An Irish Country Wedding (28 page)

He took a sharp left at the Orange Tree Hatchery, where they raised chickens, not baby trees as Fingal had thought when Lars had brought his thirteen-year-old younger brother down here for his first day’s wildfowling.

Passing the lake on the Mount Stewart Estate to his left always signalled the halfway mark on this familiar journey to Portaferry. A family of coot, dumpy black waterfowl with white bills and white, featherless, frontal shields on their foreheads, glided sedately above their reflections, leaving tiny wakes on the otherwise unruffled surface.

His view as he skirted the estate was uninterrupted across acres of shining silver mud flats, regularly rippled in long, continous, sinuous lines where the waves of the ebbing tide had scrawled their signatures on the sea bed. Oystercatchers, probing with their long red bills, ran from seaweed clump to seaweed clump. Flocks of buff-pated widgeon browsed on the eel grass. With the window open he could hear their whistled conversations, smell the bladder-wrack and kelp drying in the hot sun. He glanced over South Island, Chapel Island, the blue waters, and on and up to Scrabo Tower, a lonely sentinel perched high above the town of Newtownards.

Arthur had been dozing in the back, but must have picked up familiar scents. O’Reilly heard happy murmurings coming from deep in the big dog’s throat. “Go back to sleep, lummox. We’re not
going shooting.” He recognized disappointment in Arthur’s
sighed response.

For the last ten miles to Portaferry, the winding narrow road, as it skirted Strangford Lough to O’Reilly’s right, was bordered by drystone walls and blackthorn hedges. The car swooped up and down small rounded hills, passing fields of gorse with flowers bright yellow and thorns dark green. Fields were dotted with sheep and their adolescent lambs, or cows and their calves. Inlets of the lough meandered between banks of coarse grass, the mud waiting for the incoming tide, flotsam and jetsam piled on the shore.

He crossed the Saltwater Brig, as the locals called the bridge over the Blackstaff River. He and Lars had spent countless chilled
hours at the mouth of that stream waiting in the half-light for the
dawn flight. He passed the old white church at Lisbane, from the Irish
lios bán
, the white fort, with its leaning Celtic cross. The house of worship had been built in 1777 and still contained a statue of Saint Patrick brought from Scotland and carried here by horse and cart from the east coast of the Ards Peninsula.

Next door to the church was Davy MacMaster’s farm and pub. After a day’s fowling, nothing could equal the pleasure of a man thawing his outsides in front of Davy MacMaster’s huge, peat-fired, black iron range, a hot Jameson flavoured with sugar, cloves, and lemon juice in his hand warming the inner man. He’d have to discuss his love of duck hunting on Strangford Lough with Kitty, but he was sure she’d not mind him slipping away occasionally in the season. She hadn’t when they’d been young in Dublin.

O’Reilly wrapped himself in his memories of pleasant days gone, dreams of good days to come, and, at home in the familiar countryside and at peace, sang softly to himself as the car ate up the last few miles.

If my health be spared I’ll be long relating

Of that boat that sailed out from
anac Cuan
 
…

Lough Cuan, the peaceful lough. That’s what the Celts had called the place, and that it was on this langorous day in the merry month of June.

30

A Noble Pair of Brothers

Lars’s grey, pebble-dashed, two-storey house had a view over the water to the Castleward demense on the Strangford Town side.
O’Reilly parked the Rover then watched as the little car ferry crabbed sideways across the Narrows, pushed upstream by the inrushing tide. In the distance the Mourne Mountains bulked
against the sky. Slieve Donard, from the Irish “Sliabh Domhanghairt,” Saint Donard’s Mountain, rose nearly three thousand feet above the sea. The pre-Christian Celts had called the peak Sliabh Sláinge after Sláinge mHic Partholóin, who reputedly was the first
physician in Ireland and who lay buried under a cairn there.
O’Reilly smiled and thought, when the time came, they could
plant a man in a worse place.

He let Arthur out.

The brown front door was opened. “Finn. Great to see you.” Lars O’Reilly stood in the doorway. “I heard your car in the drive. Good run down?”

Arthur, tail thrashing, trotted over to Lars and was affectionately patted.

“Grand altogether. How are you, big brother?” As they shook hands, O’Reilly thought that Lars seemed a little stooped. His once dark moustache was flecked with grey. Still, considering he’d turned sixty this year his eyes were bright and his handshake firm.

“All the better for seeing yourself. And I know I’ve told you on the phone, but I’ll say it again, it’s great news about the wedding. I’m sure you’re sick and tired of being wished every happiness
—
”

“Not at all, but I’ll consider it said.”

“And thank you for not asking me to be best man,” said Lars, bending to pull a burr from under Arthur’s chin. “You know how I get tongue-tied speaking in public. It’s why I never wanted to be
a barrister.” He shuddered. “I couldn’t argue a case in court. I
don’t think Father ever understood that.”

“No, he did not. But I do,” O’Reilly said, thinking to himself,
And you were never a driven man, Lars O’Reilly. You always seemed content doing the routine work of a country solicitor. I suppose in the same way I never specialised. Country general
practice was far too appealing. “I’m no great shakes at the speechifying myself, but it’s a small price to pay for being the groom. I never thought, Lars, I’d get wed a second time, but,” O’Reilly took a deep breath, “Kitty’s a remarkable woman. Hard to believe four weeks today she’ll be Mrs. O’Reilly.”

Lars smiled. “You deserve every happiness, Finn. Too early for a celebratory drink?”

“Even for me,” O’Reilly said. “Why don’t we take a stroll, give Arthur a run, and you can bring me up to date with what you’ve been doing?”

“Let me grab a jacket.”

As O’Reilly waited, his gaze was immediately attracted to a greenhouse attached to one gable end. Through the glass he could see a blaze of colour.

“Admiring my orchids from afar?” Lars asked. “I’ll show you my new ones when we get back. I’ve been really lucky with a hybrid I’ve been working on. With her permission I’d like to make it a present to Kitty and call the bloom ‘Kitty O’Hallorhan.’ It is truly beautiful, just like your Kitty.”

“I’m sure she’d be tickled,” O’Reilly said. “It’s a great honour.”

“It’s not really,” Lars said. “There’s already about twenty-five thousand recognised species, but I hope it might please her.” He smiled his slow smile and started to walk. “Come on. We’ll go out the back gate and over the fields.”

“Heel,” O’Reilly said, and he and Arthur followed Lars across a lawn, through an ornamental lychgate covered in climbing roses heavy with buds about to burst, and into a small valley.

Lars closed the gate.

For a moment, O’Reilly stood and savoured the day. The sun was warm and the white clouds and blue sky formed a painted
backdrop where swallows soared and dived in a never-ending aer
ial ballet. His nose was filled with the almond scent of whin flowers. A tractor grumbled, and somewhere a donkey brayed. “Hey on out, Arthur,” he told the dog, and watched as the big lad, nose to the ground, ran ahead quartering, scenting in red ben weeds and clumps of reeds. A single long-billed snipe rose and jinked away, hoarsely scolding.

“My old springer, Barney, loved this field,” Lars said. “When he died in ’46, I buried him in the far corner there, under that big sycamore.”

“He was a great gun-dog,” O’Reilly said.

“And he’s got his successors Kris and Dirk to keep him company. I’d given up wildfowling by the time Dirk died so I didn’t bother getting another retriever, but I like to think my old friends can still watch the rabbits,” Lars said, and smiled.

“I should have brought my gun,” O’Reilly said. “Kinky makes a lovely rabbit stew.”

“Not from the rabbits in my field,” Lars said. “Sorry.”

O’Reilly remembered that his brother had turned from a keen shot to a conservationist. “But aren’t you up to your neck in the creatures if you don’t cull them?” He watched Arthur disappear over the hill’s crest.

“I preserve them for an old friend, Jimmy Caulwell. He has exclusive rights to take them and sell them to the butcher.”

They crested the hill.

“He likes a shot?”

Lars shook his head. “Butchers prefer them taken by other means. The customers don’t like biting lead pellets. Jimmy’ll tell you himself how he does it. There he is talking to Arthur.”

Farther down the slope a little man holding the shaft of a spade in one hand was bending and patting the dog’s head. Fresh earth was heaped in a pile at his feet. He looked up and waved. “How’s about ye, Mister Lars? Sound day. Sound day.”

“Grand, thank you, Jimmy,” Lars called back. “Jimmy lives near here, works on a couple of the farms, and does odd jobs for me.”

As they approached, O’Reilly appraised the man. He couldn’t be more than five feet tall and about seven stone. His face was weathered at the forehead with deep creases round his blue eyes, and above a stubbly chin his cheeks were the colour somewhere between scarlet and purple that is typical of Ulster farm folk who must spend a lifetime braving the elements. His ears were thickened and stuck out.

He wore a tweed duncher from under which sweat dripped. The cap on his bald head was set so far back it looked to be in imminent danger of falling off. A red flannel undervest was open at the neck to expose a deeply tanned V. His arms, bare from the short sleeves down, were equally bronzed and the sinews stood out like cords. Moleskin trousers and black rubber Wellington boots completed his outfit. The boots were crusted with cow clap.

“My brother, Doctor Fingal O’Reilly,” Lars said.

“Pleased to meet youse, sir, so I am.” Jimmy knuckled his forehead.

“Jimmy,” O’Reilly said.

“What are you up to?” Lars asked.

The man’s face split into a grin revealing four front teeth in his lower jaw. “Before youse two and this here big dog come, I was by myself here. I was number one.” He waved an all-encompassing arm. “I was outstanding in my field, so I was.” He cackled mightily.

Lars chuckled. “Outstanding in your field. Jimmy, that one has whiskers.”

O’Reilly laughed out loud. “And you were digging. Looks like you’re getting some help now.”

Arthur had stuck his backside in the air, and with his front paws working like steam shovels, was hurling a stream of sandy earth behind him.

“More power to him, sir. Bejizz, but it’s heavy going on a hot day. Keep up the good work, dog, but can you make him stop, sir, when I say so?”

“Sure. Why?”

Jimmy pointed uphill. “See them nets?”

Scattered apparently randomly on the hillside were pieces of fine mesh held in place by pegs driven into the ground. “I do.”

“Them’s all over rabbit bolt holes. This here’s one big warren, so it is.”

O’Reilly nodded. Now he knew how Jimmy Caulwell hunted rabbits. With a ferret. Put nets over all the escape tunnels, slip the predator through the main entrance, and wait until the fleeing, panicked rabbits had netted themselves, deal with them, then recover the ferret and feed it by way of thanks and to reinforce that its hunting was always rewarded when it surfaced. Very clever, except that once in a while— “Killed underground, has he?” O’Reilly asked. If such were the case, the animal would gorge, fall asleep, and could be lost forever unless the owner waited, often for a couple of days, until the animal surfaced, or someone dug it out.

“Aye, silly bugger that he is.” Jimmy pointed to where Arthur still toiled away. “Your dog scents him and his kill. I was digging him out, so I was, but I reckon your big fellah must be pretty close by now.”

“Arthur,” O’Reilly called. “Come.”

Arthur, with his eyebrows working furiously, looked at his master, sighed audibly, and obeyed. He could almost hear the lab thinking, Spoilsport.

“Sit.”

“Likely sensible, sir,” Jimmy said. “Your man down there’s a polecat ferret, dead fierce, so he is. He’s no’ big, but neither was Rinty Monaghan, our Belfast boxer, and he packed a hell of a punch for a flyweight. My fellah’d likely give your
 
… Arthur is it?”

“Aye.”

“If your Arthur dug him up, my boy’d likely give the dog a terrible tousling, so he would. Just like Rinty done to Jackie Paterson in 1948. I was fifteen then. Rinty was my hero, so he was.”

“You box?” O’Reilly said.

“Aye. I did. Mini-flyweight.” He squinted. “And, no harm til you, sir. So did you.”

O’Reilly laughed. “I did.” He pointed to his bent nose. “That’s what you get if you let your guard down.”

“I’ll not here.” Jimmy bent and picked up a pair of heavy leather gloves. “My ferret can’t bite through these.” He donned the gloves and hefted the spade. “Now, sir, Mister Lars, the
craic
’s been great. Thank youse very much, Arthur, but I’ve got to get on with this here job, so I have.” With clearly practised ease, he drove the shovel blade into the earth.

“Good luck, Jimmy,” Lars said, “and if you’ve time next week, I’ve more shelves I need hung in the orchid house.”

“I’ll see to it, sir.”

O’Reilly fell into step with his big brother, and Arthur, after one soulful look over his shoulder to where Jimmy was chucking up more spadefuls, walked at his master’s side.

“If we cut over the stile at the far side of the field,” Lars said, “there’s a pleasant, not-too-taxing two-mile walk that goes past the castle, through a couple of woods, along the sea front, and fetches up at the Portaferry Arms.”

“In that case, I’m your man,” O’Reilly said, striding out, “and now, brother, it’s been a few months. It’s time you brought me up to date with all that’s been happening in your life.”