IN THE TRAIN

“There!” said the sergeant’s wife. “You would hurry me.”

“I always like being in time for a train,” replied the sergeant, with
the equability of one who has many times before explained the guiding
principle of his existence.

“I’d have had heaps of time to buy the hat,” added his wife.

The sergeant sighed and opened his evening paper. His wife looked out
on the dark platform, pitted with pale lights under which faces and
faces passed, lit up and dimmed again. A uniformed lad strode up and
down with a tray of periodicals and chocolates. Farther up the
platform a drunken man was being seen off by his friends.

“I’m very fond of Michael O’Leary,” he shouted. “He is the most
sincere man I know.”

“I have no life,” sighed the sergeant’s wife. “No life at all. There
isn’t a soul to speak to; nothing to look at all day but bogs and
mountains and rain—always rain! And the people! Well, we’ve had a fine
sample of them, haven’t we?”

The sergeant continued to read.

“Just for the few days it’s been like heaven. Such interesting people!
Oh, I thought Mr. Boyle had a glorious face! And his voice—it went
through me.”

The sergeant lowered his paper, took off his peaked cap, laid it on
the seat beside him, and lit his pipe. He lit it in the old-fashioned
way, ceremoniously, his eyes blinking pleasurably like a sleepy cat’s
in the match-flare. His wife scrutinized each face that passed and it
was plain that for her life meant faces and people and things and
nothing more.

“Oh, dear!” she said again. “I simply have no existence. I was
educated in a convent and play the piano; my father was a literary
man, and yet I am compelled to associate with the lowest types of
humanity. If it was even a decent town, but a village!”

“Ah,” said the sergeant, gapping his reply with anxious puffs, “maybe
with God’s help we’ll get a shift one of these days.” But he said it
without conviction, and it was also plain that he was well-pleased
with himself, with the prospect of returning home, with his pipe and
his paper.

“Here are Magner and the others,” said his wife as four other
policemen passed the barrier. “I hope they’ll have sense enough to let
us alone. ... How do you do? How do you do? Had a nice time, boys?”
she called with sudden animation, and her pale, sullen face became
warm and vivacious. The policemen smiled and touched their caps but
did not halt.

“They might have stopped to say good evening,” she added sharply, and
her face sank into its old expression of boredom and dissatisfaction.
“I don’t think I’ll ask Delancey to tea again. The others make an
attempt but, really, Delancey is hopeless. When I smile and say:
‘Guard Delancey, wouldn’t you like to use the butter-knife?’  he just
scowls at me from under his shaggy brows and says without a moment’s
hesitation: ‘I would not.’”

“Ah, Delancey is a poor slob,” the sergeant said affectionately.

“Oh, yes, but that’s not enough, Jonathan. Slob or no slob, he should
make an attempt. He’s a young man; he should have a dinner jacket at
least. What sort of wife will he get if he won’t even wear a dinner
jacket?”

“He’s easy, I’d say. He’s after a farm in Waterford.”

“Oh, a farm! A farm! The wife is only an incidental, I suppose?”

“Well, now, from all I hear she’s a damn nice little incidental.”

“Yes, I suppose many a nice little incidental came from a farm,”
answered his wife, raising her pale brows. But the irony was lost on
him.

“Indeed yes, indeed yes,” he said fervently.

“And here,” she added in biting tones, “come our charming neighbours.”

Into the pale lamplight stepped a group of peasants. Not such as one
sees near a capital but in the mountains and along the coasts.
Gnarled, wild, with turbulent faces, their ill-cut clothes full of
character, the women in pale brown shawls, the men wearing black
sombreros and carrying big sticks, they swept in, ill at ease,
laughing and shouting defiantly. And so much part of their natural
environment were they that for a moment they seemed to create about
themselves rocks and bushes, tarns, turfricks, and sea.

With a prim smile the sergeant’s wife bowed to them through the open
window.

“How do you do? How do you do?” she called. “Had a nice time?”

At the same moment the train gave a jolt and there was a rush in which
the excited peasants were carried away. Some minutes passed; the
influx of passengers almost ceased, and a porter began to slam the
doors. The drunken man’s voice rose in a cry of exultation.

“You can’t possibly beat O’Leary,” he declared. “I’d lay down my life
for Michael O’Leary.”

Then, just as the train was about to start, a young woman in a brown
shawl rushed through the barrier. The shawl, which came low enough to
hide her eyes, she held firmly across her mouth, leaving visible only
a long thin nose with a hint of pale flesh at either side. Beneath the
shawl she was carrying a large parcel

She looked hastily around; a porter shouted to her and pushed her
towards the nearest compartment, which happened to be that occupied by
the sergeant and his wife. He had actually seized the handle of the
door when the sergeant’s wife sat up and screamed.

“Quick! Quick!” she cried. “Look who it is! She’s coming in. Jonathan!
Jonathan!”

The sergeant rose with a look of alarm on his broad red face. The
porter threw open the door, with his free hand grasping the woman’s
elbow. But when she laid eyes on the sergeant’s startled face she
stepped back, tore herself free and ran crazily up the platform. The
engine shrieked; the porter slammed the door with a curse; somewhere
another door opened and shut, and the row of watchers, frozen into
effigies of farewell, now dark now bright, began to glide gently past
the window, and the stale, smoky air was charged with the breath of
open fields.

II

The four policemen spread themselves out in a separate compartment and
lit cigarettes.

“Poor old Delancey!” Magner said with his reckless laugh. “He’s
cracked on her all right.”

“Cracked on her,” agreed Fox. “Did ye see the eye he gave her?”

Delancey smiled sheepishly. He was a tall, handsome, black-haired young
man with the thick eyebrows described by the sergeant’s wife. He was
new to the force and suffered from a mixture of natural gentleness and
country awkwardness.

“I am,” he said in his husky voice. “The devil admire me, I never
hated anyone yet, but I think I hate the living sight of her.”

“Oh now, oh now!” protested Magner.

“I do. I think the Almighty God must have put that one into the world
with the one main object of persecuting me.”

“Well indeed,” said Foley, “’tis a mystery to me how the sergeant puts
up with her. If any woman up and called me by an outlandish name like
Jonathan when everyone knew my name was plain John I’d do fourteen
days for her—by God, I would, and a calendar month.”

The four men were now launched on a favourite topic that held them for
more than a hour. None of them liked the sergeant’s wife and all had
stories to tell against her. From these there emerged the fact that she
was an incurable scandalmonger and mischiefmaker who couldn’t keep
quiet about her own business much less about that of her
neighbours. And while they talked the train dragged across a dark
plain, the heart of Ireland, and in the moonless night tiny
cottage-windows blew past like sparks from a fire, and a pale
simulacrum of the lighted carriages leaped and frolicked over hedges
and fields. Magner shut the window and the compartment began to fill
with smoke.

“She’ll never rest till she’s out of Farranchreesht,” he said.

“That she mightn’t!” groaned Delancey.

“How would you like the city yourself, Dan?” asked Magner.

“Man dear,” exclaimed Delancey with sudden brightness, “I’d like it
fine. There’s great life in a city.”

“You’re welcome to it,” said Foley, folding his hands across his
paunch.

“Why so? What’s wrong with it?”

“I’m better off where I am.”

“But the life!”

“Life be damned! What sort of life is it when you’re always under
someone’s eye? Look at the poor devils in court.”

“True enough, true enough,” agreed Fox.

“Ah, yes, yes,” said Delancey, “but the adventures they have!”

“What adventures?”

“There was a sergeant in court only yesterday telling me one thing
that happened himself. “’Twas an old maid without a soul in the world
that died in an old loft on the quays. The sergeant put a new man on
duty outside the door while he went back to report, and all he had to
do was kick the door and frighten off the rats.”

“That’s enough, that’s enough!” cried Foley.

“Yes, yes, but listen now, listen can’t you?” cried Delancey. “He was
there ten minutes with a bit of candle when the door at the foot of
the stairs began to open. “Who’s there?” says he, getting a bit
nervous. “Who’s there I say?” No answer, and still the door kept
opening. Then he gave a laugh. What was it only an old cat?  “Puss,
puss,” says he, “come on up, puss.” Thinking, you know, the old cat
would be company. Then he gave another look and the hair stood up on
his head. There was another bloody cat coming in. “Get out!” says he
to scare them, and then another cat came in and then another, and in
his fright he dropped the candle. The cats began to hiss and bawl and
that robbed him of the last stitch of sense. He made down the stairs,
and if he did he trod on a cat, and went down head over heels, and
when he tried to grip something ’twas a cat he gripped, and he felt
the claws tearing his face. He was out for three weeks after.”

“That’s a bloody fine adventure,” said Foley with bitter restraint.

“Isn’t it though?” Delancey said eagerly. “You’d be a long time in
Farranchreesht before anything like that would happen you.”

“That’s the thing about Farranchreesht, lad,” said Magner. “’Tis a
great ease to be able to put on your cap and go for a drink any hour
of the day or night.”

“Yes,” added Foley, “and to know the worst case you’re likely to have
in ten years is a bit of a scrap about politics.”

“I don’t know,” Delancey sighed dreamily. “Chrisht, there’s great
charm about the Criminal Courts.”

“Damn the much they had for you when you were in the box,” growled
Foley.

“I know, sure, I know,” admitted Delancey crestfallen. “I was
sweating.”

“Shutting your eyes you were,” said Magner, “like a kid afraid he was
going to get a box on the ear.”

“Still,” said Delancey, “this sergeant I’m talking about, he said
after a while you wouldn’t mind that no more than if ’twas a card
party. He said you’d talk back to the judge as man to man.”

“I dare say that’s true,” agreed Magner.

There was silence in the smoky compartment that jolted and rocked on
its way across Ireland, and the four occupants, each touched with that
morning wit which afflicts no one so much as state witnesses, thought
of how they’d speak to the judge now if only they had him before them
as man to man. They looked up to see a fat red face behind the door,
and a moment later it was dragged back.

“Is this my carriage, gentlemen?” asked a meek and boozy voice.

“No, ’tisn’t. Go on with you!” snapped Magner.

“I had as nice a carriage as ever was put on a railway train,” said
the drunk, leaning in, “a handsome carriage, and ’tis lost.”

“Try farther on,” suggested Delancey.

“Ye’ll excuse me interrupting yeer conversation, gentlemen.”

“That’s all right, that’s all right.”

“I’m very melancholic. My best friend, I parted him this very night,
and ‘tis unknown to anyone, only the Almighty and Merciful God (here
the drunk reverently raised his bowler hat and let it slide down the
back of his neck to the floor) if I’ll ever lay eyes on him again in
this world. Good night, gentlemen, and thanks, thanks for all yeer
kindness.”

As the drunk slithered away up the corridor Delancey laughed. Fox, who
had remained thoughtful, resumed the conversation where it had left
off.

“Delancey wasn’t the only one that was sweating,” he said.

“He was not,” agreed Foley. “Even the sergeant was a bit shook.”

“He was very shook. When he caught up the poison mug to identify it he
was shaking, and before he could put it down it danced a jig on the
table.”

“Ah, dear God, dear God,” sighed Delancey, “what killed me most
entirely was the bloody old model of the house. I didn’t mind anything
else only the house. There it was, a living likeness, with the bit of
grass in front and the shutter hanging loose, and every time I looked
at it I was in the back lane in Farranchreesht, and then I’d look up
and see the lean fellow in the wig pointing his finger at me.”

“Well, thank God,” said Foley with simple devotion, “this time
tomorrow I’ll be in Ned Ivers’s back with a pint in my fist.”

Delancey shook his head, a dreamy smile playing upon his dark face.

“I don’t know,” he said. “’Tis a small place, Farranchreesht; a small,
mangy old place with no interest or advancement in it.” His face lit
up as the sergeant appeared in the corridor.

“Here’s the sergeant now,” he said.

“He wasn’t long getting tired of Julietta,” whispered Magner
maliciously.

The door was pushed back and the sergeant entered, loosening the
collar of his tunic. He fell into a corner seat, crossed his legs, and
accepted the cigarette which Delancey proffered.

“Well, lads,” he exclaimed. “What about a jorum?”

“Isn’t it remarkable?” said Foley. “I was only just talking about it.”

“I have noted before now, Peter,” said the sergeant, “that you and me
have what might be called a simultaneous thirst.”


III

The country folk were silent and exhausted. Kendillon drowsed now and
then, but he suffered from blood-pressure, and after a while his
breathing grew thicker and stronger till at last it exploded in a
snort and he started up, broad awake and angry. In the silence rain
spluttered and tapped along the roof and the dark windowpanes streamed
with shining runnels of water that trickled to the floor. Moll Mhor
scowled, her lower lip thrust out. She was a great flop of a woman
with a big, coarse, powerful face. The other two women whose eyes were
closed had their brown shawls drawn tight about their heads, but
Moll’s was round her shoulders and the gap above her breasts was
filled with a blaze of scarlet.

“Aren’t we home yet?” Kendillon asked crossly, starting awake after
one of his drowsing fits.

Moll glowered at him.

“No, nor won’t be. What scour is on you?”

“My little house,” moaned Kendillon.

“My little house,” mimicked Moll. “’Twasn’t enough for you to board
the windows and put barbed wire on the gate.”

“’Tis all very well for you that have someone to mind yours for you,”
he snarled.

One of the women laughed softly and turned a haggard virginal face
within the cowl of her shawl.

“’Tis that have me laughing,” she explained apologetically. “Tim Dwyer
this week past at the stirabout pot.”

“And making the beds,” chimed in the third woman.

“And washing the children’s faces! Glory be to God, he’ll be mad.”

“Ay,” said Moll, “and his chickens running off with Thade Kendillon’s
roof.”

“My roof is it?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“’Tis a good roof,” he said roughly. “’Tis a better roof than ever was
seen over your head since the day you married.”

“Oh, Mary my mother!” sighed Moll, “’tis a great pity of me this three
hours and I looking at the likes of you instead of my own fine
bouncing man.”

“’Tis a new thing to hear you praising Sean then,” said a woman.

“I wronged him,” Moll said contritely. “I did so. I wronged him before
God and the world.”

At this moment the drunken man pulled back the door of the compartment
and looked from face to face with an expression of deepening
melancholy.

“She’s not here,” he said in disappointment.

“Who’s not here, mister?” asked Moll with a wink at the others.

“I’m looking for my own carriage, ma’am,” said the drunk with
melancholy dignity, “and whatever the bloody hell they done with it,
’tis lost. The railways in this country are gone to hell.”

“Wisha, if that’s all that’s worrying you, wouldn’t you sit here with
me?” asked Moll. “I’m here so long I’m forgetting what a real man
looks like.”

“I would with great pleasure,” replied the drunk politely, “but
’tisn’t only the carriage. ’Tis my travelling-companion. I’m a lonely
man; I parted my best friend this very night; I found one to console
me, and then when I turned my back—God took her.

And with a dramatic gesture he closed the door and continued on his
way. The country folk sat up, blinking. The smoke of the men’s pipes
filled the compartment and the heavy air was laden with the smell of
homespun and turf-smoke, the sweet pungent odour of which had penetrated
every fibre of their clothes.

“Listen to the rain!” said one of the women. “We’ll have a wet walk
home.”

“’Twill be midnight before we’re in,” said another.

“Ah, what matter sure when the whole country will be up? There’ll be a
lot of talking done in Farranchreesht tonight.”

“A lot of talking and no sleep.”

“Oh, Farranchreesht! Farranchreesht!” cried the young woman  with the
haggard face, the ravaged lineaments of which were suddenly
transfigured. “Farranchreesht and the sky over you, I wouldn’t change
places with the Queen of England tonight!”

And suddenly Farranchreesht, the bare bogland with the hump-backed
mountain behind, the little white houses and the dark fortifications
of turf that made it seem like the flame-blackened ruin of some mighty
city, all was lit up in their minds. An old man sitting in a corner,
smoking a broken clay pipe, thumped his stick on the floor.

“Well now,” said Kendillon darkly, “wasn’t it great impudence in her
to come back?”

“Wasn’t it indeed?” echoed one of the women.

“I’d say she won’t be there long,” he went on knowingly.

“You’ll give her the hunt, I suppose?” asked Moll politely, too
politely.

“If no one else do, I’ll give her the hunt myself. What right have she
in a decent place?”

“Oh, the hunt, the hunt,” agreed a woman. “Sure, no one could ever
darken her door again.”

“And what the hell did we tell all the lies for?” asked Moll with her
teeth on edge to be at Kendillon. “Thade Kendillon there swore black
was white.”

“What else would I do, woman? There was never an informer in my
family.”

“I’m surprised to hear it,” said Moll vindictively, but the old man
thumped his stick three or four times for silence.

“We all told our story,” he said, “and we told it well. And no one
told it better than Moll. You’d think to hear her she believed it
herself.”

“I declare to God I very nearly did,” she said with a wild laugh.

“I seen great changes in my time, great changes,” the old man said,
shaking his head, “and now I see a greater change still.”

A silence followed his words. There was profound ‘respect in all
their eyes. The old man coughed and spat.

“What change is that, Colm?” asked Moll.

“Did any of ye ever think the day would come when a woman in our
parish would do the like of that?”

“Never, never.”

“But she might do it for land?”

“She might.”

“Or for money?”

“She might so.”

“She might indeed. When the hunger is money people kill for the money;
when the hunger is land people kill for the land. But what are they
killing for now? I tell ye, there’s a great change coming. In the ease
of the world people are asking more. When I was a boy in the barony if
you killed a beast you made six pieces of it, one for yourself and the
rest for the neighbours. The same if you made a catch of fish. And
that’s how it was with us from the beginning of time. But now look at
the change! The people aren’t as poor or as good or as generous or as
strong.”

“Or as wild,” added Moll with a vicious glance at Kendillon. “’Tis in
the men you’d mostly notice the change.”

The door opened and Magner, Delancey and the sergeant entered. Magner
was already drunk.

“I was lonely without you, Moll,” he said. “You’re the biggest and
brazenest and cleverest liar of the lot and you lost me my sergeant’s
stripes, but I’ll forgive you everything if you’ll give us one bar of
the ‘Colleen Dhas Roo.’ ”


IV

“I’m a lonely man,” said the drunk. “And I’m going back to a lonely
habitation.

“My best friend,” he continued, “I left behind me—Michael O’Leary, the
most sincere man I know. "’Tis a great pity you don’t know Michael and
a great pity Michael don’t know you. But look at the misfortunate way
things happen! I was looking for someone to console me, and the moment
I turned my back you were gone.”

He placed his hand solemnly under the woman’s chin and raised her face
to the light. With the other hand he stroked her cheeks.

“You have a beautiful face,” he said reverently, “a beautiful
face. But what’s more important, you have a beautiful soul. I look
into your eyes and I see the beauty of your nature. Allow me one
favour. Only one favour before we part.”

He bent and kissed her. Then he picked up his bowler which had fallen
once more, put it on back to front, took his dispatch case and got
out.

The woman sat on alone. Her shawl was thrown open and beneath it she
wore a bright blue blouse. The carriage was cold, the night outside
black and cheerless, and within her something had begun to contract
that threatened to crush the very spark of life in her. She could no
longer fight it off even when for the hundredth time she went over the
scenes of the previous day; the endless hours in the dock, the
wearisome questions and speeches she could not understand, and the
long wait in the cells till the jury returned. She felt again the
shiver of mortal anguish that went through her when the chief warder
beckoned angrily from the stairs and the wardress, glancing hastily in
a hand-mirror, pushed her forward. She saw the jury with their
expressionless faces. She was standing there alone, in nervous
twitches jerking back the shawl from her face to give herself air. She
was trying to say a prayer but the words were being drowned in her
mind by the thunder of nerves, crashing and bursting. She could feel
one which had escaped dancing madly at the side of her mouth, but, was
powerless to recapture it.

“The verdict of the jury is that Helena Maguire is not guilty.” Which
was it? Death or life? She could not say. “Silence! Silence!” shouted
the usher though no one had tried to say anything. “Any other charge?”
asked a weary voice. “Release the prisoner.” “Silence!” shouted the
usher again. The chief warder opened the door of the dock and she
began to run. When she reached the steps she stopped and looked back
to see if she was being followed. A policeman held open a door and she
found herself in an ill-lit, draughty stone corridor. She stood there,
the old shawl about her face. The crowd began to emerge. The first was
a tall girl with a rapt expression as though she were walking on
air. When she saw the woman she halted, her hands went up in an
instinctive gesture, as though to feel her, to caress her. It was that
look of hers, that gait as of a sleepwalker that brought the woman to
her senses. ...

But now the memory had no warmth in her mind, and the something within
her continued to contract, smothering her with loneliness, shame, and
fear. She began to mutter crazily to herself. The train, now almost
empty, was stopping at every little wayside station. Now and again a
blast from the Atlantic pushed at it as though trying to capsize it.

She looked up as the door slammed open and Moll came in, swinging her
shawl behind her.

“They’re all up the train. Wouldn’t you come?”

“No, no, I couldn’t.”

“Why couldn’t you? Who are you minding? Is it Thade Kendillon?”

“No, no, I’ll stop as I am.”

“Here, take a sup of this.” Moll fumbled in her shawl and produced a
bottle of liquor as pale as water. “Wait till I tell you what Magner
said! That fellow is a limb of the devil. “Have you e’er a drop,
Moll?’ says he. ‘Maybe I have,’ says I. “What is it?’ says he. ‘For
God’s sake, baptize it quick and call it whisky.’ ”

The woman took the bottle and put it to her lips. She shivered as she
drank.

“’Tis a good drop,” said Moll approvingly.

Next moment there were loud voices in the corridor. Moll grabbed the
bottle and hid it under her shawl. But it was only Magner, the
sergeant, and Delancey. After them came the two countrywomen,
giggling. Magner held out his hand.

“Helena,” he said, “accept my congratulations.”

She took his hand, smiling awkwardly.

“We’ll get you the next time though,” he added.

“Musha, what are you saying, mister?”

“Not a word. You’re a clever woman, a remarkable woman, and I give you
full credit for it. You threw dust in all our eyes.”

“Poison is supposed to be an easy thing to trace but it beat me to
trace it,” said the sergeant, barely concealing his curiosity.

“Well, well, there’s things they’re saying about me!” she said with a
nervous laugh.

“Tell him,” advised Magner. “There’s nothing he can do to you
now. You’re as safe as the judge himself. Last night when the jury
came in with the verdict you could have stood there in the dock and
said: ‘Ye’re wrong. I did it. I got the stuff in such and such a
place. I gave it to him because he was old and dirty and cantankerous
and a miser. I did it and I’m proud of it.’ You could have said every
word of that and they couldn’t have laid a finger on you.”

“Indeed, what a thing I’d say!”

“Well, you could.”

“The law is truly a remarkable phenomenon,” said the sergeant, who was
also rather squiffy. “Here you are, sitting at your ease at the
expense of the state, and for one simple word of a couple of letters
you could be up in Mountjoy, waiting for the rope and the morning
jaunt.”

The woman shuddered. The young woman with the ravaged face looked up.

“’Twas the holy will of God,” she said.

“’Twas all the bloody lies Moll Mhor told,” replied Magner.

“’Twas the will of God.”

“There was many hanged in the wrong,” said the sergeant.

“Even so, even so, ’twas God’s will.”

“You have a new blouse, Helena,” said the other woman in an envious
tone.

“I seen it last night in a shop on the quays.”

“How much was it?” 

“Honour of God!” exclaimed Magner, looking at the woman in
stupefaction. “Is that all you had to think of? You should have been
on your bended knees before the altar.”

“And sure I was,” she answered indignantly.

“Women!” exclaimed Magner with a gesture of despair. He winked at Moll
and they retired to the next compartment. But the interior was
reflected clearly in the corridor window, and the others could see the
pale quivering image of the policeman lift the bottle to his lips and
blow a long silent blast on it. The young woman who had spoken of the
blouse laughed.

“There’ll be one good day’s work done on the head of the trial,” she
said.

“How so?” asked the sergeant.

“Dan Canty will make a great brew of poteen while he have all yeer
backs turned.”

“I’ll get Dan Canty yet,” replied the sergeant stiffly.

“You will, the way you got Helena.”

“T’ll get him yet,” he said as he consulted his watch. “We’ll be in in
another quarter of an hour. ’Tis time we were all getting back to our
respective compartments.”

Magner entered and the other policemen rose. The sergeant fastened his
collar and buckled his belt. Magner swayed, holding the doorframe, a
mawkish smile on his thin, handsome, dissipated face.

“Well, good night to you now, ma’am,” said the sergeant primly. “I’m
as glad for all our sakes things ended as they did.”

“Good night, Helena,” said Magner, bowing low and promptly
tottering. “There’ll be one happy man in Farranchreesht tonight.”

“Come on, Joe,” protested the sergeant.

“One happy man,” Magner repeated obstinately. “’Tis his turn now.”

“You’re drunk, man,” said Delancey.

“You wanted him,” Magner said heavily. “Your people wouldn’t let you
have him but you have him now in spite of them all.”

“Do you mean Cady Driscoll?” hissed the woman with sudden anger,
leaning towards Magner, the shawl tight about her head.

“Never mind who I mean. You have him.”

“He’s no more to me now than the salt sea.”

The policemen went out first, the women followed, Moll Mhor laughing
boisterously. The woman was left alone. Through the window she could
see little cottages stepping down over wet and naked rocks to the
water’s edge. The flame of life had narrowed in her to a pinpoint, and
she could only wonder at the force that had caught her up, mastered
her and then thrown her aside.

“No more to me,” she repeated dully to her own image in the glass, “no
more to me than the salt sea.”

(1935)