“Now Thady,” said Dr. O’Grady, “tell me exactly what happened and what the trouble is.”
“It was on account of my mentioning young Kerrigan’s wife,” said Gallagher.
“Young Kerrigan hasn’t got a wife,” said the Major.
“Better begin at the beginning,” said Dr. O’Grady. “If we knew how you arrived at whatever statement you made about young Kerrigan’s wife we’d be in a better position to judge what has to be done about it, Start off now at the moment when you went away in the motor-car. You went to Doyle’s farm, I suppose, as I told you, so as to show Mr. Billing the General’s birthplace.”
“In the latter end we got there,” said Gallagher, “but at the first go off I took him along the road past the workhouse.”
“That wasn’t quite the shortest route,” said Dr. O’Grady. “In fact you began by going in exactly the opposite direction.”
“After that we went round by Barney’s Hill,” said Gallagher, “and along the bohireen by the side of the bog, me telling him the turns he ought to take.”
“What on earth did you go there for,” said the Major, “if you wanted to get to Doyle’s farm?”
“When we’d passed the bog,” said Gallagher, “we took a twist round, like as we might be trying to cut across to the Dunbeg Road.”
“You seem to have gone pretty well all around the town,” said Dr. O’Grady. “I suppose you enjoyed driving about in a large motor. Was that it?”
“It was not,” said Gallagher, “but I was in dread to take him to Doyle’s farm not knowing what questions he might be asking about the General when we got there. I’d be glad now, doctor, if you’d tell me who the General was, for it’s troublesome not knowing.”
“There isn’t time,” said Dr. O’Grady, “to go into long explanations simply to satisfy your morbid curiosity. Go on with your story. What happened when you did get to the place? I suppose you got there in the end?”
“We did of course,” said Gallagher, “and I showed him the ruin of the little houseen, the same as you told me to. ‘And was it there,’ says he, ‘that the great General, the immortal founder of the liberties of Bolivia, first saw the light?’ ‘It was,’ says I. So he took a leap out of the motor-car and stood in front of the old house with his hat in his hand. So I told him about the way the landlords had treated the people of this country in times past, and the way we are meaning to serve them out as soon as we have Home Rule, which is as good as got, only for the blackguards of Orangemen up in the North. I told him——”
“I’m sure you did,” said Dr. O’Grady, “but you needn’t go over all that to us, particularly as the Major hates that kind of talk.”
“Nobody,” said Gallagher, “would want to say a word that was displeasing to the Major, who is well liked in this locality and always was. If only the rest of the landlords was like him, instead of——”
“Go on about the American,” said Dr. O’Grady, “did he throw stones at you while you were making that speech about Home Rule?”
“He did not,” said Gallagher, “but he stood there looking at the houseen with the tears rolling down the cheeks of him——”
“What?” said Dr. O’Grady, “do you mean to tell me he cried?”
“It was like as if he was going to,” said Gallagher, “and ‘the patriot statesman,’ says he, ‘the mighty warrior,’ says he, and more to that, the same as if he might be making a speech about the land and the league boys cheering him.”
“I’m rather bothered about that American in some ways,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Are you telling me the truth now, Thady, about what he said?”
“I am,” said Gallagher. “I’d take my oath to every word of it.”
“Either he’s a much greater fool than he looks,” said Dr. O’Grady, “or else—but I’ll find that out afterwards. Go on with your story, Thady. What happened next?”
“Well, after he’d cried about a saucerful——”
“I thought you said he didn’t actually cry?”
“It was like as if he was going to cry. I told you that before.”
“Come on, O’Grady,” said the Major. “What’s the use of listening to this sort of stuff?”
“Be quiet, Major,” said Dr. O’Grady. “We’re just coming to the point. Go ahead, Thady. You’d just got to the saucerful of tears. When he’d emptied that out, what did he do?”
“He asked me,” said Gallagher, “was there any relatives or friends of the General surviving in the locality? He had me beat there.”
“I hope you told him there were several,” said Dr. O’Grady.
“I did, of course. Is it likely I’d disappoint the gentleman, and him set on finding someone belonging to the General? ‘Who are they?’ said he. ‘Tell me their names,’ Well, it was there I made the mistake.”
“It was a bit awkward,” said Dr. O’Grady, “when you didn’t know who the General was.”
“What I thought to myself,” said Gallagher, “was this. There might be many a one in the locality that would be glad enough to be a cousin of the General’s, even if there was no money to be got out of it, and it could be that there would. But, not knowing much about the General, I wasn’t easy in my mind for fear that anybody I named might be terrible angry with me after for giving them a cousin that might be some sort of a disgrace to the family——”
“I see now,” said Dr. O’Grady. “You thought it safer to name somebody who didn’t exist. But what made you think of a wife for young Kerrigan?”
“It was the first thing came into my head,” said Gallagher, “and I was that flustered I said it without thinking.”
“Well, how did he take it?”
“He was mighty pleased, so he was. ‘Take me to her,’ he said. ‘Take me to see her this minute,’ Well, to be sure I couldn’t do that.”
“You could not,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Could he, Major?”
“I don’t see why not. He might have hired some girl for half an hour.”
“No decent girl would do it,” said Gallagher, “and anyway I wouldn’t have had the time, for he had me in the motor again before I knew where he was and ‘Show me the way to the house,’ says he. ‘You can’t see her at the present time,’ says I, ‘though you may later,’ ‘And why not?’ says he. ‘The reason why you can’t,’ says I, ‘is a delicate matter,’ ‘Oh!’ says he. ‘That’s the way of it, is it? I’m glad to hear of it. The more of the stock of the old General there are in the world the better.’ Well, when I seen him so pleased as all that, I thought it would be no harm to please him more. ‘It’s twins,’ I said, ‘and what’s more the both of them is boys,’ ‘Take me to see the father,’ says he. ‘I’ll be able to see him anyway. I’d like to shake him by the hand.’”
“Has he seen young Kerrigan?” said Dr. O’Grady.
“He has not; but he won’t rest easy till he does. I wanted to run round and tell young Kerrigan the way things are, so as he’d be ready when the gentleman came. But Doyle said it would be better for me to tell you what had happened before worse came of it.”
“Doyle was perfectly right Kerrigan would stand over your story all right as long as he could, but in the end he’d have had to produce the twins. That’s the awkward part. If you hadn’t said twins we might have managed. But there isn’t a pair in the town.”
“Couldn’t you telegraph to Dublin?” said the Major. “For a man of your resource, O’Grady, mere twins ought not to prove a hopeless obstacle. I should think that one of the hospitals where they go in for that kind of thing would be quite glad to let you have a brace of babies in or about the same age.”
O’Grady knew that this suggestion was not meant to be helpful. The Major had an objectionable habit of indulging in heavy sarcasm. He turned on him sharply.
“You’d better go home, Major. When you try to be facetious you altogether cease to be useful. You know perfectly well that there’s no use talking about importing babies. What would we do with them afterwards? You couldn’t expect young Kerrigan to keep them.”
“I offered to go home some time ago,” said the Major, “and you wouldn’t let me. Now that I’ve heard about young Kerrigan’s twins I mean to stop where I am and see what happens.”
“Very well, Major. Just as you like. As long as you don’t upset Billing by rolling up any of those heavy jokes of yours against him I don’t mind. Here we are. I expect Doyle has Billing in the bar trying to pacify him with whisky. You’d better stay outside, Thady.”
“I’d be glad of a drop then,” said Gallagher wistfully. “After all the talking I did this afternoon——”
“Oh, go in if you like,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Probably the safest thing for you to do is to get drunk. Here’s Billing crossing the street He’s just come out of Kerrigan’s shop. Why on earth Doyle couldn’t have kept him in play till I came.... He’s sure to have found out now that young Kerrigan isn’t married. This will make my explanation far more difficult than it need have been.”
“It will make it impossible, I should imagine,” said the Major.
Mr. Billing, his hands in his coat pockets and a large cigar between his teeth, came jauntily across the street. Dr. O’Grady greeted him.
“Good-evening, Mr. Billing,” he said. “I hope you’ve had a pleasant and satisfactory afternoon.”
Sergeant Colgan and Constable Moriarty came out of the barrack together. They joined the group opposite the hotel. Constable Moriarty was grinning broadly. He had evidently heard some version of the story about young Kerrigan’s twins.
“I am sorry to find,” said the doctor, “that Thady Gallagher made a mistake, and a bad one, this afternoon.”
“I reckon,” said Mr. Billing, “that he kind of wandered from the path of truth.”
“Young Kerrigan isn’t married,” said the doctor.
“The twins,” said Mr. Billing, “were an effort of imagination. I am a man of imagination myself, so I’m not complaining any.”
“Being a newspaper editor you have to be, of course,” said Dr. O’Grady. “But Gallagher’s story wasn’t pure imagination. It was rather what I’d call prophetic. The fact is young Kerrigan is going to be married. Gallagher only anticipated things a bit. I daresay he thought the ceremony had really taken place. He didn’t mean to deceive you in any way. Did you, Thady?”
He looked round as he spoke. He wanted Gallagher to confirm what he said.
“He’s within,” said Constable Moriarty, grinning, “and I wouldn’t say but he’s having a drink. Anyway, here’s Mr. Doyle.”
Doyle, having supplied Gallagher with a bottle of porter, came out of the hotel. He was naturally anxious to hear Dr. O’Grady’s explanation.
“The twins,” said Mr. Billing, “were considerable previous.”
“Not so much as you might think,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Once people get married, you know, Mr. Billing, it often happens—generally in fact—not necessarily twins, but more or less that kind of thing. I can quite understand Thady making the mistake. And the girl young Kerrigan’s going to marry really is a grandniece of the General’s. Thady was quite right there.”
“I’d like to see her,” said Mr. Billing. “I’d like to take a photograph of her. The Bolivian public will be interested in a photograph of General John Regan’s grandniece.”
“Run and get your camera then,” said Dr. O’Grady. “I’ll have her ready for you by the time you’re back.”
Mr. Billing, looking very well satisfied and quite without suspicion, went into the hotel.
“Doyle,” said Dr. O’Grady, “fetch Mary Ellen as quick as you can.”
“Is it Mary Ellen?”
“It is. Get her at once, and don’t argue.”
“But sure Mary Ellen’s not the grandniece of any General.”
“She’s the only grandniece we can possibly get on such short notice,” said Dr. O’Grady.
“I don’t know,” said Sergeant Colgan, “will Mr. Gallagher be too well pleased. Mary Ellen’s a cousin of his own.”
“Thady will have to put up with a little inconvenience,” said Dr. O’Grady. “He got us all into this mess, so he can’t complain.”
“I beg your pardon, doctor,” said Constable Moriarty, who had stopped grinning and looked truculent, “but I’ll not have it put out that Mary Ellen’s going to marry young Kerrigan. He’s a boy she never looked at, nor wouldn’t.”
“Shut up, Moriarty,” said Dr. O’Grady. “If you won’t call her, Doyle, I must do it myself. Mary Ellen, Mary Ellen, come here!”
“What’s the use of calling Mary Ellen?” said Doyle. “The girl knows well enough she’s not the niece nor the grandniece of any General. As soon as ever you face her with the American gentleman she’ll be saying something, be the same more or less, that’ll let him know the way things are with her.”
“If I know anything of Mary Ellen,” said Dr. O’Grady, “she’ll not say a word more than she need on any subject. I never could drag anything beyond ‘I did,’ or ‘I did not,’ or ‘I might,’ out of her no matter how hard I tried, Mary Ellen! Mary Ellen! Ah! here she is.”
Mary Ellen came slowly through the door of the hotel. She smiled when she saw Dr. O’Grady, smiled again and then blushed when her eyes lit on Constable Moriarty. Her face and hands were a little dirtier than they had been earlier in the day, but she had added a small, crumpled, white cap to the apron which she put on in honour of Mr. Billing. The sight of her roused all Constable Moriarty’s spirit.
“I’ll not have it done, doctor,” he said, “so there it is for you plain and straight. I’ll not stand by and see the character of a decent girl——”
“Whisht, can’t you,” said Mary Ellen.
“Sergeant,” said Dr. O’Grady, “this isn’t a matter in which the police have any business to interfere. No one is committing a crime of any sort. You’d far better send Moriarty back to the barrack before he makes a worse fool of himself than he has already.”
“Get along home out of that, Moriarty,” said the sergeant. “Do you want me to have to report you to the District Inspector for neglect of duty?”
The threat was a terrific one. Moriarty quailed before it. He did not actually go back to the barrack; but he retired to the background and did no more than look reproachfully at Mary Ellen whenever he thought she was looking his way.
“It’s a great pity,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that we haven’t time to wash her face. I might do something, even without soap and water, if I had a pocket-handkerchief. Major, just lend me—— Oh hang it! I can’t. Here comes Billing with his camera. Pull yourself together now, Mary Ellen, and try to look as if you were proud of your distinguished relative. It isn’t every girl of your age who has a General for a great uncle.”
Mr. Billing approached. The corners of his lips were twitching in a curious way. Dr. O’Grady looked at him suspiciously. A casual observer might have supposed that Mr. Billing was trying hard not to smile.
“This,” said Dr. O’Grady, pointing to Mary Ellen, “is the grandniece, the only surviving relative, of General John Regan.”
“You surprise me,” said Mr. Billing. “When I recollect that she cooked chops for my luncheon to-day I’m amazed.”
“The General wouldn’t have thought a bit the worse of her for that,” said Dr. O’Grady. “A true democrat, the General, if ever there was one. I daresay he often cooked chops himself, when campaigning I mean, and was jolly glad to get chops to cook.”
“So you,” said Mr. Billing, addressing Mary Ellen, “are the grandniece of the great General?”
“I might be,” she said.
“And I am to have the privilege—gentlemen, please stand a little aside. I wish to——”
Mr. Billing set up his camera and put his head under the black cloth. Constable Moriarty sidled up to Major Kent. Nothing had been said about Mary Ellen’s marriage with young Kerrigan. He felt that he had been unnecessarily alarmed.
“I beg your pardon, Major,” he said, “but maybe if you asked the gentleman he’d give me a copy of the photo when it’s took.”
“Talk to the doctor about that,” said the Major. “He’s managing this show. I’ve nothing to do with it.”
“I’d be backward about asking the doctor,” said Moriarty, “on account of what passed between us a minute ago when I thought he was wanting to take away the girl’s character.”
Mr. Billing completed his arrangements and stood beside his camera ready to release the shutter.
“You’re quite sure,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that you wouldn’t care to have her face washed?”
“Certain,” said Mr. Billing. “The General was a genuine democrat if ever there was one. He wouldn’t have thought a bit the worse of her for having a dirty face.”
Dr. O’Grady started slightly and then looked questioningly at Mr. Billing. It struck him that there was something suspicious about this repetition of his words. He glanced at the Major, at Doyle, and then at the two policemen. They all seemed completely absorbed in the taking of the photograph. Mr. Billing’s last remark had not struck them as in any way odd.
The shutter clicked. One of Mary Ellen’s sweetest smiles was secured on the sensitive plate. Constable Moriarty, greatly daring, asked Mr. Billing for a print of the photograph. Mr. Billing promised him a copy of the life of General John Regan when it appeared. He said that there would be a full page reproduction of Mary Ellen’s portrait in the second volume.
“The Major and I must be off,” said Dr. O’Grady, “but if I may call on you to-morrow morning, Mr. Billing, I should like to make arrangements about the public meeting. We want to have you at it.”
“The meeting?” said Doyle.
“The meeting about the statue,” said Dr. O’Grady. “By the way, Doyle, you might call on Father McCormack this evening.” He spoke with a glance at Mr. Billing which he hoped that Doyle would interpret correctly. “You’d better remind him that he’s to take the chair. He promised a week ago, but he may have forgotten. That’s the worst of these good-natured men,” he added, speaking directly to Mr. Billing. “They promise anything, and then it’s ten to one they forget all about it.”
“I’m not quite sure,” said Mr. Billing, “that my arrangements will allow me——”
“Oh, they will if you squeeze them a bit. Arrangements are extraordinary pliable things if you handle them firmly, and we’d like to have you. A speech from you about the General would be most interesting. It would stimulate the whole population. Wouldn’t it, Major?”
“I’d like to hear it,” said the Major.
“Good-bye then, for the present,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Come along, Major. By the way, Doyle, if Thady takes a drop too much to drink, and he may, don’t let him start boring Mr. Billing about Home Rule.”
He took Major Kent by the arm and walked off. Until they passed the end of the street and were well out on the lonely road which led to the Major’s house, neither of them spoke. Then the Major broke the silence.
“I hope, O’Grady, that you’re satisfied with that performance.”
“To tell you the truth, Major, I’m not.”
“I’m surprised to hear that,” said the Major. “You’ve told the most outrageous lies I ever heard. You’ve—-”
“I gave the only possible explanation of a rather difficult situation.”
“You’ve made a laughing stock of a respectable girl.”
“I’ve given Mary Ellen a great uncle that she ought to be proud to own. That’s not what’s bothering me.”
“What is, then?”
“That American,” said the doctor. “I don’t at all like the way he’s going on. He’s not by any means a fool——”
“He must be or he wouldn’t have swallowed all those lies you told him in the way he did. How could Mary Ellen possibly be———?”
“That’s just it,” said Dr. O’Grady. “He swallowed what I said far too easily. The situation, owing to Thady Gallagher’s want of presence of mind, was complex, desperately complex. I got out of it as well as any man could, but I don’t deny that the explanation I gave—particularly that part about Mary Ellen being engaged to young Kerrigan, was a bit strained. I expected the American would have shied. But he didn’t. He swallowed it whole without so much as a choke. Now I don’t think that was quite natural. The fact is, Major, I’m uneasy about Billing. It struck me that there was something rather odd in the way he repeated my words about the General being a genuine democrat. He gave me the impression that he was—well, trying to make fools of us.”
“You were certainly trying to make a fool of him.”
“I don’t quite understand his game,” said Dr. O’Grady, “if he has a game. I may be wronging him. He may be simply an idiot, a well-meaning idiot with a craze for statues.”
“He must be,” said the Major. “Nothing else would account for——”
“I doubt it,” said Dr. O’Grady. “He doesn’t look that kind of man. However, there’s no use talking any more about it to-night. I’ll be in a better position to judge when I’ve found out all there is to know about this General of his. I’ll write for the books I’ve mentioned, and I’ll write to a man I know in the National Library. If there’s anything known about the General on this side of the Atlantic he’ll ferret it out for me.”
Dr. O’Grady stopped speaking. The Major supposed that he had stopped thinking about Mr. Billing’s curious conduct. The doctor did indeed intend to stop thinking about it. But it is difficult to bridle thought. After walking half a mile in silence Dr. O’Grady spoke again, and his words showed that his mind was still working on the same problem.
“Americans have far too good an opinion of themselves,” he said. “Billing may possibly think he’s playing some kind of trick on us. He may be laughing at us in some way we don’t quite understand.”
“I don’t know whether he’s laughing or not,” said the Major, “but everybody else will be very soon if you go on as you’re going.”
It is very difficult to do anything of importance to the community without holding a public meeting about it. In Ireland people have got so accustomed to oratory and the resolutions which are the immediate excuse for oratory, that public meetings are absolutely necessary preliminaries to any enterprise. This is the case in all four provinces, which is one of the things which goes to show that the Irish are really a single people and not two or three different peoples, as some writers assert. The hard-headed, commercially-minded Ulsterman is just as fond of public meetings as the Connacht Celt. He would hold them, with drums and full dress speechifying, even if he were organising a secret society and arranging for a rebellion. He is perfectly right. Without a public meeting it would be impossible to enrol any large number of members for a society.
Dr. O’Grady, having lived all his life in Ireland, and being on most intimate terms with his neighbours, understood this law. He also understood that in order to make a success of a public meeting in Connacht and therefore to further the enterprise on hand, it is necessary that the parish priest should take the chair and advisable that a Member of Parliament should propose the first resolution.
He began by sending Doyle to Father McCormack. Doyle, foreseeing a possible profit for himself, did his best to persuade Father McCormack to take the chair. Father McCormack, who was a fat man and therefore good-natured, did not want to refuse Doyle. But Father McCormack was not a free agent. Behind him, somewhere, was a bishop, reputed to be austere, certainly domineering. Father McCormack was very much afraid of the bishop, therefore he hesitated. The most that Doyle could secure, after a long interview, was the promise of a definite answer the next day.
Father McCormack made use of the twenty-four hours’ grace he had secured by calling on Major Kent. The Major was a Protestant, with strong anti-Papal convictions, and therefore was not, it might have been supposed, a good man to advise a priest on a delicate question of ecclesiastical etiquette. But the Major was eminently respectable, and his outlook upon life was staidly conservative. Father McCormack felt that if Major Kent thoroughly approved of the erection of a statue to General John Regan it was likely to be quite a proper thing to do.
“I’m not sure,” said Father McCormack, “whether it will suit me to take the chair at this meeting the doctor’s getting up or not. I’m not sure, I say. Can you tell me now, Major Kent, who’s this American gentleman they’re all talking about?”
“I don’t know anything about him,” said the Major, “but I’m bound to say he looks like a Protestant. I don’t know whether that will make any difference to you or not.”
“From the little I’ve seen of him—just across the street from the window of the Presbytery—I’d say you were right about his religion, but I needn’t tell you, Major Kent, that I’m not a bigoted man. It wouldn’t stop me taking the chair if he was a Protestant. It wouldn’t stop me if he was a Presbyterian, and I can’t say more than that. You know very well that I’d just as soon be sitting on a committee alongside of a Protestant as any ordinary kind of man. I’m not one that would let religion interfere too much.”
“He seems quite respectable,” said the Major. “He’s been here three days now, and I never saw him drunk.”
“It’s not that either that’s troubling me,” said Father McCormack. “There’s many a man gets drunk when he can, and I’d be the last to make too much out of that.”
“I can’t tell you any more about him,” said the Major, “for that’s all I know, except that he appears to be rich.”
“The difficulty I’m in is on account of the bishop. He’s getting to be mighty particular. I don’t say he’s wrong, mind you; only there it is. But sure, if no one in the place has anything to say against the American gentleman it’s likely he’ll turn out to be all right. But what about the fellow they want to put up the statue to?”
“General John Regan,” said the Major.
“What about him? I never heard tell of him before.”
“For the matter of that, nor did I.”
“Who was he at all?”
“You’ll have to ask Dr. O’Grady that. He’s the only man who professes to know anything about him.”
“As I was saying to you this minute,” said Father McCormack, “I wouldn’t mind if he was a Protestant.”
“He hardly could be,” said the Major, “with that name.”
“There’s many a Protestant that might be just as well deserving of a statue as maybe a bishop. But what I’m afraid of is that this fellow might be worse. For let me tell you, Major, there’s worse things than Protestants, and I’m not saying that just because I’m talking to you. I’d say it to anyone.”
This gratified Major Kent, but it did not enable him to give any information about General John Regan.
“There’s no use asking me about him,” he said wearily. “Ask Dr. O’Grady.”
“If it was to turn out at the latter end,” said Faflier McCormack, “that he was one of those French atheists, or if he had any hand in hunting the nuns out of Portugal, the bishop wouldn’t be too well pleased when he heard that I’d been helping to put up a statue to him.”
“You’ll have to ask Dr. O’Grady. It’s no good asking me.”
“Will you tell me this, Major Kent, and I won’t ask you another question. Are you going to the meeting yourself?”
“I am.”
“Well now, you’re a man with a position in the place and you wouldn’t be going to a meeting of the sort unless it was all right. I’m inclined to think now that if you’re going—I wouldn’t give a thraneen for what Doyle might do. If that fellow saw half a chance of making sixpence by going to a meeting he’d go, if it was held for the purpose of breaking the windows of the Presbytery. That’s the sort of man Doyle is. And I wouldn’t mind Thady Gallagher. Thady is a kind-hearted poor fellow, though he’s a bit foolish at times; but he’s not the sort of man you could trust. He’s too fond of politics, and that’s a fact. Give Thady the opportunity of making a speech and you wouldn’t be able to keep him at home from a meeting, whatever sort of a meeting it might be. But it’s different with you, Major Kent.”
The Major was deeply touched by this eulogy; so deeply touched that he felt it wrong to leave Father McCormack under the impression that he was going to the meeting out of any feeling of admiration for General John Regan.
“The fact is,” he said, “that I wouldn’t go near the meeting if I could help it.”
“Is there anything against that General then?”
“It’s not that. It’s simply that I loathe and detest all public meetings, and I wouldn’t go to this one or any other if I could get out of it.”
“And why can’t you get out of it? A man needn’t go to a meeting unless he likes.”
“He must,” said the Major, “I must; any man must, if Dr. O’Grady gets at him.”
“That’s true, too,” said Father McCormack, “and I don’t mind telling you that I’ve been keeping out of the doctor’s way ever since Doyle asked me. I’d rather not see him till I have my mind made up the one way or the other.”
It was unfortunate for Father McCormack that Dr. O’Grady should at that moment have walked into the Major’s study without even knocking at the door. He had just received answers to his letters from four of the most eminent Irish Members of Parliament He had asked them all to attend a meeting at Ballymoy and make speeches about General John Regan. They had all refused, offering the very flimsiest excuses. Dr. O’Grady was extremely indignant.
“I don’t see what on earth use there is,” he blurted out, “in our keeping Members of Parliament at all. Here we are paying these fellows £400 a year each, and when we ask for a perfectly simple speech—— Oh, I beg your pardon, Father McCormack, I didn’t see you were here. But I daresay you quite agree with me. Every one must.”
“Father McCormack came here,” said the Major, “to ask about General John Regan.”
“Who is he at all?” said the priest.
“A general,” said Dr. O’Grady, “Irish extraction. Born in Ballymoy. Rose to great eminence in Bolivia. Finally secured the liberty of the Republic.”
“Father McCormack seems to think,” said the Major, “that he was some kind of anti-clerical socialist.”
“I said he might be,” said Father McCormack. “I didn’t say he was, for I don’t know a ha’porth about him. All I said was that if he turned out to be that kind of a man it wouldn’t suit me to be putting up statues to him. The Bishop wouldn’t like it.”
“My impression is———” said Dr. O’Grady. “Mind, I don’t say I’m perfectly certain of it, but my impression is that he built a cathedral before he died. Anyhow I never heard or read a single word against his character as a religious man. He may have been a little——” Dr. O’Grady winked slowly. “You know the kind of thing I mean, Father McCormack, when he was young. Most military men are, more or less. I expect now that the Major could tell us some queer stories about the sort of thing that goes on——”
“No, I couldn’t,” said the Major.
“In garrison towns,” said Dr. O’Grady persuasively, “and of course it’s worse on active service. Come now, Major, I’m not asking you to give yourself away, but you could——”
“No, I couldn’t,” said the Major firmly.
“What you mean is that you wouldn’t,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Not while Father McCormack is listening to you anyhow. And you may take my word for it that the old General was just the same. He may have been a bit of a lad in his early days——”
“I wouldn’t mind that,” said Father McCormack. “I wouldn’t mind that if it was twice as much, so long——”
“But he’d never have said anything really disrespectful in the presence of a clergyman of any denomination. Whatever his faults were—and he had faults, of course—he wasn’t that kind of man. So you needn’t hesitate about taking the chair at the meeting, Father McCormack. I defy the most particular bishop that ever wore a purple stock to find out anything really bad about the General.”
“If I have your word for that,” said Father McCormack, “I’m satisfied.”
“I’m not a rich man,” said Dr. O’Grady. “I can’t afford to lose money, but I’ll pay down £50 to any man who proves anything bad about the General. And when I say bad I don’t, mean things like——”
“I understand you,” said Father McCormack.
“I mean,” said Dr. O’Grady, “atheism of a blatant kind, or circulating immoral literature—Sunday papers, for instance—or wanting to turn the priests out of the schools, or not paying his dues——”
“I understand you,” said Father McCormack.
“I know what I’m talking about,” said Dr. O’Grady, “for I’ve had a man looking up all that’s known about General John Regan in the National Library in Dublin.”
At the very bottom of the main street of Ballymoy, close to the little harbour where the fishing boats nestled together in stormy weather, there is a disused mill. Corn was ground in it long ago. The farmers brought it from the country round about after the threshing was over, and the stream which now flows idly into the sea was then kept busy turning a large wheel. Since the Americans have taken to supplying Ireland with flour ready ground, bleached, and fit for immediate use, the Irish farmers have left off growing wheat. Being wise men they see no sense in toiling when other people are willing to toil instead of them. The Ballymoy mill, and many others like it, lie idle. They are slipping quietly through the gradual stages of decay and will one day become economically valuable to the country again as picturesque ruins. Few things are more attractive to tourists than ruins, and the country which possesses an abundance of them is in a fair way to grow rich easily. But it is necessary that the ruins should be properly matured. No man with an educated taste for food will eat Stilton cheese which is only half decayed. No educated tourist will take long journeys and pay hotel bills in order to look at an immature ruin. The decaying mills of Ireland have not yet reached the profitable stage of development. Their doors and windows are still boarded up. Their walls are adorned with posters instead of ivy. No aesthetic archaeologist has as yet written a book about their architecture.
The Ballymoy mill was the property of Doyle. He bought it very cheap when the previous owner, a son of the last miller, lapsed into bankruptcy. He saw no immediate prospect of making money out of it, but he was one of those men—they generally end in being moderately rich—who believe that all real property will in the end acquire a value, if only it is possessed with sufficient patience. In the meanwhile, since buildings do not eat, and so long as they remain empty are not liable for rates, the mill did not cost Doyle anything. He tried several times to organise schemes by means of which he might be able to secure a rent for the mill. When it became fashionable, eight or ten years ago, to start what are tailed “industries” in Irish provincial towns, Doyle suggested that his mill should be turned into a bacon factory. A public meeting was held with Father McCormack in the chair, and Thady Gallagher made an eloquent speech. Doyle himself offered to take shares in the new company to the amount of £5. Father McCormack, who was named as a director, also took five £1 shares. It was agreed that Doyle should be paid £30 a year for the mill. At that point the scheme broke down, mainly because no one else would take any shares at all.
A couple of years later Doyle tried again. This time he suggested a stocking manufactory. Stockings are supposed to require less capital than bacon curing, and, as worked out on paper, they promise large profits. Doyle offered the mill for £25 a year this time, and was greatly praised by Thady Gallagher in the columns of theConnacht Eaglefor his patriotic self-sacrifice. Another large meeting was held, but once more the public, though enthusiastic about the scheme, failed to subscribe the capital. A great effort was made the next year to induce the Government to buy the building for a £1,000, with a view to turning it into a Technical School. A petition was signed by almost everyone in Ballymoy setting forth the hungry desire of the people for instruction in the arts of life. Several Members of Parliament asked the Chief Secretary searching questions on the subject of the Ballymoy Technical School. But the Chief Secretary declared himself quite unable to wring the money out of the Treasury. Thady Gallagher wrote articles and made speeches which ought to have caused acute discomfort to the Prime Minister. But Doyle found himself obliged to give up the idea of a Technical School. He waited hopefully. In the end, he felt sure, some way of utilising the old mill would be found. In the meanwhile the building, though unprofitable to Doyle was not entirely useless. Its walls, boarded doors and windows, formed the most excellent place for the display of advertisements. The circuses which visited the town in summer covered a great deal of space with their posters. When retiring members of the Urban District Council wanted to be re-elected they notified their desire by means of placards pasted on the walls of Doyle’s mill. All public meetings were advertised there. Doyle himself made nothing out of these advertisements; but Thady Gallagher did. He printed the posters, and it was admitted by everyone that he did it very well.
Two days after his arrival in Ballymoy, Mr. Billing strolled down to the harbour. He was a man of restless and energetic disposition, but the visits which he received from Dr. O’Grady, and the speeches about Home Rule to which Gallagher subjected him, began to worry him. In order to soothe his nerves he used to spend an hour or two morning and evening looking at the fishermen who spent the day in contemplating their boats. There is nothing in the world more soothing than the study of a fisherman’s life on shore. When he is at sea it is probably strenuous enough. But then he very seldom is at sea, and when he is he is out of sight. Having, so to speak, drunk deeply of the torpor of Ballymoy harbour, Mr. Billing turned his face towards the shore and looked at the wall of Doyle’s mill. He was startled to find six new posters stuck on it in a row. They were all bright green. Mr. Billing read them with interest.
The announcement opened with a prayer, printed in large type: