Read Ebook: Grey Town An Australian Story by Baldwin Gerald

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Ebook has 896 lines and 31425 words, and 18 pages

when Dr. Marsh burst in upon him, and plumped down on the chair that had been vacated by Father Healy.

"See here, Quirk," he began, without further explanation, "I am a man of the world, and I know the utmost capabilities of human wickedness. I don't believe you are a real libertine. But I know Grey Town. Many a dog has been hanged here because of his bad name. You must disprove this."

"No, doctor. If you knew my story you would recognise the strength of my position. I must trust to time to put things straight."

"They will start another paper and fight you."

"Let them. That is what I want, a good fight," replied Denis. "Someone whom I can hit--hard!"

"And what if I withdraw my capital?"

"You won't do that, doctor," replied Denis, with a quiet smile. "I know you."

"Well, Quirk, I'll tell you what I think of you--a clever, Quixotic fool. But I will stand by you to the end. I am a sort of Ishmaelite; nothing pleases me better than an exchange of hard blows."

The two men shook hands in silence, and Dr. Marsh went out to find Father Healy waiting for him.

"We are a pair of idiots, you and I," said the doctor. "We ought to unite in hooting Denis Quirk out of Grey Town, but we shall fight for him to the finish. He is too ugly to be hopelessly wicked," he added, after a pause.

"Then you and I are not altogether bad," laughed the priest.

They walked in silence to the doctor's gate.

"Won't you come in?" he asked, as they paused to say good-bye.

"No, thank you. It is a strange thing I should have received the Bishop's letter to-day," said Father Healy, reflectively.

Dr. Marsh could not grasp the meaning of this remark, so he refrained from comment on it.

"The Bishop wishes me to take a six months' holiday," continued the priest.

"You have earned it by hard work. A most reasonable suggestion. Take a rest before you die suddenly," said the doctor.

"And he suggests that I return to the old home in County Cork," added Father Healy.

"Naturally. Where would you go but to Ireland?"

"Why not America? It is a great country, and cousins of my own in every city. It might be I would find a cousin in Goldenvale itself."

"Goldenvale! Father Healy, you are a strange man, a many-sided man, but I don't think you are the best fitted person I would select to be discovering other men's secrets."

"Denis Quirk won't help himself. I intend to help him," said the priest.

"And if you prove him guilty?"

"No man need know but that I went to Cork, after all. But something tells me I shall find him innocent."

"Not one penny. I have a small income of my own, inherited from my mother, God rest her soul! Molly shall go to the Finns, in Brunswick. The change will do her good. And no one need know but that I am in Cork."

"In Cork you shall be, if I have to perjure my soul to prove it!" cried Dr. Marsh. "No man shall come near me when I come to die but you, for you are the best man living."

"AND ONE OTHER!"

The Grey River was in flood. It came down the valley a torrent of yellow water, rushing madly between the rocks where the channel was narrow, spreading out far and wide over the low-lying meads, bearing with it the trunks of trees and other debris snatched up along its course. It had overflowed the lower bridge, and rendered it impassable to traffic; the upper bridge was threatened by the turbulent river.

There had been storms far up among the mountains, where the Grey takes its origin, and rains all down the valley. From every small stream and gully a volume of clay-coloured water flowed into the main stream. But the day was bright and sunny after the rain. The sunshine glittered on the yellow surface of the stream, and on the green fields sloping upwards from it. Viewed from the distant hills, the Grey valley was a shining, sparkling amber, encased in an emerald setting.

Kathleen O'Connor had viewed the flood with concern. On the further bank of the river was Mrs. Sheridan's small cottage, where a poor widow struggled to keep a large family by milking on the share system. Kathleen knew that one of the children was seriously ill, and that the mother, always living from hand to mouth, but always carrying a brave face, would be seriously encumbered by Michael's sickness. She feared, too, that the flood waters might even reach to the little cottage, with disastrous results.

"Shall I ride over and see how Mrs. Sheridan is?" she asked, when the heavy rain had ceased, and sunshine was raising a warm vapour from the sodden earth.

"Why not?" replied Mrs. Quirk. "It will do you good--and Sylvia, too."

Sylvia Jackson still remained at "Layton." She had come prepared to spend a monotonous fortnight at Grey Town, because she was tired of the city. But she had remained at "Layton" day after day, accommodating herself to the inhabitants and to the routine of the house. No one resented her presence, nor did anyone desire her departure, for she had made herself pleasant to all. In Mrs. Quirk's eyes she stood second only to Kathleen. Samuel Quirk regarded her as chief critic and adviser on the estate, and to Kathleen she was a cheerful, madcap companion, who reminded her that she was yet young. Denis Quirk's sentiments in regard to the girl he carefully concealed from the outside world, even from Sylvia herself. He was polite and deferential, yet humorous, with her; but she would have liked him to demonstrate clearly that he had enrolled himself among her bodyguard. She had given him abundant opportunities so to do, walking almost daily into the town with him, paying flying visits to "The Mercury" office, and playing dreamy music while he smoked his evening pipe. But Denis Quirk made no sign.

When Kathleen O'Connor proposed to ride round and see the Sheridans, Sylvia was painting. She was an adept at every variety of artistic work. Of any of the arts she might have made a success had she been content to devote her talent solely to that one; but she was too versatile to be completely successful, and while everything was good, nothing was perfect.

"I would love to go with you," she cried.

"And I will meet you at the lower bridge and ride home with you," said Denis Quirk.

In accordance with this arrangement, the two girls rode towards Mrs. Sheridan's after breakfast. Kathleen O'Connor was a perfect horsewoman. Sylvia Jackson, on the other hand, was unused to horses, and very nervous; but she was too proud to confess the fact. Kathleen, while recognising Sylvia's lack of capacity was too charitable to comment upon it. She had protested once, when her friend asked to be allowed to ride a rather high-spirited horse, but when Sylvia retorted hotly, Kathleen offered no further opposition. Thus it came about that Sylvia rode in constant dread, and made a nervous, fidgety horse a thousand times more irritable.

The road towards the upper bridge that crosses the Grey at Swynford is bordered by stretches of green grass. Along this the two girls rode at an easy canter, saving when Dr. Marsh's car rushed past, the doctor driving furiously, as was his way. This incident upset Sylvia's horse for a considerable time, but he quietened down into an easy canter in the deserted bye-road that leads from Swynford, along the farther bank of the Grey, to Mrs. Sheridan's.

At a rise in the road they paused to look down on the cottage. It stood surrounded by pine trees, with a small garden around it. It was a demonstration of Mrs. Sheridan's perpetual industry that she found time to keep the garden in order, despite her numberless other duties. A bright little patch of gay colours she had made of it, and behind it she had cultivated a neat kitchen garden.

"The river has not done any harm to Mrs. Sheridan's cottage," cried Kathleen, with great relief, as she viewed the flood waters, still several feet below the level of the garden.

"Can you understand anyone living in such a poky, ramshackle little hovel?" asked Sylvia. "I would rather be dead and buried than live there."

"Mrs. Sheridan cannot choose; she must live there or die. She is a great woman," said Kathleen.

Mrs. Sheridan met them at the gate, clean, tidy, and talkative. She was noted throughout the district for her loquacity, but, if she spoke at great length, she always spoke kindly.

"Is it you, Miss O'Connor?" she cried. "Sure, it was like yourself to be thinking of me and Michael. Michael and me, we was thinking of you. Only last Sunday I said to the boy, 'Miss Kathleen will be going to Mass,' the which I couldn't do myself, and more is the pity; but when Dan was down with the chickenpox, Father Healy himself, no less, the Lord bless the good man! told me it was my duty to be with Dan. 'The Lord will excuse you from the chapel,' he said to me, 'and you can read the Mass to Dan.' The which I did to Michael here, and him listening to me as if he understood it all, every word. But won't you come inside, you and the young lady? You will be excusing the house, miss; and if you would be taking a cup of tea or a glass of milk, there's no spirits in the house to be offering you, for I think it is putting temptation in the way of some that's too fond of it."

"Not for me," Sylvia whispered; "I couldn't drink tea in a place like this."

"To be sure," cried Mrs. Sheridan, not hearing Sylvia's comment. "Michael will be pleased to see you. Doesn't he call you 'Pretty Miss Kathie'? But you will excuse the liberty in a boy. He is recovering, the doctor says, which himself was here to-day, and the car stuck out there in the mud, and the doctor swearing! Michael could hear him in his bed, which it wasn't good for the boy to hear. But the doctor is too kind, for sure, to mean any harm, even to the car, and Michael and me pretended not to hear him, nor to know that he was angry. The Lord will overlook the words he used to the car and the council that should be taking care of the roads."

Kathleen hitched her own and Sylvia's horse to the fence, and entered a small, but wonderfully clean, room, that served as a kitchen and general sitting-room for the family. Here they found Michael, a boy of four, the baby of a family of nine. The other children had gone, as a troop, to the State school at Swynford. There they would remain all day, to return and assist at the milking, such of them as were capable.

Kathleen sat down beside the boy, and began to entertain him. In a few minutes the two were laughing together, as became old friends. Kathleen had brought sundry gifts with her, among them a sovereign, which she slipped under his pillow, to be discovered after she had gone.

Sylvia sat rigidly on her chair, absorbing the scene with her apparently sleepy eyes; while Mrs. Sheridan bustled about, talking unceasingly, as she spread a clean table cloth and prepared the tea for her guests.

"Did you ever hear such a rain? And the wind! The Lord preserve us; it was praying Michael and me was, the others fast asleep, that the cottage might not be blown away, and us in it. It was like the night himself died. I was sitting here beside him, watching to see him flicker out. He died as peaceful as a child--just one smile for me, and he was gone. An' me alone in the house with him. Mrs. Smith that would have been beside me--she's dead herself now, God rest her soul, for she was a good neighbour--the rain and wind prevented her and many another. And there I sat beside him, as I sat beside Michael, listening to the rain beating on the window and roof, and the trees groaning as if in mortal anguish, and the house creaking, and outside the river and sea roaring. It was praying I was for the morning, for the night makes the storm more fearsome. Now, sit down, Miss O'Connor, and you, miss; the tea is made. It's only bread and butter I can offer yous, but it is all I have, and welcome you are to it."

Kathleen sat down, but Sylvia Jackson, to Mrs. Sheridan's intense concern, refused to eat or drink.

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