Liam O'Flaherty - Land

Neville had been slouching over the board. Now he sat up rigidly and pulled back his shoulders. His eyes became very sharp.

“I wish I knew exactly,” he said. “There’s more to it than meets the eye. On the surface, there is only an elderly man, who formerly did intelligence work of a menial sort for the Government, living alone, cut off from all intercourse with his kind, slowly going insane. It’s not a pretty sight. Yet the shocking part is what cannot be seen or even described. You have to feel this sort of thing in order to understand it. You can only feel it by being where it’s happening. Of whom and of what is the fellow afraid? He won’t speak. We know that a number of men came to his tavern during Parnell’s meeting, three weeks ago last Sunday. Yet he refuses to say what transpired during their visit. It’s uncanny. I never experienced anything like this in Ireland. We could buy anybody in the blasted country for a pound note until now. The Fenians have the people terrorised. The changed behaviour of the Fenians is also very odd. They used to be harmless idiots, who liked to play at being conspirators. Now they are off on a new tack, interfering with government and making things difficult for us in every way they can. Not a soul has come into the tavern since the day of the Parnell meeting, except for the Constabulary and myself. Bodkin emerged only once, to visit a shop where he usually made his purchases. They absolutely refused to sell him any food. He told me that they looked at him just as if he had suddenly become a leper. He has remained indoors ever since. One of the constables takes him food, but he barely touches a morsel now and again. He’s deliberately starving himself, or else he has lost his appetite through fear. When I asked him if there was anything I could do for him, he went on his knees to me and said: ‘Send me Father Francis, your honour.’ He referred to an unfrocked priest, a relative by marriage, that had been living with him for years. Fenton told me that he himself had been to see this priest two weeks ago at Bodkin’s request. Oddly enough, he left the tavern on the day of the meeting and went to live in a stone hut up at Manister Head. He told Fenton, in so many words, to go to the Devil on being told of Bodkin’s request. ‘I have my own soul to save,’ he shouted. They are all mad, the whole pack of them. Since then, according to Fenton, Bodkin seems to have given up all hope, even though he keeps begging everybody he sees to send him Father Francis.”

“How perfectly horrible!” Barbara said.

“It’s worse than that,” Neville said. “It’s a downright dangerous situation, when you consider that we are handcuffed by the timidity of our Government. Martial law is the only solution. We have no idea what is being plotted. We have lost all our usual sources of information. The people now shun the rural constables.”

“Why on earth don’t you pack up and go?” Barbara said passionately.

“Are you serious?” Neville said.

“You’re a shrewd business man,” Barbara continued. “You must know that the game you’ve been playing here in Ireland is no longer worth the candle. This lovely island has been stripped naked. It is now a horrible skeleton, picked clean by vultures like you.”

Neville leaned towards her across the board and said:

“You insolent swine!”

“You’ve had your fair share of the flesh,” Barbara said calmly. “You came here, on your own admission, with no more than the clothes you had on your back. You are now a man of substance. When I first married you, three years ago, you sent your cattle to market in England on ships that had been chartered specially by you. You often engaged whole trains on the railway. Those …”

“You insolent swine!” Neville said again, striking the table.

“Those days of high prices and enormous profits are gone,” Barbara continued imperturbably. “Cattle are worth hardly more than their keep now. So why don’t you go, while there is still time?”

“You are no better than a damned rebel,” he shouted at her.

“You are getting afraid, Neville,” Barbara said with a smile. “I see it in your eyes. You are losing control of yourself. You had better pack up and go before other people see that your eyes have become furtive and shifty.”

“You are an insolent swine and a rebel,” he cried, getting purple in the face.

“I’m proud of being a rebel,” Barbara said as she pushed back her chair and got to her feet. “I’ve always been one. English people are not all thieves and marauders. Thank God! England has also given poets and rebels to the world.”

He drained his glass as she walked to the door.

“Good night, Neville,” she said as she closed the door after her gently.

“You insolent swine!” Neville said, picking up the decanter. “I’ll see you all in hell before I retreat an inch.”

He changed his mind as he was about to fill his glass. He hurled the decanter from him across the table. The wine belched from the rolling vessel, making dark islands on the white cloth.

Four days later, Neville drove into the village to preside at the monthly sessions of the parish court. On emerging from the demesne gate, he was surprised to find that there was hardly anybody in the square.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he said to Hopkins, who sat opposite him in the carriage. “Where are the people?”

The tall, sallow-faced Cockney glanced in all directions without change of expression.

“Don’t seem to be many here, sir,” he said gloomily.

As a rule the square was crowded on court days, since the people regarded the petty sessions as a form of entertainment; largely in the way that the theatre is regarded by townspeople. They came from far and near to enjoy the litigation, abandoning the most important work in order to be present at it. The little courthouse was packed from early morning. The overflow stood outside and had the proceedings relayed to them from mouth to mouth, according as they transpired.

To-day, however, there was only a small group standing in a forlorn fashion by the courthouse door. It consisted of the local police sergeant, three solicitors from Clash, Daggett, the process-server, and Fenton.

“I don’t like the look of this, Hopkins,” Neville said as the horses broke into a walk circling the monument. “It’s Fenian ruffianism, I wager.”

“Could be that, sir,” Hopkins said.

At that moment, Tim Ahearn came running along the square from the direction of Manister Lodge. He ran so fast that he had reached the courthouse before the carriage came to a halt. He took up position to the left of the door, holding his hat high up against his left breast. Those present stared at him in surprise, since that was the position usually occupied by petitioners. His neat appearance also astonished them. He was wearing a good black suit, that had obviously been given to him by his master. It was of foreign cut and the coat reached half way down his thighs. He was clean-shaven and his whole face had been scrubbed so hard that it shone. His hair was heavily greased and carefully parted at the side.

He took a pace forward and made an awkward bow as Neville advanced to the courthouse door.

“Begging your honour’s pardon,” he said.

Neville looked at the fellow with suspicion. Usually there would be a dozen or more people standing here in a row to solicit favours. They would beg for a new roof to a barn, for seed potatoes, for a remittance of rent, or for the services of his prize bull. He was always generous to these petitioners. Having risen from a humble origin to a position of authority, it gave him intense pleasure to play the part of a feudal lord in public.