The Complete Works of Stephen Crane (70 page)

“Give me the papers.”

“But it’s only a minute since,” I cried, perplexed, “that you held them to be the key of the situation, and said if I didn’t keep them I would never get you.”

“Did I say that?” asked Lady Mary with the innocence of a three-year-old child. “I had no idea we had come to such a conclusion. Now do you want a little advice about those same papers?”

“As long as the advice comes from you, Mary darling, I want it on any subject.”

“You have come into England brawling, sword-playing, cudgel-flinging, and never till this moment have you given a thought to what the papers are for. These papers represent the law.”

“Bad cess to it,” said I. “My father used to say, have as little to do with the law as possible, for what’s the use of bringing your man into the courts when a good shillelah is speedier and more satisfactory to all concerned.”

“That may be true in Ireland, but it is not true in England. Now, here is my advice. You know my father and mother, and if you’ll just quit staring your eyes out at me, and think for a minute, you may be able to tell when you will get their consent to pay your addresses to me without interruption.” Here she blushed and looked down.

“Indeed,” said I, “I don’t need to take my eyes from you to answer
that
question. It’ll be the afternoon following the Day of Judgment.”

“Very well. You must then stand on your rights. I will give you a letter to a man in the Temple, learned in the law. He was legal adviser to my aunt, who left me all her property, and she told me that if I ever was in trouble I was to go to him; but instead of that I’ll send my trouble to him with a letter of introduction. I advise you to take possession of the estate at Brede, and think no more of giving up the papers to my father until he is willing to give you something in return. You may then ask what you like of him; money, goods, or a farm,” — and again a bright red colour flooded her cheeks. With that she drew toward her pen and paper and dashed off a letter which she gave to me.

“I think,” she said, “it would be well if you left the papers with the man in the Temple; he will keep them safely, and no one will suspect where they are; while, if you need money, which is likely, he will be able to advance you what you want on the security of the documents you leave with him.”

“Is it money?” said I, “sure I couldn’t think of drawing money on property that belongs to your good father, the Earl.”

“As I read the papers,” replied Lady Mary, very demurely, casting down her eyes once more, “the property does not belong to my good father, the Earl, but to the good-for-nothing young man named O’Ruddy. I think that my father, the Earl, will find that he needs your signature before he can call the estate his own once more. It may be I am wrong, and that your father, by leaving possession so long in the hands of the Earl, may have forfeited his claim. Mr. Josiah Brooks will tell you all about that when you meet him in the Temple. You may depend upon it that if he advances you money your claim is good, and, your claim being good, you may make terms with even so obstreperous a man as my father.”

“And if I make terms with the father,” I cried, “do you think his comely daughter will ratify the bargain?”

Lady Mary smiled very sweetly, and gave me the swiftest and shyest of glances across the table from her speaking eyes, which next instant were hidden from me.

“May be,” she said, “the lawyer could answer that question.”

“Troth,” I said, springing to my feet, “I know a better one to ask it of than any old curmudgeon poring over dry law-books, and the answer I’m going to have from your own lips.”

Then, with a boldness that has ever characterized the O’Ruddys, I swung out my arms and had her inside o’ them before you could say Ballymoyle. She made a bit of a struggle and cried breathlessly:

“I’ll answer, if you’ll sit in that chair again.”

“It’s not words,” says I, “I want from your lips, but this,” — and I smothered a little shriek with one of the heartiest kisses that ever took place out of Ireland itself, and it seemed to me that her struggle ceased, or, as one might say, faded away, as my lips came in contact with hers; for she suddenly weakened in my arms so that I had to hold her close to me, for I thought she would sink to the floor if I did but leave go, and in the excitement of the moment my own head was swimming in a way that the richest of wine had never made it swim before. Then Lady Mary buried her face in my shoulder with a little sigh of content, and I knew she was mine in spite of all the Earls and Countesses in the kingdom, or estates either, so far as that went. At last she straightened up and made as though she would push me from her, but held me thus at arms’ length, while her limpid eyes looked like twin lakes of Killarney on a dreamy misty morning when there’s no wind blowing.

“O’Ruddy,” she said, solemnly, with a little catch in her voice, “you’re a bold man, and I think you’ve no doubt of your answer; but what has happened makes me the more anxious for your success in dealing with those who will oppose both your wishes and mine. My dear lover, is what I call you now; you have come over in tempestuous fashion, with a sword in your hand, striving against every one who would stand up before you. After this morning, all that should be changed, for life seems to have become serious and momentous. O’Ruddy, I want your actions to be guided, not by a drawn sword, but by religion and by law.”

“Troth, Mary acushla, an Irishman takes to religion of his own nature, but I much misdoubt me if it comes natural to take to the law.”

“How often have you been to mass since you came to England, O’Ruddy?”

“How often?” says I, wrinkling my brow, “indeed you mean, how many times?”

“Yes; how many times?”

“Now, Mary, how could you expect me to be keeping count of them?”

“Has your attendance, then, been so regular?”

“Ah, Mary, darling; it’s not me that has the face to tell you a lie, and yet I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never set foot in a church since I crossed the channel, and the best of luck it is for me that good old Father Donovan doesn’t hear these same words.”

“Then you will go to church this very day and pray for heaven’s blessing on both of us.”

“It’s too late for the mass this Sunday, Mary, but the churches are open, and the first one I come to will have me inside of it.”

With that she drew me gently to her, and herself kissed me, meeting none of that resistance which I had encountered but a short time before; and then, as bitter ill luck would have it, at this delicious moment we were startled by the sound of carriage-wheels on the gravel outside.

“Oh!” cried Lady Mary in a panic; “how time has flown!”

“Indeed,” said I, “I never knew it so fast before.”

And she, without wasting further time in talking, unlocked the door, whipped out the key, and placed it where I had found it in the beginning. She seemed to think of everything in a moment, and I would have left her letter and the papers on the table if it hadn’t been for that cleverest of all girls, who, besides her lips of honey, had an alert mind, which is one of the things appreciated in Ireland. I then followed her quickly down a narrow back stairway and out into a glass house, where a little door at the end led us into a deliciously shaded walk, free from all observation, with a thick screen of trees on the right hand and the old stone wall on the left.

Here I sprang quickly to overtake her, but she danced away like a fairy in the moonlight, throwing a glance of mischief over her shoulder at me, with her finger on her lips. It seemed to me a pity that so sylvan a dell should merely be used for the purposes of speed, but in a jiffy Mary was at the little door in the wall and had the bolts drawn back, and I was outside before I understood what had happened, listening to bolts being thrust back again, and my only consolation was the remembrance of a little dab at my lips as I passed through, as brief and unsatisfactory as the peck of a sparrow.

It was a beautiful day, as lovely as any an indulgent Providence had ever bestowed upon an unthankful generation.

Although I wished I had had an hour or two to spend with Mary wandering up and down that green alley through which we had rushed with such indecent haste, all because two aged and angry members of the nobility might have come upon us, yet I walked through the streets of London as if I trod on the air, and not on the rough cobble-stones of the causeway. It seemed as if I had suddenly become a boy again, and yet with all the strength and vigour of a man, and I was hard put to it not to shout aloud in the sunlight, or to slap on the back the slow and solemn Englishmen I met, who looked as if they had never laughed in their lives. Sure it’s a very serious country, this same land of England, where their dignity is so oppressive that it bows down head and shoulders with thinking how grand they are; and yet I’ll say nothing against them, for it was an Englishwoman that made me feel like a balloon. Pondering over the sobriety of the nation, I found myself in the shadow of a great church, and, remembering what my dear Mary had said, I turned and went in through the open door, with my hat in my hand. It was a great contrast to the bright sunlight I had left, and to the busy streets with their holiday-making people. There were only a few scattered here and there in the dim silence of the church, some on their knees, some walking slowly about on tiptoe, and some seated meditating in chairs. No service was going forward, so I knelt down in the chapel of Saint Patrick himself; I bowed my head and thanked God for the day and for the blessing that had come with it. As I said, I was like a boy again, and to my lips, too long held from them, came the prayers that had been taught me. I was glad I had not forgotten them, and I said them over and over with joy in my heart. As I raised my head, I saw standing and looking at me a priest, and, rising to my feet, I made my bow to him, and he came forward, recognizing me before I recognized him.

“O’Ruddy,” he said, “if you knew the joy it gives to my old heart to meet you in this sacred place and in that devout attitude, it would bring some corresponding happiness to yourself.”

“Now by the piper that played before Moses, Father Donovan, and is this yourself? Sure I disrecognized you, coming into the darkness, and me just out of the glare beyond,” — and I took his hand in both of mine and shook it with a heartiness he had not met since he left the old turf. “Sure and there’s no one I’d rather meet this day than yourself,” — and with that I dropped on one knee and asked for his blessing on me and mine.

As we walked out of the church together, his hand resting on my shoulder, I asked how such a marvel came to pass as Father Donovan, who never thought to leave Ireland, being here in London. The old man said nothing till we were down the steps, and then he told me what had happened.

“You remember Patsy O’Gorman,” he said.

“I do that,” I replied, “and an old thief of the world and a tight-fisted miser he is.”

“Whist,” said Father Donovan, quietly crossing himself. “O’Gorman is dead and buried.”

“Do you tell me that!” said I, “then rest his soul. He would be a warm man and leave more money than my father did, I’m thinking.”

“Yes, he left some money, and to me he left three hundred pounds, with the request that I should accomplish the desire of my life and take the pilgrimage to Rome.”

“The crafty old chap, that same bit of bequestration will help him over many a rough mile in purgatory.”

“Ah, O’Ruddy, it’s not our place to judge. They gave a harder name to O’Gorman than he deserved. Just look at your own case. The stories that have come back to Ireland, O’Ruddy, just made me shiver. I heard that you were fighting and brawling through England, ready to run through any man that looked cross-eyed at you. They said that you had taken up with a highwayman; that you spent your nights in drink and breathing out smoke; and here I find you, a proper young man, doing credit to your country, meeting you, not in a tavern, but on your knees with bowed head in the chapel of Saint Patrick, giving the lie to the slanderer’s tongue.”

The good old man stopped in our walk, and with tears in his eyes shook hands with me again, and I had not the heart to tell him the truth.

“Ah well,” I said, “Father Donovan, I suppose nobody, except yourself, is quite as good as he thinks, and nobody, including myself, is as bad as he appears to be. And now, Father Donovan, where are you stopping, and how long will you be in London?”

“I am stopping with an old college friend, who is a priest in the church where I found you. I expect to leave in a few days’ time and journey down to the seaport of Rye, where I am to take ship that will land me either in Dunkirk or in Calais. From there I am to make my way to Rome as best I can.”

“And are you travelling alone?”

“I am that, although, by the blessing of God, I have made many friends on the journey, and every one I met has been good to me.”

“Ah, Father Donovan, you couldn’t meet a bad man if you travelled the world over. Sure there’s some that carry such an air of blessedness with them that every one they meet must, for very shame, show the best of his character. With me it’s different, for it seems that where there’s contention I am in the middle of it, though, God knows, I’m a man of peace, as my father was before me.”

“Well,” said Father Donovan slowly, but with a sweet smile on his lip, “I suppose the O’Ruddys were always men of peace, for I’ve known them before now to fight hard enough to get it.”

The good father spoke a little doubtfully, as if he were not quite approving of our family methods, but he was a kindly man who always took the most lenient view of things. He walked far with me, and then I turned and escorted him to the place where he resided, and, bidding good-bye, got a promise from him that he would come to the “Pig and Turnip” a day later and have a bite and sup with me, for I thought with the assistance of the landlord I could put a very creditable meal before him, and Father Donovan was always one that relished his meals, and he enjoyed his drink too, although he was set against too much of it. He used to say, “It’s a wise drinker that knows when geniality ends and hostility begins, and it’s just as well to stop before you come to the line.”

With this walking to and fro the day was near done with when I got back to the “Pig and Turnip” and remembered that neither a bit of pig nor a bit of turnip had I had all that long day, and now I was ravenous. I never knew anything make me forget my appetite before; but here had I missed my noonday meal, and not in all my life could I overtake it again. Sure there was many an experience crowded together in that beautiful Sunday, so, as I passed through the entrance to the inn I said to the obsequious landlord:

“For the love of Heaven, get placed on my table all you have in the house that’s fit to eat, and a trifle of a bottle or two, to wash it down with.”

So saying, I passed up the creaking old oaken stair and came to my room, where I instantly remembered there was something else I had forgotten. As I opened the door there came a dismal groan from Paddy, and something that sounded like a wicked oath from Jem Bottles. Poor lads! that had taken such a beating that day, such a cudgelling for my sake; and here I stood at my own door in a wonder of amazement, and something of fright, thinking I had heard a banshee wail. The two misused lads had slipped out of my memory as completely as the devil slipped off Macgillicuddy Reeks into the pond beneath when Saint Patrick had sent the holy words after him.

“Paddy,” said I, “are you hurted? Where is it you’re sore?”

“Is it sore?” he groaned. “Except the soles of my feet, which they couldn’t hit with me kickin’ them, there isn’t an inch of me that doesn’t think it’s worse hurted than the rest.”

“It’s sorry I am to hear that,” I replied, quite truthfully, “and you, Jem, how did you come off?”

“Well, I gave a better account of myself than Paddy here, for I made most of them keep their distance from me; but him they got on the turf before you could say Watch me eye, and the whole boiling of them was on top of him in the twinkling of the same.”

“The whole boiling of them?” said I, as if I knew nothing of the occurrence, “then there was more than Strammers to receive you?”

“More!” shouted Jem Bottles, “there was forty if there was one.”

Paddy groaned again at the remembrance, and moaned out:

“The whole population of London was there, and half of it on top of me before I could wink. I thought they would strip the clothes off me, and they nearly did it.”

“And have you been here alone ever since? Have you had nothing to eat or drink since you got back?”

“Oh,” said Jem, “we had too much attention in the morning, and too little as the day went on. We were expecting you home, and so took the liberty of coming up here and waiting for you, thinking you might be good enough to send out for some one who would dress our wounds; but luckily that’s not needed now.”

“Why is it not needed?” I asked. “I’ll send at once.

“Oh, no,” moaned Paddy, “there was one good friend that did not forget us.”

“Well,” said Jem, “he seemed mighty afeerd of coming in. I suppose he thought it was on his advice that we went where we did, and he was afeerd we thought badly of him for it; but of course we had no blame to put on the poor little man.”

“In Heaven’s name, who are you talking of?” said I.

“Doctor Chord,” answered Jem. “He put his head inside the door and inquired for us, and inquired specially where you were; but that, of course, we couldn’t tell him. He was very much put out to find us mis-handled, and he sent us some tankards of beer, which are now empty, and we’re waiting for him because he promised to come back and attend to our injuries.”

“Then you didn’t see Doctor Chord in the gardens?”

“In what gardens?” asked Bottles.

“You didn’t see him among that mob that set on you?”

“No fear,” said Jem, “wherever there is a scrimmage Doctor Chord will keep away from it.”

“Indeed and in that you’re wrong,” said I. “Doctor Chord has been the instigator of everything that has happened, and he stood in the background and helped to set them on.”

Paddy sat up with wild alarm in his eyes.

“Sure, master,” says he, “how could you see through so thick a wall as that?”

“I did not see through the wall at all; I was in the house. When you went through the back door, I went through the front gate, and what I am telling you is true. Doctor Chord is the cause of the whole commotion. That’s why he was afraid to come in the room. He thought perhaps you had seen him, and, finding you had not, he’ll be back here again when everything is over. Doctor Chord is a traitor, and you may take my word for that.”

Paddy rose slowly to his feet, every red hair in his head bristling with scorn and indignation; but as he stood erect he put his hand to his side and gave a howl as he limped a step or two over the floor.

“The black-hearted villain,” he muttered through his teeth. “I’ll have his life.”

“You’ll have nothing of the sort,” said I, “and we’ll get some good attendance out of him, for he’s a skillful man. When he has done his duty in repairing what he has inflicted upon you, then you can give him a piece of your mind.”