CHAPTER XII

ASS-CART _VERSUS_ MOTOR

“The grand road from the mountain goes shining to the sea, And there is traffic on it, and many a horse and cart: But the little roads of Cloonagh are dearer far to me, And the little roads of Cloonagh go rambling through my heart.” EVA GORE-BOOTH.

THROUGH the tiny window of Norah’s room came the soft sunlight which makes an Irish morning so perfect a thing that to stay in bed a moment longer than necessary would be criminal. Norah woke up, and looked at it sleepily for a few minutes, wishing the window were bigger. It had altogether declined to remain open the night before, until she had propped it with the water-jug, which now stood rakishly on the sill, and had already excited considerable interest and speculation in the street below. She dressed quickly, somewhat embittered by the fact that investigation discovered no sign of a bathroom. The search was a nervous one, since the corridor seemed principally to consist of shut doors; and after cautiously opening one which looked promising, but which revealed a tousled head on a pillow, with loud snores saluting her, she was seized with panic, and fled back to her own room.

When she emerged, fully dressed, she still seemed the only person awake. Downstairs, however, she encountered the “odd-boy,” who was sweeping the hall with a lofty disregard of corners, wherein the dust of many sweepings had accumulated in depressing heaps. Through a cloud of dust he blinked in amazement at her.

“Were you wantin’ anything, miss?”

“No, thanks,” Norah answered; “I was going for a walk. Is there anything to see in the village?”

The “odd-boy” thought deeply, and finally replied with gloom that he didn’t know why anybody would be looking at it at all. Then, suddenly inspired, he hastened to the door in Norah’s wake.

“There’s Willy Gallaher’s ould pig, miss, an’ she after having eleven of the finest little ones yesterday. Ye’d ought to see them. Willy’s the proud man. ’Twas himself was due for a bit of good luck, though, with twins not a week old!”

“Thanks,” said Norah, laughing. “But I’d rather see the twins.” Which astounding preference left the “odd-boy” gaping. Twins were a regrettable everyday occurrence, but eleven “bonnivs” were the gift of Providence, and not to be lightly regarded.

Norah made her way up the narrow street. The air was full of the pleasant smell of newly-lit turf fires, and in the cottages the women were beginning their day’s work. Children ran to peep over the half-door at the stranger, and Norah, peeping over in her turn, saw fat babies crawling about the earthen floors and made friends with them until their mothers picked them up and brought them to the half-door for further admiration. Thus her progress up the street was slow, and it was some time before she came to the outskirts of the village and crossed a green where asses, geese, fowls, and long-haired goats wandered sociably.

Beyond the green the high road curved, and, following it, Norah came upon a narrow river that tumbled from the hills, racing under an old bridge of grey stone in a mass of foaming rapids. On the other side was a little ruined castle, upon which she advanced joyfully, with the passion for anything old which gave the Australians the keenest enjoyment of all their experiences of travel.

It was not much of a castle; the walls had long since collapsed into heaps of broken stone, most of which had been carried away to build cabins and were now concealed under the whitewash of years. A small square tower yet stood, but was obviously unsafe, since the crumbling stairway that wound upwards inside it had been shut off by rusty iron bars. It was not easy to make out the outlines of what had been rooms, for the stones had fallen in all directions, and grass and brambles grew wildly over them. But everywhere, softening the cruelty and destruction of time, ivy clambered; a kindly cloak of green that blotted out harsh outlines and turned the whole into something exquisite.

Norah crossed the bridge and climbed upon a half-fallen wall, perching herself on a huge flat stone that lay bathed in sunshine. Above her the jackdaws which nested in the ivy-covered tower chattered and scolded, flying in and out to their homes; below was no sound save the hurried babble of the river, where now and then came the flash of a leaping trout. It was very peaceful. She tried to “reconstruct” it in the way they loved, seeing again the old days when the castle stood proudly, and chieftains and fair ladies, richly clad, moved about the rooms and looked through the narrow window slits at the river, running just as it ran to-day. It was a fascinating employment; so that she did not hear a light step, until a falling stone brought her back to the present with a jump.

“Did I startle you?” Sir John asked, looking up at her. “They told me you had gone out, and I guessed that if you weren’t somewhere playing with a baby you would have found the ruin!”

“The babies and the ruin are both lovely,” Norah said, smiling. “I’m taking them in turn.”

“Did you sleep well?” Sir John asked, climbing up to the wall, and lighting a cigarette.

“Oh, yes, thanks; only the morning was too nice to stay in bed. I had such a funny little room, all nooks and corners.”

“_I_ had a feather bed!” said Sir John, with a wry face. “Awful things; I don’t know how people ever slept on them. It was very huge and puffy, and I sank down into its depths, and felt as if the waters were closing over my head. Then I dreamed wild dreams of battle. Altogether, I feel as if I had an adventurous night.”

“I read once of an old woman who slept on a turkey-feather bed for twenty years, until at last all the feathers stuck together in a solid mass like a mat, and he had a sealskin coat made out of it!” said Norah.

“I’d love to believe it, but it beats any fishing-yarn I ever heard,” said Sir John, regarding her fixedly. “Do you believe it yourself?”

“I don’t know anything about the ways of featherbeds,” Norah said, laughing. “But I always thought she must have been an unpleasant old lady, for it showed clearly that she hadn’t shaken up her mattress for twenty years. Oh, Sir John, did you find a bathroom?”

“I did not; there isn’t one. I’m sorry, Norah. We ought to have better luck at our stopping-place to-night.”

“I suppose one can’t expect baths everywhere,” Norah said. “The queer part to us is being charged extra for one’s tub; no hotel in Australia ever does anything so ungracious. They rather encourage one to take baths there.”

“It’s a ridiculous charge, especially where a water-supply is no trouble,” O’Neill answered. “Did I ever tell you the story of a friend of mine who was staying in a very old-fashioned country-house, where his early cup of tea was brought in by a very old butler? My friend asked for a bath, and was told there was no hot water available—‘the pipes have froze on us,’ said the butler, sadly. Next day it was the same; but the third morning the butler came in with triumph in his eye.

“‘Sure, the bath will be all right this morning, sir,’ he said, confidentially. ‘I have the hot wather beyant.’

“He went out, and returned panting under an enormous bath of the flat tin-saucer variety, which he put down with pride, while my friend—who happened to be as big as your father—watched him, much thrilled. Next he laid down a smart bath-mat, and hung over a chair a bath-towel as large as a sheet. Finally, he went out, and brought back a very small can of hot water, which he poured very carefully into the bath; as my friend said, it made a thin film of wet on its great flat surface. The old butler straightened up, beaming.

“‘Now, sir,’ he said, proudly—‘ye can have your little dive!’”

Norah’s shout of laughter was echoed by Wally and Jim, whose heads suddenly appeared over the ivy-covered wall.

“I don’t see why you retire to ruins to tell your best stories, O’Neill,” Jim said. “Also, we feel that it’s breakfast-time, and we’ve been scouring the country for you both.”

“I begin to feel that way myself,” Norah said, jumping down.

Mr. Linton was smoking in front of the hotel. In the dining-room, the “odd-boy,” again thinly disguised for the moment as a waiter, hovered about their table for orders, a procedure which seemed superfluous, since the possibilities of the house did not exceed the inevitable bacon and eggs. No one, however, was disposed to quarrel with the meal; and very soon after, they were again on the road, leaving the friendly little village by a winding highway that soon brought them within sight and sound of the sea—one of the deep inlets that thrust themselves far into the wild northern coast of Ireland. The road led, now close to the shore, now striking across country to find a short cut over the neck of a peninsula. They skirted little bays where a golden beach gleamed invitingly, and ran out on rocky headlands, on which the sullen sea thundered. Inland, the country grew more and more lonely and desolate.

“How on earth do these people get a living?” Jim ejaculated, looking at the wretched cabins in a tumbledown village. “The soil is nearly all stone—and how horribly bleak it must be in winter! This is July, and still the wind is wild enough.”

“I don’t think they get much of a living at all,” Sir John said. “Fishing helps, of course; and all the able-bodied men hire themselves out for the harvesting to Scotch and English farmers, and bring home what seems a big sum in these parts, together with stories of the wealth across the water:

“The people that’s in England is richer nor the Jews— There’s not the smallest young gossoon but thravels in his shoes!”

“Indeed, they don’t do that here,” said Mr. Linton, looking at the ragged boy by the wayside.

“Not they—shoes only come with years of discretion, and often, not then. But don’t they look rosy and well?—nothing of the pinched look of the youngsters in a city slum.”

“No—I think the air must be nourishing!” remarked Wally.

“You’re quite right; it is. But they grow little crops, in tiny corners between the stones. The soil is bad enough; they are lucky if they are near the sea, for then they can bring up mussels and kelp as manure. There’s a woman bringing some now”; and Sir John pointed to a bent figure, bare-legged, a red shawl over head, and on her back a huge basket, beneath which she was labouring up a steep cliff-path. “She has a kish full of shell-fish there—you wouldn’t find it a light load, even on the level, but they carry hundreds of them up these cliffs. There are parts of Donegal so bleak that they have to warm the ground before sowing the seed; they burn the dried sea-weed on the prepared soil, and sow the crop while the ashes are still smoking.”

“Great Scott!” said Jim, feebly. “Fancy an Australian doing that!”

Sir John laughed grimly.

“I fancy an Australian would flee in horror if he were offered as a gift a tract of land that supports hundreds of these people,” he said. “You should see them reaping their tiny, pocket-handkerchief crops; they do it with a little reaping-hook, and, upon my word, some of them are so small that you might harvest them with a pair of scissors! Of course they’re not worth much; but then these people are accustomed to live on very little, and they scarcely need more than they have, if the sea is kind and the fishing fair. They look wild enough; but they are intelligent, even if ignorant, and you will always meet with courtesy among them.”

“They would make great fighting men,” Jim observed, watching a broad-shouldered, dark-faced young fellow who was digging in a tiny field by the road. He had paused to look at the motor, one foot on the spade, and his splendid young body upright.

“Oh, every sound Irishman is that naturally,” Sir John said, with a laugh. “And the women could do their bit if occasion arose. Did you hear, by the way, of the women of Limerick, when some of the disaffected idiots of whom there are too many in the country made a pro-German demonstration there lately? They chose a day when most of the loyal men of the city were away; these fellows were from Dublin, and they made a procession and planned quite a little show. But they reckoned without the women.”

“What—did they take a hand?” asked Mr. Linton.

“They did, indeed, with sticks and stones and whatever other missiles came handy. It was most effective: they broke up the procession completely, and the gallant rebels had to be rescued by the police. The women had a great day. I asked one why they didn’t leave the matter entirely to the police, and she looked at me in scorn and asked why would they accommodate themselves with the ignorance of policemen? And indeed, I didn’t know. After all, some things are managed much better without the law.”

The road had for some time been leading away from the sea, and now began to climb up a steep cutting, between rock-walls fringed with ferns and mosses. On the hills above them a few goats browsed, their kids cutting capers among the boulders, with complete enjoyment of the game. They mounted steadily for awhile; then, topping the rise, began to glide downwards. The road turned and twisted as they neared the level ground, following the course of a little stream that came rushing from some unseen source. Sir John, who was driving, sounded his horn steadily.

“There are not many people on these roads,” he said, over his shoulder. “But it doesn’t do to take risks with the country folk.”

“No. Still, I never saw a more desolate road, so far as traffic goes,” Mr. Linton answered. “We have not seen a soul for miles on it.”

“I don’t think there _is_ a soul on it,” said Sir John, laughing.

The motor swung round a corner, with a prolonged hoot; and there, so close that the bonnet of the car seemed almost to be touching the ass’s nose, came an old woman, nodding sleepily in a cart. There was no time to stop, and no room to turn. The ass planted all four feet stubbornly, stopping dead, and they heard a faint cry from the shawled old figure.

“Sit tight,” said O’Neill between his teeth.

The brake jammed hard on as he spoke; they had been running down-hill slowly, with the power shut off. The ass backed indignantly; and the great motor swerved to one side, where there was a little more room in the cutting, bumped heavily over dry channels worn by the winter rains, and rammed her bonnet gently into the rock wall. The occupants of the tonneau found themselves in a heap on the floor. The car throbbed to silence, and the old woman in the ass-cart said, “God help us!” loudly.

“Well, indeed, He did,” said O’Neill, under his breath. “Are you all right, all of you?”

“We’re mixed, but undamaged,” Jim answered. “What about you, O’Neill?”

“I’m all right. How is she, Con?”

Con had swung himself out before the car finally stopped, and was examining the battered bonnet dismally, finally appealing for help to push her away from the wall.

“In a minute,” O’Neill said.

He walked over to the old woman, who still sat motionless on the floor of the ass-cart, her withered face pitifully afraid.

“Did you not hear the horn?” O’Neill asked.

“I did, sir—but I didn’t rightly know what it was, an’ I half asleep.” She rocked herself to and fro, wretchedly. “Oh, wirra, the great mothor! Is it desthroyed entirely, sir?”

“It is not—but it’s the mercy of Heaven we’re not all killed, and you and the little ass, too. When you hear that horn, mother, get to one side of a road quickly: and don’t be afraid to call out, if it happens to be a narrow road.”

“I . . . I . . .” She looked at him helplessly, her voice breaking.

“Don’t worry—you’re all right,” he said gently. “Is it tired you are?”

“I been sittin’ up with my son these two nights,” she said, finding words. “Mortal ill he was, an’ the woman he married no more use than a yalla-haired doll. An’ when they’re sick they do be wantin’ their mothers again, like as if they’d gone back to be little boys.” Just for a moment he caught a gleam of triumph in her dulled eyes.

“And is he better?”

“He is, sir, God be praised, and I’m gettin’ home to me man; there’s no knowin’ what he’ll have done to himself, not used to bein’ alone and all.”

Something passed from O’Neill’s palm into the trembling, work-worn old hand.

“That’s to bring you luck for your son,” he said, forestalling her protests. “Let you get home, mother, and have a meal. Wait a moment.”

He unscrewed the cap of his flask, and made her drink out of the silver cup, to her own great horror.

“If I’d a tin, itself!” she protested. “But your honour’s cup!”

“Drink it up,” said O’Neill, unmoved. He took back the cup and stood aside; and the little ass moved on, the old woman calling down blessings upon him, with tears finding well-accustomed furrows down her cheeks.

“Sitting up two nights, and probably doing the work of the house during the day, in addition to nursing; and most likely on bread and stewed black tea!” said O’Neill, indignantly, striding back to the motor. “You wouldn’t wonder if she went to sleep in front of the car of Juggernaut. Poor old soul! I say, you people have been busy!”

They had levered the heavy car back, chocking the wheels with great stones, and the chauffeur was making explorations into her vital parts. Sir John joined him, and they discoursed unintelligibly in technical language.

“Well, it might be worse, but it’s not too good,” Sir John said, at last, emerging from the investigation and wiping his hands on a ball of cotton-waste. “There’s no moving her without men and horses, and no getting her going again until we get some spare parts; and they’re no nearer than Belfast or Dublin; possibly we shall have to telegraph to London for them.”

“But she’s not desthroyed entirely?” Norah said, happily.

“She is not. Hadn’t we the luck of the world that it happened where it did, just on level ground and where there was a little room to manœuvre! If it had been three minutes earlier, on the side of the hill, in the narrow cutting, we should simply have gone clean over the poor old soul and her ass. Nothing could have saved them.”

“It might easily have been infinitely worse,” Mr. Linton said. “But I’m sorry for the car, O’Neill.”

“Oh, the car’s nothing,” Sir John answered, cheerfully. “I’m only sorry for the interruption to our trip. However, things might be more uncomfortable. We’re only three or four miles from Carrignarone, where I meant to stop the night: there is quite a passable inn there, small and homely, but it’s clean and comfortable enough. We could stay there for a few days, while Con goes to Belfast to get what is necessary—that is, if you like. The coast is interesting, and we might get some sea-fishing. Of course, if you thought that too slow, we could drive to the railway, and get back to Killard.” He looked rather wistful. “I had hoped this was going to be such a jolly trip,” he said.

“Why, so it is,” Jim responded. “I’m awfully sorry for the damage to the motor, but we’re going to have plenty of fun all the same. It will be rather good fun to be on a coast again, and we’re all keen on sea-fishing. And you know, O’Neill, we wouldn’t make any definite plans, so that the unexpected could take charge of us!”

“It has certainly done that,” Sir John said, laughing. “Well, I think the next thing is lunch: a good thing I got the hotel to put us up something, though it will probably be only hard-boiled eggs.”

It _was_ hard-boiled eggs, and they ate them merrily, sitting on the bank of the little stream, where lichen-covered boulders, smooth and weather-worn, made convenient seats.

“I am perfectly certain,” Mr. Linton said, “that if I were in London and ate an enormous meal of soda-bread, eggs like bullets, and very black tea out of a Thermos, I should have dyspepsia. Not that I ever had it; but the mixture sounds dyspeptic when you couple it with London. But sitting on the bank of a Donegal river it seems quite the proper thing, and I shall be very well after it.”

“No one could be anything but well in Donegal,” Wally said, decisively. “Whew-w, Jim! think of the trenches, in a fortnight!”

“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind,” said Jim, lighting his pipe. “I want my little hit-back at Brer Boche, but I’d much rather it was in the open: there’s no romance in war when you carry it on in an over-populated ditch.”

“Lucky young animals!” said Sir John, openly envious—and the boys flushed a little. As a rule, they were careful not to talk of the Front in the presence of the man whose whole soul longed to be out there with them. “But you’ll all come back, won’t you? and Mr. Linton, when the war is over, or when these ancient campaigners next get leave, you will bring them back to Rathcullen? I want to know that that is a settled thing.”

“That is a matter which I don’t need to put to the committee,” Mr. Linton replied, looking at the cheery faces. “We’ll certainly come, O’Neill, since you are so good. And then, when we pack up finally for Australia and Billabong, what about you? You know it’s high time you visited that little country of ours.”

“He’s coming with us,” said Norah, with decision. “Say you are, Sir John—please!”

“Well, indeed, I begin to think I am,” O’Neill answered. “I was getting terribly old when you invaded Donegal, but now I believe I shall soon be nearly as young as Mr. Linton! At any rate, I might follow you out.” But the boys protested, arguing that there was no point in travelling alone when they might make a family party.

“It would be miles jollier,” said Wally. “Then we could ‘personally conduct’ you to Billabong, and you would have the unforgettable experience of seeing Brownie go mad. I’m quite certain she and Murty will be delirious on the day that Norah comes marching home again!” So they planned happily, in gay defiance of the guns thundering across the Channel. That sullen menace was only a fortnight ahead, and already Norah dreamed of it at night. But in the daytime it was better to pretend that it did not exist.

Con was left with the motor, to administer what “first-aid” was possible: and after lunch the rest of the party set off along the road to Carrignarone, which was reached after an easy walk of an hour and a half. It was a little fishing-village, boasting a better inn than others of its type, since in normal years the sport to be obtained brought a small harvest of visitors. War, however, had meant lean times—wherefore the people of the inn fell thankfully on the windfall afforded them by a stranded party of six, and ran three ways at once in preparing for their comfort. A cart, with a couple of strong horses, was forthcoming, and under the charge of Jim and Wally, set off to the rescue of the motor—which was eventually towed into the village, where it caused what the war-reports term “a certain liveliness.” At the steering-wheel sat Con, a picture of humiliation—deepening to disgust when the carter politely offered him a whip!

“Them machines do be all very well to play with, for genthry an’ for them that have too much money,” said the carter, drawing a distinction that was not lost on his hearers. “But ’tis mighty glad they are of the ould horses when annything goes wrong with the works!” Which was so obviously true at the moment that no one had any spirit to contradict him.