The Snake's Pass: Historical Novel. Брэм Стокер
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was more of Norah than of Shleenanaher in the cause of my reticence. I could bear to be "chaffed" about a superstitious feeling respecting a mountain, or I could endure the same process regarding a girl of whom I had no high ideal, no sweet illusive memory.
I would never complete the argument, even to myself —then; later on, the cause or subject of it varied.!
It was not without a certain conflict of feelings that I approached Carnaclif, even though on this occasion I approached it from the South, whereas on my former visit I had come from the North. I felt that the time went miserably slowly, and yet nothing would have induced me to admit so much. I almost regretted that I had come, even whilst I was harrowed with thoughts that I might not be able to arrive at all at Knockcalltecrore. At times I felt as though the whole thing had been a dream; and again as though the romantic nimbus with which imagination had surrounded and hallowed all things must pass away and show that my unknown beings and my facts of delicate fantasy were but stern and vulgar realities.
The people at the little hotel made me welcome with the usual effusive hospitable intention of the West. Indeed, I was somewhat nettled at how well they remembered me, as for instance when the buxom landlady said:—
"I'm glad to be able to tell ye, sir, that yer carman, Andy Sullivan, is here now. He kem with a commercial from Westport to Eoundwood, an' is on his way back, an' hopin' for a return job. I think ye'll be able to make a bargain with him if ye wish."
I made to this kindly speech a hasty and, I felt, an ill-conditioned reply, to the effect that I was going to stay in the neighbourhood for only a few days and would not require the car. I then went to my room, and locked my door muttering a malediction on officious people. I stayed there for some time, until I thought that probably Andy had gone on his way, and then ventured out.
I little knew Andy, however. When I came to the hall, the first person that I saw was the cheerful driver, who came forward to welcome me:—
"Musha! but it's glad I am to see yer 'an'r. An' it'll be the proud man I'll be to bhring ye back to Westport wid me."
"I'm sorry Andy," I began, "that I shall not want you, as I am going to stay in this neighbourhood for a few days."
"Sthay is it? Begor! but it's more gladerer shtill I am. Sure the mare wants a rist, an' it'll shute her an' me all to nothin'; an' thin whilst ye're here I can be dhrivin' yer 'an'r out to Shlee-nanaher. It isn't far enough to intherfere wid her rist."
I answered in, I thought, a dignified way—I certainly intended to be dignified:—
"I did not say, Sullivan, that I purposed going out to Shleenanaher or any other place in the neighbourhood."
"Shure no, yer 'an'r, but I remimber ye said ye'd like to see the Shiftin' Bog; an' thin Misther Joyce and Miss Norah is in throuble, and ye might be a comfort to thim."
"Mr. Joyce! Miss Norah! who are they?" I felt that I was getting red and that the tone of my voice was most unnatural.
Andy's sole answer was as comical a look as I ever saw, the central object in which was a wink which there was no mistaking. I could not face it, and had to say:
"Oh yes, I remember now! was not that the man we took on the car to a dark mountain?"
"Yes, surr—him and his daughther!"
"His daughter! I do not remember her. Surely we only took him on the car." Again I felt angry, and with the anger an inward determination not to have Andy or anyone else prying around me when I should choose to visit even such an uncompromising phenomenon as a shifting bog. Andy, like all humourists, understood human nature, and summed up the situation conclusively in his reply—inconsequential though it was:—
"Shure yer 'an'r can thrust me; its blind or deaf an' dumb I am, an' them as knows me knows I'm not the man to go back on a young gintleman goin' to luk at a bog. Sure doesn't all young min do that same? I've been there meself times out iv mind! There's nothin' in the wurrld foreninst it! Lukin' at bogs is the most intherestin' thin' I knows."
There was no arguing with Andy; and as he knew the place and the people, I, then and there, concluded an engagement with him. He was to stay in Carnaclif whilst I wanted him, and then drive me over to West-port.
As I was now fairly launched on the enterprise, I thought it better to lose no time, but arranged to visit the bog early the next morning.
As I was lighting my cigar after dinner that evening Mrs. Keating, my hostess, came in to ask me a favour. She said that there was staying in the house a gentleman who went over every day to Knockcalltecrore, and as she understood that I was going there in the morning, she made bold to ask if I would mind giving a seat on my car to him as he had turned his ancle that day and feared he would not be able to walk. Under the circumstances I could only say "yes," as it would have been a churlish thing to refuse. Accordingly I gave permission with seeming cheerfulness, but when I was alone my true feelings found vent in muttered grumbling:—" I ought to travel in an ambulance instead of a car." "I seem never to be able to get near this Shleenanaher without an invalid." "Once ought to be enough! but it has become the regulation thing now." "I wish to goodness Andy would hold his infernal tongue—I'd as lief have a detective after me all the time." "It's all very well to be a good Samaritan as a luxury—but as a profession it becomes monotonous." "Confound Andy! I wish I'd never seen him at all."
This last thought brought me up standing, and set me face to face with my baseless ill-humour. If I had never seen Andy I should never have heard at all of Shleenanaher. I should not have known the legend— I should not have heard Norah's voice.
"And so," said I to myself, "this ideal fantasy—this embodiment of a woman's voice, has a concrete name already. Aye! a concrete name, and a sweet one too."
And so I took another step on my way to the bog, and lost my ill-humour at the Fame time. When my cigar was half through and my feelings were proportionately soothed, I strolled into the bar and asked Mrs. Keating as to my companion of the morrow. She told me that he was a young engineer named Sutherland.
"What Sutherland?" I asked. Adding that I had been at school with a Dick Sutherland, who had, I believed, gone into the Irish College of Science.
"Perhaps it's the same gentleman, sir. This is Mr. Eichard Sutherland, and I've heerd him say that he was at Stephen's Green."
"The same man!" said I, "this is jolly!"Tell me, Mrs. Keating, what brings him here?"
"He's doin' some work on Knockcalltecrore for Mr. Murdock, some quare thing or another. They do tell me, sir, that it's a most mystayrious thing, wid poles an' lines an' magnets an' all kinds of divilments. They say that Mr. Murdock is goin' from off of his head ever since he had the law of poor Phelim Joyce. My! but he's the decent man, that same Mr. Joyce, an' the Gombeen has been hard upon him."
"What was the law suit?" I asked.
"All about a sellin' his land on an agreement. Mr. Joyce borryed some money, an' promised if it wasn't paid back at a certain time that he would swop lands. Poor Joyce met wid an accident comin' home with the money from Gal way an' was late, an' when he got home found that the Gombeen had got the sheriff to sell up his land on to him. Mr. Joyce thried it in the Coorts, but now Murdock has got a decree on to him an' the poor man'll to give up his fat lands an' take the Gombeen's poor ones instead."
"That's bad! when has he to give up?"
"Well, I disrem ember meself exactly, but Mr. Sutherland will be able to tell ye all about it as ye drive over in the mornin."
"Where is he now? I should like to see him; it may be my old schoolfellow."
"Troth, it's in his bed he is; for he rises mighty arly, I can tell ye."
After a stroll through the town (so-called) to finish my cigar I went to bed also, for we started early. In the morning, when I came down to my breakfast I found Mr. Sutherland finishing his. It was my old schoolfellow; but from being a slight, pale boy, he had grown into a burly, hale, stalwart man, with keen eyes and a flowing brown beard. The only pallor noticeable was the whiteness of his brow, which was ample and lofty as of old.