Caldwell Lipsett

“ As it drew near he saw that it was a car, with a man sitting upon one side, and the other side turned up; and as it came still closer he recognized in the driver a cousin of his own, the land-steward of the Duke of Ulster. The other was going to pass with a wave of his whip. But a sudden revulsion of feeling had come over Philip. Nature had taken upon herself the oppression of his own spirits, and had shamed him out of his febrile emotions by the spectacle of her larger melancholy. ”

“ You are so sensible, so horridly, vulgarly successful, self-confident, good-natured, and altogether admirable. You are too perfect. If I ought not to admire you so much, I might perhaps—like you more.'
'You are frank at any rate,' said he ruefully.
'Yes. It will do you good to hear for once in a way, that you are too conceited and philosophical. You have too much common-sense. What business has a lover to talk common-sense, I should like to know. Any one can do that. However it is useless to argue any further, Mr. Travers. My mind is made up. I will never marry a man I do not love. ”

“ Every fist held an ash-plant or a blackthorn stick, and every pocket was filled with jagged pieces of limestone.
Suddenly a rumor—a whisper—flashed down the ranks and died out like a sigh: 'The polis.'
The rhythm of disciplined feet crept upon the ear; and the dark-green tunics and brown rifle-barrels of the Royal Irish Constabulary rounded the corner and came into view. Amid a silence of death they marched steadily up the centre of the avenue—twenty-four stalwart men and their officer—and behind them rode the resident magistrate on his big roan horse. ”

“ These moments of self-revelation come in the life of all of us, when our ordinary every-day self, familiar to ourselves and our home circle, is suddenly brought face to face with that other deeper lying and often semi-barbarous self, which crouches hidden beneath the veneer of civilization and the mask of social habit, and we are forced into a swift mental comparison of the two. ”

“ Bella was greatly delighted with the queer aspect of the creatures, their translucent bodies, the large heads with their serrated horn and protruding eyes, and the long flexible 'whiskers,' and begged her lover to catch one for her to see closer.
Presently they came to a large pool above the reach of any but the highest tides. The water here softened by the rain was only brackish: the stones were clothed with long green seaweed, and those underneath the stagnant surface were coated with a brownish slime. ”

“ They flattened their bodies desperately against the rock, and twined their fingers in the short button-wrack that grew at high-water mark: their skirts floated wide upon the surface of the swell, but its force did not avail to pluck them from their hold. It retreated baffled, and the two bedraggled figures scrambled round the corner and were lost to view.
'Holy Mother, but it's a mercy they weren't lost,' cried Bella.
'Ay,' replied Terry, 'the tide must have turned. It's top spring the day, so it must be afther twelve. Troth, it's near hand wan,' he continued, cocking his eye at the sun. ”

“ A man who is free from self-deception is not a man at all, but a monster. Self-hypocrisy, after all, is only another form of self-respect, and it is part of human nature to desire our own good opinion no less than other people's.
To outward seeming the air-gun was merely an ordinary hazel walking-stick with a crook handle, and the closest examination would barely reveal its real nature. In his restless mood this novelty in puzzles took Brandon's fancy, and he bought it on the spot. ”

“ Terry sat on the shaft in front, swinging his legs, and got a crick in his neck turning his head to admire her dishevelled hair and the brown shadows beneath her Irish eyes, 'rubbed in with a dirty finger,' as the saying goes.
For the next six months Terry lived upon the memory of that day. It formed the high-water mark of his influence with the girl whom he grew to love the more she disregarded him: for a man's love feeds upon starvation. ”

“ The priest turned from bestowing the blessing, and his eyes fell upon the magistrate; he started, and a sudden flame of apprehension leapt into life in his eyes, which was answered by a smile deep down in Fitzgerald's. And then was seen a curious sight: a conflict of religions, of parties, of races, over the dying body of one man. Another human life was the stake. ”

“ It was extraordinarily still for an Irish mob. No man spoke to his neighbor, but all kept their eyes steadfastly fixed on the vanishing lines of the railway; nevertheless, through the whole mass there ran the troubled undertone, the uneasy stir of a ground-swell in the Atlantic. Every minute men came dropping in by twos and threes and took their places in the serried ranks, till the cut leading to the railway station of Lisnamore was packed from end to end with two banks of solid humanity, leaving a broad avenue down the middle. ”

“ Will you have a nip, Fitzgerald?'
'No, thanks; I never drink when I'm out shooting. And if I were you, I wouldn't take any more either. It won't improve your aim.'
'Which is bad enough already. Right you are, my boy. But I admire your cheek in saying so to me, seeing that I'm twenty years your senior. I suppose I ought to be offended, only I'm not. But where's the harm in a flask of whisky in a day?'
'Not the least in life, I suppose, only I've known good men broken in my time through taking less so early in the day as this. ”

“ At this heathenish question old Peggy rose to her full height and pointed the pot-stick accusingly at her daughter, as she said in a tone of concentrated bitterness:
'I wudn't let a wumman like yon soil an honest man's hearth.'
Bella sat unmoved, without taking the slightest notice of the words. Her mother and Terry belonged to a world outside of her which no longer affected her by their phantom movements. ”

“ The rope is slipping. No, it is only my imagination. The cliff opposite me is quite still. Twenty feet more. I must pass that tuft of grass. I didn't reach it as quick as I ought. The rope is slipping. Every jerk brings me nearer to destruction. It is cutting into my hands. My arms are coming out of their sockets. My legs are numbed. I must let go. Only two yards more. For her sake! I wonder if she is watching me. I must look down and see. Oh! it has come away in my hand. I am falling, falling through the air. There is nothing to catch hold of. ”

“ At that moment feeling for his whip, Philip's hand fell upon that demon-possessed air-gun, which he had left loaded on the cushion beside him. An electric thrill passed through all his nerves. Almost without volition the weapon flew to his shoulder. He saw Dick's temple turned sideways towards him for a moment. There was a whip-like crack, a thud, and his body swayed heavily and fell backwards on the stone ditch beside the road. Both horses stood still. All nature held her breath. ”

“ It was a yearning for one sip of the wine of life before it was too late, a sense of weariness, of discouragement at the thought that he had never known that joy which is every man's birthright once in his lifetime, the joy of knowing the full meaning of a woman's love. ”

“ Groups of men were lounging about the doorways, amongst whom were seen a few women wearing white aprons, the badge of 'the most ancient profession in the world.'
The car threaded its way with difficulty through these varied obstructions, the police officer and his friend being the recipients of more than one scowling glance or smothered curse; but once clear of them, Fitzgerald urged the horse to his speed again, and galloped up the hill beyond.
'What's all the hurry about?' asked Trevor, now awake to his surroundings. ”

“ When his momentary rage had died down a great tumult was left in Terry's mind. The scene which he had just passed through had brought sharply home to him the attitude that the neighbors would take towards Bella's transgression. He pictured her to himself defenceless before her persecutors, and longed to give her the shelter of his arm and of his name. But could he offer to marry her still, and consent to be pointed at for the remainder of his life as the husband of a wanton? for scandal dies hard in the country. ”

“ It was the old story of Irish emigration. Sons and daughters, not content with a fare of potatoes and tea and a futureless outlook at home, drift off one by one as they grow up to different parts of America and Australia; there they form new ties, and forget the old folks at home and all they owe them. ”

“ Scandal appeared likely to die a natural death of sheer inanition, when suddenly a breath coming, no one knew whence, fanned it into more than its original brightness, as the embers of a dying fire often spring into a fresh glow from some unknown cause. ”

“ Ye can just let her be.'
She was their idol, and though, like all savage worshippers, they might trample her under foot themselves in the heat of their fury, meanwhile they would let no one else touch her.
Fitzgerald turned his eyes upon them, and regarded them tranquilly; it was no part of his policy to precipitate a conflict before it was absolutely necessary. Once it began, he knew that his handful of men would be immediately swamped. Meanwhile there were all the chances of the fickleness of an Irish mob, and every chance counted. ”

“ This cloud of alien personalities obscured his own, acting upon his mind like an anæsthetic, so that for weeks he lived and moved in that atmosphere of unreality which constant novel-reading engenders, and which is so apt to unfit one for the stress of actual life. ”

“ He was not strong enough yet to be himself in the face of his world, but the balance wavered ever more deeply on the side of this new self that he was discovering. That he should have an opinion of his own at all was a great advance upon anything that he could have felt a year ago. But there is no forcing-house for the growth of character like disappointed love.
At the end of a fortnight he was still wavering in mind, but he could no longer rest without seeing Bella. So he put on his holiday suit, and went down the road towards her mother's cottage ”

“ The wisdom of those in authority is such, that they have placed the new barracks at the far end of the town from the poorest, and therefore the rowdiest, quarter. The consequence is that, to run a man in, as a general rule, my men have to drag him about half a mile through the public streets, and no Irish mob that was ever raked off its native dung-heap could stand such a temptation as that.'
By this time they had reached the shebeen, a small two-roomed cottage with moss and long grasses growing on its weather-beaten thatched roof. ”

“ For a moment he sat there: then he rose to his knees, and thence to his feet, and staggered out of the door and down the road, reeling to and fro in the sunlight like a drunken man.
'Who'd ha' thought it?' said Patsey, looking after him: 'It's wunnerful what stuff a taste of the gurls does be makin' into a man. Yon wan was a suckin' calf a while ago, and now he's a young bull.'
'May the divil roast him,' exclaimed Owen, scrambling to his feet, and looking regretfully at the pool of his own blood upon the floor. ”

“ If I had stood my ground at first, the fishermen's knowledge of me would have preserved me from the suspicion of spying on them and from consequent injury, but now that I had provoked these suspicions and fully roused the latent savagery of their natures, I could expect no better treatment than the merest stranger, if I were caught; while in their drunken state this chase after a human quarry would have such zest for them that they would not easily abandon it. ”

“ There I used to seek him out with offerings of snuff, to get him to tell me those stories of the ancient grandeur of his race which I loved to hear; for youth has always a tinge of snobbishness, which is at the root of that hero-worship common to all children. ”

“ But Travers said he was too unnerved to drive, and asked the Idiot, though he called him so no longer even in his own mind, to take the reins and his seat in the middle. The other man and the girl had already taken their places on one side. So that left the remaining side to him and Miss Derwent.
She will never forget that drive to her dying day.
She had him practically to herself, for the others' backs were all turned upon them. For a good opportunity for love-making commend me to an Irish outside car. It is solitude in the midst of a crowd. ”

“ No sound broke the stillness but the rattle of a bit, the clink of a cleaning-rod, or the grinding of a rifle-stock in the roadway as a policeman shifted his position, except the vague rustle that is inseparable from the breathing of a great multitude of men. ”

“ A mile along this lay the shebeen they were making for.
'I suppose you'll be very much in evidence to-night with your men,' remarked Trevor idly, after a time, to break the silence.
'Now, my dear fellow, you might know better than that, after living amongst these people all your life. There's nothing that provokes an Irishman to make a row so much as to let him know you're ready for him. Sheer cussedness is a much neglected factor in human nature, and especially Irish nature. ”

“ With the help of an early start, in spite of the sorriness of his nag, he managed the fifty miles between Enniskillen and the town of Donegal on the first day, and early on the second reached the Gap. It was a moist, drizzling morning, and as he rode in among the mountains a damp mist closed down upon him, almost hiding the ground beneath him from his sight. The road passed upwards along the mountain side, until it became a mere ledge jutting out from it, and forming a break in the sheer descent of the cliff ”

“ Lisnamore is a hotbed of gossip—that vice of small towns and small minds—and soon everybody in the place was discussing Maggie's affair with Johnny Daly. Old Paterson himself alone remained in ignorance of it; he inspired too healthy a respect in the breasts of his neighbors for any one to approach him on the subject.
The priest, Father O'Flaherty, was one of the first to hear of the grievous lapse of Johnny Daly into church-going, and immediately seized an opportunity of speaking to that unruly member of his flock. ”