The Devil in the Quiet Man
Long ago, there lay a village at the
foot of the Mountains of Mourne. A collection of drab, white-washed cottages
topped with yellow and brown thatch, long since swallowed by the marshy earth,
and mists of time. One day a stranger rode into town on a tall black horse.
“The name’s Flanagan,” he said in an
exotic Yankee drawl, as he stooped to enter a smoky hostelry. He had returned
to the old country in search of his relatives, he told the assembled patrons.
None had heard of any Flanagans living locally. Save for one old boy, but he
kept his whist, drained his whiskey and slunk out the door.
He had a memory of a Flanagan
alright, Mary Flanagan. He was but knee high to a grasshopper at the time, but
he still remembered vividly the night they dragged her, spitting and cursing
from her cottage. Witch and Devil’s harlot they called her. His face was
pressed to his mother’s skirts, lest he witness the black deed done that day.
But he still remembered her screams and the thick cloying scent of burning
flesh in his nostrils.
“Can I buy you boys a drink,” the
tall Yank asked three local lads.
“Aye, sir. That’d be grand.” The
three supped the pints of porter and small balls of golden malt presented to
them.
“Do ye like a game o’ chance?” They
asked the stranger, winking at each other, for they had a quare way of dealing
a hand of cards, in the shadow of the Mourne Mountains
“Why I like nothing better,” the
stranger grinned, good naturedly, as he stroked grey, drooping whiskers. With
neither a curse nor a frown the strangers pile of Yankee dollars crossed the
table, while the boys drunk his black ale and gut twisting whiskey. “Well
you’ve plum cleaned me out, I’ll grant ya that. I’ve not a dime left.” he said.
The local lads had done well, but
greed is an awful thing and the accumulation of wealth is as frustrating to a
young man as chasing its tail is to a dog. “Have ye naught left to wager, what
about yer watch?” Asked one.
“Or yer gold cufflinks?” Asked
another.
“Well I do have one thing,” the
stranger grinned, fishing a gold sovereign, thick as your thumb, from his
waistcoat pocket. “What would you boys stake for this little ol’ thing?” The
three young men gawped, they’d never seen its like, doubted anyone within sight
of the mountain, or the whole county even, save maybe the Lord Lieutenant, had
cast their eyes on such a prize as was presented to them by the strange
foreigner. “Would you bet your immortal
soul?” the man asked. The three boys, blinded by greed and coveting the
treasure like nothing they had ever wanted before failed to notice the sly look
cross the man’s dark eyes.
The old villager who ran from the
inn reached his cottage just as a wind wailed across the rocky peaks, he
shivered at remembered tales, from his youth, of banshees and malign spirits,
ghosts of aggrieved ancestors riding the mountain winds.
The stranger put down his cards,
four aces. The boys put down there’s one by one. All their cards were blank,
not a mark, not a symbol. The man began to laugh, not the good natured rumble
of before but a harsh, mocking cackle. The three young men of the village
covered their ears with their hands, but nothing could drown the demonic howl.
The old man heard laughter in the
air, a woman’s laughter. An image of Mary Flanagan’s dour, hard face came
unbidden to his mind, sending a shiver of icy fear and feeling of doom piercing
through him, chilling his veins.
