A fishing-boat lay at anchor in a cove of Dun-manus Bay, a hundred rods from shore, softly rising and sinking with the swell of the tide which stirred the blue waters with all gentleness on this peaceful June morning. Two men sat in lounging attitudes at opposite ends of the little craft, yawning lazily in the sunshine. They held lines in their hands, but their listless and wandering glances made it evident that nothing was further from their thoughts than the catching of fish.
The warm summer air was so clear that the hamlet of Muirisc, whose gray walls, embroidered with glossy vines, and tiny cottages white with lime-wash were crowded together on the very edge of the shore, seemed close beside them, and every grunt and squawk from sty or barn-yard came over the lapping waters to them as from a sounding-board. The village, engirdled by steep, sheltering cliffs, and glistening in the sunlight, made a picture which artists would have blessed their stars for. The two men in the boat looked at it wearily.
“Egor, it’s my belafe,” said the fisher at the bow, after what seemed an age of idle silence, “that the fishes have all follied the byes an’ gerrels, an’ betaken thimselves to Ameriky.” He pulled in his line, and gazed with disgust at the intact bait. “Luk at that, now!” he continued. “There’s a male fit for the holy Salmon of Knowledge himsilf, that taught Fin MacCool the spache of animals, and divil a bite has the manest shiner condiscinded to make at it.”
“Oh, darn the fish!” replied the other, with a long sigh. “I don’t care whether we catch’ any or not. It’s worth while to come out here even if we never get a nibble and baked ourselves into bricks, jest to get rid of that infernal O’Daly.”
It was The O’Mahony who spake, and he invested the concluding portion of his remark with an almost tearful earnestness. During the pause which ensued he chewed vigorously upon the tobacco in his mouth, and spat into the sea with a stern expression of countenance.
“I tell you what, Jerry,” he broke out with at last—“I can’t stand much more of that fellow. He’s jest breakin’ me up piecemeal. I begin to feel like Jeff Davis—that it ’ud have bin ten dollars in my pocket if I’d never bin born.”
“Ah, sure, your honor,” said Jerry, “ye’ll git used to it in time. He manes for the best.”
“That’s jest what makes me tired,” rejoined The O’Mahony; “that’s what they always said about a fellow when he makes a confounded nuisance of himself. I hate fellows that mean for the best. I’d much rather he meant as bad as he knew how. P’raps then he’d shut up and mind his own business, and leave me alone part of the time. It’s bad enough to have your estate mortgaged up to the eyebrows, but to have a bard piled on top o’ the mortgages—egad, it’s more’n flesh and blood can stand! I don’t wonder them other O’Mahonys took to drink.”
“There’s a dale to be said for the dhrink, your honor,” commented the other, tentatively.
“There can be as much said as you like,” said The O’Mahony, with firmness, “but doin’ is a hoss of another color. I’m goin’ to stick to the four drinks a day an’ two at night; an’ what’s good enough for me’s good enough for you. That bat of ours the first week we come settled the thing. I said to myself: ‘There’s goin’ to be one O’Mahony that dies sober, or I’ll know the reason why!’”
“Egor, Saint Pether won’t recognize ye, thin,” chuckled Jerry; and the other grinned grimly in spite of himself.
“Do you know I’ve bin fig’rin’ to myself on that convent business,” The O’Mahony mused aloud, after a time, “an’ I guess I’ve pritty well sized it up. The O’Mahonys started that thing, accordin’ to my notion, jest to coop up their sisters in, where board and lodgin’ ’ud come cheap, an’ one suit o’ clothes ’ud last a lifetime, in order to leave more money for themselves for whisky. I ain’t sayin’ the scheme ain’t got some points about it. You bar out all that nonsense about bonnets an’ silk dresses an’ beads an’ fixin’s right from the word go, and you’ve got ’em safe under lock an’ key, so ’t they can’t go gallivantin’ round an’ gittin’ into scrapes. But I’ll be dodrotted if I’m goin’ to set still an’ see ’em capture that little gal Katie agin her will. You hear me! An’ another thing, I’m goin’ to put my foot down about goin’ to church every mornin’. Once a week’s goin’ to be my ticket right from now. An’ you needn’t show up any oftener yourself if you don’t want to. It’s high time we had it out whether it’s me or O’Daly that’s runnin’ this show.”
“Sure, rightly spakin’, your honor’s own sowl wouldn’t want no more than a mass aich Sunday,” expounded Jerry, concentrating his thoughts upon the whole vast problem of dogmatic theology. “But this is the throuble of it, you see, sir: there’s the sowls of all thim other O’Mahonys that’s gone before, that the nuns do be prayin’ for to git out of purgatory, an’—”
“That’s all right,” broke in The O’Mahony, “but my motto is: let every fellow hustle for himself. They’re on the spot, wherever it is, an’ they’re the best judges of what they want; an’ if they ain’t got sand enough to sail in an’ git it, I don’t see why I should be routed up out of bed every mornin’ at seven o’clock to help ’em. To tell the truth, Jerry, I’m gittin’ all-fired sick of these O’Mahonys. This havin’ dead men slung at you from mornin’ to night, day in an’ day out, rain or shine, would have busted up Job himself.”
“I’m thinking, sir,” said Jerry, with a merry twinkle in his eyes, “there’s no havin’ annything in this worruld without payin’ for that same. ’Tis the pinalty of belongin’ to a great family. Egor, since O’Daly thranslated me into a MacEgan I’ve had no pace of me life, by rayson of the necessity to demane mesilf accordin’.”
“Why, darn it all, man,” pursued the other, “I can’t do a solitary thing, any time of day, without O’Daly luggin’ up what some old rooster did a thousand years ago. He follows me round like my shadow, blatherin’ about what Dermid of the Bucking Horses did, an’ what Conn of the Army Mules thought of doin’ and didn’t, and what Finn of the Wall-eyed Pikes would have done if he could, till I git sick at my stomach. He won’t let me lift my ‘finger to do anything, because The O’Mahony mustn’t sile his hands with work, and I have to stand round and watch a lot of bungling cusses pretend to do it, when they don’t know any more about the work than a yellow dog.”
“Faith, ye’ll not get much sympathy from the gintry of Ireland on that score,” said Jerry.
“An’ then that Malachy—he gives me a cramp! he ain’t got a grin in his whole carcass, an’ he can’t understand a word that I say, so that O’Daly has that for another excuse to hang around all the while. Take my steer, Jerry; if anybody leaves you an estate, you jest inquire if there&............