Across the River (6 page)

“I gave him a spare alarm clock last night,” Peter said.

“’Twould take the Angelus bell to wake that fellow,” Jack declared.

Just then they heard the rattle of a bucket and knew that Davy had arrived.

“He’ll never start without some smart comment,” Jack remarked, and sure enough Davy appeared at the door swinging a bucket and with a milking block propped against his hip.

“Do you know something, Jack,” he said solemnly, “before you die we’ll patent you and send out replica models and you’d run the country no bother before the rest of us would even be out of bed in the morning.”

“And when you die,” Jack retaliated, “you’ll have contributed so little to the progress of the world that
they’ll jump on the grave to make sure you won’t come up again.”

“Oh boys, Jack, that was low,” Davy said in an aggrieved tone and disappeared from the doorway.

“Jack, you’re not good for the morale in the morning,” Peter told him.

“Never mind the morale,” Jack said, “there’s only one thing on my mind now, and that’s getting the river meadow into wynds. So straight after the breakfast as soon as things are tidied up, you and I are going down there, and we must tell Davy to call to the Nolans on his way home from the creamery and tell them what we’re at.”

“They might be doing something else,” Peter said.

“Whether they are or not, the Nolans would never let you down, and Jeremy and Tom would make a big difference to us today,” Jack declared.

“Jack, you’ve tunnel vision.”

“Not a bad thing to have because you arrive at your destination faster,” Jack asserted and continued, “It will be great to have Nora as well today, because she is as good Jeremy or Davy or yourself.”

“Thanks for nothing,” Peter said.

“And maybe your Uncle Mark might wander over.”

“For God’s sake, Uncle Mark is worse than useless, looking at the colour of sops of hay and the shape of frogs legs,” Peter protested.

“Never mind, every pair of hands count in a meadow,” Jack told him. “It’s the one time that I’m all in favour of big numbers, because it’s encouraging. There is nothing that would get you down faster than the sight of a large meadow in the flat and facing it on your own. It would pull the heart out of you, and Mark is better than nothing.”

“He’d be delighted to hear that,” Peter decided.

After breakfast they did the yard jobs, and then Jack dispatched Peter to catch one of the horses and to tackle up the wheelrake.

“Will you do the wheelraking, Peter?” he asked.

“I will, of course, but you usually like to do that yourself.”

“I’ll come down after you and rake out the dykes that Davy never got around to,” Jack told him.

The sun was high in the sky as he walked down the fields with the rake over his shoulder. It was a day to do the heart good. There was no doubt but that June was the best month of the year. A good June and you could be sure of a full barn for the winter. If the weather came fine, the river meadows produced the best hay, that had body and substance and produced a good milk yield. When he reached the field, he bent down and felt the sward. It was crackling dry and ready for saving. It was a joy to be haymaking on a day like today.

He went along by the dykes, raking back the hay into little piles to link up with the rows Peter was making. An occasional frog sprang long-legged over the hay on its way back into the moist dyke. There was no sound but the occasional thump of the wheelrake as Peter dropped the lever after each collection. They worked on steadily and were almost finished when Davy arrived swinging a gallon of tea and a basket.

“Feeding time at the zoo,” he called out.

“Are we not going up to the house?” Peter asked in surprise.

“No,” Jack told him, “I asked your mother to send down some grub to spare time.”

“You’re a real slave-driver,” Peter exclaimed.

“Did you never hear of making hay while the sun shines?” Jack said. “Well, this is what it’s all about, so eat up fast
now and let’s get started. And before you say anything now, Davy, I want no old guff out of you, only tuck in and get going.”

“Wasn’t going to open my mouth,” Davy proclaimed solemnly.

They had just started on the second wynd when Nora arrived with Tom and Jeremy Nolan.

“Silence please,” Davy announced. “Jack is on the rampage and there is no time for talking.”

“I’ll go along with that,” Tom Nolan agreed smiling. “We must make hay while the sun shines.”

“Oh my God, not you too,” Davy groaned. Turning to Nora he instructed, “Get up on that heap of hay, my girl, and level it out in jig time to see if we can keep this silent order happy.”

“Davy, you’d be thrown out of a silent order the first day,” Nora told him.

They worked steadily all day, and the wynds rose slowly around the field. The day got warmer and perspiration ran down faces and backs. It was with great relief that they saw Martha arriving laden with a large white enamel bucket and an overflowing basket. Davy was the first to collapse into the nearest heap of hay.

“I was never so glad to see tea in my life,” he declared, mopping the sweat off his face with the back of this hand. They all shared his sentiment, but as soon as they had finished eating, Jack had them on the move again.

“Jack, you’re brutal,” Davy told him.

“We’re going to have all this hay up before the cows,” Jack informed him.

It was six o’clock before they put the cap on the last wynd and Jack breathed a sigh of relief. They were a mighty team to work, and the Nolans had made all the difference,
as Jack told them.

“Glad to be a help,” Tom told him quietly while Jeremy and Peter were testing their fitness in a race up the field.

“We’ll do the cows, Jack, if you want to finish up here,” Peter called from the gap.

When they were all gone, Jack walked around the field, recapping the wynds and raking down the sides neatly. They were well-made wynds, towering over him and full of golden crackling hay. He loved this time alone at the end of a day in the meadow. The sun had gone low behind the hill sending shadows between the wynds, and it was pleasant to walk around in the cool of the evening. He tied the wynds firmly with binder twine. Now they were safe from any rain and wind that might come. It was a good feeling. In farming you could take no chances with the weather, though he knew by looking at the sky that there would be no break in the weather yet.

He stood at the gap and counted the wynds: fifty in all between the two fields. It was a mighty day’s work! He felt satisfaction in every fibre of his being. As he walked up the fields, there was peace in his heart, because when the river meadows were saved the back was broken in providing winter feed for the cows.

A
T
FIRST
J
ACK
thought that he was dreaming. Then suddenly he realised that there was somebody trying to knock down the front door with frantic thumping.

“What in the name of all that’s good and holy is going on?” Jack breathed as he jumped out of bed, stumbled to the door and slapped back the bolt. A half-dressed Davy, gasping from running, nearly fell in on top of him.

“Jack, the bastard is after burning the hay.”

“Who? What?” Jack gasped, his mind not able to grasp what Davy was saying.

“The river meadows are on fire,” Davy shouted at him. Then he was gone, belting out the path in unlaced boots. Jack caught the back of the nearest chair to steady himself. It couldn’t be the wynds that they had made yesterday!

Was that what Davy was shouting about?
Steady on now, Jack
, he told himself,
take this nice and handy and don’t lose your head.
If it is what you think it is, there is no good in rushing, because once dry hay starts to burn nothing can stop it. So get dressed slowly and go down there at your own pace and take it easy.
Kate had warned him about taking it easy. But despite all his instruction to himself, he was dragging on his clothes with a thumping heart. He ran down the boreen, feeling his way instinctively like a cat in the dark. He knew every stone of this boreen, but he still stumbled in his confusion. Maybe it was only some of the wynds that were gone up. The bastard would never burn them all. He turned into the Moss field where he could hear the horses snorting in the semi-darkness. The dawn was just breaking.

When he came to the bottom of the next field, he got the whiff of burning hay.
Dear God
, he prayed silently,
let it be
only
some of them.
But when he rounded the corner of the hilly field above the glen, he saw that his prayers were not going to be answered. Every wynd was on fire, some of them already reduced to smouldering black circles.

He stood there rooted to the ground in horror. His wonderful golden hay all gone up in smoke. What a bloody waste! That lunatic across the river must be gone off his head. It was a long time since he had been as drastic as this, although things like this had happened before. Jack remembered these same meadows flattened by a herd of cows before they had even been cut and, another time, some sheep dead and dying there after dogs had been set on them. All terrible at the time, but he had got over it. He tried to reason himself into accepting this loss, but despite his best efforts there was a lump of despair in the pit of his stomach. When was all this going to end? He took off his cap and wiped the tears that he felt on his cheeks, uncertain if they were tears of anguish or anger.

“Jack, I know it’s terrible, but we’ll get over it.” Nora, coming up beside him in the darkness, put her arms around him.

“I suppose I’m a foolish old man, Nora, to be crying over hay,” he said ruefully.

“You are not, Jack; it’s because you were so delighted to have it all saved ready for the barn.”

“Well, we’ll have a gap in the barn after this.”

“Come on down to the rest of them,” she said, taking his hand.

“Who’s down there?” he asked.

“Peter, Davy, Mom and Uncle Mark,” she said. “It was Uncle Mark called us, after waking Davy, who was the nearest.”

They could hear Davy holding forth as they approached.

“We should go over and burn him out. If we put up with this, he’ll come again.”

“You’re right,” Peter agreed angrily. “We can’t take this lying down. The mad bastard could burn us out.”

“Take it easy, lads,” Mark intercepted gently. In the half-light he looked like a biblical figure with his long hair and beard and flowing clothes.

“Aisy, is it?” Davy demanded. “How could you take it aisy and look at all that it front of you?”

Jack knew exactly how Davy felt, but Mark was a peaceful soul. They all continued to air different points of view, but he scarcely heard them he was so wrapped up in his inner misery. After a few minutes, he became aware that one voice was silent. Martha was saying nothing. He looked around and saw her face in the grey light that was now filling the meadow. She was oblivious to the voices around her, and her eyes were fastened on Conways’.

Her face was rigid with suppressed rage, and it struck Jack then that there was no need for any of them to get even with the Conways, because Martha was going to deal with it, and that when she did there would be no turning back. Something in her expression put a cold finger around his heart.

Silence descended and they continued to stand there until the last wynd smouldered to the ground, as if they could not move until the flames died down.
We are a bit like mourners at a funeral
, Jack thought,
waiting until the last sod goes over the coffin.
Then it was Martha who spoke.

“We are going back up to the house to have a warm breakfast or we’ll all get our death of cold standing here.”

She strode up the field without a backward glance.

They trailed after her. Mark was between Peter and Davy, trying to calm them down, but he was fighting an
uphill battle as they were swearing vengeance. Nora and Jack brought up the rear with Nora holding his hand to comfort him. As he walked up the field, he thought of Nellie and felt that in some way she was very close to them this morning.

They were glad to come into the warm kitchen. Martha put on the kettle and laid the table without a word, stirred up the porridge on the Aga and pushed a tray of bacon into the oven. Then she looked at Jack wordlessly, went to the parlour and came down with a bottle wrapped in brown paper. She poured some of the contents into a mug and added sugar and water from the boiling kettle.

“Drink that,” she instructed.

He was glad when it scorched down into his stomach and got the blood warming in his veins.

“You needed that,” Davy told him. “You looked like a fellow headed for the big brown box until you got that inside your shirt.”

“God bless you, Davy, but you’re gifted in your choice of words,” Jack told him.

“Sit down and have the breakfast,” Martha instructed.

When they were all seated around the table, they were silent for a few moments, busy getting warm food inside of them.

Then Peter voiced what they were all thinking.

“Well, what are we going to do?” he asked.

“Maybe the proper thing is to report it to the Guards,” Mark suggested.

“Waste of time,” Davy maintained. “Hours of questioning, measuring and checking times, and by the way, Mark, what time did you notice that we were on fire?”

“About half two I’d say. I was painting and I happened to glance out the window. I couldn’t believe what I was
seeing down the glen. I might as well have stayed at home for all the good it did. There was nothing to be done.”

“No,” Jack agreed, “once dry hay gets going there is nothing can stop it, and anyway no cow would touch it after the smoke.”

“Conway must have been watching from under some bush across the river having a great laugh at our expense,” Peter said bitterly. “We can’t let him get away with it.”

“We should burn him out,” Davy decided.

“But what about Danny and Mrs Conway?” Nora protested. “They would suffer then, and I’d say that they have an awful time with him.”

“How do you know?” Peter demanded.

“Well, she looks so sad,” Nora told him, “and Danny is always looking after her.”

“If he was any good, he’d have that old bastard shot or knifed by now,” Peter declared.

“Peter, don’t say things like that,” Mark protested. “Nora is right: we can’t harm the rest of them.”

“So you think that the Guards are the only solution?”

Peter asked. “I don’t have much faith in doing it that way, because he’ll deny everything and we have no proof. They never got him for any of the other stunts he pulled.”

The argument went back and forth around the table, with Peter and Davy wanting to take the law into their own hands and Mark and Nora urging restraint. Jack was too tired to argue, and no solution would bring back his fine fields of hay. Martha said nothing, and Jack watched her out of the corner of his eye. She was holding her powder until they all had argued themselves to a standstill. He knew that she had decided on her plan of action down in the meadow as she stared across the river at Conways’.

She rose from the table, and all eyes swung towards her.

“We will do nothing. The time is not right. And don’t any of you two do anything stupid,” she warned Peter and Davy. “Now it’s time to milk the cows.” With that she started to clear the breakfast things off the table to growls of protest from Peter and Davy.

“I’ll bring the cows,” Jack told them, moving out of the kitchen.

The day passed slowly, and Jack was relieved when evening came and he made his weary way home. It seemed like months since he had walked up here last night with a satisfied mind. It would be good to sit by the fire and have a snooze. The hens and ducks were locked up for the night, and he was glad to go into the kitchen and find the fire lighting. Sarah was a great neighbour. It was a wonder she did not stay on to discuss the fire, but she had probably figured that he needed time to himself after the upset. As he lit his pipe for a relaxing smoke, he decided that after a little rest he would go out and do a bit of gardening. It might do him good.

He must have dozed off for a while until he heard a heavy footstep on the path outside. When he saw Matt Conway passing the window, a suppressed anger that had been smouldering since that morning roared through him. He reached back and pulled out his shotgun that he used for shooting rabbits and the odd pheasant from the press beside him. When Matt Conway opened the door, he was looking into the barrel.

“Easy, old man,” he growled, showing no semblance of fear. “I’m not going to do you any harm.”

“You’ve done enough harm for one day,” Jack told him in a voice trembling with anger. “Get out of here or I’ll spatter your brains all over that wall.”

“Don’t do anything stupid, old man,” Conway warned.

“If I finish up dead, you’ll finish up in jail.”

“I’m sorely tempted,” Jack told him, “but you’re not worth it. Just don’t move one inch further into this kitchen. What do you want?”

“I want my meadows back.”

“They’re not your meadows. Will you ever get that into your thick skull?”

“They’re mine by right.”

“That they’re not,” Jack said, “and how come that now all of a sudden you’re stepping up the pressure to get them back when you’ve done nothing with the last eight years?”

“She’s of no consequence. She’s not a Phelan. It would be no good to get them off her, but the young fellow is back now, another Phelan just like the grandfather before him. I’m going to get them back off him.”

“That you’re not,” Jack told him with determination.

“I can do worse than last night,” Conway threatened.

“Two can play that game,” Jack told him.

“Some people are better at it, and some of the things I have in mind will make the meadows look like a very cheap price to pay.” Conway smiled, and then he was gone, closing the door quietly behind him. Jack felt the blood thumping through his head.
Ease down
, he told himself,
or you’ll get a stroke or a heart attack or some other shagging thing.

Half an hour later when Kate came in, he was still sitting with the gun across his knees.

“Jack, what are you doing with the gun?” she demanded in amazement.

“God, Kate, am I glad to see you,” he told her. The very sight of her was a comfort to him. She was the daughter he never had and they understood each other completely. Dark and vivacious as a child, she had grown into an
attractive, vibrant woman with a down-to-earth common sense that brought things into perspective. She was just what he needed now.

“I heard about the fire — the whole countryside is talking about it, of course — but what’s with the gun?” she asked, taking it off his knees and replacing it in the press.

“Sit down there, Kate, until I tell the whole story.”

She drew up a chair beside him and he told her from the very beginning: from the actual saving of the hay and how good he had felt about it, right up to Matt Conway’s visit. He filled in all the details because he wanted to get them all clear in his own mind and talking to Kate was almost like talking to himself.

“This could get nasty,” she breathed.

“It could indeed,” he agreed. “I’ll have to tell them below about he coming here and the threats. That’ll drive Peter and Davy mad altogether.”

“Martha is right, they’ll have to be very careful not to get drawn into anything that they can’t get out of,” Kate said.

“You’re right,” Jack agreed, “but in another way I’m nearly more nervous of her.”

“If Martha moves, she will be deadly, silent, and she won’t get caught,” Kate told him.

“I know, but I’m still a bit uneasy about her,” Jack said.

“Well, don’t be,” Kate advised. “Martha and I don’t always see eye to eye, but on this occasion I think that she has what it takes. So you stop worrying now, Jack, and after the tea the two of us will go down to Mossgrove, and you can tell them about your caller so that they can keep their ears and eyes open.”

“What a way to live,” Jack sighed.

“Now, Jack, will you stop worrying,” Kate scolded.

“It’s bad for you, and now that I’m here, I’ll check the
old ticker and the blood pressure. Wouldn’t it suit Matt Conway fine if you died of natural causes?”

“By God, there is no way I’d give him the satisfaction.”

“That’s more like it now, Jack,” Kate told him smiling.

“You’re the most balanced head we have in Mossgrove, so you must keep going.”

As they sat having tea, Jack could feel himself relaxing.

Kate always had this effect on him. As district nurse she probably came up against some traumatic situations.
When you deal with birth and death as part of your job, it probably gives you a fairly balanced view of life
, Jack decided.