Liam O'Flaherty - Land

“True for you, Annie,” the people shouted. “True for you, alannah.”

Excited by their encouragement, Annie threw back her heavy shawl and put her hands on her hips.

“Shame on the Church for denouncing Michael Davitt, the defender of the poor,” she cried. “Didn’t the English persecute him enough, without the bishops taking a hand in the game? The English put arsenic in his food while he was in jail. Now the bishops are poisoning people’s minds against him, just because he is trying to organise the farmers against the landlords. Down with the bloody bishops!”

There was a wild yell of approval of her words. People who had no idea at all of what she had said joined in the yelling. Then a small boy, perched on a stone wall, put his cupped hands in front of his mouth and shouted that the leaders were on their way from the town.

“Hurrah!” the people shouted, as those on the slopes caught sight of the procession. “Up, Parnell! Up, Davitt!”

A large troop of horsemen, followed by a long line of gaily painted carriages, advanced rapidly along the level road from the town to the field. A throng of ragamuffins and children, running full tilt, brought up the rear. A force of Constabulary, to the number of one thousand, and fully armed, were drawn up on the road, on either side of the entrance to the meeting place. They had, no doubt, intended to awe the rebellious multitude by their weapons and their discipline. Instead of that, they merely served as a guard of honour for the arrival of the notables.

“Hurrah for Parnell! Hurrah for Michael Davitt!” the great throng roared as the leaders came through the field to the platform.

Annie Fitzpatrick was now in an advanced state of mystical hysteria. Trembling from head to foot, she waved her arms above her head and screamed at the top of her voice. Her shawl had fallen to the ground. Her eyeballs protruded. There was froth about her lips. Perspiration ran down her cheeks.

“Up, Parnell! Up, Davitt!” she chanted with monotonous regularity.

Lettice was unaffected by the hysteria of the multitude. Even while she looked towards the platform with a look of rapture in her eyes, as Davitt began to speak, she was waiting anxiously to hear the voice of the man she loved.

“To confiscate the land of a subjugated people,” Davitt cried passionately as he gesticulated with his solitary arm, “and bestow it on adventurers is the first act of uprighteous conquest, the preliminary step to the extermination or servitude of an opponent race. The landlord garrison that England established in this country, centuries ago, is to-day as true to the object of its foundation as when it first cursed our soil.”

Lettice suddenly felt a touch on her arm. Then she heard Michael whisper her name close to her ear. She turned swiftly and saw him bending over her. He was smiling in a way that made her heart stop beating. He took her by the hand and bade her follow him. They went farther up the slope through the crowd. Soon they were alone and the voice of the speaker down below in the field became indistinct. Then they rounded a shoulder of the mountain and the whole multitude was lost to view. There were only the grey houses of the town far away below, the sparkling sea and the mountains.

He suddenly took her in his arms against a moss-covered rock and almost shouted at her, with his lips close to her lips:

“Oh! God! I tried to go away, but I had to come back. I had to come. So help me God, I love you. I had to come back.”

Then their lips met. She closed her eyes and swooned as the key was turned, admitting her to the fairyland of love.

The grey stallion ran at full speed across the flat bog that stretched from the head of the mountain trail to the lake shore. Hardened by the violence of the summer heat, the naked brown earth re-echoed like a drum to the rhythmic beating of the steel-shod hooves. A curtain of swirling dust marked the fierce passage of the horse.

Barbara drew rein sharply by the water’s edge, bringing the stallion almost to his haunches. Then she leaped to the ground and dropped the reins. The stallion righted himself, neighed in fright and set off along the shore at a canter. Crazed by the heat and by the furious pace at which he had been driven up the mountain, he could not contain himself. A cloud of smoke rose from his sweating flanks. There was foam on his bridle, along his trailing reins, under his belly and about his crupper. He neighed again and wheeled away from the lake. He galloped back the way he had come, raising another curtain of dust parallel with the first. He had begun to descend the mountain trail once more when the groom caught him.

Barbara looked across the lake towards a heather-covered rock that rose a few feet above the far shore. Her face was flushed and tense.

“You shouldn’t have ridden him that hard,” the groom said in a reproving tone as he trotted across the bog on an elderly roan mare, leading the stallion by the reins. “He’s a very nervous animal, ma’am. You could do him a great deal of harm by driving him hard up a mountain road on a hot day like this.”

“Do the people really believe this lake is enchanted?” Barbara said with her back turned to him.

“They do, ma’am,” the groom said as he jumped lightly from the saddle.

“Do you believe it, Andrew?” Barbara said.

“It’s hard to go against what everybody says,” Andrew replied.

Barbara turned towards him abruptly. They looked at one another in silence. Then Andrew turned away his eyes and put his fingers under the edge of the sweating stallion’s saddle. The animal started violently, whinnied and pushed against the mare.

“Whoa!” the groom said in a tender whisper. “Easy now, darling. Easy.”

Barbara again looked across the water and said:

“Would you be afraid to swim over to that rock with me, Andrew?”

Andrew glanced towards the rock. Then he continued to caress the stallion without making any reply.

“You would be afraid,” Barbara said in a slightly contemptuous tone. “Is that so?”

“They say it’s enchanted water,” Andrew said gently.

“What does that mean?” Barbara said.

“It means that this lake is supposed to have no bottom.” Andrew said.

“Do you believe that?” Barbara said.

“They say a swimmer would surely sink forever through its black water,” he said. “That’s why no one ever dares to put foot in it.”

“Then you are really afraid of swimming across it,” Barbara said.

“I’m afraid of nothing, ma’am,” Andrew said. “I’m just telling you what the people say.”

“You wouldn’t tell me what the people say,” Barbara said, “unless you were afraid.”

“What the people say is generally true,” Andrew said. “There is always wisdom at the back of what they say, no matter how foolish it may seem to be at first sight.”

“You are making excuses just because you are ashamed of being afraid,” she said in a nagging tone.

“I’m not afraid,” Andrew cried in a voice that had suddenly thickened with passion.

Barbara pointed with her whip towards a group of tall rocks that stood a little distance to the right.

“Let the horses rest behind those rocks, Andrew,” she commanded.

She waited until he was out of sight. Then she ran in the opposite direction. Crouching behind a boulder, she began to undress in great haste. When she was naked, she unloosed her hair and let it fall down her back to its full length. Then she entered the water. It was very shallow for about five yards, barely reaching above her ankles. Then the ground disappeared suddenly from beneath her feet, just as if it had been removed by enchantment. She gasped and began to swim. The shallow water had been warm. Here in the deep it was ice cold. She could hardly breathe because of the cold, as she struck out with all her strength towards the far shore.