om 
 
_ 
 CaJbot 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 AND 
 
 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
The 
 
 Golden Barque 
 
 and 
 
 The Weaver's Grave 
 
 By 
 SEUMAS O'KELLY 
 
 DUBLIN 
 
 TheTalbot Press Ltd. 
 
 89 Talbot Street 
 
 LONDON 
 
 T. Fisher Unwin Ltd. 
 
 1 Adelphi Terrace 
 
 1919 
 
Printed at 
 
 die cAU)oc pness 
 
 89 Talbot Street 
 Dublin 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 The Weaver's Grave page 9 
 The Golden Barque 
 
 Michael and Mary 111 
 
 Hike and Calcutta 121 
 
 The Haven 134 
 
 Billy the Clown 149 
 
 The Derelict 173 
 
 The Man with the Gift 200 
 
 '0539 
 
THE 
 
 WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 A STORY OF OLD MEN 
 
 I 
 
 ORTIMER HEHIR, the weaver, 
 had died, and they had come 
 in search of his grave to Cloon 
 na Morav, the Meadow of the 
 Dead. Meehaul Lynskey, 
 the nail-maker, was first across the stile. 
 There was excitement in his face. His 
 long warped body moved in a shuffle over 
 the ground. Following him came Cahir 
 Bowes, the stone-breaker, who was so 
 beaten down from the hips forward, that his 
 back was horizontal as the back of an 
 animal. His right hand held a stick which 
 propped him up in front, his left hand 
 clutched his coat behind, just above the 
 small of the back. By these devices he 
 kept himself from toppling head over heels 
 as he walked. Mother earth was the brow 
 of Cahir Bowes by magnetic force, and 
 Cahir Bowes was resisting her fatal kiss to 
 B 
 
10 'THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 the last. And just now there was anima- 
 tion in the face he raised from its customary 
 contemplation of the ground. Both old 
 men had the air of those who had been 
 unexpectedly let loose. For a long time 
 they had lurked somewhere in the shadows 
 of life, the world having no business for 
 them, and now, suddenly, they had been 
 remembered and called forth to perform an 
 office which nobody else on earth could per- 
 form. The excitement in their faces as 
 they crossed over the stile into Cloon na 
 Morav expressed a vehemence in their 
 belated usefulness. Hot on their heels 
 came two dark, handsome, stoutly-built 
 men, alike even to the cord that tied their 
 corduroy trousers under their knees, and, 
 being gravediggers, they carried flashing 
 spades. Last of all, and after a little delay, 
 a firm white hand was laid on the stile, a 
 dark figure followed, the figure of a woman 
 whose palely sad face was picturesquely, 
 almost dramatically, framed in a black 
 shawl which hung from the crown of the 
 head. She was the widow of Mortimer 
 Hehir, the weaver, and she followed the 
 others into Cloon na Morav, the Meadow of 
 the Dead. 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 11 
 
 To glance at Cloon na Morav as you went 
 by on the hilly road, was to get an impres- 
 sion of a very old burial-ground; to pause 
 on the road and look at Cloon na Morav 
 was to become conscious of its quiet situa- 
 tion, of winds singing down from the hills 
 in a chant for the dead ; to walk over to the 
 wall and look at the mounds inside was to 
 provoke quotations from Gray's Elegy; to 
 make the Sign of the Cross, lean over the 
 wall, observe the gloomy lichened back- 
 ground of the wall opposite, and mark the 
 things that seemed to stray about, like 
 yellow snakes in the grass, was to think of 
 Hamlet moralising at the graveside of 
 Ophelia, and hear him establish the iden- 
 tity of Yorrick. To get over the stile and 
 stumble about inside, was to forget all these 
 things and to know Cloon na Morav for 
 itself. Who could tell the age of Cloon na 
 Morav ? The mind could only swoon away 
 into mythology, paddle about in the dotage 
 of paganism, the toothless infancy of Chris- 
 tianity. How many generations, how many 
 septs, how many clans, how many families, 
 how many people, had gone into Cloon na 
 Morav? The mind could only take wing 
 on the romances of mathematics. The 
 
12 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 ground was billowy, grotesque. Several 
 partially suppressed insurrections a great 
 thirsting, worming, pushing and shoulder- 
 ing under the sod had given it character. 
 A long tough growth of grass wired it from 
 end to end, Nature, by this effort, endea- 
 vouring to control the strivings of the more 
 daring of the insurgents of Cloon na Morav. 
 No path here; no plan or map or register 
 existed; if there ever had been one or the 
 other it had been lost. Invasions and wars 
 and famines and feuds had swept the ground 
 and left it. All claims to interment had 
 been based on powerful traditional rights. 
 These rights had years ago come to an end 
 all save in a few outstanding cases, the 
 rounding up of a spent generation. The 
 overflow from Cloon na Morav had 
 already set a new cemetery on its 
 legs a mile away, a cemetery in 
 which limestone headstones and Celtic 
 crosses were springing up like mushrooms, 
 advertising the triviality of a civilisation of 
 men and women, who, according to their 
 own epitaphs, had done exactly the two 
 things they could not very well avoid 
 doing: they had all, their obituary notices 
 said, been born and they had all died. 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 13 
 
 Obscure quotations from Scripture were 
 sometimes added by way of apology. There 
 was an almost unanimous expression of for- 
 giveness to the Lord for what had happened 
 to the deceased. None of this lack of 
 humour in Cloon pa Morav. Its monu- 
 ments were comparatively few, and such of 
 them as it had not swallowed were well 
 within the general atmosphere. No obituary 
 notice in the place was complete; all were 
 either wholly or partially eaten up by the 
 teeth of time. The monuments that had 
 made a stout battle for existence were 
 pathetic in their futility. The vanity of the 
 fashionable of dim ages made one weep. 
 Who on earth could have brought in the 
 white marble slab to Cloon na Morav? It 
 had grown green with shame. Perhaps the 
 lettering, once readable upon it, had been 
 conscientiously picked out in gold. The 
 shrieking winds and the fierce rains of the 
 hills alone could tell. Plain heavy stones, 
 their shoulders rounded with a chisel, pre- 
 sumably to give them some off-handed 
 resemblance to humanity* now swooned at 
 fantastic angles from their settings, as if the 
 people to whose memory they had been 
 dedicated had shouldered them awa} 7 as an 
 
14 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 impertinence. Other slabs lay in fragments 
 on the ground, filling the mind with thoughts 
 of Moses descending from Mount Sinai and, 
 waxing angry at sight of his followers danc- 
 ing about false gods, casting the stone tables 
 containing the Commandments to the 
 ground, breaking them in pieces the most 
 tragic destruction of a first edition that the 
 world has known. Still other heavy square 
 dark slabs, surely creatures of a pagan ima- 
 gination, were laid flat down on numerous 
 short legs, looking sometimes like represen- 
 tations of monstrous black cockroaches, and 
 again like tables at which the guests of Cloon 
 na Morav might sit down, goblin-like, in 
 the moon-light, when nobody was looking. 
 Most of the legs had given way and the 
 tables lay overturned, as if there had been 
 a quarrel at cards the night before. Those 
 that had kept their legs exhibited great 
 cracks or fissures across their backs, like 
 slabs of dark ice breaking up. Over by the 
 wall, draped in its pattern of dark green 
 lichen, certain families of dim ages had 
 made an effort to keep up the traditions of 
 the Eastern sepulchres. They had showed 
 an aristocratic reluctance to take to the com- 
 mon clay in Cloon na Morav. They had 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 15 
 
 built low casket- shaped houses against the 
 gloomy wall, putting an enormously heavy 
 iron door with ponderous iron rings like 
 the rings on a pier by the sea at one end, 
 a tremendous lock one wondered what 
 Goliath kept the key finally cementing the 
 whole thing up and surrounding it with 
 spiked iron railings. In these contraptions 
 very aristocratic families locked up their 
 dead as if they were dangerous wild 
 animals. But these ancient vanities only 
 heightened the general democracy of the 
 ground. To prove a traditional right to a 
 place in its community was to have the 
 bond of your pedigree sealed. The act of 
 burial in Cloon na Morav was in itself an 
 epitaph. And it was amazing to think 
 that there were two people still over the sod 
 \vho had such a right one Mortimer Hehir, 
 the weaver, just passed away, the other 
 Malachi Roohan, a cooper, still breathing. 
 When these two survivors of a great gene- 
 ration got tucked under the sward of Cloon 
 na Morav its terrific history would, for all 
 practical purposes, have ended. 
 
II 
 
 Meehaul Lynskey, the nailer, hitched for- 
 ward his bony shoulders and cast his eyes 
 over the ground eyes that were small and 
 sharp, but unaccustomed to range over wide 
 spaces. The width and the wealth of 
 Cloon na Morav were baffling to him. He 
 had spent his long life on the look-out for 
 one small object so that he might hit it. 
 The colour that he loved was the golden 
 glowing end of a stick of burning iron ; 
 wherever he saw that he seized it in a small 
 sconce at the end of a long handle, wrenched 
 it off by a twitch of the wrist, hit it with a 
 flat hammer several deft taps, dropped it 
 into a vessel of water, out of which it came 
 a cool and perfect nail. To do this thing 
 several hundred times six days in the week, 
 and pull the chain of a bellows at short 
 intervals, Meehaul Lynskey had developed 
 an extraordinary dexterity of sight and 
 touch, a swiftness of business that no mortal 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 17 
 
 man could exceed, and so long as he had 
 been pitted against nail-makers of flesh and 
 blood he had more than held his own; he 
 had, indeed, even put up a tremendous but 
 an unequal struggle against the competition 
 of nail-making machinery. Accustomed as 
 he was to concentrate on a single, glowing, 
 definite object, the complexity and disorder 
 of Cloon na Morav unnerved him. But he 
 was not going to betray any of these profes- 
 sional defects to Cahir Bowes, the stone- 
 breaker. He had been sent there as an 
 ambassador by the caretaker of Cloon na 
 Morav, picked out for his great age, his local 
 knowledge, and his good character, and it 
 was his business to point out to the twin 
 gravediggers, sons of the caretaker, the 
 weaver's grave, so that it might be opened 
 to receive him. Meehaul Lynskey had a 
 knowledge of the place, and was quite cer- 
 tain as to a great number of grave sites, 
 while the caretaker, being an official with- 
 out records, had a profound ignorance of the 
 whole place. 
 
 Cahir Bowes followed the drifting figure 
 of the nail-maker over the ground, his face 
 hitched up between his shoulders, his eyes 
 keen and gray, glint-like as the mountains of 
 
18 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 stones he had in his day broken up as road 
 material. Cahir, no less than Meehaul, had 
 his knowledge of Cloon na Morav and some 
 of his own people were buried here. His 
 sharp, clear eyes took in the various mounds 
 with the eye of a prospector. He, too, had 
 been sent there as an ambassador, and as 
 between himself and Meehaul Lynskey he 
 did not think there could be any two opi- 
 nions; his knowledge was superior to the 
 knowledge of the nailer. Whenever Cahir 
 Bowes met a loose stone on the grass quite 
 instinctively he turned it over with his stick, 
 his sharp old eyes judging its grain with a 
 professional swiftness, then cracking at it 
 with his stick. If the stick were a hammer 
 the stone, attacked on its most vulnerable 
 spot, would fall to pieces like glass. In 
 stones Cahir Bowes saw not sermons but 
 seams. Even the headstones he tapped sig- 
 nificantly with the ferrule of his stick, for 
 Cahir Bowes had an artist's passion for his 
 art, though his art was far from creative. 
 He was one of the great destroyers, the 
 reducers, the makers of chaos, a powerful 
 and remorseless critic of the Stone Age. 
 
 The two old men wandered about Cloon 
 na Morav, in no hurry whatever to get 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 19 
 
 through with their business. After all they 
 had been a long time pensioned off, 
 forgotten, neglected, by the world. The 
 renewed sensation of usefulness was pre- 
 cious to them. They knew that when this 
 business was over they were not likely to be 
 in request for anything in this world again. 
 They were ready to oblige the world, but 
 the world would have to allow them their 
 own time. The world, made up of the two 
 grave-diggers and the widow of the weaver, 
 gathered all this without any vocal procla- 
 mation. Slowly, mechanically as it were, 
 they followed the two ancients about Cloon 
 na Morav. And the two ancients wandered 
 about with the labour of age and the hearts 
 of children. They separated, wandered 
 about silently as if they were picking up old 
 acquaintances, stumbling upon forgotten 
 things, gathering up the threads of days that 
 were over, reviving their memories, and then 
 drew together, beginning to talk slowly, 
 almost casually, and all their talk was of the 
 dead, of the people who lay in the ground 
 about them. They warmed to it, airing their 
 knowledge, calling up names and complica- 
 tions of family relationships, telling stories, 
 reviving all virtues, whispering at past 
 
20 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 vices, past vices that did not sound 
 like vices at all, for the long years 
 are great mitigators and run in splen- 
 did harness with the coyest of all the 
 virtues, Charity. The whispered scandals 
 of Cloon na Morav were seen by the twin 
 gravediggers and the widow of the weaver 
 through such a haze of antiquity that they 
 were no longer scandals but romances. The 
 rake and the drab, seen a good way down 
 the avenue, merely look picturesque. The 
 grave-diggers rested their spades in the 
 ground, leaning on the handles in exactly the 
 same graveyard pose, and the pale widow 
 stood in the background, silent, apart, 
 patient, and, like all dark, tragic looking 
 women, a little mysterious. 
 
 The stonebreaker pointed with his quiver- 
 ing stick at the graves of the people whom 
 he spoke about. Every time he raised that 
 forward support one instinctively looked, 
 anxious and fearful, to see if the clutch were 
 secure on the small of the back. Cahir 
 Bowes had the sort of shape that made one 
 eternally fearful for his equilibrium. The 
 nailer, who, like his friend the stonebreaker, 
 wheezed a good deal, made short, sharp 
 gestures, and always with the right hsmd; 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 2! 
 
 the fingers were hooked in such a way, and 
 he shot out the arm in such a manner, that 
 they gave the illusion that he held a hammer 
 and that it was struck out over a very hot 
 fire. Every time Meehaul Lynskey made 
 this gesture one expected to see sparks 
 flying. 
 
 " Where are we to bury the weaver ?" one 
 of the grave-diggers asked at last. 
 
 Both old men laboured around to see 
 where the interruption, the impertinence, 
 had come from. They looked from one 
 twin to the other, with gravity, indeed 
 anxiety, for they were not sure which was 
 which, or if there was not some illusion in 
 the resemblance, some trick of youth to 
 baffle age. 
 
 * Where are we to bury the weaver?" 
 the other twin repeated, and the strained 
 look on the old men's faces deepened. 
 They were trying to fix in their minds which 
 of the twins had interrupted first and which 
 last. The eyes of Meehaul Lynskey fixed 
 on one twin with the instinct of his trade, 
 while Cahir Bowes ranged both and 
 eventually wandered to the figure of the 
 widow in the background, silently accusing 
 
22 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 her of impatience in a matter which it would 
 be indelicate for her to show haste. 
 
 ' We can't stay here for ever," said 
 the first twin. 
 
 It was the twin upon whom Meehaul 
 Lynskey had fastened his small eyes, and, 
 sure of his man this time, Meehaul Lynskey 
 hit him. 
 
 * There's many a better man than you," 
 said Meehaul Lynskey, " that will stay here 
 for ever." He swept Cloon na Morav with 
 the hooked fingers. 
 
 * Them that stays in Cloon na Morav for 
 ever," said Cahir Bowes with a wheezing 
 energy, " have nothing to be ashamed of 
 nothing to be ashamed cf . Remember that, 
 young fellow." 
 
 Meehaul Lynskey did not seem to like the 
 intervention, the help, of Cahir Bowes. It 
 was a sort of implication that he had not 
 he, mind you, had not hit the nail properly 
 on the head. 
 
 * Well, where are we to bury him, any- 
 way?" said the twin, hoping to profit by the 
 chagrin of the nailer the nailer who, by 
 implication, had failed to nail. 
 
 * You'll bury him," said Meehaul Lyns- 
 key, " where all belonging to him is buried," 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 23 
 
 ' We come/' said the other twin, " with 
 some sort of intention of that kind." He 
 drawled out the words, in imitation of the 
 old men. The skin relaxed on his handsome 
 dark face and then bunched in puckers of 
 humour about the eyes ; Meehaul Lynskey 's 
 gaze, wandering for once, went to the hand- 
 some dark face of the other twin and the skin 
 relaxed and then bunched in puckers of 
 humour about his eyes, so that Meehaul 
 Lynskey had an unnerving sensation that 
 these young grave-diggers were purposely 
 confusing him. 
 
 "You'll bury him," he began with some 
 vehemence, and was amazed to again find 
 Cahir Bowes taking the words out of his 
 mouth, snatching the hammer out of his 
 hand, so to speak. 
 
 " where you're told to bury him," 
 
 Cahir Bowes finished for him. 
 
 Meehaul Lynskey was so hurt that his long 
 slanting figure moved away down the grave- 
 yard, then stopped suddenly. He had deter- 
 mined to do a dreadful thing. He had deter- 
 mined to do a thing that was worse than 
 kicking a crutch from under a cripple's 
 shoulder; that was like stealing the holy 
 water out of a room where a man lay dying. 
 
24 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 He had determined to ruin the last day's 
 amusement on this earth for Cahir Bowes 
 and himself by prematurely and basely dis- 
 closing the weaver's grave ! 
 
 " Here," called back Meehaul Lynskey, 
 " is the weaver's grave, and here you will 
 bury him." 
 
 All moved down to the spot, Cahir Bowes 
 going with extraordinary spirit, the ferrule of 
 his terrible stick cracking on the stones he 
 met on the way. 
 
 " Between these two mounds," said 
 Meehaul Lynskey, feuid already the ,twins 
 raised their twin spades in a sinister move- 
 ment, like swords of lancers flashing at a 
 drill. 
 
 "Between these two mounds," said 
 Meehaul Lynskey, ** is the grave of Mortimer 
 Hehir." 
 
 '* Hold on !" cried Cahir Bowes. He was 
 so eager, so excited, that he struck one of 
 the grave-diggers a whack of his stick on the 
 back. Both grave-diggers swung about to 
 him as if both had been hurt by the one 
 blow. 
 
 " Easy there," said the first twin. 
 
 '* Easy there," said the second twin. 
 
 " Easy yourselves," cried Cahir Bowes. 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 25 
 
 1 ie wheeled about his now quivering face on 
 Meehaul Lynskey. 
 
 ' What is it you're saying about the spot 
 between the mounds?" he demanded. 
 
 14 I'm saying," said Meehaul Lynskey 
 vehemently, " that it's the weaver's grave." 
 ' What weaver?" asked Cahir Bowes. 
 44 Mortimer Hehir," replied Meehaul 
 Lynskey. * There's no other weaver in it." 
 * Was Julia Rafferty a weaver?" 
 4 What Julia Rafferty?" 
 ' The midwife, God rest her." 
 
 How could she be a weaver if she was a 
 midwife?*' 
 
 "Not a one of me knows. But I'll tell 
 you what I do know and know rightly : that 
 it's Julia Rafferty is in that place and no 
 weaver at all." 
 
 44 Amn't I telling you it's the weaver's 
 grave?" 
 
 "And amn't I telling you it's not?" 
 * That I may be as dead as my father but 
 the weaver was buried there." 
 
 44 A bone of a weaver was never sunk in it 
 as long as weavers was weavers. Full of 
 Raffertys it is." 
 
 *' Alive with weavers it is." 
 
 44 Heavenlyful Father, was the like ever 
 
 C 
 
26 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 heard : to say that a grave was alive with 
 dead weavers.'* 
 
 " It's full of them full as a tick." 
 
 *' And the clean grave that Mortimer 
 Hehir was never done boasting about dry 
 and sweet and deep and no way bulging at 
 all. Did you see the burial of his father 
 ever?'* 
 
 ** I did, in troth, see the burial of his father 
 forty year ago if it's a day." 
 
 "Forty year ago it's fifty-one year come 
 the sixteenth of May. It's well I remember 
 it and it's well I have occasion to remember 
 it, for it was the day after that again that 
 myself ran away to join the soldiers, my 
 aunt hot foot after me, she to be buying me 
 out the week after, I a high-spirited fellow 
 morebe token." 
 
 ** Leave the soldiers out of it and leave 
 your aunt out of it and stick to the weaver's 
 grave. Here in this place was the last 
 weaver buried, and I'll tell you what's more. 
 In a straight line with it is the grave of ** 
 
 " A straight line, indeed ! Who but 
 yourself, Meehaul Lynskey, ever heard of a 
 straight line in Cloon na Morav? No such 
 thing was ever wanted or ever allowed in 
 it.** 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 27 
 
 14 In a straight direct line, measured with 
 a rule " 
 
 ** Measured with crooked, stumbling feet, 
 maybe feet half reeling in drink/' 
 
 44 Can't you listen to me now?" 
 
 4< I was always a bad warrant to listen to 
 anything except sense. Yourself ought to 
 be the last man in the world to talk about 
 straight lines, you with the sight scattered 
 in your head, with the divil of sparks flying 
 under your eyes." 
 
 4 'Don't mind me sparks now, nor me 
 sight neither, far in a straight measured 
 line with the weaver's grave was the grave 
 of the Cassidys." 
 
 44 What Cassidys?" 
 
 4 'The Cassidys that herded for the 
 O'Sheas." 
 
 44 Which O'Sheas?" 
 
 44 O'Shea Ruadh of .Cappakelly. Don't 
 you know anyone at all, or is it gone en- 
 tirely your memory is?" 
 
 4 'Cappakelly inagh \ And who cares a 
 whistle about O'Shea Ruadh, he or his 
 seed, breed and generations? It's a rotten 
 lot of landgrabbers they were." 
 
 4 *Me hand to you on that. Striving ever 
 
28 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 they were to put their red paws on this bit 
 of grass and that perch of meadow/' 
 
 * 'Hungry in themselves even for the cut- 
 away bog." 
 
 "And Mortimer Hehir a decent weaver, 
 respecting every man's wool." 
 
 "His forehead pallid with honesty over 
 the yarn and the loom." 
 
 "If a bit broad-spoken when he came to 
 the door for a smoke of the pipe." 
 
 "Well, there won't be a mouthful of clay 
 between himself and O'Shea Ruadh now." 
 
 "In the end what did O'Shea Ruadh get 
 after all his striving?" 
 
 "I'll tell you that. He got what land 
 suits a blind fiddler." 
 
 "Enough to pad the crown of the head 
 and tap the sole of the foot ! Now you're 
 talking." 
 
 "And the devil a word out of him now 
 no more than anyone else in Cloon na 
 Morav." 
 
 "It's easy talking to us all about land 
 when we're packed up in our timber 
 boxes." 
 
 "As the weaver was when he got 
 
 sprinkled with the holy water in that 
 
 i ** 
 place. 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 29 
 
 "As Julia Rafferty was when they read 
 the prayers over her in that place, she a 
 fine, buxom, cheerful woman in her day, 
 with great skill in her business." 
 
 "Skill or no skill, I'm telling you she's 
 not there, wherever she is." 
 
 "I suppose you want me to take her up 
 in my arms and show her to you?" 
 
 "We then, indeed, Cahir, I do not. 
 Tisn't a very handsome pair you would 
 make at all, you not able to stand much 
 more hardship than Julia herself." 
 
 From this there developed a slow, 
 laboured, aged dispute between the two 
 authorities. They moved from grave to 
 grave, pitting memory against memory, 
 story against story, knocking down reminis- 
 cence with reminiscence, arguing in a 
 powerful intimate obscurity that no out- 
 sider could hope to follow, blasting know- 
 ledge with knowledge, until the whole 
 place seemed strewn with the corpses of 
 their arguments. The two grave-diggers 
 followed them about in a grim silence; im- 
 patience in their movements, their glances; 
 the widow keeping track of the grand tour 
 with a miserable feeling, a feeling, as site 
 after site was rejected, that the tremen- 
 
30 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 dous exclusiveness of Cloon na Morav 
 would altogether push her dead man, the 
 weaver, out of his privilege. The dispute 
 ended, like all epics, where it began. 
 Nothing was established, nothing settled. 
 But the two old men were quite exhausted, 
 Meehaul Lynskey sitting down on the back 
 of one of the monstrous cockroaches, Cahir 
 Bowes leaning against a tombstone that was 
 half -submerged, its end up like the stern of 
 a derelict at sea. Here they sat glaring at 
 each other like a pair of grim vultures. 
 
 The two grave-diggers grew restive. 
 Their business had to be done. The 
 weaver would have to be buried. Time 
 pressed. They held a consultation apart. 
 It broke up after a brief exchange of views, 
 a little laughter. 
 
 * 'Meehaul Lynskey is right,'* said one of 
 the twins. 
 
 Meehaul Lynskey's face lit up. Cahir 
 Bowes looked as if he had been slapped on 
 the cheeks. He moved out from his tomb- 
 stone. 
 
 * 'Meehaul Lynskey is right/' repeated 
 the other twin. They had decided to 
 break up the dispute by taking sides. They 
 raised their spades and moved to the site 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 31 
 
 which Meehaul Lynskey had urged upon 
 them. 
 
 "Don't touch that place," Cahir Bowes 
 cried, raising his stick. He was measuring 
 the back of the grave-digger again when 
 the man spun round upon him, menace in 
 his handsome dark face. 
 
 "Touch me with that stick," he cried, 
 I'll - " 
 
 Some movement in the background, some 
 agitation in the widow's shawl, caused the 
 grave-digger's menace to dissolve, the 
 words to die in his mouth, a swift flush 
 mounting the man's face. A faint smile of 
 gratitude swept the widow's face like a 
 flash. If was as if she had cried out, **Ah, 
 don't touch the poor old, cranky fellow! 
 you might hurt him." And it was as if 
 the grave-digger had cried back : "He has 
 annoyed me greatly, but I don't intend to 
 hurt him. And since you say so with your 
 eyes I won't even threaten him." 
 
 Under pressure of the half threat, Cahir 
 Bowes shuffled back a little way, striking 
 an attitude of feeble dignity, leaning out on 
 his stick while the grave-diggers got to 
 work. 
 
32 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 "It's the weaver's grave, surely," said 
 Meehaul Lynskey. 
 
 44 If it is," said Cahir Bowes, 4 'remember 
 his father was buried down seven feet. You 
 gave into that this morning." 
 
 4 'There was no giving in about it," said 
 Meehaul Lynskey. 4 'We all know that one 
 of the wonders of Cloon na Morav was the 
 burial of the last weaver seven feet, he hav- 
 ing left it as an injunction on his family. 
 The world knows he went down the seven 
 feet." 
 
 44 And remember this," said Cahir 
 Bowes, 44 that Julia Rafferty was buried no 
 seven feet. If she is down three feet it's as 
 much as she went." 
 
 Sure enough, the grave-diggers had not 
 dug down more than three feet of ground 
 when one of the spades struck hollowly on 
 unhealthy timber. The sound was unmis- 
 takable and ominous. There was silence 
 for a moment. Then Cahir Bowes made a 
 sudden short^ spurt up a mound beside him, 
 as if he were some sort of mechanical 
 animal wound up, his horizontal back 
 quivering. On the mound he made a 
 superhuman effort to straighten himself. 
 He got his ears and his blunt nose into a 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 33 
 
 considerable elevation. He had not been 
 so upright for twenty years. And raising 
 his weird countenance, he broke into a 
 cackle that was certainly! meant to be a 
 crow. He glared at Meehaul Lynskey, his 
 emotion so great that his eyes swam in a 
 watery triumph. 
 
 Meehaul Lynskey had his eyes, as was 
 his custom, upon one thing, and that thing 
 was the grave, and especially the spot on 
 the grave where the spade had struck the 
 coffin. He looked stunned and fearful. 
 His eyes slowly withdrew their gimlet-like 
 scrutiny from the spot, and sought the 
 triumphant crowing figure of Cahir Bowes 
 on the mound. 
 
 Meehaul Lynskey looked as if he would 
 like to say something, but no words came. 
 Instead he ambled away, retired from the 
 battle, and standing apart, rubbed one leg 
 against the other, above the back of the 
 ankles, like some great insect. His hooked 
 fingers at the same time stroked the bridge 
 of his nose. He was beaten. 
 
 **I suppose it's not the weaver's grave," 
 said one of the grave-diggers. Both of 
 them looked at Cahir Bowes. 
 
 "Well, you know it's not," said the 
 
34 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 stonebreaker. "It's Julia Rafferty you 
 struck. She helped many a one into the 
 world in her day, and it's poor recompense 
 to her to say she can't be at rest when she 
 left it." He turned to the remote figure of 
 Meehaul Lynskey and cried : "Ah-ha, well 
 you may rub your ignorant legs. And I'm 
 hoping Julia will forgive you this day's ugly 
 work." 
 
 In silence, quickly, with reverence, the 
 twins scooped back the clay over the spot. 
 The widow looked on with the same quiet, 
 patient, mysterious silence. One of the 
 gravediggers turned on Cahir Bowes. 
 
 "I suppose you know where the weaver's 
 grave is?" he asked. 
 
 Cahir Bowes looked at him with an 
 ancient tartness, then said : 
 
 "You suppose !" 
 
 "Of course, you know where it is." 
 
 Cahir Bowes looked as if he knew 
 where the gates of heaven were, and that 
 he might or might not enlighten an 
 ignorant world. It all depended ! His 
 eyes wandered knowingly out over the 
 meadows beyond the graveyard. He said : 
 
 "I do know where the weaver's grave 
 i 
 is. 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 35 
 
 We '11 be very much obliged to you if 
 you show it to us." 
 
 "Very much obliged," endorsed the 
 other twin. 
 
 The stonebreaker, thus flattered, led the 
 way to a new site, one nearer to the wall, 
 where were the plagiarisms of the Eastern 
 sepulchres. Cahir Bowes made little 
 journeys about, measuring so many steps 
 from one place to another, mumbling 
 strange and unintelligible information to 
 himself, going through an extraordinary 
 geometrical emotion, striking the ground 
 hard taps with his stick. 
 
 "Glory be to the Lord," cried Meehaul 
 Lynskey, "he's like the man they had driv- 
 ing the water for the well in the quarry field, 
 he whacking the ground with his magic 
 hazel wand." 
 
 Cahir Bowes made no reply. He was too 
 absorbed in his own emotion. A <lititle 
 steam was beginning to ascend from his 
 brow. He was moving about the ground 
 like some grotesque spider weaving an in- 
 visible web. 
 
 "I suppose now," said Meehaul Lynskey, 
 addressing the marble monument, "that as 
 soon as Cahir hits the right spot one of the 
 
36 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 weavers will turn about below. Or maybe 
 he expects one of them to whistle up at 
 him out of the ground. That's it; devil 
 a other ! When we hear the whistle we'll 
 all know for certain where to bury the 
 weaver." 
 
 Cahir Bowes was contracting his move- 
 ments, so that he was now circling about 
 the one spot, like a dog going to lie down. 
 
 Meehaul Lynskey drew a little closer, 
 watching eagerly, his grim yellow face, 
 seared with yellow marks from the fires of 
 his workshop, tightened up in a sceptical 
 pucker. His half-muttered words were 
 bitter with an aged sarcasm. He cried : 
 
 "Say nothing; he'll get it yet, will the 
 man of knowledge, the know-all, Cahir 
 Bowes ! Give him time. Give him until 
 this day twelve month. Look at that for a 
 right-about-turn on the left heel. Isn't the 
 nimbleness of that young fellow a treat to 
 see? Are they whistling to you from 
 below, Cahir? Is it dancing to the 
 weaver's music you are? That's it, devil 
 a other." 
 
 Cahir Bowes was mapping out a space 
 on the grass with his stick. Gradually it 
 took, more or less, the outline of a grave 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 37 
 
 site. He took off his hat and mopped his 
 steaming brow with a red handkerchief, 
 saying : 
 
 "There is the weaver's grave." 
 
 "God in Heaven," cried Meehaul Lyn- 
 skey, "will you look at what he calls the 
 weaver's grave? I'll say nothing at all. 
 I'll hold my tongue. I'll shut up. Not one 
 word will I say about Alick Finlay, the 
 mildest man that ever lived, a man full of 
 religion, never at the end of his prayers ! 
 But, sure, it's the saints of God that get the 
 worst of it in this world, and if Alick 
 escaped during life, faith he's in for it now, 
 with the pirates and the body-snatchers of 
 Cloon na Morav on top of him." 
 
 A corncrake began to sing in the nearby 
 meadow, and his rasping notes sounded 
 like a queer accompaniment to the words of 
 Meehaul Lynskey. The grave-diggers, 
 who had gone to work on the Cahir Bowes 
 site, laughed a little, one of them looking 
 for a moment at Meehaul Lynskey, saying : 
 
 "Listen to that damned old corncrake in 
 the meadow ! I'd like to put a sod in his 
 mouth." 
 
 The man's eye went to the widow. She 
 showed no emotion one way or the other, 
 
38 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 and the grave-digger got back to his work. 
 Meehaul Lynskey, however, wore the cap. 
 He said : 
 
 "To be sure! I'm to sing dumb. I'm 
 not to have a word out of me at all. Others 
 can rattle away as they like in this place, as 
 if they owned it. The ancient good old 
 stock is to be nowhere and the scruff of the 
 hills let rampage as they will. That's it, 
 devil a other. Castles falling and dunghills 
 rising ! Well, God be with the good old 
 times and the good old mannerly people 
 that used to be in it, and God be with Alick 
 Finlay, the holiest " 
 
 A sod of earth came through the air from 
 the direction of the grave, and, skimming 
 Meehaul Lynskey's 'head, dropped some- 
 where behind. The corncrake stopped his 
 notes in the meadow, and Meehaul Lyn- 
 skey stood statuesque in a mute protest, and 
 silence reigned in the place while the clay 
 sang up in a swinging rhythm from the 
 grave. 
 
 Cahir Bowes, watching the operations 
 with intensity, said : 
 
 "It was nearly going astray on me.** 
 
 Meehaul Lynskey gave a little snort. He 
 asked : 
 
THF WEAVER'S GRAVE 39 
 
 "What was?" 
 
 "The weaver's grave.'* 
 
 "Remember this : the last weaver is 
 down seven feet. And remember this : 
 Alick Finlay is down less than Julia 
 RafFerty." 
 
 He had no sooner spoken when a fearful 
 thing happened. Suddenly out of the soft 
 cutting of the earth a spade sounded harsh 
 on tinware, there was a crash, less harsh, 
 but painfully distinct, as if rotten boards 
 were falling together, then a distinct sub- 
 sidence of the earth. The work stopped at 
 once. A moment's fearful silence fol- 
 lowed. It was broken by a short, dry laugh 
 from Meehaul Lynskey. He said : 
 
 "God be merciful to us all ! That's the 
 latter end of Alick Finlay." 
 
 The two grave-diggers looked at each 
 other. The shawl of the widow in the 
 background was agitated. One twin said 
 to the other : 
 
 "This can't be the weaver's grave." 
 
 The other agreed. They all turned their 
 eyes upon Cahir Bowes. He was hanging 
 forward in a pained strain, his head quak- 
 ing, his fingers twitching on his stick. 
 
40 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 Meehaul Lynskey turned to the marble 
 monument and said with venom : 
 
 **If I was guilty I'd go down on my knees 
 and beg God's pardon. If I didn't I'd 
 know the ghost of Alick Finlay, saint as he 
 was, would leap upon me and guzzle me 
 for what right would I have to set anybody 
 at him with driving spades when he was 
 long years in his grave?" 
 
 Cahir Bowes took no notice. He was 
 looking at the ground, searching about, and 
 slowly, painfully, began his web-spinning 
 again., The grave-diggers covered in the 
 ground without a word. Cahir Bowes ap- 
 peared to get lost in some fearful maze of 
 his own making. A little whimper broke 
 from him now and again. The steam from 
 his brow thickened in the air, and eventu- 
 ally he settled down on the end of a head- 
 stone, having got the worst of it. Meehaul 
 Lynskey sat on another stone facing him, 
 and they glared, sinister and grotesque, at 
 each other. 
 
 Cahir Bowes,** said Meehaul Lynskey, 
 "I'll tell you what you are, and then you 
 can tell me what I am.*' 
 
 "Have it whatever way you like,*' said 
 Cahir Bowes. "What is it that I am?** 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 41 
 
 "You're a gentleman, a grand oul* stone- 
 breaking gentleman. That's what you are, 
 devil a other ! * * 
 
 The wrinkles on the withered face of 
 Cahir Bowes contracted, his eyes stared 
 across at Meehaul Lynskey, and two yellow 
 teeth showed between his lips. He 
 wheezed : 
 
 "And do you know what you are?" 
 
 "I don't." 
 
 "You're a nailer, that's what you are, a 
 damned nailer." 
 
 They glared at each other in a quaking, 
 grim silence. 
 
 And it was at this moment of collapse, 
 of deadlock, that the widow spoke for the 
 first time. At the first sound of her voice 
 one of the twins perked his head, his eyes 
 going to her face. She said in a tone as 
 quiet as her whole behaviour : 
 
 "Maybe I ought to go up to the Tunnel 
 Road and ask Malachi Roohan where the 
 grave is." 
 
 They had all forgotten the oldest man of 
 them all, Malachi Roohan. He would be the 
 last mortal man to enter Cloon na Morav. 
 He had been the great friend of Mortimer 
 Hehir, the weaver, in the days that were 
 
 D 
 
42 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 over, and the whole world knew that Morti- 
 mer Hehir's knowledge of Cloon na Morav 
 was perfect. Maybe Malachi Roohan 
 would have learned a great deal from him. 
 And Malachi Roohan, the cooper, was so 
 long bed-ridden that those who remembered 
 him at all thought of him as a man who 
 had died a long time ago. 
 
 * 'There's nothing else for it," said one of 
 the twins, leaving down his spade, and 
 immediately the other twin laid his spade 
 beside it. 
 
 The two ancients on the headstones said 
 nothing. Not even they could raise a voice 
 against the possibilities of Malachi Roohan, 
 the cooper. By their terrible aged silence 
 they gave consent, and the widow turned to 
 walk out of Cloon na Morav. One of the 
 grave-diggers took out his pipe. The eyes 
 of the other followed the widow, he hesi- 
 tated, then walked after her. She became 
 conscious of the man's step behind her as 
 she got upon the stile, and turned her palely 
 sad face upon him. He stood awkwardly, 
 his eyes wandering, then said : 
 
 '* Ask Malachi Roohan where the grave 
 is, the exact place." 
 
 It was to do this the widow was leaving 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 43 
 
 Cloon na Morav; she had just announced 
 that she was going to ask Malachi Roohan 
 where the grave was. Yet the man's tone 
 was that of one who was giving her extra- 
 ordinarily acute advice. There was a little 
 half-embarrassed note of confidence in his 
 tone. In a dim way the widow thought 
 that, maybe, he had accompanied her to 
 the stile in a little awkward impulse of sym- 
 pathy. Men were very curious in their 
 ways sometimes. The widow was a very 
 well-mannered woman, and she tried to 
 look as if she had received a very valuable 
 direction. She said : 
 
 *'I will. I'll put that question to Malachi 
 Roohan." 
 
 And then she passed out over the stile. 
 
Ill 
 
 The widow went up the road, and 
 beyond it struck the first of the houses of the 
 nearby town. She passed through feded 
 streets in her quiet gait, moderately grief- 
 stricken at the death of her weaver. She 
 had been his fourth wife, and the widow- 
 hoods of fourth wives had not the rich 
 abandon, the great emotional cataclysm, of 
 first, or even second, widowhoods. It is a 
 little chastened in its poignancy. The 
 widow had a nice feeling that it would be 
 out of place to give way to any of the char- 
 acteristic manifestations of normal widow- 
 hood. She shrank from drawing attention 
 to the fact that she had been a fourth wife. 
 People's memories become so extraordi- 
 narily acute to family history in times of 
 death ! The widow did not care to come 
 in as a sdrt of dramatic surprise in the 
 gossip of the people about the weaver's life. 
 She had heard snatches of such gossip at 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE* 45 
 
 the wake the night before. She was be- 
 ginning to understand why people love 
 wakes and the intimate personalities of 
 wakehouses. People listen to, remember, 
 and believe what they hear at wakes. It is 
 more precious to them than anything they 
 ever hear in school, church, or playhouse. 
 It is hardly because they get certain enter- 
 tainment at the wake. It is more because 
 the wake is a grand review of family ghosts. 
 There one hears all the stories, the little 
 flattering touches, the little unflattering 
 bitternesses, the traditions, the astonishing 
 records, of the clans. The woman with a 
 memory speaking to the company from a 
 chair beside a laid-out corpse carries more 
 authority than the bishop allocuting from 
 his chair. The wake is realism. The 
 widow had heard a great deal at the wake 
 about the clan of the weavers, and noted, 
 without expressing any emotion, that she 
 had- come into the story not like other 
 women, for anything personal to her own 
 womanhood for beauty, or high spirit, or 
 temper, or faithfulness, or unfaithfulness 
 but simply because she was a fourth wife, 
 a kind of curiosity, the back- wash of Morti- 
 mer Hehir's romances. The widow felt a 
 
46 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 remote sense of injustice in all this. She 
 had said to herself that widows who had 
 been fourth wives deserved more sympathy 
 than widows who had been first wives, for 
 the simple reason that fourth widows had 
 never been, and could never be, first 
 wives I The thought confused her a little, 
 and she did not pursue it, instinctively feel- 
 ing that if she did accept the conventional 
 view of her condition she would only 
 crystallise her widowhood into a grievance 
 that nobody would try to understand, and 
 which would, accordingly, be merely use- 
 less. And what was the good of it, any- 
 how? The widow smoothed her dark hair 
 on each side of her head under her shawl. 
 
 She had no bitter and no sweet memories 
 of the weaver. There was nothing that 
 was even vivid in their marriage. She had 
 no complaints to make of Mortimer Hehir. 
 He had not come to her in any fiery love 
 impulse. It was the marriage of an old 
 man with a woman years younger. She 
 had recognised him as an old man from first 
 to last, a man who had already been thrice 
 through a wedded experience, and her 
 temperament, naturally calm, had met his 
 half-stormy, half-petulant character, with- 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 47 
 
 out suffering any sort of shock. The 
 weaver had tried to keep up to the illusion 
 of a perennial youth by dyeing his hair, and 
 marrying one wife as soon as possible after 
 another. The fourth wife had come to him 
 late in life. She had a placid understand- 
 ing that she was a mere flattery to the 
 weaver's truculent egoism. 
 
 These thoughts, in some shape or other, 
 occupied, without agitating, the mind of the 
 widow as she passed a dark shadowy figure 
 through streets that were clamorous in their 
 quietudes, painful in their lack of all the 
 purposes for which streets have ever been 
 created. Her only emotion was one which 
 she knew to be quite creditable to her situa- 
 tion : a sincere desire to see the weaver 
 buried in the grave to which the respecta- 
 bility of his family and the claims of his 
 ancient house fully and fairly entitled him 
 to. The proceedings in Cloon na Morav 
 had been painful, even tragical, to the 
 widow. The weavers had always been 
 great authorities and zealous guardians of 
 iihe 'ancient burial place. This function 
 had been traditional and voluntary with 
 them. This was especially true of the last 
 of them, Mortimer Hehir. He had been 
 
48 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 the greatest of all authorities on the burial 
 places of the local clans. His knowledge 
 was scientific. He had been the grand 
 savant of Cloon na Morav. He had policed 
 the place. Nay, he had been its tyrant. 
 He had over and over again prevented 
 terrible mistakes, complications that would 
 have appalled those concerned if they were 
 not beyond all such concerns. The widow 
 of the weaver had often thought that in his 
 day Mortimer Hehir had made his solicita- 
 tion for the place a passion, unreasonable, 
 almost violent. They said that all this had 
 sprung from a fear that had come to him in 
 his early youth that through some blunder 
 an alien, an inferior, even an enemy, might 
 come to find his way into the family burial 
 place of the weavers. This fear had made 
 him what he was. And in his later years 
 his pride in the family burial place became 
 a worship. His trade had gone down, and 
 his pride had gone up. The burial ground 
 in Cloon na Morav was the grand proof of 
 his aristocracy. That was the coat-of- 
 arms, the estate, the mark of high breeding, 
 in the weavers. And now the man who 
 had minded everybody's grave had not 
 been able to minpl his own. The widow 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 49 
 
 thought that it was one of those injustices 
 which blacken the reputation of frhe whole 
 earth. She had felt, indeed, that she had 
 been herself slack not to have learned long 
 ago the lie of this precious grave from the 
 weaver himself; and that he himself had 
 been slack in not properly instructing her. 
 But that was the way in this miserable 
 world ! In his passion for classifying the 
 rights of others, the weaver had obscured 
 his own. In his long and entirely success- 
 ful battle in keeping alien corpses out of his 
 own aristocratic pit he had made his own 
 corpse alien to every pit in the place. The 
 living high priest was the dead pariah of 
 Cloon na Morav. Nobody could now tell 
 except, perhaps, Malachi Roohan, the pre- 
 cise spot which he had defended against 
 the blunders and confusions of the entire 
 community, a dead-forgetting, indifferent, 
 slack lot! 
 
 The widow tried to recall all she had ever 
 heard the weaver say about his grave, in the 
 hope of getting some ciue, something that 
 might be better than the scandalous scatter- 
 brained efforts of Meehaul Lynskey and 
 Cahir Bowes. She remembered various 
 detached things that the weaver, a talkative 
 
50 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 man, had said about his grave. Fifty years 
 ago since that grave had been last opened, 
 and it had then been opened to receive the 
 remains of his father. It had been 
 thirty years previous to that since it 
 had taken in his father, that is, the 
 newly dead weaver's father's father. The 
 weavers were a long-lived lot, and there 
 were not many males of them ; one son was 
 as much as any one of them begot to pass 
 to the succession of the loom ; if there were 
 daughters they scattered, and their graves 
 were continents apart. The three wives of 
 the late rweaver were buried in the new 
 cemetery. The widow remembered that 
 the weaver seldom spoke of them, and took 
 no interest in their resting place. His 
 heart was in Cloon na Morav and the sweet, 
 dry, deep aristocratic bed he had there in 
 reserve for himself. But all his talk had 
 been generalisation-. He had never, that 
 the widow could recall, said anything about 
 the site, about the signs and measurements 
 by which it could be identified. No doubt, 
 it had been well known to many people, 
 but they had all died. The weaver had 
 never realised what their slipping away 
 might mean to himself. The position of 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 51 
 
 the grave was so intimate to his own mind 
 that it never occurred to him that it could 
 be obscure to the minds of others. Morti- 
 mer Hehir had passed away like some 
 learned and solitary astronomer who had 
 discovered a new star, hugging its beauty, 
 its exclusiveness, its possession to his heart, 
 secretly rejoicing how its name would travel 
 with his own through heavenly space for 
 all time and forgetting to mark its place 
 among the known stars grouped upon his 
 charts. Meehaul Lynskey and Cahir 
 Bowes might now be two seasoned astrono- 
 mers of venal knowledge looking for the 
 star which the weaver, in his love for it, had 
 let slip upon the mighty complexity of the 
 skies. 
 
 The thing that is clearest to the mind of a 
 man is often the thing that is most opaque 
 to the intelligence of his bosom companion. 
 A saint may walk the earth in the simple 
 belief that all the world beholds his glowing 
 halo; but all the world does not; if it did 
 the saint would be stoned. And Mortimer 
 Hehir had been as innocently proud of his 
 grave as a saint might be ecstatic of his 
 halo. He believed that when the time 
 came he would get a royal funeral a 
 
52 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 funeral fitting to the last of the line of great 
 Cloon na Morav weavers. Instead of that 
 they had no more idea of where to bury 
 him than if he had been a wild tinker of the 
 roads. 
 
 The widow, thinking of these things in her 
 own mind, was about to sigh when, behind 
 a window pane, she heard the sudden 
 bubble of a roller canary's song. She had 
 reached, half absent-mind edly, the home of 
 Malachi Roohan, the cooper. 
 
IV 
 
 The widow of the weaver approached the 
 door of Malachi Roohan's house with an 
 apologetic step, pawing the threshold a little 
 in the manner of peasant women a 
 mannerism picked up from shy animals 
 before she stooped her head and made her 
 entrance. 
 
 Malachi Roohan's daughter withdrew 
 from the fire a face which reflected the 
 passionate soul of a cook. The face cooled 
 as the widow disclosed her business. 
 
 "I wouldn't put it a-past my father to 
 have knowledge of the grave," said the 
 daughter of the house, adding, "The Lord 
 a mercy on the weaver.*' 
 
 She led the widow into the presence of 
 the cooper. 
 
 The room was small and low and stuffy, 
 indifferently served with light by an un- 
 openable window. There was the smell of 
 old age, of decay, in the room. It brought 
 
54 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 almost a sense of faintness to the widow. 
 She had the feeling that God had made her 
 to move in the ways of old men passionate, 
 cantankerous, egoistic old men, old men 
 for whom she was always doing something, 
 always remembering things, from missing 
 buttons to lost graves. 
 
 Her eyes sought the bed of Malachi Roo- 
 han with an unemotional, quietly sceptical 
 gaze. But she did not see anything of the 
 cooper. The daughter leaned over the bed, 
 listened attentively, and then very deftly 
 turned down the clothes, revealing the bust 
 of Malachi Roohan. The widow saw a 
 weird face, not in the least pale or lined, 
 but ruddy, with a mahogany bald head, a 
 head upon which the leathery skin for 
 there did not seem any flesh hardly con- 
 cealed the stark outlines of the skull. From 
 the chin there strayed a grey beard, the 
 most shaken and whipped-looking beard 
 that the widow had ever seen; it was, in 
 truth, a very miracle of a beard, for one 
 wondered how it had come there, and 
 having come there, how it continued to 
 hang on, for there did not seem anything 
 to which it could claim natural allegiance. 
 The widow was as much astonished at this 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 55 
 
 beard as if she saw a plant growing in a 
 pot without soil. Through its gaps she 
 could see the leather of the skin, the bones 
 of a neck, which was indeed a neck. Over 
 this head and shoulders the cooper's 
 daughter bent and shouted into a crumpled 
 ear. A little spasm of life stirred in the 
 mummy. A low, mumbling sound came 
 from the bed. The widow was already be- 
 ginning to feel that, perhaps, she had done 
 wrong in remembering that the cooper was 
 still extant. But what else could she have 
 dbne? If the weaver was buried in a 
 wrong grave she did not believe that his 
 soul would ever rest in peace. And what 
 could be more dreadful than a soul wander- 
 ing on the howling winds of the earth ? The 
 weaver would grieve, even in heaven, for 
 his grave, grieve, maybe, as bitterly as a 
 saint might grieve who had lost his halo 
 He was a passionate old man, such an old 
 man as would have a turbulent spirit. He 
 
 would surely . The widow stifled the 
 
 thoughts that flashed into her mind. She 
 was no more superstitious than the rest of 
 
 us, but . These vague and terrible 
 
 fears, and her moderately decent sorrow, 
 were alike banished from her mind by what 
 
56 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 followed. The mummy on the bed came 
 to life. And, what was more, he did it 
 himself. His daughter looked on with the 
 air of one whose sensibilities had become 
 blunted by a long familiarity with the 
 various stages of his resurrections. The 
 widow gathered that the daughter had been 
 well drilled; she had been taught how to 
 keep her place. She did not tender the 
 slightest help to her father as he drew him- 
 self together on the bed. He turned over 
 on his side, then on his back, and stealthily 
 began to insinuate his shoulder blades on 
 the pillow, pushing up his weird head to the 
 streak of light from the little window. The 
 widow had been so long accustomed to 
 assist the aged that she made some involun- 
 tary movement of succour. Some half -seen 
 gesture by the daughter, a sudden lifting of 
 the eyelids on the face of the patient, dis- 
 closing a pair of blue eyes, gave the widow 
 instinctive pause. She remained where she 
 was, aloof like the daughter of the house. 
 And as she caught the blue of Malachi 
 Roohan's eyes it broke upon the widow that 
 here in the essence of the cooper there lived 
 a spirit of extraordinary independence. 
 Here, surely, was a man who had been 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 57 
 
 accustomed to look out for himself, who re- 
 sented the attentions, even in these days of 
 his flickering consciousness. Up he 
 wormed his shoulder blades, his mahogany 
 skull, his leathery skin, his sensational eyes, 
 his miraculous beard, to the light and to the 
 full view of the visitor. At a certain stage 
 of the resurrection when the cooper had 
 drawn two long, stringy arms from under 
 the clothes his daughter made a drilled 
 movement forward, seeking something in 
 the bed. The widow saw her discover the 
 end of a rope, and this she placed in the 
 hands of her indomitable father. The other 
 end of the rope was fastened to the iron 
 rail of the foot of the bed. The sinews 
 of the patient's hands clutched the rope, 
 and slowly, wonderfully, magically, as it 
 seemed to the widow, the coope? raised 
 himself to a sitting posture in the bed. 
 There was dead silence in the room except 
 for the laboured breathing of the performer. 
 The eyes of the widow blinked. Yes, there 
 was that ghost of a man hoisting himself up 
 from the dead on a length of rope reversing 
 the usual procedure. By that length of 
 rope did the cooper hang on to life, and the 
 effort of life. It represented his connection 
 E 
 
58 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 with the world, the world which had for- 
 gotten him, which marched past his win- 
 dow outside without knowing the stu- 
 pendous thing that went on in his room. 
 There he was, sitting up in the bed, restored 
 to view by his own unaided efforts, holding 
 his grip on life to the last. It cost him 
 something to do it, but he did it. It would 
 take him longer and longer every day to 
 grip along that length of rope; he would 
 fail ell by ell, sinking back to the last help- 
 lessness on his rope, descending into eter- 
 nity as a vessel is lowered on a rope into a 
 dark, deep well. But there he was now, 
 still able for his work, unbeholding to all, 
 self-dependent and alive, looking a little 
 vaguely with his blue eyes at the widow of 
 the weaver. His daughter swiftly and 
 quietly propped pillows at his back, and she 
 did it with the air of one who was allowed 
 a special privilege. 
 
 "Nan!" called the old man to his 
 daughter. 
 
 The widow, cool-tempered as she was, 
 almost jumped on her feet. The voice was 
 amazingly powerful. It was like a shout, 
 filling the little room with vibrations. For 
 four things did the widow ever after remem- 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 59 
 
 ber Malachi Roohan for his rope, his blue 
 eyes, his powerful voice, and his magic 
 beard. They were thrown on the back- 
 ground of his skeleton in powerful relief. 
 
 44 Yes, father," his daughter replied, 
 shouting into his ear. He was apparently 
 very deaf. This infirmity came upon the 
 widow with a shock. The cooper was full 
 of physical surprises. 
 
 4i Who's this one?" the cooper shouted, 
 looking at the widow. He had the belief 
 that he was delivering an aside. 
 
 44 Mrs. Hehir." 
 
 "Mrs. Hehir what Hehir would she 
 be?" 
 
 "The weaver's wife." 
 
 "The weaver? Is it Mortimer Hehir?" 
 
 4 'Yes, father." 
 
 4 'In troth I know her. She's Delia Mor- 
 rissey, that married the weaver; Delia 
 Morrissey that he followed to Munster, a 
 raving lunatic with the dint of love." 
 
 A hot wave of embarrassment swept the 
 widow. For a moment she thought the 
 mind of the cooper was wandering. Then 
 she remembered that the maiden name of 
 the weaver's first wife was, indeed, Delia 
 
60 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 Morrissey. She had heard it, by chance, 
 once or twice. 
 
 "Isn't it Delia Morrissey herself we have 
 in it?" the old man asked. 
 
 The widow whispered to the daughter : 
 
 * 'Leave it so." 
 
 She shrank from a difficult discussion 
 with the spectre on the bed on the family 
 history of the weaver. A sense of shame 
 came to her that she could be the wife to a 
 contemporary of this astonishing old man 
 holding on to the life rope. 
 
 "I'm out!" shouted Malachi Roohan, his 
 blue eyes lighting suddenly. "Delia Mor- 
 rissey died. She was one day eating her 
 dinner and a bone stuck in her throat. The 
 weaver clapped her on the back, but it was 
 all to no good. She choked to death before 
 his eyes on the floor. I remember that. 
 And the weaver himself near died of grief 
 after. But he married secondly. Who's 
 this he married secondly, Nan?" 
 
 Nan did not know. She turned to the 
 widow for enlightenment. The widow 
 moistened her lips. She had to concen- 
 trate her thoughts on a subject which, for 
 her own peace of mind, she had habitually 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 61 
 
 avoided. She hated genealogy. She said 
 a little nervously : 
 
 "Sara MacCabe." 
 
 The cooper's daughter shouted the name 
 into his ear. 
 
 "So you're Sally MacCabe, from Loos- 
 caun, the one Mortimer took off the black- 
 smith? Well, well, that was a great busi- 
 ness surely, the pair of them hot-tempered 
 men, and your own beauty going to their 
 heads like strong drink." 
 
 He looked at the widow, a half-sceptical, 
 half-admiring expression flickering across 
 the leathery face, It was such a look as he 
 might have given to Dergorvilla of Leinster, 
 Deirdre of Uladh, or Helen of Troy. 
 
 The widow was not the notorious Sara 
 MacCabe from Looscaun; that lady had 
 been the second wife of the weaver. It was 
 said they had led a stormy life, made up of 
 passionate quarrels and partings, and still 
 more passionate reconciliations. Sara 
 MacCaba from Looscaun not having quite 
 forgotten or wholly neglected the black- 
 smith after her marriage to the weaver. But 
 the widow again only whispered to the 
 cooper's daughter : 
 
 "Leave it so." 
 
62 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 "What way is Mortimer keeping?" asked 
 the old man. 
 
 "He's dead," replied the daughter. 
 The fingers of the old man quivered on 
 the rope. 
 
 "Dead? Mortimer Hehir dead?" he 
 cried. "What in the name of God hap- 
 pened him?" 
 
 Nan did not know what happened him. 
 She knew that the widow would not mind, 
 so, without waiting for a prompt, she 
 replied : 
 
 "A weakness came over him, a sudden 
 weakness." 
 
 "To think of a man being whipped off 
 all of a sudden like that !" cried the cooper. 
 "When that's the way it was with Mortimer 
 Hehir what one of us can be sure at all? 
 Nan, none of us is sure ! To think of the 
 weaver, with his heart as strong as a bull, 
 going off in a little weakness ! It's the trea- 
 cherous world we live in, the treacherous 
 world, surely. Never another yard of tweed 
 will he put up on his old loom ! Morty, 
 Morty, you were a good companion, a great 
 warrant to walk the hills, whistling the 
 tunes, pleasant in your conversation and as 
 broad-spoken as the Bible." 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 63 
 
 "Did you know the weaver well, father ?" 
 the daughter asked. 
 
 "Who better?" he replied. "Who 
 drank more pints with him than what 
 myself did? And indeed it's to his wake 
 I'd be setting out, and it's under his coffin 
 my shoulder would be going, if I wasn't 
 confined to my rope." 
 
 He bowed his head for a few moments. 
 The two women exchanged a quick, sym- 
 pathetic glance. 
 
 The breathing of the old man was the 
 breathing of one who slept. The head 
 sank lower. 
 
 The widow said 
 
 "You ought to make him lie down. He's 
 tired." 
 
 The daughter made some movement of 
 dissent ; she was afraid to interfere. Maybe 
 the cooper could be very violent if roused. 
 After a time he raised his head again. He 
 looked in a new mood. He was fresher, 
 more wideawake. His beard hung in wisps 
 to the bedclothes. 
 
 "Ask him about the grave," the widow 
 said. 
 
 The daughter hesitated a moment, and in 
 
64 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 that moment the cooper looked up as if he 
 had heard, or partially heard. He said : 
 
 "If you wait a minute now I'll tell you 
 what the weaver was.*' He stared for 
 some seconds at the little window. 
 
 "Oh, we'll wait," said the daughter, and 
 turning to the widow, added, "Won't we, 
 Mrs. Hehir?" 
 
 "Indeed we will wait," said the widow, 
 
 "The weaver," said the old man sud- 
 denly, "was a dream." 
 
 He turned his head to the women to see 
 how they had taken it. 
 
 "Maybe," said the daughter, with a little 
 touch of laughter, "Maybe Mrs. Hehir 
 would not give into that." 
 
 The widow moved her hands uneasily 
 under her shawl. She stared a little fear- 
 fully at the cooper. His blue eyes were 
 clear as lake water over white sand. 
 
 "Whether she gives into it, or whether 
 she doesn't give into it," said Malachi Roo- 
 han, "it's a dream Mortimer Hehir was. 
 And his loom, and his shuttles, and his 
 warping bars, and his bobbin, and the 
 threads that he put upon the shifting racks, 
 were all a dream. And the only thing he 
 ever wove upon his loom was a dream." 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 63 
 
 The old man smacked his lips, his hard 
 gums whacking. His daughter looked at 
 him with her head a little to one side. 
 
 "And what's more,** said the cooper, 
 "every woman that ever came into his head, 
 and every wife he married, was a dream. 
 I*m telling you that, Nan, and I*m telling 
 it to you of the weaver. His life was a 
 dream, and his death is a dream. And his 
 widow there is a dream. And all the world 
 is a dream. Do you hear me, Nan, this 
 world is all a dream?** 
 
 "I hear you very well, father,** the 
 daughter sang in a piercing voice. 
 
 The cooper raised his head with a Jerk, 
 and his beard swept forward, giving him 
 an appearance of vivid energy. He spoke 
 in a voice like a trumpet blast : 
 
 "And I*m a dream!'* 
 
 He turned his blue eyes on the widow. 
 An unnerving sensation came to her. The 
 cooper was the most dreadful old man she 
 had ever seen, and what he was saying 
 sounded the most terrible thing she had ever 
 listened to. He cried : 
 
 "The idiot laughing in the street, the 
 King looking at his crown, the woman turn- 
 ing her head to the Sf-und of a man's step, 
 
66 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 the bells ringing in the belfry, the man walk- 
 ing his land, the weaver at his loom, the 
 cooper handling his barrel, the Pope stoop- 
 ing for his red slippers they're all a dream. 
 And I'll tell you why they're a dream : be- 
 cause this world was meant to be a dream." 
 
 "Father," said the daughter, "you're 
 talking too much, You'll over-reach your- 
 self." 
 
 The old man gave himself a little pull on 
 the rope. It was his gesture of energy, a 
 demonstration of the fine fettle he was in. 
 He said : 
 
 "You're saying that because you don't 
 understand me." 
 
 "I understand you very well." 
 
 "You only think you do. Listen to me 
 now, Nan. I want you to do something for 
 me. You won't refuse me?" 
 
 "I will not refuse you, Father; you know 
 very well I won't." 
 
 "You're a good daughter to me, surely, 
 Nan. And do what I tell you now. Shut 
 close your eyes. Shut them fast and tight. 
 No fluttering of the lids now." 
 
 "Very well, Father." 
 
 The daughter closed her eyes, throwing 
 up her face in the attitude of one blind. 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 67 
 
 The widow was conscious of the woman's 
 strong, rough features, something good- 
 natured in the line of the large mouth. The 
 old man watched the face of his daughter 
 with excitement. He asked : 
 
 "What is it that you see now, Nan^" 
 
 "Nothing at all, Father." 
 
 "In troth you do. Keep them closed 
 tight and you'll see it." 
 
 "I see nothing only " 
 
 "Only what? Why don't you say it?" 
 
 "Only darkness, Father." 
 
 "And isn't that something to see? Isn't 
 it easier to see darkness than to see light? 
 Now, Nan, look into the darkness." 
 
 "I'm looking, Father." 
 
 "And think of something anything at 
 
 all the stool before the kitchen fire out- 
 
 * j 
 
 side. 
 
 "I'm thinking of it." 
 
 "And do you remember it?" 
 
 "I do well." 
 
 "And when you remember it what do 
 you want to do sit on it, maybe?" 
 
 "No, Father." 
 
 "And why wouldn't you want to sit on 
 it?" 
 
68 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 "Because because I'd like to see it first, 
 to make sure." 
 
 The old man gave a little crow of delight. 
 He cried : 
 
 "There it is ! You want to make sure 
 that it is there, although you remember it 
 well. And that is the way with everything 
 in this world. People close their eyes and 
 they are not sure of anything. They want 
 to see it again before they believe. There 
 is Nan, now, and she does not believe in 
 the stool before the fire, the little stool she's 
 looking at all her life, that her mother used 
 to seat her on before the fire when she was 
 a small child. She closes her eyes, and it 
 is gone ! And listen to me now, Nan if 
 you had a man of your own and you closed 
 your eyes you wouldn't be too sure he was 
 the man you remembered, and you'd want 
 to open your eyes and look at him to make 
 sure he was the man you knew before the 
 lids dropped on your eyes. And if you had 
 children about you and you turned your 
 back and closed your eyes and tried to re- 
 member them you'd want to look at them to 
 make sure. You'd be no more sure of 
 them than you are now of the stool in the 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 69 
 
 kitchen. One flash of the eyelids and 
 everything in this world is gone.'* 
 
 "I'm telling you, Father, you're talking 
 too much." 
 
 "I'm not talking half enough. Aren't 
 we all uneasy about the world, the things in 
 the world that we can only believe in while 
 we're looking at them? From one season 
 of our life to another haven't we a kind of 
 belief that some time we'll waken up and 
 find everything different? Didn't you ever 
 feel that, Nan? Didn't you think things 
 would change, that the world would be a 
 new place altogether, and that all that was 
 going on around us was only a business 
 that was doing us out of something else? 
 We put up with it while the little hankering 
 is nibbling at the butt of our hearts for the 
 something else ! All the men there be who 
 believe that some day The Thing will 
 happen, that they'll turn round the corner 
 and waken up in the new great Street ! ' ' 
 
 *'And sure," said the daughter, "maybe 
 
 they are right, and maybe they will waken 
 
 * 
 up. 
 
 The old man's body was shaken with a 
 queer spasm of laughter. It began under 
 the clothes on the bed, worked up his trunk, 
 
70 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 ran along his stringy arms, out into the 
 rope, and the iron foot of the bed rattled. 
 A look of extraordinarily malicious humour 
 lit up the vivid lace of the cooper. The 
 widow beheld him with fascination, a grow- 
 ing sense of alarm. He might say any- 
 thing. He might do anything. He might 
 begin to sing some fearful song. He might 
 leap out of bed. 
 
 "Nan," he said, "do you believe you'll 
 swing round the corner and waken up?" 
 
 "Well," said Nan, hesitating a little, "I 
 
 d 
 o. 
 
 The cooper gave a sort of peacock crow 
 again. He cried : 
 
 "Och ! Nan Roohan believes she'll waken 
 up ! Waken up from what ? From a sleep 
 and from a dream, from this world ! Well, 
 if you believe that, Nan Roohan, it shows 
 you know what's what. You know what 
 the thing around you, called the world, 
 And it's only dreamers who can hope to 
 waken up do you hear me, Nan; it's only 
 dreamers who can hope to waken up." 
 
 *'I hear you," said Nan. 
 
 "The world is only a dream, and a dream 
 is nothing at all ! We all want to waken 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 71 
 
 up out of the great nothingness of this 
 world.'* 
 
 "And, please God, we will," said Nan. 
 
 "You can tell all the world from me." 
 said the cooper, "that it won't." 
 
 "And why won't we, Father?" 
 
 "Because," said the old man, "we our- 
 selves are the dream. When we're over the 
 dream is over with us. That's why." 
 
 "Father," said the daughter, her head 
 again a little to one side, "you know a great 
 deal." 
 
 "I know enough," said the cooper 
 shortly. 
 
 "And maybe you could tell us something 
 about the weaver's grave. Mrs. Hehir 
 wants to know." 
 
 "And amn't I after telling you all about 
 the weaver's grave? A.mn't I telling you 
 it is all a dream?" 
 
 "You never said that, Father. Indeed 
 you never did." 
 
 "I said everything in this world is a 
 dream, and the weaver's grave is in this 
 world, below in Cloon na Morav." 
 
 "Where in Cloon na Morav? What part 
 of it, Father? That is what Mrs. Hehir 
 wants to know. Can you tell her?" 
 
72 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 "I can tell her/* said Malachi Roohan. 
 "I was at his father's burial. I remember 
 it above all burials, because that was the 
 day the handsome girl, Honor Costello, fell 
 over a grave and fainted. The sweat broke 
 out on young Donohoe when he saw Honor 
 Costello tumbling over the grave. Not a 
 marry would he marry her after that, and 
 he sworn to it by the kiss of her lips. Til 
 marry no woman that fell on a grave/ says 
 Donohoe. 'She'd maybe have a child by 
 me with turned-in eyes or a twisted limb/ 
 So he married a farmer's daughter, and the 
 same morning Honor Costello married a 
 cattle drover. Very well, then. Donohoe 's 
 wife had no child at all. She was a barren 
 woman. Do you hear me, Nan? A 
 barren woman she was. And such childer 
 as Honor Costello had by the drover! 
 Yellow hair they had, heavy as seaweed, 
 the skin of them clear as the wind, and 
 limbs as clean as a whistle ! It was said 
 the drover was of the blood of the Danes, 
 and it broke out in Honor Costello's 
 family !" 
 
 * 'Maybe," said the daughter, "they were 
 Vikings/* 
 
 "What are you saying?*' cried the old 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 73 
 
 man testily. " Ain't I telling you it's Danes 
 they were. Did anyone ever hear a greater 
 miracle?" 
 
 "No one ever did," said the daughter, 
 and both women clicked their tongues to 
 express sympathetic wonder at the tale. 
 
 "And I'll tell you what saved Honor Cos-- 
 tello," said the cooper. "When she fell 
 in Cloon na Moray she turned her cloak 
 inside out." 
 
 "What about the weaver's grave, 
 Father? Mrs. Hehir wants to know." 
 
 The old man looked at the widow; his 
 blue eyes searched her face and her figure ; 
 the expression of satirical admiration flashed 
 over his features. The nostrils of the nose 
 twitched. He said : 
 
 "So that's the end of the story! Sally 
 MacCabe, the blacksmith's favourite, wants 
 to know where she'll sink the weaver out of 
 sight ! Great battles were fought in Loos- 
 caun over Sally MacCabe ! The weaver 
 thought his heait would burst, and the 
 blacksmith damned his soul for the sake of 
 Sally MacCabe's idle hours." 
 
 "Father," said the daughter of the house, 
 "let the dead rest." 
 
 "Ay," said Malachi Roohan, "let the 
 F 
 
74 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 foolish dead rest. The dream of Looscaun 
 is over. And now the pale woman is look- 
 ing for the black weaver's grave. Well, 
 good luck to her ! ' * 
 
 The cooper was taken with another spasm 
 of grotesque laughter. The only difference 
 was that this time it began by the rattling 
 of the rail of the bed, travelled along the 
 rope, down his stringy arms dying out 
 somewhere in his legs in the bed. He 
 smacked his lips, a peculiar harsh sound, as 
 if there was not much meat to it. 
 
 "Do I know where Mortimer Hehir's 
 grave is?" he said ruminatingly. "Do I 
 know where me rope is?" 
 
 "Where is it, then?" his daughter asked. 
 Her patience was great. 
 
 "I'll tell you that," said the cooper. "It's 
 under the elm tree of Cloon na Morav. 
 That's where it is surely. There was 
 never a weaver yet that did not find rest 
 under the elm tree of Cloon na Morav. 
 There they all went as surely as the buds 
 came on the branches. Let Sally MacCabe 
 put poor Morty there ; let her give him a tear 
 or two in memory of the days that his heart 
 was ready to burst for her, and believe you 
 me no ghost will ever haunt her. No dead 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 75 
 
 man ever yet came back to look upon a 
 woman ! * * 
 
 A furtive sigh escaped the widow. With 
 her handkerchief sl^e wiped a little perspira- 
 tion from both sides of her nose. The old 
 man wagged his head sympathetically. He 
 thought she was the long dead Sally 
 MacCabe lamenting the weaver ! The 
 widow's emotion arose from relief that the 
 mystery of the grave had at last been cleared 
 up. Yet her dealings with old men had 
 taught her caution. Quite suddenly the 
 memory of the handsome dark face of the 
 grave-digger who had followed her to the 
 stile came back to her. She remembered 
 that he said something about "the exact 
 position of the grave/' The widow 
 prompted yet another question : 
 
 "What position under the elm tree V 
 
 The old man listened to the question; a 
 strained look came into his face. 
 
 "Position of what?'* he asked. 
 
 "Of the grave.*' 
 
 "Of what grave?" 
 
 "The weaver's grave." 
 
 Another spasm seized the old frame, but 
 this time it came from no aged merriment. 
 It gripped his skeleton and shook it. It was 
 
76 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 as if some invisible powerful hand had sud- 
 denly taken him by the back of the neck 
 and shaken him. His knuckles rattled on 
 the rope. They had an appalling sound. A 
 horrible feeling came to the widow that the 
 cooper would fall to pieces like a bag of 
 bones. He turned his face to his daughter. 
 Great tears had welled into the blue eyes, 
 giving them an appearance of childish petu- 
 lance, then of acute suffering. 
 
 "What are you talking to me of graves 
 for?" he asked, and the powerful voice 
 broke. "Why will you be tormenting me 
 like this? It's not going to die I am, is it? 
 Is it going to die I am, Nan?" 
 
 The daughter bent over him as she might 
 bend over a child. She said : 
 
 "Indeed, there's great fear of you. Lie 
 down and rest yourself. Fatigued out and 
 out you are." 
 
 The grip slowly slackened on the rope. 
 He sank back, quite helpless, a little 
 whimper breaking from him. The daughter 
 stooped lower, reaching for a pillow that 
 had fallen in by the wall. A sudden sharp 
 snarl sounded from the bed, and it dropped 
 from her hand. 
 
 "Don't touch me!** the cooper cried. 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 77 
 
 The voice was again restored, powerful in 
 its command. And to the amazement of 
 the widow she saw him again grip along 
 the rope and rise in the bed. 
 
 **Amn't I tired telling you not to touch 
 me?" he cried. "Have I any business talk- 
 ing to you at all ? Is it gone my authority is 
 in thisTiouse?" 
 
 He glared at his daughter, his eyes red 
 with anger, like a dog crouching in his 
 kennel, and the daughter stepped back, a 
 wry smile on her large mouth. The widow 
 stepped back with her, and for a moment 
 he held the women with their backs to the 
 wall by his angry red eyes. Another growl 
 and the cooper sank back inch by inch on 
 the rope. In all her experience of old men 
 the widow had never seen anything like 
 this old man; his resurrections and his 
 collapse. When he was quite down the 
 daughter gingerly put the clothes over his 
 shoulders and then beckoned the widow out 
 of the room. 
 
 The widow left the house of Malachi 
 Roohan, the cooper, with the feeling that 
 she had discovered the grave of an old man 
 by almost killing another. 
 
The widow walked along the streets, out- 
 wardly calm, inwardly confused. Her first 
 thought was "the day is going on me!" 
 There were many things still to be done at 
 home; she remembered the weaver lying 
 there, quiet at last, the candles lighting 
 about him, the brown habit over him, a 
 crucifix in his hands everything as it 
 should be. It seemed ages to the widow 
 since he had really fallen ill. He was very 
 exacting and peevish all that time. His 
 death agony had been protracted, almost 
 melodramatically violent. A few times the 
 widow had nearly run out of the house, leav- 
 ing the weaver to fight the death battle 
 alone. But her commonsense, her good 
 nerves, and her religious convictions, had 
 stood to her, and when she put the pennies 
 on the weaver's eyes she was glad she had 
 done her duty to the last. She was glad 
 now that she had taken the search for the 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 79 
 
 grave out of the hands of Meehaul Lynskey 
 and Cahir Bowes; Malachi Roohan had 
 been a sight, and she would never forget 
 him, but he had known what nobody else 
 knew. The widow, as she ascended a little 
 upward sweep of the road to Cloon na 
 Morav, noted that the sky beyond it was 
 more vivid, a red band of light having struck 
 across the grey blue, just on the horizon. 
 Up against this red background was the 
 dark outline of landscape, and especially 
 Cloon na Morav. She kept her eyes upon 
 it as she drew nearer. Objects that were 
 vague on the landscape began to bulk up 
 with more distinction. 
 
 She noted the back wall of Cloon na 
 Morav, its green lichen more vivid under 
 the red patch of the skyline. And pre- 
 sently, above the green wall, black against 
 the vivid sky, she saw elevated the bulk of 
 one of the black cockroaches. On it were 
 perched two drab figures, so grotesque, so 
 still, that they seemed part of the thing itself. 
 One figure was sloping out from 
 the end of the tombstone so 
 curiously that for a moment the 
 widow thought it was a man who had 
 reached down from the table to see what 
 
80 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 was under it. At the other end of the table 
 was a slender warped figure, and as the 
 widow gazed upon it she saw a sign of ani- 
 mation. The head and face, bleak in their 
 outlines, were jaised up in a gesture of 
 despair. The face was turned flush against 
 the sky, so much so that the widow's eyes 
 instinctively sought the sky too. Above the 
 slash of red, in the west, was a single star, 
 flashing so briskly and so freshly that it 
 might have never shone before. For all the 
 widow knew, it might have been a young 
 star frolicking in the heavens with all the 
 joy of youth. Was that, she wondered, at 
 what the old man, Meehaul Lynskey, was 
 gazing. He was very, very old, and the 
 star was very, very young ! Was there 
 some protest in the gesture of the head he 
 raised to that thing in the sky; was there 
 some mockery in the sparkle of the thing 
 of the sky for the face of the man? Why 
 should a star be always young, a man aged 
 so soon ? Should not a man be greater than 
 a star? Was it this Meehaul Lynskey was 
 thinking? The widow could not say, but 
 something in the thing awed her. She had 
 the sensation of one who surprises a man in 
 some act that lifts him above the common- 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 81 
 
 places of existence. It was as if Meehaul 
 Lynskey were discovered prostrate before 
 some altar, in the throes of a religious 
 agony. Old men were, the widow felt, 
 very, very strange, and she did not know 
 that she would ever understand them. As 
 she looked at the bleak head of Meehaul 
 Lynskey up, against the vivid patch of the 
 eky, she wondered if there could really be 
 something in that head which would make 
 him as great as a star, immortal as a star? 
 Suddenly Meehaul Lynskey made a move- 
 ment. The widow saw it quite distinctly. 
 She saw the arm raised, the hand go out, 
 with its crooked fingers, in one, two, three 
 quick, short taps in the direction of the star. 
 The widow stood to watch, and the gesture 
 was so familiar, so homely, so personal, that 
 it was quite understandable to her. She 
 knew then that Meehaul Lynskey was not 
 thinking of any great things at all. He was 
 only a nailer ! And seeing the Evening Star 
 sparkle in the sky he had only thought of 
 his workshop, of the bellows, the irons, the 
 fire, the sparks, and the glowing iron which 
 might be made into a nail while it was hot ! 
 He had in imagination seized a hammer and 
 made a blow across interstellar space at 
 
82 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 Venus ! All the beauty and youth of the 
 star frolicking on the pale sky above the 
 slash of vivid redness had only suggested to 
 him the making of yet another nail ! If 
 Meehaul Lynskey could push up his scarred 
 yellow face among the stars of the sky he 
 would only see in them the sparks of his little 
 smithy. 
 
 Cahir Bowes was, the widow thought, 
 looking down at the earth, from the other end 
 of the tombstone, to see if there were any 
 hard things there which he could smash up. 
 The old men had their backs turned upon 
 each other. Very likely they had another 
 discussion since, which ended in this attitude 
 of mutual contempt. The widow was con- 
 scious again of the unreasonableness of old 
 men, but not much resentful of it. She was 
 too long accustomed to them to have any 
 great sense of revolt. Her emotion, if it 
 could be called an emotion, was a settled, 
 dull toleration of all their little bigotries. 
 
 She put her hand on the stile for the second 
 time that day, and again raised her palely 
 sad face over the graveyard of Cloon na 
 Morav. As she did so she had the most 
 extraordinary experience of the whole day's 
 sensations. It was such a sensation as gave 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 83 
 
 her at once a wonderful sense of the reality 
 and the unreality of life. She paused on the 
 stile, and had a clear insight into something 
 that had up to this moment been obscure. 
 And no sooner had the thing become definite 
 and clear than a sense of the wonder of life 
 came to her. It was all very like the dre?m 
 Malachi Roohan had talked about. 
 
 In the pale grass, under the vivid colours 
 of the sky, the two grave-diererers were lying 
 on their backs, staring silently up at the 
 heavens. The widow looked at them as she 
 paused on the stile. Her thoughts of these 
 men had been indifferent, subconscious, up 
 to this instant. They were handsome young 
 men. Perhaps if there had been only one of 
 them the widow would have been more at- 
 tentive. The dark handsomeness did not 
 seem the^ame thing when repeated. Their 
 beauty, if one could call it beauty, had been 
 collective, the beautv of flowers, of dark, 
 velvetv pansies, the distinctive marks of one 
 faithfullv duplicated on the other. The good 
 looks of one had, to the mind of the widow, 
 somehow nullified the good looks of the 
 other. There was too much borrowing of 
 Peter to pay Paul in their well- 
 favoured features. The first grave 
 
84 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 digger spoiled the illusion of indi- 
 viduality in the second grave-digger. The 
 widow had not thought so, but she would 
 have agreed if anybody whispered to her that 
 a good-looking man who wanted to win 
 favour with a woman should never have so 
 complete a twin brother. It would be 
 possible for a woman to part tenderly with 
 a man, and, if she met his image and likeness 
 around the corner, knock him down. There 
 is nothing more powerful, but nothing more 
 delicate in life than the valves of individua- 
 lity. To create the impression that humanity 
 was a thing which could be turned out like a 
 coinage would be to ruin the whole illusion 
 of life. The twin grave-diggers had created 
 some sort of such impression, vague, and not 
 very insistent, in the mind of the widow, and 
 it had made her lose any special interest in 
 them. Now, however, as she hesitated on 
 the stile, all this was swept from her mind at 
 a stroke. That most subtle and powerful 
 of all things, personality, sprang silently from 
 the twins and made them, to the mind of the 
 widow, things as far apart as the poles. The 
 two men lay at length, and exactly the same 
 length and bulk, in the long, grey grass. But, 
 as the widow looked upon them, one twin 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 85 
 
 seemed conscious of her presence, while the 
 other continued his absorption in the heavens 
 above. The supreme twin turned his head, 
 and his soft, velvety brown eyes 
 met the eyes of . the widow. 
 There was welcome in the man's 
 eyes. The widow read that welcome as 
 plainly as if he had spoken his thoughts. 
 The next moment he had sprung to his feet, 
 smiling. He took a few steps forward, then, 
 self-conscious, pulled up. If he had only 
 jumped up and smiled the widow would have 
 understood. But those few eager steps for- 
 ward and then that stock stillness ! The 
 other twin rose reluctantly, and as he did so 
 the widow was conscious of even physical 
 differences in the brothers. The eyes were 
 not the same. No such velvety soft lights 
 were in the eyes of the second one. He was 
 more sheepish. He was more phlegmatic. 
 He was only a plagiarism of the original 
 man ! The widow wondered how she had 
 not seen all this before. The resemblance 
 between the twins was only skin deep. The 
 two old men, at the moment the second twin 
 rose, detached themselves slowly, almost 
 painfully, from their tombstone, and all 
 moved forward to meet the widow. The 
 
86 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 widow, collecting her thoughts, piloted her 
 skirts modestly about her legs as she got 
 down from the narrow stonework of the stile 
 and stumbled into the contrariness of Cloon 
 na Morav. A wild sense of satisfaction 
 swept her that she had come back the bearer 
 of useful information. 
 
 "Well," said Meehaul Lynskey, "did you 
 see Malachi Roohan?" The widow looked 
 at his scorched, sceptical, yellow face, and 
 said : 
 
 4 T 1*1 ** 
 
 I did. 
 
 "Had he any word for us?*' 
 
 "He had. He remembers the place of the 
 weaver's grave." The widow looked a little 
 vaguely about Cloon na Morav. 
 
 "What does he say?" 
 
 "He says it's under the elm tree." 
 
 There was silence. The stone-breaker 
 swung about on his legs, his head making a 
 semi-circular movement over the ground, and 
 his sharp eyes were turned upward, as if he 
 were searching the heavens for an elm tree. 
 The nailer dropped his underjaw and stared 
 tensely across the ground, blankly, patiently, 
 like a fisherman on the edge of the shore 
 gazing over an empty sea. The grave-digger 
 turned his head away shyly, like a boy, as 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 87 
 
 if he did not want to see the confusion of the 
 widow ; the man was full of the most delicate 
 mannerisms. The other grave-digger settled 
 into a stolid attitude, then the skin bunched 
 up about his brown eyes in puckers of 
 humour. A miserable feeling swept the 
 widow. She had the feeling that she stood 
 on the verge of some collapse. 
 
 "Under the elm tree/' mumbled the stone- 
 breaker. 
 
 "That's what he said," added the widow. 
 "Under the elm tree of Cloon na Morav." 
 
 "Well," said Cahir Bowes, "when you 
 find the elm tree you'll find the grave." 
 
 The widow did not know what an e!m tree 
 was. Nothing had ever happened in life as 
 she knew it to render any special knowledge 
 of trees profitable, and therefore desirable. 
 Trees were good ; they made nice firing when 
 chopped up; timber, and all that was 
 fashioned out of timber, came from trees. 
 This knowledge the widow had accepted as 
 she had accepted all the other remote pheno- 
 mena of the world into which she had been 
 born. But that trees should have distinctive 
 names, that they should have family relation- 
 ships, seemed to the mind of the widow only 
 an unnecessary complication of the affairs of 
 
88 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 the universe. What good was it? She 
 could understand calling fruit trees fruit trees 
 and all other kinds simply trees. But that 
 one should be an elm and another an ash, 
 that there should be name after name, species 
 after species, giving them peculiarities and 
 personalities, was one of the things that the 
 widow did not like. And at this moment, 
 when the elm tree of Malachi Roohan had 
 raised a fresh problem in Cloon na Morav, 
 the likeness of old men to old trees their 
 crankiness, their complexity, their angles, 
 their very barks, bulges, gnarled twistiness, 
 and kinks was very close, and brought a 
 sense of oppression to the sorely-tried brain 
 of the widow. 
 
 "Under the elm tree," repeated Meehaul 
 Lynskey. "The elm tree of Cloon na 
 Morav.** He broke into an aged cackle of a 
 laugh. "If I was any good at all at making 
 a rhyme I'd make one about that elm tree, 
 devil a other but I would.** 
 
 The widow looked around Cloon na 
 Morav, and her eyes, for the first time in her 
 life, were consciously searching for trees. If 
 there were numerous trees there she could 
 understand how easy it might be for Malachi 
 Roohan to make a mistake. He might have 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 89 
 
 mistaken some other sort of tree for an elm 
 the widow felt that there must be plenty of 
 other trees very like an elm. In fact, she 
 reasoned that other trees, do their best, could 
 not help looking like an elm. There must be 
 thousands and millions of people like herself 
 in the world who pass through life in the 
 belief that a certain kind of tree was an elm 
 when, in reality, it may be an ash or an oak 
 or a chestnut or a beech, or even a poplar, a 
 birch, or a yew. Malachi Roohan was never 
 likely to allow anybody to amend his know- 
 ledge of an elm tree. He would let go his 
 rope in the belief that there was an elm tree in 
 Cloon na Morav, and that under it was the 
 weaver's grave that is, if Malachi Roohan 
 had not, in some ghastly aged kink, invented 
 the thing. The widow, not sharply, but still 
 with an appreciation of the thing, grasped 
 that a dispute about trees would be the very 
 sort of dispute in which Meehaul Lynskey 
 and Cahir Bowes would, like the very old 
 men that they were, have revelled. Under 
 the impulse of the message she had brought 
 from the cooper they would have launched 
 out into another powerful struggle from tree 
 to tree in Cloon na Morav ; they would again 
 have strewn the place with the corpses of 
 
 
90 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 slain arguments, and in the net result they 
 would not have been able to establish any- 
 thing either about elm trees or about the 
 weaver's grave. The slow, sad gaze of the 
 widow for trees in Cloon na Morav brought 
 to her, in these circumstances, both pain and 
 relief. It was a relief that Meehaul Lynskey 
 and Cahir Bowes could not challenge each 
 other to a battle of trees ; it was a pain that 
 the tree of Malachi Roohan was nowhere in 
 sight. The widow could see for herself lhat 
 there was not any sort of a tree in Cloon na 
 Morav. The ground was enclosed upon 
 three sides by walls, on the fourth by a hedge 
 of quicks. Not even old men could trans- 
 form a hedge into an elm tree. Neither could 
 they make the few struggling briars clinging 
 about the railings of the sepulchres into any- 
 thing except briars. The elm tree of 
 Malachi Roohan was now non-existent. 
 Nobody would ever know whether it had or 
 had not ever existed. The widow would as 
 soon give the soul of the weaver to the howl- 
 ing winds of the world as go back and inter- 
 view the cooper again on the subject. 
 
 "Old Malachi Roohan,*' said Cahir Bowes 
 with tolerant decision, "is doting.*' 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 91 
 
 4 'The nearest elm tree I know," said 
 Meehaul Lynskey, "is half a mile away." 
 
 "The one above at Carragh?" questioned 
 Cahir Bowes. 
 
 "Ay, beside the mill." 
 
 No more was to be said. The riddle of the 
 weaver's grave was still the riddle of the 
 weaver's grave. Cloon na Morav kept its 
 secret. But, nevertheless, the weaver would 
 have to be buried. He could not be housed 
 indefinitely. Taking courage from all the 
 harrowing aspects of the deadlock, Meehaul 
 Lynskey went back, plump and courageously 
 to his original allegiance. 
 
 "The grave of the weaver is there," he 
 said, and he struck out his hooked fingers in 
 the direction of the disturbance of the sod 
 which the grave-diggers had made under 
 pressure of his earlier enthusiasm. 
 
 Cahir Bowes turned on him with a wither- 
 ing, quavering glance. 
 
 "Aren't you afraid that God would strike 
 you where you stand?" he demanded. 
 
 "I'm not not a bit afraid," said Meehaul 
 Lynskey. "It's the weaver's grave." 
 
 "You say that," cried Cahir Bowes, "after 
 what we all saw and what we all heard?" 
 
 "I do," said Meehaul Lynskey, stoutly. 
 
92 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 He wiped his lips with the palm of his hand, 
 and launched out into one of his arguments, 
 arguments, as usual, packed with particulars. 
 "I saw the weaver's father lowered in that 
 place. And I'll tell you, what's more, it was 
 Father Owen MacCarthy that read over him, 
 he a young red-haired curate in this place at 
 the time, long before ever he became parish 
 priest of Benelog. There was I, standing in 
 this exact spot, a young man, too, with a light 
 moustache, holding me hat in me hand, and 
 there one side of me maybe five yards from 
 the marble stone of the Keernahans was 
 Patsy Curtin that drank himself to death 
 after, and on the other side of me was Honor 
 Costello, that fell on the grave and married 
 the fcattle drover, a big, loo!se-shoulde|red 
 Dane.** 
 
 Patiently, half absent-mindedly, listening 
 to the renewal of the dispute, the widow re- 
 membered the words of Malachi Roohan, 
 and his story of Honor Costello, who fell 
 on the grave over fifty years ago. What 
 memories these old men had ! How unre- 
 liable they were, and yet flashing out 
 astounding corroborations of each other. 
 Maybe there was something in what 
 Meehaul Lynskey was saying. Maybe 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 93 
 
 but the widow checked her 
 thoughts. What was the use of it all? This 
 grave could not be the weaver's grave; it 
 had been grimly demonstrated to them all 
 that it was full of stout coffins. The widow, 
 with a gesture of agitation, smoothed her 
 hair down the gentle slope of her head under 
 the shawl. As she did so her eyes caught 
 the eyes of the grave-digger ; he was looking 
 at her ! He withdrew his eyes at once, and 
 began to twitch the ends of his dark mous- 
 tache with his fingers. 
 
 "If," said Cahir Bowes, "this be the grave 
 of the weaver, what's Julia Rafferty doing in 
 it? Answer me that, Meehaul Lynskey." 
 
 "I don't know what's she doing in it, and 
 what's more, I don't care. And believe you 
 my word, many a queer thing happened in 
 Cloon na Morav that had no right to happen 
 in it. Julia RafTerty, maybe, isn't the only 
 one that is where she had no right to be." 
 
 "Maybe she isn't," said Cahir Bowes, 
 "but it's there she is, anyhow, and I'm think- 
 ing it's there she's likely to stay." 
 
 "If she's in the weaver's grave," cried 
 Meehaul Lynskey, "what I say is, out with 
 her!" 
 
 "Very well, then, Meehaul Lynskey. Let 
 
94 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 you yourself be the powerful man to deal 
 with Julia Rafferty. But remember this, and 
 remember it's my word, that touch one bone 
 in this place and you touch all." 
 
 "No fear at all have I to right a wrong. 
 I'm no backslider when it comes to justice, 
 and justice I'll see done among the living and 
 the dead." 
 
 "Go ahead, then, me hearty fellow. If 
 Julia herself is in the wrong place somebody 
 else must be in her own place, and you'll be 
 following one rightment with another wrong- 
 ment until in the end you'll go mad with the 
 tangle of dead men's wrongs. That's the 
 end that's in store for you, Meehaul Lyn- 
 skey." 
 
 Meehaul Lynskey spat on his fist and 
 struck out with the hooked fingers. His 
 blood was up. 
 
 "That I may be as dead as my father!" 
 he began in a traditional oath, and at that 
 Cahir Bowes gave a little cry and raised his 
 slick with a battle flourish. They went up 
 and down the dips of the ground, rising and 
 falling on the waves of their anger, and the 
 widow stood where she was, miserable and 
 downhearted, her feet growing stone cold 
 from the chilly dampness of the ground. The 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 95 
 
 twin, who did not now count, took out his 
 pipe and lit it, looking at the old men with 
 a stolid gaze. The twin who now counted 
 walked uneasily away, bit an end off a chunk 
 of tobacco, and came to stand in the ground 
 in a line with the widow, looking on with 
 her several feet away; but again the widow 
 was conscious of the man's growing sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 "They're a nice pair of boyos, them two 
 old lads," he remarked to the widow. He 
 turned his head to her. He was very hand- 
 some. 
 
 *'Do you think they will find it?" she 
 asked. Her voice was a little nervous, and 
 the man shifted on his feet, nervously re- 
 sponsive. 
 
 "It's hard to say," he said. "You'd never 
 know what to think. Two old lads, the like 
 of them, do be very tricky." 
 
 "God grant they'll get it," said the widow. 
 
 "God grant," said the grave-digger. 
 
 But they didn't. They only got exhausted 
 as before, wheezing and coughing, and glar- 
 ing at each other as they sat down on two 
 mounds. 
 
 The grave-digger turned to the widow. 
 
96 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 She was aware of the nice warmth of his 
 brown eyes. 
 
 "Are you waking the weaver again to- 
 night ?" he asked. 
 
 "I am," said the widow. 
 
 "Well, maybe some person some old 
 man or woman from the country may turn 
 up and be able to tell where the grave is. You 
 could make inquiries." 
 
 "Yes," said the widow, but without any 
 enthusiasm, "I could make inquiries." 
 
 The grave-digger hesitated for a moment, 
 and said more sympathetically, "We could 
 all, maybe, make inquiries." There was a 
 softer personal note, a note of adventure, in 
 the voice. 
 
 The widow turned her head to the man 
 and smiled at him quite frankly. 
 
 " I'm beholding to you," she said and 
 then added with a little wounded sigh, 
 " Everyone is very good to me." 
 
 The grave-digger twirled the ends of his 
 moustache. 
 
 Cahir Bowes, who had heard, rose from 
 his mound and said briskly, " Til agree to 
 leave it at that." His air was that of one 
 who had made an extraordinary personal 
 sacrifice. What he was really thinking was 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 97 
 
 that he would have another great day of it 
 with Meehaul Lynskey in Cloon na Morav 
 to-morrow. He'd show that oul* fellow, 
 Lynskey, what stuff Boweses were made of. 
 
 " And I'm not against it," said Meehaul 
 Lynskey. He took the tone of one who was 
 never to be outdone in magnanimity. He 
 was also thinking of another day of effort 
 to-morrow, a day that would, please God, 
 show the Boweses what the Lynskeys were 
 like. 
 
 With that the party came straggling out of 
 Cloon na Morav, the two old men first, the 
 widow next, the grave-diggers waiting to put 
 on their coats and light their pipes. 
 
 There was a little upward slope on the 
 road to the town, and as the two old men 
 took it the widow thought they looked very 
 spent after their day She wondered if Cahir 
 Bowes would ever be able for that hill. She 
 would give him a glass of whiskey at home, 
 if there was any left in the bottle. Of the 
 two, and as limp and slack as his body 
 looked, Meehaul Lynskey appeared the 
 better able for the hill. They walked to- 
 gether, that is to say, abreast, but they kept 
 almost the width of the road between each 
 other, as if this gulf expressed the breach of 
 
98 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 friendship between them on the head of the 
 dispute about the weaver's grave. They 
 had been making liars of each other all day, 
 and they would, please God, make liars of 
 each other all day to-morrow. The widow, 
 understanding the meaning of this hostility, 
 had a faint sense of amusement at the con- 
 trariness of old men. How could she tell 
 what was passing in the head which Cahir 
 Bowes hung, like a fuchsia drop, over the 
 road ? How could she know of the strange 
 rise and fall of the thoughts, the little frets, 
 the tempers, the faint humours, which 
 chased each other there? Nobody not 
 even Cahir Bowes himself could account 
 for them. All the widow knew was that 
 Cahir Bowes stood suddenly on the road. 
 Something had happened in his brain, some 
 old memory cell long dormant had become 
 nascent, had a stir, a pulse, a flicker of 
 warmth, of activity, and swiftly as a flash of 
 lightning in the sky, a glow of lucidity lit up 
 his memory. It was as if a searchlight had 
 suddenly flooded the dark corners of his 
 brain. The immediate physical effect on 
 Cahir Bowes was to cause him to stand stark 
 still on the road, Meehaul Lynskey going 
 ahead without him. The widow saw Cahir 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 99 
 
 Bowes pivot on his heels, his head, at the 
 end of the horizontal body, swinging round 
 like the movement of a hand on a runaway 
 clock. Instead of pointing up the hill home- 
 ward the head pointed down the hill and 
 back to Cloon na Morav. There followed 
 the most extraordinary movements shuff- 
 lings, gyrations that the widow had ever 
 seen. Cahir Bowes wanted to run like mad 
 away down the road. That was plain. 
 And Cahir Bowes believed that he was run- 
 ning like mad away down the road. That 
 was also evident. But what he actually did 
 was to make little jumps on his feet, his 
 stick rattling the ground in front, and each 
 jump did not bring him an inch of ground. 
 He would have gone more rapidly in his 
 normal shuffle. His efforts were like a ter- 
 rible parody on the springs of a kangaroo. 
 And Cahir Bowes, in a voice that was now 
 more a scream than a cackle, was calling 
 out unintelligible things. The widow, look- 
 ing at him, paused in wonder, then over her 
 face there came a relaxation, a colour, her 
 eyes warmed, her expression lost its settled 
 pensiveness, and all her body was shaken 
 with uncontrollable laughter. Cahir Bowes 
 passed her on the road in his fantastic leaps, 
 
100 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 his abortive buck-jumps, screaming and 
 cracking his stick on the ground, his left hand 
 still gripped tightly on the small of his back 
 behind, a powerful brake on the small of his 
 back. 
 
 Meehaul Lynskey turned back and his face 
 was shaken with an aged emotion as he 
 looked after the stonebreaker. Then he 
 removed his hat and blessed himself. 
 
 * The cross of Christ between us and 
 harm,'* he exclaimed. ** Old Cahir Bowes 
 has gone off his head at last. I thought 
 there was something up with him all day. 
 It was easily known there was something 
 ugly working in his mind." 
 
 The widow controlled her laughter and 
 checked herself, making the sign of the Cross 
 on her forehead, too. She said : 
 
 *' God forgive me for laughing and the 
 weaver with the habit but fresh upon him.*' 
 
 The grave-digger who counted was coming 
 out somewhat eagerly over the stile, but Cahir 
 Bowes, flourishing his stick, beat him back 
 again and then himself re-entered Cloon na 
 Morav. He stumbled over the grass, now 
 rising on a mound, now disappearing alto- 
 gether in a dip of the ground, travelling in a 
 giddy course like a hooker in a storm; again. 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 101 
 
 for a long time, he remained submerged, 
 showing, however, the eternal stick, his 
 periscope, his indication to the world that 
 he was about his business. In a level piece 
 of ground, marked by stones with large 
 mottled white marks upon them, he settled 
 and cried out to all, and calling God to 
 witness, that this surely was the weaver's 
 grave. There was scepticism, hesitation, on 
 the part of the grave-diggers, but aher some 
 parley, and because Cahir Bowes was so 
 passionate, vehement, crying and shouting, 
 dribbling water from the mouth, showing 
 his yellow teeth, pouring sweat on his fore- 
 head, quivering on his legs, they began to 
 dig carefully in the spot. The widow, at 
 this, re-arranged the shawl on her head and 
 entered Cloon na Morav, conscious, as she 
 shuffled over the stile, that a pair of warm 
 brown eyes were, for a moment, upon her 
 movements and then withdrawn. She stood 
 a little way back from the digging and waited 
 the result with a slightly more accelerated 
 beating of the heart. The twins looked as 
 if they were ready to strike something un- 
 expected at any moment, digging carefully, 
 and Cahir Bowes hung over the place, cack- 
 ling and crowing, urging the men to swifter 
 
102 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 work. The earth sang up out of the ground, 
 dark and rich in colour, gleaming like gold, 
 in the deepening twilight in the place. Two 
 feet, three feet, four feet of earth came up, 
 the spades pushing through the earth in 
 regular and powerful pushes, and still the 
 coast was clear. Cahir Bowes trembled with 
 excitement on his stick. Five feet of a pit 
 yawned in the ancient ground. The spade 
 work ceased. One of the grave-diggers 
 looked up at Cahir Bowes and said : 
 
 * You hit the weaver's grave this time 
 right enough. Not another grave in the 
 place could be as free as this.** 
 
 The widow sighed a quick little sigh and 
 looked at the face of the other grave-digger, 
 hesitated, then allowed a remote smile of 
 thankfulness to flit across her palely sad face. 
 The eyes of the man wandered away over 
 the darkening spaces of Cloon na Morav. 
 
 '* I got the weaver *s grave surely,*' cried 
 Cahir Bowes, his old face full of a weird 
 animation^ If he had found the Philoso- 
 pher's Stone he would only have broken it. 
 But to find the weaver's grave was an accom- 
 plishment that would help him into a wisdom 
 before which all his world would bow. He 
 looked around triumphantly and said : 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 103 
 
 " Where is Meehaul Lynskey now; what 
 will the people be saying at all about his 
 attack on Julia Rafferty's grave? Julia will 
 haunt him, and I'd sooner have anyone at 
 all haunting me than the ghost of Julia 
 Rafferty. Where is Meehaul Lynskey now ? 
 Is it ashamed to show his liary face he is? 
 And what talk had Malachi Roohan about 
 an elm tree ? Elm tree, indeed ! If it's 
 trees that is troubling him now let him climb 
 up on one of them and hang himself from it 
 with his rope ! Where is that old fellow, 
 Meehaul Lynskey, and his rotten head? 
 Where is he, I say ? Let him come In here 
 now to Cloon na Morav until I be showing 
 him the weaver's grave, five feet down and 
 not a rib or a knuckle in it, as clean and 
 beautiful as the weaver ever wished it. 
 Come in here, Meehaul Lynskey, until I 
 hear the lies panting again in your yellow 
 throat." 
 
 He went in his extraordinary movement 
 over the ground, making for the stile all the 
 while talking. 
 
 Meehaul Lynskey had crouched behind 
 the wall outside when Cahir Bowes led the 
 diggers to the new site, his old face twisted 
 in an attentive, almost agonising emotion. 
 
104 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 He stood peeping over the wall, saying to 
 himself : 
 
 ' Whisht, will you ! Don't mind that old 
 madman. He hasn't it at all. I'm telling 
 you he hasn't it. Whisht, will you ! Let 
 him dig away. They'll hit something in a 
 minute. They'll level him when they find 
 out. His brain has turned. Whist, now, 
 will you, and I'll have that rambling old 
 lunatic, Cahir Bowes, in a minute. I'll leap 
 in on him. I'll charge him before the world. 
 I'll show him up. I'll take the gab out of 
 him. I'll lacerate him. I'll lambaste him. 
 Whisht, will you!" 
 
 But as the digging went on and the terrible 
 cries of triumph arose inside Meehaul 
 Lynskey's knees knocked together. His 
 head bent level to the wall, yellow and 
 grimacing, nerves twitching across it, a little 
 yellow froth gathering at the corners of the 
 mouth. When Cahir Bowes came beating 
 for the stile Meehaul Lynskey rubbed one 
 leg with the other, a little below the calf, 
 and cried brokenly to himself : 
 
 " God in Heaven, he has it ! He has the 
 weaver's grave.** 
 
 He turned about and slunk along in the 
 shadow of the wall up the hill, panting and 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 105 
 
 broken. By the time Cahir Bowes had 
 reached the stile Meehaul Lynskey's figure 
 was shadowily dipping down over the crest 
 of the road. A sharp cry from Cahir Bowes 
 caused him to shrink out of sight like a dog 
 at whom a weapon had been thrown. 
 
 The eyes of the grave-digger who did not 
 now count followed the figure of Cahir Bowes 
 as he moved to the stile. He laughed a 
 little in amusement, then wiped his brow. 
 He came up out of the grave. He turned 
 to the widow and said : 
 
 * We* re down five feet. Isn't that enough 
 in which to sink the weaver in? Are you 
 satisfied?" 
 
 The man spoke to her without any pre- 
 tence at fine feeling. He addressed her as 
 a fourth wife should be addressed. The 
 widow was conscious but unresentful of the 
 man's manner. She regarded him calmly 
 and without any resentment. On her 
 part there was no resentment either, no 
 hypocrisy, no make-believe. Her unemo- 
 tional eyes followed his action as he stuck 
 his spade into the loose mould on the ground. 
 A cry from Cahir Bowes distracted the man, 
 he laughed again, and before <the widow 
 could make a reply he said 
 H 
 
106 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 " Old Cahir is great value. Come down 
 until we hear him handling the nailer.** 
 
 He walked away down over the ground. 
 
 The widow was left alone with the other 
 grave-digger. He drew himself up out of the 
 pit with a sinuous movement of the body 
 which the widow noted. He stood without 
 a word beside the pile of heaving clay and 
 looked across at the widow. She looked 
 back at him and suddenly the silence became 
 full of unspoken words, of flying, ringing 
 emotions. The widow could see the dark 
 green wall, above it the band of still deepen- 
 ing red, above that the still more pallid grey 
 sky, and directly over the man's head the 
 gay frolicking of the fresh star in the sky. 
 Cloon na Morav was flooded with a deep, 
 vague light. The widow scented the fresh 
 wind about her, the cool fragrance of the 
 earth, and yet a warmth that was strangely 
 beautiful. The light of the man's dark eyes 
 were visible in the shadow which hid his 
 face. The pile of earth beside him was like 
 a vague shape of miniature bronze moun- 
 tains. He stood with a stillness which was 
 (tense and dramatic. The widow thought 
 that the world was strange, the sky extra- 
 ordinary, the man's head against the red sky 
 
THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 107 
 
 a wonder, a poem, above it the sparkle of 
 the great young star. The widow knew that 
 they would be left together like this for one 
 minute, a minute which would be as a flash 
 and as eternity. And she knew now that 
 sooner or later this man would come to her 
 and that she would welcome him. Below 
 at the stile the voice of Cahir Bowes was 
 cackling in its aged notes. Beyond this the 
 stillness was the stillness of heaven and 
 earth. Suddenly a sense of faintness came 
 to the widow. The whole place swooned 
 before her eyes. Never was this world so 
 strange, so like the dream that Malachi 
 Roohan had talked about. A movement in 
 the figure of the man beside the heap of 
 bronze had come to her as a warning, a 
 fear, and a delight. She moved herself a 
 little in response, made a step backward. 
 The next instant she saw the figure of the 
 man spring across the open black mouth of 
 the weaver's grave to her. 
 
 A faint sound escaped her and then his 
 breath was hot on her face, his mouth on her 
 lips. 
 
 Half a minute later Cahir Bowes came 
 shuffling back, followed by the twin. 
 
 " I'll bone him yet," said Cahir Bowes. 
 
108 THE WEAVER'S GRAVE 
 
 " Never you fear I'll make that old nailer 
 face me. I'll show him up at the weaver's 
 wake to-night !*' 
 
 The twin laughed behind him. He shook 
 his head at his brother, who was standing a 
 pace away from the widow. He said : 
 
 " Five feet." 
 
 He looked into the grave and then looked 
 at the widow, saying : 
 
 ** Are you satisfied?" 
 
 There was silence for a second or two, and 
 when she spoke the widow's voice was low 
 but fresh, like the voice of a young girl. She 
 said : 
 
 " I'm satisfied.* 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE. 
 
THE 
 
 GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 MICHAEL AND MARY. 
 
 ARY had spent many days 
 gathering wool from the whins 
 on the headland. They were 
 the bits of wool shed by the 
 sheep before the shearing. 
 When she had got a fleece that fitted 
 the basket she took it down to the 
 canal and washed it. When she had 
 done washing it was a soft, white, silky 
 fleece. She put it back in the brown sally 
 basket, pressing it down with her long, 
 delicate fingers. She had risen to go away, 
 holding the basket against her waist, when 
 her eyes followed the narrow neck of water 
 that wound through the bog. 
 
 She could not follow the neck of yellow 
 water very far. The light of day was failing. 
 A haze hung over the great Bog of Allen that 
 spread out level on all sides of her. The 
 boat loomed out of the haze on the narrow 
 neck of the canal water. It looked, at first, 
 
112 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 a long way off, and it seemed to come in a 
 cloud. The soft rose light that mounted the 
 sky caught the boat and burnished it like dull 
 gold. It came leisurely, drawn by the one 
 horse, looking like a Golden Barque in the 
 twilight. Mary put her brown head a little 
 to one side as she watched the easy motion 
 of the boat. The horse drew himself along 
 deliberately, the patient head going up and 
 down with every heavy step. A crane rose 
 from the bog, flapping two lazy wings across 
 the wake of the boat, and, reaching its long 
 neck before it, got lost in the haze. 
 
 The figure that swayed by the big arm of 
 the tiller on The Golden Barque was vague 
 and shapeless at first, but Mary felt her eyes 
 following the slow movements of the body. 
 Mary thought it was very beautiful to sway 
 every now and then by the arm of the tiller, 
 steering a Golden Barque through the twi- 
 light. 
 
 Then she realised suddenly that the boat 
 was much nearer than she had thought. She 
 could see the figures of the men plainly, 
 especially the slim figure by the tiller. She 
 could trace the rope that slackened and 
 stretched taut as it reached from the boat to 
 the horse. Once it splashed the water, and 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 113 
 
 there was a little sprout of silver. She noted 
 the whip looped under the arm of the driver. 
 Presently she could count every heavy step 
 of the horse, and was struck by the great 
 size of the shaggy fetlocks. But always her 
 eyes went back to the figure by the tiller. 
 
 She moved back a little way to see The 
 Golden Barque pass. It came from a 
 strange, far-off world, and having traversed 
 the bog went away into another unknown 
 world. A red-faced man was sitting 
 drowsily on the prow. Mary smiled and 
 nodded to him, but he made no sign. He 
 did not see her; perhaps he was asleep. 
 The driver who walked beside the horse had 
 his head stooped and his eyes on the ground. 
 He did not look up as he passed. Mary saw 
 his lips moving, and heard him mutter to 
 himself; perhaps he was praying. He was 
 a shrunken, misshaped little figure and kept 
 step with the brute in the journey over the 
 bog. But Mary felt the gaze of the man by 
 the tiller upon her. She raised her eyes. 
 
 The light was uncertain and his peaked 
 cap threw a shadow over his face. But the 
 figure was lithe and youthful. He smiled as 
 she looked up, for she caught a gleam of his 
 teeth. Then the boat had passed. Mary 
 
114 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 did not smile in return. She had taken a 
 step back and remained there quietly. Once 
 he looked back and awkwardly touched his 
 cap, but she made no sign. 
 
 When the boat had gone by some way 
 she sat down on the bank, her basket of 
 wool beside her, looking at The Golden 
 Barque until it went into the gloom. She 
 stayed there for some time, thinking long in 
 the great silence of the bog. When at last 
 she rose, the canal was clear and cold be- 
 neath her. She looked into it. A pale new 
 moon was shining down in the water. 
 
 Mary often stood at the door of the cabin 
 on the headland watching the boats that 
 crawled like black snails over the narrow 
 streak of water through the bog. But they 
 were not all like black snails now. There 
 was a Golden Barque among them. When- 
 ever she saw it she smiled, her eyes on the 
 figure that stood by the shaft of the tiller. 
 
 One evening she was walking by the canal 
 when The Golden Barque passed. The 
 light was very clear and searching. It 
 showed every plank, battered and tar- 
 stained, on the rough hulk, but for all that it 
 lost none of its magic for Mary. The little 
 shrunken driver, head down, the lips mov- 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 115 
 
 ing, walked beside the horse. She heard 
 his low mutters as he passed. The red- 
 faced man was stooping over the side of the 
 boat, swinging out a vessel tied to a rope, to 
 haul up some water. He was singing a 
 ballad in a monotonous voice. A tall, dark, 
 spare man was standing by the funnel, look- 
 ing vacantly ahead. Then Mary's eyes 
 travelled, to the tiller. 
 
 Mary stepped back with some embarrass- 
 ment when she saw the face. She backed 
 into a hawthorn that grew all alone 
 on the canal bank. It was covered 
 with bloom. A shower of the white petals 
 fell about her when she stirred the branches. 
 They clung about her hair like a wreath. 
 He raised his cap and smiled. Mary did 
 not know the face was so eager, so boyish. 
 She smiled a little nervously at last. His 
 face lit up, and he touched his cap again. 
 
 The red-faced man stood by the open 
 hatchway going into the hold, the vessel of 
 water in his hand. He looked at Mary and 
 then at the figure beside the tiller. 
 
 "Eh, Michael?" the red-faced man said 
 quizzically. The youth turned back to the 
 boat, and Mary felt the blush spreading over 
 her face. 
 
116 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 " Michael !" 
 
 Mary repeated the name a little softly to 
 herself. The gods had delivered up one of 
 their great secrets. 
 
 She watched The Golden Barque until the 
 two square slits in the stern that served as 
 port holes looked like two little Japanese 
 eyes. Then she heard a horn blowing. It 
 was the horn they blew (to apprise lock- 
 keepers of the approach of a boat. But the 
 nearest lock was a mile off. Besides, it was 
 a long, low sound the horn made, not the 
 short, sharp, commanding blast they blew 
 for lock-keepers. Mary listened to the low 
 sound of the horn, smiling to herself. After- 
 wards the horn always blew like that when- 
 ever The Golden Barque was passing the 
 solitary hawthorn. 
 
 Mary thought it was very wonderful that 
 The Golden Barque should be in the lock 
 one day that she was travelling with her 
 basket to the market in the distant village. 
 She stood a little hesitantly by the lock. 
 Michael looked at her, a welcome in his 
 eyes. 
 
 "Going to Bohermeen?" the red-faced 
 man asked. 
 
 " Ay, to Bohermeen,*' Mary answered. 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 117 
 
 * We could take you to the next lock," 
 
 he said, " it will shorten the journey. Step 
 
 t 
 in. 
 
 Mary hesitated, as he held out a big hand 
 to help her to the boat. He saw the hesita- 
 tion and turned to Michael. 
 
 "Now, Michael," he said. 
 
 Michael came to the side of the boat, and 
 held out his hand. Mary took it and stepped 
 on board. The red-faced man laughed a 
 little. She noticed that the dark man who 
 stood by the crooked funnel never took his 
 eyes from the stretch of water before him. 
 The driver was already urging the horse to 
 his start on the bank. The brute was 
 gathering his strength for the pull, the 
 muscles standing out on his haunches. They 
 glided out of the lock. 
 
 It was half a mile from one lock to an- 
 other. Michael had bidden her stand beside 
 him at the tiller. Once she looked up at him 
 and she thought the face shy but very eager, 
 the most eager face that ever came across 
 the bog from the great world. 
 
 Afterwards, whenever Mary had the time, 
 she would make a cross-cut through the bog 
 to the lock. She would step in and make 
 the mile journey with Michael on The 
 
118 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 Golden Barque. Once, when they were 
 journeying together, Michael slipped some- 
 thing into her hand. It was a quaint trinket, 
 and shone like gold. 
 
 '* From a strange sailor I got it," Michael 
 said. 
 
 Another day that they were on the barque, 
 the blinding sheets of rain that often swept 
 over the bog came upon them. The red- 
 faced man and the dark man went into the 
 hold. Mary looked about her, laughing. 
 But Michael held out his great waterproof for 
 her. She slipped into it and he folded it 
 about her. The rain pelted them, but they 
 stood together, Michael holding the big coat 
 folded about her. She laughed a little 
 nervously. 
 
 * You will be wet/* she said. 
 Michael did not answer. She saw the 
 
 eager face coming down close to hers. She 
 leaned against him a little and felt the great 
 strength of his arms about her. They went 
 sailing away together in The Golden Barque 
 through all the shining seas of the gods. 
 
 " Michael/' Mary said once, " is it not 
 lovely?" 
 
 * The wide ocean is lovely/' Michael said. 
 '* I always think of the wide ocean going 
 over the bog." 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 119 
 
 * The wide ocean !" Mary said with awe. 
 She had never seen the wide ocean. Then 
 the rain passed. When the two men came 
 up out of the hold Mary and Michael were 
 standing together by the tiller. 
 
 Mary did not go down to the lock after 
 that for some time. She was working in 
 the reclaimed ground on the headland. Once 
 the horn blew late in the night. It blew for 
 a long time, very softly and lowly. Mary 
 sat up in bed listening to it, her lips parted, 
 the memory of Michael on The Golden 
 Barque before her. She heard the sound 
 dying away in the distance. Then she lay 
 back on her pillow, saying she would go 
 down to him when The Golden Barque was 
 on the return journey. 
 
 The figure that stood by the tiller on the 
 return was not Michael's. When Mary 
 came to the lock the red-faced man was tell- 
 ing out the rope, and where Michael always 
 stood by the tiller there was the short strange 
 figure of a man with a pinched, pock-marked 
 face. 
 
 When the red-faced man wound the rope 
 round the stump at the lock, bringing the 
 boat to a stand-still, he turned to Mary. 
 
 " Michael is gone voyaging," he said. 
 
120 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 ** Gone voyaging?'* Mary repeated. 
 
 '* Ay," the man answered. 4 * He would 
 be always talking to the foreign sailors in the 
 dock where the canal ends. His eyes would 
 be upon the big masts of the ships. I al- 
 ways said he would go.** 
 
 Mary stood there while The Golden Barque 
 was in the lock. It looked like a toy ship 
 packed in a wooden box. 
 
 44 A three-master he went in,** the red- 
 faced man said, as they made ready for the 
 start. 4 * I saw her standing out for the sea 
 last night. Michael is under the spread of 
 big canvas. He had the blood in him for 
 the wide ocean, the wild blood of the rover.** 
 And the red-faced man, who was the Boss 
 of the boat, let his eyes wander up the nar- 
 row neck of water before him. 
 
 Mary watched The Golden Barque mov- 
 ing away, the grotesque figure standing by 
 the tiller. She stayed there until a pale moon 
 was shining below her, turning over a little 
 trinket in her fingers. At last she dropped 
 it into the water. 
 
 It made a little splash, and the vision of 
 the crescent was broken. 
 
HIKE AND CALCUTTA. 
 
 HE Boss of the boat was 
 standing over the little black 
 stove pouring the drink into 
 enamel cups. His face glowed 
 in the light of the fire. 
 The man with the pock-marked face 
 was squatted Oriental-fashion on the floor. 
 With his face to the lighted candle the 
 man with the tremendously dark counten- 
 ance was leaning against the water-keg in 
 the corner. His skin was like leather and 
 he never washed. They called him Calcutta 
 because it had been said that a man with a 
 face like his could only come out of the 
 Black Hole of Calcutta. As he leaned 
 against the keg his smouldering eyes were 
 levelled on Hike the driver. 
 
 Hike was at the end of the cabin, fumbling 
 at the bunk. He was muttering to himself. 
 The candle did not throw much light on his 
 stunted figure as he stooped over the bunk. 
 
 *' Hike," the Boss said, '* you only drank 
 one fill. Have another." 
 I 
 
122 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 Hike did not answer, or even turn round. 
 Hike was deaf. 
 
 'Hike!" the Boss cried. 
 
 Hike only muttered to himself. 
 
 Calcutta stooped over to the grate, picked 
 up a piece of coal and took aim. It caught 
 Hike on the head. He turned round, his 
 eyes shining in the semi-gloom like the eyes 
 of a cat. 
 
 The Boss laughed a little. 
 
 " Drink !" he said. He held out the cup. 
 Hike made no move. Calcutta reached out 
 for the cup and took it to Hike. 
 
 Hike shook his head. 
 
 A hand shot back and forth suddenly, and 
 Hike got the fluid in the face. It flowed 
 down his cheeks, drops running from his 
 chin and nose with a quick little patter to 
 the floor. 
 
 Calcutta turned away from him, laughing. 
 Then the Boss and the man with the pock- 
 marked face seconded the laugh. Hike 
 spluttered and took a step forward, raising 
 a threatening, feeble arm. A scowl most 
 terrible crept into the expression of Cal- 
 cultta's face as he saw the threat. Hike 
 caught the look and the feeble arm fell. He 
 went over to the bunk and wiped his face in 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 123 
 
 the blanket, then folded it under his arm 
 and went up the little step-ladder through 
 the opening on to the deck. 
 
 The sky was alive with stars. The canal 
 was still and cool, the country about silent 
 and frozen. He went over to the plank that 
 served as gangway to the bank. It looked 
 like a streak of silver ribbon with a crust of 
 small jewels sparkling upon it. Hike stepped 
 on it nervously and walked down for the 
 bank. 
 
 "By God! He's tumbled in," the Boss 
 swore when he heard the stifled cry and 
 the splash in the water. He ran up the 
 steps, the pock-marked man after him. 
 Calcutta followed leisurely, whistling softly 
 to himself. 
 
 Hike was pulling his shrunken body up 
 on the bank when the Boss reached out a 
 helping hand to him. When he stood up 
 Hike was trembling all over, the shining 
 water running down from his clothes. He 
 still held the blanket. 
 
 "He's very wet," the pock-marked man 
 said, "and it is freezing." 
 
 "Come back to the boat," the Boss urged. 
 
 Hike, holding his arms out stiffly, stood 
 shivering and miserable in two little pools 
 
124 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 of water gathering about his feet. He 
 looked up at the boat. The figure of Cal- 
 cutta loomed on the deck, looking down 
 silently on them. Hike hesitated. 
 
 "Hike!" Calcutta shouted suddenly. He 
 shouted the nickname in a derisive voice. 
 
 Hike turned away and walked down the 
 road, the clothes and boots soaking and 
 slopping about him at every step. He left 
 a little streak of water in his wake. 
 
 "He's gone to the stable," said the Boss. 
 
 **Ay," Calcutta agreed, "he'll lie down 
 in the stable. 
 
 The boat started on its journey in the 
 morning as the day was breaking. Hike 
 came up in the dim light, leading the horse 
 from the stable, the whip under his arm. 
 The rope was hooked to the boat, and the 
 men heard Hike urging the horse to the 
 start. 
 
 "Gee-up, gee-up !" they heard him cry. 
 The hoofs of the horse struck into the hard 
 ground, and the boat began to move slowly. 
 They had a long journey before them. Hike 
 held aloof from the boatmen at meal times. 
 They heard him coughing and barking all 
 day as he stepped on the bank with the 
 horse. A few times the cough became so 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 125 
 
 violent that he missed the pace and the horse 
 turned his head to him. Hike had to put 
 out his hand and seek support from the rein, 
 catching it near the bit. The horse inclined 
 his head, giving sanction to the support. 
 When they changed horses Hike felt no loss 
 in sympathy; all the horses along the route 
 were accustomed to the touch of his hand. 
 
 "He has the rotten old cough back 
 again," the Boss said, as he stood on the 
 boat. 
 
 Calcutta leaned by the funnel, looking at 
 Hike, whistling softly whenever he saw the 
 little man doubled up with the cough. 
 When Hike had to stop dead once, the 
 horse stopped too, neighing. Then Cal- 
 cutta's voice sang out from the boat, half 
 in derision, half in command : 
 
 *' Gee-up !'* he shouted. 
 
 At the word the horse stepped forward 
 with straining steps until he felt the pull of 
 the rope. With the same instinct Hike 
 staggered after him. He kept a hold of the 
 rein the rest of the journey, his hand so 
 close to the mouth of the brute that it was 
 covered with froth. 
 
 When the day's journey was ended Hike 
 walked away with the horse to the stable. 
 
126 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 "He's going to doss in the stable again, ' v 
 the Boss said, and Calcutta's face relaxed, 
 showing a gleam of his teeth. 
 
 When the day broke there was no sign of 
 Hike. The Boss went down and called out 
 his name near the stable. 
 
 There was no response. He went ever 
 to the stable and pushed open the door. A 
 breath of hot, foul air met him. He could 
 not see very well. He could only discern 
 the outline of the wooden partition that 
 divided the stable, and trace the rails of the 
 manger against the wall. The horse stirred 
 his iron-shod hoofs on the cobbles. He 
 saw the animal standing to one side. 
 
 "Hike!'* the Boss cried. 
 
 The horse stirred again, turned his head, 
 and neighed a little. The Boss saw the 
 two little puffs of his breath coming out like 
 steam to the light from the shadows where 
 he stood. He stepped over, and laid a 
 hand on the animal's back. The brute was 
 trembling. 
 
 The Boss saw the short, stunted figure 
 huddled on the bed of half-rotted straw at 
 his feet. He stooped down and caught a 
 glimpse of Hike's face. It looked white 
 and prominent, a ghastly visage, in the 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 127 
 
 semi-gloom. He had put out a hand to feel 
 it when a thought struck him. 
 
 What if Hike were dead? 
 
 He drew back suddenly. The strange 
 silence in the stable was ominous. The 
 place had an atmosphere of sordid tragedy. 
 
 What made the brute tremble? Sus- 
 picion became a certainty. He walked 
 back to the boat. 
 
 "Hike is lying in the stable," he said. 
 * 'There is no stir in him. I think he is 
 dead." 
 
 The pock-marked man raised his cap, 
 and made the sign of the Cross. Calcutta 
 gave a snort of contempt. 
 
 "I think he had no friends," the Boss 
 said at last. He spoke of Hike in the past 
 tense. 
 
 "No, he had no friends. Flow could 
 he?" Calcutta said. Something in his tone 
 made the other look up. The dull eyes 
 were straight ahead on the canal. The 
 Boss, in a vague way, thought he caught 
 some revelation in the dark face. He saw 
 in it an implacable hatred the sort of 
 hatred that haunts a broken life. 
 
 "What do you know of Hike?" he de- 
 manded. 
 
128 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 "Nothing," the other replied shortly. 
 
 *'Go for a priest and doctor. Make a re- 
 port at the police barrack," the Boss said 
 to the pock-marked man. 
 
 "I will." The man went down to the 
 cabin to put on his coat. 
 
 The Boss walked down the deck, lean- 
 ing against the tiller at the stern, looking 
 into the yellow water. He gave himself up 
 to one of those meditations that come to 
 people when they are suddenly faced with 
 death, the mysterious death that comes with 
 stealthy steps. The Boss shuddered a little 
 as he remembered the ghastly face of Hike 
 in the dark stable. Then he began to ponder 
 on the strangeness of life and the penalty of 
 death it carried. He got no nearer to the 
 heart of the mystery than the philosophers 
 of the ages. 
 
 After a little time he was conscious that 
 Calcutta was standing beside him. The 
 conversation that followed was conducted 
 in lowered voices. 
 
 "Do you know what, Boss?** 
 
 "What?** 
 
 "I was married once.** 
 
 "Indeed?** 
 
 "I was. The woman came to me in a 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 129 
 
 roundabout kind of way. Shd was pro- 
 mised to another. She left him for me. I 
 don't know much about the man. She did 
 not speak often of him.'* 
 
 "That would be natural. She wanted 
 to forget." 
 
 "The thing that came easiest to her was 
 to forget. She forgot that man, and the 
 day came when she forgot me." 
 
 "That was strange." 
 
 "It was. She forgot me because she left 
 me. She went from me to another." 
 
 The Boss had an idea that all this was 
 irrelevant, but that it at least threw some 
 light on the ugly, brooding manner of Cal- 
 cutta. 
 
 "I'm sorry for you," said the Boss awk- 
 wardly. 
 
 The other laughed, a short hard laugh. 
 "Oh, I did not mind," he said. *'It was 
 no great concern to me when she left." 
 
 "No?" 
 
 "What I felt was, she left me for a man 
 that I had a hatred for. She left me for a 
 man that made me feel so little. The man 
 she went to was Hike." 
 
 "So that is why you have been down on 
 Hike?" 
 
130 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 *'I hounded him all right. I came on this 
 boat to hound him. He knew it. I only 
 stayed on the boat because I wanted to see 
 him dying on the bank, coughing up his 
 inside. I was never so happy as I (was 
 yesterday when the spasms were smashing 
 him up. He knew all that, very well, and 
 I think it helped to kill him. It was that 
 woman who made me hate him above all 
 living things/* 
 
 "And what became of the woman? 
 Where is she now?" 
 
 "Where is she?*' the other repeated, his 
 eyes following up the narrow neck of water. 
 "How do I know. But I hope she's in 
 hell.'* 
 
 He walked back to his accustomed place 
 by the funnel. 
 
 The pock-marked man raised a cry from 
 the bank. His hand was pointing down 
 the road. The Boss followed its direction. 
 He gave a muttered cry. Walking up from 
 the stable, leading his horse, was Hike. 
 
 He raised his head as he came to the 
 boat. His colour was sickly, his eyes 
 pathetic. But the Boss thought he saw a 
 dumb doggedness, a smouldering defiance, 
 in the expression as the eyes wandered to 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 131 
 
 the figure of the dark man standing by the 
 funnel. 
 
 "I overslept myself," said Kike. *'I had 
 a little headache.** 
 
 The boat moved on after a time. Hike 
 did not cough so much that day. The sun 
 was shining pleasantly from the sky; there 
 was warmth in the air. The scowl in the 
 face of the man by the blackened funnel 
 was deeper. 
 
 The Boss had a few words with Hike 
 when opportunity offered. He had a diffi- 
 culty in thinking of the half-hunched, miser- 
 able person that stood before him as figur- 
 ing in such an affair as Calcutta had men- 
 tioned. But then, he reflected, who has 
 ever been able to account for the ways of 
 men? 
 
 "Hike," he said, in his blunt manner, 
 "were you ever married?" 
 
 Hike raised the pathetic, large eyes that 
 often go with half-deformed people. A. 
 sentimental look came into them, heighten- 
 ing their strangeness. 
 
 "I was and I was not," Hike said, then 
 coughed. 
 
 His gaze wandered to The Golden 
 Barque and the sinister figure that stood be- 
 
132 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 side the funnel. 'There was one that was 
 everything to me that a wife should be," 
 Hike confided, the note of sentimentality 
 more pronounced. 
 
 "Now, that was very nice/' the Boss 
 said, for he knew he could venture some 
 mild humour where there was so much 
 emotion. 
 
 Hike's eyes grew humid. "She was an 
 angel," he said, a catch in his voice. 
 
 The Boss, who was healthy-minded, con- 
 trolled his florid features. 
 
 "Where is she now?" he asked, half 
 casually. 
 
 Hike hesitated. He had to bring his 
 mind back from a riot of sentiment. He 
 had to dispose of something in his throat. 
 
 "She went," he admitted at last, half 
 enigmatically. Then he added, "I hope 
 she is in heaven." 
 
 The Boss walked back to the boat. The 
 thing that was a while ago a very tragic 
 business had begun to show the underlap 
 of comedy. When he found himself near 
 Calcutta ihe said, still casually, "I know 
 where that wife of yours is now." 
 
 "I don't want 'to be told," the other 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 133 
 
 answered. "My hope is that she's in 
 hell." 
 
 "Well, she's not. She's in heaven." 
 
 Calcutta laughed hoarsely. 
 
 "1 might have guessed it," he said. 
 
 "Guessed what?" 
 
 "That the devil himself could not hold 
 her when he got her." 
 
 The Boss walked down the deck. He 
 gazed upon the sun that was growing low 
 in the sky. Some great trees were stand- 
 ing out stark on the landscape. When he 
 turned back again he saw Hike stepping 
 beside the horse on the bank, something in 
 his half humps that was stubborn, distorted, 
 grotesque. Calcutta was by the funnel, his 
 eyes smouldering, unblinking, implacable, 
 as they followed the steps of the driver be- 
 side the horse. He was the sleuth hound 
 of the strange, silent hunt. 
 
 The Boss pondered on the ways of men, 
 and again there was no explanation, no 
 solution of the problem. The underlap of 
 comedy was gone. In the rose light of the 
 falling day the sense of a human tragedy 
 dragged out on the stretch of yellow water 
 was uppermost to his mind. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders as he put out 
 his hand for the shaft of the tiller. 
 
THE HAVEN, 
 
 HE long journey over the bog 
 was tiring to the men. They 
 sat about, melancholy and 
 silent, for the hours it lasted. 
 Hike trudged along in the path 
 on the bank, stumbling over the rough 
 ground, muttering and praying as he went. 
 Calcutta kept his sentry by the funnel. The 
 Boss hummed monotonously as he wan- 
 dered about the boat. 
 
 There was a little movement, signs of re- 
 vived interest in the world, as the brown 
 bogland began to merge in the green pas- 
 tures. A man whistled when they made 
 the wooded places. The boat seemed to 
 glide faster under the great boughs of the 
 overhanging trees. The hoofs of the horse 
 sounded sharp from the granite road, houses 
 sprang up on the landscape, men were to be 
 seen on the hillsides, carts rumbled along 
 the roads. There was a bend in the canal ; 
 the men strained their eyes to round it, for 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 135 
 
 round that bend was civilisation and The 
 Haven. 
 
 First, the eyes of the men caught the red 
 tiles crowning the roof; slowly the entire 
 roof came to view, then the yellow gable 
 with the open window, the well-known 
 front, with its dark green paint edged with 
 thin gold lines, folded itself out, and the 
 white lettering over the door, "The Haven/' 
 shone to the hungry eyes of the crew. Even 
 Hike, the driver, had been known to raise 
 his head at that bend of the canal. 
 
 The boat glided up to the limestone land- 
 ing-place, and nowhere was she steered 
 with a more delicate tiller. Calcutta 
 stepped lightly ashore, a rope in his hand, 
 wound it about the waiting stump, and the 
 boat, straining hard, was brought to a 
 stand-still. As he unwound the rope from 
 the stump he wiped his dry mouth with his 
 hand, and raised friendly eyes to The 
 Haven. At the same moment the gro- 
 tesque figure left the tiller, the Boss came 
 from behind the funnel, both their feet 
 touching the ground with military precision. 
 Hike was leading the unyoked horse away 
 to the stables below the village, the cross- 
 bolt jolting on the great haunches of the 
 
136 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 brute. As the crew of three crossed the 
 road to The Haven, the Boss hummed 
 pleasantly, his eyes on Calcutta's fingers as 
 they jingled some coppers. 
 
 Hanks of onions and some brushes made 
 a drapery around the door, swaying in the 
 breeze. When the men stepped into the 
 shop it exhaled a scent of seeds. They 
 were ranged about in bags. The mouth of 
 one sack was folded back. A farmer stood 
 over it, turning a tuber in his hand, his 
 mind given up to the good things of the 
 season. A woman in a grey shawl was 
 handling some pieces of bacon on the 
 counter, her pale, cold eyes filled with that 
 battle-light which shortens the lives of shop 
 assistants in wayside places. 
 
 Crockery ware, tins of biscuits, white 
 firkins of lard, yellow pyramids of cheeses 
 rose out of the dimly-lighted spaces over- 
 head. But the men from the boat passed 
 through the oak-stained partition, with high 
 lights of coloured glass. Behind this gilded 
 place was the sanctuary they sought. 
 
 It was a long, narrow bar. The counter 
 was high, and of oak. The display of 
 galleries of bottles gave an air of opulence 
 to the place that pleased the men. The 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 137 
 
 girth of the golden-hooped barrels was re- 
 assuring. The men sat down on an 
 aesthetic form, facing this display, their feet 
 in sawdust, their hearts filled with the good- 
 ness of The Haven. 
 
 A dark-haired young man stood at pro- 
 fessional attention behind the counter, his 
 hand resting lightly on the cream-coloured 
 handle of the patent cork-pulled. Some 
 little feathers clung to his hair. His eyes 
 had a suggestion of bleariness. He left the 
 impression of one who had risen early and 
 hurriedly in some lofty attic. His com- 
 plexion had moved down to the lower 
 reaches of the jaws. It lingered there in a 
 faded purple glory. 
 
 A spare, thin person, with drooping 
 shoulders, was standing at the counter, 
 looking vaguely into a pint measure half- 
 emptied. His thoughts were plainly regret- 
 ful ; he did not even look up when Calcutta 
 ordered the first round. When the men got 
 the measures in their hands they looked 
 into them and forgot the long journey over 
 the bog. The Boss stretched his legs out 
 luxuriously before him, his heels tearing^ 
 two little dark streaks in the sawdust on the 
 floor. 
 
138 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 The wall opposite the bar was taken up 
 with stuff that seemed to flow over from 
 the business outside. Great black pots 
 were hanging from holdfasts. Coils of 
 ropes, wire-netting, milk-strainers, tin cans, 
 hay-rakes, reaping hooks, scythes, packages 
 of sheep-dipping powder, reached up to the 
 ceiling. They suggested husbandry, even 
 industry. Opposite to them blazed the 
 shelves of bottles, the barrels with the great 
 golden hoops about their girths. 
 
 But the sense of these antagonisms was 
 lost on the men. They had their backs 
 steadily upon the symbols of industry. The 
 second measure was already in their hands, 
 their fingers about the glasses in a mild sort 
 of ecstasy, devotional eyes upturned to the 
 blazing shelves opposite, a holy silence 
 upon them. 
 
 The oak-stained door of the partition 
 swung open on its noiseless springs, and a 
 few men came in. They were from another 
 boat that had just arrived. The driver had 
 the whip, which he never used, looped 
 about his body. One of the group took a 
 stride down the floor, his limbs well apart, 
 rubbed his chin with his hand, gazed con- 
 templatively upon the barman for a little 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 139 
 
 and then ordered, as if in an afterthought, 
 the most obvious of drinks. 
 
 One of these men wore an oil-coat of 
 great capacity. The outlines of his figure 
 were barge-like. His face peered out from 
 under a pilot-hat with that intense gaze ahead 
 acquired by those long afloat. The other 
 men knew him to be one who had been at 
 ferry work at the mouth of a river. Cir- 
 cumstances had compelled him to drift into 
 the more secluded reaches of the canal. He 
 was now in charge of a turf boat. The men 
 admired the manner in which he disposed 
 of his first drink. 
 
 "Now, men, time is passing. Come 
 along/' he said, his oil-coat flapping about 
 him as he swung out. 
 
 Nobody followed. 
 
 A door leading to an unexpected yard 
 and many stores was pushed open, and a 
 man with a sack tied apron-fashion about 
 him came in. He was a carpenter. He 
 ordered some nails.. While the assistant 
 outside went to fetch them, the carpenter, 
 in an expert double shuffle of the feet, 
 moved down to the end of the bar where 
 the light was most romantic. Simul- 
 taneously the barman found the same 
 
140 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 centre, had a glass filled ; it hopped by his 
 hand on to the counter, got caught on the 
 same hop by the carpenter, and its con- 
 tents had vanished down his ready throat 
 before the boatmen had realised what had 
 happened. The nails a moment later were 
 handed in from outside, and the voice of 
 the carpenter was heard in the yard calling 
 out to his apprentice: "Tommy, buck up; 
 what's delaying you?" Then there was 
 the sound of planks falling from a cart. 
 
 "Terrible treatment to give the blessed 
 drink,'* one of the boatmen said, resuming 
 contemplation of his own measure. 
 
 A young lad danced in, with an Irish 
 terrier at his heels, bringing with him a 
 whiff of tar and guano. The men knew 
 him to be a sort of god the son of the 
 owner of The Haven. He had been going 
 about all day, listening to the forbidden talk 
 of the workmen, rat hunting with the 
 terrier, cutting notches with his penknife in 
 unlawful places. He tilted the elbow of 
 an arm that held a foaming measure, and 
 disappeared under a flap in the counter. 
 
 The skipper with the pilot-hat returned 
 with some lock-keepers. He accepted re- 
 freshment at their request. Then he said : 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE Hi 
 
 " Now, men, time is passing. Come 
 along," and went out again. 
 
 Nobody followed. 
 
 A young girl, leading a small child by 
 the hand, passed inrough to some inward 
 and private recess of The Haven. The 
 heads of all the men jerked up and followed 
 the female vision as it passed. Their eyes 
 remained upon the thick black hair, tied 
 with a bright ribbon as it fell down her 
 back. As they gazed upon it they knew 
 that according to the calendar and the 
 custom of the country this hair should long 
 ago have been put up. They knew then 
 that the vision was one who wanted to re- 
 main suspended m her youth by the hair of 
 her head. 
 
 "The youngest sister of the proprietor,** 
 one of the men having local knowledge 
 said. "Brought in to mind the children.** 
 
 The barman had looked after the vision 
 with a certain pensive ambition and a slight 
 heightening of the complexion on the lower 
 reaches of the jaws. The Boss of The 
 Golden Barque wondered vaguely if the 
 raven-haired barman would succeed. 
 
 The man in the pilot-hat returned, beam- 
 ing cheerfully around him. He had fetched 
 
142 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 some carters. One of them sang out the 
 inevitable order. The skipper of the turf 
 boat did what was expected of him. Then 
 he went through the partition as breezily as 
 before, saying : "Now, men, time is pass- 
 ing. Come along." 
 
 Nobody followed. 
 
 The men sat in a long silence on the 
 form!. There was a great peace in the 
 place. A brass kettle sang softly over a 
 spirit-lamp. Some flies buzzed overhead. 
 The barman sat d|own and resumed his 
 reading of a romance entitled, "Anastasia 
 and the Duke." The golden silence was 
 only broken now and again by the soft pal- 
 pitation of a throat down which a drink was 
 passing. Then a voice said : "What did 
 he say?" 
 
 "He said, 'Time is passing.' 
 
 The silence was resumed. The kettle 
 sang and the flies buzzed overhead. Then 
 there was a grump at the end of the form. 
 It was followed by another spell of silence, 
 during which the breathing of the barman, 
 as he stooped over his book, became quite 
 audible, for the romance had reached the 
 chapter in which Anastasia stood in deadly 
 peril of the amours of the Duke. 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 143 
 
 "What did you say?" The question 
 was droned out from the shadows. The 
 man at the end of the form turned his head 
 round slowly and said : 
 
 "I say, who cares a curse for time?" and 
 bringing round his head he hitched his back 
 well up against the wall. 
 
 The proprietor passed through The 
 Haven. The barman plunged his hands 
 into a basin of water, and made a great 
 show of washing glasses, his mind brought 
 back with violence from the great scene of 
 Anastasia's temptation. The proprietor 
 was natty, fingering his waxed moustache, 
 his head slightly stooped, his appearance 
 preoccupied. 
 
 4 'Good-day to the men," he said, with- 
 out looking up. A moment later his voice 
 was heard in the yard, sharply calling out 
 some orders. 
 
 After some time the silence was again 
 broken. 
 
 **A great man," one of the group said, 
 taking a pull at his measure. 
 
 **A great man," another agreed, aftjer 
 some reflection. Then, after a long pause : 
 
 "Aye, a great man"; and the vague per- 
 son who had all this time, in marked isola- 
 
144 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 tion, been meditating over his glass, woke 
 up, finished his potion, and went out, wip- 
 ing his lips with the back of his hand. 
 
 At the partition he met the man with the 
 pilot-hat, who was followed by an assort- 
 ment of ex-boatmen and carters. He broke 
 into a splendid smile as a carter gave the 
 inevitable order. 
 
 "Now,, men, time is passing,'* he said, 
 reaching out for the first filled measure. It 
 vanished. 
 
 The partition door was opened timidly, 
 and the haggard face of Hike peered in. 
 Then he slunk down by the men to the 
 extreme end of the counter. There he 
 drank his measure with his back to the 
 others. Calcutta followed his movements 
 with a gleam in his eyes. The Boss 
 frowned, then they all stood up as if in pro- 
 test. 
 
 They "spat on the sawdust and hitched 
 their trousers about their loins with the air 
 of men who were bracing themselves to 
 once more face a difficult world. Then 
 they passed through the partition. 
 
 The woman in the gre3/ shawl was still 
 leaning over the counter, but the bacon had 
 been put aside, and now her thin hands 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 145 
 
 were carefully feeling over some skeins of 
 wool thread. The assistant was still wait- 
 ing on her, a look of stupour on his ex- 
 hausted face. 
 
 The men stepped out from The Haven, a 
 faint odour of onions following them across 
 the road. Skirting the road was the yellow 
 water of the canal. Drawn up against the 
 bank were some laden boats, looking 
 picturesque in the clear li^ht of the spring 
 day. 
 
 When they got on board The Golden 
 Barque, the Boss paced up and down the 
 deck while the others lay about, smoking. 
 Presently Hike came out of The Haven, 
 and passed sullenly down the road. Sud- 
 denly the voice of Calcutta rang out, com- 
 manding, insolent. 
 
 "Hike!" he shouted. 
 
 At the word Hike stood, obedient as a 
 soldier who had been called to attention. A 
 hoarse laugh of derision greeted his action. 
 
 Then the Boss saw the grotesque figure of 
 Hike swing about on the road. His face, 
 malicious and repulsive, leered up at the 
 beat from between the humps on his 
 shoulders. The large eyes shone with a 
 sinister lio-ht as they were raised to the 
 
146 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 figure of Calcutta. The lips of the long 
 mouth parted, showing some immense 
 yellow teeth. There was something demo- 
 niacal, hellishly ugly and wicked, in the ex- 
 pression of Hike. The Boss noticed that 
 Calcutta sprang to his feet from the box on 
 which he had been reclining. 
 
 Hike came over to the bank just below 
 The Golden Barque, the leer sustained on 
 his face. 
 
 "You thought you had her, didn't you?'* 
 he demanded of Calcutta. "She was to 
 stay with you for ever, wasn't she ? You 
 were such a beauty nobody was ever to 
 come between you * The voice of Hike 
 was thick with an ugly emotion. 
 
 Calcutta measured the figure of the half 
 dwarf, and spat down at him. "Go away 
 and scratch your humps, you spawn of a 
 dromaderry," he cried 
 
 "You were so happy together, weren't 
 you? a pair of cooing doves?" Hike 
 drawled, covering and uncovering his 
 yellow teeth. "She wouldn't look at any- 
 one else at all I No man would do for her 
 but yourself ! She loved you, did Mollie 
 the Mermaid !** 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 147 
 
 At the name, Calcutta leapt to the side of 
 the boat, but the Boss confronted him there. 
 
 *'Go to the cabin,** he commanded. 
 
 "Let me down to the cripple,** Calcutta 
 shouted. "1*11 shake hands with him.'* 
 
 But Hike had moved away, his bullet- 
 shaped head quivering between his humped 
 shoulders, his queer cackle of a laugh dying 
 down the road to the village. 
 
 Calcutta, his body twitching, went down 
 to the cabin and drank several mugs of 
 water in rapid succession, then threw him- 
 self on his back on the bunk, his blazing 
 eyes riveted on the beam a few paces above 
 him, his lusty voice breaking out into a 
 series of ribald songs, one following the 
 other to the same out-of-tune air without any 
 pause. 
 
 The Boss stood over the hatch for some 
 time, listening to the rumble that filled the 
 cabin beneath, Calcutta's vocalism so 
 violent that all words were quite incoherent. 
 Slowly the voice got into a sort of chant, and 
 the words became understandable. Calcutta, 
 glaring at the beam above him, was roaring : 
 
148 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 "Oh, oh, oh, I rowled me love in the new- 
 mown hay, 
 
 I rowled me love in the new-mown hay, 
 I rowled me love in the new-mown hay, 
 Oh, oh, oh, when the cocks they crew in the 
 maurnin !" 
 
 The Boss wondered where Calcutta had 
 got his songs; perhaps in the Black Hole. 
 The Boss kicked the lid on to the opening 
 into the cabin, and then resumed his own 
 tramp about the deck of The Golden 
 Barque, wondering, and wondering in vain, 
 as the quiet night settled over the peaceful 
 place, why two men should hate each other 
 so bitterly. He was unable to decide 
 whether it was very tragical or very comical 
 that the memory of a woman should keep 
 ever green their bitterness. One man, the 
 Boss knew, held in his memory that which 
 brought him visions of a white angel in 
 shining joy and glory in heaven; the other 
 man, whose voice now rumbled weirdly be- 
 neath, remembered so much of his passion 
 that he exultingly figured her as burning in 
 hell for all eternity. 
 
 The Boss gave it up. 
 
 **\Ve must unload to-morrow," he said, 
 his eyes roving over the cargo. 
 
BILLY THE CLOWN. 
 
 T came to pass that one day The 
 Golden Barque was trans- 
 formed into a temporary 
 work-boat. The Boss, Hike, 
 Calcutta, and the pock-marked 
 man had their services commissioned for 
 another crali. 
 
 Aboard came a carpenter and his assis- 
 tants, among whom was Billy the Clown. 
 There were great chests of tools, ladders, 
 ropes, and building materials stacked on the 
 deck. When the Boss saw his good ship 
 crawling away with its new occupants, he 
 walked down the village with a sigh, making 
 straight for a shop, where he purchased a 
 box of anti-bilious piils. These he tucked 
 away in his waistcoat pocket * 'against the 
 time the great raging winds would be cours- 
 ing across the reaches of his stomach." 
 
 The new crew drew up The Golden 
 Barque beside a lock, where work awaited 
 them. 
 
 Billy gave his hat a touch, and it lay 
 
150 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 saucily on the side of his head. He winked 
 a sly wink. Then he smirked with his 
 flexible lips. His feet cut a few capers on the 
 deck that suggested a rollicking dance. He 
 sang a snatch of a song with a waltz air. 
 His voice had a certain metallic quality. It 
 was high-pitched, and as he sang he 
 unconsciously swayed his body, for he was 
 accustomed to oblige all parts of the house. 
 He paused instinctively at the end of the 
 verse to let an imaginary band get in a few 
 quick, fetching bars. His hands were in his 
 breeches pockets. They made vain efforts 
 to expand his pants to the proportions of a 
 pantaloon. At the wind-up of the verse he 
 caught his hat, gave it an expert shot into 
 the air. It went whirling about, and landed 
 back perfectly on his head. He kissed hands 
 right and left, and made some comic contor- 
 tions of the body. Then he looked up, for 
 The Golden Barque had entered the lock. 
 
 Billy saw the Terror for the first time. He 
 was perched on the gate of the lock, thrown 
 against the sky like the figure of a young 
 god. His eyes were upon Billy. A round 
 soft hat was pulled down on his head. There 
 was a smile on the face under the shadow of 
 the hat as elusive as the smile on the Mona 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 151 
 
 Lisa. A hurley was held carelessly in the 
 hands. The knickered legs were slightly 
 crooked, the shanks spare. A rather vivid 
 complexion brightened a round, mild face. 
 Billy noted the sheen in a wisp of fair Kair 
 that showed over one of the ears. Then the 
 lock-keeper came to open the sluice-gates, 
 and the Terror disappeared. 
 
 Next evening, when the day's work was 
 over, Billy came on deck. The Terror was 
 standing on the bank looking up at the boat. 
 Billy smiled down at him, and Billy's smiles 
 were, through force of professional habit, ex- 
 travagant. 
 
 "Come up here, sonny, until I talk to 
 you," Billy said at last. 
 
 The Terror walked up the two planks to 
 the boat with a flattered smile. He stood 
 looking at Billy as if he had been brought 
 face to face with privileged to stand near, 
 to behold one of the great men of the 
 earth. Billy put out his hand. 
 
 The head of the Terror drooped. He 
 looked as if the honour was more than a right 
 to expect. His hand went out apologetically 
 and they shook. 
 
 Then Billy sat down on a box. He was in 
 a sociable mood. As he did so the Terror, 
 
152 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 whose eyes were hungering for details, ob- 
 served that Billy shifted a lump of tobacco 
 from one cheek to another. Presently he spat 
 out, and the Terror got a whiff of the reek 
 of the weed. He also noticed that Billy 
 wore ear-rings. His face was leathery. A 
 scar shone on one of the cheeks. He had 
 hair on his hands. A belt about the waist 
 looked as if it had the sole responsibility for 
 holding his wardrobe together. It was 
 buckled so loosely that it necessitated hitches 
 at intervals, or otherwise calamities micrht 
 occur. A longish, sinewy body, every nerve 
 of which seemed alive, suggested a con- 
 tinuous impatience by little shiftings and 
 movements. When he smiled his exagge- 
 rated smile he showed a row of strong teeth, 
 with two prominent vacancies in front. A 
 pair of bright, even audacious, grey eyes 
 danced in his head, giving him a mixture of 
 wildness and humour. The heart of the 
 Terror was thrilled at the sight of Billy. 
 
 "What do they call you at home?" Billy 
 asked, looking at the Terror through a slant 
 in his eyes. 
 
 "They call me the Terror," the other re- 
 plied without any emotion. 
 
 "Why do they call you that ?" 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 153 
 
 "Because oh, I don't know they call it 
 to me anyway. They call it to me because 
 I do things." 
 
 "Oh. you do things?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 "What kind of things?" 
 
 "The kind of things that I shouldn't do 
 things that I'm told not to do the things I 
 have no right to do." 
 
 "Oh, I see." Billy's jaw-bone was work- 
 ing incessantly, its movements very visible 
 through the shining skin drawn tightly over 
 the scar. He eyed the Terror up and down. 
 
 "What age are you?" Billy asked. 
 
 "Going on eleven." the Terror made 
 answer. As he looked up Billy was con- 
 scious that for all the fair exterior there was 
 no fear and very little shyness about the 
 Terror. 
 
 They talked platitudes for some time, Billy 
 putting the questions as to schools and 
 books, the names of the people in the 
 locality, the characteristics of the district, 
 and the Terror supplying the answers to the 
 best of his ability. 
 
 "Were you ever at a circus?" Billy asked 
 suddenly. 
 
 The heart of the Terror leapt with rapture. 
 
 L 
 
154 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 Here was the interest of his life ; here was a 
 chance of having his suspicions and hopes as 
 to Billy verified or blasted ! With a sudden 
 flow of talk the Terror told, breathlessly and 
 delightedly, of all the circuses he had ever 
 seen. He had the names of them all on the 
 tip of his tongue, together with their indi- 
 vidual features, their strong points and their 
 shortcomings. Billy knew by him he had 
 nightmares about circuses in his sleep in the 
 night. 
 
 "I can stand on my head." The Terror 
 came out with this announcement abruptly. 
 He paused, looking up at Billy. It was, by 
 inference, now up against Billy to say what 
 things he was able to do what circus feats 
 he could perform. There was a certain 
 subtlety in the Terror's way of getting at 
 Billy. " 
 
 "Can you somersault?" Billy asked. 
 
 "No; not yet.'* 
 
 Billy stood up, gave a few professional 
 hops, raced a few yards down the deck, and 
 then went head-over-heels so rapidly that the 
 Terror could not say if his hands touched the 
 boards. Billy bowed profoundly, then gave 
 a few of his capers, suggesting funniosities, 
 and returned to his seat on the box. The 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 155 
 
 mouth of the Terror was partly open, his 
 hands clutched in nervous grasps. 
 
 "Were you did you had you ever a 
 circus?" The Terror spoke with awe, with 
 a subdued emotion. 
 
 Billy reached out and caught the Terror 
 in his arms. He lifted him off his feet and 
 planked him down beside him on the box. 
 The Terror sighed in sheer rapture. 
 
 4< I sailed in ships, and was over seas and 
 oceans/' Billy said. "I was in countries 
 where there are lions and tigers and croco- 
 diles, elephants and cockatoos. I walked 
 through jungles and I fought with redskins. 
 Do you see that?" Billy put his finger into 
 the shiny scar on his cheek. 
 
 "Yes," the Terror said. 
 
 "Another fellow did that. It happened in 
 a far country. We fell out. It was about a 
 
 worn well, no matter. We fell out. He 
 
 had a knife at the time. He coveted a bit of 
 my cheek. Then I well, no matter about 
 that either." 
 
 "Where is the other fellow now?" 
 
 "He is in a place very far away awful 
 far, and it's a place with a strong climate." 
 
 "Are there lions and tigers in it?" 
 
 "There are, my son. And there are 
 
156 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 dragons and things with fiery eyes, steam 
 coming out of their nostrils, and flames from 
 their mouths. It's a very far country, and 
 he is having a rotten time. Maybe if he left 
 me all my cheek he would now be eating 
 figs. He loved figs. He was of a very 
 deep complexion, and fond of a good deal of 
 heat. But I expect he'd like a cold bath this 
 minute if he could get it." 
 
 "Was it he gave you the ear-rings?" 
 
 "No. The ear-rings belonged to her to 
 his aunt, I mean. She gave them to me. I 
 wore them ever since. She was a gipsy." 
 
 "Well, I thought you were of a circus." 
 There was a note of regret in the tone of the 
 Terror. 
 
 "So I am or was. I got tired of ships. I 
 got tired of riding camels and too much 
 sand. A desert is the greatest rot. You just 
 face nothing for nothing. A blade of grass 
 is a great luxury then. A wallet with water 
 is a God-send. I'm damned but I'd sooner 
 have the canal." Billy, as he said this, 
 cocked his eye over the bow of The Golden 
 Barque, there was a hiss through his teeth, 
 and the Terror noted that some tobacco juice 
 fell into the water. Billy was a splendid 
 man, and no mistake. 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 157 
 
 The Terror began to swing his legs on the 
 box. "I love circuses,'* he said. 
 
 "So do I in a way,** Billy agreed. He 
 hitched the belt that controlled his wardrobe. 
 The Terror was vaguely conscious that Billy 
 spoke with authority, that his qualification 
 arose from knowledge. 
 
 **I was engaged in circuses,** said Billy. 
 "The first one was Sinclair's famous circus. 
 Great big fat man was Sinclair. Two 
 pounds of beefsteak for breakfast first thing 
 every morning. One pig's head, two 
 bolsters of cabbage, a stone of potatoes, 
 washed down by a quart of stout, for dinner. 
 It was the star turn of the show, but not on 
 the programme. Sinclair said it was the 
 constant change of air that sustained him in 
 the appetite and enabled him to hold the 
 championship for girth.** Billy looked 
 down along his own lean, nervous body, and 
 added pensively, *'l was the clown.** 
 
 The pathos was lost on the Terror, who 
 clapped his hands, excited by the trend of 
 his own thoughts. 
 
 "I knew you were ; I guessed you were. 1 
 said you were a clown the minute I saw you 
 singing and leaping about on the boat. All 
 you wanted was the the thethe 
 
158 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 breeches, the one with the big wide legs." 
 The Terror illustrated pantaloons by ges- 
 tures. 
 
 **I had the breeches all right** Billy said 
 quietly. "What I wanted mostly was the 
 screw. 
 
 Again the pathos was lost on the Terror, 
 whose colour had heightened. 
 
 "Were you ever anything else in the 
 circus as well as the clown ?** he asked hope- 
 fully. 
 
 "Oh, yes, indeed I was. Once I was the 
 clown, the bare-back rider you know the 
 North American Indian Chief stunt, the 
 fellow that says, 'Oh, the little baboono !* 
 the juggler with the balls, bottles, knives and 
 plates the man on the trapeze the tight- 
 rope walker and the peace-maker in the 
 dressing tent between the ringmaster and his 
 wife, who used to suspend Sinclair from a 
 grip in her mouth, her ankles alone holding 
 to the trapeze. It was nothing to the grip 
 she used to hold her husband, the ring- 
 master, by when she wasn't working on her 
 contract.** 
 
 "I saw her,** said the Terror. "She was 
 great.*' 
 
 "But she grew too heavy for the trapeze, 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 159 
 
 and Sinclair got sensitive about being swung 
 up scheduled in pink tights. So she took to 
 going round on a horse with a padded back, 
 pretending she was a sailor boy hoisting up 
 imaginary sails on the masts, while the band 
 played 'The Sailor's Hornpipe/ and she 
 pawed the air with her feet 'scuse the bull 
 palming it off that she was dancing. Last 
 I saw of her she had come off the pro- 
 gramme, was wardrobe mistress, half -blind 
 from stitching, and given to using bad lan- 
 guage. And as for poor old Sine why, he 
 became reduced to a skeleton Could have 
 gone on in a swimming bath as a herring 
 and brought down the house.** 
 
 "But you you were the whole circus,** 
 the Terror exclaimed, his admiration un- 
 bounded. 
 
 "I was the main prop,** Billy allowed, 
 with toleration. "I used to sleep under the 
 canvas of the tent in an open waggon going 
 from place to place, for we had to make a 
 new village every day. I might waken an 
 odd night to wink up at the stars. The show 
 went off at cock-crow without me a couple 
 of times. I had to follow on foot. I walked 
 ten miles one morning with three snakes in 
 my pockets, for they left them behind, too. 
 
160 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 I stuck it till they wanted me to take a sledge- 
 hammer, drive down all the crowbars to 
 which the ropes of the tent were fastened, 
 and to be dressed ready to mount fifteen-feet 
 stilts for the mid-day procession. I just told 
 them all to go to heaven that I was not fit 
 for Paradise/' 
 
 A wave of poignant emotion filled the 
 Terror. He felt that this splendid man had 
 been wronged, and that even circus people 
 could be unfeeling. He leaned a little 
 against Billy's rough coat in silent 
 sympathy. 
 
 * What did they do without you/' he 
 asked at last. He expected that the whole 
 thing had at least collapsed when Billy 
 withdrew his genius. 
 
 * They got somebody else," Billy said 
 cheerfully. '* I turned ugly before I went. 
 You know I can be very nasty. I can do 
 things just like you things I have no right 
 to do and I was doing things after the 
 show until the man that played the drums 
 and the cymbals in the band came off his 
 carriage; he had a drum-stick and came up 
 from the rear. When I wakened again they 
 were all gone. It was next morning." 
 
 " Did you ever go to another circus?" 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 161 
 
 " I did after a time. It was a nice little 
 show. I got in favour there. The person 
 that owned it thought something of me. I 
 used to bring refreshments to the private 
 carriage in a discreet way. I made good 
 bargains for cats and hay for the horses; I 
 brought down the expenses, and she liked 
 that. There was a time that I was so high 
 in favour that I had only to go out as chief 
 clown, sing * Brigid Donohoe,' and as an 
 encore * The Stone Outside Dan Murphy's 
 Door,* tell six jokes that had red whiskers, 
 kiss two girls in the pit, and have cold meat 
 and beer for supper and Herself waiting on 
 me putting lumps of sugar in my mouth, 
 so to speak. I could live there for ever only 
 well, no matter. It's a v/icked world." 
 
 * What happened?*' The face of the 
 Terror was eager. 
 
 Billy hitched his belt. " Well, you see, 
 this was the height of it. The man that was 
 the husband of the person that owned the 
 show was advance agent. He was always 
 a week ahead of us, putting up posters and 
 taking drink. One day he turned up when 
 nobody expected or wanted him. He took 
 a dislike to me and I left. He hurt my 
 feelings.'* 
 
162 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 Billy stood up. " Now, sonny," he said, 
 " it's getting late. You* 11 be expected at 
 home. I'm going to bed early, and I'd like 
 a feed of something before I turn in." 
 
 " Do you would you could you eat 
 lettuce," the Terror asked, standing before 
 Billy on the deck. 
 
 Billy whistled. 
 
 " My word," he said, chopping with his 
 teeth. * The identical article with cold 
 pig's cheek. How did you think of it? I'd 
 give my hat for a head." 
 
 The Terror flew down the planks to the 
 bank. Billy watched his figure disappear 
 along the road. 
 
 *' A nice wee kid," he said tolerantly. He 
 stood on the deck looking into the water. 
 It was dim in the uncertain light. Then 
 something dropped in from the bank. He 
 saw a little figure make a ripple on the sur- 
 face and cut a way directly across, a small 
 snout just visible. It was a water rat. 
 
 " Poor devil," Billy said, for his sympa- 
 thies were broad. He knew what it was to 
 fend for himself. 
 
 Some footsteps sounded on the road. The 
 figure of the Terror came running along, 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 163 
 
 clutching something in his arms. He rein 
 up the planks. 
 
 " It will do you for to-night," he said, 
 thrusting something into Billy's hand. He 
 turned on his heels and fled. Some of the 
 heads of lettuce fell on to the deck. They 
 were wet with dew. The clay around the 
 roots was fresh. They had been hastily 
 gathered. Billy picked it up and went down 
 to the cabin humming. 
 
 The Terror lived in a state of mild ecstasy 
 for some days. He was the confidant, the 
 friend, of a great man, a man who had 
 travelled the world and who now lived in a 
 canal boat. There was no doubt as to his 
 greatness. Look at the scar, the ear-rings, 
 the way he could somersault, the way he 
 could sing, the drollery in the movements of 
 his legs. Going to school seemed a ridicu- 
 lous, a tame business, when considered in 
 relation to the great life that Billy stood for. 
 Playing marbles with other boys was a 
 pallid affair. He simply cut his compan- 
 ions. Seated on the box on The Golden 
 Barque listening to Billy, looking at him, 
 rubbing up against him, feeding him with 
 pilfered lettuces ! Why, if he had been 
 allowed and able to feed wild animals it 
 
164 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 could not be more thrilling. The Terror 
 hopped on one leg now and another again 
 at the very thought of it. 
 
 One evening it would be a story of a far 
 country, a country so hot that you lived 
 upon peaches hanging down over your head 
 wherever you went. Again it would be of 
 a place where Billy had seen hailstones as 
 large as cocoanuts, and so hard that one of 
 them was known to split open the skull of a 
 nigger. Again, it would be an affair in a 
 canoe on a forest river where Billy had left 
 a memory that would last for ever in the 
 noodles of all crocodiles. Battles with 
 hordes of mosquitoes in the air, struggles 
 with serpents in the 1 grass, a ride over sands 
 in the desert astride an ostrich, scuttling a 
 ship in the middle of the ocean -it was per- 
 fect. And at the back of it all was the 
 atmosphere of the circus, suggested by 
 sudden snatches of songs in the middle of 
 tropical sensations, the repetition of an 
 encounter with the ringmaster, and the 
 capers of Billy that made the Terror shriek 
 with laughter. Then one evening the joy 
 of it all was concentrated in the offer of Billy 
 to make a pair of slilts on which he would 
 teach the Terror to walk. 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 165 
 
 That was where the Terror came in, 
 where he was able to astonish even Billy. 
 The stilts were made, produced, practically 
 embraced, and taken home with an exultant 
 heart. Next evening, so apt was the pupil, 
 so persistent the practice all day in the 
 privacy of a backyard, thait without any 
 tuition, he was able to walk on them along 
 by the hedge on the road to the boat. He 
 came along with the eternal suggestion of a 
 smile under the soft hat. Billy praised him 
 a little but just imagine what a word of 
 praise was from the man who had once been 
 the whole performance in Sinclair's famous 
 circus ! The Terror sat on the box with the 
 stilts beside him, an expression of rapt ambi- 
 tion on his face. He would yet stride up to 
 the stars on his stilts ! 
 
 It was a heavenly week. The world 
 throbbed. It was full of adventure adven- 
 ture that was only new-born, yet to be 
 realised. The Terror by turns felt heroic, 
 masterful, capable of devastation, the dis- 
 penser of horrors, of mercies, of kindnesses, 
 of lacerations, of frightful deaths, of superb 
 rescues, of melodramatic assertions of right 
 over might. 
 
 But then came the week-end. The people 
 
166 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 on the boat went away to their wives and 
 their homes for Sunday. Billy had no home 
 and no wife to which he could go. There- 
 fore, he was left in charge of The Golden 
 Barque. He sat disconsolate on an upturned 
 empty barrel. The prospect of an evening 
 with the Terror, of the lettuces he would 
 bring, was lacking in vividness. It seemed 
 too much a part of the pastoral landscape 
 about him. Some crows cried overhead, 
 but even they had some social centre, some 
 home, some rookery. A wandering seagull 
 cried out, and brought a memory of places 
 that the seas washed. A cow mewed over 
 a hedge, her vocal tribute to the evening 
 being one of utter desolation. As soon as 
 Billy heard it he sprang to his feet, saying 
 * That's done it." He hitched his belt 
 about him, walked down to the bank, and 
 set his course for the village. 
 
 When the Terror arrived he found the 
 boat deserted. He walked about the deck, 
 explored the cabin. He left his stilts beside 
 the box, and sat patiently until a lock-keeper 
 came along. 
 
 " Are you looking for Billy?" the lock- 
 keeper asked. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 167 
 
 * Well, you can go home. Billy has 
 broken out." 
 
 The Terror did not understand. He hung 
 on. At length Billy came down the road, 
 lurching in his walk. The Terror went on 
 to the road to meet him. Billy held his 
 head down. When the Terror saw his face 
 there was a change in it. There was a 
 scowl, something in the eyes that made the 
 Terror step back from him. 
 
 " Go home,*' Billy muttered. He made 
 a vague movement with one of his hands. 
 He appeared to have only a general, uncer- 
 tain idea of the position of things. The 
 Terror did not go home. Some touch of 
 rebellion crept into the mild, round face. 
 
 '* I won't go home," he said. 
 
 * * \/ * t "\" 
 
 You won t? 
 
 "No. Not for you." 
 
 Billy swayed up to the boat and fooled 
 about the deck. The Terror stood looking 
 at him from the bank, his hands behind his 
 back. 
 
 "Go home," came the command again. 
 
 l * No," came the uncompromising 
 answer. 
 
 Billy stumbled over one of the stilts. He 
 raised it in his hand. Then he went over to 
 
(68 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 a chest, raised the lid, took out a hatchet. 
 The Terror never budged as Billy brought 
 the hatchet down on the stilt. The aim was 
 uncertain, but he struck at it until it went 
 to pieces. 
 
 " Now will you go home?" he demanded. 
 
 " No, not unless I like." 
 
 The shattered stilt fell into the water. The 
 eyes of the Terror were upon the pieces as 
 they floated about, bobbing against the side 
 of The Golden Barque. 
 
 Billy came swaying, but threatening, to 
 the bank. The Terror set backwards some 
 yards on his legs, his eyes shining, his hands 
 twitching. Billy looked about him foolishly, 
 then hitched his belt and struck for the vil- 
 lage again. The Terror watched him until 
 he had gone, then went aboard. He passed 
 down straight to Billy's cabin. He pulled 
 the bed out of the bunk, tossed the bed- 
 clothes about. Over them he upset a keg 
 of water; some of it drained out on the bed. 
 He caught the kettle, the saucepan, the few 
 enamel mugs, the frying-pan, the spoons, 
 knives and forks, and cast them about. In 
 an afterthought he picked up the fork and 
 stuck it through the bolster. He opened the 
 small cupboard. Half a loaf and the pickled 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 169 
 
 jawbone of a pig were there. The bone the 
 Terror stuffed into the coal stove. He 
 folded the bread up in a dish-cloth and set 
 it on the top of the stove. Then he went on 
 deck. Some bags lay beside a step-ladder. 
 He set the step-ladder against the funnel 
 and, taking the bags, went up the steps. 
 He was breathing hard as he stuffed the 
 sacks down the funnel. 
 
 " Now/' he said to himself, as he came 
 down, " when he lights the fire below it 
 will choke him." The Terror was as black 
 as a sweep, hands and face, as he left the 
 boat, but he was satisfied. He went home, 
 washed himself, said his prayers, went to 
 bed, and dreamt that he was fighting a tiger 
 in a jungle, which, at a critical moment, 
 turned into a crocodile, and eventually into 
 a pair of stilts upon which the Terror crossed 
 a desert. 
 
 Billy was linked on to The Golden Barque 
 by a lock-keeper that night. They nego- 
 tiated the steps down to the cabin with 
 extraordinary skill. When the lock-keeper 
 struck a match and put it to the candle he 
 stared at the scene. 
 
 The lock-keeper turned to him. 
 
 M 
 
170 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 "Billy," he said, "someone has wrecked 
 the cabin has wrecked the boat." 
 
 Billy blinked, then laughed inanely. He 
 broke into a song. The lock-keeper 
 gathered that it was of Brigid Donohoe, of 
 whom Billy sang, " I really do love you," 
 then fell to the floor on the huddled bed, 
 his head pillowed by the water keg. The 
 lock-keeper beheld the prostrate figure with 
 despair, sighed, and went home. He had 
 scarcely set foot on the bank when Billy was 
 dreaming that he was in pink tights, per- 
 forming his great feat of springing from the 
 ground clean on to the bare back of a horse 
 going round the ring, after the necessary 
 number of pretended failures to work up the 
 feelings of the bucolic audience. When the 
 band struck up a triumphant blast Billy 
 turned his head over on the empty keg. 
 
 Next morning the Terror passed by the 
 boat on his way to school. As he did so, 
 Billy was drawing out sacks from the funnel. 
 His face was covered with smuts. The face 
 of the Terror was clean, the colour on the 
 clean skin vivid. A school-bag hung to his 
 back, charged with books and luncheon. 
 The eternal suggestion of a smile was spread 
 over the round, mild face. But he never 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 171 
 
 v^ 
 
 looked up at Billy or his boat. He was the 
 picture of respectability. Billy regarded 
 him curiously with eyes encircled by black. 
 That evening the Terror came along 
 slowly the canal road. He was like one 
 who was under a spell ; The Golden Barque 
 drew him. A look of repentance, reconcil- 
 iation, was on his face. When he arrived 
 The Golden Barque was leaving the lock. 
 The job was finished. They were going 
 away, A hand waved at the Terror. He 
 stood stock still. Then a pair of brand new 
 stilts were shot on to the bank. They clat- 
 tered before his feet. He stooped and lifted 
 them up, but without any joy, for he saw 
 that the figure of Billy was walking down 
 the deck. He was singing in his metallic 
 voice. The words rang out over the land- 
 scape : 
 
 44 1 sent her home a picture, I did upon my 
 
 word, 
 'Twas not a picture of myself, but a picture 
 
 of a bird. 
 It was the American Eagle. Says I : 4 Miss 
 
 Donohoe, 
 These Eagle's wings are large enough to 
 
 shelter me and you.' ' 
 
172 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 Then Billy's legs began to make shapes 
 on the boat, that suggested various droller- 
 ies. His hat was cocked on the side of his 
 head. The boat glided away. 
 
 The Terror sat under the shadow of the 
 hedge, his eyes upon the boat, riveted upon 
 the figure of Billy as long as it was in sight. 
 After it had gone there seemed to be a big 
 void in the world. Everything was miser- 
 able, grey, dissatisfying. The very evening 
 lost its vividness, the landscape its colour. 
 The earth had shrunken. 
 
 A companion came along, beheld the 
 Terror with some surprise, sat down beside 
 him, and asked : * What's wrong with 
 you?" 
 
 The Terror ran his fingers up and down 
 the stilts, without appearing conscious of the 
 action. His head hung over his angular 
 knees. His face was to the ground. 
 
 " I feel horrid," he said in a low voice. 
 
THE DERELICT. 
 
 HE Boss of The Golden Barque 
 was very pleased when he 
 was able to resume business 
 on her deck. He was like- 
 wise pleased that the man 
 with the pock-marked face had dis- 
 appeared and that Billy the Clown was 
 available to fill his place. Billy the Clown 
 was obviously a companionable person, in- 
 terested in almost everything, and sometimes 
 the Boss liked to talk. He explained to 
 Billy that he always experienced a heavy 
 bilious attack when forced to leave The 
 Golden Barque for other craft on the canal. 
 There was, he said, some quality in the 
 timbers of The Golden Barque which cured 
 him immediately he got aboard her. 
 
 He was anxious to impress th's knowledge 
 upon Billy as they voyaged through a very 
 pleasant country, great trees hanging over 
 the canal, sweeping green pastures visible 
 between them, red and white cows browsing 
 
174 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 on the rich grass lands. Billy was mildly 
 putting the point that one canal boat was 
 as like another canal boat as one crow was 
 like another crow or one Chinaman like an- 
 other Chinaman. Tut-tut ! The Boss would 
 not could not hear of it. The compari- 
 son, as Billy put it slyly for the Boss, " didn't 
 hold water." Canal boats, to the intelli- 
 gence of the Boss, were full of individuality 
 "as young hares" it was Billy again who 
 suggested the comparison. The Boss went 
 on talking of canal boats with an intimacy 
 and lack of humour which made of them 
 human things. Calcutta listened, hanging 
 over a pile of soap boxes, and having 
 yawned went back to his vigil by the funnel, 
 his smouldering eyes showing their eternal 
 gleam of ugly hatred, watchfulness, as they 
 became fastened on Hike, who stumbled 
 and prayed on the bank. 
 
 The Boss had reached the topic of the 
 ages of boats when he hit on the affair of 
 the Derelict. Had Billy the Clown ever 
 heard of the Derelict? Billy the Clown had 
 never heard of the Derelict. What was 
 more, Billy the Clown declared he had no 
 interest whatever in derelicts, in old ruins, 
 tomb-stones, fairy raths, or mummies. He 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 175 
 
 did not care if he never saw another Round 
 Tower. 
 
 * The Derelict is not a boat,'* broke in 
 the Boss. " It is a man." 
 
 ** A live man?" Billy asked cautiously. 
 
 * Yes, a live man." The Boss swung 
 the rudder a little to one side. " He's alive 
 yet, too. He was the first Boss of The 
 Golden Barque, and the reason I drew him 
 down was because we're coming to his place 
 and you'll be apt to see him." 
 
 They went on quietly for some time, the 
 bubble of the water sounding pleasantly on 
 the timbers of The Golden Barque, the 
 country growing more and more serene, the 
 banks given up to the quacking of little 
 parties of white and fawn ducks. The Boss 
 went on talking after a little while, but his 
 voice had such a pleasant drone, and Billy 
 felt so sure that what he talked about no 
 more mattered than the bubble of the water 
 at the prow of the boat, that he did not really 
 break the beautiful peace, the exquisite 
 sense of idleness of the whole place. He 
 was speaking for quite a long time before 
 Billy became conscious that he had worked 
 his way back again to the ages of canal 
 boats. 
 
!76 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 No, he was saying, The Golden Barque 
 was a youthful thing compared to certain 
 other old trick-o*-the-loops to be met with. 
 Why did the Boss say that? He raised his 
 fat hand as he put the question. He had 
 his proof of it. The Boss brought down his 
 fat hand with a clinch on the shaft of the 
 tiller when he said he had his proof of it. 
 He was always bringing forth great proofs 
 of unimportant things, always clinching 
 points that did not matter. But as he went 
 on references to the Derelict became more 
 and more frequent. Billy gathered, after a 
 long time, after he had dropped off and 
 leisurely caught him up again, that the Dere- 
 lict was a name put upon one James Vasey, 
 that James Vasey was the first man to put 
 the nose of The Golden Barque to the water, 
 and that as James Vasey was still a living if 
 an old man, that, therefore, The Golden 
 Barque could not possibly be as old as people 
 might very well take her to be. 
 
 James Vasey or the Derelict was not 
 always an old man no more than anybody 
 else, the Boss insisted. There was a time 
 when he was a young man, as young as any- 
 body else if it went to that. Why did the 
 Boss say that? The fat hand went up. 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 177 
 
 When the Boss brought down the fat hand 
 on the tiller a drake with a rich green and 
 white head, a sheen of gold glinting over it, 
 stood up on the bank, spread out his wings 
 and shouted out shamelessly that he was as 
 good a drake as any other drake that had 
 ever led a line of ducks up the canal. 
 
 The Boss, ignoring him, brought forward 
 his proof that the Derelict was once as young 
 as anybody else; the weight of evidence in 
 support of this stupendous assertion lay in 
 the fact that once upon a time from the deck 
 of that boat, from the very spot where the 
 Boss had now planted his flat feet. James 
 Vasey, the Derelict, had cast amorous eyes 
 upon a young girl with a rich bloom on her 
 cheeks. Not alone that, but The Golden 
 Barque had been known to lie with her bow 
 to the bank waiting patiently for James 
 Vasey, the Derelict, who had risked his 
 position as Boss of the boat by drawing her 
 up there and bidding the men shut their 
 mouths while he went in pursuit of a young 
 female up a bohreen. If the Derelict was 
 not as young as anybody else, how could he 
 do a thing like that? And why did the 
 Boss say the Derelict had gone up a bohreen 
 after a young girl? He said it because he 
 
178 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 had his proof of it. That proof lay not 
 alone in the existence of James Vasey, the 
 Derelict, but in the continued existence of 
 the bohreen, or lane way, up which he had 
 taken eager strides in auld lang syne. What 
 was more, that very day that was in it the 
 Boss would point out with his own hand the 
 very and the identical bohreen up which 
 the Derelict had coursed the time the hot 
 fancy took him for the panting young 
 female;. And why did he say he ^could 
 point it out with his own hand ? Because 
 
 And the Boss went on with his intermin- 
 able proofs about nothing ; a group of geese 
 on the bank suddenly broke into a hearty 
 quack of laughter which was taken up by 
 other groups along the canal until the whole 
 waterway was ringing with it. 
 
 They came to the romantic bohreen in 
 the course of the day. The Boss came up 
 the deck of the boat on his flat web-like feet 
 to point it out to Billy. Nothing in the shape 
 of a vehicle had p.assed through that boh- 
 reen, or by-road, for years. It was covered 
 with scutch-grass, briars, dock leaves, 
 nettles, Robin-run-the-hedge. Over this 
 hearty growth the hedges each side had 
 struggled until they had caught hands, em- 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 179 
 
 braced, hugged each other, became one 
 tangle of shoots and leaves. It was more 
 like a jungle than a bohreen. As luck 
 would have it, out of this jungle an old man 
 came prowling as the boat passed. The 
 grizzled, long, lined face, the wisps of 
 shaggy hair about the jaws, the head that 
 hung level between the drooping shoulders, 
 the small, sharp eyes, a certain furtiveness 
 in their expression, the claw-like, nervous 
 hands, gave him an entirely animal appear- 
 ance. There was a crackling of brambles 
 as he emerged from his den. 
 
 "Good morrow, James," the Boss sang 
 out. 
 
 " Good morrow, Martin," the old man 
 answered. He trembled with ague as he 
 followed the boat on the bank, hobbling 
 along like one who was accustomed to and 
 took pleasure in a difficult effort. 
 
 "What way is the health, James?" 
 
 " I'd be right enough only the compres- 
 sion on the chest. It takes the wind from 
 me in the night." He wheezed as he spoke. 
 ' Well, keep the heart up. It is the heart 
 that tells at the last." 
 
 * The heart is very sound with me, 
 
180 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 Martin. Did you see any trace of a 
 haun as you came along ?" 
 
 " No, sorra trace, James. Are you miss- 
 ing the goat?" 
 
 " I am. He's a devil. My melt is broke 
 striving for to keep him within bounds. A 
 fortune he is costing me in ropes. Buck- 
 leaping this way and that, until I pray to the 
 Lord that he might brain himself against the 
 ditch. I don't know where to turn for him 
 now, for the four quarters of the world are 
 forninst me." 
 
 The boat had gone by, the old institution 
 not able to keep up any longer, his claw up 
 to his wheezing chest. Further conversa- 
 tion was not possible. Billy could not help 
 looking back at the old figure of the man on 
 the bank, his gaze wandering helplessly 
 about. Billy found it hard to imagine him 
 as commander the first commander of 
 The Golden Barque. But as a Derelict he 
 was complete and magnificent. 
 
 *" He has no interest in the canal now,'* 
 Billy said to the Boss. " His mind is given 
 up to the lost puc^/iaun." 
 
 " Don't think that," the Boss said. 
 
 4 That old fellow could not live a mile from 
 
 the canal. He's down every day to see the 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 181 
 
 boats going by. The life has a hold of him 
 yet, and it will keep him until they put the 
 band of death about his jaw." 
 
 They went on for some time in silence. 
 The figure of the old man hobbling on the 
 bank grew fainter. The Boss began to 
 moralise. "Mind you," he said, "the 
 canal has a call. The old soldier has a 
 taste for the barracks, the farmer has nature 
 for the fields, and the sailor can converse 
 with the winds. That old fellow, James 
 Vasey, has the same love for the canal as 
 the water rat hid in the rushes." 
 
 The Boss began to hum in his monoton- 
 ous voice as he fondled the shaft of the 
 tiller, the same shaft that James Vasey had 
 fondled years gone by. 
 
 14 Did you take stock of that little ho^se 
 beside the bohreen?" he asked after a time. 
 
 Billy told the Boss it was almost his trade 
 to take stock. He remembered the house 
 as a little wreck of a place, roofless, the 
 shoulder of the doorway that survived black- 
 ened, two square window spaces gaping 
 beside it like eye cavities in the head of a 
 skull. 
 
 But tKe Boss had another memory of it. 
 His description was laboured. All tKe same 
 
182 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 he made a picture of it in time. Billy began 
 to see the thatch on the roof, the smoke 
 coming out of the chimney, the panes of 
 glass shining in the windows, neat, white 
 screens behind them; some order in the 
 front, even a sanded path, and roses clus- 
 tering about the doorway. The figure of a 
 young girl busying herself about the house, 
 trim and alert, followed; then the manner 
 in which James Vasey began to follow her 
 movements, to make note of her charms, and 
 to throw sheep's eyes from the deck of The 
 Golden Barque. It culminated in the pulling 
 up of the boat and the scandal given to the 
 crew by the chasing of the young girl up the 
 bohreen. But James Vasey *s enterprise 
 prospered. The young girl liked the way 
 he adventured, and she smiled on his 
 advances. 
 
 The Boss liked to dwell on the subsequent 
 developments. As he did so he more and 
 more fell into the love tradition of the novel- 
 ette. He closed his case with a ** lived 
 happy ever after " ring in his voice. 
 
 But Billy the Clown was left with the im- 
 pression that the thing worth telling in James 
 Vasey *s life remained untouched. An 
 under-current of contempt for the hero of 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 183 
 
 the romance now and again betrayed itself 
 in the manner of the Boss. While he was 
 squeezing the first commander of The 
 Golden Barque into an affair of rose and 
 water he could not altogether help remem- 
 bering him for something else. With pres- 
 sure it came out in bits and scraps. Let us 
 put them together. 
 
 The married life of James Vasey was the 
 married life of all boatmen. He turned up 
 at home when he could. He had a great 
 joy in the little home beside the canal. The 
 parents of the girl whom he had married 
 died in course of time, leaving the place to 
 James Vasey. A son and a daughter were 
 born to him. The son went away to Liver- 
 pool and never returned. It was said of him 
 that he turned out a bad lot. The daughter 
 went to America. She kept in touch with 
 the homeland. They had letters from her 
 frequently. They expressed a crude but 
 sincere affection for the parents. It was a 
 lonely life that the old people dragged out 
 in the home by the bohreen. This loneli- 
 ness fell more heavily on the mother, for 
 James Vasey had the distraction of his life 
 and work on the canal. 
 
 It was, however, a great shock and a 
 
184 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 great change to him when his wife died after 
 a few weeks' illness. James Vasey wrote to 
 his daughter in America announcing the 
 death of her mother. The memory of the 
 lonely old man no doubt moved the girl, 
 and she returned to Ireland. She brought 
 some money with her. With it they were 
 able to secure a little land and a little stock. 
 The daughter was a good woman, a capable 
 manager, and they were able to live in certain 
 comfort. When the time came that James 
 Vasey left The Golden Barque for ever, 
 unable for further work, they had the little 
 place to fall back upon. It was then he 
 came to be known to his former fellow- 
 voyagers as the Derelict. 
 
 It was the opinion of the Boss that the 
 Derelict had always been a miser. His 
 manner of securing tobacco and other little 
 luxuries in life at the expense of other boat- 
 men was cited as proof of this. It may be 
 true, but it was also true that James Vasey 
 had no opportunity of amassing wealth. His 
 profession did not permit of it. But his 
 passion for loans of tobacco, together with 
 his failure to keep up his individual end of 
 the expense of enjoyments in The Haven, 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 185 
 
 had made him unpopular among the demo- 
 cracy of the canal. 
 
 He had actually scraped together a sum 
 of ten pounds. The knowledge of this he 
 had kept secret even from his own daughter. 
 As he grew older, we may take it that he 
 handled the money with twitching hands, a 
 cackle in the old voice ; that he fondled and 
 doted over it in secret like the theatrical old 
 man in " Les Cloches de Corneville." If 
 he did not rise to that dramatic enthusiasm, 
 we may take the more homely view that he 
 tied it in the corner of an old stocking, 
 hiding it away in various places like a cat 
 with a kitten. He would probably die with 
 it under his pillow, obsessed with his secret, 
 fighting death at the last in defence of his 
 hoard only for what happened. 
 
 It was a night in early winter. The foli- 
 age had fallen from the trees, the wind swept 
 the leaves in a heap in the bohreen. They 
 made a stir there like impatient souls that 
 wanted to be at rest. The canal gave an air 
 of chilliness to the landscape, the desolation 
 of the bog-land to the west looked Hke an 
 open wound in the side of the country. The 
 dismal note of a curlew overhead was like a 
 voice from some suffering land. A drooping 
 
 N 
 
i86 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 shoot of a rambler-rose fell over from the 
 porch and made a constant swaying beside 
 one of the windows of the Derelict's home. 
 All was silence within. It was his custom, 
 and the custom of his daughter, to go early 
 to bed and to be early about. The hours of 
 the night went by in a great peace, save for 
 a dull glow by the kitchen hearth that 
 stealthily made its way to the brown heap 
 of sods by the wall. 
 
 At this time the Derelict was troubled 
 with the first stages of his asthma. The 
 *' compression on his chest " made his sleep 
 restless as the early dawn approached. He 
 became troubled with his cough. It per- 
 sisted, until at last it robbed him of his sleep. 
 He drew his old frame up in the bed, pushing 
 his shoulders up on the pillows and barked 
 for some time. He grew conscious that the 
 atmosphere was heavy, that it was difficult 
 for him to get his breath. 
 
 " Sara," he called out to his daughter. 
 There was no response. 
 
 The air became more stifling. He 
 struggled out of the bed, and it took him 
 some time, for his thin legs were stiff and 
 reluctant. He called his daughter's name 
 again. He grumbled when she did not 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 167 
 
 answer. Like all hard workers, Sara Vasey 
 slept soundly. There was no sign of her 
 stirring in the little room at the other end of 
 the house. 
 
 The Derelict struggled to the door leading 
 to the intervening kitchen and opened it. 
 The place was filled with smoke, heavy, 
 pungent smoke. Through it a wisp of light 
 descended from the roof to the floor, shed- 
 ding some sparks when it struck the ground. 
 He stood looking at it for some time stupidly. 
 Then a crackle over the chimney and another 
 drift of sparks caught his eyes. He gave a 
 little cry, turned back, groped for his 
 clothes, and went out into the kitchen. A 
 noise with ominous little cracks and snaps 
 grew in volume until it made a dull hum, as 
 he made for the front door and passed out 
 through the porch. 
 
 A cutting wind passed him and filled the 
 kitchen, and he saw flames driven across 
 the rafters. He drew on some of his clothes, 
 his gums hammering against each other, his 
 hands trembling. He was grumbling and 
 crying as he hobbled around to the window 
 of his daughter's room. He cracked his 
 knuckles on the glass. 
 
 44 Sara !" he cried. A spurt of flame ate 
 
188 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 its way through the thatch above him, and 
 he drew back with a cry. 
 
 Then his daughter came rushing out of the 
 porch in her night-dress, calling on his name. 
 
 " Father!" she called out, ** are you 
 safe?" She rushed at him, hugging him in 
 her arms hysterically, holding him in her 
 arms protectingly from this calamity that 
 had suddenly overtaken them in the quiet of 
 the winter's night. It was while his daugh- 
 ter held him in her arms, and that he gazed 
 in fear over her shoulder at the burning 
 house, that the mind of the Derelict jumped 
 back to the memory of his money. 
 
 *' Sara,*' he said, " I'm safe and you are 
 safe." 
 
 * Thank God, thank God," she cried, her 
 teeth chattering, her eyes on the flames lick- 
 ing the thatch. 
 
 *' But I left something behind me, daugh- 
 ter." He drew back from her embrace. 
 He began to wring his hands. "I'm lost, 
 I'm surely lost if I don't get the little stock 
 of money." 
 
 * The stock of money?" She had never 
 heard of it until now. 
 
 * Yes, daughter. I had a little bit put by. 
 It is in the tin trunk under the bed.' 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 189 
 
 "Oh, father!" 
 
 " I thought that maybe you might reach 
 it. You are active on the limbs, Sara. Save 
 that much for me.** 
 
 " But look at the smoke, the flames. 1 
 stumbled in the kitchen coming out. It was 
 like a dead weight pressing me down.** 
 
 " Sara, before it is too late. My God, my 
 little store of money ! What matter is any- 
 thing else !** 
 
 " Let us call the neighbours. Maybe 
 something could be done.** 
 
 'The neighbours!*' the old man ex- 
 claimed, looking about him with sudden 
 fear. Then he turned on his daughter, 
 resentment in his voice. "Is it to bring 
 Tom Nolan to this place and tell him of my 
 money? Damnation! Oh, I'll go in my- 
 self.'*' 
 
 He made some steps towards the house, 
 whining in a low voice. 
 
 " Father, don't attempt to go in. You 
 will be burned,** the girl said, going to his 
 side. 
 
 " Oh, my God!** he cried, "the flames 
 are making for the room. It is designedly. 
 Look at the wind blowing them along the 
 straw. My little money will be lost. . . I 
 
190 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 mincled it well all the years .... Sara, 
 don't give it to say you let it be destroyed 
 before my eyes. . . Do as I bid you I" A 
 note of command, hardness, crept into his 
 voice. The girl drew back from him. 
 
 " Do you hear me?'* he shouted. His 
 voice changed to one of sudden desperation. 
 She only shrank the further from him. He 
 hobbled after her. She made an effort to 
 avoid him. He clutched her night-dress, 
 then buried his hard fingers in the flesh of 
 her arms. 
 
 " Damn you,'* he cried, " I will make you 
 do my liking. Don't you see the way the 
 flames are making for the room?" 
 
 She clung about his neck. His breathing 
 was hard, his eyes riveted upon the burning 
 thatch as his face hung over her shoulder. 
 
 " Let it go, father. It can't be saved now. 
 I did not know you had it." 
 
 The words only stung the Derelict to new 
 fury. A glowering, wolfish look came into 
 his eyes. He pushed the clinging girl back 
 from him. '* Let the lock of money go, is 
 it?" he shouted. '* Is that the respecl you 
 have for my earnings? In with you and 
 bring it out to me." 
 
 "Later on, father." 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 191 
 
 "Later on! The house will be burned 
 to the floor. I will be a ruined man for 
 ever.*' 
 
 44 It will be saved in the trunk.*' 
 
 " It can't. . . It is in notes : fine crisp 
 notes that I know the feel of in my hands. 
 ... I could tell them in the darkness of 
 the night. They were as known to me as 
 the nails on my fingers." 
 
 His voice had risen to a hoarse cackle. 
 He pushed the girl before him as he spoke. 
 She clasped her hands in despair, then 
 turned to break away from him. 
 
 He lurched after her. A strand of her 
 loose ihair flew behind her as she went. 
 This he clutched, and she shrieked, bending 
 her knees as the pressure from the hair 
 brought her to a stop. When he laid his 
 hands on the girl's arms again she was sob- 
 bing. They were on the verge of the smoke 
 that enveloped the house in dense vapour. 
 He pushed her forward, and they were two 
 vague figures struggling in the smoke. A 
 flock of wild birds wheeled overhead, cry- 
 ing in their strange voices, then vanished 
 into the night. 
 
 ** Father, for pity's sake ! You are fool- 
 ish, mad." The girl appealed to him. 
 
192 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 '* My little stock of money !" he cried. He 
 gave her a drive in front of him. She 
 stumbled against the porch of the house. A 
 blast of wind sent the smoke from about 
 them in long, sinuous streaks, clearing a 
 space. In that space he saw for a moment 
 the white figure of his daughter, her face 
 ghastly in the vivid yellow glare from the 
 house. He (thought he caught a look of 
 defiance, scorn, hatred, in her eyes. She 
 made a quick movement, and he concluded 
 that she was about to escape him. He 
 raised an angry arm, his fist closed. 
 
 *' By God Almighty !** he shouted. The 
 fist remained above his head for a moment, 
 then fell to his side, for the white figure had 
 vanished through the porch to the house. 
 
 He stood there, mumbling and shivering, 
 his eyes still wolfish. The noise of a crack- 
 ling beam inside made him limp away, 
 whining. He cleared the smoke, then 
 turned back to the house with a cry. 
 
 "Sara!** he called, ** what is delaying 
 you? Come on quick with the money. The 
 flames will be upon it.** 
 
 There was no reply. He limped around 
 to the window of the room, his suspenders 
 streeling behind him, his trousers hanging 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 193 
 
 about his quivering, crooked, half -naked 
 limbs, a human Derelict against a back- 
 ground of flames that were thick enough for 
 hell. 
 
 " Sara !" he shouted at the window. He 
 pushed his ashen-lined face close to the 
 glass. He had a confused sense of a clouded 
 interior with struggling shafts of flame 
 through it. He burst in the little window. 
 A rush of thick smoke struck him in the 
 eyes, filled his mouth. He drew back, 
 gasping. 
 
 " God, it will kill me," he cried. " What 
 is delaying her at all? Has she put her 
 hands to my money?" 
 
 With a new horror in his mind, he 
 struggled back to the window. As he did 
 so he heard, above the low boom in the 
 house, the sharp noise of the tin trunk being 
 drawn across the floor. He gave a little 
 triumphant cry. " Blessings on you, girl," 
 he cried. He clapped his thin hands, stag- 
 gering about in the smoke in a weird move- 
 ment that was a tragical parody of a dance 
 of delight. The tears were streaming down 
 his face. "Sara," he said, "you were 
 always the good daughter. There was never 
 one like you; for goodness and for bravery 
 
194 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 you were the best. Your mother in Heaven 
 is directing you this night. May every bless- 
 ing be showered upon you for you are the 
 one that will save my little store of money/* 
 
 A cry that was half a scream, half a moan, 
 broke from the house. He stood stupefied 
 for a while, then staggered to the window. 
 He saw a figure vaguely inside, then a hand 
 made a blind drive at the window. He was 
 alert in a moment. He knew the hand was 
 trying to push the notes to him through the 
 window. He raised his arm and made a 
 grab, but Ithe hand inside never reached 
 beyond the inner ledge of the window. It 
 scraped along the wail and vanished There 
 was a thud of a body falling in a dead fleshy 
 weight and then a sudden touch of light 
 made the whole piece jump to his gaze, vivid 
 as a horrible nightmare. He shrieked, 
 clawing the wall of the window with his 
 hands, his nails tearing the hot mortar from 
 the stones. 
 
 " Sara !" he cried. '* Give me the money. 
 What is wrong with you? Hell to your 
 soul, give out my money. Look at them 
 leaping upon the bed like devils. What has 
 come over you at all?** 
 
 He was still clawing the wall when foot- 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 195 
 
 steps came running to the house. He felt a 
 hand on his shoulder and, turning round, 
 saw Tom Nolan, his next neighbour. 
 
 ** James, what on God's earth has hap- 
 pened?'* 
 
 *' My place is in a blaze. I am destroyed, 
 Tom. The world will have pity for me." 
 ' Where is Sara?" 
 
 " She's within in the room, Tom. I was 
 striving to direct her. What way will I be 
 at all after this? I'll be destroyed forever." 
 
 Tom Nolan did not wait for any more. 
 He went through the door. The old man 
 limped after him, paused at .the porch, 
 passed it, mumbling, whining. 
 
 'Tom," he said, "wait forme. I'll be 
 with you now." He made little circles in 
 front of the porch, hobbling on his old 
 limbs, his hands pulling the streeling trou- 
 sers up upon them. But he never ventured 
 any farther. Tom Nolan staggered through 
 the porch, a white burden in his arms. 
 
 "James!" he shouted, "I found her 
 lying under the window." 
 
 The old man followed him as he brought 
 the girl beyond the range of the smoke and 
 heat, then suddenly fell upon the limp figure. 
 He took up one of the dangling arms, run- 
 
196 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 ning his quivering fingers along it until he 
 reached the hand. The hand was open and 
 empty. The old man dropped it with a low 
 wail. Tom Nolan left the inert figure of 
 the girl on the grass. She looked black and 
 terrible, some of her half burned nightgown 
 still smoking, in the light that was now 
 breaking over the eastern sky. The old man 
 pounced upon the other arm; it was black- 
 ened down from the elbow. 
 
 *' I'm afraid, James, she's burned," Tom 
 Nolan said. 
 
 But James Vasey, the Derelict, was not 
 listening. He turned up the scorched hand. 
 The fist was tightly closed* He endeav- 
 oured to open it, falling on his knees beside 
 the figure of the girl. 
 
 " Let out of it, you bitch !" the old man 
 shouted. He got his bony knuckles between 
 the fingers of the closed fist and screwed 
 them about, his eyes blazing, his gums be- 
 ginning to hammer together again, a dribble 
 falling from between his lips, his whole face 
 twitching as it leered over the helpless 
 figure. The neighbour who saw that sight 
 at the dawn was too stupefied to speak. 
 
 At last the fist was forced open. A little 
 crisp ashes, with no semblance to the ori- 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 197 
 
 ginal paper notes, lay in the palm. They 
 jumped up when the pressure upon them 
 was released. A vagrant wind blew them 
 from the girl's hand along the wet grass. 
 The Derelict knew, in spite of his delirium, 
 what had happened. He knew that there 
 were only two five pound notes in the tin 
 box, and he knew that they had been burned 
 while the girl endeavoured to pass them to 
 him through the window. His old frame 
 quivered, he moaned like one in mortal 
 pain, he rose from the ground beating his 
 hands together, the sweat streaming all over 
 his face. Then with a shout he fell on his 
 face on the ground, his hands blindly tear- 
 ing at the ashes of the lost treasure, his 
 furious drives burying it in the red clay of 
 the earth, the figure of the girl lying all the 
 time quietly in the shining grass. 
 
 Sara Vasey recovered, but went about for 
 the rest of her life with a right arm useless 
 from the elbow down. The Derelict, her 
 father, also recovered. Everything in the 
 house by the canal was lost. Tom Nolan 
 gave them all the shelter they needed until 
 they were able to re-arrange their manner of 
 life. The people, however, noted a great 
 
198 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 strangeness in the manner of Sara Vasey. 
 She was given to brooding, silence, sudden 
 and to her neighbours unaccountable 
 bursts of hysterical weeping and avoided 
 her father as much as possible. 
 
 When the affairs of the little farm and a 
 new cottage were set to rights she bought 
 her ticket back to America. She went sud- 
 denly, quietly, without any send-off or leave- 
 takiiig. The Derelict did not know she was 
 going. One morning when he wakened up 
 he found himself alone in the house. 
 
 The neighbours said Sara Vasey was an 
 unnatural daughter. 
 
 When Billy the Clown heard this story of 
 the Derelict in different words from the 
 Boss he had a vivid memory of the old 
 animal who had come prowling out of his 
 jungle, his mind troubled over the loss of his 
 goat. 
 
 'Who christened him the Derelict?" 
 Billy asked. 
 
 " Calcutta, '* the Boss replied. 
 
 Billy looked at the figure of Calcutta, black 
 and slender and sinister, against the pale 
 light of the sky. Billy walked up to him. 
 
 ** Shake,*' he said, putting out his hand. 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 199 
 
 Calcutta, a little bewildered, shook, then 
 his head swung round the funnel, his dull 
 eyes bent on Hike, and Billy noted the 
 tobacco spit which sang like a bullet in the 
 direction of the hunched driver. 
 
THE MAN WITH THE GIFT. 
 
 OR twenty-five years the Boss 
 had gone up and down the 
 worn cabin steps without a 
 worry His fists had grown 
 accustomed to the feel of 
 ropes, to the rolling up and down of 
 barrels, and the swinging of boxes, at the 
 loading and discharging of The Golden 
 Barque. The motion of his limbs had come 
 to be part of the ritual of the deck. He 
 exhaled an odour of tar. His feet had flat- 
 tened, his hands had rounded, his neck had 
 developed a curve, throwing his face for- 
 ward. His eyes were palely yellow, like the 
 water of the canal. His vision had become 
 concentrated, drilling through the landscape 
 like canals. His temperament was placid. 
 His emotions rose and fell as mechanically 
 as if they were regulated by invisible locks. 
 He was as tame as a duck. His name was 
 Martin Coughlan, and he was known, by 
 stray words that followed his speech like a 
 memory, to have come from the North. 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 201 
 
 That torch of democracy organisation 
 one day reached the backwash of existence. 
 It found by its strange devices, of all people. 
 Martin Coughlan. Up to that he had no 
 sense of responsibility for the wrongs of the 
 world, no brooding of the spirit in the pro- 
 blems of his day. His interests began at 
 one harbour and ended at another. The 
 things that he saw from the deck made up 
 his world. They were good, and he was 
 satisfied. 
 
 But then they came to him and told him 
 he had been elected on the Committee. He 
 beamed at the announcement, for he 
 grasped, though vaguely, that he was a man 
 chosen, one to whom honour was paying 
 her respects. He walked into the shed 
 where they held the Committee meetings 
 with his slow lurch, his mind a blank as to 
 the purpose of the assembly. He made no 
 inquiries. He sat down with the others and 
 looked around him. A man at a table read 
 something out of a book. Martin Coughlan 
 laughed, and felt the others staring at him. 
 
 A deep voice, with a note of admonition, 
 if not tragedy, called out ** Order/' Martin 
 Caughlan poked the ribs of a neighbour to 
 O 
 
202 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 show that he appreciated the humour of the 
 situation. 
 
 Then a man rose at the head of the table. 
 He was a spare man with drooping mous- 
 tachios, a penetrating eye, a voice that 
 sounded high and sharp in the shed. 
 
 Martin Coughlan stared at the speaker. 
 Something rare and unsuspected had 
 touched his life. He wondered where this 
 spare man had got all the words. They 
 came out in a steady flow. He was 
 obviously aiming at something, but what 
 it was Martin Coughlan did not know., and, 
 indeed, did not care. It was sufficient for 
 him that the words came on and on. He 
 had never heard any mortal before keeping 
 up such a sustained flood of speech. Martin 
 Coughlan leaned back, delight on his face. 
 
 Another man rose. He spoke even 
 tetter. He gesticulated with energy. The 
 others began to slap their limbs with their 
 Lands. Martin Coughlan slapped his 
 limbs, feeling he was privileged. He had 
 tegun to live. 
 
 A thick-set man followed, His voice 
 wakened echoes all over the place. His 
 eyes flashed around, seeking one face now, 
 another again. Suddenly the eyes fell on 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 203 
 
 Martin Coughlan; the man addressed him 
 as if he were appealing to an intelligence ! 
 He argued with him, made gestures at him, 
 deposited all his logic at his feet. 
 
 Martin Coughlan's blood began to heat. 
 He felt a tingle at the curve on the back of 
 his neck. He coughed to relieve the ten- 
 sion. Then the speaker's gaze wandered 
 to somebody else. 
 
 The talk went on for some hours. Men 
 grew excited. Several spoke at the same 
 time for pregnant minutes. Martin 
 Coughlan began to perspire. Once he 
 shouted, "Hear, hear*' because the words 
 had begun to sound familiar. 
 
 When the Committee meeting broke up 
 he went back to the boat, his cheeks flam- 
 ing, feeling that he had done it all himself. 
 He passed Hike on the way. The little 
 driver looked up at him with respect. The 
 dark-faced man was sitting on a box b}' 
 the stern. 
 
 "The meeting over?*' he asked. 
 
 "Yes," Martin Coughlan said. 
 
 His voice sounded hoarse. His throat 
 felt dry. He went down to the keg and 
 drank a mug of water. 
 
 Afterwards Martin Coughlan paced the 
 
204 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 deck with a new air. He became pre- 
 occupied. Once they saw him gesticulat- 
 ing at a bush on the bank. He took a new 
 tone to the lock-keepers. He was always 
 clearing his throat. 
 
 A few times at the meals they thought he 
 was about to make a speech. But some- 
 thing always overcame him. When they 
 sounded him as to the Committee proceed- 
 ings his face beamed. 
 
 "There was speech-making,** he would 
 say. 
 
 "What did they say?** 
 
 Martin Coughlan rose. He caught the 
 lapel of his coat; struck an attitude. An 
 inspired look came into his face. But no 
 words followed. Instead he took up a 
 bucket and went on deck. 
 
 "He's a great man for the Committee,*' 
 they said. "He won*t give the show 
 away.** 
 
 "Aye, man, but that fellow is knowing. 
 He could hold a Cabinet secret.** 
 
 One day the dark-faced man loaned a 
 paper at a village. 
 
 "They don't give the speeches,'* he said, 
 "but there is the name right enough 
 Martin Coughlan." 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 205 
 
 Martin Coughlan took the paper. His 
 eyes swam as he spelled out his name. He 
 pored over the sheet for long spells 
 throughout the rest of the evening. When 
 the men were turning in he said : "Boys, 
 but she's a brave wee paper." 
 
 He got a candle, and sat over it, spelling 
 everything out, including the advertise- 
 ments. Then he sat up, delight on 
 his face, the look in his eyes of a man who 
 knew he had achieved something. "Men," 
 he said, "I've overhauled her, beam and 
 aft, stem to stern " 
 
 But the only answer was a chorus of 
 heavy snores. He turned in with a 
 grumble. 
 
 There was another Committee meeting 
 soon after. The speeches fell on his head 
 like dew from the heavens. Language ! 
 Why, the world had never yet heard the 
 like. Moreover, he became conscious that 
 the other men were deferring to him in 
 their views. He sat there as solemn as a 
 judge, the greatest listener who had ever 
 arrived in the shed. The speakers felt that 
 they had at last got hold of an audience, a 
 man of appreciation. Now and then he 
 nodded his head in approval. It was worth 
 
206 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 a yard of debate. When lie shook his 
 head in disapproval it excited the speakers. 
 They went on and on, fighting, arguing, 
 playing for his opinion. But Martin 
 Coughlan held to his silent views with 
 wonderful pugnacity. He was not to be 
 cajoled. 
 
 "What were they at last night, 
 Martin?" one of the men asked afterwards. 
 "That," said Martin, after a pause, "is 
 a secret." 
 
 "He's too close-minded," they said. 
 "He keeps it all in for the Committee. It 
 must be something to hear him when the 
 cork is off." 
 
 The dark-faced man was fond of the 
 paper. He got it regularly in the village. 
 "Here we are," he said, with satisfaction. 
 "They give us the speeches this time. Now 
 we'll know what Martin Coughlan had to 
 say for himself." 
 
 But there was no speech from Ma f rtin 
 Coughlan. Everybody had said something 
 except the representative from The Golden 
 Barque. 
 
 The dark-faced man made a complaint. 
 
 "Don't mind the paper," Martin 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 207 
 
 Coughlan said. "She is no good. I knew 
 from the first she had sprung a leak." 
 
 But he felt that the men were dissatisfied. 
 He struck an attitude on the deck, and 
 said : "Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I 
 venture to think.'* He paused. "To my 
 mind," he added. There was another 
 pause. "I say, standing helre -to-night." 
 He looked vaguely over the landscape. "I 
 beg to propose." And then he took a little 
 run up and down the deck, rubbing his 
 hands with delight. 
 
 "He's too clever," one of the men said. 
 "He thinks to put us off by play-acting. It 
 won't do." 
 
 Before the proceedings of the next Com- 
 mittee meeting began, Martin Coughlan 
 took the secretary aside. The secretary 
 was a shrewd person. There was a motion 
 on the agenda to give him a salary. 
 
 "John," said Martin Coughlan, with 
 familiarity, "I want you to tell me how it 
 is done." 
 
 "How is what done?" 
 
 "The speeches, you know; the language, 
 the words, the talk they do have." 
 
 John was puzzled. Then a light broke 
 upon him. 
 
208 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 "Well," he said, "a man must have it in 
 him." 
 
 "Have what in him?" 
 
 John hesitated, thought, and said, "The 
 
 gift." 
 
 Martin Coughlan was crestfallen. He 
 felt there was something in life he had let 
 slip. 
 
 "Where would there be likelihood cf 
 getting the gift?" he asked at last. 
 
 "I don't know," the other replied. "It 
 comes from within." 
 
 "Oh, I see," Martin Coughlan said, more 
 cheerfully. Then he confided, "John, I 
 have it within in the inside of me. Lan- 
 guage, great language. But I can't get it 
 out." 
 
 "Have courage," the other said. "Take 
 your chance. Get up on your legs. Face 
 them. When you do that the words will 
 flow out of you." 
 
 "Do you think they will, John?" 
 
 "Sure." John was a man persuasive, 
 one who caried conviction, inspired hope 
 and drew salaries. 
 
 "Then there is that wee paper, John. 
 If I'd come out with the words, they would 
 be there, of course. They do be reading 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 209 
 
 her, looking out for what a man might 
 
 * t 
 say. 
 
 "Oh, that's it, is it, Martin?" John 
 asked, then patted the other on the back. 
 **That will be all right, old man. Leave 
 that to me. Vote straight on the salary 
 question, and the goods will be delivered 
 to you on the paper." 
 
 "Thanks, John; I will." 
 
 At a critical moment in the debate, 
 Martin Coughlan rose. He went over to 
 the table, rapped his knuckles upon it to 
 command attention, jerked the collar of his 
 coat about his neck. He struck the attitude 
 he had rehearsed aboard. It was re- 
 miniscent of various statues erected to the 
 memory of great orators. 
 
 He looked up and down the shed. A 
 hush fell upon the assembly. Men leaned 
 back to hear what the silent man, the 
 audience, the one man of reticence among 
 them, had to say at this crisis. 
 
 4 'Mr. Chairman and Mr. GerJtlemen," 
 Martin Coughlan began, blundering 
 through nervousness. 
 
 There was a laugh. Martin Coughlan 
 moistened his lips with his tongue, for they 
 were dry and inclined to stick. One of his 
 
210 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 knees struck against the other. Then he 
 had to clear a lump from his throat. 
 
 **John, our secretary,** he said at last, 
 "told me that if I stood up on me legs the 
 words would flow out from within the in- 
 side of me.** 
 
 He hesitated, looking about him in a 
 panic, a queer feeling of collapse in his 
 brain. He smiled a ghastly smile. 
 
 "Go on,** said the chairman. 
 
 "He said,** Martin Coughlan resumed, 
 his voice falling to an echo, "that if I faced 
 you they would flow out of me. But by 
 heavens they won*t.** He sat down. 
 There was a burst of laughter and ap- 
 plause. 
 
 The men stared at Martin Coughlan. 
 There was that mixture of scepticism, en- 
 joyment, malicious delight, in their glances 
 that fasten upon all fallen gods. They 
 were taking their fun out of an exposure, 
 the showing up of an emptiness that wore a 
 mask, the betrayal of that discretion which 
 is only a dullness. 
 
 Martin Coughlan was too heated, too full 
 of confusion, to notice their crude levity. 
 By the time he had recovered himself they 
 had dropped him. They no longer de- 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 211 
 
 f erred to him. He was no longer appealed 
 to as an intelligence. He drew back in- 
 stinctively to the shadows, and he sat there 
 until the meeting broke up. 
 
 When he reached his boat the men 
 greeted him with deference. He muttered 
 something and went down to the cabin. 
 He stayed there for the rest of the night. 
 
 "The Committee/* he said to the dark- 
 faced man next day, "is a .rotten Com-, 
 mittee." 
 
 "I thought that all along," the other re- 
 plied. "But I didn't like to say it, seeing 
 you were a great one on it." 
 
 "And an ignorant Committee," Martin 
 Coughlan added. 
 
 "It is that." 
 
 But by the end of the week the paper was 
 out. The dark-faced man, after reading it, 
 looked up at Martin Coughlan and then 
 went up to him. 
 
 "Look here, Boss," he said, putting out 
 his hand, "shake hands." 
 
 They shook hands, Martin Coughlan ner- 
 vously. 
 
 "It was a great speech," the dark-faced 
 man said. "You're wasting your time on 
 this boat/ 
 
212 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 Martin Coughlan blushed; his gaze was 
 uncertain. The other left him the paper. 
 
 He sat on a barrel and opened the sheet. 
 There was his name in print again ! He 
 spelled it out slowly. "Mr. Martin Cough- 
 Ian, who was received with loud applause, 
 
 said ,'' and there followed over a 
 
 column of type, of words, of language, of a 
 speech. He read it over with a thumping 
 heart. It was dotted with "hear, hear," 
 "applause," and **cheers." When he 
 finished he stood up and walked the deck, 
 his thick limbs outspread, his flat feet solid 
 on the planks, his chest out. 
 
 "Is it a good report, Boss?" they asked. 
 "It is very fair, very fair, men," he said, 
 with toleration. 
 
 "Man, but I'd like to hear it coming out." 
 "No doubt you would." 
 "We'll hear you some time." 
 "You will, why not, to be sure." 
 He ran his fingers through his hair. He 
 drilled spaces, vague spaces, through the 
 familiar landscape with his gaze. His 
 blood rose gradually, eventually flooding 
 his face until it grew purple in colour, rising 
 as steadily as if somebody had lifted the 
 sluice of a flood-gate. 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 213 
 
 "God, the language of it," he repeated to 
 himself over and over again throughout the 
 day. 
 
 For the first time in his life, he refused to 
 go into The Haven when they had made 
 'the journey across the bog. Instead he 
 went into the cabin, and alone spelt the 
 speech over and over again. 
 
 Gradually his mind got over the habit of 
 ithinking of it as something apart, some- 
 thing outside his own life. He no longer 
 said, "God, the language of it." Instead 
 he muttered, "Great language: splendid 
 talk ; just the thing. That's it. That's what 
 I'd say. That's the very word I'd say. I 
 declare I think it was the word I said. It 
 was going through my head at the time. I 
 must have said that very word. If I did not, 
 I intended it. But I forget what I said. 
 Maybe I said it. To be sure I said it. Of 
 course I said it. Why not ? The very word ; 
 no, but the very words. If I said one word I 
 must have said another. I could not help 
 following up one word with another. \Vh?J: 
 was to stop me? Nothing. I went on that 
 very way. One word borrowed another. 
 What else could it do. To be sure I said it. 
 In fact, it's all what I said, word for word.'* 
 
214 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 He went on persuading himself until the 
 others came back from The Haven. 
 
 He went up to the dark-faced man. 
 
 44 I tell you what it is, it's a very fine report ; 
 a very good report ; a tip-top report. Word 
 for word there it is, in black and in white." 
 He struck one fist in the other. 
 
 4 'Boss/* the other said, something almost 
 approaching reverence in his long, narrow 
 face, ** you're a great one, a gifted one. For 
 to turn round and say the like of what you 
 said, a man must have the gift." 
 
 4 'To be sure he must," Martin Coughlan 
 agreed taking some steps along by the cargo 
 covered with great oil-cloths. **I told John, 
 the secretary, I had it within in the inside of 
 me. And what had I within in the inside of 
 me, I ask you, men ? The gift ! " 
 
 4 'Well, thank God we'll all hear you 
 soon," the dark-faced man said. 4 There's 
 a public meeting coming on." 
 
 Martin Coughlan drew a long breath. 
 4 You don't tell me so?" 
 
 44 I do. We had word of it in The Haven. 
 There is to be speech-making, and great 
 speech-making. We'll expect you that day 
 to show the great gift that's in you." 
 
 4 You will, to be sure," Martin Coughlan 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 215 
 
 said, but without enthusiasm. He ran his 
 fingers through his hair. Then he walked 
 away from the others, standing at the prow 
 of the boat, his sturdy figure solid against 
 the water. 
 
 *' A great one he is for the gab," the 
 grotesque-looking man said irreverently. 
 " Look at the two powerful limbs he has 
 holding him up from the ground/* 
 
 After that Martin Coughlan grew very 
 subdued, silent, avoiding the topic of the 
 coming meeting. The men said he was 
 bottling himself up for the big occasion. 
 They noted that he still pored over the 
 paper that contained his speech. He would 
 lie back in his bunk at night, a candle fixed 
 by his sidie, drilling through the speech. 
 Once or twice the men heard him muttering 
 to himself like a boy grappling with a lesson. 
 In these days it was noted that some of the 
 colour left his face. A certain pensiveness 
 crept into his expression. 
 
 " Boss," one of the men asked him, ** are 
 you in pain?" 
 
 "I am," Martin Coughlan answered, 
 and walked sadly away. 
 
 Once the men wakened to hear him pacing 
 the deck in the middle of the night. The 
 
216 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 dark-faced man went up the ladder and 
 popped his vignette over the hold. He came 
 back after a time. 
 
 " He's on deck in his shirt, " he said. 
 * Trie moon is shining on him, his legs are 
 like two white pillars under the tiller. He 
 has that paper with him. I heard him giv- 
 ing out a few words. He was losing them, 
 trying to catch them up again, stumbling 
 and staggering over them like a man that 
 would be raving. Then he would run his 
 hands through his hair, and the wind blow- 
 ing the shirt about the white pillars." 
 
 "Be the powers/* said the grotesque man, 
 turning over in his bunk, ** it's a chilly sort 
 of a night, and I'm glad I have not the gift." 
 
 As the day of the meeting approached, 
 and it became more and more a topic of 
 conversation, Martin Coughlan's depression 
 increased. Something seemed to weigh 
 him down. He took the dark-faced man 
 aside. 
 
 4 You know this meeting is got up by the 
 Committee?" he said. 
 
 "I do." 
 
 ** And you can call to mind what I told 
 you of that Committee a long while ago. I 
 said it was a rotten Committee." 
 
THE GOLDEN BARQUE 217 
 
 * You did. I remember that." 
 
 "And I said it was an ignorant Com- 
 mittee/' 
 
 * You did, right enough." 
 
 * You agreed with me. We were at one 
 as regards this Committee. Very well, I'm 
 not going to give that Committee the satis- 
 faction of making a speech for them." 
 
 " Now, that would be a pity and you 
 having the gift." 
 
 ' There you are ! That's what makes me 
 do it. How can a man of gift speak for a 
 rotten, ignorant Committee?" 
 
 To the dark-faced man this was a poser. 
 Perhaps in that moment of expediency, of 
 pressure, Martin Coughlan showed that he 
 had, after all, some talent for politics. 
 
 He walked down the deck with a stride. 
 '* Never!" he exclaimed with decision, 
 waving his arms. 
 
 The meeting came off without Martin 
 Coughlan. He did not even attend. He 
 
 sent word ' ' to strike his name off the 
 Committee. 
 
 * We will, indeed," one of the men said. 
 " Little good any such tame ducks is to 
 anyone." 
 
 The men from The Golden Barque were 
 P 
 
218 THE GOLDEN BARQUE 
 
 disappointed that Martin Coughlan did not 
 pour forth his eloquence at the assembly. 
 They somehow regarded him as in some 
 way wronged. But he became more cheer- 
 ful himself. He began to whistle again as 
 he moved around the boat. His flat feet 
 became more than ever a part of the ritual 
 of the deck. The curve at the back of his 
 neck threw out his head another degree. 
 His eyes became more palely yellow. They 
 went on digging imaginary canals in the 
 landscape. He was as happy as a duck in 
 the water. Once the dark-faced man 
 asked : ** Boss, what became of the paper 
 with your speech in it?" 
 
 "Oh, yon rag!" Martin Coughlan made 
 answer. " I rolled her up in a stone, and 
 she's at the bottom a wheen of weeks.* 1 
 
YB 6816 
 
 47053^ 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY