Chapter 5

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_ CHAPTER V

The southern road was the shorter, but he wanted to see Moran and to hear when he proposed to begin to roof the abbey. Father Oliver thought, moreover, that he would like to see the abbey for a last time in its green mantle of centuries. The distance was much the same--a couple of miles shorter by the southern road, no doubt, but what are a couple of miles to an old roadster? Moreover, the horse would rest in Jimmy Maguire's stable whilst he and Moran rambled about the ruin. An hour's rest would compensate the horse for the two extra miles.

He tapped the glass; there was no danger of rain. For thirty days there had been no change--only a few showers, just enough to keep the country going; and he fell asleep thinking of the drive round the lake from Garranard to Tinnick in the sunlight and from Tinnick to Garranard in the moonlight.

He was out of bed an hour before his usual time, calling to Catherine for hot water. His shaving, always disagreeable, sometimes painful, was a joyous little labour on this day. Stropping his razor, he sang from sheer joy of living. Catherine had never seen him spring on the car with so light a step. And away went the old gray pulling at the bridle, little thinking of the twenty-five Irish miles that lay before him.

The day was the same as yesterday, the meadows drying up for want of rain; and there was a thirsty chirruping of small birds in the hedgerows. Everywhere he saw rooks gaping on the low walls that divided the fields. The farmers were complaining; but they were always complaining--everyone was complaining. He had complained of the dilatoriness of the Board of Works, and now for the first time in his life he sympathized a little with the Board. If it had built the bridge he would not be enjoying this long drive; it would be built by-and-by; he couldn't feel as if he wished to be robbed of one half-hour of the long day in front of him; and he liked to think it would not end for him till nine o'clock.

'These summer days are endless,' he said.

After passing the strait the lake widened out. On the side the priest was driving the shore was empty and barren. On the other side there were pleasant woods and interspaces and castles. Castle Carra appeared, a great ivy-grown ruin showing among thorn-bushes and ash-trees, at the end of a headland. In bygone times the castle must have extended to the water's edge, for on every side fragments of arches and old walls were discovered hidden away in the thickets. Father Oliver knew the headland well and every part of the old fortress. Many a time he had climbed up the bare wall of the banqueting-hall to where a breach revealed a secret staircase built between the walls, and followed the staircase to a long straight passage, and down another staircase, in the hope of finding matchlock pistols. Many a time he had wandered in the dungeons, and listened to old stories of oubliettes.

The moat which once cut the neck of land was now dry and overgrown; the gateway remained, but it was sinking--the earth claimed it. There were the ruins of a great house a little way inland, to which no doubt the descendants of the chieftain retired on the decline of brigandage; and the rough hunting life of its semi-chieftains was figured by the gigantic stone fox on a pillar in the middle of the courtyard and the great hounds on either side of the gateway.

Castle Carra must have been the strongest castle in the district of Tyrawley, and it was built maybe by the Welsh who invaded Ireland in the thirteenth century, perhaps by William Barrett himself, who built certainl y the castle on the island opposite to Father Oliver's house.

William Fion (i.e., the Fair) Barrett landed somewhere on the west coast, and no doubt came up through the great gaps between Slieve Cairn and Slieve Louan--it was not likely that he la nded on the east coast; he could hardly have marched his horde across Ireland--and Father Oliver imagined the Welshmen standing on the very hill on which his house now stood, and Fion telling his followers to build a castle on each island. Patsy Murphy, w ho knew more about the history of the country than anybody, thought that Castle Carra was of later date, and spoke of the Stantons, a fierce tribe. Over yonder was the famous causeway, and the gross tragedy that was enacted there he yesterday heard from the wood-cutter, William's party of Welshmen were followed by other Welshmen--the Cusacks, the Petits, and the Brownes; and these in time fell out with the Barretts, and a great battle fought, the Battle of Moyne, in 1281, in which William Barrett was killed. But in spite of their defeat, the Barretts held the upper hand of the country for many a long year, and the priest began to smile, thinking of the odd story the old woodman had told him about the Barretts' steward, Sgnorach bhuid bhearrtha, 'saving your reverence's presence,' the old man said, and, unable to translate the words into English fit for the priest's ears, he explained that they meant a glutton and a lewd fellow.

The Barretts sent Sgnorach bhuid bhearrtha to collect rents from the Lynotts, another group of Welshmen, but the Lynotts killed him and threw his body into a well, called ever afterwards Tobar na Sgornaighe (the Well of the Glutton), near the townland of Moygawnagh, Barony of Tyrawley. To avenge the murder of their steward, the Barretts assembled an armed force, and, having defeated the Lynotts and captured many of them, they offered their prisoners two forms of mutilation: they were either to be blinded or castrated. After taking counsel with their wise men, the Lynotts chose blindness; for blind men could have sons, and these would doubtless one day revenge the humiliation that was being passed upon them. A horrible story it was, for when their eyes were thrust out with needles they were led to a causeway, and those who crossed the stepping-stones without stumbling were taken back; and the priest thought of the assembled horde laughing as the poor blind men fell into the water.

The story rambled on, the Lynotts plotting how they could be revenged on the Barretts, telling lamely but telling how the Lynotts, in the course of generations, came into their revenge. 'A badly told story,' said the priest, 'with one good incident in it,' and, instead of trying to remember how victory came to the Lynotts, Father Oli ver's eyes strayed over the landscape, taking pleasure in the play of light along sides and crests of the hills.

The road followed the shore of the lake, sometimes turning inland to avoid a hill or a bit of bog, but returning back again to the shore, finding its way through the fields, if they could be called fields--a little grass and some hazel-bushes growing here and there between the rocks. Under a rocky headland, lying within embaying shores, was Church Island, some seven or eight acres, a handsome wooded island, the largest in the lake, with the ruins of a church hidden among the tall trees, only an arch of it remaining, but the paved path leading from the church to the hermit's cell could be followed. The hermit who used this paved path fourteen hundred years ago was a poet; and Father Oliver knew that Marban loved 'the shieling that no one knew save his God, the ash-tree on the hither side, the hazel-bush beyond it, its lintel of honeysuckle, the wood shedding its mast upon fat swine;' and on this sweet day he found it pleasanter to think of Ireland's hermits than of Ireland's savage chieftains always at war, striving against each other along the shores of this lake, and from island to island.

His thoughts lingered in the seventh and eighth centuries, when the arts were fostered in monasteries--the arts of gold-work and illuminated missals--'Ireland's halcyon days,' he said; a deep peace brooded, and under the guidance of the monks Ireland was the centre of learning when England was in barbarism. The first renaissance was the Irish, centuries before a gleam showed in Italy or in France. But in the middle of the eighth century the Danes arrived to pillage the country, and no sooner were they driven out than the English came to continue the work of destruction, and never since has it ceased.' Father Oliver fell to thinking if God were reserving the bright destiny for Ireland which he withheld a thousand years ago, and looked out for the abbey that Roderick, King of Connaught, built in the twelfth century.

It stood on a knoll, and in the distance, almost hidden in bulrushes, was the last arm of the lake. 'How admirable! how admirable!' he said. Kilronan Abbey seemed to bid him remember the things that he could never forget; and, touched by the beauty of the legended ruins, his doubts return ed to him regarding the right of the present to lay hands on these great wrecks of Ireland's past. He was no longer sure that he did not side with the Archbishop, who was against the restoration--for entirely insufficient reasons, it was true. 'Put a roof,' Father Oliver said, 'on the abbey, and it will look like any other church, and another link will be broken. "Which is the better--a great memory or some trifling comfort?"' A few moments after the car turned the corner and he caught sight of Father Moran, 'out for his morning's walk,' he said; and he compared Moran's walk up and down the highroad with his own rambles along the lake shores and through the pleasant woods of Carnecun.

For seven years Father Oliver had walked up and down that road, for there was nowhere else for him to walk; he walked that road till he hated it, but he did not think that he had suffered from the loneliness of the parish as much as Moran. He had been happier than Moran in Bridget Clery's cottage--a great idea enabled him to forget every discomfort; and 'we are never lonely as long as our idea is with us,' he ejaculated. 'But Moran is a plain man, without ideas, enthusiasms, or exaltations. He does riot care for reading, or for a flower garden, only for drink. Drink gives him dreams, and man must dream,' he said.

He knew that his curate was pledged to cure himself, and believed he was succeeding; but, all the same, it was terrible to think that the temptation might overpower him at any moment, and that he might st agger helpless through the village--a very shocking example to everybody.

The people were prone enough in that direction, and for a priest to give scandal instead of setting a good example was about as bad as anything that could happen in the parish. But what was he to do? There was no hard-and-fast rule about anything, and Father Oliver felt that Moran must have his chance.

'I was beginning to think we were never going to see you again;' and Father Moran held out a long, hard hand to Father Oliver. 'You'll put up your horse? Christy, will you take his reverence's horse? You'll stay and have some dinner with me?'

'I can't stay more than half an hour. I'm on my way to Tinnick; I've business with my sister, and it will take me some time.'

'You have plenty of time.'

'No, I haven't? I ought to have taken the other road; I'm late as it is.'

'But you will come into the house, if only for a few minutes.'

Father Oliver had taught Bridget Clery cleanliness; at least, he had persuaded her to keep the f owls out of the kitchen, and he had put a paling in front of the house and made a little garden--an unassuming one, it is true, but a pleasant spot of colour in the summer-time--and he wondered how it was that Father Moran was not ashamed of its neglected state, nor of the widow's kitchen. These things were, after all, immaterial. What was important was that he should find no faintest trace of whisky in Moran's room. It was a great relief to him not to notice any, and no doubt that was why Moran insisted on bringing him into the house. The specifications were a pretext. He had to glance at them, however.

'No doubt if the abbey is to be roofed at all the best roof is the one you propose.'

'Then you side with the Archbishop?'

'Perhaps I do in a way, but for different reasons. I know very well that the people won't kneel in the rain. Is it really true that he opposes the roofing of the abbey on account of the legend? I have heard the legend, but there are many variants. Let's go to the abbey and you'll tell the story on the way.'

'You see, he'll only allow a portion of the abbey to be roofed.'

'You don't mean that he is so senile and superstitious as that? Then the reason of his opposition really is that he believes his death to be implicit in the roofing of Kilronan.'

'Yes; he thinks that;' and the priests turned out of the main road.

'How beautiful it looks!' and Father Oliver stopped to admire.

The abbey stood on one of the lower slopes, on a knoll overlooking rich water-meadows, formerly abbatial lands.

'The legend says that the abbey shall be roofed when a De Stanton is Abbot, and the McEvillys were originally De Stantons; they changed their name in the fifteenth century on account of a violation of sanctuary committed by them. A roof shall be put on those walls, the legend says, when a De Stanton is again Abbot of Kilronan, and the Abbot shall be slain on the highroad.'

'And to save himself from a violent death, he will only allow you to roof a part of the abbey. Now, what reason does he give for such an extraordinary decision?'

'Are Bishops ever expected to have reasons?'

The priests laughed, and Father Oliver said: 'We might appeal to Rome.'

'A lot of good that would do us. Haven't we all heard the Archbishop say that any of his priests who appeals to Rome against him will get the worst of it?'

'I wonder that he dares to defy popular opinion in this way.'

'What popular opinion is there to defy? Wasn't Patsy Donovan saying to me only yesterday that the Archbishop was a brave man to be letting any roof at all on the abbey? And Patsy is the best-educated man in this part of the country.'

'People will believe anything.'

'Yes, indeed.'

And the priests stopped at the grave of Seaghan na Soggarth, or 'John of the Priests,' and Father Oliver told Father Moran how a young priest, who had lost his way in the mountains, had fallen in with Seaghan na Soggarth. Seaghan offered to put him into the right road, but instead of doing so he led him to his house, and closed the door on him, and left him there tied hand and foot. Seaghan's sister, who still clung to religion, loosed the priest, and he fled, passing Seaghan, who was on his way to fetch the soldiers. Seaghan followed after, and on they went like hare and hound till they got to the abbey. There the priest, who could run no further, turned on his foe, and they fought until the priest got hold of Seaghan's knife and killed him with it.

'But you know the story. Why am I telling it to you?'

'I only know that the priest killed Seaghan. Is there any more of it?'

'Yes, there is more.'

And Father Oliver went on to tell it, though he did not feel that Father Moran would be interested in the legend; he would not believe that it had been prophesied that an ash-tree should grow out of the buried head, and that one of the branches should take root and pierce Seaghan's heart. And he was right in suspecting his curate's lack of sympathy. Father Moran at once objected that the ash-tree had not yet sent down a branch to pierce the priest-killer's heart.

'Not yet; but this branch nearly touches the ground, and there's no saying that it won't take root in a few years.'

'But his heart is there no longer.'

'Well, no,' said Father Oliver, 'it isn't; but if one is to argue that way, no one would listen to a story at all.'

Father Moran held his peace for a little while, and then he began talking about the penal times, telling how religion in Ireland was another form of love of country, and that, if Catholics were intolerant to every form of heresy, it was because they instinctively felt that the questioning of any dogma would mean some slight subsidence from the idea of nationality that held the people together. Like the ancient Jews, the Irish believed that the faith of their forefathers could bring them into their ultimate inheritance; this was why a proselytizer was hated so intensely.

'More opinions,' Father Oliver said to himself. 'I wonder he can't admire that ash-tree, and be interested in the story, which is quaint and interesting, without trying to draw an historical parallel between the Irish and the Jews. Anyhow, thinking is better than drinking,' and he jumped on his car. The last thing he heard was Moran's voice saying, 'He who betrays his religion betrays his country.'

'Confound the fellow, bothering me with his preaching on this fine summer's day! Much better if he did what he was told, and made up his mind to put the small green slates on the abbey, and not those coarse blue things which will make the abbey look like a common barn.'

Then, shading his eyes with his hand, he peered through the sun haze, following the shapes of the fields. The corn was six inches high, and the potatoes were coming into blossom. True, there had been a scarcity of water, but they had had a good summer, thanks be to God, and he thought he had never seen the country looking so beautiful. And he loved this country, this poor Western plain with shapely mountains enclosing the horizon. Ponies were feeding between the whins, and they raised their shaggy heads to watch the car passing. In the distance cattle were grazing, whisking the flies away. How beautiful was everything--the white clouds hanging in the blue sky, and the trees! There were some trees, but not many--only a few pines. He caught glimpses of the lake through the stems; tears rose to his eyes, and he attributed his happiness to his native land and to the thought that he was living in it. Only a few days ago he wished to leave it--no, not for ever, but for a time; and as his old car jogged through the ruts he wondered how it was that he had ever wished to leave Ireland, even for a single minute.

'Now, Christy, which do you reckon to be the shorter road?'

'The shorter road, your reverence, is the Joycetown road, but I doubt if we can get the car through it.'

'How is that?'

And the boy answered that since the Big House had been burnt the road hadn't been kept in repair.

'But,' said Father Oliver, 'the Big House was burnt seventy years ago.'

'Well, your reverence, you see, it was a good road then, but the last time I heard of a car going that way was last February.'

'And if a car got through in February, why can't we get through on the first of June?'

'Well, your reverence, there was the storm, and I do be hearing that the trees that fell across the road then haven't been removed yet.'

'I think we might try the road, for all that, for though if we have to walk the greater part of it, there will be a saving in the end.'

'That's true, your reverence, if we can get the car through; but if we can't we may have to come all the way back again.'

'Well, Christy, we'll have to risk that. Now, will you be turning the horse up the road? And I'll stop at the Big House--I've never been inside it. I'd like to see what it is like.'

Joycetown House was the last link between the present time and the past. In the beginning of the century a duellist lived there; the terror of the countryside he, for he was never known to miss his man. For the slightest offence, real or imaginary, he sent seconds demanding redress. No more than his ancestors, who had doubtless lived on the islands, in Castle Island and Castle Hag, could he live without fighting. But when he completed his round dozen, a priest said, 'If we don't put a stop to his fighting, there won't be a gentleman left in the country,' and wrote to him to that effect.

The story runs how Joyce, knowing the feeling of the country was against him, tried to keep the peace. But the blood fever came on him again, and he called out his nearest neighbour, Browne of the Neale, the only friend he had in the world. Browne lived at Neale House, just over the border, in County Galway, so the gentlemen arranged to fight in a certain field near the mearing. It was Browne of Neale who was the first to arrive. Joyce, having to come a dozen miles, was a few minutes late. As soon as his gig was seen, the people, who were in hiding, came out, and they put themselves between him and Browne, telling him up to his face there was to be no fighting that day! And the priest, who was at the head of them, said the same; but Joyce, who knew his countrymen, paid no heed, but stood up in the gig, and, looking round him, said, 'Now, boys, which is it to be? The Mayo cock or the Galway cock?' No sooner did he speak these words than they began to cheer him, and in spite of all the priest could say they carried him into the field in which he shot Browne of the Neale.

'A queer people, the queerest in the world,' Father Oliver thought, as he pulled a thorn-bush out of the doorway and stood looking round. There were some rough chimney-pieces high up in the grass-grown walls, but beyond these really nothing to be seen, and he wandered out seeking traces of terraces along the hillside.

On meeting a countryman out with his dogs he tried to inquire about the state of the road.

'I wouldn't be saying, your reverence, that you mightn't get the car through by keeping close to the wall; but Christy mustn't let the horse out of a walk.'

The countryman said he would go a piece of the road with them, and tell Christy the spots he'd have to look out for.

'But your work?'

'There's no work doing now to speak of, your reverence.'

The three of them together just managed to remove a fallen tree, which seemed the most serious obstacle, and the countryman said once they were over the top of the hill they would be all right; the road wasn't so bad after that.

Half a mile further on Father Oliver found himself in sight of the main road, and of the cottage that his sister Mary had lived in before she joined Eliza in the convent.

To have persuaded Mary to take this step proved Eliza's superiority more completely than anything else she had done, so Father Oliver often said, adding that he didn't know what mightn't have happened to poor Mary if she had remained in the world. For her life up to the time she entered the convent was little else than a series of failures. She was a shop-assistant, but standing behind the counter gave her varicose veins; and she went to Dublin as nursery-governess. Father Oliver had heard of musical studies: she used to play the guitar. But the instrument was not popular in Dublin, so she gave it up, and returned to Tinnick with the intention of starting a rabbit and poultry farm. Who put this idea into her head was her secret, and when he received Eliza's letter telling him of this last experiment, he remembered throwing up his hands. Of course, it could only end in failure, in a loss of money; and when he read that she was going to take the pretty cottage on the road to Tinnick, he had become suddenly sad.

'Why should she have selected that cottage, the only pretty one in the county? Wouldn't any other do just as well for her foolish experiment?' _

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