O'Mahony

“ 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 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. ”

“ But what has this man—this O’Mahony—got to do with this present case?”
“It’s like this,” explained Bernard, “as I understand it: He left Ireland after this thing Jerry’s been telling you about and went fighting in other countries. He turned his property over to two trustees to manage for the benefit of a little girl here—now Miss Kate O’Mahony. O’Daly was one of the trustees. What does he do but marry the girl’s mother—a widow—and lay pipes to put the girl in a convent and steal all the money. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In answer to O’Mahony’s puzzled look, O’Daly added in explanation: “It’s the glory of Muirisc, sir, that we hould fast be our ancient thraditions and tongue. In all the place there’s not rising a dozen that could spake to you in English. And—I suppose your honor forgets the Irish entoirely? ”

“ The O’Mahony nodded curtly, and eyed his visitor with cool disfavor.
“As long as you’re here, sir, you might as well take a seat,” he said, after a minute’s pause. “That ’s it. Now, sir, first of all, perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me who you are and what the devil you mean, sir, by coming here and meddling in this way with other people’s private affairs.”
“Curious, isn’t it,” remarked the young man from Houghton County, blandly, “how we Americans lug in the word ‘sir’ every other breath? They tell me no Englishman ever uses it at all.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ O’Daly made brisk reply. “It’s part of my hereditary duty to accompany you on all your travels and explorations and incursions, to keep a record of the same, and properly celebrate thim in song and history. The last two O’Mahonys betwixt ourselves, did nothing but dhrink at the pig-market at Dunmanway once a week, and dhrink at Mike Leary’s shebeen over at Ballydivlin the remainding days of the week, and dhrink here at home on Sundays. To say the laste, this provided only indifferent opportunities for a bard. But plase the Lord bether times have come, now.” ”

“ At ten in the forenoon, in the presence of all Muirisc, The O’Mahony at last gently pushed his way through the throng of keening old women and excited younger friends, and stepped over the gunwale upon the deck, and Jerry and O’Daly restrained those who would have followed him. He had forced his face into a half-smile, to which he clung resolutely almost to the end. He had offered many parting injunctions: to work hard and drink little; to send the children to school ”

“ The O’Mahony continued, affably:
“One thing I’m sorry for: It was pritty rough to have your mouth stuffed with gun-wipers; but, really, there wasn’t anything else handy, and time was pressin’. Now what d’ye say to havin’ a drink—jest to rense the taste out o’ your mouth?”
The officer kept his eyes fixed on the distant horizon. His lips twitched under the mustache with a movement that might signify temptation, but more probably reflected an impulse to tell his questioner to go to the devil. ”

“ I know my father was born somewhere in this part of County Cork.”
Kate sniffed at him.
“Manny thousands of people have been born here,” she said, with dignity, “but it doesn’t follow that they had annything to do with these castles.” The young man attached less importance to the point.
“Oh, of course not,” he said, carelessly. “All I go by is the probability that, way back somewhere, all of us O’Mahonys were related to one another. But for that matter, so were all the Irish who—”
“And are you an O’Mahony, thin?” ”

“ Malachy, get a glass for yourself and give one to Murphy.”
The one-armed servitor leaned gravely forward and whispered in The O’Mahony’s ear.
“I don’t care a button,” the other protested. “You can see him home. This is as much his funeral as it is anybody else’s on earth. That’s it. Are you all filled? Now, then, ladies and gentlemen, I am getting along in years. I am a childless man. ”

“ He seemed ill at ease in his badly fitting clothes, and looked furtively from one to another of the faces before him.
“An’ what d’ ye think, Miss Katie?” hurriedly continued Jerry. “Egor! Be all the miracles of Moses, he’s possessed of more learnin’ about the O’Mahonys than anny other man alive, Cormac O’Daly ’d be a fool to him. An’, egor, he used to know our O’Mahony whin he was in Ameriky, before ever he came over to us!” ”

“ Faith, miss, ’tis the belafe they went up and down be the aid of the little people. ’T is well known that, on windy nights, there do be grand carrin’s-on hereabouts. Sure, in the lake forninst us it was that Kian O’Mahony saw the enchanted woman with the shape on her of a horse, and died of the sight. ”

“ Sure no mortial man ever stepped fut on green sod that ’ud take more killin’ than our O’Mahony. Why, coleen asthore, wasn’t he foightin’ wid the French, against the Prooshians, an’ thin wid the Turkeys against the Rooshians, an’ bechune males, as ye’d say, didn’t he bear arms in Spain for the Catholic king, like the thunderin’ rare old O’Mahony that he is, an’ did ever so much as a scratch come to him—an’ him killin’ an’ destroyin’ thim by hundreds? ”

“ In truth, they looked from day to day for him to give some sign, be it never so slight, that his errand to Ireland was a political one. They were all Fenians—among the advance guard of that host of Irishmen who returned from exile at the close of the American War—and they took it for granted that the solitary and silent O’Mahony was a member of the Brotherhood. The more taciturn he grew, the more he held aloof, the firmer became their conviction that his rank in the society was exalted and his mission important. ”

“ In every family devoted to industrial pursuits there is one member who is more distinguished for attention to the business than the others, and upon whom its chief burdens fall. This was true of the O’Mahonys, who for many centuries controlled and carried on the lucrative occupation above described, on their peninsula of Ivehagh. ”

“ An O’Mahony has had an O’Daly to chronicle his deeds of valor and daring, to sing his praises of person and prowess, since ages before Kian fought at Clontarf and married the daughter of the great Brian Boru. Oppression and poverty, sir, have diminished the position of the bard in most parts of Ireland, I’m informed. All the O’Dalys that informer times were bards to The O’Neill in Ulster, The O’Reilly of Brefny, The MacCarthy in Desmond and The O’Farrell of Annaly—faith, they’ve disappeared from the face of the earth. But in Muirisc—glory be to the Lord!—. ”

“ 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 O’Mahony himself put writin’ to paper, statin’ how every blessed thing was to be yours, the day he sailed away. Sure ’twas meself was witness to that same, along wid O’Daly an’ your mother an’ the nuns. To-morrow I’ll have the law on him!”
“Ah, Jerry,” the girl sighed and shook her head; “ye’ve a good heart, but it’s only grief ye’ll get tryin’ to match your wits against O’Daly’s. What do you know about papers an’ documents, an’ the like of that, compared wid him? Why, man, he’s an attorney himself! ’T is thim that putts the law on other people—worse luck!” ”

“ I begin to feel like Jeff Davis—that it ’ud have bin ten dollars in my pocket if I’d never bin born.”
“Ah, sure, your honor,” said Jerry, “ye’ll git used to it in time. He manes for the best.”
“That’s jest what makes me tired,” rejoined The O’Mahony; “that’s what they always said about a fellow when he makes a confounded nuisance of himself. I hate fellows that mean for the best. ”

“ God send more men as lovable and unselfish as he! A gentleman born and bred, he chose to live in poverty, putting all things aside that might interfere with his dream of a free Ireland. He never stained his white hand with one unworthy coin from the treasury of Fenianism. O'Mahony was the incarnation of his cause, sincere, honest, unselfish, and uncalculating—not wise as the world judges, but wiser, perhaps, than he or the world knew, in cherishing a dream:
For a dreamer lives forever. ”

“ As Young Ireland departed from O'Connell and followed the brilliant youths of the Sword, so Fenianism swerved from O'Mahony and half its supporters faced toward Canada. Col. William R. Roberts, a natural leader of men, sanguine, intellectual, eloquent, replaced O'Mahony in their hearts. Lower and lower went his Fenianism, till the only men who clung to it in a practical way were a few severe or simple natures, those who stand by a solitary idea for a lifetime, whose grasp and hope are coeval with their existence. ”

“ The O’Mahony thoughtfully raised his rifle, and fastened his attention upon that portion of Linsky’s breast and torso which showed above the black, unshaken sight at the end of its barrel.
CHAPTER XIII—THE RETREAT WITH THE PRISONERS The Hen Hawk was idly drifting into the cove toward the little fishing-smack pier of stone and piles which ran out like a tongue from the lower end of the mound. Only two of her men were visible on deck. A group of gulls wheeled and floated about the thick little craft as she crawled landward. ”

“ O’Daly went on, hurriedly. “Sure, things have stuck in the mire far too long, waiting for the comin’ to life of a dead man. ’T is to stir ’em up I will now, an’ no delay. Me step-daughter, there, takes the vail in a few days, an’ ’t is me intintion thin to rebuild large parts of the convint, an’ mek new rules for it whereby gerrels of me own family can be free to enter it as well as the O’Mahonys. ”

“ But in Muirisc the laste intelligent child knows betther. Therefore, I would suggest that when we arrive at your ancesthral abode, sir, Mr. Higgins’s name be given as Diarmid MacEgan.”
“An’ a foine bould name it is, too!” said Jerry. “Egor! if I’m called that, and called rigular to me males as well, I’ll put whole inches to my stature.”
“Well, O’Daly,” said The O’Mahony, “you just run that part of the show to suit yourself. If you hear of anything that wants changin’ any time, or whittlin’ down or bein’ spelt different, you can interfere right then an’ there without sayin’ anything to me. ”

“ It’s a part of the general good luck which has brought him here that he turns out to be a trained mining engineer—just the sort of a man, of all others, that Muirisc needs. He tells me that we’ve only scratched the surface of things roundabout here yet. He promises to get more wealth for us and for Muirisc out of an acre than we’ve been getting out of a townland. Malachy, go out and look for old Murphy, and if he can walk, bring him in here.”
The O’Mahony composedly busied himself in filling his glass afresh, the while Malachy was absent on his quest. ”

“ That was the first time I met John O’Mahony. He made the impression on me that he was a man proud of his name and of his race. And I liked him for that. I like to see an Irishman proud of his people. It is seldom you will find such a man doing anything that would disgrace any one belonging to him. In my work of organizing in Ireland, I felt myself perfectly safe in dealing with men who were proud—no matter how poor they were—of belonging to the “Old Stock.” ”