The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-05-04
THE BETTER MAN.
Mike sheehan tossed awake in the moon


well in request at the country gatherings,
but Of late, said the folk, the man had
turned queer. In that melancholy, stately
country by the sea madness-especially of
the quiet, melancholic kinds a thing
very common. A year ago wrestling
match between him and Jack Tierney had
gathered two counties to see it. No man
could say which was the champion. Now
one was the victor again the other. They
kept steady pace in their victories Jack,
too, was the captain of the Kilsallagh team
of hurlers, Mike of the Clonegalla. That
would be q great day for the men and
women of his following when either cham
pion should decisiveIy lead.
The country people scarcely guessed at
the time their champions became enemies.
Indeed it was secret locked in their own
breasts, scarcely acknowledged even when
in his most hidden moments each man
looked at the desires of his heart. 1t only
showed itself in a new ferceness and de-
termination in their encounters. Each
had sworn to himself to conquer the other.
The soreness between them came about
when, by some sad mischance, they fell
in love with the same girl. Worse luck,
she wanted neither of them, for she was
vowed to the convent In the long run
one or the other might have tempted her
to an earthly bridal, but she made no
choice between them, and each man 3
chance seemed equal when she slipped
from them both into Kilbride churchyard.
When she lay there, neither man could say
she had distinguished him by special kind
ness from the other, and their rivalry
waxed moro furious with the woman in
her grave.
But six months later, and their battles
still undecided, Jack Tierney fell sick and
followed Ellen to Kilbride. Then Mike
Sheehan was without an equal for many
? TO
with the girl of his heart dead and the one
man he had desired to overthrow dead
and unconquered. He secluded himself
from the sports and pastimes and lived
lonely in his cabin among the gulls, eat
ing out his unsatisfied heart None other
would satisfy him to wrestle with but his
dead rival, and indeed he, in common
with the country people, thought that no
other might be found fit for him to meet.
Kilbride churchyard is high on the
mainland and lies dark within its four
stone walls The road to it is by a tunnel
of trees that make a shade velvety black
even when the moon is turning all the sea
silver. The churchyard is very old and
has no monuments of importance, only
green headstones bent sideways and sunk
to their neck and shoulders in the earth.
A postern gate, with a fight of stone
steps, opens from KiIbride lane. Here
every night you may see the ghost Of To
bin, the murderer, climbing those steps
with a rigid burden hanging from his
shoulder.
But as Mike Sheehan assembled the steps
out Of the midnight dark he felt no fear.
He changed the gate of the sacred, quiet
place in way that set the silence echoing.
Some mad passion was on Mike Sheehan
surely, or he would not so have desecrated
the quiet resting place of the dead. There,
by the ruined gable of the old abbey, was
a fresh mound unusually great in size.
Mike Sheehan paused by it.
'',Jack, - he cried in a thunderous voice
hoarse with it's passion, "come, let US once
for all see which is the better man Come
and fight me, Jack, and if you throw me
let Ellen be yours now and forever
The blood was in his eyes and the sea
mist curling in from sea. His challenge
spoken, he swayed dizzily a moment. Then
his eyes saw. The place seemed full of the
sea mist silvered through with the moon.
As he looked to right and left substantial
things had vanished, but he saw on either
hand long rows of shadowy faces watching
him.
Many of them he knew. They were the
boys and girls, the men and women of his
own village who had died in many years.
Others were strange, but he guessed them
ghosts from Kilsallagh, beyond Roscar-
berry, the village where Jack used to live
He looked eagerly among the folk he re-
mem bered for Ellen's face. There was one
who might be she, the ghost of a woman
yelled in her shadowy hair, whose eyes he
could not see. And then Jack was upon
him.
That was a great wrestling in Kilbride
churchyard. The dead man wound about
the living with his clay cold limbs, caught
him in icy grips that froze the terrified
blood from his heart and breathed upon
him soundlessly chill breath of the grave
that seemed to wither him, yet Mike
fought furiously, as one who fights not
only to satisfy a hate, but as one who
fights to win a bride. He had a dim
knowledge of the eight he was making, a
dim premonition that the dead man was
more than his match. The ghostly spec
tators pressed forward more eagerly. Their
shadowy faces peered. Their sbadowy
forms swayed in the mist
The ghost had Mike Sheehan in a death
grip. His arms were imprisoned, his
breath failed, his flesh crept, and his hair
stood up He felt himself dying of the
horror of this unnatural combat, when
there was a whisper at his ear. Dimly he
seemed to hear Ellen s voice. Dimly turn
ing his falling eyes, he seemed to recog-
nize her eyes under the veil of ashen fair
hair. 'fDraw him to the left on the
grass said the voice, land trip him."
His old love and his old jealousy seemed
mendous effort he threw of those paralyz-
ing arms. Forgetting his horror, he furi-
ously embraced the dead, drew him to the
left on the grass, slippery as glass after
the summer heats, for a second or two
swayed with him to and fro; then the two
went down together with a great violence,
but Mike Sheehan was uppermost, his
knee on the dead mans breast.
When he came to himself in the moon
light, all was calm and peaceful. 1t was
close upon dawn, and the moon was very
low. He looked about him at the quiet
ness. Another man might have thought
he had but dreamed it; not so Nike
Sheehan- He remem bered with a fierce joy
how he had flung the ghost and how Ellen
had been on his side. You're mine now,
Rsthoreen,' he said in a passionate apos-
trophe to her, land it's I could find it in
my heart to pity him that's lying there
and has lost you. He was the fair fighter
ever and always and now he'll acknovvl-