XIII
Early in the morning the sun had been shining gloriously, and there was a thump of a wind blowing across the road that kept everything gay; the trees were in full leaf and every bough went jigging to its neighbour, but on the sky the clouds raced so fast that they were continually catching each other up and getting so mixed that they could not disentangle themselves again, and from their excessive gaiety black misery spread and the sun took a gloomy cast.
Mac Cann screwed an eye upwards like a bird and rubbed at his chin.
“There will be rain soon,” said he, “and the country wants it.”
“It will be heavy rain,” said his daughter.
“It will so,” he replied; “let us be getting along now the way we’ll be somewhere before the rain comes, for I never did like getting wetted by rain, and nobody ever did except the people of the County Cork, and they are so used to it that they never know whether it’s raining or whether it isn’t.”
So they encouraged the ass to go quicker and he did that.
As they hastened along the road they saw in front of them two people marching close together, and in a little time they drew close to these people.
“I know the look of that man’s back,” said Patsy, “but I can’t tell you where I saw it. I’ve a good memory for faces, though, and I’ll tell you all about him in a minute.”
“Do you know the woman that is with him?” said Caeltia.
“You can’t tell a woman by her back,” replied Patsy, “and nobody could, for they all have the same back when they have a shawl on.”
Mary turned her head to them:
“Every woman’s back is different,” said she, “whether there’s a shawl on it or not, and I know from the way that woman is wearing her shawl that she is Eileen Ni Cooley and no one else.”
“If that is so,” said her father hastily, “let us be going slower the way we won’t catch up on her. Mary, a grah, whisper a word in the ass’s ear so that he won’t be going so quick, for he is full of fun this day.”
“I’ll do that,” said Mary, and she said “whoa” into the ear of the little ass, and he stopped inside the quarter of a pace.
“Do you not like that woman?” Caeltia enquired.
“She’s a bad woman,” replied Patsy.
“What sort of a bad woman is she?”
“She’s the sort that commits adultery with every kind of man,” said he harshly.
Caeltia turned over that accusation for a moment.
“Did she ever commit adultery with yourself?” said he.
“She did not,” said Patsy, “and that’s why I don’t like her.”
Caeltia considered that statement also, and found it reasonable:
“I think,” said he, “that the reason you don’t like that woman is because you like her too much.”
“It’s so,” said Patsy, “but there is no reason for her taking on with every kind of man and not taking on with me at all.”
He was silent for a moment.
“I tell you,” said he furiously, “that I made love to that woman from the dawn to the dark, and then she walked off with a man that came down a little road.”
“That was her right,” said Caeltia mildly.
“Maybe it was, but for the weight of a straw I would have killed the pair of them that night in the dark place.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“She had me weakened. My knees gave under me when she walked away and there wasn’t even a curse in my mouth.”
Again he was silent, and again he broke into angry speech!
“I don’t want to see her at all, for she torments me, so let the pair of them walk their road until they come to a ditch that is full of thorns and is fit for them to die in.”
“I think,” said Caeltia, “that the reason you don’t want to see her is because you want to see her too much.”
“It’s so,” growled Mac Cann, “and it’s so too that you are a prying kind of a man and that your mouth is never at rest, so we’ll go on now to the woman yonder, and let you talk to her with your tongue and your nimble questions.”
Thereupon he rushed forward and kicked the ass so suddenly in the belly that it leaped straight off the ground and began to run before its legs touched earth again.
When they had taken a few dozen steps Mac Cann began to roar furiously:
“What way are you, Eileen Ni Cooley? What sort of a man is it that’s walking beside yourself?”
And he continued roaring questions such as that until they drew on the people.
The folk stopped at his shouts.
The woman was big and thin and she had red hair. Her face was freckled all over so that one could only see her delicate complexion in little spots, and at the first glance the resemblance between herself and Finaun was extraordinary. In the sweep of the brow, the set of the cheekbones, a regard of the eyes, that resemblance was seen, and then the look vanished in a poise of the head and came again in another one.
At the moment her blue eyes seemed the angriest that ever were in a woman’s head. She stood leaning on a thick ash-plant and watched the advancing company, but she did not utter a word to them.
The man by her side was tall also and as thin as a pole; he was ramshackle and slovenly; there was not much pith in his body, for he was weak at the knees and his big feet splayed outwards at a curious angle; but his face was extraordinary intelligent, and when he was younger must have been beautiful. Drink and ill-health had dragged and carved his flesh, and nothing of comeliness remained to him but his eyes, which were timid and tender as those of a fawn, and his hands which had never done anything but fumble with women. He also leaned quietly on a cudgel and watched Patsy Mac Cann.
And it was to him that Patsy came. He did not look once at the woman, though all the time he never ceased shouting salutations and questions at her by her name.
He walked directly to the man, eyeing him intently.
“And how is yourself?” he roared with horrible heartiness. “It’s a while since I saw you, and it was the pitch night that time.”
“I’m all right,” said the man.
“So you are,” said Patsy, “and why wouldn’t you be? Weren’t you born in the wide lap of good luck, and didn’t you stay there? Ah, it’s the way that the men that come down little, narrow paths do have fortune, and the ones that tramp the wide roads do have nothing but their broken feet. Good luck to you, my soul, and long may you wave—Eh!”
“I didn’t say a word,” said the man.
“And there’s a stick in your hand that would crack the skull of a mountain, let alone a man.”
“It’s a good stick,” said the man.
“Would you be calling it the brother or the husband of the one that the woman has in her happy hands.”
“I would be calling it a stick only,” replied the man.
“That’s the name for it surely,” said Patsy, “for a stick hasn’t got a soul any more than a woman has, and isn’t that a great mercy and a great comfort, for heaven would be full of women and wood, and there would be no room for the men and the drink.”
The red-haired woman strode to Patsy and, putting her hand against his breast, she gave him a great push:
“If you’re talking,” said she, “or if you’re fighting, turn to myself, for the man doesn’t know you.”
Patsy did turn to her with a great laugh:
“It’s the one pleasure of my life to have your hands on me,” he gibed. “Give me another puck now, and a hard one, the way I’ll feel you well.”
The woman lifted her ash-plant threateningly and crouched towards him, but the look on his face was such that she let her hand fall again.
“You’re full of fun,” said Patsy, “and you always were, but we’re going to be the great friends from now on, yourself and myself and the man with the stick; we’ll be going by shortcuts everywhere in the world, and having a gay time.”
“We’re not going with you, Padraig,” said the woman, “and whatever road you are taking this day the man and myself will be going another road.”
“Whoo!” said Patsy, “there are roads everywhere, so you’re all right, and there are men on every one of the roads.”