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CHAPTER XXV.
It was a quarterly fair-day in Roonard; and from daylight the green outside the little market-town was full of cattle, sheep, and pigs for sale, as the neighbouring roads had been vocal during the night with lowing of herds and the cries of drovers. The usual tents were pitched, with display of cheap but brilliant goods to tempt purchasers; drinking-booths were unfortunately not wanting, hot-beds for whatever evil lay in their customers. One big wagon, with a drum and fife making music outside, was hung with flaring pictures of tiger-cats and chimpanzees, as specimens of the attractions under cover. And a tall recruiting sergeant in scarlet, wearing a sheaf of bright ribbons flying from his shako, and much glittering brass in his accouterments, walked about, talking here and there to a knot of country people, but with his attention especially toward the stalwart farmer lads who had come in care of sundry droves.
Among these was Mike Rafferty, arrived at the fair with a lot of two-year-olds belonging to his master, Denis Purcell, and, since they had been sold, waiting till whatever beasts he was to drive home had been purchased. Waiting also for a purpose of his own. He watched until the dazzling sergeant was comparitively isolated, and then went up to him. “May be yer honor would let me spake to you private a minit.”
“With pleasure,” answered the sergeant, glancing at his strong proportions with a drill-master’s eye.”
“You take recruits, sir?”
“Certainly, my lad; will be very happy to give you her Majesty’s likeness on a bright shilling, an earnest of the same every day of your life after.” And he proceeded to dilate on the glory and honor of the profession of arms.
Mike shuffled a little. “Are you a Catholic or a Protestan’, sir, if I may make bould?” was the next unexpected question.
“What has that to do with it, my man?”
“You have an Englified tongue, sir; an’ may be I’m right in thinkin yer a Protestan’?”
“Well, well, I am; but you’ll find plenty of your own religion in the regiment.”
“Sir, I want fair play, an’ to be let do what I like about religion; an’ if I choose to say I’m a Protestan’, I don’t want to be bate or cursed.”
The sergeant assured him there would not be the slightest difficulty on that score; and Mike Rafferty had the Queen’s shilling in the deepest recess of his pocket as he proceeded homeward with his yearlings, having appointed to meet his new friend next day in Roonard, and had his pledge backed by his master, Farmer Purcell.
Scarcely had he left the town behind him when he saw, on a sloping stretch of road in front, a man walking whose gait seemed familiar. But Mike was of a slow mind, and had quite enough to ruminate upon in his own changed position. He never looked beyond the cattle till he had reached the first eminence, and then percieved the stranger, on whose march they had gained considerably.
“If ever there was a spirit out of the sea, that’s no one else but Pat Colman!”
Mike Rafferty started in amazement, walking on mechanically, till the tired traveler stood aside to let the cattle pass; and he saw not only the figure but the features of the man whom the whole parish had thought drowned!”
“Don’t be afeared,” he said; “the Lord saved me from the storm, an’ has sent me home again, blessed be his name.” And Colman uncovered his head for a moment in reverence and gratitude.
But not for many minutes could he win the herd boy to approach and touch hs outstretched hand, by way of proof.
“Then the curse didn’t drown ye, after all!”
“Ah, Mike, the blessing of God Almighty is stronger than any curse! Not that we can ever count it a curse when he sends his angels to lift our soul up to himself in the heavens, else in the book would the the first good man be killed by the first bad man? And my poor Owen—I’ll not believe ‘twas any curse to him. You recollect poor Owneen, ‘the natural,’ Mike? He was swamped wi’ the canoe, just as the schooner was pickin’ us up aboard.”
Now this was the manner of Colman’s escape. When he recognized the symptoms of the coming storm, Owen and himself had pulled after the other canoes for awile, until they found themselves widely distanced: the surges rising, and hardly a chance of making a safe point on the rocky shore before the full force of the tempest should be on them. By a sudden determination they pulled in the track of a schooner which they had seen tacking to windward, and made signals of distress with uplifted oars. It was a desperate chance that they would be noticed, as the night was thickening, or that the crew could help them in such a sea as was running. But the humane skipper, percieving the forlorn castaway, risked something in causing his vessel to lie-to; and, after many efforts, Colman himself was dragged on board half dead; the canoe had been swamped instantaneously that they had tried to come alongside.
The schooner made as wide offing from that perilous coast; and after several days’ tossing, the next land they sighted was one of the Scilly Isles. She was bound from Galway for a port high in the channel, but set Colman ashore at Falmouth, whence he traveled afoot to Bristol, and worked his way across to Cork in a sailing vessel.
“I guessed they’d all believe I was drowned; an’ often my heart was sore for the wife an’ childer; but sure I hadn’t the larning to write a stroke, an’, moreover, I thought every day was bringin’ me nearer home.”
All this was not said to Mike; for he was of sluggish wits, as has been before intimated, and had room only for the single idea of thorough amazement. Not till they were parting at a cross road did his mind recur to his own situation.
“Goin’ for a soldier!” repeated Colman, in surprise. “And to India itself.”
“Ay,” responded Mike. “The Manuscript Man said to me, what was I to do if I lost my soul through trustin’ the priest too much; an’ sure when I came to thinkin’ about that, I see my soul is myself, an’ I’d like to make it very certain if I could; so I want to find out in earnest what the Bible says, an’ that I wouldn’t ever be let do in quietness at home here.”
After which brief statement of his purpose, Mike drove forward his cattle, with the world all before him. In due time he donned the fatigue-jacket, and was straightened out of the awkward squad into a seviceable soldier: and at Chatham depot he found an earnest-hearted military chaplain, who became his teacher and friend. And Mike’s last letter, for he can both read and write English now, set forth how his good-conduct stripes had culminated in promotion to the grade of corporal; which was read aloud by portly Denis Purcell to an admiring audience in the kitchen of Glashen-glora farm-house, as evidence of the prosperity of one of the Manuscript Man’s scholars.
Donat Clare was not present in person to hear. Shortly after the happy reunion of the fisherman with his family, Maureen’s desire was accomplished. Dearer to them than their native land had become the Scriptures of truth which were forbidden; and Clare consented to sell the more valuable portion of his manuscripts in order to raise money for the emigration, which would place them beyond the reach of persecution.
Major Bryan receives half yearly letters from a certain little settlement among the rolling prairies of Illinois, where Cormac Cullen is schoolmaster to the children—teaching them above all things else their duty to God and men, as reveled in Holy Scripture. And because it is the habit of the country to work all hands in summer, he then shuts school, and betakes himself to his father-in-law’s farm, to aid in the haying and harvesting of that plenteous land. For our Manuscript Man in his old age has flourished greenly, having outlived storms. Even his wife, once so adverse, likes to listen to the music of the old language, in the pages of the Irish Bible brought to the new home across the sea.
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