Part 22

Give us our rest, O Father, in thine own appointed time and of thy gracious olden fashion. Lay thy annulling seal upon the o'erlabored heart: drop thy healing nepenthe into the weary brain. Teach us not to fear that which brings us nearer to Thee. Suffer us to go to sleep with no more consciousness than the flowers that take no care for their awakening. Give us this last and best of all thy gifts--Parva domus, magna quies!

Hilaire O'Hagan sat in the September sunshine on the grass that skirted the roadside. For some time he had been examining with a stare of melancholy interest the worn toes of his boots. On his head was a dingy straw hat; to his form and limbs there hung a faded and creased coat and a pair of shiny black trousers;--he held in his hand five shillings which had been thrust into his hand when the prison gates had opened to him that morning. He had taken the money and swaggered out with a parting gibe at the constable who closed the doors behind him.

O'Hagan was an incorrigible rascal. Some years before, when he stood in the Assize Court, a venerable judge had told him so. "O'Hagan," said the judge grimly, "you are what I should term an incorrigible rogue, and I shall send you to prison for two years with hard labour. You have run across my path many times before. When you gain your liberty it will be very much to your advantage if you keep out of my way for good and all."

O'Hagan had received the sentence with the same impertinent smirk on his face as he had received many similar sentences.

Now he was a free man. He was powerful, full of health, and--lazy. He reflected aloud, with evident enjoyment (and in the speech of a lettered gentleman), "This is indeed one of those days when it is good to be alive!"

"O'Hagan!" came a sudden voice, harsh and authoritative, from behind him: He rose to his feet and faced about. In the roadway appeared the constable to whom he had addressed some not over polite remarks on his way out of prison.

"Well?" said O'Hagan.

The constable snorted. "Didn't you hear me tell you to move on? We don't want any habitual criminals hanging about here."

O'Hagan dived his hands deep into the pockets of his shiny trousers and slouched along towards the next village. About a mile ahead was an inn he knew of where he might enjoy a great refreshment, and drink the waters of Lethe. He jingled the silver in his pocket and reflected that for one night at least he could eat strongly, and drink largely, and sleep deeply.

* * * * *

Outside a house screened by a mysterious ten foot wall full of the plain dignity of unpretending age, a long grey motor car was standing. O'Hagan turned and surveyed it, and his quick eye rested upon a leather hand case on a rug beneath the seat. It did not take him a moment to snatch it and hide it swiftly beneath his coat. For a second or so he stood back against the wall. At that moment a girl came out of the house, in company with an elderly gentleman, and walked towards the car. O'Hagan looked at the girl swiftly. At the same time she glanced at him, and their eyes met. Things looked unhealthy for O'Hagan. But fate was altogether with him, and the motor moved off and left him standing there with the case under his coat. No glorious figure, this man, but one of those whom specialists now place amongst the doomed as cursed with the criminal instinct, with the vices that require lavish means to feed them--a man who only feels a thrill in life when he is preying on his fellows, or eluding the hand of justice.

* * * * *

O'Hagan walked down the road a little way with his hand resting lovingly on the leather case. He turned a corner, cut through the hedge, and took a track across a field. In the shelter of a clump of bushes he sat leisurely on the grass and went over the contents. Among the various odds and ends was a leather purse. He opened it with trembling fingers. There was a sovereign, five one pound notes folded up, eight shillings in silver, and a small silver cross hanging on a black silk riband. He dropped the silver with a sigh of satisfaction into his trousers pocket, and the notes he stored in the lining of his hat. He took up the little cross and was about to thrust it into the thick grass, when he paused for a moment, and was aware of an oppressive feeling.

On a sudden, in the midst of men and day, And while he sat and looked around, He seemed to be in a bygone age, And feel himself the shadow of a dream.

O'Hagan felt that his body was decreasing, sinking under the green turf, falling down, down, down, and yet "He" was still above, gazing, wondering, open-eyed, open-mouthed, as it were. Gradually, but none the less surely, he was being crowded round by many moving "?'s" which never seemed to grow distinct. He seemed to know at once he was back in the days long past. He shut his eyes against a burning that felt like tears. When he opened them again he was looking at his own name, fairly carved in on the silver cross in quaint old English letters:

Hilaire O'Hagan

The clump of bushes before him was now obscured by a thin white cloud. As he watched he was aware of a figure that stood out distinctly before him. He was a man of his own height, thick-set, serious-looking, in a monk's mantle and hood. O'Hagan gave a hurried glance, and as hurriedly turned his head away again. The face of the man exactly resembled his own. But it was an honest face, without the look of dissipation, and the secret furtive air, which he knew marred his own features. He also thought he could see a faint nimbus round his head--but this may have been illusion. O'Hagan moved away as if he had no wish to see him; but the stranger was not to be put off by any such trick. He touched O'Hagan's arm, and brought him to a standstill.

"Brother!" he said in a gentle voice.

O'Hagan pulled himself up sharply. For a moment it seemed as if he would have refused to stay, but the next he realized that it would be of no use.

"What do you want with me?" he began. "I know I'm a thief and a drunkard. Do you want to hand me a Sunday School tract? If so get it over."

The stranger's hand tightened on his arm, and he began to speak in a calm but strangely thrilling voice. "It is written there: 'men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry.'"

"Well?" said O'Hagan, trying to hold a countenance of little concern.

"Well?" said the stranger, "for why did you steal?"

O'Hagan coughed and held down his head.

"A man without scruple and without heart," the stranger remarked to himself.

O'Hagan looked up with a start. "Look here," he began. "You've no right to----"

Then of a sudden the mist began to rise from the clump of bushes and the stranger vanished. O'Hagan was back in the flesh. He stood there dazed for the moment, with the little cross clutched in his hand. He sat down again and tried to force his spirit back to the other scene, but in vain. He felt that he had been thrilled through and through. The oppression, however, unlike the stern-faced monk, did not vanish, it deepened. A throbbing headache came on, which refused to be shaken off, and eventually sent O'Hagan to the "Bell Inn" to drink still deeper of the waters of oblivion.

The day was already falling when he walked, jingling his silver, into the sanded bar of the "Bell Inn," and an hour or so later, when it began to fill with drovers and country folk, O'Hagan had looked much on the good brown ale. He was in fact becoming very noisy. Seated in a corner, he sang "Nell and Roger at the Wake" in a hoarse voice. The country folk grinned and looked at him curiously.