Shiana/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
SHIANA'S RENUNCIATION.
The next morning, Shiana and his workmen were working at their very best. The soft whistling of the men, and the tapping of the little hammers, and the drawing and tightening of the waxed thread were going on as hard as if there were not a shoe or a boot being made in any other place on the dry land of Ireland.
"Who is that coming up?" said one of the men.
Every man raised his head except Michael.
"John Kittach, surely!" said another man.
Shiana sprang up, and out he went, down to meet John Kittach.
The two spent a good while walking across the field, back and forward, talking and discussing, but they were very far down, so that not one of the men was able to make out a word of the conversation. At last they parted. John Kittach turned west toward his own house. But Shiana, instead of returning to his work, faced east, taking the road to the town.
Michael jumped up and flung away the shoe that he had in his hands, and set off for his own house at a trot.
As soon as he was inside the door, "Mother!" said he, "look here; the match is made!"
"Nonsense!" said she.
"Oh, indeed it is," said he. "John Kittach was up a while ago, and he and Shiana were talking in the field for an hour, and then John Kittach went home, and Shiana is gone east to the priest's house."
"What were they saying in the field?" said she.
"I don't know," said he. "They were too far away from me."
Michael spoke truth. Shiana had gone to the priest's house, but indeed it was not to complete the match.
"God be with you, Shiana!" said the priest.
"Those shoes you sent me the other day are very comfortable."
"God and Mary be with you, and Patrick, Father! I am very glad you like the shoes. But what brought me here now to talk to you is this, that I am in a desperate difficulty."
"Indeed, Shiana, I am very sorry to hear that; and not only I, but there is not a person about the country, low or high, rich or poor, who would not be sorry. And indeed—and it is not because you are present that I say it—they would have a good right to be sorry."
"Many is the hard strait I have been through for a good while past, Father; but this is the sharpest grip that ever seized upon my heart. You know John Kittach's daughter?"
"Certainly, Shiana. Who doesn't know Mary? The most respected young woman in the parish."
"There isn't another like her walking the dew this day, Father, and the way things are with me this long time is, that I would give all I have in the world, and all that I ever had and ever will have, to be able to marry her."
"It is a pity you didn't tell me that long ago, my son. I am aware, in such a way that I am at liberty to tell it to you now, that Mary is of the same mind concerning you that you are concerning her."
"What is that you are saying, Father?" said Shiana, in great consternation.
"I am saying what I know, and that is that Short Mary's life will be the shorter for it if she is not married to you. She is wasting away before our eyes."
"Oh! God help my soul!" said Shiana. "Things are seven times worse than I had imagined!"
"What, are you out of your mind?" said the priest.
"Oh, I am not out of my mind, Father, nor out of my senses. I am only too well in possession of both. There is a poor woman there to the west, to whom I did a little favour the other day. She came to me, to do me a good turn, as she thought, and she spoke to me about this business. I thought I had given her to understand plainly enough that I had no possible chance of making a match with Short Mary, or with any other woman. I expected that she would have made it known to Mary herself and to her father, and that the matter would be dropped quietly, without trouble to anybody except myself. Instead of that, it appears that there is some unlucky fate driving it along and bringing it to a head in spite of my utmost opposition. The worthy man himself came walking up to see me this morning, to tell me that there was no man in Ireland whom he would rather have as a son-in-law than myself. And when I made it clear to him, as gently as I could, that there was no possibility of my ever marrying, you would think the night had fallen upon him in the middle of the day. And now, to crown all my misfortunes, I understand from you, Father, that Short Mary herself is suffering in health on account of it. It is a miserable business! It is a miserable and a disastrous business!"
The priest looked at him.
"Shiana," said he, "you are the most extra-ordinary man I have ever met in any place I have ever been in. When you came in I understood from you that there was just one thing breaking your heart, and that was that you were not able to marry Short Mary. Now, there is her father, with her own full consent, actually bestowing her upon you, and you have nothing to say but that it is a miserable and a disastrous business! What sort of man are you? Or what is it you want?"
"It is no wonder you should ask that question, Father," said Shiana. "It is hard to say what sort of man I am, or what it is that I want. Whatever sort of man I am, I have this to say about this match: it would be better for Short Mary to die the worst death that ever a human being died, than that I should marry her. That is the sort of man I am. If I could come across somebody who would speak to her and make that fact clear to her, and would give her the advice that would be best for her, that is, to put me out of her mind and out of her heart, and to give herself up to God as she has always done—that is what I want. I thought the widow would do it. If she did, she did not succeed in it. I asked John Kittach himself to do it, a while ago. I am afraid the man doesn't know what it would be best for him to do. I came te you, Father, expecting that out of the greatness of your experience and of your insight and of your own good common sense, you would do it, or that you would suggest what it would be best to do in the case."
"I am afraid, Shiana," said the priest, "that you are doing yourself a great injustice. I have known you well for a long time. The poorest day you ever had, I never heard anyone lay a farthing's worth to your charge. The day you were most independent, no one ever said that you wronged a workman, or that you had his labour without paying for it. Poor or rich, I never heard anyone say that he saw you come home drunk, or involved in a quarrel, or forgathering with bad company. No act of theft or plunder can be laid to your charge. No litigation or disputing or quarrelling can be laid to your charge. As for the people who have money of yours, it would be difficult to count them. I have never yet heard that you were strict in asking it back from them. I have often heard that some of them were unworthy of much favour being bestowed upon them. I cannot make out—do you see?—what is the reason that it would be better for her to die than that you should marry her."
"Don't search into the thing any further, Father," said Shiana. "A man knows best himself where the shoe pinches him. I came to ask your advice in order to break this match. Break it, unless you want to set her burning in hell! You have been counting over my good qualities. They are very little to count. Whatever good I have done, it was with one single intention I did it. I did it for the Saviour's sake (not making a boast of it to God!). But what good is it for me, if I do this wrong now?"
"Shiana," said the priest, "I think I understand the thing at last. You imagine that you would be doing a wrong to Short Mary if you were to marry her. You are refusing to do that wrong, for the sake of justice and right. You are trampling upon your own heart for the Saviour's sake"
He had no time to say more. No sooner did Shiana hear those words, "for the Saviour's sake," than he was outside the door at one bound, and was gone.