Men of No Property by Dorothy Salisbury Davis Page A

beard thick as a Connemara broom, the look of Norah, the scorn of Peg, the judgment of the captain, and above all, the meeting with Farrell after his threat to expose him. His legs bent beneath him as though his weight was more than their duty to carry. With God’s halt on a brazen tongue, the boy might have forgot the threat and remembered the plea. I’ve not the wits to match him, he thought of Farrell, nor the strength to stand up if he struck me. If he says he’s a priest, I’ll say “yes, Father” and to hell with it. He’ll have to settle all with the Almighty in the long run, and who am I to hold the whistle on a match like that?
    The seaman gave him a vulgar poke, and he leaped and scrambled up the ladder. “I sprung you then! Ho! I sprung you then, my lad!” the sailor cried in delight.
    While he waited on the bridge outside the captain’s cabin for his jailer to announce him, Lavery got a long look at the sea. There was the promise of land in it now, he thought, though nothing parted it from the sky. It was in the smell of the air, and in the great leaning-to of the emigrants who crowded the rail with the sun on their backs. Not a one looked up to him. Small wonder, him riding the captain’s walk, he thought. Land was their salvation. Wasted and bent, they seemed. How many had died while he was in exile? There was that blessing on him at least. He had been spared the agonies of the dying and the lamentations of the lonesome.
    The captain came out to him, and Farrell with him. Chums, he thought. The officer looked at him from top to toe before speaking. Then: “I’m releasing you, Lavery, on the good word of Mr. Russell. He is vouching for your good behavior until we land.”
    Mr. Russell still, Lavery thought. He said only: “Yes, your honor.”
    “You’ve learned your lesson, have you?”
    Not at your bloody knee, he thought. Again he said: “Yes, your honor.”
    The captain turned to Farrell. “I wish you well with him. Good day, sir.”
    Farrell merely nodded. What a delicate air he had, Lavery thought. A gentleman could answer a gentleman without opening his mouth. He had spoken to but one gentleman before in his life, and that was to ask if he could curry his horse while its master took his dinner at the inn where his mother charred. The worry a curry the horse had got, showing his great teeth in a grin every time Dennis laid the brush to him.
    “I’m obliged to you, sir, for speakin’ on me behalf to the captain.” Where the words came from he did not know. He had planned none of them. He hated them and the old habit which pushed them out before his wits could halt them.
    “He had a deaf ear,” Farrell said, “which apparently could be penetrated only after a change in the weather. I doubt that my petition had much to do with your release. You got the worst of it, Lavery, but there was small comfort anywhere aboard.”
    “Well, the worst is none too good for an Irishman,” he said. “Am I free now to go below where I’m more at home?”
    “From this day forward,” Farrell said. “… Are you listening, Lavery?”
    Dennis lifted his eyes, and finding the other man’s level with his stretched to his full height that he might have that advantage at least. “Aye, I’m listenin’.”
    “From now on,” Farrell said, “you are free to go wherever on this earth free men travel.”
    “By your leave, sir?” he said sarcastically, the boldness coming with the other’s wish to make him bold, and telling first his wish to hurt as he had been hurt.
    “By God’s leave,” Farrell said, “and by the revolt of free men the world over. Will you get it into your head that you’re beholden to no man?”
    “I’ll try to get used to the notion,” he said. “It comes easier with a full belly, but yous wouldn’t know that at all.” He struck what he expected was a thoughtful pose. “Yous’ll have an easier time of it stirrin’ a revolution in America. I might even join you myself