Part 4 (1/2)

Father Moran at once objected that the ash-tree had not yet sent down a branch to pierce the priest-killer's heart.

'Not yet; but this branch nearly touches the ground, and there's no saying that it won't take root in a few years.'

'But his heart is there no longer.'

'Well, no,' said Father Oliver, 'it isn't; but if one is to argue that way, no one would listen to a story at all.'

Father Moran held his peace for a little while, and then he began talking about the penal times, telling how religion in Ireland was another form of love of country, and that, if Catholics were intolerant to every form of heresy, it was because they instinctively felt that the questioning of any dogma would mean some slight subsidence from the idea of nationality that held the people together. Like the ancient Jews, the Irish believed that the faith of their forefathers could bring them into their ultimate inheritance; this was why a proselytizer was hated so intensely.

'More opinions,' Father Oliver said to himself. 'I wonder he can't admire that ash-tree, and be interested in the story, which is quaint and interesting, without trying to draw an historical parallel between the Irish and the Jews. Anyhow, thinking is better than drinking,' and he jumped on his car. The last thing he heard was Moran's voice saying, 'He who betrays his religion betrays his country.'

'Confound the fellow, bothering me with his preaching on this fine summer's day! Much better if he did what he was told, and made up his mind to put the small green slates on the abbey, and not those coa.r.s.e blue things which will make the abbey look like a common barn.'

Then, shading his eyes with his hand, he peered through the sun haze, following the shapes of the fields. The corn was six inches high, and the potatoes were coming into blossom. True, there had been a scarcity of water, but they had had a good summer, thanks be to G.o.d, and he thought he had never seen the country looking so beautiful. And he loved this country, this poor Western plain with shapely mountains enclosing the horizon. Ponies were feeding between the whins, and they raised their s.h.a.ggy heads to watch the car pa.s.sing. In the distance cattle were grazing, whisking the flies away. How beautiful was everything--the white clouds hanging in the blue sky, and the trees! There were some trees, but not many--only a few pines. He caught glimpses of the lake through the stems; tears rose to his eyes, and he attributed his happiness to his native land and to the thought that he was living in it. Only a few days ago he wished to leave it--no, not for ever, but for a time; and as his old car jogged through the ruts he wondered how it was that he had ever wished to leave Ireland, even for a single minute.

'Now, Christy, which do you reckon to be the shorter road?'

'The shorter road, your reverence, is the Joycetown road, but I doubt if we can get the car through it.'

'How is that?'

And the boy answered that since the Big House had been burnt the road hadn't been kept in repair.

'But,' said Father Oliver, 'the Big House was burnt seventy years ago.'

'Well, your reverence, you see, it was a good road then, but the last time I heard of a car going that way was last February.'

'And if a car got through in February, why can't we get through on the first of June?'

'Well, your reverence, there was the storm, and I do be hearing that the trees that fell across the road then haven't been removed yet.'

'I think we might try the road, for all that, for though if we have to walk the greater part of it, there will be a saving in the end.'

'That's true, your reverence, if we can get the car through; but if we can't we may have to come all the way back again.'

'Well, Christy, we'll have to risk that. Now, will you be turning the horse up the road? And I'll stop at the Big House--I've never been inside it. I'd like to see what it is like.'

Joycetown House was the last link between the present time and the past.

In the beginning of the century a duellist lived there; the terror of the countryside he, for he was never known to miss his man. For the slightest offence, real or imaginary, he sent seconds demanding redress.

No more than his ancestors, who had doubtless lived on the islands, in Castle Island and Castle Hag, could he live without fighting. But when he completed his round dozen, a priest said, 'If we don't put a stop to his fighting, there won't be a gentleman left in the country,' and wrote to him to that effect.

The story runs how Joyce, knowing the feeling of the country was against him, tried to keep the peace. But the blood fever came on him again, and he called out his nearest neighbour, Browne of the Neale, the only friend he had in the world. Browne lived at Neale House, just over the border, in County Galway, so the gentlemen arranged to fight in a certain field near the mearing. It was Browne of Neale who was the first to arrive. Joyce, having to come a dozen miles, was a few minutes late.

As soon as his gig was seen, the people, who were in hiding, came out, and they put themselves between him and Browne, telling him up to his face there was to be no fighting that day! And the priest, who was at the head of them, said the same; but Joyce, who knew his countrymen, paid no heed, but stood up in the gig, and, looking round him, said, 'Now, boys, which is it to be? The Mayo c.o.c.k or the Galway c.o.c.k?' No sooner did he speak these words than they began to cheer him, and in spite of all the priest could say they carried him into the field in which he shot Browne of the Neale.

'A queer people, the queerest in the world,' Father Oliver thought, as he pulled a thorn-bush out of the doorway and stood looking round. There were some rough chimney-pieces high up in the gra.s.s-grown walls, but beyond these really nothing to be seen, and he wandered out seeking traces of terraces along the hillside.

On meeting a countryman out with his dogs he tried to inquire about the state of the road.

'I wouldn't be saying, your reverence, that you mightn't get the car through by keeping close to the wall; but Christy mustn't let the horse out of a walk.'