Authors: Bernard Evslin
Big Red Houlihan was left with a two-month old daughter and a house and fields shining with memory, and a bewilderment turning into rage, that turned into pure hell-spite.
He killed one or two of his neighbors in the first days of his wrath, but simple murder left him unslaked. He needed to go beyond man in his killing. With mighty blows of his axe he knocked down his house, and moved into the barn. He could not sleep, so to fill his nights he went cattle-raiding, hoping to be caught and killed after a last bloody brawl. But, by prudence or design, his neighbors left him strictly alone even when he was helping himself to their stock. He herded the stolen cows and pigs in great droves into his barn. Nor did he ever clean that barn, but lived there with his little daughter in the muck and mire which grew more dreadful each day.
Finally Houlihan’s barn had become the biggest midden in all Eire, an unbelievable putrid heap that stank all his neighbors out of that part of the country and put a taint upon the air clear to Meath. When the wind was right, it was said, you could smell that barn across the Giant’s Causeway all the way into Scotland. And at the very center of this mountain of filth lived Houlihan, so foul now he could scarcely be distinguished from one of his dung-splattered bulls. Here, too, among the crud-worms and flies the size of sparrows, grew his daughter; nor could anyone tell what she looked like, so thick was her mask of dirt.
Now this daughter, whose name was Kathleen, loved her father because he belonged to her, and was even fond of her home, for she knew no other. Nevertheless, as she grew older she grew restless, until one day Houlihan said:
“Now stop your wriggling and squirming, girl. You need a husband to calm you down.”
“A husband!” she shrieked. “And who would marry me in my filthy state?”
“Why, whatever lad I catch for you—after I explain his duties a time or two.”
“Thank you. I’ll catch my own.”
“Then be about it, and good luck to you. But be sure you bring him here to live, for I need you to serve me, and he can help.”
“Bring him back to this muck and mire? Why should I?”
“Because I tell you to.”
“Why should he?”
“You will not find me meddling in those delicate questions that arise between man and bride. I am sure you will be able to put the matter to him persuasively, for you were ever a dutiful girl, and it is I who bid you, I, Red Houlihan, who curses every day that keeps him on this pitiful dung heap of an earth, and in the long deep blackness of whose life you have been the only light.”
“I’m off,” said she. “I’ll be back with my husband, or perhaps alone.”
“One last word,” said Houlihan. “Seek your love on the far bank of a river that has no bridge.”
“Yes, father.”
Now, on the other side of the river there lived a gentle-mannered smiling sort of lad, with hair like peach floss. Nineteen years old he was, but he had been kept quite childlike by his mother, who was known as the Widow of the Cove. The lad’s name was Carth. What he liked to do best in the world was lie on a rock in the sun, thinking nothing at all until pictures began drifting through his head. He did not know where they came from or where they were going, but he liked to watch them while they were there. One day the same picture kept swimming into his head. A girl, dripping wet.
Now, as it happened, in his nineteen years he had never seen a girl of any kind, wet or dry. His mother had kept him from all such, fearing that one of the greedy creatures might decide to marry her boy before he was ripe. And this thought threw her into such a rage that she kept him close to his own homestead, nor allowed him to roam.
So when he saw this wet girl in a waking dream, she made the first he had ever seen, and he doted upon her, saying to himself:
“Oh, how happy I would be if she were real. How softly I would welcome her, offering to do her any service—to chop wood and fetch water, and slop her pigs, and milk her cow, and lay a fire in her hearth so that she might dry herself in its warmth, combing out her long red hair. She must be real, though, must she not, else whence comes this image of her in my head? Could it come of itself? Impossible. It must be some shadow of an actual girl with such length of thigh and flesh of eye and lamb-tongue smoothness of flesh and fiery pennant of hair—for I have no power of invention to so paint her for myself. Nor is it memory, for I have never seen the like or near it, nor any woman indeed but my own mother whose dear skin is like a prune and hair like wire. She must be real then, and being real must be somewhere near, else why should her shadow tease and tangle me so?”
When he opened his eyes he saw a wet girl on the riverbank wringing out her long wet hair, and he did not know whether the dream had made her come or she had made the dream come, and he didn’t care.
“Good morning to you,” he said. “I am Carth of the Cove.”
“And good morning to you, sweet lad. Kathleen is my name. My father is Houlihan, of whom you may have heard.”
“Not I. I have heard of nothing, and seen less. My mother keeps me close.”
“Mother? Are you not too big now to be having a mother?”
“It would seem not. I certainly have one. And she has me. She is a widow, you see, and childless save for me.”
“What do you know of kissing and such?”
“Oh, she kisses me good night every night. And upon my birthday, you know. A dry flinching sort of business. Don’t think much of it.”
“Have you never been properly kissed by a girl?”
“You are the first girl I have ever met up close.”
“Well, you have lots to learn and I have lots to teach, only I shall have to learn too while teaching—so let’s be about it.”
“Do you mean to commence now?”
“Now. Certainly now. In these matters it is always now. In fact, as I see you sitting up there sweet and savory as a roast piglet, I understand that this all should have happened before. I am fair famished for you, little pig.”
“But my mother has warned me about girls. I must not meet them, nor meeting, look, nor looking, speak, nor speaking, touch. I’m to avoid them altogether, the lovely fresh rain-smelling creatures. She will not have me marry until I am forty.”
“Will she not?”
“She is most resolute. Promises to flay the skin off my backside if I do not heed her.”
“And I promise worse if you do.”
Some days later Finn was walking along a riverbank in Leinster, harp slung, attended by cat and falcon, when a voice shrieked:
“Halt!”
It was a woman standing on the road with wild hair and flying shawls, face lumpy and red as a fist. Finn stopped at her word.
“Good day, mistress. May I serve you?”
“Have you seen a boy on your travels?”
“One or two. What class of boy would you be seeking?”
“An imbecile.”
“I have met such, indeed. What does your imbecile look like?”
“Sweet, sweet, with angel-blue eyes and peach-bloom cheek. Soft-spoken, gentle, all dewy with a mother’s kisses.”
“I do not believe I have met this lad. But I can understand how you grieve to lose such a son.”
“Lose him … lose him … I never did. He was stolen.”
“By whom?”
“I’m not sure. But my mother’s intuition tells me it was a girl, who came by water, the slut, to avoid my vigil. Came secretly, leering and fleering, to carry the lamb off to her bed.”
And the woman danced in her rage, singing:
Calamity, disaster,
Pestilence and plague.
I’ll scarify and blast her,
break her head like an egg.
Then she turned to Finn, and said:
“You are a doer of deeds, are you not, young sir?”
“I am, lady. Certain tasks claim my attention.”
“And you are sworn to aid the weak and helpless, are you not?”
“I am.”
“Then you must help me.”
“Would you be describing yourself as weak and helpless?”
“Damn your eyes if I am not! I am a poor lorn widow who has been cheated out of her only son by some sly vixen whom I will strangle with these two hands when I find her. You will help me, will you not?”
“In my opinion, widow, it is your enemies who will be needing help.”
“Oh woe and wail-away, how can I find them. They are fleet and I am slow. If I do not appeal to your chivalry, let me try your greed. For thirty years have I been skimping and scrimping and now I have a pot of gold. A double handful of the lovely stuff do I offer if you help me find my boy.”
“Keep your gold, lady. My deeds are not for sale. Nor am I free to refuse you aid however I may sympathize with your son and his abductress. I will help you find them. But once found, what follows is up to you. I will not meddle more.”
“Just locate my Carth for me and I will do the rest, and be grateful to you forever.”
“Farewell, madame.”
Not long after this the widow received a note from her son that read:
Dear Mother:
You’re wondering what happened to me. Well, it seems that I’m married now to this girl who swam the river that morning and told me what I had to do to be her husband. I told her you didn’t mean me to get married until I was forty, but she wouldn’t listen. At first we were going to live in her father’s barn, but after a few nights she decided that I wouldn’t last long if she took me home because he’s very large and fierce, and gets angry quite easily and has other peculiar ways. So we have set up housekeeping in a very comfortable hollow tree with a view of the river. Being a husband is pretty strange. You have to do all sorts of things you never did before. But it’s enjoyable, too, in its own way most of the time, and I’m doing quite well for a beginner, my wife says. Her name is Kathleen. Please come and visit us and stay as long as you like. Kathleen joins me in this invitation. She says no matter how bad you are her father is worse, and living with him has taught her to fear neither man, beast, nor devil. Indeed it is true, she is very brave.
Love,
Carth.
You can imagine how angry the widow was when she read this letter. She fumed and raged and stamped her foot and clawed the air and smashed a whole roomful of furniture before the red mist of her tantrum cleared and a little sense came back. She seized the note and went rampaging down the road until she found Finn’s encampment.
“Good morning, widow,” he said. “I did not expect to see you again so soon.”
“Nor I you,” said the widow. “Look at this.”
She thrust the note at him. He read it and smiled.
“Well,” he said. “This seems to let me off the hook.”
“What hook? What hook? What do you mean off?”
“I mean I am no longer bound to find them. They have found themselves and told you where they are.”
“You still must help me,” she cried. “Don’t you see this is a trap? She forced him to write this weasel-worded invitation. He never did it himself, poor stupid intimidated darling. She made him write it, threatening some awful torment to his tender flesh. Now she awaits my coming with a meat cleaver up her sleeve and kettles full of poison brewing on the stove in case she gets to serve me tea. You must come with me and protect me against assassination like the young hero you are.”
“Perhaps if you speak gently to your son’s wife, and do not accuse her of kidnapping the lad by force, and try to treat her as a human being instead of some wild beast—why, then, perhaps, she in turn will hang up her meat cleaver and save her vial of poison for another occasion. And you two will sit and drink tea and converse like two civilized creatures. Is that not possible?”
“Drink tea with that murdering slut, is it, in her hollow-tree den? Give myself into her treacherous hands completely? And never see light of day again? Is that what you propose? No, my fine Finn, you must keep your hero vows and come with me, and help me thwart the plans of that red-headed young assassin, who has stolen away the innocent son, and now wishes to rid herself of the poor grievin’ mother.”
“Well, there’s no hope for it,” said Finn. “I see that I must accompany you on this charming visit. But I am not free until the day after the day after tomorrow.”
“So be it,” said the Widow. “In two days’ time you and I will go together to visit Kathleen ni Houlihan, and see what is to be done to save my boy.”
But it was not yet to be. On the evening of that day a mighty storm struck the coast, one of the worst in memory, sending huge seas to drown the beaches, tossing boulders like pebbles, leveling whole forests.
Finn was comfortable enough in his cave, and did not wholly regret the storm. “For,” he thought to himself, “it may be that the hollow tree where dwelt the troublesome bride and groom has fallen in the storm like so many trees, and they forced to search for another dwelling where the widow cannot find them. As for that harridan, who knows? Perhaps she was swept out to sea by a wave, or caught in the open by a wind and blown quite out of my life. Well, we’ll just wait and see.”
After the storm Finn was left alone. His companions, the cat and the hawk, had departed gleefully—for hunting is good in the aftermath of a storm. And the next day the widow appeared.
“Stir your stumps in there!” she called. “Today is the day you keep your promise, Finn. We go a-visiting, you and I.”
So it was that Finn on that fair, cold, blue-and-gold, after-the-storm morning found himself in the middle of a dreadful scene. For the raging widow hunted down the young couple. The hollow tree was gone. The forest itself was a tangled thicket of fallen timber where the great trees had been scythed down by the wind. But the woman let nothing discourage her. She followed her nose like a bloodhound, and led Finn straight to the banks of a river where stood the hull of a wrecked ship. Here Kathleen and her spouse had set up housekeeping.
There was no exchange of greetings. The widow let out a bloody howl and leaped right onto the ribbed hull of the ship, cocking her blackthorn cane to knock Kathleen’s head off her shoulders. But the girl never flinched. Swift as a snake striking, she reached her long arm and twisted the stick out of the widow’s clutch and broke it over her knee, then strode to the widow and stood facing her.
“Is this how you come a-calling, Mother dear? Were you never in all your long years taught manners, by any chance? Well, you’ve come to the right place to learn.”