Liam O'Flaherty: Land

“Mr. St. George,” cried the parish priest in his tremendous bass voice, after he had doffed his hat and made a low bow, “I welcome you on your release from jail, in the name of Manister and of its people. Long may you live to enjoy the reverence that will always be paid to you, as a patriot and a benefactor.”

He came forward to the side of the carriage with outstretched right hand. Raoul hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then he uncovered himself and shook hands with Father Cornelius. There was a great roar of applause. Father Cornelius got into the carriage and sat beside Elizabeth. In the meantime, the young athletes had harnessed themselves to the carriage in place of the horses. The march towards Manister began, with the great throng singing and the bands playing triumphal music. Father Cornelius kept raising his hat and bowing, just as if the whole affair were in his own honour. Raoul stared straight in front of him.

The excitement subsided a little after the procession had left the town. Then Father Cornelius turned to Raoul and spoke in his most charming tone.

“When I said just now,” he declared, “that the people would reverence you as a benefactor, it was not an idle phrase. Your method of fighting tyranny has now been adopted by the whole of Ireland.”

He leaned forward a little and continued to speak in a more intimate tone, on a lower key.

“I thought your idea wonderful from the very beginning,” he said, “although I dared not say so in public. My freedom of action is very limited in matters of politics. Priests can only follow their flock. If they try to lead, or to initiate new policies, no matter how good, the enemies of the Church are at once in full cry, claiming that there is a clerical plot to seize temporal power.”

He leaned back again, smiled and said gaily:

“The people have given a name of their own, though, to your invention.”

“Really?” said Raoul with interest. “What is it?”

“They were unhappy about the word ‘isolation,’ ” Father Cornelius said. “It sounded foreign to them. In any case, when they adopted your method of waging war, they modified it considerably, in order that it might conform to the needs of practical politics. Your idea, as you had conceived it, was revolutionary in its method and in its purpose. The people, of course, do not want revolution or extreme measures. They simply want reforms, constitutionally achieved. So they really had to find a new name for it. Then a land agent named Captain Cunningham Boycott, a blustering Englishman employed by Lord Erne, incurred the displeasure of the Land League a few weeks ago. The people at once decided that they had found the proper name. Already it has spread like wild-fire.”

“What is the name?” said Raoul, becoming agitated.

“Boycott,” said Father Cornelius, slapping his thigh.

“Boycott?” cried Raoul in horror.

“Boycott is now the word on everybody’s lips,” cried Father Cornelius, bursting into laughter.

“It’s beastly,” said Raoul. “First of all they geld my idea and deprive it of its power. Then they make it serve their vulgar ambitions in its mutilated state. As a final insult, they baptise it in their own image, by giving it the name of some common lout.”

Father Cornelius had now stopped laughing. He was looking at Raoul with some concern.

“Oh! Come now, Mr. St. George,” he said in an appealing tone. “You must be generous. Great men must always be generous. They owe it as a compensation to less gifted people.”

He made a gesture with his open hands as if he were caressing a globe.

“The word ‘boycott’ has a fullness,” he said, “and a certain good-natured humanity, which is symbolic of this bloodless way to fight tyranny.”

“I spent more than twenty years of my life,” said Raoul bitterly, “trying …”

He stopped speaking as he felt his daughter’s fingers close about his hand. He turned towards her.

“You once told me,” she whispered, “that it is a very fortunate poet who is able to realise even one-millionth part of his dream.”

Father Cornelius tactfully turned to Elizabeth and began to tell her a humorous story about a mutual acquaintance.

“You are the apple of my eye,” Raoul whispered to Lettice as he pressed her hand.

“The important thing is that the people are now united,” Lettice said earnestly. “You always said that unity is the only foundation upon which discipline can be built. No matter how small this beginning may seem to be, our people have begun their march.”

Tears came into Raoul’s eyes as he looked at her gentle loveliness. Her ecstasy of motherhood, now coming to a climax, had already conquered the bitterness of her tragedy. There was only rapture in her eyes.

“You are the apple of my eye,” he repeated.

Still clasping her hand, he looked out upon the land that had again renewed its beauty in the fire of spring. A passionate love of his native earth surged through his blood as he saw the bright shimmer of sunlight on the green leaves of the trees, on the running water of a roadside brook, on the faraway mountain peaks, on the young crops that were thrusting upwards from the black ploughed fields.

Then he recalled how Michael used to look upwards, with unblinking eyes, in reverie.

He felt humbled and exalted before the unending march of life.

Raoul and Father Francis jumped to their feet as they heard a cry of pain from overhead. Tim Ahearn ran to them on tip-toe along the flagstones from the gable end of the house. The three men listened intently with their heads raised. All they could now hear was the insect tumult of the drowsy summer afternoon about them on the terrace. There was dead silence within the house.

“The doctor and the midwife have been up there for more than an hour,” Tim Ahearn grumbled. “It’s how they must be getting into each other’s way. Either one of them could have done whatever there is to be done long ago.”

Raoul touched Father Francis on the arm and said:

“Let’s finish our game.”

The two men sat down again to the chess table and stared gravely at their embattled pieces on the board. Ahearn scratched his skull beneath his hat as he stood watching them.

Raoul picked up a knight very deliberately, held it poised for some time and then put it down elsewhere with a grunt of triumph.

“Check!” he said.

Ahearn shrugged his shoulders and walked slowly down the terrace.

“How can they play chess at a time like this?” he muttered.

He had just begun once more to prune the rose bushes at the gable end when another cry came from overhead. Now it was the harsh screech of a new-born infant that he heard.

“Praised be God!” he cried joyously, striking his breast, as he ran full tilt back along the terrace.

Raoul and Father Francis upset the chess table as they rose. The three of them ran into the living-room. The infant shrieked again as they hurried across the floor. Then Elizabeth entered from the hall.

“What is it, Lizzie?” Raoul cried excitedly.

Elizabeth’s little face looked very proud and happy. She picked up her skirts and began to march down the room before answering her brother.

“It’s Raoul Francis,” she said after she had taken three or four steps.

Annie Fitzpatrick came into the room and grabbed Ahearn by the arm.

“You have to go to the village for me,” she said as she pushed him towards the door.

“How is herself?” Ahearn whispered.

“How would she be but in the pink of condition?” Annie cried in pretended anger. “Arrah! Sure she’s walking on the stars after bringing a lovely baby boy into the world.”

“Praised be God!” Ahearn kept repeating as he went down the hall.