'For five pounds of flesh,' said the man.
'Have you bargained for any drop of his blood?' said lady O'Conor.
'For no blood,' said the man.
'Cut out the flesh,' said lady O'Conor, 'but if you spill one drop
of his blood I'll put that through you.' And she put a pistol to his
head.
The little man went away and they saw no more of him.
When they got home to their castle they made a great supper, and
they invited the Captain and the old hag, and the old woman that had
pulled the lady O'Conor out of the sea.
After they had eaten well the lady O'Conor began, and she said they
would all tell their stories. Then she told how she had been saved
from the sea, and how she had found her husband.
Then the old woman told her story; the way she had found the lady
O'Conor wet, and in great disorder, and had brought her in and put
on her some old rags of her own.
The lady O'Conor asked the Captain for his story; but he said they
would get no story from him. Then she took her pistol out of her
pocket, and she put it on the edge of the table, and she said that
any one that would not tell his story would get a bullet into him.
Then the Captain told the way he had got into the box, and come over
to her bed without touching her at all, and had taken away the
rings.
Then the lady O'Conor took the pistol and shot the hag through the
body, and they threw her over the cliff into the sea.
That is my story.
It gave me a strange feeling of wonder to hear this illiterate
native of a wet rock in the Atlantic telling a story that is so full
of European associations.
The incident of the faithful wife takes us beyond Cymbeline to the
sunshine on the Arno, and the gay company who went out from Florence
to tell narratives of love. It takes us again to the low vineyards
of Wurzburg on the Main, where the same tale was told in the middle
ages, of the 'Two Merchants and the Faithful Wife of Ruprecht von
Wurzburg.'
The other portion, dealing with the pound of flesh, has a still
wider distribution, reaching from Persia and Egypt to the Gesta
Rornanorum, and the Pecorone of Ser Giovanni, a Florentine notary.
The present union of the two tales has already been found among the
Gaels, and there is a somewhat similar version in Campbell's Popular
Tales of the Western Highlands.
Michael walks so fast when I am out with him that I cannot pick my
steps, and the sharp-edged fossils which abound in the limestone
have cut my shoes to pieces.
The family held a consultation on them last night, and in the end it
was decided to make me a pair of pampooties, which I have been
wearing to-day among the rocks.
They consist simply of a piece of raw cowskin, with the hair
outside, laced over the toe and round the heel with two ends of
fishing-line that work round and are tied above the instep.
In the evening, when they are taken off, they are placed in a basin
of water, as the rough hide cuts the foot and stocking if it is
allowed to harden. For the same reason the people often step into
the surf during the day, so that their feet are continually moist.
At first I threw my weight upon my heels, as one does naturally in a
boot, and was a good deal bruised, but after a few hours I learned
the natural walk of man, and could follow my guide in any portion of
the island.
In one district below the cliffs, towards the north, one goes for
nearly a mile jumping from one rock to another without a single
ordinary step; and here I realized that toes have a natural use, for
I found myself jumping towards any tiny crevice in the rock before
me, and clinging with an eager grip in which all the muscles of my
feet ached from their exertion.
The absence of the heavy boot of Europe has preserved to these
people the agile walk of the wild animal, while the general
simplicity of their lives has given them many other points of
physical perfection. Their way of life has never been acted on by
anything much more artificial than the nests and burrows of the
creatures that live round them, and they seem, in a certain sense,
to approach more nearly to the finer types of our aristocracies - who
are bred artificially to a natural ideal - than to the labourer or
citizen, as the wild horse resembles the thoroughbred rather than
the hack or cart-horse. Tribes of the same natural development are,
perhaps, frequent in half-civilized countries, but here a touch of
the refinement of old societies is blended, with singular effect,
among the qualities of the wild animal.
While I am walking with Michael some one often comes to me to ask
the time of day. Few of the people, however, are sufficiently used
to modern time to understand in more than a vague way the convention
of the hours, and when I tell them what o'clock it is by my watch
they are not satisfied, and ask how long is left them before the
twilight.
The general knowledge of time on the island depends, curiously
enough, on the direction of the wind. Nearly all the cottages are
built, like this one, with two doors opposite each other, the more
sheltered of which lies open all day to give light to the interior.
If the wind is northerly the south door is opened, and the shadow of
the door-post moving across the kitchen floor indicates the hour; as
soon, however, as the wind changes to the south the other door is
opened, and the people, who never think of putting up a primitive
dial, are at a loss.
