Harold Frederic

“ As the unwieldy craft slowly moved, The O’Mahony turned a long, ruminative gaze upon the sleeping hamlet they were leaving behind. The whole eastern sky was awake now with light—light which lay in brilliant bars of lemon hue upon the hill-tops, and mellowed upward through opal and pearl into fleecy ashen tints. The two in the boat dropped behind, fastened their tiny craft to the stern, and clambered on board.
A fresh, chill breeze caught and filled the jib once they had passed the bar, and the crew laid their hands upon the ropes, expecting orders to hoist the mainsail and mizzen-sheets. ”

“ The stranger had heard her, if the heron had not. He lowered his weapon, and for a moment gazed wonderingly across the water at this unlooked-for apparition. Then, with his gun under his arm, he turned and walked briskly toward her. Kate cast a searching glance backward for Murphy in vain, and her intuitive movement to draw a shawl over her head was equally fruitless. The old man was still somewhere behind the rocks, and she had only this citified hat and even that not on her head. She could see that the advancing sportsman was young and a stranger. ”

“ Then Zeke did an unwise thing. He cast a single glance at the spectacle his comrade presented—with the thick, dark molasses covering his cap like an oilskin, soaking into his hair, and streaming down his bewildered face in streaks like an Indian’s war-paint—and then burst forth in a resounding peal of laughter.
On the instant two men in gray, with battered slouch hats and guns, appeared at the corner of the house, looking eagerly up and down the hedge for some sign of a hostile presence. Zeke had dropped to his knees in time to prevent discovery. ”

“ For the first time in its history Muirisc had witnessed evictions. Half way up the cliff stood the walls of four cottages, from which the thatched roofs had been torn by a sheriff’s posse of policeman during the bleakest month of winter. The gloomy spectacle, familiar enough elsewhere throughout Ireland, had still the fascination of novelty in the eyes of Muirisc. The villagers could not keep their gaze from those gaunt, deserted walls. ”

“ They waited now for the tug, which could be seen passing Roche’s Point with a prodigious spluttering and splashing of side-paddles. Before its arrival, the Moldavian lay at rest within full view of the wonderful harbor—her deck thronged with passengers dressed now in fine shore apparel and bearing bags and rugs, who bade each other good-bye with an enthusiasm which nobody believed in, and edged along as near as possible where the gang-plank would be.
The O’Mahony walked alone down the plank, rebuffing the porters who sought to relieve him of his heavy bags. ”

“ The villagers stood about, and looked at the squat coaster, snugly raising and sinking with the lazy movement of the tide, and watched for the master of Muirisc to show himself. They had never before been conscious of such perfect pride in and affection for this strange Americanized chieftain of theirs. By an unerring factional instinct, they felt that this apotheosis of The O’Mahony in their hearts involved the discomfiture of O’Daly and the nuns, and they let the hereditary bard feel it, too. ”

“ The stone had come to be a very prominent feature in the natural landscape as well, before their journey by rail ended—a cold, wild, hard-featured landscape, with scant brown grass barely masking the black of the bog lands, and dying of! at the fringes of gaunt layers of rock which thrust their heads everywhere upon the vision. The O’Mahony observed with curiosity that as the land grew poorer, the population, housed all in wretched hovels, seemed to increase, and the burning fire-yellow of the furze blossoms all about made lurid mockery of the absence of crops. ”

“ It was ever so much better than fighting with mere men.
The gloom of twilight ripened into pitchy darkness, broken only by momentary gleams of that strange, weird half-light which the rushing waves generate in their own crests of foam. The wind rose in violence when the night closed in, and the vessel’s timbers creaked in added travail as huge seas lifted and hurled her onward through the black chaos toward the rocks. The men by the mast could every few minutes discern the red lights from the cottage windows of Muirisc, and shuddered anew as the glimmering sparks grew nearer. ”

“ The warm summer air was so clear that the hamlet of Muirisc, whose gray walls, embroidered with glossy vines, and tiny cottages white with lime-wash were crowded together on the very edge of the shore, seemed close beside them, and every grunt and squawk from sty or barn-yard came over the lapping waters to them as from a sounding-board. The village, engirdled by steep, sheltering cliffs, and glistening in the sunlight, made a picture which artists would have blessed their stars for. ”

“ About the fire a considerable crowd of persons were gathered—thin, little men in long coats and knee-breeches; old, white-capped women with large, black hooded cloaks; younger women with crimson petticoats and bare feet and ankles, children of all sizes and ages clustering about their skirts—perhaps a hundred souls in all. Though The O’Mahony had very little poetic imagination or pictorial sensibility, he was conscious that the spectacle was a curious one.
As the car came to a stop, O’Daly leaped lightly to the ground, and ran over to the throng by the bonfire. ”

“ At the table, before a formidable array of papers, was seated Cormac O’Daly, and at his side sat the person whose polite name seemed to be Diarmid MacEgan, but whom Muirisc knew and delighted in as Jerry. Mrs. Fergus made a mental note of surprise at seeing him seated in such company, and then carried her gaze on to cover the principal personage in the room. It was The O’Mahony, looking very grave and preoccupied, and who stood leaning against the chimney-mantel like a proprietor, who welcomed her with a nod and motioned her to a seat. ”

“ How curiously inscrutable a thing is chance! Upon that one decision turned every human interest in this tale, and most of all, the destiny of the sulky man who sat scraping his boots. The Wheel of Fortune, in this little moment of silence, held him poised within the hair’s breadth of a discovery which would have altered his career in an amazing way, and changed the story of a dozen lives. But the corporal bit his lip and said nothing. O’Mahony bent doggedly over his work—and the wheel rolled on. ”

“ Along the furze-hedge road which wound its way up the mountain-side from Dunmanus and the south, two human figures were moving toward him, slowly, and still at a considerable distance. One of these figures was that of a woman, and—yes, it was a woman!—and she wore, a hat—as like as could be to that broad-brimmed, black hat he had been dreaming of. ”

“ The power of speech came first to Mother Agnes. “If ’t is to insult our griefs you’ve come, young sir,” she began; “if that’s your m’aning—”
“Bless your heart, madam!” Bernard protested. “I’d be the last man in the world to dream of such a thing. I’ve too much respect. I’ve an aunt who is a religious, myself. No, what I mean is it’s all a joke—that is, a mistake. O’Daly isn’t dead at all.”
“What’s that you’re sayin’?” put in Mrs. Fergus, sharply. “Me man is aloive, ye say?”
“Why, of course”—the youngster went off into a fresh fit of chuckling—“of course, he is—alive and kicking. ”

“ In Desmond, the broad-based, conical Gabriel has as unique a character of another kind. There is nothing of the frank and homely German familiarity in the reputation it enjoys at home. To be sure, the mountain is scarred to the throat by bogcutters; cabins and the ruins of cabins lurk hidden in clefts of rocks more than half-way up its gray, furze-clad sides; yet it produces the effect of standing sternly aloof from human things. The peasants think of it as a sacred eminence. ”

“ Kate, in vast surprise, turned at the very first sound of this strange voice. A young man had risen to his feet from behind the furze hedge, close beside her, his rosy-cheeked face wreathed in amiable smiles. She recognized the wandering O’Ma-hony from Houghton County, Michigan, and softened the rigid lines into which her face had been startled, as a token of friendly recognition. ”

“ Here they halted, looking down upon the gray ruins of castle, church and convent, upon thatched cottage roofs, the throng on the quay, the breakers’ line of foam against the rocks, and the darkened expanse of white-capped waters beyond.
“Don’t take on so, sis, any more; that’s a good gal,” said The O’Mahony, at last, drawing the child’s head to his side, and gently stroking her black hair. “It ain’t no good, an’ it breaks me all up. One thing I’m glad of: It’s going to be rough outside. ”

“ The O’Mahony, grown accustomed now to maintaining his seat, thought he had never seen such a horse before, and said so to O’Daly, who sat beside him, Jerry and the bag being disposed on the opposite side, and the driver, a silent, round-shouldered, undersized young man sitting in front with his feet on the shafts.
“Ah, sir, our bastes are like our people hereabouts,” replied the bard—“not much to look at, but with hearts of goold. They’ll run till they fall. But, sir—halt, now, Malachy!—yonder you can see Muirisc.” ”

“ Its sons and daughters, scattered in tiny, isolated hamlets over its barren area, hear never a stranger’s voice—and their own speech is slow and low of tone because the real right to make a noise there belongs to the shrieking gulls and the wild, west wind and the towering, foam-fanged waves, which dashed themselves, in tireless rivalry with the thunder, against its cliffs.
Slow, too, in growth and ripening are the wits of the men of Kilmoe. They must have gray hairs before they are accounted more than boys ”

“ This hour’s drive went in silence, for the way was too rough for talk. Darkness fell, and then the full moon rose and wrapped the wild landscape in strange, misty lights and weird shadows.
All at once the car emerged from the obscurity of overhanging trees and bowlders, and the travellers found themselves in the very heart of the hamlet of Muirisc. ”

“ Every one of the score of months that had passed since these two first met, seemed to have added something to the stature of little Kate O’Mahony. She had grown, in truth, to be a tall girl for her age—and an erect girl, holding her head well in air, into the bargain. ”

“ In a guarded way he had made some inquiries at Goleen, where he was for the moment domiciled, but only to learn that people on the east side of the peninsula are conscious of no interest whatever in the people reputed to live on the west side. They are six or eight Irish miles apart, and there is high land between them. No one in Goleen could tell him anything about a beautiful dark young woman with a broad, black hat. He felt that they did not even properly imagine to themselves what he meant. In Goleen the young women are not beautiful, and they wear shawls on their heads, not hats. ”

“ Well, now, there turns up this young man, who is as much an O’Mahony of the real stock as Kate is. There’s a providence in these things. They love each other. They will marry. They will live in the castle, where they’ve promised to give me board and lodging, and when I am gone, they will come after me. I’m going to have you all get up and drink the health of my young—nephew—Bernard, and of his bride, our Kate, here, and—and of the line of O’Mahonys to come. ”

“ He’s my meat—I can’t give him up!”
“W’u’d yer honor be for sparin’ him, thin?” asked one, with incredulity and surprise.
The O’Mahony of Muirisc looked over the excited group which surrounded him, dimly recognizing the strangeness of the weirdly interwoven qualities which run in the blood of Heber—the soft tenderness of nature which through tears would swear loyalty unto death to a little child, shifting on the instant to the ferocity of the wolf-hound burying its jowl in the throat of its quarry. ”

“ The ready-made railroad from City Point was at its back, and food was plenty. But now, as spring came on—the wet, warm Virginian spring, with every meadow a swamp, every road a morass, every piece of bright-green woodland an impassable tangle—the strategy of the closing act in the dread drama sent Company F away to the South and West, into the desolate backwoods country where no roads existed, and no foraging, be it never so vigilant, promised food. ”

“ Until the old man got quieted down, he might feel disposed to tear things.”
“Egor! I’ll do it!” cried Jerry, with sparkling eyes and a grin on his broad face. “Oh, the art of man!”
The pallid and near-sighted Linsky was less alive to the value of this bold plan.
“An’ what’ll ye do nixt?” he asked, doubtfully.
“I’ve got a scheme which I’ll carry out to-morrow, by myself,” said Bernard. “It’ll take me all day; and by the time I turn up the day after, you must have O’Daly safely bottled up down here. Then I’ll be in a position to read the riot act to everybody. ”

“ Ah, poor, poor Ireland!”
Bernard saw tears glistening upon her long, black lashes, and scarcely knew his own voice when he heard it, in such depths of melancholy was it pitched.
“Better times are coming now,” he said. “If we open up the mines we are counting on it ought to give work to at least two hundred men.”
She turned sharply upon him.
“Don’t talk like that!” she said, in half command, half entreaty. “’T is not trade or work or mines that keeps a nation alive when ’tis fit to die. One can have them all, and riches untold, and still sink wid a broken heart. ”

“ The reddened sun, with its promise of a kindly morrow, hangs low in the western heavens and pushes the long shadow of the gateway onward to the very steps of the building. We have no call to set the harsh-toned jangling old bell in motion. The door is open and the hall is swept for guests.
This hour of waning day marked a unique occurrence in the annals of the House of the Hostage’s Tears. Its nuns were too aged and infirm to go to the castle to offer welcome to the newly returned head of the family. So The O’Mahony came to them instead. ”

“ But The O’Mahony gave no sign, and lounged in silence against the tiller, spitting over the taffrail into the water, until the vessel had rounded the point and stood well off the cliffs, out of sight of Muirisc, plunging softly along through the swell. Then he beckoned Dominic to the helm, and walked over toward the mast, with a gesture which summoned the whole score of men about him. To them he began the first speech he had ever made in his life:
“Now, boys,” he said, “prob’ly you’ve noticed that the name’s been painted off the starn of this ere vessel, over night. ”

“ Wasn’t I born mesilf at Durrus?”
“The O’Mahony of Murrisk is on board,” whispered some one else, “returnin’ to his estates. I had it this day from the cook’s helper. The quantity of mate that same O’Mahony’s been ’atin’! An’ dhrink, is it? Faith, there’s no English nobleman could touch him!”
On the saloon deck, aft, the interest excited by these distant lights was less volubly eager, but it had sufficed to break up the card-games in the smoking-room, and even to tempt some malingering passengers from the cabins below. ”