Liam O'Flaherty: Irish Portraits: 14 Short Stories

Spring passed. Now warm breezes sang among the swaying fields of corn. People became idle watching the growth of their crops. It was good to lie in a glen in the sunlight among the wild, sweet flowers.

The brothers stayed about the house, drawn irresistibly towards the cause of the bitter enmity that was growing in their minds.

One morning, Martin was making a top for the little boy by the fire. The boy stood near, watching. Patrick sat in the corner of the hearth, smoking. Kate was out in the yard, attending to young pigs they had just bought.

Suddenly Patrick said to the child:

“Hey, Charley, did you have a top in America?”

“Yes, I had,” said the child. “I had three.”

“Who made them for you?” said Patrick. “Your father?”

“No. Mammy bought them in a shop.”

“Didn’t your daddy make any tops for you?”

“No,” said the child. “I don’t remember my daddy.”

“Leave the child alone,” said Martin angrily.

Patrick’s little eyes gleamed. He sniffed and moved his white eyebrows up and down.

“What was your daddy’s name?” he continued.

“My daddy’s name was John.”

“John what? What was his other name?”

“John Smith,” said the boy.

“Bloody woes,” said Patrick. “That’s a handy name to have. Where was he from?”

“Leave the child alone,” shouted Martin.

“What’s up now?” cried Kate from the yard.

“Wasn’t your daddy called Martin?” continued Patrick.

The child began to cry. He ran out into the yard to his mother. Martin jumped to his feet and cried:

“You leave that child alone. Do you hear?”

Patrick jumped up and shouted:

“Whose house is this? Clear out if you don’t like it. I’ll have none of your impudence.”

Kate came in, holding the boy by the hand.

“What’s this?” she cried. “What were you doing to the child?”

“I asked him a civil question about his father,” shouted Patrick. “Haven’t I a right to know the brat’s father was, seeing I’m keeping him?”

Kate ran to the hearth and picked up the tongs.

“I’ll brain you with this,” she hissed, “if you say another word.”

Martin caught her.

“Don’t you hit him,” he cried. “Let me deal with him.”

“So that’s it, is it?” cried Patrick. “You’ve changed your mind about her since the night you said you’d rather lie with a dog than with her.”

“Liar,” shouted Martin, turning pale.

“You can have her now, then,” said Patrick. “She’s a dry bag. I’ve been sold a blind pup. There was nothing in her womb but that sick vermin that doesn’t know his own father. My curse on the house.”

He rushed out. As he passed the child he made a kick at it. The child screamed. Kate dropped on to a chair, put her fingers between her teeth and bit them. Martin stood before the hearth, trembling. Then he cursed, took his tobacco from his pocket and bit at it. He began to chew. Kate began to tremble. Then she began to sob hysterically.

“Look here,” said Martin to her angrily. “I did you wrong. He said the truth. I said what you heard just now. But don’t you be afraid. I’ll do right by you now. That savage won’t raise a hand to your child while I’m here,”

He left the house.

All that day, Patrick went among the neighbours, complaining that his wife treated him with cruelty, that she was barren, that there was a scar on her stomach, that her womb had been extracted in an hospital, that she favoured his brother, that she was robbing him in the interests of her child. He returned late at night. His wife was waiting for him. She received him as if nothing had happened and gave him his supper.

Martin returned from a visit while Patrick was having his supper. He glanced with hatred at his brother and immediately went into his room.

Patrick called after him:

“We’ll begin tomorrow making a field of that crag beyond the Red Meadow. There is going to be no one eating the bread of idleness in this house.”

“All right,” said Martin calmly from his room.

Then he stood near the bed of the sleeping child, listening to the child’s breath, in the darkness. His face broke into a smile and his eyes glittered. When he got into bed he kept laughing to himself. He kept waking through the night and listening to the child’s breathing and laughing to himself.

Next day they brought crowbars and a sledge and they went to the crag beyond the Red Meadow. They began to quarry the rocks. They worked savagely, excited by their hatred of one another. Patrick ordered his brother about, treating him like a servant. Martin obeyed meekly and smiled in a strange manner at his brother’s oaths.

That evening, while they were having supper, he said suddenly to Kate:

“I’ve been thinking, this while back, that I should make a will. No man knows when his hour is going to come and it’s best to put things in a way that there’ll be no quarrel over my few pounds after I’m gone.”

Patrick looked up suspiciously. His little eyes flashed. His neck became florid. His white eyebrows moved up and down. Then he said:

“It’s not of your death you should be thinking, but of getting a wife. If you had the guts of a man you’d look for a wife.”

Martin smiled faintly and went on talking to Kate. Kate’s eyes became small. She watched Martin like a bird.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “this while back, that little Charley has been a great comfort to me since he came into the house. I’d like to think that maybe when he grew up and I’m gone he’d have something to think well of me for. So, I’m thinking of making a will.”

Then he arose from the table and went out. Kate put her apron to her eye, as if to wipe away a tear. But her eyes were dry and her face was flushed.

Patrick looked at the table with his mouth open. Then he caught up a piece of the bread that Kate had baked, crushed it between his fingers and growled:

“Do you call that bread? It’s like putty. I wouldn’t give it to a dog.”

He threw the bread at the child and said:

“Here. Catch that.”

Then he cursed and went out of the house. Kate showed no sign of resentment in her cold, hawk-like countenance.

Next day, while they were digging out the stones from the crag, Patrick said to his brother:

“Wake up, you fool Don’t loaf around. Is it thinking of your will you are? Did you make that will yet?”

“I’m thinking about it,” said Martin calmly. “I want to put it in a way that nobody can touch my money but the child. I have to think about it.”

“The curse of God on you,” said Patrick with great violence.

He dropped his crowbar and left the crag, He came home and shouted at his wife:

“Give me some money.”

She gave him a pound note.

“I want more,” he said.

“That’s all there is in the house,” she said quietly.

“I’ll have a look then,” he said.

He rushed into the bedroom and tried to open her trunk. She ran in after him and said:

“Leave that alone.”

“What have you in it?” he cried. “Why do you keep it locked?”

“It’s none of your business,” she said. “I gave you three hundred pounds when I came into the house. That’s all you bargained for.”

“Ha!” he cried. “You have money in it. You kept money from me. You are stealing the money of the house for your bastard child. You have taken my land. You got around my fool of a brother to leave you his money and now you -”

“Shut up,” she hissed at him, “or I’ll brain you.”

He rushed at her and felled her with a blow of his fist. Then he became terrified and fled from the house. When Martin returned from the crag, Kate was going about her work calmly. He noticed that she had a black bruise on her cheek. He asked her what had happened. She told him.