the souls that your imagination reveals
to you. You're not a Russian but a Greek — a Greek
from the Crimea; and all the while I have been telling
you my story you have been judging me. . . . True that
I came for judgment, but the sympathy of a Russian
Mujik would have served me better ; you have submitted
me to the test of reason, saying : repentance is a word
without meaning to the philosopher, and confession
disgraceful and unworthy of man. Why did I come
here ? Did I not foresee all this ? Vera sent me,
and I did not dare to disobey her. She said that
I must unburden my conscience to you else I should
have no peace. Why did she send me? She sent
me to you, Ivan Sergeivitch, that I might learn from
you that there is a worse criminal than I. You, sitting
in your palace of art, waiting for me to leave you,
saying : how much longer will he keep me from my
manuscript, a manuscript in which, no doubt, a nightingale
in a wood hard by is singing her honeyed song while a
heart yearns in a shadowy saloon, like this one. Rich
furniture, vases, pictures. Very sordid and disgraceful
my life must seem to you. But I would not exchange
mine for yours.

Cold-hearted sentimentalist, were Dostoieffsky's last
words, and upon them he dashed into the ante-room, and
Tourgueneff heard the clink of the latch of the door that
opened on to the staircase. And did Tourgueneff sit
there letting the other fellow barge him for an hour
without a word in his chops ? The Murrigan should have
been at him, leathering him all the way down the staircase
to the very bottom and into the street. And what did
Tourgueneff do then ? I answered : he just dipped his
pen in the ink and continued revising his manuscript.
Are you sure you've got the story right, your honour?
And seeing that Alec was beginning to lean towards
Dostoieffsky's view of Tourgueneff, I said : a man is not

34.2

necessarily cold-hearted because he knows he cannot allay
another's remorse. Remorse, Alec, must burn itself out.

CHAP. LV.

ALEC had gone away to his tea, and I sat thinking of
the talk we had had together, for it seems strange that a
man who could understand a story could not appreciate
TourguenefFs point of view that passion and violence
should be avoided as not being sufficiently representative
of life, and as this was TourguenefFs practice in his art
it would be vain to expect him to treat life differently.
But such a comprehension of life is reached only by the
philosopher, and Alec is without philosophy. The Celt
ever was and ever will be, mayhap, evolution having
ceased, at least among men ; and immersed in the
thought of my country's failure, I sat gazing at the sun,
resting on the hill-side, and bethought myself of the
quiet change that would come when the light had gone —
a change within and without, I said, for the hawthorns in
the park will lose their shadows, and my thoughts will
become gentler, putting on spiritual wings. I shall live
for a little while detached from earthly life, as we shall
live when this life is done with. Never, I continued, have
I been so near as I am at this moment to what Christians
call belief: if we live it will be in a twilit valley with a
glow above the hills. A glow of what ? I asked myself,
and it was seemingly a voice from within that answered
me : a glow of happy aspiration.

It was in this mood that I walked towards my friend's
house to meet him on the greensward, with simple,
homely talk, for it is pleasant to enter into simple talk
with a friend after moments of enthusiasm or ecstasy,
pleasant it is to hear him say : the weather seems settled
at last, and to see his goodwife coming from the garden

343

laden with fruit and flowers, to hear the wheels of the
pony-chaise, and to meet the young girls returning from
their different adventures, a tennis-party or a picnic on
one of the islands in the Bay. Which ? To watch the
young rooks, not yet fully fledged, flopping among the
high branches, waiting to receive food from their parents,
and, having received it, to see them return to the nests
for the night, in response to the impatient cawing of
their parents.

It is always, I said, out of meditations of what always
was, and is and ever shall be that the best and most
moving stories come, and my thoughts going back to the
story that I told Alec, I said to myself: Tourgueneff was
right to withhold words ; his silence was better than
absolution, for Dostoieffsky will seek to interpret his silence,
and will be led towards peace as day is led towards night.
Where have you left your new friend? my host asked,
startling me out of my meditation. He is having his tea,
I answered, and repeated the phrase, delighted by its
homeliness. He is having his tea. Could a man be about
any more useful business ? He is having his tea, and no
doubt devoutly, I said to myself, and my host asked me
if I was going to see Alec to-morrow. He has been a
delightful adventure, I replied, somewhat sententiously,
but the adventure has come to an end, and it doesn't
seem to me that anything will be gained by continuing it.

Another story from him or myself I could not bear, and
to escape from Alec for the next few days I remained in-
doors till the news came up from the town that he had
left Westport, and was not expected back for a week. He
is sometimes away for weeks at a time, my host said. I
shall not await his return, I remarked — a remark that
prompted my host to ask me if I were going to Moore Hall.

And after putting the question he stood by the fireplace
pulling at a cigar, still uncertain that it was fully lighted.
At last a huge puff of smoke cleared his doubts away,

344

and he turned out of the billiard-room, thinking, perhaps,
that I should be left to my memories of the great square
Georgian house, one of those built at the end of the
eighteenth century in Ireland, atop of a high flight of
stairs, atop of a pleasant green hill with woods stretching
right and left down to the shore of a lake flowing round
headlands, past islands, and finding a passage between
the great oak wood of Derinrush and the Partry shore,
widening out in front of the great feudal fortresses of
Castle Carra and Castle Burke into what is almost another
lake, passing round Church Island, and ending in a great
snipe marsh under the walls of the old Abbey of Ballin-
tubber, built by Roderick, King of Connaught, shall we
say in the thirteenth century ; a crescent-shapen lake
with Moore Hall at one end of the crescent and Ballin-
tubber at the other — a lake on whose every shore is a
ruin, an ancient castle, a burnt or an abandoned house.
Even the lake's islands were once strongholds, and we
dream of these defended fiercely against boat-loads of
pursuers till portcullis and drawbridge came to be for-
bidden in Ireland, and later-day chieftains deserted the
strongholds of their ancestors for manor houses, retaining
their vassals under the name of tenantry, the village
supplying the big house with hewers of wood, drawers
of water, ploughmen, reapers, gardeners, gamekeepers,
huntsmen, jockeys, maidservants, menservants, even
mistresses.

As late as the sixties the Georgian house killed its own
mutton and beef, baked its own bread, brewed its own
beer, and the last brewer at Moore Hall was John
Malowney ; his wife, Mary Macdonald that was, and
her sister, Betty Macdonald, were cook and housemaid.
These Macdonalds were probably the descendants of
former chieftains, and the original owners of some of
the lands my great - grandfather purchased when he
returned from Spain. Whilom chieftains descend into

345

the service of landlords, and the new landlords fought
duels, there being no castles to besiege ! The Irish castle
flourished if the cattle-raiders returned with numerous
beeves, and the Georgian house if the blood stock were
speedy ; it showed signs of declension as soon as the
" crack " began to lift his leg when the back sinew was
pressed after the morning gallop.

My father, who came of the Protestant ascendancy
(a fact that must be borne in mind always — Irish
Catholics being worthless), rose at half-past six to see
the horses gallop, though nothing else could persuade
him out of his bed before ten. He was a good judge
of a horse, given overmuch, it is true, to partial and
unsatisfactory trials, but able to bring a horse fit and
well to the post. Wolf Dog won a great many Queen's
Plates, Coranna, the Cesare witch, just failing to get
his head first past the post in the Cesarewitch. He
cantered "home" in the Chester Cup, and this win
kept Moore Hall out of the encumbered Estate Courts.
Croagh Patrick won the two cups at Goodwood, and
Master George all his races till the suspensory ligaments
began to swell. I remember the day my father came
up from the stables, with the evil news on his face,
and his valet, who was fussing about the hall chairs
with one of my father's silk hats in his hands (in those
days men did not go to the stables except in silk hat
and gloves) confided to me in the pantry afterwards that
he was afraid Master George's forelegs must have shown
some slight puffiness. We shall have the veterinary
surgeon down here with his irons. Don't you believe
in firing ? Joseph did not answer. Back sinews and sus-
pensory ligaments are treated differently in these days ;
how, I have no knowledge, but in the sixties firing was
a great device, and Master George's forelegs were
fired; and I believe it was the memory of this brutal
remedy that made it so difficult to remain on his back

346

when he was put into training again. Be this as it
may, he had me off three times one morning. Slieve
Cam was the last of the Moore Hall horses that showed
" form," but he was too beautiful for a race-horse, " only
a Harab," as the bookies used to say at Newmarket.
His box still is there, and it was a sudden sight of this
loose-box that incited me to cry after Tom Ruttledge :
no, Tom, I'm not going to Moore Hall. You'd better
make sure that you don't want to go, he replied. . . . I'm
going down to the office, perhaps you'll tell me when
I return.

It seemed unkind to refuse to spend a few days at
Moore Hall, but it was impossible to commit myself
definitely to the visit. If a visit there was to be it should
come about naturally, and I told my host that I should try
to come to a decision whether I should visit the house
of my birth or go straight to Dublin in the train : I shall
be able to come to a decision, I said, between Westport
and Castlebar; not before. There's an excellent inn at
Castlebar, and I can get all the food I shall require for
a three days' visit. You will save yourself a great deal of
trouble, my host replied, if you decide now what your
journey is to be. I'll order a hamper to be packed for
you. No, no, I replied ; and invented on the spot some
specious reasons for wishing to go to Castlebar by train.
I should like to see the railway bridge again, I said, and
half-an-hour after the tall arches that spanned the valley
called forth my admiration once more, and I fell to thinking
that if both ends of the bridge disappeared into the woods
the bridge would be the most romantic in the dis-United
Kingdom.

The eastern side of the valley should be planted, and
while considering who should undertake this reforestation,
the pretty shapes of the Westport hills came into view,
beguiling my thoughts so completely with their pretty
outlines that at Castlebar my mind was not yet made up

347

whether I should proceed on my journey or drive to Moore
Hall. The road from Castlebar is not a cheerful one ; a
certain long stretch of bog rose up in memory, and I began
to think that it would suit me better to alight at the next
station, at Balla. But the train did not stop at Balla and
at Claremorris the stationmaster told me that I should not
be able to get a car on account of the races.

How very unfortunate, I answered ; I should have liked
to have seen Moore Hall. I should have gone over in
Mr Ruttledge's motor. That would have been better than
a car, the stationmaster replied, and the guard blew his
whistle.

CHAP. LVI.

BETWEEN Claremorris and Ballyhaunis there is no-
thing to attract the eye, and the people that entered
my carriage and left it at Castlerea were of a class un-
known in Mayo in its feudal days. It was vain to try to
decipher the markings on the shells ; the kind was unknown
to me, and I returned to my own thoughts, remembering
that when my mother lived at Moore Hall (which she did
to the day of her death), she used to say, when I jumped
off the car that brought me from the station : why that
gloom upon your face, George ? It would seem as if the
sight of your own house is displeasing to you, and not
wishing to distress her, I answered : you are mistaken,
mother. I was thinking that more trees should have been
planted to shut out the view of the lake. A frivolous
answer truly, but the best that I could find in those days
for a singular aversion. Why should I feel diffident? —
why should I feel shy, almost ashamed, among the old
places ? I often asked myself. Yet that is what I do feel,
and unable to find a reason to account for a feeling that
seemed inveterate in me, I fell to criticising the alterations
that my father had made in the house, trying to persuade

348

myself that it was these alterations that prevented me
from feeling at home at Moore Hall. The one that pro-
voked me most was the raising of the roof some ten or
a dozen feet for practical reasons, the beams no doubt
having rotted under the low eighteenth-century roof.
But I could not forget that the small green-mortared
slates, like scales, were much more beautiful than the
modern slates ; large blue slates give a Georgian house
the appearance of a lord mayor's mansion-house, and only
look well on a high-pitched French roof. My father
substituted plate-glass windows for the small panes, with
eyes in them like grease spots on soup. . . . How lovely !
and it was with such aesthetic reflections that I tried for
many years to account for a strange aversion ; as late as
last year, I said, I walked up and down the platform at
Athlone, seeking the reason why I was always diffident,
shy, ill at ease at Moore Hall ; and feeling myself nearer
to apprehending a reason that had till now eluded me, I
repeated the words : diffident, shy, ill at ease, ashamed,
frightened, overcome by the awe that steals over one in
the presence of the dead.

Moore Hall is a relic, a ruin, a corpse. Its life ceased
when we left it in 1870, and I am one that has no liking
for corpses. The wise man never looks on the face of a
corpse, knowing well that if he does it will come between
him and the living face. . . . That is why I am unwilling
to go to Moore Hall, and why I avoid the Quartier St
Georges, and the two streets leading to the Boulevard
Montmartre, the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette and the
Rue des Martyrs, for these streets are so intensely my past
life that I should feel shy and diffident, just as I feel at
Moore Hall, in intruding myself on their presence. It
would be painful to me to cross the Place Pigale and to
enter the cafe in which I used to spend my evenings of
long ago with Manet, with Degas, with Pissarro, with
Renoir, with Cabaner, with Alexis, with Duranty, with

349

Mendes. I have heard that it is now the haunt of ponces
and punks, and it is well that the
should descend into animal life, for life is always ascend-
ing and descending, and the ponces and punks that
assemble there to-day would shock me less if I were to
enter the cafe than a group of modern literators discussing
— ah, what do they discuss ? is there anything left to
discuss ?

I turn aside from that cafe and would not enter the
Rue Pigale if I could avoid doing so, for however fair
the moon might shine it would not shine as fairly as it
did the night when I walked there with Mendes, turning
to the right, making for the Rue Mansarde, where he
lived with Augusta Holmes. Nor would I enter the Rue
Amsterdam again, Manet forbids. Three years ago the
mistress of a friend of mine asked me to dine with her,
and I did not dare disclose the truth to her that I could not
venture into the Rue Amsterdam. A shameful cowardice
it was to accept her invitation, and my punishment
began almost as soon as I crossed the threshold, and it
continued all through dinner, for she lived in 73 Rue
Amsterdam. Some sense of premonition propelled me at
last to the window, and looking from it down into the
deep courtyard I cried out : we are certainly in the house
overlooking the courtyard in which Manet painted. She
said : you must be mistaken, for I could not have missed
hearing that so great a painter lived here once. But if
you think that this house is the house, go to the concierge
and ask him : which I did at once, you may be sure, and
he said he had heard that a great painter once lived in
the house. But that wall ? I said. The wall, he answered,
was built a few years ago. The courtyard is changed, I
said ; but is there a studio yonder ? and he answered : yes,
and showed me into the studio in which I had seen so
many masterpieces painted, now, alas, an art class for
young women.

350

Not another instant will I remain here! I cried; and
I returned to my friend's mistress with these verses on
my lips :

Triste sous le baiser plaintif dont tu m'effleures,
Oh ! combien ton baiser de jadis m'est plus cher !
Les choses du pass6, ma soeur, sont les meilleures.

CHAP. LVII.

WE must love for the sake of our remembrance of the
kiss we receive, but not for it, and of all, we must not
hesitate to resist whatever piercing longings rise up
in us to return to the things that we loved long ago. The
woman may be more beautiful and more intelligent than
she was when we loved her ; and the prospects that we
remember are, perchance, more romantic to-day than they
were when they stirred our imagination, but we must not
try to return to them ; we shall lose them if we do ; but
by our fireside we can possess them more intensely than
when they were poor illusive actualities.

I can see my father more clearly to-day than I could
when I was a child, shall we say, as he sat at the breakfast-
table reading the newspaper, suddenly remembering the
horses in the stable, and laying down the paper and going
into the hall, picking up his silk hat and gloves, that a
valet had carefully brushed and laid on the chair for him.
I can hear him call to the red setter that has been waiting
for him on the steps. I can see the great hay-ricks over
against the stables and the old pine in which the gold-
finches built their nests, and brighter than day now is the
day when the old servant took me out one morning and
showed me the nest up in a high bough. That high
bough may not exist to-day ; and if it hangs as it did in
the sixties, it would not be as clear to me at Moore Hall
as it is by my fireside in London. By my fireside in

351

Ebury Street I can relive the delightful life of the sixties
again, seeing everyone in his and her occupation, and
every room unchanged, unaltered; my nursery with
a print between window and door showing three wild
riders leaping a wooden fence in a forest. The school-
room overlooking the yard is before my eyes — the yard
is in ruins but its homely life lives on — the old mule
toiling always, bringing up water from the lake. The
mule is dead, and my old governess, too, may be under
the ground, but she lives in my memory and will live in
it, becoming clearer day by day. It would be a misfortune
truly to meet her, for no longer would I be able to go with
her for Jong walks beyond the domain out into the high-
road, over Anney's bridge ; through the long bog to the
next bridge, and to discover a crayfish in the brook. It is
a wonderful thing to see a crayfish and not to know it is a
crayfish — and to remember Primrose and Ivory, two ponies
dead fifty years or more, and the day my mother drove me
to Bally glass to see the mail coach swing round the hill-side.
The coachman held the reins grandly. The guard blew
the horn. Why should I go to Ballyglass or to Lough
Carra? The boat with sails made out of sheets stolen
out of the linen presses lies rotten, or has utterly passed
away.

But if Moore Hall lives in my mind completely and
independently of the house that stands on the hill-top,
why do I continue to refuse to accept my agent's advice
to sell the timber? He says that a thousand pounds
worth of trees can be taken out of the woods without
injury to them, and if he could see into my mind, he
would add : the trees that are growing to-day are not
the same trees that were your wont to climb in boyhood.
In fifty years a tree changes, even as a man ; for better or
for worse, all things change. Why, therefore, should you
hesitate to fell every tree on the hill-sides, to tear the lead
from the roof, to leave Moore Hall a ruin like Castle

352

Carra? Rid yourself of 'Moore Hall so that you may
possess it more completely.

CHAP. LVI1I.

THE train passes on through West Meath,and I am puzzled
to find an answer to Tom Ruttledge's subtle reasoning, and
am forced to plead an invincible repugnance to the felling
of the trees, to the selling of furniture and pictures. No ;
I cannot, I cry, do what you ask ; to me the removal of a
chair from one room to another is a pain: any change
would hurt me almost as much as the selling of the lead
coffins in which my forefathers are enclosed. But even
if you succeed in preserving Moore Hall unchanged for a
few years, says my agent, whom I have cast for the part
of the tempter, Moore Hall will certainly fall into ruin.
As soon as you have gone, the trees will be felled, and
the lead taken from the roof; Moore Hall will be a ruin
within a very few years ; for not a great many years of
life lie in front of you. A fact that cannot be gainsaid ;
yet for some reason hidden in me, and which I may not
explore, I dare not order trees to be felled at Moore
Hall. You forget, Tom, that everything came out of
Moore Hall : if Moore Hall had not existed I should
not have existed, not as I know myself to-day, for it was
Moore Hall that enabled me to go to Paris, and to sit in
the with Manet and with Degas; to

gather a literary atmosphere from Hugo, Zola, Goncourt,
Banville, Mendes — and Cabaner.

CHAP. LIX.

AS the train drew near to Mullingar, I said to myself:
Moore Hall was built with Spanish gold, and it was the
peasants around the house, and the peasants of Ballin-

353

tubber, and several other properties that enabled me to
go to Paris. It is therefore to Patsy Murphy that the
Carra edition of my writings should be dedicated. A
strange dedication it would seem to my readers, but if
justice were weighed out evenly the Carra edition should
go to Patsy Murphy, but in this world we do not get the
things that are due to us ; in Ireland things always take a
crooked turn, and instead of dedicating the Carra edition
to Patsy Murphy I have decided to dedicate it to my
agent for his good offices in obtaining from Patsy Murphy,
without undue coercion, the money that I so advantage-
ously laid out in the . Patsy Murphy
has been a patron of literature without knowing it.

CHAP. LX.

OUTSIDE of the circle of your own life you are
unconcerned with the fate of Moore Hall, my agent's
ghost insisted as the train passed by Maynooth, and
I answered to the ghost: that is not so, for I would
prolong the life of Moore Hall beyond my life if it
were possible. What is Moore Hall but one of a
thousand other houses built in the eighteenth century?
he replied. The Nineveh into which Jonah marched
for three days before he began to preach passed away
so rapidly that the shepherds who fed their flocks
among the ruins could not tell Xenophon the name
of the bygone city. Why then, said the ghostly voice,
should you trouble about Moore Hall? nobody will live
there again. It is true, I answer him; time overtakes
the most enduring monuments, but men continue to
build, for they are created with that intention, and every
day we strive against death. Why then should it be
very foolish of me to dream of Moore Hall as a hostel
for parsons and curates when I am among the gone?
z

354

The Irish Protestant Church is very dear to me, and
Moore Hall might serve as a token of my admiration
of a Protestantism that has given to Ireland all our
great men and our Anglo-Irish literature. In conversa-
tion with Hugh Lane I once said : I will leave my
Impressionist pictures to Moore Hall, if you will include
some pictures ; together we might found a museum that
would attract pilgrims. But Hugh Lane, who was some-
thing of a sciolist, answered that a museum was useless
unless some hundreds of people visited it daily. Three
appreciative visitors, I said, are better than a crowd of
holiday starers. At this Lane giggled, but his prejudice
in favour of the starer did not relax. Hugh Lane was
undoubtedly something of a sciolist. But we are not
yet at the end of our imaginations. Another destiny
than a clerical hostel might be devised for Moore Hall ;
a rich American might buy my house. Ireland is nearer
America than England, and sooner or later Galway will
become a Transatlantic port. A steamer plies from Galway
to Cong. Cong is but a few miles away from Moore Hall,
why should not some rich American take the place from
me? and may this book fall into his hands and inspire
him to do so.

CHAP. LXI.

THE train passes into Dublin, and I remember that if I
hasten I may catch the train to Kingstown, and cross to-
night. Why wait a day in Dublin ? Let me hurry to my
fireside in Ebury Street. And an hour later I am leaning
over the taffrail watching the wake of the ship as she
pierces the waveless Irish Sea.

It is the past that explains everything, I say to myself.
It is in our sense of the past that we find our humanity,
and there are no moments in our life so dear to us as

355

when we lean over the taffrail and watch the waters we
have passed through. The past tells us whence we have
come and what we are, and it was well that I refused to
allow the trees to be felled, for sitting by my fireside in
Ebury Street I should hear the strokes of the axe in
my imagination as plainly as I should if I were living
in Moore Hall, and the ghosts of the felled trees would
gather about my arm-chair in Ebury Street.

THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED. EDINBURGH

PR
5042
S8
1918

Moore, George

A story- teller fs
holiday

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY

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