Читать книгу The Road to Nowhere - Maurice Walsh - Страница 14

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BUT when Alistair MacIan and Paddy Joe Long rowed back round the point an hour later Rogan Stuart was sitting on the boss of stone as they had left him, and he was still peacefully smoking his short briar.

Paddy Joe was now rowing and Alistair lounged in the stern, his back against a loosely filled sack. Suddenly Alistair sat up.

‘Snakes!’ he exclaimed. ‘A cyclone must have hit about here.’

Paddy Joe turned his head, the oars trailed, and water rippled over the thin blades.

‘That pole was sound as hickory,’ marvelled Alistair, ‘and there’s been no rain.’

‘I knew it—in my bones I knew it.’ Paddy Joe chuckled boy-like. ‘Alistair, mo gaol—my treasure—this life on a broken wing is done with: the hawk’s pinion is again afloat.’

Paddy Joe resumed his easy rowing, and the little coracle came smoothly to the mooring buoy. Alistair tied up unhurriedly, and the two clambered to the tent level and went round the collapsed canvas without seeming to notice it.

‘Glad you stayed,’ said Alistair cheerfully.

Rogan Stuart, high-priest of ruin, looked at them out of a still face. ‘Had you gentlemen a permit to camp in this place?’

‘We had and we have.’

‘I’ve gone and lost it for you,’ Rogan said quietly.

‘Don’t you believe it,’ said Alistair, and came to the ground limberly, joint by joint; he crossed his legs and felt for his pouch.

Paddy Joe stood over the two and looked lazily about him, at bay and brae and hill-top, and up into the blue dome of the sky, empty of even a bird’s wing. ‘When I was a boy beyond in Kerry,’ he communed aloud, ‘a small twist of a whirlwind used sometimes come across the fields in still harvest weather, and twirl the hay twenty-forty feet into the air; it would snatch the caubeen off your head and play with it, and give yourself a lift and a whirl in the by-going; and every one knew that that whirlwind was the passing by of the good people—the fairy host—for you could hear the thin, mocking laughter of them as they scurried by. Could it be that the fairies came through this glen this morning?—God protect us all!’

‘ “This your camp?—This land is mine—have you a permit?”—like a lash. That kind of fairy!’ said Rogan Stuart. He nodded towards the tent. ‘She did that all by herself. I tried to stop her, but she was too strong for me.’

Alistair looked at the firm shoulders and deep chest. ‘Six feet high and as wide as a forge door——’

‘Five feet seven in her long boots and scaling one hundred and fifteen,’ smiled Rogan. ‘I know, for I wrestled with her. And look! when she bent over the tent-pegs I was minded to punt her into the bay. Should I have?’

‘You did the best you could,’ said Paddy Joe.

‘I was asleep,’ Rogan started to explain, ‘up there in the shade of that rock; two American ponies came along the path and waked me. She was riding ahead, straight up and down—and behind her a lazy long fellow, dark and good-looking, in cowboy garb and speaking synthetic cowboy with a public-school accent.’

Paddy Joe frowned. ‘Did he——?’

‘No. An amiable hound! Rolled a cigarette and grinned, and offered me no help—she needed none; he did not exist as far as our little war was concerned. You know, she rode off and left him to follow like a tame dog—but had I not better tell you from the beginning?’

‘It might be as well,’ agreed Paddy Joe.

Rogan pictured the whole brief drama very succinctly. ‘So you see, gentlemen,’ he said at the end, ‘I have as good as lost you your permit.’

‘Not on your life,’ Alistair assured him firmly. ‘We have that permit in Sir Jerome’s own handwriting.’

‘But she said, “This land is mine—have that tent out of here when I return.” ’

‘Return she must,’ said Paddy Joe, pointing at the red house across the water. ‘That lady and her tame husband live in that place.’

Alistair hopped nimbly to his feet and sprang down to the level. ‘She will find this tent tight as a drum, then,’ he cried.

‘A bold bit of strategy,’ agreed Paddy Joe, and went to help. Rogan followed.

As they moved round the circumference of the tent Paddy Joe mused aloud.

‘When I was a boy in Kerry——’

‘Nothing else but, wherever you are,’ Alistair interposed.

‘—From Knockanore to Moyvala I knew the people, two hundred and fifty to the square mile, in seed, breed and generation—and they knew me. We had to.’

‘What you mean is,’ said Alistair, ‘that, having staked a claim in this place for a matter of three weeks, you flatter yourself that you have got below the skin of the native.’

‘Once a Kerryman, always the itching mind. Haven’t I a tongue in my head? Come now and let us rest ourselves, and I will put a few facts before you, so that ye shall not be playing a part in the dark when the time comes. The itch is on me to break my well-known silence.’

Alistair wagged a hand helplessly.