Kilgorman: A Story of Ireland in 1798

  CHAPTER THREE.

  WAKING.

  Had it not been for what I dreaded to find at home, my journey back fromDerry would have been light enough; for now I was rid of my turnips Ihad nothing to fear from inquisitive wayfarers. Nor had I cause to beanxious as to the way, for my mare knew she was homeward bound, andstepped out briskly with no encouragement from me.

  Indeed I had so little to do that about noon, when we had got off thehighroad on to the hill-track, I curled myself up in the straw and fellasleep. Nor did I wake till the cart suddenly came to a standstill, andI felt myself being lifted out of my nest.

  At first I thought I was back already at Knockowen, and wondered at thespeed the old jade had made while I slept. But as soon as I had rubbedmy eyes I found we were still on the hillside, and that my awakers werea handful of soldiers.

  They demanded my name and my master's. When I told them Mr Gorman ofKnockowen, they were a thought less rough with me; for his honour wasknown as a friend of the government. Nevertheless they said they mustsearch my cart, and bade me help them to unload the straw.

  I could not help laughing as I saw them so busy.

  "What's the limb laughing at?" said one angrily. "Maybe he's not soinnocent as he looks."

  "'Deed, sir," said I, "I was laughing at the soldiers I met at Fahan,who thought I'd got guns under his honour's turnips. I warrant MrGorman won't laugh at that. Maybe it's guns you're looking for too.They're easy hid in a load of straw."

  At this they looked rather abashed, although they thought fit to cuff mefor an impudent young dog. And when the straw was all out, and nothingfound underneath, it was not a little hard on me that they left me toput it in again myself, roundly rating one another for the sorry figurethey cut.

  I was too glad to be rid of them to raise much clamour about the straw,and loaded it back as best I could, wondering if all his Majesty'sservants were as wide-awake as the smuggler-catchers of Donegal.

  This was my only adventure till about seven o'clock when I sighted thelights of Knockowen, and knew this tedious journey was at an end.

  His honour, I was told, was not at home. He had crossed to Fanad to bepresent at the wake of my poor mother, who, I heard, had died longbefore my father and Mr Gorman could reach her yesterday. She was tobe buried, they told me, on the next day at Kilgorman; and I could guesswhy there was all this haste. My father was needed to steer the_Cigale_ out of the lough, and his honour would be keen enough to getthe funeral over for that reason.

  With a very heavy heart I left the weary horse in the stable and betookmyself to his honour's harbour. Only one boat lay there, a little onewith a clumsy lug-sail, ill-enough fitted for a treacherous lough likethe Swilly. I knew her of old, however, and was soon bounding over thewaves, with the dim outline of Fanad standing out ahead in themoonlight.

  My heart sank to my boots as I drew nearer and discerned an unusual glowof light from the cabin window, and heard, carried across the water onthe breeze, the sounds of singing and the wail of a fiddle. I dreadedto think of the dear body that lay there heedless of all the noise,whose eyes I should never see and whose voice I should never hear more.I could not help calling to mind again the strange words she had lastspoken--of her longing to see his honour, of her wandering talk about adead lassie and the hearthstone, and of some danger that threatened myfather. It was all a mystery to me. Yet it was a mystery which, boy asI was, I resolved some day to explain.

  The landing-place was full of boats, by which I knew that all the lough-side and many from the opposite shore had come to the wake. Hishonour's boat was there among them. So was one belonging to the_Cigale_.

  I felt tempted, instead of entering the cabin, to wander up on to theheadland and lie there, looking out to the open sea, and so forget mytroubles. But the thought of Tim and my father hindered me, and Iclambered up to the cabin.

  The door stood open, because, as I thought, so many folk were about itthat it would not shut. As I made my way among them I was barelyheeded--indeed there were many who did not even know me. I pushed myway into the cabin, in which were stifling heat and smoke and the fumesof whisky. There, on the bed in the corner, where I had seen her last,but now lit up with a glare of candles, lay my poor mother, with hereyes closed and her hands folded across her breast. At the foot of thebed sat my father, haggard and wretched, holding a glass of whisky inhis hand, which now and again he put to his lips to give him the Dutchcourage he needed. At the bedside stood Tim with a scowl on his face ashe glared, first, on the noisy mourners, and then looked down on thewhite face on the pillow. At the fireplace sat his honour, buried inthought, and not heeding the talk of the jovial priest who sat andstirred his cup beside him. There, too, among the crowd of dirge-singing, laughing, whisky-drinking neighbours, I could see theoutlandish-looking skipper of the _Cigale_.

  It was a weird, woeful spectacle, and made me long more than ever forthe pure, fresh breezes of the lonely headland. But Tim looked round asI entered, and his face, till now so black and sullen, lit up as he sawme, and he beckoned me to him. When last we parted it had been in angerand shame; now, over the body of our dead mother, we met in peace andbrotherly love, and felt stronger each of us by the presence of theother.

  My father, half-stupid with sorrow and whisky, roused himself and calledout my name.

  "Arrah, Barry, my son, are you there? Faith, it's a sore day for themotherless lad. Howl, boys!"

  And the company set up a loud wail in my honour, and pressed round me,to pat me on the head or back and say some word of consolation.

  Presently his honour motioned me to him.

  "Well?" said he inquiringly.

  "All right, sir," said I.

  "That's a man," said he. "Your mother was dead before I reached heryesterday."

  "She was English," said the garrulous priest, who stood by, lifting hisvoice above the general clamour. "She never took root among us. Sure,your honour will remember her when she was my lady's-maid at Kilgorman.Ochone, that was a sad business!"

  His honour did not attend to his reverence, but continued to look hardat me in that strange way of his.

  "A sad business," continued the priest, turning round for some moreattentive listener. "It was at Kilgorman that Barry and Tim were born--mercy on them!--the night that Terence Gorman, his honour's brother, wasmurdered on the mountain. I mind the night well. Dear, oh! Everylight in Kilgorman went out that night. The news of the murder killedthe lady and her little babe. I mind the time well, for I was called tochristen the babe. Do you mind Larry McQuilkin of Kerry Keel, O'Brady?It was his wife as was nursing-woman to the child--as decent a woman asever lived. She--"

  Here his honour looked up sharply, and his reverence, pleased to have abetter audience, chattered on:--

  "Sure, your honour will remember Biddy McQuilkin, for she served atKnockowen when the little mistress there was born--"

  "Where's Biddy now?" asked some one. "She was never the same womanafter her man died."

  "Ah, poor Biddy! When your honour parted with her she went to Paris toa situation; but I'm thinking she'd have done better to bide at home.There's many an honest man in these parts would have been glad to meet adecent widow like Biddy. I told her so before she went, but--"

  Here the fiddler struck up a jig, which cut short the gossip of thepriest and made a diversion for his hearers. Some of the young fellowsand girls present fell to footing it, and called on Tim and me to joinin. But I was too much out of heart even to look on; and as for Tim, heglared as if he would have turned every one of them out of the cottage.

  In the midst of the noise and the shouts of the dancers and the cheersof the onlookers, I crawled into the corner behind his honour's chair,and dropped asleep, to dream--strange to tell--not of my mother, or ofhis honour's turnips, or of the _Cigale_, but of Biddy McQuilkin ofKerry Keel, whom till now I had never seen or heard of.

  When I awoke the daylight was struggling into the cabin, paling thecandles that bur
ned low beside my mother's bed. Tim stood where I hadleft him, sentinel-wise, glaring with sleepless eyes at his father'sguests. Father, with his head on his arm, at the foot of the bed, slepta tipsy, sorrowful sleep. A few of the rest, worn-out with the night'srevels, slumbered on the floor. Others made love, or quarrelled, ortalked drowsily in couples.

  His honour had escaped from the choking atmosphere of the cabin, and waspacing moodily on the grass outside, casting impatient glances eastward,where lay Kilgorman, and the _Cigale_, and the rising sun.

  Presently, when with a salute I came out to join him, he said, "'Tistime we started. Waken your father, boy."

  It was no easy task, and when he was wakened it was hard to make himunderstand what was afoot. It was only when his honour came in andspoke to him that he seemed to come to his senses.

  The coffin was closed. The crowd stepped out with a shiver into thecold morning air. The priest took out his book and began to read aloud;and slowly, with Tim and me beside her, and my father in a daze walkingin front, we bore her from the cabin down to the boats. There, in ourown boat, we laid the coffin, and hoisting sail, shoved off and made forthe opposite shore. Father and we two and his honour and the priestsailed together; and after us, in a long straggling procession of boats,came the rest. The light wind was not enough to fill our sail, and wewere forced to put out the oars and row. I think the exercise did usgood, and warmed our hearts as well as our bodies.

  As we came under Kilgorman, I could see the mast of the _Cigale_ peepingover the rocks, and wondered if she would be discovered by all thecompany. His honour, to my surprise, steered straight for the creek.

  The _Cigale_ flew the English flag, and very smart and trim she lookedin the morning light, with her white sails bleaching on the deck and thebrass nozzles of her guns gleaming at the port-holes. We loitered alittle to admire her, and, seaman-like, to discuss her points. Then,when our followers began to crowd after us into the creek, we pulled tothe landing and disburdened our boat of her precious freight.

  The burying-ground of Kilgorman was a little enclosure on the edge ofthe cliff surrounding the ruin of the old church, of which only a fewweed-covered piles of stone remained. The graves in it were scarcely tobe distinguished in the long rank grass. The only one of note was thatin which lay Terence Gorman with his wife and child--all dead twelveyears since, within a week of one another.

  With much labour we bore the coffin up the steep path, and in a shallowgrave at the very cliff's edge deposited all that remained of ourEnglish mother.

  As his reverence had said, she never took root in Donegal. She had beena loyal servant to her master, a loyal wife to her husband, and a loyalmother to us her sons. Yet she always pined for her old Yorkshirevillage home; a cloud of trouble, ever since we remembered her, hadhovered on her brow. She had wept much in secret, and had lived, as itwere, in a sort of dread of unseen evil.

  Folks said the shock of the tragedy at Kilgorman, at the time when shetoo lay ill in the house with her twin babies, had unnerved her andtouched her brain. But in that they were wrong; for she had taught Timand me to read and write better than any schoolmaster could have done,and had read books and told stories to us such as few boys of our agebetween Fanad and Derry had the chance to hear.

  Yet, though her brain was sound, it was not to be denied that she hadbeen a woman of sorrow. And the strange words she had spoken when shewas near her end added a mystery to her memory which, boy as I was, Itook to heart, and resolved, if I could, to master.

  That afternoon, when the mourners had gone their several ways, and theshort daylight was already beginning to draw in, Tim and I lay at thecliff's edge, near our mother's grave, watching the _Cigale_ as, withall her canvas flying and my father's dexterous hand at the helm, sheslipped out of the lough and spread her wings for the open sea. Even inthe feeble breeze, which would scarcely have stirred one of ourtrawlers, she seemed to gather speed; and if we felt any anxiety as toher being chased by one of his Majesty's cutters, we had only to watchthe way in which she slid through the water to assure us that she wouldneed a deal of catching.

  I told Tim all I knew about her, and of my errand to Derry.

  "What are the guns for?" said he. "What's there to be fighting about?Man, dear, I'd like a gun myself."

  "There's plenty up at the house there," said I, pointing toKilgorman--"two hundred."

  "Two hundred! and we're only needing two. Come away, Barry; let's seewhere they're kept."

  "You're not going up to Kilgorman House, sure?" said I in amazement.

  "'Deed I am. I'm going to get myself a gun, and you too."

  "But his honour?"

  "Come on!" cried Tim, who seemed greatly excited; "his honour can'tmind. I'll hold ye, Barry, we'll use a gun as well as any of the boys."

  I would fain have escaped going up to so dreadful a place as Kilgormanon such an errand at such an hour. But I durst not let Tim think I wasafraid, so when I saw his mind was made up I went with him, thankful atleast that I had his company.