A Romany of the Snows, Complete. Gilbert Parker

yer thumb in yer eye, Pierre! It’s like a baby’s, me breath is, milk and honey it is—aw yis; an’ Father Corraine, that was doin’ the trick for the love o’ God, says he to me, ‘Little Tim Macavoy,’—aw yis, little Tim Macavoy—says he, ‘when are you goin’ to buckle to, for the love o’ God?’ says he. Ashamed I was, Pierre, that Father Corraine should spake to me like that, for I’d only a twig twisted at me hips to kape me trousies up, an’ I thought ’twas that he had in his eye! ‘Buckle to,’ says I, ‘Father Corraine? Buckle to, yer riv’rince?’—feelin’ I was at the twigs the while. ‘Ay, little Tim Macavoy,’ he says, says he, ‘you’ve bin ‘atin’ the husks av idleness long enough; when are you goin’ to buckle to? You had a kingdom and ye guv it up,’ says he; ‘take a field, get a plough, and buckle to,’ says he, ‘an’ turn back no more’—like that, says Father Corraine; and I thinkin’ all the time ’twas the want o’ me belt he was drivin’ at.”

      Pierre looked at him a moment idly, then said: “Such a tom-fool! And where’s that grand leather belt of yours, eh, my monarch?”

      A laugh shook through Macavoy’s beard. “For the weddin’ it wint: buckled the two up wid it for better or worse—an’ purty they looked, they did, standin’ there in me cinch, an’ one hole left—aw yis, Pierre.”

      “And what do you give to Ida?” Pierre asked, with a little emphasis of the branding-iron.

      Macavoy got to his feet. “Ida! Ida!” said he. “Is that saddle for Ida? Is it her and Hilton that’s to ate aff one dish togither? That rose o’ the valley, that bird wid a song in her face and none an her tongue. That daisy dot av a thing, steppin’ through the world like a sprig o’ glory. Aw, Pierre, thim two!—an’ I’ve divil a scrap to give, good or bad. I’ve nothin’ at all in the wide wurruld but the clothes an me back, an’ thim hangin’ on the underbrush!”—giving a little twist to the twigs. “An’ many a meal an’ many a dipper o’ drink she’s guv me, little smiles dancin’ at her lips.”

      He sat down in the doorway again, with his face turned towards Pierre, and the back of his head in the sun. He was a picture of perfect health, sumptuous, huge, a bull in beauty, the heart of a child looking out of his eyes, but a sort of despair, too, in his bearing.

      Pierre watched him with a furtive humour for a time, then he said languidly: “Never mind your clothes, give yourself.”

      “Yer tongue in yer cheek, me spot o’ vinegar. Give meself! What’s that for? A purty weddin’ gift, says I? Handy thing to have in the house! Use me for a clothes-horse, or shtand me in the garden for a fairy bower-aw yis, wid a hole in me face that’d ate thim out o’ house and home!”

      Pierre drew a piece of brown paper towards him, and wrote on it with a burnt match. Presently he held it up. “Voila, my simple king, the thing for you to do: a grand gift, and to cost you nothing now. Come, read it out, and tell me what you think.”

      Macavoy took the paper, and in a large, judicial way, read slowly:

      “On demand, for value received, I promise to pay to … IDA HILTON … or order, meself, Tim Macavoy, standin’ seven foot three on me bare fut, wid interest at nothin’ at all.”

      Macavoy ended with a loud smack of the lips. “McGuire!” he said, and nothing more.

      McGuire was his strongest expression. In the most important moments of his career he had said it, and it sounded deep, strange, and more powerful than many usual oaths. A moment later he said again “McGuire!” Then he read the paper once more out loud. “What’s that, me Frinchman?” he asked. “What Ballzeboob’s tricks are y’at now?”

      Pierre was complacently eyeing his handiwork on the saddle. He now settled back with his shoulders to the wall, and said: “See, then, it’s a little promissory note for a wedding-gift to Ida. When she says some day, ‘Tim Macavoy, I want you to do this or that, or to go here or there, or to sell you or trade you, or use you for a clothes-horse, or a bridge over a canyon, or to hold up a house, or blow out a prairie-fire, or be my second husband,’ you shall say, ‘Here I am’; and you shall travel from Heaven to Halifax, but you shall come at the call of this promissory.”

      Pierre’s teeth glistened behind a smile as he spoke, and Macavoy broke into a roar of laughter. “Black’s the white o’ yer eye,” he said at last, “an’ a joke’s a joke. Seven fut three I am, an’ sound av wind an’ limb—an’ a weddin’-gift to that swate rose o’ the valley! Aisy, aisy, Pierre. A bit o’ foolin’ ’twas ye put on the paper, but truth I’ll make it, me cock o’ the walk. That’s me gift to her an’ Hilton, an’ no other. An’ a dab wid red wax it shall have, an’ what more be the word o’ Freddy Tarlton the lawyer?”

      “You’re a great man,” said Pierre with a touch of gentle irony, for his natural malice had no play against the huge ex-king of his own making. With these big creatures—he had connived with several in his time—he had ever been superior, protective, making them to feel that they were as children beside him. He looked at Macavoy musingly, and said to himself: “Well, why not? If it is a joke, then it is a joke; if it is a thing to make the world stand still for a minute sometime, so much the better. He is all waste now. By the holy, he shall do it. It is amusing, and it may be great by and by.”

      Presently Pierre said aloud: “Well, my Macavoy, what will you do? Send this good gift?”

      “Aw yis, Pierre; I shtand by that from the crown av me head to the sole av me fut sure. Face like a mornin’ in May, and hands like the tunes of an organ, she has. Spakes wid a look av her eye and a twist av her purty lips an’ swaying body, an’ talkin’ to you widout a word. Aw motion—motion—motion; yis, that’s it. An’ I’ve seen her an tap av a hill wid the wind blowin’ her hair free, and the yellow buds on the tree, and the grass green beneath her feet, the world smilin’ betune her and the sun: pictures—pictures, aw yis! Promissory notice on demand is it anny toime? Seven fut three on me bare toes—but Father o’ Sin! when she calls I come, yis.”

      “On your oath, Macavoy?” asked Pierre; “by the book av the Mass?”

      Macavoy stood up straight till his head scraped the cobwebs between the rafters, the wild indignation of a child in his eye. “D’ye think I’m a thafe to stale me own word? Hut! I’ll break ye in two, ye wisp o’ straw, if ye doubt me word to a lady. There’s me note av hand, and ye shall have me fist on it, in writin’, at Freddy Tarlton’s office, wid a blotch av red an’ the Queen’s head at the bottom. McGuire!” he said again, and paused, puffing his lips through his beard.

      Pierre looked at him a moment, then waving his fingers idly, said, “So, my straw-breaker! Then tomorrow morning at ten you will fetch your wedding-gift. But come so soon now to M’sieu’ Tarlton’s office, and we will have it all as you say, with the red seal and the turn of your fist—yes. Well, well, we travel far in the world, and sometimes we see strange things, and no two strange things are alike—no; there is only one Macavoy in the world, there was only one Shon McGann. Shon McGann was a fine fool, but he did something at last, truly yes: Tim Macavoy, perhaps, will do something at last on his own hook. Hey, I wonder!” He felt the muscles of Macavoy’s arm musingly, and then laughed up in the giant’s face. “Once I made you a king, my own, and you threw it all away; now I make you a slave, and we shall see what you will do. Come along, for M’sieu’ Tarlton.”

      Macavoy dropped a heavy hand on Pierre’s shoulder. “ ’Tis hard to be a king, Pierre, but ’tis aisy to be a slave for the likes o’ her. I’d kiss her dirty shoe sure!”

      As they passed through the door, Pierre said, “Dis done, perhaps, when all is done, she will sell you for old bones and rags. Then I will buy you, and I will burn your bones and the rags, and I will scatter to the four winds of the earth the ashes of a king, a slave, a fool, and an Irishman—truly!”

      “Bedad, ye’ll have more earth in yer hands then, Pierre, than ye’ll ever earn, and more heaven than ye’ll ever shtand in.”

      Half