The Wild Geese

"He says," Flavia continued, looking down demurely, "that it's a rare stick that's no bend in it, and – and 'tis very little use looking for it on a dark night. Besides, he – " she glanced at her neighbour, "he said he'd be master, you know, and what could I do?"

"Then it's the very wrong way he's gone about it!" Uncle Ulick cried, with a chuckle. "For there's no married man that I know that's master! It's you, my jewel, have put the comether on him, and I'll trust you to keep it there!"

But into that we need not go. Our task is done. Whether Flavia's high spirit and her husband's gravity, her youth and his experience travelled the road together in unbroken amity, or with no more than the jars which the accidents of life occasion, however close the link, it does not fall within this story to tell. Nor need we say whether Father O'Hara proved as discreet in the long run as he had been liberal in the beginning. Probably the two had their bickerings which did not sever love. But one thing may be taken for granted; in that part of Kerry the King over the Water, if his health was sometimes drunk of an evening, stirred up no second trouble. Nor, when the '45 convulsed Scotland, and shook England to its centre, did one man at Morristown raise his hand or lose his life. For so much at least that windswept corner of Kerry, beaten year in and year out by the Atlantic rollers, had to thank Colonel Sullivan.

Nor for that only. In many unnamed ways his knowledge of the world blessed those about him. The small improvements, the little advances in civilisation which the English intruders were introducing into those parts, he adopted: a more orderly house, an increased neatness, a few more acres brought under the plough or the spade, whole roofs and few beggars – these things were to be seen at Morristown, and in few other places thereabouts. And, above all, his neighbours owned the influence of one who, with a reputation gained at the sword's point, stood resolutely, unflinchingly, abroad as at home, at fairs and cockfights as on his own hearth, for peace. More than a century was to elapse before private war ceased to be the amusement of the Irish gentry. But in that part of Kerry, and during a score of years, the name and weight of Colonel Sullivan of Morristown availed to quiet many a brawl and avert many a meeting.

To follow the mean and the poor of spirit beyond the point where their fortunes cease to be entwined with those of better men is a profitless task. James McMurrough, tried and found wanting, where all favoured him, was not likely to rise above his nature where the odds were equal, and all men his rivals. What he did in Galway City, that bizarre, half-foreign town of the west, how long he tarried there, and whither he went afterwards, in the vain search for a place where a man could swagger without courage and ruffle it without consequences, it matters not to inquire. A time came when his kin knew not whether he lived or was dead.

Luke Asgill, who could rise as much above The McMurrough as he had it in him to fall below him, who was as wicked as James was weak, was redeemed, one may believe, by the good that lurked in him. He lay many weeks on a sick-bed, and returned to everyday life another man. For, whereas he had succumbed, a passionate lover of Flavia, he rose wholly cured of that passion. It had ebbed from him with his blood, or waned with his fever. And whereas he had before sought both gain and power, restrained by as few scruples as the worst men of a bad age, he rose a pursuer of both, but within bounds; so that, though he was still hard and grasping and oppressive, it was possible to say of him that he was no worse than his class. Close-fisted, at Father O'Hara's instance he could open his hand. Hard, at the Father's prayer he would at times remit a rent or extend a bond. Ambitious, he gave up, for his soul's sake and the sake of the Faith that had been his fathers', the office which endowed him with power to oppress.

There were some who scoffed behind his back, and said that Luke Asgill had had enough of carrying a sword and now wished no better than to be rid of it. But, in truth, as far as the man's reformation went, it was real. The devil was well, but he was not the devil he had been. The hours he had passed in the presence of death, the thoughts he had had while life was low in him, were not forgotten in his health. The strong nature, slow to take an impression, was stiff to retain it. A moody, silent man, going about his business with a face to match the sullen bogs of his native land, he lived to a great age, and paid one tribute only to the woman he had loved and forgotten – he died a bachelor.

THE END