Where the Atlantic meets the land

by H. Caldwell Lipsett

A PEASANT TRAGEDY

PART I

THE LOVERS

A group of peasants were straggling along the hilly road returning from the fair in the summer twilight. It was composed of about an equal number of men and women; the women trudged along on their naked feet, with their heavy market-baskets over one arm, and their boots slung by the laces over the other; the men lazily dragged their heavily shod feet after them, with the trailing gait born of much walking in ploughed fields and clinging soil, they carried one hand in their trousers' pocket, the other twirling an ash plant, with which they switched off the heads of all the thistles they met.

In front of them wandered a few young bullocks, badly bred and unkempt, mooing pitifully from time to time. In their midst was a donkey-cart with four sheep and a couple of pigs confined between its cribs; the sheep were tied together in pairs with twisted hay-bands round their necks, their legs also were hobbled with hay-bands; the pigs ran about loose and routed ceaselessly among the straw at the bottom of the cart. The donkey plodded patiently along by himself, for the most part unnoticed; but when it was necessary to turn aside into a by-road or avoid one of the huge stones that had tumbled off a neighboring ditch, one of the men guided him by the simple but effective means of seizing the tail-pieces and levering round both cart and staggering donkey together.

'A bad fair agin the day,' said one of the elder men in a high querulous tone, directed impartially to the group at large.

'Ay, deed so,' replied another, 'times is main bad the now. Bastes is gone clane to nothin'; two pun I was bid the day for a year-ould heifer; that's her runnin' in front wi' the white patch 'roun' her tail; I min' the time when I wouldn't have luked at sivin for her; two pun, min' that now,' and he spat disgustedly. 'Pigs is the on'y thing as fetches any price at ahl, an' who's to be at the cost of fattenin' thim?'

'Michael Dolan wudn't be overly well plazed at yon sight,' interjected the first speaker, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the hindmost of the group.

The couple thus alluded to were the youngest of those present. They were in the stage known as 'coortin',' and ever since leaving town some half hour before they had been unobtrusively dropping in the rear of their party. They were walking along with their arms round each other's waists, and her head drooped upon his shoulder. Contrary to the rule among the Northern peasantry, who are for the most part hard-featured and uncomely, perhaps owing to the admixture of Scotch blood in their veins, the girl had the true Celtic type of beauty, straight features with black hair, and large blue eyes fringed with dark lashes, a tall figure, and a firm and well-developed bust. But the young man beside her overtopped her by a head, straight-limbed, with a broad sun-tanned face and a wide laughing mouth; the damp of the plough-land had not yet got into his bones nor the bend of the scythe into his knee-joints. They walked in silence, content to be together; your rustic has not too many words to spare to waste any even in his courting. But the blood coursed none the less hotly in the veins of both.

The rich, who have more room in their houses, and fewer constraints to trouble them, do most of their love-making indoors. The poor have to do theirs in the open air, chiefly, as now, in the long evenings coming home together from market. The middle classes are more restricted by space and convention on both these sides, which perhaps partly accounts for their higher morality.

An Irish laborer's cottage of two rooms has to accommodate a whole family, the younger children often sleeping in the same bed with their parents. From thus herding together, and from the necessities of country life in connection with animals, the children are brought up in familiarity with aspects of life which never come under the notice of those bred in towns. And yet the Irish women have a high reputation for chastity; and justly, for they rarely take a lover outside of their own class. Within that class they are protected by their religion; if anything goes wrong between a man and a maid, the priest always hears of it, and marries them on the spot before worse can happen. Generations of this restraint have bred an ingrained habit of continence among the people, so that now in the Roman Catholic districts of Northern Ireland an illegitimate child is an almost unknown disgrace.

'What did ye buy in town the day, Paddy?' asked the girl, with the intonation of a tender speech. The limits of her vocabulary did not admit of a nearer approach to lovers' talk than the practical details of housekeeping that bore on their projected marriage.

'Them two pigs in the ass-cart, an' the Saints alone knows whether I'll be fit to kape thim through the winter. A shillin' a day, an' not ivery day at that, isn't enough to kape a man, let alone a wife an' two suckin' pigs. I only git two shillin' when I'm ploughin' or mowin', an' them machines is cuttin' us all out; they git all the wurruk these times. I'm thinkin' I'll jine to larn the use av them be next year; there's no man hereabouts as knows the thrick av it, an' I've a consate that siveral av the farmers would jine an' buy a mowin' machine right out instead av hirin' them thramp wans, av they had a man as cud use it.'

'But yous is the boy as has the head,' said the girl admiringly. 'I'm glad I'm to be married to yous. I'll niver want for bit nor sup, I'll hold ye.'

'It's that same that's botherin' me this minit, Norah darlin'. Whin are we to be married? It ud be ahl right wi' the house an' the wee bit farrum; but me brother Mick is that set agin you I don't know what's kim over him. An' I'd as lave not ang-er him. For Mick's right fond av me the whole time, whin ahl's said an' done.'

'Ay, troth is he; he thinks the sun rises an' sets an yer elbow whin yous is not by.'

'I'm clane moidhered what to do. What did you buy, swateheart?'

'I'm worse agin nor yous. I on'y got five shillin' for spriggin' an' stockins as tuk me a fair fortnight. But I scraped enough ha'pence together for a churn; an' I said as how yous wud bring it home the nixt time ye had the ass-cart in town.'

In these marriages it is the woman's part, where possible, to supply the household utensils necessary to set up house together, the man's to find the live-stock and keep a roof over their heads by his labor.

'It's comin' on saft, let's take shelther,' said Paddy presently.

'Ah, what signifies that dhrap? It'll on'y be a shower.'

'An' yous in yer new jacket an' hat wi' the red feather till it; it'll be ahl shpoilt. As it isn't goin' to last, it's ahl the more raison not to git wet to the pelt for nothin'. Let's git in behin' this ould wall for a wee taste; it's gran' shelther, an' the brackens right saft to set an.'

The girl resisted for a time, but finally, when she felt a large drop splash on her nose, her fears for her finery triumphed over her native modesty, and she let herself be persuaded against her will. Paddy calmly 'tossed' the loose stone wall, making a gap of a height sufficient to let her pass over it, and they took refuge under the ruined gable of an old church beside the road. The bracken grew thickly up to the foot of the crumbling wall; the overhanging ivy cast them into deep shadow.

'Ah, quit,' exclaimed the girl presently, in a tone half-angry, half-alarmed. 'Quit now, I'm tellin' ye. What for are ye squeezin' me so tight? For the love av Mary, Paddy darlin,' what are ye doin'? I didn't think it av ye,' and her voice died away in a murmur of passion.

When the shower was over, they rose and resumed their journey in silence, walking apart, one on the grass on either side, with the roadway between them.

When they had thus travelled a mile, the girl said timidly,—

'Pathrick.'

'Ay.'

'It's my turn to confess to Father Brady come Sunday.'

For another five minutes there was a silence, then the man said shamefacedly,—

'Norah.'

'Ay.'

'There's no call to say nothin' to the praste about yon. I'll tell him to call us for the first time in chapel on Sunday. Come an' giv us a kiss, darlin', an' make frinds agin. Troth it's all wan, whin we jine to be married so soon.'

PART II

THE BROTHERS

'Thramp it out, Paddy, thramp it out, ye scutt ye. D'ye call that buildin' a haycock? Putt a good head ahn it. Av ye lave the hay loose yon road at the edges, the first skift av rain will get in ondher it, an' go right to the heart av it, an' ye'll be havin' the whole clamjaffrey hatin' on us.'

'Ah! houl yer whisht, ye long-tongued divil, Mick. Give us a dacent lock at a time, an' don't go pokin' the fork in me eye. Ye nearly had me desthroyed yon time.'

'Fwhat for are ye buildin' it ahl crucked now? Ye've guv it a tilt to the North like a thrawler in a shkite av wund or a load of turf in a shough.'

'An' why for no, ye cantankerous owl' shkibareen. I done it for purpose, the way it might lane agin the blast that comes up them hollys. Av ye put a prop or two ondher it, it'll be as firrum as a house.'

'To blazes wi' ye, Paddy; ye've got too many consates in yer head ahlthegither. Make the butt livil and stiddy an' the top straight an' ye can't betther it. It's temptin' Providence ye are to send a lock of wund from behin' an' toss it on us.'

'Providence is it? Gahn! kape a civil tongue betune yer teeth. Ye have too much to say for yerself be half. Build a cock is it? Yous as can hardly tell a cock from a bull's fut. Stan' from ondher till I slither down.'

'Where's the ropes now? I'll hold ye that ye niver twisted them, an' divil a thrahook on the groun' to do it wid, nor so much as a sally rod to make wan.'

'Now ye're too fast enthirely, Mick. The ropes is ondher the wee grass cock at yer fut. Go to the other side an' catch a hoult av the ind when I toss it to ye. Are ye ready? Make it tight. Ah! lift man, can't ye? Put yer shouldher into it. An' now agin for the other wan. That's well done anyway.'

'What matther to have yon wee taste saved, when there's half av an acre shuck out, an' a whole wan in the swathe, an' it lukin' like a shtorrum av rain ev'ry minute.'

'Now quit lamentin'. God sees ahl, an' it's time to knock aff for dinner. It must be well ahn to one o'clock, the sun's straight over the tower an' the hill. Shtrike yer graip in the groun' an' come an' down to the well.'

'It's well ye minded to bring the dinner itself. I wouldn't putt it past ye to forgit even that. Where war ye last night? At the spriggin' camp, I'll be boun', stravaguin' about afther them girls.'

'Ay, divil a where else. But I'll be accountable to no man for me goin's.'

'There's no call to flare up now. It only shows ye've bin coortin' that Norah Sheehan agin, an' afther I've towl ye times out av' min' I won't have it. Maybe ye'll tell me where ye intind to putt her whin ye've got her.'

'You to hell with yer havin's. There's room in the house for ahl, an' I can arn bread for both av us. We're to be called in chapel come Sunday, so there.'

'Room in my house, divil a hate! An' where ud I be, I'd like to know?'

'Your house—I like that whin me father lift it betune us on his last deathbed. An' who's got a better right to live in it than me own wife an' no beholdin' to yous?'

'Ay, that's right enough betwixt us two, but not when other folks is by. Ye've got to prove it. I'm yer eldher brother, an' it's ahl mine be rights. Where's the paper ye have to show for it? an' my wurrud's as good as yours an' betther, so putt that in yer pipe an' smoke it.'

'You chatin' hound, you thry to best me out av me fair rights, an' I'll be the death av ye, so I will.'

'Them's nice wurruds to use to yer eldher brother, ye onnathural young limb. Though I wouldn't put it past ye to murdher me; ye've thried it before now. D'ye mind the day ye threw me aff of the cliff? But whether or no, divil a fut will that girl putt in my house. It's bin a respectable house up to now; an' if ye thry to bring her to it, out ye'll both go, you an' your trollope.'

'Say that wurrud agin, ye scutt. Say it agin, I darr you.'

'Ay, I'll say it as aften as I like, an' I say agin now to yer face, that neither you nor yer trollope will ever set fut on flure of mine from this out.'

'Then take that, ye ignorant fule. Ye wud have it. Maybe it'll larn ye to kape a still tongue in yer head,' shouted Paddy. In his rage the landscape swam blood-red before his gaze, he plucked the hay-fork from the ground behind him, and plunged it into his brother's chest. The sharp steel prongs drove through bone and muscle with a grinding sound, and stood out a handsbreadth behind his back. The base stopped with a thud against the breast-bone. There was a shrill scream, the scream with which the strong man's soul rends itself apart from the body; he rocked and swayed for a moment, and fell stiffly upon his back, his arms outspread. The handle of the fork stood erect, vibrating in the dead man's chest.

The young man put out his hand to grasp it, but it started away from him with a tremor, and he leaped backward, thinking it had come to life. What was that word? Murder. It appeared to be written in letters of brass across the heavens, and all the hills around were thundering it in his ears. For a long time he stood there with his eyes fixed straight in front of him, and the perspiration pouring in streams from his body.

'He dhruv me to it,' he muttered; 'he dhruv me to it.'

It had been coming to this for a long time between the brothers, though neither of them had seen it. The nagging tongue of the elder and the uncontrolled temper of the younger made them an ill-assorted pair. Once in boyhood Paddy, in a fit of anger, had pushed his brother off a cliff into the sea, and in an agony of contrition had leapt off after him. Neither was hurt by the fall, and they swam contentedly together to land, and there fought till neither of them could stand. Since then it had gradually been getting worse. A word and a blow was a daily occurrence between them, and latterly the blow was dealt with whatever instrument came handy. It had come to be only a question of sufficient provocation and a deadly enough weapon, and that was bound to happen which had now happened. This time no remorse would avail. His brother had gone where he could not follow him.

As the young man stood there beside his dead brother, a dull strange sense of the injustice of it all began to rise and swell in his bosom. He couldn't understand it. An ordinary quarrel, resulting in not quite the ordinary way, and two lives were sacrificed and a third ruined forever. God help poor Norah! It was not fair. What good did it do to any one? and why had he and Norah been selected for this thing to happen to?

After a long time he woke from his trance with a start, and keeping his eyes carefully turned from the pool of blood that was slowly drying in front of him, he ran swiftly to the house, as though to escape some temptation that was behind him. Quickly he put the horse in the cart, and standing up in it, drove at full speed to the town. Down the hill of the main street he rattled, as one of the neighbors said, 'as if the devil was behind him,' and pulled up with a jerk at the doctor's door.

'Docther dear, hurry for the love av God,' he said; 'ye're wanted badly out at Michaelstown, there's a man kilt.'

Then he walked across the road to the police station opposite, and said to the sergeant in charge, 'Me an' me brother was havin' wurruds in the three-cornered field behind the house, an' I've shtuck the graip into him. I'm thinkin' it's kilt him I have, an' I've come to giv' meself up.'