The Wind Bloweth Part 33

"If one could take it all, and do to it as I've done to Tusa hErin. By the way," she asked suddenly, "is Tusa hErin haunted?"

"No, I never heard. Did you see anything?"

"I think I heard something a few times. A piper piping when the storms rose. A queer little tune--like that thing about McCrimmon."

"_Cha till, cha till, cha till McCrimmon._"

"Are there words to it?"

"_Le cogadh mo sidhe cha till McCrimmon._"

Never, never, never, will return McCrimmon.

With war or peace never will come McCrimmon.

For money or spoil never will return McCrimmon.

He will come no more till the Day of the Gathering.

"A lamenting tune like that, I heard."

"The drone was just the grinding of the waves, the air the wind among the yews."

"That's possible. But isn't a phantom piper possible, too, in a land of ghosts?"

-- 8

"A land of ghosts"; the phrase remained with him. And the lighted lamp and the burning peat fire seemed to invoke like some necromantic ritual.

How often, and he a young boy, had the names trumpeted through his being. Brian Boru at Clontarf, and the routed red Danes. And with the routing of the Danes, Ireland had come to peaceful days, and gentle white-clothed saints arose and monasteries with tolling bells, and great Celtic crosses.... And gone were the Druids, their cursing stones, their Ogham script.... Gone old Celtic divinities, Angus of the Boyne, and Manannan, son of Lir, G.o.d of the sea ... and the peace of Galilee came over the joyous hunting land.... The little people of the hills, with their pygmy horses, their pygmy pipes, cowered, went into exile, under the thunder of Rome.... And the land was meek that it might inherit the kingdom of heaven.... And the English came.... The Earls of Ulster fled into Spain.... And only here and there was a memory of old-time heroes, of Cuchulain of the Red Branch; of Maeve, queen of Connacht, in her fighting chariot, her great red cloak; of Dermot, who abducted Grania from the king of Ireland's camp, and knew nine ways of throwing the spear.... The O'Neils remembered Shane, who brought Queen Elizabeth to her knees with love and terror.... And Owen Roe, the Red.... And the younger Hugh O'Neil, with his hardbitten Ulstermen at Benburb.... They had to bring the greatest general of Europe, Cromwell, the lord protector, to subdue the Ulster clans.... Sullen peace, and the Stuarts came back, and again Ireland was lulled with their suave manners, the scent of the white rose.... The crash of the Boyne Water, and King James running for his life.... And Limerick's siege, and the Treaty, and Patrick Sarsfield and the Wild Geese setting wing for France.... France knew them, Germany, Sweden, even Russia.... Ramillies and the Spaniard knew Lord Clare's Dragoons.... And Fontenoy and the thunder of the Irish Brigade.... And Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, dead at the end of the day.... Even to-day Europe knew them: O'Donnel, Duke of Tetuan and grandee of Spain; and Patrice McMahon, Duke of Magenta, who had been made president of the Republic of France--they were of the strain of Lucan's wild Geese....

[Ill.u.s.tration]

And again a sullen peace, and Ulster rang to the trumpet of American freedom, and the United Irishmen arose in Belfast.... And Napper Tandy at Napoleon's court, and Hoche with his s.h.i.+ps in Bantry Bay.... Wolfe Tone's mangled throat, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald murdered by his captors....

What had made these men, sane men--Ulstermen mostly--risk life and face death so gallantly? What brought out the men of '48 and the men of '67?

What was making little Bigger fight so savagely in Parliament, blocking the legislation of the empire? What had got under their skins, into their blood? Surely not for a gray half-deserted city? Surely not for little bays and purple mountains? Surely not for an illiterate peasantry, half crazed by the fear of h.e.l.l?

He tried to see Ireland as a personality, as one sees England, like the great Britannia on a copper penny, helmeted, full-breasted, great-hipped, with sword and s.h.i.+eld, a bourgeois concept of majesty, a ponderous, self-conscious personality:

When Britain first, at Heaven's command Arose from out the azure main,--

Just like that!

And Scotland he could see as a young woman, in kilt and plaid and Glengarry cap, a shrewd young woman though, with a very decisive personality, clinching a bargain as the best of dealers might, a little forward. He could think of her as the young girl whose hand Charles the Young Pretender kissed, and who had said to him directly: "I'd liefer hae a buss for my mou'." "I'd rather have a kiss on my mouth." Scotland knew what she wanted and got it, a pert, a solid, a likable girl.

But Ireland, Ireland of the gray mists, the gray towns. How to see her?

The country ballad came to him. The "Shan Van Vocht," the poor old woman, gray, shawled, pitiable, whom her children were seeking to reinstate in her home with many fields:

And where will they have their camp?

Says the Shan Van Vocht.

And where will they have their camp?

Says the Shan Van Vocht.

In the Curragh of Klidare, The boys will all be there.

With their pikes in good repair, Says the Shan Van Vocht.

To the Curragh of Kildare The boys they will repair, And Lord Edward will be there, Says the Shan Van Vocht.

No! Not enough. One might work, sacrifice money, for the Shan Van Vocht--but life, no! He thought again. Poor Mangan's poem flashed into his mind and heart....

O my Dark Rosaleen, Do not sigh, do not weep!

The priests are on the ocean green They march along the deep.

There's wine from the royal pope Upon the ocean green.

And Spanish ale shall give you hope, My dark Rosaleen!

My own Rosaleen!

Shall glad your heart, shall give you hope, Shall give you health, and help, and hope, My dark Rosaleen!

Ah, that was it! Not pity, but gallant, fiery love. Modern ideals and ancient chivalry.... A young dark woman with a quivering mouth, with eyes bright in tears.... There was an old favorite print that portrayed her, a slim wistful figure resting a pale hand on a mute harp, a great elk-hound at her feet on guard, and back of her the rising sun shone on the antique round tower.... A pretty picture, but was it enough? He tried to envisage her close, concentrated.... There the dog, there the harp, there the slim form.... But the face.... It seemed to elude him.

And suddenly it flashed at him with abrupt dark beauty ... the face of the woman of Tusa hErin....

-- 9

The long Ulster twilight had set in, the twilight of bats, gray-blue, utterly peaceful ... the little chiming of the sea.... Even the wind was still.... All things drowsed, like a dog before the fire, relaxed but not asleep.... Beneath her feet the turf was firm ... beneath that the hush-een-husho of the purple Moyle.... Soon there would be a moon and her servants would saddle Shane's horse for him and he would ride home in the Antrim moonlight, eighteen miles of grim road with the friendly moon above him, and the singing Moyle on his left hand, and on his right the purple glens.... And the shadows ... the delicate tracery of the ash-tree, and the tall rowans, and the ma.s.sive blue shadows of the cliffs ... a golden and silver land.... A very sweet silence had fallen between them, as if music had ceased and become restful color.... They watched the quiet swan....

"I am a little afraid to leave Tusa hErin," she said suddenly and softly, as though thinking aloud.... "I am like a nun who has been in a convent.... She is lost in the open world.... Will I ever again find a place like Tusa hErin?"

"Granya, are you selling Tusa hErin?"

"I have sold it, Shane."

"I am sorry," was all he could say. A little silence, and he could feel her smiling through the dusk.

"You never ask any questions, Shane?"

"It never occurs to me to ask them, Granya. If any one wants to tell me a thing, I know they will, and if they don't why should I intrude?"

"I should like to tell you why I sold Tusa hErin. But I cannot. It is my own secret."

He nodded in the dusk: "I understand."

She turned to him slowly. Her sweet dark head was like some fragrant shrub.... Her low soft voice had so much life to it....

"I wonder if you know what a friend you are, Shane? If you understand how peaceful it is to have you here? You are such a sweet fact, Shane, like the moon."

"I am a friend, Granya...."

"You are, yes.... And you know so little about me, Shane. And I know all about you.... I know the adventures of your youth.... And of the hard girl of Louth, and the poor hara.s.sed woman of Ma.r.s.eilles.... And of the little Syrian wife whom you didn't know you loved until you lost her ...

and the gray voyages to the cruel country.... At times I see you like a little boy hunting the leprechawn.... And then I see your face, your eyes, and understand how you commanded men in s.h.i.+ps.... You are like some beautiful play, Shane.... I wonder what is the ending?"

"It is already ended, Granya."

"No, Shane. I know, the end hasn't come.... I know you, Shane," she asked abruptly; "what do you know about me?"