Great Irish Short Stories (16 page)

By a miracle the smith was not at the races, owing, as he explained, to his having “the toothaches,” the two facts combined producing in him a morosity only equalled by that of Leigh Kelway. The smith’s sole comment on the situation was to unharness the filly, and drag her into the forge, where he tied her up. He then proceeded to whistle viciously on his fingers in the direction of a cottage, and to command, in tones of thunder, some unseen creature to bring over a couple of baskets of turf. The turf arrived in process of time, on a woman’s back, and was arranged in a circle in a yard at the back of the forge. The tire was bedded in it, and the turf was with difficulty kindled at different points.

“Ye’ll not get to the races this day,” said the smith, yielding to a sardonic satisfaction; “the turf’s wet, and I haven’t one to do a hand’s turn for me.” He laid the wheel on the ground and lit his pipe.

Leigh Kelway looked pallidly about him over the spacious empty landscape of brown mountain slopes patched with golden furze and seamed with grey walls; I wondered if he were as hungry as I. We sat on stones opposite the smouldering ring of turf and smoked, and Flurry beguiled the smith into grim and calumnious confidences about every horse in the country. After about an hour, during which the turf went out three times, and the weather became more and more threatening, a girl with a red petticoat over her head appeared at the gate of the yard, and said to the smith:

“The horse is gone away from ye.”

“Where?” exclaimed Flurry, springing to his feet.

“I met him walking wesht the road there below, and when I thought to turn him he commenced to gallop.”

“Pulled her head out of the headstall,” said Flurry, after a rapid survey of the forge. “She’s near home by now.”

It was at this moment that the rain began; the situation could scarcely have been better stage-managed. After reviewing the position, Flurry and I decided that the only thing to do was to walk to a public-house a couple of miles farther on, feed there if possible, hire a car, and go home.

It was an uphill walk, with mild generous raindrops striking thicker and thicker on our faces; no one talked, and the grey clouds crowded up from behind the hills like billows of steam. Leigh Kelway bore it all with egregious resignation. I cannot pretend that I was at heart sympathetic, but by virtue of being his host I felt responsible for the breakdown, for his light suit, for everything, and divined his sentiment of horror at the first sight of the public-house.

It was a long, low cottage, with a line of dripping elm-trees overshadowing it; empty cars and carts round its door, and a babel from within made it evident that the racegoers were pursuing a gradual homeward route. The shop was crammed with steaming countrymen, whose loud brawling voices, all talking together, roused my English friend to his first remark since we had left the forge.

“Sure, Yeates, we are not going into that place?” he said severely; “those men are all drunk.”

“Ah, nothing to signify!” said Flurry, plunging in and driving his way through the throng like a plough. “Here, Mary Kate!” he called to the girl behind the counter, “tell your mother we want some tea and bread and butter in the room inside.”

The smell of bad tobacco and spilt porter was choking; we worked our way through it after him towards the end of the shop, intersecting at every hand discussions about the races.

“Tom was very nice. He spared his horse all along, and then he put into him—” “Well, at Goggin’s corner the third horse was before the second, but he was goin’ wake in himself.” “I tell ye the mare had the hind leg fasht in the fore.” “Clancy was dipping in the saddle.” “ ’Twas a dam nice race whatever—”

We gained the inner room at last, a cheerless apartment, adorned with sacred pictures, a sewing-machine, and an array of supplementary tumblers and wineglasses; but, at all events, we had it so far to ourselves. At intervals during the next half-hour Mary Kate burst in with cups and plates, cast them on the table and disappeared, but of food there was no sign. After a further period of starvation and of listening to the noise in the shop, Flurry made a sortie, and, after lengthy and unknown adventures, reappeared carrying a huge brown teapot, and driving before him Mary Kate with the remainder of the repast. The bread tasted of mice, the butter of turf-smoke, the tea of brown paper, but we had got past the critical stage. I had entered upon my third round of bread and butter when the door was flung open, and my valued acquaintance, Slipper, slightly advanced in liquor, presented himself to our gaze. His bandy legs sprawled consequently, his nose was redder than a coal of fire, his prominent eyes rolled crookedly upon us, and his left hand swept behind him the attempt of Mary Kate to frustrate his entrance.

“Good-evening to my vinerable friend, Mr. Flurry Knox!” he began, in the voice of a town crier, “and to the Honourable Major Yeates, and the English gintleman!”

This impressive opening immediately attracted an audience from the shop, and the doorway filled with grinning faces as Slipper advanced farther into the room.

“Why weren’t ye at the races, Mr. Flurry?” he went on, his roving eye taking a grip of us all at the same time; “sure the Miss Bennetts and all the ladies was asking where were ye.”

“It’d take some time to tell them that,” said Flurry, with his mouth full; “but what about the races, Slipper? Had you good sport?”

“Sport is it? Divil so pleasant an afternoon ever you seen,” replied Slipper. He leaned against a side table, and all the glasses on it jingled. “Does your honour know O’Driscoll?” he went on irrelevantly. “Sure you do. He was in your honour’s stable. It’s what we were all sayin’; it was a great pity your honour was not there, for the likin’ you had to Driscoll.”

“That’s thrue,” said a voice at the door.

“There wasn’t one in the Barony but was gethered in it, through and fro,” continued Slipper, with a quelling glance at the interrupter; “and there was tints for sellin’ porther, and whisky as pliable as new milk, and boys goin’ round the tints outside, feeling for heads with the big ends of their blackthorns, and all kinds of recreations, and the Sons of Liberty’s piffler and dhrum band from Skebawn; though faith! there was more of thim runnin’ to look at the races than what was playin’ in it; not to mintion different occasions that the bandmasther was atin’ his lunch within in the whisky tint.”

“But what about Driscoll?” said Flurry.

“Sure it’s about him I’m tellin’ ye,” replied Slipper, with the practised orator’s watchful eye on his growing audience. “’Twas within in the same whisky tint meself was, with the bandmasther and a few of the lads, an’ we buyin’ a ha’porth o’ crackers, when I seen me brave Driscoll landin’ into the tint, and a pair o’ thim long boots on him; him that hadn’t a shoe nor a stocking to his foot when your honour had him picking grass out o’ the stones behind in your yard. ‘Well,’ says I to meself, ‘we’ll knock some spoort out of Driscoll!’

“‘Come here to me, acushla!’ says I to him; ‘I suppose it’s some way wake in the legs y’are,’ says I, ‘an’ the docthor put them on ye the way the people wouldn’t thrample ye!’

“‘May the divil choke ye!’ says he, pleasant enough, but I knew by the blush he had he was vexed.

“‘Then I suppose ’tis a left-tenant colonel y’are,’ says I; ‘yer mother must be proud out o’ ye!’ says I, ‘an’ maybe ye’ll lend her a loan o’ thim waders when she’s rinsin’ yer bauneen in the river!’ says I.

“‘There’ll be work out o’ this!’ says he, lookin’ at me both sour and bitther.

“‘Well indeed, I was thinkin’ you were blue moulded for want of a batin’,’ says I. He was for fightin’ us then, but afther we had him pacificated with about a quarther of a naggin o’ sperrits, he told us he was goin’ ridin’ in a race.

“‘An’ what’ll ye ride?’ says I.

“‘Owld Bocock’s mare,’ says he.

“‘Knipes!’ says I, sayin’ a great curse; ‘is it that little staggeen from the mountains; sure she’s somethin’ about the one age with meself,’ says I. ‘Many’s the time Jamesy Geoghegan and meself used to be dhrivin’ her to Macroom with pigs an’ all soorts,’ says I; ‘an’ is it leppin’ stone walls ye want her to go now?’

“‘Faith, there’s walls and every vari’ty of obstackle in it,’ says he.

“‘It’ll be the best o’ your play, so,’ says I, ‘to leg it away home out o’ this.’

“‘An’ who’ll ride her, so?’ says he.

“‘Let the divil ride her,’ says I.”

Leigh Kelway, who had been leaning back seemingly half asleep, obeyed the hypnotism of Slipper’s gaze, and opened his eyes.

“That was now all the conversation that passed between himself and meself,” resumed Slipper, “and there was no great delay afther that till they said there was a race startin’ and the dickens a one at all was goin’ to ride only two, Driscoll, and one Clancy. With that then I seen Mr. Kinahane, the Petty Sessions clerk, goin’ round clearin’ the coorse, an’ I gethered a few o’ the neighbours, an’ we walked the fields hither and over till we seen the most of th’ obstackles.

“‘Stand aisy now by the plantation,’ says I; ‘if they get to come as far as this, believe me ye’ll see spoort,’ says I, ‘an’ ’twill be a convanient spot to encourage the mare if she’s anyway wake in herself,’ says I, cuttin’ somethin’ about five foot of an ash sapling out o’ the plantation.

“‘That’s yer sort!’ says owld Bocock, that was thravellin’ the racecoorse, peggin’ a bit o’ paper down with a thorn in front of every lep, the way Driscoll ’d know the handiest place to face her at it.

“Well, I hadn’t barely thrimmed the ash plant—”

“Have you any jam, Mary Kate?” interrupted Flurry, whose meal had been in no way interfered with by either the story or the highly-scented crowd who had come to listen to it.

“We have no jam, only thraycle, sir,” replied the invisible Mary Kate.

“I hadn’t the switch barely thrimmed,” repeated Slipper firmly, “when I heard the people screechin’, an’ I seen Driscoll an’ Clancy comin’ on, leppin’ all before them, an’ owld Bocock’s mare bellusin’ an’ powdherin’ along, an’ bedad! whatever obstackle wouldn’t throw
her
down, faith, she’d throw
it
down, an’ there’s the thraffic they had in it.

“‘I declare to me sowl,’ says I, ‘if they continue on this way there’s a great chance some one o’ thim ’ll win,’ says I.

“‘Ye lie!’ says the bandmasther, bein’ a thrifle fulsome after his luncheon.

“‘I do not,’ says I, ‘in regard of seein’ how soople them two boys is. Ye might observe,’ says I, ‘that if they have no convanient way to sit on the saddle, they’ll ride the neck o’ the horse till such time as they gets an occasion to lave it,’ says I.

“‘Arrah, shut yer mouth!’ says the bandmasther; ‘they’re puckin’ out this way now, an’ may the divil admire me!’ says he, ‘but Clancy has the other bet out, and the divil such leatherin’ and beltin’ of owld Bocock’s mare ever you seen as what’s in it!’ says he.

“Well, when I seen them comin’ to me, and Driscoll about the length of the plantation behind Clancy, I let a couple of bawls.

“‘Skelp her, ye big brute!’ says I. ‘What good’s in ye that ye aren’t able to skelp her?’”

The yell and the histrionic flourish of his stick with which Slipper delivered this incident brought down the house. Leigh Kelway was sufficiently moved to ask me in an undertone if “skelp” was a local term.

“Well, Mr. Flurry, and gintlemen,” recommenced Slipper, “I declare to ye when owld Bocock’s mare heard thim roars she sthretched out her neck like a gandher, and when she passed me out she give a couple of grunts, and looked at me as ugly as a Christian.

“‘Hah!’ says I, givin’ her a couple o’ dhraws o’ th’ ash plant across the butt o’ the tail, the way I wouldn’t blind her; ‘I’ll make ye grunt!’ says I, ‘I’ll nourish ye!’

“I knew well she was very frightful of th’ ash plant since the winter Tommeen Sullivan had her under a sidecar. But now, in place of havin’ any obligations to me, ye’d be surprised if ye heard the blaspheemious expressions of that young boy that was ridin’ her; and whether it was over-anxious he was, turnin’ around the way I’d hear him cursin’, or whether it was some slither or slide came to owld Bocock’s mare, I dunno, but she was bet up agin the last obstackle but two, and before ye could say ‘Schnipes,’ she was standin’ on her two ears beyond in th’ other field! I declare to ye, on the vartue of me oath, she stood that way till she reconnoithered what side would Driscoll fall, an’ she turned about then and rolled on him as cosy as if he was meadow grass!”

Slipper stopped short; the people in the doorway groaned appreciatively; Mary Kate murmured “The Lord save us!”

“The blood was dhruv out through his nose and ears,” continued Slipper, with a voice that indicated the cream of the narration, “and you’d hear his bones crackin’ on the ground! You’d have pitied the poor boy.”

“Good heavens!” said Leigh Kelway, sitting up very straight in his chair.

“Was he hurt, Slipper?” asked Flurry casually.

“Hurt is it?” echoed Slipper in high scorn; “killed on the spot!” He paused to relish the effect of the
dénouement
on Leigh Kelway. “Oh, divil so pleasant an afthernoon ever you seen; and indeed, Mr. Flurry, it’s what we were all sayin’, it was a great pity your honour was not there for the likin’ you had for Driscoll.”

As he spoke the last word there was an outburst of singing and cheering from a car-load of people who had just pulled up at the door. Flurry listened, leaned back in his chair, and began to laugh.

“It scarcely strikes one as a comic incident,” said Leigh Kelway, very coldly to me; “in fact, it seems to me that the police ought—”

“Show me Slipper!” bawled a voice in the shop; “show me that dirty little undherlooper till I have his blood! Hadn’t I the race won only for he souring the mare on me! What’s that you say? I tell ye he did! He left seven slaps on her with the handle of a hay-rake—”

There was in the room in which we were sitting a second door, leading to the back yard, a door consecrated to the unobtrusive visits of so-called “Sunday travellers.” Through it Slipper faded away like a dream, and, simultaneously, a tall young man, with a face like a red-hot potato tied up in a bandage, squeezed his way from the shop into the room.