The Foreigner Part 9

"What sort av a heart have ye, at all, at all?"

"A heart!" cried the Russian, rising from his chair. "Madam, my heart is for my country. But you would not understand.

My country calls me."

"Yer counthry!" repeated Mrs. Fitzpatrick with scorn.

"An' what counthry is that?"

"Russia," said the man with dignity, "my native land."

"Roos.h.i.+a! An' a b.l.o.o.d.y country it is," answered Mrs. Fitzpatrick with scorn.

"Yes, Russia," he cried, "my b.l.o.o.d.y country! You are correct.

Red with the blood of my countrymen, the blood of my kindred this hundred years and more." His voice was low but vibrant with pa.s.sion.

"You cannot understand. Why should I tell you?"

At this juncture Timothy sprang to his feet.

"Sit ye down, dear man, sit ye down! Shut yer clapper, Nora!

Sure it's mesilf that knows a paythriot whin I sees 'im.

Tear-an-ages! Give me yer hand, me boy. Sit ye down an' tell us about it. We're all the same kind here. Niver fear for the woman, she's the worst o' the lot. Tell us, dear man. Be the light that s.h.i.+nes! it's mesilf that's thirsty to hear."

The Russian gazed at the s.h.i.+ning eyes of the little Irishman as if he had gone mad. Then, as if the light had broken upon him, he cried, "Aha, you are of Ireland. You, too, are fighting the tyrant."

"Hooray, me boy!" shouted Tim, "an' it's the thrue word ye've shpoke, an' niver a lie in the skin av it. Oireland foriver! Be the howly St. Patrick an' all the saints, I am wid ye an' agin ivery government that's iver robbed an honest man. Go on, me boy, tell us yer tale."

Timothy was undoubtedly excited. The traditions of a hundred years of fierce rebellion against the oppression of the "b.l.o.o.d.y tyrant"

were beating at his brain and in his heart. The Russian caught fire from him and launched forth upon his tale. For a full hour, now sitting in his chair, now raging up and down the room, now in a voice deep, calm and terrible, now broken and hoa.r.s.e with sobs, he recounted deeds of blood and fire that made Ireland's struggle and Ireland's wrongs seem nursery rhymes.

Timothy listened to the terrible story in an ecstasy of alternating joy and fury, according to the nature of the episode related. It was like living again the glorious days of the moonlighters and the rackrenters in dear old Ireland. The tale came to an abrupt end.

"An' thin what happened?" cried Timothy.

"Then," said the Russian quietly, "then it was Siberia."

"Siberia! The Hivins be about us!" said Tim in an awed voice.

"But ye got away?"

"I am here," he replied simply.

"Be the sowl of Moses, ye are! An' wud ye go back agin?"

cried Tim in horror.

"Wud he!" said Nora, with ineffable scorn. "Wud a herrin' swim?

By coorse he'll go back. An' what's more, ye can sind the money to me an' I'll see that the childer gets the good av it, if I've to wring the neck av that black haythen, Rosenblatt, like a chicken."

"You will take the money for my children?" enquired the Russian.

"I will that."

He stretched out his hand impulsively. She placed hers in it.

He raised it to his lips, bending low as if it had been the lily white hand of the fairest lady in the land, instead of the fat, rough, red hand of an old Irish washer-woman.

"Sure, it's mighty bad taste ye have," said Tim with a sly laugh.

"It's not her hand I'd be kissin'."

"Bad luck to ye! Have ye no manners?" said Nora, jerking away her hand in confusion.

"I thank you with all my heart," said Kalmar, gravely bowing with his hand upon his heart. "And will you now and then look over--overlook--oversee--ah yes, oversee this little girl?"

"Listen to me now," cried Mrs. Fitzpatrick. "Can she clear out thim men from her room?" nodding her head toward Paulina.

"There will be no men in her house."

"Can she kape thim out? She's only a wake craythur anyway."

"Paulina," said her husband.

She came forward and, taking his hand, kissed it, Mrs. Fitzpatrick looking on in disgust.

"This woman asks can you keep the men out of your room,"

he said in Galician.

"I will keep them out," she said simply.

"Aye, but can she?" said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, to whom her answer had been translated.

"I can kill them in the night," said Paulina, in a voice of quiet but concentrated pa.s.sion.

"The saints in Hivin be above us! I belave her," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, with a new respect for Paulina. "But fer the love o' Hivin, tell her there is no killin' in this counthry, an' more's the pity when ye see some men that's left to run about."

"She will keep the children safe with her life," said Kalmar. "She had no money before, and she was told I was dead. But it matters not.

She is nothing to me. But she will keep my children with her life."

His trust in her, his contempt for her, awakened in Mrs. Fitzpatrick a kind of hostility toward him, and of pity for the wretched woman whom, while he trusted, he so despised.

"Come an' take an air o' the fire, Paulina," she said not unkindly.

"It's cold forninst the door."

Paulina, while she understood not the words, caught the meaning of the gesture, but especially of the tone. She drew near, caught the Irish woman's hand in hers and kissed it.

"Hut!" said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, drawing away her hand.

"Sit down, will ye?"

The Russian rose to his feet.

"I must now depart. I have still a little work to accomplish.

To-morrow I leave the city. Permit me now to bid my children farewell."

He turned to the girl, who held Paulina's baby asleep in her arms.