one day passed, and then another, and the evening of the third day drew near—yet brought no returning bernard. it is true that on the second day a telegram—the first jerry had ever received in his life—came bearing the date of cashel, and containing only the unsigned injunction:
“don’t be afraid.”
it is all very well to say this, but jerry and linsky read over the brief message many scores of times that day, and still felt themselves very much afraid.
muirisc was stirred by unwonted excitement. in all its history, the village had never resented anything else quite so much as the establishment of a police barrack in its principal street, a dozen years before. the inhabitants had long since grown accustomed to the sight of the sergeant and his four men lounging about the place, and had even admitted them to a kind of conditional friendship, but, none the less, their presence had continued to present itself as an affront to muirisc. from one year’s end to another, no suspicion of crime had darkened the peaceful fame of the hamlet. they had heard vague stories of grim and violent deeds in other parts of the south and west, as the failure of the potatoes and the greed of the landlords conspired together to drive the peasantry into revolt, but in muirisc, though she had had her evictions and knew what it was to be hungry, it had occurred to no one to so much as break a window.
yet now, all at once, here were fresh constables brought in from bantry, with an inspector at their head, and the amazed villagers saw these newcomers, with rifles slung over their short capes, and little round caps cocked to one side on their close-cropped heads, ransacking every nook and cranny of the ancient town in quest of some mysterious thing, the while others spread their search over the ragged rocks and moorland roundabout. and then the astounding report flew from mouth to mouth that father jago had read in a dublin paper that o’daly was believed to have been murdered.
sure enough, now that they had thought of it, o’daly had not been seen for two or three days, but until this strange story came from without, no one had given this a thought. he was often away, for days together, on mining and other business, but it was said now that his wife, whom muirisc still thought of as mrs. fergus, had given the alarm, on the ground that if her husband had been going away over night, he would have told her. there was less liking for this lady than ever, when this report started on its rounds.
three or four of the wretched, unwashed and half-fed creatures, who had fled from o’daly’s evictions to the shelter of the furze-clad ditches outside, had been brought in and sharply questioned at the barracks, on this third day, but of what they had said the villagers knew nothing. and, now, toward evening, the excited groups of gossiping neighbors at the corners saw jerry higgins himself, with flushed face and apprehensive eye, being led past with his shambling cousin toward constabulary headquarters by a squad of armed policemen. close upon the heels of this amazing spectacle came the rumor—whence started, who could tell?—that jerry had during the day received a telegram clearly implicating him in the crime, at this, muirisc groaned aloud.
“’tis wid you alone i want to spake,” said kate, bluntly, to the mother superior.
the april twilight was deepening the shadows in the corners of the convent’s reception hall, and mellowing into a uniformity of ugliness the faces of the four misses o’daly who sat on the long bench before the fireless hearth. these young women were strangers to muirisc, and had but yesterday arrived from their country homes in kerry or the macroom district to enter the convent of which their remote relation was patron. they were plain, small-farmers’ daughters, with flat faces, high cheek-bones and red hands. they had risen in clumsy humility when kate entered the room, staring in admiration at her beauty, and even more at her hat; they had silently seated themselves again at a sign from the mother superior, still staring in round-eyed wonder at this novel kind of young woman; and they clung now stolidly to their bench, in the face of kate’s remark. perhaps they did not comprehend it, but they understood and obeyed the almost contemptuous gesture by which the aged nun bade them leave the room.
“what is it thin, dubhdeasa?” asked mother agnes, with affectionate gravity, seating herself as she spoke. the burden of eighty years rested lightly upon the lean figure and thin, wax-like face of the nun. only a close glance would have revealed the fine net-work of wrinkles covering this pallid skin, and her shrewd observant eyes flashed still with the keenness of youth. “tell me, what is it?”
“i’ve a broken heart in me, that’s all!” said the girl.
she had walked to one of the two narrow little windows, and stood looking out, yet seeing nothing for the mist of tears that might not be kept down. only the affectation of defiance preserved her voice from breaking.
“here there will be rest and p’ace of mind,” intoned the other. “’t is only a day more, katie, and thin ye’ll be wan of us, wid all the worriments and throubles of the world lagues behind ye.”
the girl shook her head with vehemence and paced the stone floor restlessly.
“’t is i who’ll be opening the dure to ’em and bringing ’em all in here, instead. no fear, mother agnes, they’ll folly me wherever i go.”
the other smiled gently, and shook her vailed head in turn.
“’t is little a child like you drames of the rale throubles of me,” she murmured. “whin ye’re older, ye’ll bless the good day that gave ye this holy refuge, and saved ye from thim all. oh, katie, darlin’, when i see you standing be me side in your habit—’t is mesilf had it made be the miss maguires in skibbereen, the same that sews the vestmints for the bishop himself—i can lay me down, and say me nunc dimittis wid a thankful heart!”
kate sighed deeply and turned away. it was the trusting sweetness of affection with which old mother agnes had enveloped her ever since the promise to take vows had been wrung from her reluctant tongue that rose most effectually always to restrain her from reconsidering that promise. it was clear enough that the venerable o’mahony nuns found in the speedy prospect of her joining them the one great controlling joy of their lives. thinking upon this now, it was natural enough for her to say:
“can thim o’daly girls rade and write, i wonder?”
“oh, they’ve had schooling, all of them. ’t is not what you had here, be anny manes, but ’t will do.”
“just think, mother agnes,” kate burst forth, “what it ‘ll be like to be shut with such craytures as thim afther—afther you l’ave us!”
“they’re very humble,” said the nun, hesitatingly. “’t is more of that same spirit i’d fain be seeing in yourself, katie! and in that they’ve small enough resimblance to cormac o’daly, who’s raked ’em up from the highways and byways to make their profession here. and oh—tell me now—old ellen that brings the milk mintioned to sister blanaid that o’daly was gone somewhere, and that there was talk about it.”
“talk, is it!” exclaimed kate, whose introspective mood had driven this subject from her mind, but who now spoke with eagerness. “that’s the word for it, ‘talk.’ ’t is me mother, for pure want of something to say, that putt the notion into sergeant o’flaherty’s thick skull, and, w’u’d ye belave it, they’ve brought more poliss to the town, and they’re worriting the loives out of the people wid questions and suspicions. i’m told they’ve even gone out to the bog and arrested some of thim poor wretches of o’driscolls that cormac putt out of their cottages last winter. the idea of it!”
“where there’s so much smoke there’s some bit of fire,” said the older woman. “where is o’daly?” the girl shrugged her shoulders.
“’t is not my affair!” she said, curtly. “i know where he’d be, if i’d my will.”
“katie,” chanted the nun, in tender reproof, “what spirit d’ye call that for a woman who’s within four-an’-twinty hours of making her profession! pray for yourself, child, that these worldly feelings may be taken from ye!”
“mother agnes,” said the girl, “if i’m to pretind to love cormac o’daly, thin, wance for all, ’t is no use!”
“we’re bidden to love all thim that despite—” the nun broke off her quotation abruptly. a low wailing sound from the bowels of the earth beneath them rose through the flags of the floor, and filled the chamber with a wierd and ghostly dying away echo. mother agnes sprang to her feet.
“’t is the hostage again!” she cried. “sister ellen vowed to me she heard him through the night. did you hear him just now?”
“i heard it,” said kate, simply.
the mother superior, upon reflection, seated herself again.
“’t is a strange business,” she said, at last. her shrewd eyes, wandering in a meditative gaze about the chamber, avoided katie’s face. “’t is twelve years since last we heard him,” she mused aloud, “and that was the night of the storm. ’t is a sign of misfortune to hear him, they say—and the blowing down of the walls that toime was taken be us to fulfill that same. but sure, within the week, the o’mahoney had gone on his thravels, and pious cormac o’daly had taken his place, and the convint prospered more than ever. at laste that was no misfortune.”
“hark to me, mother agnes,” said kate, with emphasis. “you never used to favor the o’mahonys as well i remimber, but you’re a fair-minded woman and a holy woman, and i challenge ye now to tell me honest: wasn’t anny wan hair on the o’mahony’s head worth the whole carcase of cormac o’daly? ’t was an evil day for muirisc whin he sailed away. if the convint has prospered, me word, ’t is what nothing else in muirisc has done. and laving aside your office as a nun, is it sp’akin well for a place to say that three old women in it are better off, and all the rist have suffered?”
“katie!” admonished the other. “you’ll repint thim words a week hence! to hearken to ye, wan would think yer heart was not in the profession ye’re to make.”
the girl gave a scornful, little laugh.
“did i ever pretind it was?” she demanded.
“’t is you are the contrary crayture!” sighed the mother superior. “here now for all these cinturies, through all the storms and wars and confiscations, this holy house has stud firm be the old faith. there ’s not another family in ireland has kept the mass in its own chapel, wid its own nuns kneeling before it, and never a break or interruption at all. i’ll l’ave it to yer own sinse: can ye compare the prosperity of a little village, or a hundred of ’em, wid such a glorious and unayqualed riccord as that? why, girl, ’t is you should be proud beyond measure and thankful that ye’re born and bred and selected to carry on such a grand tradition. to be head of the convint of the o’mahonys ’t is more historically splindid than to be queen of england.”
“but if i come to be the head at all,” retorted kate, “sure it will be a convint of o’dalys.”
the venerable woman heaved another sigh and looked at the floor in silence.
kate pursued her advantage eagerly.
“sure, i’ve me full share of pride in proper things,” she said, “and no o’mahony of them all held his family higher in his mind than i do. and me blood lapes to every word you say about that same. but would you—agnes o’mahony as ye were born—would you be asking me to have pride in the o’dalys? and that ’s what ’t is intinded to make of the convint now. for my part, i’d be for saying: ‘l’ave the convint doy now wid the last of the ladies of our own family rather than keep it alive at the expinse of giving it to the o’dalys.’”
mother agnes shook her head.
“i’ve me carnal feelings no less than you,” she said, “and me family pride to subdue. but even if the victory of humility were denied me, what c’u’d we do? for the moment, i’ll put this holy house to wan side. what can you do? how can you stand up forninst cormac o’daly’s determination? remimber, widout him ye’re but a homeless gerrel, katie.”
“and whose fault is that, mother agnes?” asked kate, with swift glance and tone. “will ye be telling me ’t was the o’mahony’s? did he l’ave me widout a four-penny bit, depindent on others, or was it that others stole me money and desaved me, and to-day are keeping me out of me own? tell me that, mother agnes.”
the nun’s ivory-tinted face flushed for an instant, then took on a deeper pallor. her gaze, lifted momentarily toward kate, strayed beyond her to vacancy. she rose to her full height and made a forward step, then stood, fumbling confusedly at her beads, and with trembling, half-opened lips.
“’t is not in me power,” she stammered, slowly and with difficulty. “there—there was something—i’ve not thought of it for so long—i’m forgetting strangely—”
she broke off abruptly, threw up her withered hands in a gesture of despair, and then, never looking at the girl, turned and with bowed head left the room.
kate still stood staring in mingled amazement and apprehension at the arched casement through which mother agnes had vanished, when the oak door was pushed open again, and sister blanaid, a smaller and younger woman, yet bent and half-palsied under the weight of years, showed herself in the aperture. she bore in her arms, shoving the door aside with it as she feebly advanced, a square wooden box, dust-begrimed and covered in part with reddish cow-skin.
“take it away!” she mumbled. “’t is the mother-supayrior’s desire you should take it from here. ’t is an evil day that’s on us! go fling this haythen box into the bay and thin pray for yourself and for her, who’s taken that grief for ye she’s at death’s door!”
the door closed again, and kate found herself mechanically bearing this box in her arms and making her way out through the darkened hallways to the outer air. only when she stood on the steps of the porch, and set down her burden to adjust her hat, did she recognize it. then, with a murmuring cry of delight, she stooped and snatched it up again. it was the cathach which the o’mahony had given her to keep.
on the instant, as she looked out across the open green upon the harbor, the bay, the distant peninsula of kilcrohane peacefully gathering to itself the shadows of the falling twilight—how it all came back to her! on the day of his departure—that memorable black-letter day in her life—he had turned over this rude little chest to her; he had told her it was his luck, his talisman, and now should be hers. she had carried it, not to her mother’s home, but to the tiny school-room in the old convent, for safekeeping. she recalled now that she had told the nuns, or mother agnes, at least, what it was. but then—then there came a blank in her memory. she could not force her mind to remember when she ceased to think about it—when it made its way into the lumber-room where it had apparently lain so long.
but, at all events, she had it now again. she bent her head to touch with her lips one of the rough strips of skin nailed irregularly upon it; then, with a shining face, bearing the box, like some sanctified shrine, against her breast, she moved across the village-common toward the wharf and the water.
the injunction of quavering old blanaid to cast it into the bay drifted uppermost in her thoughts, and she smiled to herself. she had been bidden, also, to pray; and reflection upon this chased the smile away. truly, there was need for prayer. her perplexed mind called up, one by one, in disheartening array, the miseries of her position, and drew new unhappiness from the confusion of right and wrong which they presented. how could she pray to be delivered from what mother agnes held up as the duties of piety? and, on the other hand, what sincerity could there be in any other kind of spiritual petition?
she wandered along the shore-sands under the cliffs, the box tightly clasped in her arms, her eyes musingly bent upon the brown reaches of drenched seaweed which lay at play with the receding tide.
her mind conjured up the image of a smiling and ruddy young face, sun-burned and thatched with crisp, curly brown hair—the face of that curious young o’mahony from houghton county. his blue eye looked at her half quizzically, half beseeching, but kate resolutely drove the image away. he was only the merest trifle less mortal than the others.
so musing, she strolled onward. suddenly she stopped, and lifted her head triumphantly; the smile had flashed forth again upon her face, and the dark eyes were all aglow. a thought had come to her—so convincing, so unanswerable, so joyously uplifting, that she paused to marvel at having been blind to it so long. clear as noon sunlight on mount gabriel was it what she should pray for.
what could it ever have been, this one crowning object of prayer, but the return of the o’mahony?
as her mental vision adapted itself to the radiance of this revelation, the abstracted glance which she had allowed to wander over the bay was arrested by a concrete object. two hundred yards from the water’s edge a strange vessel had heaved to, and was casting anchor. kate could hear the chain rattling out from the capstan, even as she looked.
the sight sent all prayerful thoughts scurrying out of her head. the presence of vessels of the size of the new-comer was in itself most unusual at muirisc. but kate’s practiced eye noticed a strange novelty. the craft, though thick of beam and ungainly in line, carried the staight running bowsprit of a cutter, and in addition to its cutter sheets had a jigger lug-sail. the girl watched these eccentric sails as they were dropped and reefed, with a curious sense of having seen them somewhere before—as if in a vision or some old picture-book of childhood. confused memories stirred within her as she gazed, and held her mind in daydream captivity. a figure she seemed vaguely to know, stood now at the gunwale.
the spell was rudely broken by a wild shout from the cliff close above her. on the instant, amid a clatter of falling stones and a veritable landslide of sand, rocks and turf, a human figure came rolling, clambering and tumbling down the declivity, and ran toward her, its arms stretched and waving with frantic gestures, and emitting inarticulate cries and groans as it came.
the astonished girl instinctively raised the box in her hands, to use it as a missile. but, lo, it was old murphy who, half stumbling to his knees at her feet, fiercely clutched her skirts, and pointed in a frenzy of excitement seaward!
“wid yer own eyes look at it—it, miss katie!” he screamed. “ye can see it yerself! it’s not dr’aming i am!”
“it’s drunk ye are instead, thin, murphy,” said the girl, sharply, though in great wonderment.
“wid joy! wid joy i’m drunk!” the old man shouted, dancing on the sands and slippery sea-litter like one possessed, and whirling his arms about his head.
“murphy, man! what ails ye? in the name of the lord—what—”
the browned, wild-eyed, ragged old madman had started at a headlong pace across the wet waste of weeds, and plunged now through the breakers, wading with long strides—knee-deep, then immersed to the waist. he turned for an instant to shout back: “i’ll swim to him if i drown for it! ’tis the master come back!”
the girl fell to her knees on the sand, then reverently bowed her head till it rested upon the box before her.
