z^m^i* ■ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES MRS. MARTIN'S MAN THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO DALLAS • ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO.. LiMrran LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO MRS. MARTIN'S MAN BY ST. JOHN G. ERVINE ArTHOB OF "four IR18H PLAYS," ETC. ilebo l^orfe THE MACMTLLAN COMPANY 1920 COPYRIGHT, 1915 Bv THE MACMILLAN COMPANT fet np ind Elcctrotyped, PablUhed Jinuirj', 19l5 <0 \ 1 MRS. MARTIN'S MAN CHAPTER I Mrs. Martin could not sit still any longer. She rose from her seat behind the counter, and called her daughter Agnes from the door of the shop. "I'm going home now, Aggie," she said, trjnng to speak firmly. A slight flickering of the tone startled the girl, and she glanced sharply at her mother. "Are you not well, ma.''*' she asked anxiousl3\ "I'm well enough," Mrs. ^lartin replied, putting on her coat and hat. "I'll leave you to look after the shop. It's early hours yet an' you'll not be hampered for the want of help. I'll mebbe tell Jamesey to step down an' lend you a hand when he comes home." The girl looked at her mother in astonishment. She could not remember a single occasion on whicli she had left the shop before the hour of closing, and it seemed to her that this sudden resolve to quit the shop on Saturday, the busiest day of the week, denoted that some evil thing had happened. "But what ails you, ma.^ . . ." she began to say. Mrs. Martin interrupted her quickly. "Nothin' ails me !" she said, and then, almost as if she feared that her daughter would ask other questions of her, she walked out of the shop. 1 2 MRS. MARTIN'S MAN She walkt'd along the Shore Road toward the railway station. When she was approaching Mc- C'onkey's Hotel, she turned to look back at the shop. Aggie was standing staring after her. "She'll wonder at me not goin' home the wav I always go," she said to herself, and for a moment she hesitated. Then she murmured, "Well, it doesn't matter anyway !" and continued on her way to the station. A train fronj Belfast had arrived at Bally reagh a few moments before Mrs. Martin came to the station door. She stood back a little from the path, and eagerly looked into the faces of the pas- sengers as the}' came out of the station into the street, but none of them was the face for which she sought. When all the passengers had passetl out of the station, she went through the door and walked toward the barriers. There was a confu- sion of luggage and children and agitated women on the platform. The summer holidays were com- ing to an end, and the town-dwellers, browned and reddened by the sun and the wind, were returning to Belfast. She forced her way into the noisy, be- Avildered crowd until she came to an elderly porter, long suffering and slow to wrath, mIio was endeav- oring to persuade a stout woman to believe that by no chance could the three-ten train go out of the station before three-ten. "It'll mebbc go out after three-ten," he said to her in a tone which indicated that the temper of a railway porter is not imperishable, "but it'll not go out afore that time !" Mrs. Martin touched him on the arm, and he turned toward her with a movement of impatience. MRS. MARTIN'S MAN 3 "No, mem, it'll not ! . . . " he said mechanically, and then, seeing her, he stopped and smiled. "Ah. it's you, is it.-*" he said. "I declare to me good God I'm near wore out wi' all these ould women ! I never saw such a pack in all my born days ! The questions they ask me, an' the way they keep on askin' them after I've give them their an- swer ! . . . " "Did you see anyone would be lookin' for me?" she asked in a quiet voice. "I did not," he replied. "Not this day nor any other day that I mind of!" "You're sure.'*" "I wish to God I was as sure of heaven ! Ah, I'm sure right enough ! Oh, aye ! Were you lookin' for anyone in partic'lar.'^" "No," she replied hesitatingly. "No, not any one in partic'lar. I was lialf expcctin' a friend to come the day. That was all. You're brave an' busy! ..." "Aye, I am that. Who were you expcctin', Mrs. Martin.?" "Och, he'll mebbe not come," she answered evasively. "It doesn't matter anyway. What time'll the next train be in from Belfast.''" "There'll not be one till half-after four now !" "Thank you," she said. She turned to go away, but the old porter called after her. "Was it your son Jamesey you were expcctin'.'*" he said. "No," she replied, "it was not. It was some one else !" "All, well, you iicicbi't tell nic If you dcnn want 4 MRS. MARTIN'S MAN to," he exclaimed huflSly, and then turned at the demand of a passenger to explain the devious wajs of the Belfast and County Down Railway in a voice that had more of asperity in it than was customary with him. Mrs. Martin walked out of the station. She stood for a few moments in a state of indecision, and then crossed the road and stood with her arms resting on the sea-wall. The press of day-trippers and holiday-makers disturbed her. There was to be an open-air concert in the evening, and the rail- way company had reduced the fares from Belfast to attract a crowd to it. She walked along the road to the pier, at the end of which the lighthouse stood, but before she passed the line of houses, she turned to the right and walked parallel with the railway lines. She went past the bathing-place and sat down on the rocks on a part of the shore where trippers never came. She looked over the sea, now turning misty as the dusk rolled up, and listened to the slow, lapping sound of the little waves of the receding tide as they rose and fell through the long, yellow seaweed and the red wrack on the rocks. She saw ships with smoking funnels and little sailing- boats drifting out of the Lough and down the Irish Sea ; and now and then she saw a fishing-smack come floating back to land like a weary sea-bird when the night is down. She sat in this mood of quiet contemplation for some time, and then she took a letter from the pocket in her skirt, and read it through. She had read it many times since she had re- ceived it on the previous morning, but its contents, though she knew them almost by heart, still seemed MRS. MARTIN'S MAN 5 as new and as thrilling as when she had first opened the letter. There was twopence to pay, the post- man said as he handed the unstamped letter to her. Something had warned her that it was from her husband, and very nervously she gave the money to the postman, and then hurriedly concealed the letter in her bosom until she could open it in secrecy. She hardly dared to believe the news which it con- tained. During the whole of the previous day and during the whole of that morning, she had told herself that the letter was a hoax, that some one, cruel or irresponsible, was trying to make her look ridiculous. She had declared to herself that she would not be so foolish as to take the silly document seriously. Despite her incredulity, how- ever, her natural state of calm had disappeared, and ever since the receipt of the letter she had been excited, and had barely been able to conceal her excitement. There was no particular reason why she should have met the two o'clock train. He had not stated in his letter that he would arrive at that hour. He had not stated when he would arrive. He wrote to her from Moville, and said that he had been in America, but was tired of that place, and had de- cided to return to her. He would be with her soon after she received his letter. That was all. The abruptness of the note made her feel certain that it was genuine. He had always made state- ments of fixed intention : he had never had the habit of giving explanations of conduct. Although there was no reason why she should meet the two o'clock train, she felt that she must meet it. He might come by that train, and if he were to 6 MRS. MARTIN'S MAN do so, she would like to be on the platform to greet him. . . . The train had not brought him, and so she had turned away from the station to this lonely place on the rocks. "It'll mebbe be a hoax," she murmured to herself, "like the letters people does be gettin', tellin' them they're left a fortune in America, an' them not left nothin' at all !" She put the letter back into her pocket, and then stood up. "That's mebbe it," she said, as she clambered over the rocks toward the road. She came back into the Shore Road and walked in the direction of her shop, but before she came near it, she changed her mind about her destination. She turned into a side street that led to her home. There were few shopkeepers in Ballyreagh who lived awa}' from their shops, and she was one of them. The little business at the corner of Hunter's Lane, started so temerarioush', had thriven be- yond her hopes (she had seen two attempts at rivalry incontinently collapse) and the small space occupied by the shops had had to be enlarged by taking in the living-rooms. It had happened that the cottage to which her husband had taken licr after her marriage had become vacant about the time that the need to extend her shop premises had become most urgent. It was not a large cottage, although it was large enough for her, and she could easily have afforded to rent a larger and more pre- tentious house, but her sentiment overruled her sense of grandeur, and so she returned to the first home of her married life. MRS. MARTIN'S MAN 7 She was a woman of middle height, very slender and very pale. She had calm, passionless eyes and a gentle look, and, although she was not a beautiful woman or even a woman of good appear- ance, she had physical qualities which made her attractive to men of a hard, rough type. She looked fragile, but beneath her lean appearance there lay hidden a great store of nervous force which enabled her to execute gigantic tasks. It was this quality of the implacable which enabled her to open the hardware shop and make it prosper ; and it probably was this force which caused stout seamen and hefty farmers to seek her love while healthier and handsomer women languished without suitors. Her features were sharp and little, but they were not so angular as to be grim ; her cheekbones were high, but they did not protrude aggressively; her hps were thin and bloodless ; but her gray-blue eyes were gentle and soft. She had fine, fair hair of which she was very proud. It was so long that when it was unbound it fell below her waist. It was beginning to lose its color now, for she was of middle age, but it still held much of its luster, and when the days were sunny, peo|)U' would re- mark on the shiny look it had. Her hair and her hands were her finest features, and although her hands were broken with labor, they still had a deli- cate shape. She had done wliat she could to pre- serve them from the defilement of common tasks. She would rub them at night witli glycerine and enclose them in an old pair of kid gloves so that, they might keep soft and white. Some one had told her that lemons rubbed well into the skin kept 8 MRS. MARTIN'S MAN the hands good to look at, and after she heard of this recipe, she became a frequent customer of Arthur Magrath, the fruit-hawker ... but the work of the shop, despite her efforts, had spoiled her hands. CHAPTER II As she walked up Moat Street, she saw that the gate of the churchj^ard was open. Two men were digging a grave. She walked through the gateway and when she came to the large vault where the ancestors of the lord of the manor lay, she sat down on a broken slab of stone. It was near this stone that her second child lay. She could not be quite certain of the grave, for it was a long time since she had last entered the churchyard, and the grass over the graves was long and thick. The poor little child! . . . She rested her head on her hand, and let her thoughts take possession of her. The steady bump- bump of a country cart coming down the road from Newtownards seemed like a modulator of the visions of her life that floated through her mind. She could hear the carter calling to the horse, "Get on up out of that, now !" and hear him cracking his whip as if to assure the animal that he was not speaking playfully. She looked up, and the grave-diggers nodded to her, "It's a brave day, mem !" one of them said, as he spat on his hands and began to shovel earth out of the grave. "It is that," she replied, and then turned away to rejfard the grave where »he believed that her 9 ]() MRS. :martin's man child was buried. He saw that, she did not wisli to carry on a conversation, but would rather brood over her dead, and so he did not speak to her again, but continued to dig- lumps of cla}- out of the earth. All those early years of her marriage passed be- fore the eyes of her mind like a moving picture. She saw James Martin as he was when he first came to Ballyreagh from the fishing village of Ardglass where his father owned a herring-boat until he was droAvned in a great storm. James was the only member of his family to follow the occupation of his father. The others had been carried to Belfast by their mother where they had been swallowed up in the shipyards and the linen factories. James Martin's ambition was outside the narrow domain of herring-fishers. He had that quality of restless- ness which sends men tramping the world. A little while in Ballyreagh served to satisfy his desire to fish. He engaged himself to the skipper of an ocean tramp that went where cargoes took it. Some of its voyages were short, and some of them were long, but all of them Avere full of danger, for the ship was lumpy and leaky. "Only the mercy of God kept it from the bottom of the sea!" Mrs. Martin murmured to herself when she thought of that vessel floating continually on the surface of death. James Martin made love to Martha Mahaffy almost from the first moment he saw her. Her father was his employer until he sailed away on the Mary. She loved him instantly. There was a boisterousness in his manner that enthralled her, and he had a rough way with women that made her look MRS. MARTIN'S MAN 11 upon him as the manliest man she had ever known. When he wished for a woman's company, she must come to him. When he was tired of her com- pany and wished to be rid of her, he would bid her go and divert herself. He spoke in quick, direct accents. It was sufficient for him that he needed a thing — that was a reason why he should liave it. Old John MahafFy had flamed with anger when she told him of her love for James Martin and her intention to marry him. She had broken the Mahaffy tradition in allying herself to a man of poor means. The MahafF^s were a thrifty race. They had lived in Ballyrcagh for six generations that they knew of, and probably for many more of which they had no knowledge: and they were as proud of their family as any lord in Ireland could be of his. They spoke naturally of "the IMahafFys," and assumed instinctively that the misfortunes which befell otjici- men were not likely to befall them. The Clcggs and the Magraths and the Greers and the Mawhinneys might now and then fall into disrepute. A Clcgg had been sent to jail; a Mawhinney had given birth to an illegitimate child ; a Greer had become a specula- tive builder in Belfast, had prospered a while, and then had been adjudged a bankrupt ; and a Magrath had fallen into the Roman Catholic church. Such things might happen to other families that were not so well reared as the MahafFys, but none of them had ever happened to a MahafFy, and it was an article of belief that none of them ever would ha])pen to a M;ihafFy. Had a menibci' of the MahafFy family become destitute, or a 12 MRS. MARTIN'S IVIAN drunkard, or been deserted, or given birth to n bastard, all the Mahaffys would have considered themselves disgraced forever. Their tradition was that each one of them should do well for himself. The men should prosper in business, and the women should marry husbands of substance. It was Martha Mahaff j who broke the tradition. She did badly for herself. At a time when she could have chosen between George Tanner, the son of a farmer and himself a grocer gradually acquir- ing wealth and standing, and William James Mc- Lelland, the hotel-keeper, she chose to marry James Martin, who had no money and no business, but was a rough man roaming the seas of the world. . . . The Mahaffys admitted that her father had done well when he cast his daughter from his house, and bade her go to her man. Old John Mahaffy was a true Mahaffy: he had the unrelenting spirit of his clan. When he met her in the street, he passed by her as if she were unknown to him. He would have bidden her go to the workhouse had she come to him in hunger. He would not have considered it a disgrace that she should go to the Union ; for she was no longer a Mahaffy. She had chosen against his will to be a Martin. It was the Mahaffy tradition that a sin against authority was unforgivable. James Martin had not anticipated that his father- in-law would be implacably opposed to his marriage with Martha. He imagined that the old man would relent after a period of opposition ; and he was gravely disconcerted when he learned that there was not to be any relenting. His return to MRS. MARTIN'S MAN 13 his ship was imminent, but he had no plans made for tlie support of his wife. He acquainted her with his position. He was without means at the present. He had lioped that her father would maintain her during his first voyage after their mar- riage, or, at least, that he would ])ermit her to live in his house. What proposal had she to offer.'' What would she do while he was away from home ? She thought for a while. No Mahaffy woman had ever found herself in such a plight as this. All the Mahaffy women Iiad married men of sub- stance. She cast about in her mind for a solution of her j)roblem, but she could not see any good way out of it. She said that she could do some sewing and similar work until he returned to her. She tliought that her brother Henry might per- mit her to stay with him and his wife for a little tyne . . . but in this she was mistaken. Henry was next in succession to his father as head of tjie faniily, and in his opinion a flout offered to the old man was a flout offered to him. He could not condone her offense. She had brought her trouble upon herself. She should have remem- bered the Fifth Commandment that her days might be long on the land Avliich the Lord her God gave her. . . . Sitting there, in that tangled gra\eyard, it seenii'd to her to be marvelous that she could evei- have reconciled herself again to her brother Henry and his wife. 'J'hey had treated her bitterly. They had thing her aside as if she were dirt. . . . It was old Mr.s. Crothers in ^loat Street who had giNfii a lioiiK- [<> lur: the home in which she now 14. MRS. MARTIN'S MAN lived. The old woman, querulous and partially paralyzed by rheumatism, had offered to give board and lodging to her in return for her help and company ; and thus secured, she had sent James forth to his seafaring. She was grateful to Mrs. Crothers for her kindness, but now that she looked back on her life then, it seemed to her that the old woman exacted a great price for her hospitalit}'. She never seemed to be able to overcome her aston- ishment at her generosity in providing Martha Martin with a home when her father would not have her inside his door. She talked at great length every day of her goodness, and invented little tasks to be performed by Martha so that she might be suitably rewarded for it. She hurt Martha by her suggestions when she learned that James was not a good correspondent. He had only written once during his first voyage, which lasted for six months : and Mrs. Crothers beguiled the time of wait- ing b}' prophesying that he had no intention of ever returning to her. She declared that an additional infamy was to befall the Ma- haifys, the desertion of a Mahaffy woman by her husband. "An' you the way you are !" she would add cruelly. It was characteristic of sailors, she asserted, that they married women out of hand, left them with children, and then deserted them. It was fortunate that he had married her : some sailors did not do that much. . . . Martha endured the old woman's unkindness with great patience. She must not quarrel with her, she said to herself, be- fore James returned from the sea. The small sums MRS. MARTIN'S MAN 15 she earned by needlework were insufficient to keep her. She would have died rather than live so that her family might point to her as an awful example of the misery that falls on those who are guilty of the sin of disobedience. She must so arrange her life that she should seem to have prosperity. Her arrangement with Mrs. Crothers enabled her to maintain that a])pearance. She smiled to herself as her mind lingered on the terrible meekness of spirit with which she had suffered Mrs. Crothers. It was as well, perhaps, that she had had to live under that burden at the beginning, for she had sore need of a patient spirit many times afterward. She smiled, too. when she remembered how JanK-s, on his return, had con- quered the ]ietulant old woman. He had always been very masterful with women, and it was not likely that that old huddled weak thing would do anything but quail before him. She saw the scene as plainly as if it had happened the day before. Her hand took hold of a bunch of rank grass, and pulled it out of the earth. . . . He had not warned her of his return. She was sitting before the window, hemming handkerchiefs, and old Mrs. Crothers, heavily wrapped in shawls, was nagging at her from her seat in the rocking-chair Ixfore the fire. Oh, as plainly as that grass she could .see the scene again. The very words that had been said. . . . "I'm sure," the old woman had said, "there's few wonien in the world would treat you as dacent as I've done. Tlio way I took you In an' give you a home, an' all !" She had y)aus(d for a while as if she expected 16 MRS. MARTIN'S MAN to receive a reply from Martha, but, none coming, she had proceded with her complaint. "Ah, well," she had said, "the Lord'll mebbe reward me for my good deeds ! It's little thanks you get in this world for anything, but, sure, them that lays not up treasure for themselves on earth'll get it in heaven. Every good deed you do here'll be a bright jewel in your crown! ..." She glanced up at the clock on the mantel shelf. "What's the time?" she demanded, peering blinkily with her rheumy eyes. "It's half-after five," Martha had replied, putting her sewing down, and coming to the fire-place, "Will I make the tay?" The old woman's mind had perceived some per- sonal greed in Martha's question. "Dear bless us," she exclaimed crossly, "what do you want your tay so early for.? An' you only after your din- ner! Some people 'ud ate you out of hearth an' home !" "I only just thought you'd like it now! . . ." "Ah, yes, you only just thought!" She had had a twinge of rheumatism at that moment which caused her to yell with pain. "Lord save us," she cried, "the pain I have to bear! Me that never done nothin' in my born da^'s to deserve pain the like of this ! An' then you come an' bother me with your talk about ta^'. It was your own self, Martha Martin, was wantin' the tay, an' not me at all that you were thinkin' of! An' me not chargin' you a penny-piece for your keep nor nothin'!" Then Martha had returned to her seat under the window, and had taken up her sewing again ; but MRS. MARTIN'S MAN 17 Mrs. Crothers was not to be placated. "Well, aren't you goin' to make the tay after all?" she had demanded. "Sure, aren't you the contrary woman! . . ." "I thought you didn't want me to make it this minute !" "You thought! You're always thinkin' ! Go on with you, woman, an' wet the tay at once !" It was while Martha was preparing the tea that James came to the door. Neither Mrs. Crothers nor she saw him at first. Martha was getting cups and saucers from the scullery, and Mrs. Crothers was sitting with her back to him. "That man of yours," she was saying at the time, "ought to be right well ashamed of himself! Goin' off like that, an' leavin' you with no money or nothin', an' you expectin', an' only for the kind- ness of a neighbor woman you'd be landed on the street or mebbe in the poorhouse. It's my belief, Martha Martin, you'll never clap your eyes on him again !" And then James pushed the door open, and stepped into the kitchen. It was like him to wait for the moment. "An' you're just wrong then, Mrs. Crothers!" he said, going over to the sofa and sitting down. CHAPTER III She could not help laughing to herself as she sat there, pulling tufts of grass from the graves and throwing them down heedlessly by her side, for poor Mrs. Crothers had been so startled by the sudden entry of James that she had forgotten about her rheumatism, and had tried to leap out of her chair, "Glory be to God," she exclaimed, "who's that?" Martha had hurried back to the kitchen from the scullery. "Oh, James !" she said when she saw her husband, and then, too overcome to speak any more, she sat down and cried. But James was not tender to her. "Ah, what are you oh, Jamesin' about !" he said roughly, throw- ing a parcel on to the sofa beside her. "Sure, there's nothin' to cry about !" She had dried her tears with her apron when he said that. "I didn't mean to cry," she said, "only it was so sudden, an' I'm not very well ! . . . " Then old Mrs. Crothers had recovered herself. "I should think it was sudden," she said shrewishly. "Comin' in on us like that without a word of warnin' or nothin', as if the house was his own, an' scarin' people out of their seven wits ! Dear 18 MRS. IMARTIN'S MAN 19 knows what 3011 might have done to her, James Martin, scarin' her like that, an' her the way she is an' all i" He had not noticed that she was going to have a child. •'The wav she is what?" he said in a surly tone. "The way she is what !" exclaimed Mrs. Crothers in bitter sarcasm. "What way would she be with a man like you.'"' He drew a chair up to the fire, and sat down beside the old woman. "You would think \'ou were out of your mind," he said to her, rubbing liis legs as he felt the warmth of the fire on them, "the way you're goin' on !" "Out of my mind is it.^ Heth, James Martin! ..." * He cut the old woman short, and turned to his wife. "What ails you, Martha?" he said. "I'm goin' to have a child, James !" she an- swered. "Och," he said, taking oft" his boots, "is that all? I thought there was mebbt^ something the matter with you. Is there a pair of slippers in the house at all.^" She went upstairs to the room where she slept, and brought down a pair of slippers for him. "You're makin' yourself quaren at home, James Martin!" said Mrs. Crothers. "I am," he replied. "An' why wouldn't I? Will the tay be long, Martha?" This had been more than Mrs. Crothers' temper could endure. 20 MRS. MARTIN'S MAN "You're forgettin' yourself altogether, James Martin!" she shouted at him, raising herself a little in her chair as she did so. "That's what you're doin' ! Forgettin' yourself altogether ! This isn't your house, an' well you know it ! Comin' in here as if you had call to come ! You hadn't got a pennjpiece to buy a stick of furniture when you were married on Martha there, an' mind that now ! Don't be coniin' in here, lettin' on to be some one, for, sure you're not, so you're not, an' you'll just Avalk out of this as quick as you can ! You'll get no tay in my house, I'm tellin' you !" She sank back in her chair, exhausted by her out- burst, and glared angrily at him. "Right you are," he replied, kicking off his slip- pers, and putting out his hand to take his boots. "We'll not trouble you any longer Avith our com- pany, mem ! Get j^our things on, Martha !" "I didn't say she was to go," said Mrs. Crothers. "No, I know that," he replied, "but I did. I'm her man, amn't I.'' Go on, Martha! Go an' get ready, an' we'll go an' look for lodgin's. I daresay vou've had a miserable time of it here, with an ould Avoman the like of her cryin' at you all day !" Martha hesitated for a moment, and he spoke sharply to her. "Go on, will you.? We'll send for the rest of your things when we've got lodgin's !" She went upstairs again, Avithout responding, and he finished lacing up his boots. She could hear the old woman's voice, now empty of anger, and full of anxious complaint. "You think you're quaren clcA^er, James Martin !" I\frs. Crothers said, vaguely troubled. MRS. MARTIN'S MAN U "I don't think notliin' of the sort," he reph'cd. "You told me to go, an' I'm goin'. What more do vou want?" "You know well I didn't mean her to go !" "An' had you the cheek to think I'd be leavin' lier behind me? Woman-a-dear, you must be de- irientcd mad! You've been havin' the grand time, by all I can see, enjoyin' yourself rightly, an' her doin' all the work for you, an' lookin' after you an' all, like a servant-girl, an' you doin' nothin' but scoldin' her all the time ! Heth, you'll not do that n)uch longer I'm thinkin' !" Martha came down the stairs, as he said this, dressed for the street. "James, dear," she said, "don't be hard on her. She didn't mean nothin', an' sure she's an ould woman with no one to take care of her !" "She can take care of herself rightly. She was able to do it afore you come here, an' she'll have to do it when you're gone. An' if she can't, she can go in the poorliouse, or get some one else to do it, some one that'll want payin' for tlieir trouble!" Old Mrs. Crothers had lapsed into rheumy tears when she heard him speak of the poorhouse, and was now sniffmg and choking. Iler broken hands were beating a timeless tune on the arms of her chair. "She's not so well, as she used to be," said Martha. "She's gettin' feebler every day ! . . ." "'Deed an' that's true, Martha!" the old woman interrupted eagerly. "I'm not near the woman I was. If you had the pains an' tornientin's I have, S2 MRS. INIARTIN'S MAN James Martin, you'd not be talkin' the way you are !" He picked up his bundle from the sofa. "Well, sure, I can't help your pains an' tormcntin's, can I.?" he said. "Come on, Martha, afore it gets dark. Sure, we're keepin' the woman from her tay !" He walked toward the door and pulled it open. Martha stood still in the middle of the kitchen, look- ing at him as if looking would cause him to relent. Her anxiety and her impending motherhood had weakened her, and she was very fragile-looking as she stood there in the glow of the sunset. But James did not notice that she was tired. "Come on," he said in his hard, rough voice, turn- ing to go out. Mrs. Crothers gave a great, helpless cry, and began to rock herself feebly in her chair. "Don't be goin' an' leavin' me," she called to Martha. "Sure, I didn't mean the half I said!" James came back into the kitchen. He threw his bundle down again on the sofa, and reseating himself before the fire, began to unlace his boots. "There's your slippers," said Martha, putting them ready for him. "Right you are," he exclaimed. "Get the tay ready, will you.'' I'm dyin' o' hunger! . . ." After that, she was like clay in his hands. The old woman, who lived on a pension, had become so decrepit that had Martha left her, she must have done as James had said, either go into the poor- house or pay some one to take care of her. Her old querulous tone was maintained when she and Martha wore alone, and she would threaten to teach MRS. MARTIN'S ]\1AN 9S James a lesson one day when she had her health back ; but her threats had no sting in them. Be- fore James returned home, Mrs. Crothers had Ix'lieved that she could turn Martha out of doors at any moment and that were she to act in that man- ner she would enormously disconcert Martha ; but now she had learned that she could only disconcert herself by such a deed. In James's presence she was like a frightened child. She did not speak to him unless he spoke to her. She would sit huddled up in her chair before the fire, with her shawls tightly folded about her, and her gray, withering hair covered by a white night-cap. Martha would place a clove between her toothless gums, and she would roll it about between thein until it became too soft to grip; and then she would whimper for another one. She always held a handkerchief in her knuckly hands, and she would sit thus for a long time, chewing the clove and twisting the hand- kerchief about in her fingers until it became crum- pled and dirty. She seldom spoke. Sometimes her lips would move, but no words issued from them, and then her eyes would water and become dry again. There was something terrible in the spectacle of that hulk of a woman, sitting in front of the fire, gazing with rheumy eyes at nothing. Her cheeks had fallen in, and her teeth had all gone. Her skin was yellow and crinkled with lines that made great clefts on her brow and gathered in a dreadful cluster about her eyes and n)outh. When she ate her food, her jaws, long and lean, worked with hor- rible monotony. Her mind had received a blow from which it could not recover: she was rapidly lapsing 24 MRS. MARTIN'S MAN into senility : she was almost an empty shell. Death had had no difficulty with her. Martha remembered that. The old woman had fallen out of life veiy easily. She had been dressed and happed in her shawls, and half carried to her chair. The hand- kerchief had been placed in her fingers, and a clove betAveen her gums. The broken, gnarled fingers be- gan to work the moment they felt the handkerchief, and the pale gums worried the clove remorselessly. She had been still for a while, and Martha had imagined that she was asleep. Suddenly she began to cry. "What ails you.^"' said Martha, going toward her. The old woman made a gurgling sound in her throat. Her eyes opened very wide, and she seemed to be afraid. "It's the quare thing! ..." she began to say, and then lay back in her chair. "What did you say?" INIartha asked, putting the clove which had fallen in her lap back into her mouth. The old woman did not respond. She sat there quite quietly, gazing vacantly and fixedly before her. The hands ceased to be agitated, the clove fell again from her lips and rolled off her lap on to the floor ; her rheumy eyes gazed more vacantly and fixedly still. . . . "Is she dead yet.^" said James, when Martha sum- moned him from the corner of the street. They took possession of the cottage and its con- tents. Mrs. Crothers had no relatives nearer at hand than America, and her effects were of so little value that question was not raised when James made them his own. She had left a few sovereigns in her MRS. MARTIN'S MAN 25 cash-box, but the cost of burying her took all of them, he said. "We've got a home, anyway," he said to Martha, "an' we're not beholdin' to no one, your da or any- body !" Death was busy then. It was soon after Mrs. Crothers' burial that old John MahafFy fell ill. Esther, who was Martha's younger sister, came run- ning to her, weeping and demanding help. "Did my da send you.'"' said Martha to the weep- ing girl. "No, he did not," she replied. "Ah, sure, that doesn't matter," James exclaimed. "You can't be keepin' up wrangles when a man's on his death-l)ed, can you? An' niebbe he wasn't able to say nothin' !" Martha put her shawl about her shoulders, and prepared to go home with her sister. "I'm not wan tin' to be keepin' up wrangles," she said. "I'm only afeard he'll not let me next or near him!" She sent Esther to fetch the doctor, and told licr to summon her brother Henry. "You should 'a' brought him afore !" she said. But Esther had {)urposely refrained from sending for Henry and his wife. "I can't bear Jane Ma- hafFy," she said. "Go on, now, girl !" said Martha, "an' fetch them all, an' I'll go uj) to the house !" I'^stlier hurried out of the cottage, and James went to the door to look after her as she ran up 1he street. "That sister of yours has got to be a nice-lookin' gill," he said, as Martha went past him into the street. 26 MRS. MARTIN'S MAN "She's not so bad," she answered as she hurried off. Her brotlier and his wife were already in her father's house when she arrived. She greeted them civilly. "Is that you, Henry .^" she said. "How're you, Jane.?" Henry looked sourly at her. "Aye, it is," he re- plied. "An' what brings you here, I'd like to know?" "The same that brings you, I suppose !" she an- swered grimly. Jane Mahaffy had entered the sick-room, but she came out again very soon, ominous and gloomy. "It's near his death he is !" she said. Martha threw her shawl aside, and made as if she would enter the dying man's room, but Jane Ma- haffy stood in her way. "He'll not have you anear him, he says !" she said. Martha pushed her aside. "For shame, Jane Ma- haffy," she exclaimed, "to be sayin' the like of that about a man to his daughter. Get out of my way, will you !" Her brother called to her in his solemn, pompous tones. "Conduct yourself decently," he said, "an' not be goin' on like that, an' the angel of death at hand!" "He's my da as well as yours," Martha retorted passionately, "an' he's nothin' to her. It's the like of you that put bitterness in him against me, but you'll not stop me now from seein' him, I tell you certain sure !" She opened the door and went into the room, MRS. MARTIN'S MAN 27 stepping lightly as is the way with people in the presence of the dying. "Is that you, Jane?" the sick man said feebly. "No, da," she replied. "It's me!" He raised himself up in the bed with sudden fury, ond waved his hand at her, but whatever it was he wished to say to her, would not come ; the words would not form on his lips ; and he fell back exhausted on to his pillow. She went over to him, and put her arm under him and lifted him up, but he rolled himself out of her grasp and sank down heavily in the bed. Her brother and his wife had followed her into the bedroom, and Jane MahafFv now thrust herself betwen her and the dying man. "Do you want to kill the ould fellow," she said, "troublin' him like that !" She bent over him, and spoke to him. "It's me," she said. "It's Jane !" He turned to her, and his lips moved. "I can't hear what you say !" she said. "Tell . . . Tell ..." "Tell what?" He made a great effort to be coherent. "Tell . . . tell . . . her ..." "Do you mean Martha?" Jane asked, and he nodded his head. Martha went forward to the bedside. "It's me he wants," she said. "I told you it was!" The old man shook his head at her. His eyes caught Jane's, and he tried to speak again. "Tell . . . tell . . . hrr ... go ... go 'way !" he gasped out. Jane laid him buck on the pillow. "You heard g8 MRS. MARTIN'S MAN what he said, didn't you?" she said to Martha. "Mebbe, you'll go now," James exclaimed. Martha stood irresolutely for a few moments, and then Avent to the head of the bed again. "Do you want me to go away from you, da?" she said to her father. Ho nodded his head. "Go . . . go . . . 'way . . . you !" he said. She looked down on him for a second or two, and then turned and went out of the room. She did not cry nor did she bemoan her father's hard- ness. She fixed her shawl about her head, and went home. "He's the hard ould lad," said James, when she told him of what had happened. A week later her father had died. Her share of the inheritance was willed to Henry and Esther in equal parts, and the cottage was left to Henry and his wife. Esther refused to live in it with them. Her brother insisted that her place was with him, the head of the family, but she told him that she detested his wife, and would live with Martha in- stead. There had been an angry scene between them in which he accused her of disloyalty to her dead father. "You know well," he said, "my da never forgive her, an' he'd never have let you go anear her if he knowed. You'd 'a' got nothin' in his will if he'd thought yon were goin' to live with her after him dead !" "I'll do what I like," said Esther, "an' not what you like!" So it was that Esther came to live with Martha MRS. MARTIN'S MAN 29 in Mrs. Crothers' cottage. "You'll be iii need of some one to keep jou company," she said, "when James is away to sea, an' you the way you are !" James patted her on the shoulder and kissed her when he heard of her proposal. "You're the right wee girl," he said. "You are in sang! I was won- derin' to myself what I'd be doin' about Martha, an' me goin' away again next week, an' the Lord only knows when I'll be back !" That was the first definite information Martha had received of his pending departure. She had known, of course, that he must soon go away again, but in a vague fashion she had hoped that he would be with her when the baby was born. "It'll be lonely without 3'ou," she said. "Ah, sure, it's always lonely wherever you are !" "You could mebbe stay a wee while 'til the child is born !" "No," he answered, "I couldn't stop at all. What 'ud be the good of me stoppin' any way.'' I'm sick, sore an' tired of doin' nothin' all day, an' I want to be on the sea again !" In this way was it arranged. Esther came to live with Martha, and on the appointed day James sailed to Charlcstown in America. It was while he was away that her baby was born : a boy whom she named after his father. CHAPTER IV It seemed to her, as she sat there, brooding over the past, that it was only last night that she had lain in bed afraid of the pain to come. She was a proud woman, then as now, and she had not asked for help or comfort from her relatives. Esther was too young to understand or assist. She had had to bear her fear in silence. There had been times when she could feel the child stirring in her womb so that its movements hurt her. She could have cned aloud, but she had not wished anyone to know that she was suffering. If she had only had James by her side, and could have clung to him in the night when the pain came ; if only she could have told him of it, and had been comforted by him, it would, she imagined, have been easier to bear. There was no one to give consolation to her. "It would make Esther afeard," she had said to herself, when she restrained her desire to tell the girl of what was happening to her. Then had come the great pain of all, when it seemed as if her body were bursting, and every particle of her flesh was being screwed up tightly. Some one had tied a towel to the top of her bed so that she could hold it when the time came, and she had torn at it desperately, for she did not wish 30 MRS. MARTIN'S MAN 31 to scream : but the pain beat her. and a great cry broke from her lips. It seemed to her that the world was tumbling to pieces, that she could not live, that after such agony death must come like precious balsam. . . . She remembered the pale, anxious face of the doctor, and that even in her pain she had wondered to iiersolf why it was that his eyes were of different colors : one was brown, and one was gray. And when she felt that the su- preme moment had come, and death had but to turn the corner, and she would be ready to go with him, her memory slipped away from her. . . . There was a tiny, wailing sound in the room, she remem- bered, when she recovered consciousness. "Is that it.'*" she said to the nurse, and then, when she had been answered, she whispered, "What is it.'"' and they told her that she was the mother of a son. "A most difficult birth," the doctor had said after- Avard, "but you came through it splendidly!" "The MahafFys were always a tough lot,'' she answered jokingly. In the course of time, she had two more children, both girls. She called one of them Esther, after her sister, and the other was called Agnes, after her husband's mother. The little Esther had died when she was two years old, and here in this grave she lay, where all the dead \rahaffys lay, mingling her dust with that of the unrelenting old man who was her grandfather. Janus Martin was at home when the child suddenly sickened and then as sud- denly died. Mrs. Martin could not bear to stay any longer In the graveyard when she thought of her baby's death. She still felt the pain of that 32 MRS. MARTIN'S MAN poor burial, and when she remembered how kind James had been to her then, she cried. He had loved the little Esther so tenderly, and mourned for her bitterly. He had been sitting by her bed when she died, and when the last convulsive moan came from the tiny, tortured body, and she lay dead, he turned away and wandered into the gar- den at the back of the cottage. In the evening they found him there, stretched on the ground, close to the fuschia bush. He had a hard, hungry look in his eyes. Her sister Esther had said afterwards that he had the appearance of a man who had been shedding dry tears. Then he went to sea again, and when he returned he did not speak of the baby, nor did he ever go to the churchyard to look at her grave. She had to come away from the burial-place. For years, now — so long that it seemed a lifetime — she had been living with all her emotions tightly screwed ; but the letter she had received the day before had loosened them ; and all the memories that had become dull were bright again, and the tears that she had thought would never flow another time were brimming in her eyes. As she answered the grave-diggers' "Good-day to you, mem !" and came out of the churchj^ard, she recollected something that her brother Henry had said to her when Esther was buried. His heart had softened toward her when the affliction fell upon her, and he followed the little coffin to its burial. "Death is the strange thing," he said. "The young taken, an' the ould left! It's quare to think of my da lyin' there, with your child on the top of him, an' him hadn't a word to say to you, an' him dyin'. That's quare !" In- MRS. MARTIN'S MAN 33 deed it Avas queer! That stern, unbending old man and the little wayward child were mingled dust, and they and generations older than they, were neither old nor 3'oung, passionate nor passionless, seared nor unmarked; but just one common piece of brown earth, incapable of hurt or wrong. "An' clean, too !" she murmured. "Clean like the sea !" That was queer, surely : to be an unforgiving old man one time, or a child learning to talk, and then to be a handful of mould that may be taken in hand and scattered to the wind as one scatters sand. . . . It was after the death of the baby Esther that James had grown strange in his manner toward her. That memory came into her mind as she stood at the pump a little wa}' from the gate of the churcli- yard, wondering what she should do now. She could not go back to the shop, and she did not ^a^t desire to go honjc. Esther would bo there ! . . . She walked up the street a little (jii t})e road to- ward Newtownards until she came to the narrow lane that led to the mound on which the Moat stood: u round tower in which, so legend ran, snmggkrs once kept their treasure, thougli the records make a beacon-tower of it. She climbed the path, and sat down on a wooden seat at the foot of the Moat. Maybe, on this very seat James and Esther. . . . He had always been a restless man, but after the death of the baby, there were added to his rest- lessness anger and sullen temper and swift chaiiges of mood. Her sister Esther had always been a girl with fine looks, but now tliat she was apiDroach- ing womanhood she h;id beauty and favor. She S4 MRS. MARTIN'S MA'S was tall and slender, and her clothes fitted closely to her form, showing the outlines of her shapely limbs. She had dark hair that coiled about her head in clinging curls, and she had fine long lashes that made dusky pools of her eyes. Her lips were full and red, and she had little white, sharp teeth. Her breasts were like little round towers. She was beautiful and warm and loving. . . . Martha came on her and James suddenly one day. He damned her for her suspicious mind and asked whether he could not kiss his sister-in-law without people saying things and thinking things. If she wanted to know the tnith, Esther had been chaffing him, and he had just paid her out! What the hell was she gaping at ! . . . Esther came weeping to her later and said tliat she was sorry. She had not meant to do any harm. She would go away from Ballyreagh if Martha wished her to do so, even to America. She would never give cause for complaint again. She swore it of her own accord on the Bible. It had all been a joke. She could not think why she had allowed James to kiss her — for that was all that took place between them. She was sorry she had ever been born. Indeed, indeed, she assured her sister, there had not been any wrong thing between them, except the kiss. She turned from her sister, and said quietly, "That will do, Esther !" and said no more. She never spoke about it again, although she suspected that her husband and Esther continued to love and kiss and sin. Henry MahafFy had come to her and complained that the conduct of Esther and James was scan- dalous. It was his duty as head of the family, he MRS. MARTIN'S MAN S5 said, to interfere, and he spoke of carrying Esther before the minister. . . . She had told him that he was wrong to suspect his sister of sin with James. She could not imagine how anyone could invent such stories about a young, motherless girl. It was a pack of lies. . . . "Didn't I see them myself," he retorted angrily, "the pair of them kissin' in the dark! I saw them with my own eyes, lyin' that close together, you couldn't see a shadow between them. Kissin' an' huggin' they were! ..." "Why didn't you go an' speak to them, then?" she had replied, and he had answered, "Don't you know rightly he's a headstrong man !" "You never saw them at all. You couldn't 'a' seen them, for they weren't there! You were dreamin', Henry, bad dreams, for James never stirred out of the door that night !" She had told the lie bravely and easily, and, thus repulsed, her brother had gone away doubting the value of his sight. The story had grown ; and for that Jane MahafFy was to blame; but she ignored the gabble and the back-biting. She had denied that there was anything between her husband and her sister, and she did not propose to continue dis- cussing the affair with people whose minds were set on gossip. It was not Henry's fault that he could not keep off the minister's doorstep. He had a great deal to endure, poor man! His wife was a bitter woman, made sour by her childlessness. . . . Siie and Henry had fallen out again. They passed by in the street without speaking. But if she told her neighbors that the story was a lie, she knew in her heart that it was true; and sometimes in the night a great rage would swell 86 MRS. :\1ARTIN'S MAN up in her. and she could hardly keep herself still in the bed. Sometimes she came near to striking her sister, sometimes she longed to expose her to ignominy, but the pride that was the boast of her family held her hand down and kept her tongue quiet. She said that Esther should stay on in the house Avith her although the girl pleaded to be allowed to go away. "No, you'll stop here! They'll think it's true if you go away !" "But it is true! ..." "I know it is . . . but we needn't tell every- body !" There was some cruelty in her desire to keep Esther by her. She had spoken to her husband of her intention to let her stay on in the house, and he had answered indifferently. "You can do what you like with her. I don't want her no more ! She's no good ! Cryin' an' girnin' all the time ! You'll not bother me any more, the pair of you !" When she heard him speak in that manner, she Avas glad of her decision to keep Esther with her. She had a wish to witness the girl's pain when she learned that to James she was no more than any other woman, a creature to gratify his lust. She liad a longing to look in on Esther's desolation, to see her just once with her empty heart. Soon after that he sailed away, and when he had been gone a month, she knew that she was to be a mother again. She had decided to open the shop before she knew of her pregnancy, for he had never supplied her with sufficient mone}' to keep the house comfortably. It had been his custom to give to her a sum which he considered adequate to maintain her and her MRS. MARTIN'S :\IAN 37 children until his return; but as his voyages varied in duration, it sometimes happened that the money was expended before he had returned. That, how- ever, was none of his affair. She had to make up the deficit as best she could. ... It may be said of him that he was a just man. Had the money been more than sufficient for her needs during his absence from home, he would not have demanded a refund of the balance, nor would he have reduced the next allowance proportionately. It was simply due to the willfuhiess of things that there never was a balance, just as it was part of the natural ill-luck which pursued her then, that the fund was frequently depleted before he returned to replenish the purse. He made no inquiries about the expenditure, nor did he ask whether the sum he left behind him was sufficient to maintain her, nor did she tell him of her difficulties. When his first voyage had ended later than he had anticipated and the money had had to be supple- mented by laundry work and such other ways of earning as were open to her, she had not mentioned the matter to him because she feared that she might have been extravagant. She could not justly accuse herself of being a spendthrift when she re- viewed her expenditure ; but she believed that her husband was a man of experience and strict prin- ciples, and she could only conclude that inexperience had led her into unaccountable extravagance; so she did not speak to James of the inadequacy of her allowance. The conclusion of his second voyage coincided In time with Ihe depletion of her fund, and this fact seemed to her to he positive proof of the 38 MRS. MARTIN'S .AIAN sagacity and farsight of her husband. The third voyage resembled the first: the fund was depleted before his return. He still did not make any in- quiry, and suddenly knowledge came to her. He expected her to keep herself and the children no matter how long he might be away from home. . . . She had thought as deeplj-^ as she could over the matter in the long, lonely nights when she could not sleep, and plans gradually formed in her mind. She would open a shop. Perhaps she could make it so profitable that James would not need to go to sea again. . . . She spoke to him of her idea a little while before he set oft" on that last voyage. She had told him of her intention to keep Esther with her, and had learned with joy that he had no love left for the girl. Then she spoke of her plan. "Esther'll be a help to me," she said, when she had finished her recital. "Well, it's nothin' to me," he repHed. "You can start what you like. There's your money for you, an' if you lose it on a shop, it'll be your own look- out. You can't blame me! Forby, I'll not bother you no more! ..." She had heard him speak a similar sentence earlier in the evening, but she had not paid attention to it. "What do you mean, James .'^" she said. "It's plain enough, what I say, isn't it?" he had snarled at her. "You understand English, don't you.?" "Ali, but! . . ." "I'm not comin' back to you! That's what I mean ! I'm sick, sore an' tired of you all, you an' MRS. MARTIN'S MAX 39 your brotlier Hcnrj- an' iiis bitch of a wife ! I'm tired of this country! ..." She remembered the scowl on his face as he said that. She Jiad stood quite still, listening to hinu and looking at him as if she were trying to see into his mind. She could not believe that she had heard him say that he M-as going to desert her. She knew that men sometimes left their wives, but. , . . "You're not comin' back to me.'"' she had said incredibly, and he had mocked the strained voice in which she had spoken as he answered, "No, I'm not comin' back ! I've done with you, I tell you, an' I've done with Esther, too. Her an' her cryin' ! . . . " Then she realized that what he said was true. The terrible infamy of desertion was to be hers. She had seen men's names posted on the door of the poorhouse, with a reward offered for their apprehension . . . and she was to be a woman like those poor women. She had strolled over to the window witiiout knowing what she was doing, and she could just see the waves rolling up over the rocks, breaking into galloping white horses, and the sea-gulls, dipping and rising and dipping again with long, fluttering wings, or floating through the air without moving their wings until they had made a wide circle. A long way out, where the sea and the dusky clouds were joined together, she could see the faint outline of a great steamer. It seemed hardly to move, though the faint trail of white foam behind it grew longer and longer. . . . "Mebbe, you'll change your mind," she had said 40 MRS. MARTIN'S MAN to him, without turning away from the window, and "Mebbe, I won't!" he had replied. She did not speak again for a little while. The night closed in, and the great steamer with its trail of foam was lost in the darkness. She could no longer see the waves, leaping and tumbling and splashing on the rocks, but she could hear the noise they made in their progress. Her eyes felt sore with watch- ing! . . . Mrs. Crothers had watched like that. . , . She turned wearily toward the fire, and be- gan to poke it. "Will I make your tay?" she asked in a toneless voice. "Aye, if you please !" he answered. She set the kettle on the coals, and then prepared the table for the meal. "You must do what you think best," she said, when she had laid the white cloth. "Aye," he replied, "that's what we ail have to do!" Esther came in and they sat down to the meal, but none of them spoke, and when it was over, James took the Belfast Evening Telegraph and read it for an hour, and then he went out to McConkey's Hotel. He ignored Esther, and the girl gazed at him as he went out with terrible, appealing eyes. When he had gone, she sat mutely M'aiting for Mar- tha to speak, but her sister busied herself with removing the remnants of the meal. "Will I help you, Martha.?" she said timorously. "No, thank you, Esther !" Martha replied. She put the table back into its place, and then she went to the fire and tidied up the hearth. You must be tired, Esther," she said, when she