THE KERRY COWARD

New Zealand Tablet, 26 January 1911, Page 137

THE KERRY COWARD

Mike Carney sat- loosely on a heap of slag during the last two minutes of the noon hour, the empty dinner pail which hung from his locked fingers swinging backward and forward rythmically between his knees. His blue eyes, looking straight ahead, held that blending of guilelessness and mysticism which is the birthright of a religious people. Down to the end of his short nose Alike’s face might l have been a fit study of a fifteenth century monk, but his mouth belied all that, apparently having been formed for no other reason on earth but to whistle an Irish jig, and the sight of it thus engaged was sufficient to cure one forever of the idea that life was dull** At present his lips puckered more than once, but only a lone note, which seemed to have gone astray, from the rest of the tune. _ Something began to grow in his eyes, burning away their mysticism and revealing a substratum of quicksilver. ‘ Tisn’t fair, be gob!’ He ■ stood up and faced the brick wall opposite, as though it was the president of the wire works himself. ‘’Tis chances enough the workin’ man has to take, anyhow His voice stopped as if broken. Cringed into himself, he sank back on the slag, torn between the conviction that ‘ twasn’t fair ’ and the Irishman’s inherent abhorrence of ‘ informing.’ ‘An’ sure where’d be the use?’ he soliloquised, his mental attitude seeming to descend despondently with his body. ‘Don’t they know ’tis done, an’ every day, too?’ But an hour later, when the foreman ordered him to replace a large belt from a shafting to a counter-shafting while the machinery was in motion, Carney looked him quietly in the eyes and refused. His glance had measured the danger first. It was a particularly ugly job, crammed near the ceiling, compared to which the belt he had replaced that morning was as child’s play. ‘ You’il not do it?’

‘ Not while she’s runnin’ I’ll not do it.’ The foreman’s strong young hands closed and unclosed at his sides. Pie was ten years the Irishman’s junior, with his record still to make. The eyes which answered Mike’s narrowed to points of steel. For a moment the two men regarded each other with a peculiarly still flat look. ’

‘You Kerry cow-ard!’ The measured wmrds w'ere like the hiss of escaping steam scalding the Irishman’s face. All the fighting blood of his race showed in the one unloosed shaft of blue that leaped from his eyes. Like a felled log the foreman went down. Very quietly Alike picked up his belongings and left the shop Not even the certainty that he had lost his job and the beating thought of five small mouths at home to be fed could quell the fierce satisfaction in what he had done For an hour he walked, hugging it savagely to Ins breast. Then, as he ascended the steps of his tene-

merit, it seemed suddenly to ooze out at Iris fingers’ tips. Nora’s eyes, while she stood on the small piazza tanging out clothes, were as mirrors from which all the grim, bare facts attendant on being ‘ out of a job ’ looked back at him with cruel distinctiveness.

Margaret Hartman leaned her arms on the table and looked across the silver and cut glass at her husband. Her white face and wide-open eyes still'held the trerfiulousness of one who had recently been in the darkness of a great fear.

‘ But the mrin,’ Hartman said, fingering his glass ‘ I wish you had found out his name, Constance.’ ‘I know, dear. But, Henry —her hand went to her heart. Hartman felt reproached as he watched the added pallor of her face oh, it was all so sudden, so awful, those mad horses, with the trailing harness and wrecked carriage, the fearful recklessness of it, as they came down the street. And then, when baby left Anna and came toddling unconsciously across to where I sat on the piazza

‘ There, dear, don’t go over it any more.’ Hartman came around the table and put his hand on his wife’s shoulder. ‘ The man,’ she went on, after a pause, ‘ has been hanging around here lately. I have fancied sometimes that he wished to speak to you or me. When I had baby safely in my arms I looked at him—he had the kindliest blue eyesand saw that he was very white. But when I asked him if he had been hurt he said no, only a “bit of a bruise” where the shaft grazed his shoulder. It was the quickness and coolness with which he did it, Henry, that stunned me. And no sooner had he grabbed baby than his mouth puckered in the funniest way, and he sauntered up to me whistling an Irish jig.’ Hartman’s brows drew together. ‘ It couldn’t be— course not —’ ‘ Who, dear?’ ‘ Carney, ray little jig whistler. And that reminds me that I haven’t seen him around since I got home.’ The superintendent of the Leffington Wire Works went quickly into his library. A moment later his wife heard him calling up his assistant by telephone. Mike stood in Hartman’s library two hours later. His sensitive face worked as ho turned a shabby hat round and round by the brim. ‘ Oh, sure, ’twas nothing, ma’am. I’ve got five o’ thim meself at home,’ he said deprecatingly. ‘ How does it happen that you’re not working, Carney?’ the superintendent looked at him keenly. Well, sir, you see _’twas this way: Meself an’ Harrington had a bit of a disagreement about a belt and— ’ ‘ Well?’ Hartman’s eyes held his, compelling the truth. ‘ Mr. Hartman, sir ’ —the words rushed from the Kerry coward in a choking blurt ‘ I once seen a man tore to bits doing what Harrington bid me do. I’ll not deny that it’s hungry the childer’ve been sometimes since I’ve not had a steady job, but ’tis hungrier they’d be if I weren’t here at all an’— I couldn’t take the chance.’ .‘You don’t have to take the chance.’ Hartman was pacing the floor with hands thrust deep into his pockets, the veins on his forehead knotted. ‘No man who works under me will bo. asked to take chances that I would not take myself. Did Harrington discharge you for that?’ He wheeled suddenly facing Mike, ‘ No, sir; no, Mr. Hartman, sir. We had a few words first an Harrington he called me a Kerry coward, an’— I hit him a lick.’ ‘Did you, though?’ There was relish in the superintendents voice, . ‘Oh, sure, ’tisn t any harm I’d want to be doin’ him,’ Mike put in quickly. ‘ The lad is a dacent lad enough, an knowledgable, too; only a bit young, an’ sure that’ll mend.’ - .

Hartman followed him to the door. m* Com( ;/l°' to the works in the morning, Carney, and well see if we can’t find something for you that’ll keep the childer from being hungry in future,’ he said genially. As to what you did for me this afternoon can t speak of that yet.’ .Margaret Hartman pushed her husband aside and, taking Mike’s hand, raised it to her lips. ‘ He called you a Kerry coward,’ she said, with heaving breast, while Mike stood transfixed by the beauty of her tear-filled eyes, ‘ hut T call you the bravest man — bravest manthat ever lived !’ When Mike reached the street he stood and looked at Jus hand in the moonlight. . Wisha, now, to think of that!’ he said reverently, ff aith, 7 • dino but I’m glad he called me a Kerry coward Catholic Messenger.