Liam O'Flaherty - Land

“I’m only doing my duty,” Bartly said. “We are faced with another famine, maybe worse than the last one, unless we organise as Mr. Davitt says we should.”

“True for you,” shouted the huge man who had previously raised Bartly up by the crutch. “Let him have it now. We are all with you.”

“Are you going to obey me or not?” Father Cornelius said.

The sacristan reached the parish priest’s side at that moment.

“Let me take the vestment, your reverence,” he whispered excitedly, “for fear it might get contaminated.”

Father Costigan permitted the old man to remove the alb. During this interval, Bartly addressed the people once more.

“Famine it’s going to be,” the little shopkeeper said, “unless we take action. The crops have been worse than bad for two years running. Prices keep falling, but rents keep going up. We’ll all die in a ditch, like our fathers did, unless we elect a Committee and put up a fight against the landlords.”

The sacristan folded the vestment reverently and hurried up the slope with it. The people made way for him respectfully. The old man’s fanatic eyes, set in an almost fleshless skull, stared at the white robe that he held out in front of him, to the full reach of his trembling arms.

Father Cornelius took a stick from the hands of a man that stood near him. He spat on the stick and flexed the muscles of his powerful arms. Even at his advanced age, he was still capable of thrashing the best men in his parish.

“For the last time,” he said to Bartly, “I invite you to step down from that gate-post.”

The frail body of the little shopkeeper was no longer able to sustain the unequal struggle. He became hysterical.

“Too long have I obeyed you like a dog, Father Cornelius,” he cried. “I have fetched and carried for you since you came to this parish. Now you turn on me for speaking the truth. I bow low to you as God’s messenger. As a man, though, I think you are a bully and a bloody fool, God forgive me for saying so.”

The priest raised the stick, intending to strike. The blow was not allowed to fall. A group of men intervened. They caught the stick and removed it from Father Cornelius.

“We mean no disrepect to your reverence,” one of them said, “but we have to elect a Committee.”

“That’s right, Father,” another of them said. “The Committee must be elected, by hook or by crook.”

There was an awkward silence. The most violent among the people felt awed by the necessity of having had to lay hands on their priest. Even though they were at odds with Father Cornelius at the moment, they all loved him. He had been an excellent parish priest, during his long term of service among them.

“Any one of us would give a fourth of land,” an old man said with great feeling, “not to have this come between you and ourselves.”

“You’ll hold no meeting in this yard,” Father Cornelius said, after he had mastered his rage. “I am asking you to leave here quietly, all of you, in God’s name. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to call in the police for protection against my own parishioners.”

“That’s fair enough, Father,” McNamara said. “We’ll hold our meeting at the Father Matthew Hall in the village. It’s my property. I’ll make a present of it to the people of Manister, as headquarters for the Committee.”

Father Cornelius turned on his heel and walked up the slope to the sacristy, where Pat Rice had laid breakfast for him on a little table.

“I can hardly believe it, Pat,” he said, as he tucked a napkin under his chin. “It must have been like this in Paris nine years ago.”

The aged sacristan made the sign of the Cross on his forehead and looked at Father Cornelius in horror.

“The Paris Commune!” he gasped. “The pagans came out of the slums and set up idols on the holy altars and murdered priests and threw the Blessed Sacrament in the gutter. The Communists spat in the face of God and set up Antichrist as king.”

A wild look of suspicion came into his sunken eyes.

“Lord save us!” he whispered. “Do you think Antichrist has come to Manister, Father Cornelius?”

“He may have, at that,” Father Cornelius said seriously as he gently broke the top of an egg with his spoon. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that he had arrived in our midst recently.”

“From foreign parts?” said the sacristan.

“From foreign parts,” Father Cornelius said.

The malign expression of the scandalmonger came into the old man’s eyes.

“Say no more, Father Cornelius,” he said. “Say no more.”

The people formed a column behind McNamara and began to march towards the village, singing revolutionary songs. Bartly carried his hat high up in front of his chest, as he marched proudly in the van. It was the great moment of his life. At one glorious stride, by virtue of his rebellion, he had risen from contempt and obscurity to supreme command of his people. His heart overflowed with joy as he strutted along, bowing right and left to the astonished people that lined the road. It was a triumphal march for the little fellow.

Alas! Such sudden triumphs are always shortlived. It was about half a mile to the village square from the church. It did not take the excited people very long to cover that distance. On debouching into the square, Bartly discovered to his horror that the whole police garrison was drawn up in battle array before the barracks. On receipt of an ominous report from the constable on duty at the church, Sergeant Geraghty made all of his six constables stand to arms. They were now drawn up in line, wearing their service helmets, while they loaded their carbines with ball ammunition in full view of the frightened shopkeeper.

This depressing sight made the little man realize that rebellion, like alcohol, produces a painful reaction to the ecstasy of its intoxication. The metallic sounds made by the opening and closing of the carbine bolts made him wish that he had remained content with being humiliated and downtrodden. He wanted terribly to run away and hide somewhere.

“Oh! God!” he said to himself. “I’ve done it again. I’ve certainly made a proper fool of myself this time.”

The people behind the shopkeeper were equally intimidated by the sight of the armed police. The singing came to an abrupt stop. The column halted in silence and confusion before the Father Matthew Hall. This was a one-storied building of no great size. Only a fraction of the throng managed to gain entrance. Those left out in the square, being now without even the semblance of leadership, felt completely at the mercy of the police. They began to whisper among themselves, saying they should have waited to hear from O’Dwyer before acting as they had done. In a word, they were on the verge of panic and dispersal.

The small party that had entered the Hall soon got into a similar state, owing to McNamara’s behaviour.

“You are welcome to this Hall now,” Bartly said to them, after having mounted the little platform. “The Committee that you elect won’t have to pay me a red penny for its use.”

He tried to leave the platform after making this statement. The people immediately got angry with him and told him to stay where he was or “it would be worse for him.”

“Take charge now that you’ve started the ball rolling,” a man said to him. “You’ll have to finish what you began, or we’ll flatten your ears for you.”

“I never acted as chairman in my life,” said McNamara. “Sure I wouldn’t know the first thing to do. I’m giving ye the Hall. In God’s name, isn’t that enough?”

This infuriated the people. They began to abuse him exactly as they had done when he mounted the gate-post to address them. It appeared likely, in fact, that he would be rudely handled by the more violent of them when a retired pig-jobber named Joseph Cleary came to his rescue.