CHAPTER XXV.
[THE "BLUE ANCHOR."]
The "Blue Anchor" was certainly not a place suited to the leisure moments of a respectable solicitor enjoying first-rate practice in an important town. It was small, low, dingy, blear-windowed, dilapidated. It stood in a little by-street, if a place like Kilcash can be said to have a by-street, since it has no main street or streets, all streets being in some way or another intimately connected with the Storm Wall, as the road inside that work was called.
The "Blue Anchor" has no pretensions to a "front." On one side of the door is a small, square window filled with small panes of unclean glass. The house is two storeys high; the ground-floor consists of three rooms--namely, the bar, tap-room, and kitchen. The floors of these three rooms are formed of beaten clay, and boast of neither straw nor sand.
Within the bar are a plain deal table and four chairs. By means of these, the bar is, for the sake of gentility, used as the family refectory, for people of any pretensions know that dining in the kitchen is a sign of low origin. Opposite the counter of the bar stands the door into the tap-room. Folk who are in haste can be served at the bar, but most of the customers of the "Blue Anchor" are strangers to haste, and take their liquor seated in the tap-room--or tap, as it is familiarly and affectionately called by those who are familiar with the place. It is about twelve feet square, with a large deal table in the middle, and a bench on each side of the table. At the upper end is a hearth, on which smoulders a good peat fire, the smoke from which goes up a large flue that comes down to within five feet of the floor like a huge funnel. Two short pieces of logs, the spoil of some wreck, serve as chimney-seats. The benches are of home-make, and very unsteady on their legs. The continual presence of beer seems to have muddled them as to the exact position of their centre of gravity; and this condition, combined with the deplorable unevenness of the floor, has made them despair of ever being able to find it out.
But the table is as firm as the Black Rock itself John Tobin, the landlord--an enormously fat man, in gaiters, knee-breeches, and a cutaway-coat--takes great pride in the invincible stability of that table. Whenever he is angered by anything, he goes into the tap-room, places his hands flat on the middle of the table, and gives two, three, or four shakes, according to the agitation of his feelings. Then he goes out to the front door, looks critically at the sky to seaward, comes back to the bar, and, having mopped his forehead, sighs, and is once more calm.
The wonder of every one in the village is how the "Blue Anchor" manages to live, and support John, his wife, and daughter. In summer the men are too busy to go often, except for a pint or two before retiring for the night; and in winter the men have very little or no money to spend.
When Jerry O'Brien reached the "Blue Anchor" he spoke a few cheerful words to John Tobin, whom every frequenter of Kilcash knew, told him he had run out from Kilbarry for the evening, with a view to seeing how things were in the village, and how things were likely to be there in the coming season. Jerry did not know exactly what the latter phrase could mean, but it sounded friendly, as though he took an interest in the place.
Old John instantly attached a definite meaning to his words, and said, with a smile:
"Ah, sir, glad to hear it. Going to marry, sir, and settle down and take a house here for the season?"
Jerry started a little, coloured a little, and then said gaily:
"No such luck, John--no such luck! I meant about the fishing, you know. I'll go in and smoke a pipe for a bit."
"And welcome, sir," said the fat old man, steering himself around the end of the counter, and bringing his vast stomach safely into view, with watch-chain, watch-key, and seals swaying giddily from his overhanging fob.
There were only two guests in the "Blue Anchor." Both were smoking short clay pipes; each had a pint pewter pot before him. Jerry nodded to each and said "Good evening" before sitting down. He called for a pipe and tobacco for himself, and then asked if all, John Tobin included, would have a drink, "because, you know," said he, "as I never have been here before, it is only fair I should pay my footing," a speech which was very cordially received. A wish was expressed by John Tobin that since it was the first time he hoped it wouldn't be the last. Upon which the two fishermen applauded and cleared their throats in anticipation of beer.
For a while O'Brien led the men to speak of the prospects of the next season's fishing, and the chances of its being a good one. By the end of half-an-hour they were ready for more beer. Then he ceased to ask questions, and began to talk:
"As I was coming along from Kilbarry to-day, I told Tim to stop opposite the Black Rock, and I and Mr. O'Hanlon, who was with me, got down and went out on it. I haven't been on it for I don't know how long. Horrible place! I suppose very few people go over from the village this time of year?"
"Very few. Only for the good fishing there's off the tail of it, no one out of the village would ever go there. It's a cursed spot. I wonder you weren't afraid to go down, sir, at such a time of year. Ah, but when you were passing it was no more than about half flood. There's not so much danger at half flood as at full. Were you to the southward of the Hole, sir?" said one of the fishermen.
"No. I took care of that. I may be a fool, but I'm not such a fool as that. I was curious to see the place because of the death of Mr. Davenport."
"Ah, yes," said John Tobin. "He's gone."
There was neither joy nor sorrow in Tobin's voice, and that tone expressed the general feeling of Kilcash towards the event. It was nothing to the village, neither good nor harm. He had been little more than a name to them.
"Well, you all remember an unfortunate fellow named Fahey--Mike Fahey, wasn't it?--who went down the Hole of his own free will, or, rather, when he was chased by the police, ten or eleven years ago. Of course you all remember him?"
"Oh, yes"--they all remembered him.
"Well, the affair of Mr. Davenport's death put him in my mind, and I thought we'd go and look at the place where he took his awful leap. It nearly made me giddy to look down, and sick to think of his awful end."
"And he wasn't in the wrong, after all!" said John Tobin. "Mr. Davenport, I will say, afterwards cleared the man's character. That was good of Mr. Davenport, wasn't it?"
"Yes," said O'Brien; "but why did he make away with himself? If a man knows he's innocent, he needn't run off and drown himself. He must have remembered Mr. Davenport gave him the money. Why didn't he trust Mr. Davenport to clear him?"
The three men shook their heads.
"That's what puzzles me," said O'Brien. "This unfortunate man was fond of fishing."
"And little's the good he got by it," said one of the fishermen. "He had a miserable cockleshell of a punt, and it was the wonder of every one he wasn't drowned seven days in the week. Nothing would satisfy him but to keep dodging about that Black Rock in his tub of a punt, all by himself, and he not able to swim a stroke. If he hadn't gone down the Hole of his own will, he'd have been drowned by his own foolishness some day."
"How used he to manage that boat? With a sail?"
"Sail! No, sculls."
"Did he pull well?"
"Not particularly well. Well enough, though, for a raw-boned chap like him. Now that I remember it, I think he was pretty handy with the oars--for a spell, you know. He'd be dead beat in a jim-crack with a heavy oar in a yawl, but he could fiddle pretty fairly with the oars he carried."
"Did you ever see him scull from the notch?"
"Ay, I have, sir."
"And was he handy from the notch, too?"
"Yes, in a hop-o'-my-thumb cockleshell like his. Why, you could twist her round your finger in a mill-race. But as far as I can remember, he could handle an oar aft as well as most of those that weren't brought up to the work from boys."
"And what happened to this miserable punt of his?"
"Well, I don't think, sir, I can remember that. I know he lost it in some kind of way or other--west, I think he said. Anyway, whether he said so or not, it must have been west somewhere, for if anything happened to the punt on the east shore he'd never come back to tell what it was, for there isn't a landing-place there for anything from the sea but gulls and curlews; and even if he was the strongest swimmer in the barony his swimming would be no use to him, for he could never get into Kilcash Bay--never get round the head."
"Although, as you say, the east is much more dangerous than the west, isn't it strange he should have lost his boat on the west side?"
"Well, sir, it may and may not be strange. You see the western coast is more broken up, and there are more coves, and little bays, and little strands, and sharp rocks half covered, and so on, so that he might stave her in there, and yet manage to get ashore. I'm very sorry I can't remember what became of the punt."
"Never mind," said O'Brien. "Now, do you know the exact rise and fall of a neap tide at the Black Rock?"
"The exact rise and fall?"
"Yes; the exact rise of a neap tide from dead low water to the top of high water."
"I could not say to the inch, Mr. O'Brien."
"Well, to the foot. I don't want it to the inch; the foot will do."
The fisherman consulted his companion, who had not yet opened his mouth. After a muttered talk, the spokesman said:
"We wouldn't say to a foot, sir, if anything of consequence depended upon it."
"Fill up the measures again, John," said O'Brien, whose pint stood before him untasted. "There's no bet on it; you needn't be afraid. I'm only asking for information. I may be coming round here for the summer, and I just want to find out all I can. How much do you think?"
"Fourteen to sixteen feet."
"You don't think fifteen feet six would be far out?"
"No, sir. That's as near as can be. But there's the wind to be taken into account when you come to inches."
"How near were you ever to the Whale's Mouth--I mean, what was the nearest?"
"As close as that," he answered, stretching out his hand at arm's length. He added significantly--"On the ebb."
"How wide is the Mouth?"
"I couldn't say exactly, sir. It's a place we're rather shy of, as you know. I dare say it's as big as this room."
"You couldn't pull a yawl into it?"
"God forbid!" said the man devoutly. "Two did go in, and one was swallowed up into the bowels of the land, and the other was broken into ten thousand splinters. Pull a yawl in there! I'd go to the Canary Islands for life first."
"I don't mean to say would you, but could you?"
"No."
"Why?"
"For two reasons. In the first place, there isn't room for the yawl and the oars; and in the other place, I'd drop dead with the fright. Heaven be between us and all harm!"
"Is the Mouth much too narrow to allow a yawl to pull in?"
"Mr. O'Brien, I and every one in Kilcash have a great wish for you, sir; and if you're asking me these questions with the intention of going into the Whale's Mouth, I'll not answer another one."
"Upon my word and honour, Phelan. I haven't the least intention of making away with myself, or with anybody else, by means of the Whale's Mouth. I am inquiring simply for information, and perhaps if I come here in the summer, I may ask you to take care of me while I am having a look for myself; but just at present I want you to give me the benefit of what you know. How much too small is it for a yawl to pull in?"
"I couldn't say how many feet, but some feet."
"Ten?"
"Hardly so many as that, but thereabouts."
O'Brien was silent for a while. He looked down at the table, and made some figures on it with his finger. The other men talked together. At last he looked up and said:
"Tell me, Phelan, did you, in looking into the Whale's Mouth, notice whether it was straight, or inclined to the right or the left?"
"It's quite straight, as far as you can see."
"Are you quite sure of that?"
"Certain."
O'Brien then turned the conversation back into local channels again. Soon after he took his leave, having by some strange freak of preoccupation forgotten to drink his beer, although he had smoked his pipe like a man.
It was pitch dark. There was not a star in the heavens; no lights in the village, save here and there the thin ray of a rushlight shining through the wet window of some cottage. No phosphorescent gleam came from the sea, but a mournful, ghostly sound of wailing, as its waves, reduced by their passage up the bay, broke in diminished force against the flat, uneventful sand. Here were none of the grand organ tones heard near the lonely Black Rock, with its deadly legends, hideous Hole, and irresistible monster.
But O'Brien did not want to hear the sea now, either in its tame and civilised musing or in its insane roar when it flung itself unimpeded against the barriers of its dominions. He was thinking of the Black Rock, and of his sick friend, Alfred Paulton; and of O'Hanlon, and of the fate of Mike Fahey, and of Mr. Davenport, and of Tom Blake, and of--of Madge--his Madge, as he called her to himself, now that it was dark and no one was near. His Madge!
All around him was dark, cold, vacuous; all within him was full of light and warmth, and rich with figures in motion. He could not keep his great company of players in order at first. They hustled and jostled one another in his mind--all except Madge--his Madge! She moved apart from all the others, and the moment she appeared all the others fled as though abashed before her unstudied perfections.
Up to this he had never seriously concerned himself about anything. He had always been in fairly comfortable circumstances, although never rich. He had been brought up in the belief that he need never take much more trouble about the present or the future than an occasional glance at his salmon weirs on the river, and here he was now threatened with the loss of those weirs, which formed the backbone of his income--at a time, too, when this income meant the one thing he held dearest in the future--Madge! He had never been really in love before; there had been a few trifling affairs, but up to this he had never made up his mind to marry. That was the great test. Then look at the way he was mixed up in the Paulton and Davenport affair! Alfred, Madge's brother, succours Mrs. Davenport, and falls in love with the widow. He, Jerry O'Brien, causes a relapse in Alfred's case by some indiscreet words spoken by him of Mrs. Davenport. Then the Fishery Commissioners (whom may perdition lay hold of and keep for ever!) come howling to him about those weirs, and O'Hanlon tells him he must come over to Ireland post-haste, or he'll be picked dry as a bone by the Fishery Commissioners (whom may perdition--as before!); and no sooner does he set his foot in Kilbarry than O'Hanlon placidly confesses there is not so much need for haste for a day or two, or perhaps more, and that his (O'Hanlon's) real reason for sending for him was because of the ghost, or the ghost of a ghost, of one Mike Fahey, who had been connected with the Davenports ten or eleven years ago, and had jumped into the Hole in the Black Rock. A pretty complication, truly, for a man to get into in a fortnight or three weeks!
A pretty complication to get into, no doubt; but how would it all end? Except for poor Alfred's illness and the Fishery Commissioners (whom-- as before!), upon the whole he rather liked it.
And now he must go back to O'Hanlon, who would think him lost.
"I say, O'Hanlon," he said, cheerfully, as he got back to the coffee-room, "you've won that sovereign, not I."
"Did you go?"
"Yes. I went and ordered the beer; but, I'm blowed, I was so much amused that I came away and left it undrunk."
"Amused! What in the name of all that is wonderful could amuse you at that wretched beer-shop?"
"I was only picking up some facts about your old friend, Mike Fahey."
"Well, has any one seen him?"
"I met three men, and they had all seen him."
"In the name of heaven, when?"
"Ten or twelve years ago."
"Oh!" groaned O'Hanlon. "And not since?"
"No."
"That's not much good for me, is it?"
"Is it the fact that they have not seen the ghost which strikes you as being bad for you?"
"Yes, O'Brien. You know something."
"No, I do not; but I hope to know. I have learned something. But still--wait."