Complete Works of Bram Stoker (19 page)

“I’m sorry, Andy,” I began, “that I shall not want you, as I am going to stay in this neighborhood for a few days.” “Sthay is it? Begor! but it’s more gladerer shtill I am. Sure, the mare wants a rist, an’ it’ll shute her an’ me all to nothin’; an’ thin while ye’re here I can be dhrivin’ yer ‘an’r out to Shleenanaher. It isn’t far enough to intherfere wid her rist.”

I answered in, I thought, a dignified way  —  I certainly intended to be dignified: “I did not say, Sullivan, that I purposed going out to Shleenanaher or any other place in the neighborhood.” “Shure, no, yer ‘an’r, but I remimber ye said ye’d like to see the Shiftin’ Bog; an’ thin Misther Joyce and Miss Norah is in throuble, and ye might be a comfort to thim.” “Mr. Joyce! Miss Norah! who are they?” I felt that I was getting red and that the tone of my voice was most unnatural.

Andy’s sole answer was as comical a look as I ever saw, the central object in which was a wink which there was no mistaking. I could not face it, and had to say: “Oh yes, I remember now. Was not that the man we took on the car to a dark mountain?” “Yes, surr  —  him and his daughther!” “His daughter! I do not remember her. Surely we only took him on the car.” Again I felt angry, and with the anger an inward determination not to have Andy or any one else prying around me when I should choose to visit even such an uncompromising phenomenon as a shifting bog. Andy, like all humorists, understood human nature, and summed up the situation conclusively in his reply  —  inconsequential though it was: “Shure yer ‘an’r can thrust me; it’s blind or deaf an’ dumb I am, an’ them as knows me knows I’m not the man to go back on a young gintleman goin’ to luk at a bog. Sure, doesn’t all young min do that same? I’ve been there meself times out iv mind! There’s nothin’ in the wurrld foreninst it! Lukin’ at bogs is the most intherestin’ thin’ I knows.” There was no arguing with Andy; and as he knew the place and the people, I then and there concluded an engagement with him. He was to stay in Carnaclif while I wanted him, and then drive me over to Westport. As I was now fairly launched on the enterprise, I thought it better to lose no time, but arranged to visit the bog early the next morning. As I was lighting my cigar after dinner that evening, Mrs. Keating, my hostess, came in to ask me a favor. She said that there was staying in the house a gentleman who went over every day to Knockcalltecrore, and as she understood that I was going there in the morning, she made bold to ask if I would mind giving a seat on my car to him, as he had turned his ankle that day and feared he would not be able to walk. Under the circumstances I could only say “Yes,” as it would have been a churlish thing to refuse. Accordingly, I gave permission with seeming cheerfulness, but when I was alone my true feelings found vent in muttered grumbling: “I ought to travel in an ambulance instead of a car.” “I seem never to be able to get near this Shleenanaher without an invalid.” “Once ought to be enough; but it has become the regulation thing now.” “I wish to goodness Andy would hold his infernal tongue; I’d as lief have a detective after me all the time.” “It’s all very well to be a good Samaritan as a luxury, but as a profession it becomes monotonous.” “Confound Andy! I wish I’d never seen him at all.”

This last thought brought me up standing, and set me face to face with my baseless ill-humor. If I had never seen Andy, I should never have heard at all of Shleenanaher. I should not have known the legend  —  I should not have heard Norah’s voice.

“And so,” said I to myself, “this ideal fantasy  —  this embodiment of a woman’s voice  —  has a concrete name already. Aye, a concrete name, and a sweet one too.” And so I took another step on my way to the bog, and lost my ill-humor at the same time. When my cigar was half through and my feelings were proportionately soothed, I strolled into the bar and asked Mrs. Keating as to my companion of the morrow. She told me that he was a young engineer named Sutherland. “What Sutherland?” I asked, adding that I had been at school with a Dick Sutherland, who had, I believed, gone into the Irish College of Science.

“Perhaps it’s the same gentleman, sir. This is Mr. Richard Sutherland, and I’ve heerd him say that he was at Stephen’s Green.”

“The same man!” said I. “This is jolly! Tell me, Mrs.

Keating, what brings him here?”

“He’s doin’ some work on Knockcalltecrore for Mr. Murdock, some quare thing or another. They do tell me, sir, that it’s a most mystayrious thing, wid poles an’ lines an’ magnets an’ all kinds of divilments. They say that Mr. Murdock is goin’ from off his head ever since he had the law of poor Phelim Joyce. My! but he’s the decent man, that same Mr. Joyce, an’ the Gombeen has been hard upon him.”

“What was the lawsuit?” I asked. “All about a sellin’ his land on an agreement. Mr. Joyce borryed some money, an’ promised if it wasn’t paid back at a certain time that he would swop lands. Poor Joyce met wid an accident comin’ home wid the money from Galway an’ was late, an’ when he got home found that the Gombeen had got the sheriff to sell up his land on to him. Mr. Joyce thried it on the coorts, but now Murdock has got a decree on to him an’ the poor man’ll have to give up his fat lands an’ take the Gombeen’s poor ones instead.”

“That’s bad! When has he to give up?” “Well, I disremember meself exactly, but Mr. Sutherland will be able to tell ye all about it as ye drive over in the mornin’.”

“Where is he now? I should like to see him; it may be my old school-fellow.” “Troth, it’s in his bed he is; for he rises mighty arly, I can tell ye.”

After a stroll through the town (so-called) to finish my cigar I went to bed also, for we started early. In the morning, when I came down to my breakfast, I found Mr. Sutherland finishing his. It was my old school-fellow; but from being a slight, pale boy he had grown into a burly, hale, stalwart man, with keen eyes and a flowing brown beard. The only pallor noticeable was the whiteness of his brow, which was ample and lofty as of old.

We greeted each other cordially, and I felt as if old times had come again, for Dick and I had been great friends at school. When we were on our way I renewed my inquiries about Shleenanaher and its inhabitants. I began by asking Sutherland as to what brought him there. He answered:

“I was just about to ask you the same question. ‘What brings you here?’”

I felt a difficulty in answering as freely as I could have wished, for I knew that Andy’s alert ears were close to us, so I said:

“I have been paying some visits along the west coast, and I thought I would take the opportunity on my way home of investigating a very curious phenomenon of whose existence I became casually acquainted on my way here  —  a shifting bog.”

Andy here must strike in:

“Shure, the masther is mighty fond iv bogs, intirely. I don’t know there’s anything in the wurruld what intherests him so much.”

Here he winked at me in a manner that said as plainly as if spoken in so many words, “All right, yer’an’r, I’ll back ye up!”

Sutherland laughed as he answered: “Well, you’re in the right place here, Art; the difficulty they have in this part of the world is to find a place that is not bog. However, about the Shifting Bog on Knockcalltecrore, I can, perhaps, help you as much as any one. As you know, geology has been one of my favourite studies, and lately I have taken to investigate in my spare time the phenomena of this very subject. The bog at Shleenanaher is most interesting. As yet, however, my investigation can only be partial, but very soon I shall have the opportunity which I require.”

“How is that?” I asked. “The difficulty arises,” he answered, “from a local feud between two men, one of them my employer, Murdock, and his neighbor, Joyce.” “Yes,” I interrupted, “I know something of it. I was present when the sheriffs assignment was shown to Joyce, and saw the quarrel. But how does it affect you and your study?”

“This way: the bog is partly on Murdock’s land and partly on Joyce’s, and until I can investigate the whole extent I cannot come to a definite conclusion. The feud is so bitter at present that neither man will allow the other to set foot over his boundary, or the foot of any one to whom the other is friendly. However, to-morrow the exchange of lands is to be effected, and then I shall be able to continue my investiqation. I have already gone nearlvall over Murdock’s present ground, and after to-morrow I shall be able to go over his new ground  —  up to now forbidden to me.”

“How does Joyce take his defeat?”

“Badly, poor fellow, I am told; indeed, from what I see of him, I am sure of it. They tell me that up to lately he was a bright, happy fellow, but now he is a stern, hard-faced, scowling man  —  essentially a man with a grievance, which makes him take a jaundiced view of everything else. The only one who is not afraid to speak to him is his daughter, and they are inseparable. It certainly is cruelly hard on him. His farm is almost an ideal one for this part of the world; it has good soil, water, shelter, trees, everything that makes a farm pretty and comfortable, as well as being good for farming purposes; and he has to change it for a piece of land as irregular in shape as the other is compact; without shelter, and partly taken up with this very bog and the utter waste and chaos which, when it shifted in former times, it left behind.”

“And how does the other, Murdock, act?”

“Shamefully; I feel so angry with him at times that I could strike him. There is nota thing he can say or do, or leave unsaid or undone, that is not aggravating and insulting to his neighbor. Only that he had the precaution to bind me to an agreement for a given time, I’m blessed if I would work for him, or with him at all  —  interesting as the work is in itself, and valuable as is the opportunity it gives me of studying that strange phenomenon, the Shifting Bog.”

“What is your work with him,” I asked  —  ”mining, or draining, orwhat?”

He seemed embarrassed at myquestion. He “‘hum’d and ‘ha’d”  —  then with a smile he said quite frankly: “The fact is that I am not at liberty to say. The worthy Gombeen Man put a special clause in our agreement that I was not, during the time of my engagement, to mention to any one the object of my work. He wanted the clause to run that I was never to mention it; but I kicked at that, and only signed in the modified form.” I thought to myself, “More mysteries at Shleenanaher!”

Dick went on:

“However, I have no doubt that you will very soon gather the object for yourself. You are yourself something of a scientist, if I remember?” “Not me,” I answered, “my great aunt took care of that when she sent me to our old tutor  —  or, indeed, to do the old boyjustice, he tried to teach me something of the kind; but I found out it wasn’t my vogue  —  anyhow, I haven’t done anything lately.”

“How do you mean?” “I haven’t got over being idle yet. It’s not a year since I came into my fortune. Perhaps  —  indeed I hope  —  that I may settle down to work again.”

“I’m sure I hope so, too, old fellow,” he answered gravely. “When a man has once tasted the pleasure of real work, especially work that taxes the mind and the imagination, the world seems only a poor place without it.” “Like the wurrld widout girruls for me, or widout bog for his ‘an’r!” said Andy, grinning as he turned round on his seat.

Dick Sutherland, I was glad to see, did not suspect the joke. He took Andy’s remark quite seriously, and said to me:

“My dear fellow, it is delightful to find you so interested in my own topic.” I could not allow him to think me a savant. In the first place, he would very soon find me out, and would then suspect my motives ever after. And, again, I had to accept Andy’s statement, or let it appear that I had some other reason or motive  —  or what would seem even more suspicious still, none at all; so I answered: “My dear Dick, my zeal regarding bog is new; it is at present in its incipient stage, in so far as erudition is concerned. The fact is, that although I would like to learn a lot about it, I am at the present moment profoundly ignorant on the subject.” “Like the rest of mankind,” said Dick. “You will hardly believe that, although the subject is one of vital interest to thousands of persons in our own country  —  one in which national prosperity is mixed up to a large extent  —  one which touches deeply the happiness and material prosperity of a large section of Irish people, and so helps to mould their political action, there are hardly any works on the subject in existence.”

“Surely you are mistaken,” I answered. “No, unfortunately, lam not. There is a Danish book, but it is geographically local; and some information can be derived from the blue-book containing the report of the International Commission on turf-cuttinq, but the special authorities are scant indeed. Some day, when you want occupation, just you try to find in any library, in any city of the world, any works of a scientific character devoted to the subject. Nay; more; try to find a fair share of chapters in scientific books devoted to it. You can imagine how devoid of knowledge we are, when I tell you that even the last edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica does not contain the heading ‘bog.’” “You amaze me!” was all I could say. Then, as we bumped and jolted over the rough by-road, Dick Sutherland gave me a rapid but masterly survey of the condition of knowledge on the subject of bogs, with special application to Irish bogs, beginning with such records as those of Giraldus Cambrensis, of Dr. Boate, of Edmund Spenser, from the time of the first invasion, when the state of the land was such that, as is recorded, when a spade was driven into the ground a pool of water gathered forthwith. He told me of the extent and nature of the bog- lands, of the means taken to reclaim them, and of his hopes of some heroic measures being ultimately taken by Government to reclaim the vast Bog of Allen, which remains as a great evidence of official ineptitude. “It will be something,” he said, “to redeem the character for indifference to such matters so long established, as when Mr. King wrote two hundred years ago, ‘We live in an island almost infamous for bogs, and yet I do not remember that anyone has attempted much concerning them.’” We were close to Knockcalltecrore when he finished his impromptu lecture thus: “In fine, we cure bog by both a surgical and a medical process. We drain it so that its mechanical action as a sponge may be stopped, and we put in lime to kill the vital principle of its growth. Without the other, neither process is sufficient; but together, scientific and executive man asserts his dominance.” “Hear! hear!” said Andy. “Musha, but Docther Wilde himself (rest his sowl!) couldn’t have put itaisierto grip. It’s a purfessionalerthe young gintleman is, intirely!”