“GOD SAVE IRELAND,”GENERAL JOHN REGAN
This was repeated at the bottom of each poster in the Irish language, which Mr. Billing could not read. Next to the prayer, in very much larger type, came the words:
“A PUBLIC MEETING,”
Then, in quite small letters:
“WILL BE HELD ON TUESDAY NEXT AT 3 P. M.IN THE MARKET SQUARE, OPPOSITE THE ‘IMPERIAL HOTEL.’”
Mr. Billing read on and learned that Father McCormack would take the chair, that several distinguished Members of Parliament would address the meeting, that Mr. T. Gallagher, Chairman U. D. C., would also speak, and that—here the letters became immense—Mr. Horace P. Billing, of Bolivia, would give an account of the life of General John Regan, in whose honour it was proposed to erect a statue in Ballymoy.
Mr. Billing smiled. Then he turned and walked briskly to the hotel. He found Doyle and Thady Gallagher seated together on the bench outside the door. He addressed them cheerfully:
“Say, gentlemen,” he said, “that doctor of yours seems to have got a move on this locality. The announcement of the meeting is a good thing, sure.”
“The doctor,” said Doyle, “is a fine man; but it would be better for him if he’d pay what he owes. I’m tired, so I am, of trying to get my money out of him.”
“The doctor,” said Gallagher, “has the good of the locality at heart, and whatever it might be that he takes in hand will be carried through. You may rely on the doctor.”
Thady Gallagher had not yet been paid for printing the green posters. But he had every hope he would be when Mr. Billing handed over his subscription to the statue fund. He felt, it right to do all in his power to encourage Mr. Billing. Doyle, on the other hand, was becoming despondent. He did not like to see money which ought to be his frittered away on posters and the other necessary expenses of a public meeting. He was much less inclined to admire, the doctor’s enterprise.
“I guess,” said Mr. Billing, “that these Congressmen will draw some.”
“If you mean the Members of Parliament,” said Doyle, “the doctor told me this morning that they said they’d more to do than to be attending his meetings.”
“It could be,” said Gallagher hopefully, “that one of them might.”
“They will not,” said Doyle.
“We’ll do without them,” said Mr. Billing.
“That’s what the doctor said to me,” said Gallagher. “‘We’ll do without them, Thady,’ said he, ‘so long as we have Mr. Billing and Father McCormack and yourself,’ meaning me, ‘we’ll have a good meeting if there never was a Member of Parliament near it.’ And that’s true too.”
“If the doctor,” said Doyle, “would pay what he owes instead of wasting his time over public meetings and statues and the like it would be better. Not that I’d say a word against the statue, or, for the matter of that, against the doctor, who’s well liked in the town by all classes.”
The Tuesday fixed for the meeting was a well chosen day. It was the occasion of one of the largest fairs held in Ballymoy during the year. The country people, small farmers and their wives, flock into the town whenever there is a fair. The streets are thronged with cattle lowing miserably. “Buyers,” men whose business it is to carry the half-fed Connacht beasts to the fattening pastures of Meath and Kildare, assemble in large numbers and haggle over prices from early dawn till noon. No better occasion for the exploitation of a cause could possibly be chosen. And three o’clock was a very good hour. By that time the business of the fair is well over. The buying and selling is finished. But no one has gone home, and no one is more than partially drunk. It is safe to expect that everybody will welcome the entertainment that a meeting affords during the dull time which must intervene between the finishing of the day’s business and the weary journey home.
The green posters were distributed far and wide. They adorned every gatepost and every wall sufficiently smooth to hold them within a circle of three miles radius around the town. There was some talk beforehand about the meeting. But on the whole the people displayed very little curiosity about General John Regan. It was taken for granted that he had been in some way associated with the cause of Irish Nationality, and one or two people professed to recollect that he had fought on the side of the Boers during the South African War. Whoever he was, the people were inclined to support the movement for erecting a statue to him by cheering anything which Thady Gallagher said. But they did not intend to support it in any other way. The Connacht farmer is like the rest of the human race in his dislike of being asked to subscribe to anything. He is superior to most other men in his capacity for resisting the pressure of the subscription list.
On the Saturday before the meeting Gallagher published a long article on the subject of the General in theConnacht Eagle. It was read, as all Gallagher’s articles were, with respectful attention. Everybody expected to find out by reading it who the General was. Everyone felt, as he read it, or listened to it read aloud, that he was learning all he wanted to know, and did not discover until he came to talk the matter over afterwards with his friends that he knew no more when he had read the article than he did before.
It was not Thady Gallagher but Dr. O’Grady who wrote the article. Thady made several attempts and then gave up the matter in despair. Dr. O’Grady, though he was extremely busy at the time, had to do the writing. It was very well done, and calculated to heat to the boiling point the enthusiasm of all patriotic people. He began by praising Thomas Emmet. He passed from him to Daniel O’Connell. He recommended everyone to read John Mitchell’s “Jail Journal.” He described the great work done for Ireland by Charles Stewart Parnell. Then he said that General John Regan was, in his own way, at least the equal, possibly the superior, of any of the patriots he had named. He wound up the composition with the statement that it was unnecessary to recapitulate the great deeds of the General, because every Irishman worthy of the name knew all about them already.
No one read the article with more eagerness and expectation than Gallagher himself. As the day of the meeting drew nearer he was becoming more and more uncomfortable about his speech. He had not been able to find out either from Doyle or from Father McCormack anything whatever about the General. He did not want much. He was a practised orator and could make a very small amount of information go a long way in a speech, but he did want something, if it was only a date to which he might attach the General’s birth or death. Doyle and the priest steadily referred him to Dr. O’Grady. From Sergeant Colgan he got nothing except a guess that the General might have been one of the Fenians. Dr. O’Grady, before the appearance of the article, promised that it would contain all that anyone needed to know. After the article was published Gallagher was ashamed to ask for further information, because he did not want to confess himself an Irishman unworthy of the name.
Doyle also was dissatisfied and became actually restive after the appearance of Saturday’sConnacht Eagle. He was not in the least troubled by the vagueness of the leading article. He was not one of the speakers at the meeting, and it did not matter to him whether he knew anything about General John Regan or not. What annoyed him was the publication, in the advertisement columns of the paper, of a preliminary list of subscribers. In the first place such an advertisement cost money and could only be paid for out of Mr. Billing’s subscription, thus further diminishing the small balance on which he was calculating as some compensation for the irrecoverable debt owed to him by Dr. O’Grady. In the second place his name appeared on the list as a donor, not of £5, but of £10. He knew perfectly well that he would not be expected to pay any subscription, but he was vaguely annoyed at the threat of such a liability.
On Sunday afternoon he called on Dr. O’Grady.
“Wasn’t it agreed,” he said, “that I was to be the treasurer of the fund for putting up the statue?”
“It was,” said Dr. O’Grady, “and you are the treasurer. Didn’t you see your name printed in theConnacht Eagle, ‘Secretary, Dr. Lucius O’Grady. Treasurer, J. Doyle’?”
“If I’m the treasurer it’s no more than right that I should have some say in the way the money’s being spent, for let me tell you, doctor—and I may as well speak plain when I’m at it—I’m not satisfied. I’ve had some correspondence with a nephew of mine who’s in that line of business himself up in Dublin, and he tells me that £100 is little enough for a statue of any size. Now I’m not saying that I want to close the account with a balance in hand——”
“It’s what you do want, Doyle, whether you say it or not.”
“But,” said Doyle ignoring this interruption, “it wouldn’t suit me if there was any debt at the latter end. For it’s myself would have to pay it if there was, and that’s what I’d not be inclined to do. The way you’re spending money on posters and advertisements there’ll be very little of the American gentleman’s £100 left when it comes to buying the statue.”
“I see your point all right, Doyle, but——”
“If you see it,” said Doyle, “I’m surprised at you going on the way you are; but, sure, I might have known that you wouldn’t care how much you’d spend or how much you’d owe at the latter end. There’s that £60——”
“Don’t harp on about that miserable £60,” said Dr. O’Grady, “for I won’t stand it. Here I am doing the very best I can to make money for you, taking no end of trouble, and all you do is to come grumbling to me day after day about some beggarly account that I happen to owe you.”
“It’s what I don’t see is how I’m going to make a penny out of it at all, the way you’re going on.”
“Listen to me now, Doyle. Supposing—I just say supposing—the Government was to build a pier, a new pier, in Ballymoy, who do you think would get the contract for the job?”
“I would, of course,” said Doyle, “for there’d be no other man in the town fit to take it.”
“And how much do you suppose you’d make out of it?”
“What’s the use of talking that way?” said Doyle. “Hasn’t the Government built us two piers already, and is it likely they’d build us another?”
“That’s not the point. What I’m asking you is: Supposing they did build another and you got the contract for it, how much do you suppose you’d make?”
“Well,” said Doyle, “if it was a good-sized pier and if the engineer they sent down to inspect the work wasn’t too smart altogether I might clear £100.”
“Now, suppose,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that you were able to sell the stones of that old mill of yours——”
“They’re good stones, so they are.”
“Exactly, and you’d expect a good price for them. Now suppose you succeeded in selling them to the Government as raw material for the pier——”
“They’d be nice and handy for the work,” said Doyle. “Whoever was to use those stones for building the pier would save a devil of a lot of expense in carting.”
“That, of course, would be considered in fixing the price of the stones.”
“It would,” said Doyle. “It would have to be, for I wouldn’t sell them without it was.”
“Under those circumstances,” said Dr. O’Grady, “what do you suppose you’d make?”
“I’d make a tidy penny,” said Doyle.
“Very well. Add that tidy penny to the £100 profit on the pier contract and it seems to me that it would pay you to lose a couple of pounds—and I don’t admit that you will lose a penny—over the statue business.”
The mention of the statue brought Doyle back from a pleasant dream to the region of hard fact.
“What’s the good of talking?” he said. “The Government will build no more piers here.”
“I’m not so sure of that. If we were to get a hold of one of the real big men, say the Lord-Lieutenant, if we were to bring him down here and do him properly—flags, you know, Doyle, and the town band, and somebody with a bouquet of flowers for his wife, and somebody else—all respectable people, Doyle—with an illuminated address—and if we were all to stand round with our hats in our hands and cheer—in fact if we were to do all the things that those sort of fellows really like to see done——”
“We could have flags,” said Doyle, “and we could have the town band, and we could have all the rest of what you say; but what good would they be? The Lord-Lieutenant wouldn’t come to Ballymoy. It’s a backward place, so it is.”
“I’ll get to that in a minute,” said Dr. O’Grady. “But just suppose now that we had him and did all the things I say, do you think he’d refuse us a simple pier when we asked for it?”
“I don’t know but he would. Hasn’t the Government built two piers here already? Is it likely they’d build a third?”
“Those two piers were built years and years ago,” said Dr. O’Grady. “One of them is more than ten years old this minute, and they were both built by the last Government The present Lord-Lieutenant has probably never so much as heard of them. We shouldn’t go out of our way to remind him of their existence. Nobody else in Ireland will remember anything about them. We’ll start talking about the new pier as if it were quite an original idea that nobody had ever heard of before. We’d get it to a certainty.”
Doyle was swept away by the glorious possibilities before him.
“If so be the Lord-Lieutenant was to come, and the Lady-Lieutenant with him, and more of the lords and ladies that does be attending on them up in Dublin Castle——”
“Aides-de-camp, and people of that sort,” said Dr. O’Grady. “They’d simply swarm down on us.”
“There’d have to be a luncheon for them,” said Doyle.
“And it would be in your hotel. I forgot about the luncheon. There’ll be a pot of money to be made out of that.”
“With drinks and all,” said Doyle, with deep conviction. “There would. The like of them people wouldn’t be contented with porter.”
“Champagne,” said Dr. O’Grady, “is the recognised tipple for anybody high up in the Government service. It wouldn’t be respectful not to offer it.”
“But he won’t come,” said Doyle. “What would bring him?”
“The statue will bring him.”
“The statue! Talk sense, doctor. What would the like of him want to be looking at statues for? Won’t he have as many as he wants in Dublin Castle, and better ones than we’d be able to show him?”
“You’re missing the point, Doyle. I’m not proposing to bring him down here simply to look at a statue. I’m going to ask him to unveil it. Now as far as I know the history of Ireland—and I’m as well up in it as most men—that would be an absolutely unprecedented invitation for any Lord-Lieutenant to receive. The novelty of the thing will attract him at once. And what’s more, the idea will appeal to his better nature. I needn’t tell you, Doyle, that the earnest desire of every Lord-Lieutenant is to assist the material and intellectual advancement of Ireland. He’s always getting opportunities of opening technical schools and industrial shows of one sort or another. They’ve quite ceased to attract him. But we’re displaying an entirely new spirit. By erecting a public statue in a town like this we are showing that we’ve arrived at an advanced stage of culture. There isn’t another potty little one-horse town in Ireland that has ever shown the slightest desire to set up a great and elevating work of art in its midst. You may not appreciate that aspect of the matter, Doyle, but——”
“If I was to give my opinion,” said Doyle, “I’d say that statues was foolishness.”
“Exactly. But the Lord-Lieutenant, when he gets our invitation will give you credit for much finer feeling. Besides he’ll see that we’ve been studying up our past history. The name of General John Regan will mean a great deal to him although it conveys very little to you.”
“It’s what Thady Gallagher is always asking,” said Doyle, “who was the General?”
“Gallagher ought to know,” said Dr. O’Grady, “and I’ve told him so.”
“He does not know then. Nor I don’t believe Father McCormack does. Nor I don’t know myself. Not that it would trouble me if there never was a General, only that you have Mary Ellen’s head turned with the notion that she’ll be coming into a big fortune one of these days——”
“Is she not doing her work?” said Dr. O’Grady.
“Devil the tap she’s done these two days, but what she couldn’t help. Not that that bothers me, for it’s nothing strange. She never was one for doing much unless you stood over her and drove her into it. But what has annoyed me is the way Constable Moriarty is never out of the kitchen or the back yard. He was after her before, but he’s fifty times worse since he heard the talk about her being the niece of the General. Besides the notion he has that young Kerrigan wants her, which has made him wild.”
“Moriarty ought to have more sense,” said Dr. O’Grady.
“He ought,” said Doyle, “but he hasn’t. The tunes he whistles round the house would drive you demented if so be that you listened to them; but I needn’t tell you I don’t do that.”
“You’ll have to put up with it,” said Dr. O’Grady. “It won’t be for very long, and you needn’t mind what Mary Ellen neglects so long as she attends properly on Mr. Billing.”
“She’ll attend him right enough,” said Doyle. “Since ever she got the notion that he was going to make a lady of her, attending on him is the one thing that she will do.”
“Then you needn’t bother your head about anything else.”
There are men in the world, a great many of them—who are capable of managing details with thoroughness and efficiency. These men make admirable lieutenants and fill subordinate positions so well that towards the end of their lives they are allowed to attend full dress evening parties with medals and stars hung round their necks or pinned on their coats. There are also a good many men who are capable of conceiving great ideas and forming vast plans, but who have an unconquerable aversion to anything in the way of a detail. These men generally end their days in obscure asylums, possibly in workhouses, and their ideas, after living for a while as subject matter for jests, perish unrealised. There is also a third kind of man, fortunately a very rare kind. He is capable of conceiving great ideas, and has besides an insatiable delight in working out details. He may end his days as a victorious general, or even as an emperor. If he prefers a less ostentatious kind of reward, he will die a millionaire.
Dr. Lucius O’Grady belonged to this third class. In the face of Doyle’s objection to his expenditure on posters, he was capable of conceiving on the spur of the moment and without previous meditation, the audacious and magnificent plan of bringing the Lord-Lieutenant to Ballymoy and wrestling from a reluctant treasury a sufficient sum of money to build a third pier on the beach below the town. There may have been other men in Ireland capable of making such a plan. There was certainly no one else who would have set himself, as Dr. O’Grady did, with tireless enthusiasm, to work out the details necessary to the plan’s success.
As soon as Doyle left him he mounted his bicycle and rode out to the Greggs’ home. Mr. Gregg, being the District Inspector of Police, was usually a very busy man. But the Government, though a hard task-master in the case of minor officials, does not insist on anyone inspecting or being inspected on Sunday afternoons. Mr. Gregg had taken advantage of the Government’s respect for revealed religion, and had gone out with a fishing rod to catch trout. Mrs. Gregg was at home. Being a bride of not more than three months’ standing she had nothing particular to do, and was yawning rather wearily over the fashion-plates of a ladies’ paper. She seemed unaffectedly glad to see Dr. O’Grady, and at once offered to give him tea. The doctor refused the tea, and plunged into his business.
“I suppose,” he said, “that you’ll have no objection to presenting a bouquet to Lady Chesterton when she comes to Ballymoy?”
“Is she coming?” said Mrs. Gregg. “How splendid!”
Before marrying Mr. Gregg she had lived in a Dublin suburb. Accustomed to the rich and varied life of a metropolis she found Ballymoy a little dull. She recognised Major Kent as “a dear old boy,” but he was quite unexciting. Mrs. Ford, the wife of a rather morose stipendiary magistrate, had severely snubbed Mrs. Gregg. There was no one else, and the gay frocks of Mrs. Gregg’s bridal outfit were wasting their first freshness with hardly an opportunity of being worn.
“Yes,” said Dr. O’Grady. “She’s coming with the Lord-Lieutenant to unveil the new statue.”
“How splendid!” said Mrs. Gregg again. “I heard something about the statue, but please tell me more, Dr. O’Grady. I do so want to know.”
“Oh, there’s nothing particular to tell about the statue. It’s to be to the memory of General John Regan, and will be unveiled in the usual way.”
This did not add much to the information which Mr. Gregg, who himself had gleaned what he knew from Sergeant Colgan, had already given her. But Mrs. Gregg was quite content with it. She did not, in fact, want to know anything about the statue. She only asked about it because she thought she ought to. Her mind was dwelling on the dazzling prospect of presenting a bouquet to Lady Chesterton.
“Of course I should love to,” she said. “But I wonder if I could—really, I mean.”
Dr. O’Grady was a man of quick intelligence. He realised at once that Mrs. Gregg had not been listening to his account of the statue, but that she was replying to his original suggestion.
“It’s not the least difficult,” he said. “Anyone could do it, but we’d like to have it done really well. That’s the reason we’re asking you.”
“Don’t you have to walk backwards?” said Mrs. Gregg. “I’d love to do it, of course, but I never have before.”
“There’s no necessity to walk at all. You simply stand in the front row of the spectators with the bouquet in your hand. Then, when she stops opposite you and smiles—she’ll be warned beforehand, of course—and she’s had such a lot of practice that she’s sure to do it right—you curtsey and hand up the bouquet. She’ll take it, and the whole thing will be over.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Gregg, “is that all?”
Dr. O’Grady was conscious of a note of disappointment in her voice. He felt that he had over-emphasized the simplicity of the performance. Mrs. Gregg would have preferred a longer ceremony. He did his best to make such amends as were still possible.
“Of course,” he said, “your photograph will be in all the illustrated papers afterwards, and there will be a long description of your dress inThe Irish Times.”
“I’d love to do it,” said Mrs. Gregg.
“Very well, then,” said Dr. O’Grady, “we’ll consider that settled.”
Leaving Mrs. Gregg, he rode on to Major Kent’s house. The Major, like all men who are over forty years of age, who have good consciences and balances in their banks, spent his Sunday afternoons sleeping in an armchair. No one likes being awakened, either in a bedroom by a servant, in a railway carriage by a ticket collector, or on a Sunday afternoon by a friend. The Major answered Dr. O’Grady’s greeting snappishly.
“If you’ve come,” he said, “to ask me to make a speech at that meeting of yours on Tuesday, you may go straight home again, for I won’t do it.”
“I’m not such a fool,” said Dr. O’Grady pleasantly, “as to ask you to do any such thing. I know jolly well you couldn’t. Even if you could and would, we shouldn’t want you. We have Father McCormack, and Thady Gallagher, besides the American. That’s as much as any audience could stand!”
“If it isn’t that you want,” said the Major, “what is it?”
“It’s a pity you’re in such an uncommonly bad temper, Major. If you were even in your normal condition of torpid sulkiness you’d be rather pleased to hear what I’m going to tell you.”
“If you’re going to tell me that you’ve dropped that statue folly, I shall be extremely pleased.”
“The news I have,” said Dr. O’Grady, “is far better than that. We’ve decided to ask the Lord-Lieutenant down to unveil the statue.”
“He won’t come,” said the Major, “so that’s all right.”
“He will come when it’s explained to him that——”
“Oh, if you offer him one of your explanations———”
“Look here, Major. I don’t think you quite grasp the significance of what I’m telling you. Ever since I’ve known you you’ve been deploring the disloyalty of the Irish people. I don’t blame you for that. You’re by way of being a Unionist, so of course you have to. But if you were the least bit sincere in what you say, you’d be delighted to hear that Doyle and Thady Gallagher—Thady hasn’t actually been told yet, but when he is he’ll be as pleased as everyone else—you ought to be simply overjoyed to find that men like Doyle are inviting the Lord-Lieutenant down to unveil their statue. It shows that they’re getting steadily loyaler and loyaler. Instead of exulting in the fact you start sneering in a cynical and altogether disgusting way.”
“I don’t believe much in Doyle’s loyalty,” said the Major.
“Fortunately,” said Dr. O’Grady, “Doyle thoroughly believes in yours. He agrees with me that you are the first man who ought to be asked to join the reception committee. You can’t possibly refuse.”
“I would refuse if I thought there was the slightest chance of the Lord-Lieutenant coming. Do you think I want to stand about in a tall hat along with half the blackguards in town?”
“Mrs. Gregg is going to present a bouquet,” said Dr. O’Grady.
“Looking like a fool in the middle of the street, while you play silly tricks with a statue?”
“You won’t be asked to do all that,” said Dr. O’Grady.
“I am being asked. You’re asking me this minute, and if I thought it would come off——”
“As you think it won’t you may as well join the committee.”
“I won’t be secretary,” said the Major, “and I won’t have hand, act, or part, in asking the Lord-Lieutenant to come here. We don’t want him, for one thing.”
“You’ll not be asked so much as to sign a paper,” said Dr. O’Grady. “If your name is required at the bottom of any document I’ll write it for you myself.”
“I wish to goodness,” said the Major, “that Billing—if that’s the man’s name—had stayed in America attending to his own business, whatever it is, instead of coming here and starting all this fuss. There’ll be trouble before you’ve done, O’Grady, more trouble than you care for. I wish to God it was all well over.”
Nothing is more gratifying to the prophet of evil than the fulfilment of his own prediction. When the fulfilment follows hard on the prophecy, when not more than half an hour separates them, the prophet ought to be a very happy man. This was Major Kent’s case. He foretold trouble of the most exasperating kind for Dr. O’Grady, and he was immediately justified by the event. Unfortunately he did not expect an immediate fulfilment of his words. Therefore he turned round in his chair and went to sleep again when the doctor left him. If he had been sanguine enough to expect that the doctor would be entangled in embarrassments at once, he would probably have roused himself. He would have followed Dr. O’Grady back to Ballymoy and would have had the satisfaction of gloating over the first of a long series of annoying difficulties. But the Major, though confident that trouble would come, had no hope that it would begin as soon as it did.
Dr. O’Grady was riding back to Ballymoy on his bicycle when he met Mrs. Ford, the wife of the stipendiary magistrate. She was walking briskly along the road which led out of the town. This fact at once aroused a feeling of vague uneasiness in the doctor’s mind. Mrs. Ford was a stout lady of more than fifty years of age. She always wore clothes which seemed, and probably were, much too tight for her. Her husband’s position and income entitled him to keep a pony trap, therefore Mrs. Ford very seldom walked at all. Dr. O’Grady had never before seen her walk quickly. It was plain, too, that on this occasion Mrs. Ford was walking for the mere sake of walking, a most unnatural thing for her to do. The road she was on led nowhere except to Major Kent’s house, several miles away, and it was quite impossible to suppose that she meant to call on him. She had, as Dr. O’Grady knew, quarrelled seriously with Major Kent two days earlier.
Dr. O’Grady, slightly anxious and very curious, got off his bicycle and approached Mrs. Ford on foot. He noticed at once that her face was purple in colour. It was generally red, and the unaccustomed exercise she was taking might account for the darker shade. Dr. O’Grady, arriving within a few yards of her, took off his hat very politely. The purple of Mrs. Ford’s face darkened ominously.
“Nice day,” said Dr. O’Grady. “How’s Mr. Ford?”
Mrs. Ford acknowledged this greeting with a stiff, scarcely perceptible bow. Dr. O’Grady realised at once that she was angry, very seriously angry about something. Under ordinary circumstances Mrs. Ford’s anger would not have caused Dr. O’Grady any uneasiness. She was nearly always angry with someone, and however angry she might be she would be obliged to call on Dr. O’Grady for assistance if either she or her husband fell ill. There was no other doctor in the neighbourhood. The simplest and easiest thing, under the circumstances, would have been to pass on without comment, and to wait patiently until Mrs. Ford either caught influenza or was so deeply offended with someone else as to forget her anger against him. Society in small country towns is held together very largely by the fact that it is highly inconvenient, if not actually impossible, to keep two quarrels burning briskly at the same time. When, a week or two before, Mrs. Ford had been seriously angry with Mrs. Gregg, she confided her grievances to Dr. O’Grady. Now that she was annoyed with him she would be compelled to condone Mrs. Gregg’s offence in order to tell her what Dr. O’Grady had done. In due time, so Dr. O’Grady knew, he would be forgiven in order that he might listen to the story of the quarrel, which by that time she would have picked with Major Kent. Therefore the doctor’s first impulse was to imitate the Levite in the parable, and, having looked at Mrs. Ford with sympathy, to pass by on the other side.
But Dr. O’Grady was engaged in a great enterprise. He did not see how Mrs. Ford’s anger could make or mar the success of the Lord-Lieutenant’s visit to Ballymoy, but he could not afford to take risks. No wise general likes to leave even a small wood on the flank of his line of march without discovering whether there is anything in it or not. Dr. O’Grady determined to find out, if he could, what Mrs. Ford was sulking about.
“I daresay you have heard,” he said, “about the Lord-Lieutenant’s visit to Ballymoy. The date isn’t fixed yet, but——”
Mrs. Ford sniffed and walked on without speaking. Dr. O’Grady was not the kind of man who is easily baffled. He turned round and walked beside her.
“I needn’t tell you,” he said, “that the visit may mean a good deal to Mr. Ford. We’ve all felt for a long time that his services and ability entitle him to some recognition from the Government.”
Mrs. Ford was quite unmollified. She walked on without looking round. She even walked a little quicker than she had been walking before. This was a foolish thing to do. She was a fat and elderly lady. Some of her clothes, if not all of them, were certainly too tight for her. The doctor was young and in good condition. She could not possibly hope to outstrip him in a race.
“My idea is,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that when the Lord-Lieutenant meets Mr. Ford and becomes personally acquainted with him—there’s to be a lunch, you know, in the hotel. A pretty good lunch, the best Doyle can do. Well, I confidently expect that when the Lord-Lieutenant finds out for himself what an able and energetic man Mr. Ford is—— After all, there are much nicer places than Ballymoy, besides all the jobs there are going under the Insurance Act, jolly well paid some of them, and you’d like living in Dublin, wouldn’t you, Mrs. Ford?”
Mrs. Ford stood still suddenly. She was evidently going to say something. Dr. O’Grady waited. He had to wait for some time, because the lady was very-much out of breath. At last she spoke.
“Dr. O’Grady,” she said, “I believe in plain speaking.”
Neither Dr. O’Grady nor anyone else in Ballymoy doubted the truth of this. Nearly everybody had been spoken to plainly by Mrs. Ford at one time or another. Kerrigan, the butcher, was spoken to with uncompromising plainness once a week, on Saturday mornings.
“Quite right,” said Dr. O’Grady, “there’s nothing like it.”
“Then I may as well tell you,” said Mrs. Ford, “that I think it was due to my position—however much you may dislike me personally——”
“I don’t. On the contrary——”
“——Due to my position as the wife of the resident magistrate that I, and not that Mrs. Gregg, should have been invited to present the bouquet to Lady Chesterton.”
Dr. O’Grady gasped. Then he realised that he had made a fearful blunder.
“Half an hour ago,” said Mrs. Ford, “that woman, who isn’t even a lady, bounced into my house, giggling, and told me to my face that you had asked her——”
“Silly little thing, isn’t she?” said Dr. O’Grady. “But of course, you have far too much sense to be annoyed by anything she said.”
“Don’t imagine for a moment,” said Mrs. Ford, “that I am vexed. The slight, although it was evidently intentional, does not affect me in the least. If you knew me a little better than you do, Dr. O’Grady, you would understand that I am not at all the sort of person who cares about presenting bouquets.”
“Of course not,” said Dr. O’Grady. “We quite realised that. We understood that in your position, as wife of the resident magistrate of the district, the presentation of a bouquet would have beeninfra dig. After all, what’s a bouquet? Poor little Mrs. Gregg! Of course it’s a great promotion for her and she’s naturally a bit above herself. But no one would dream of asking you to present a bouquet. We have far too high a respect for Mr. Ford’s position.”
“I think,” said Mrs. Ford, “that I ought to have been consulted.”
“Didn’t you get my letter?”
“I got no letter whatever. The first news I had of his Excellency’s intention of visiting Ballymoy came to me from that Mrs. Gregg half an hour ago, when she rushed into my drawing-room with her hair tumbling about her ears——”
“That’s the worst of Doyle. He means well, but he’s frightfully careless.”
“What has Mr. Doyle to do with it?”
“I gave him the letter to post. Did you really not get it?”
“I got no letter whatever.”
“I don’t know what you must have thought of us. I don’t know what Mr. Ford must have thought. I don’t know how to apologise. But the first thing we did, the very first——Mrs. Gregg and the bouquet were a mere afterthought, we just tacked her on to the programme so that the poor little woman wouldn’t feel out of it. She is a silly little thing, you know. Not more than a child after all. It was better to humour her.”
“What was in the letter which you say you posted?” said Mrs. Ford.
“I didn’t say I posted it. I said Doyle forgot to. It’s in his pocket at this moment, I expect.”
“What was in it?”
“Can you ask? There is only one thing which could possibly be in it. It expresses the unanimous wish of the committee—the reception committee, you know—Major Kent’s on it—that you should present an illuminated address of welcome to His Excellency.”
“If such a letter were really written——”
“My dear Mrs. Ford! But I don’t ask you to take my word for it. Just walk straight into Ballymoy yourself. I’ll stay here till you come back. Go into the hotel. You’ll find Doyle in his own room drinking whisky and water with Thady Gallagher. Don’t say a word to him. Don’t ask him whether he was given a letter or not. Simply put your hand into his breast pocket and take it out.”
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Ford. “I do not care to have anything to do with Mr. Doyle when he is drunk.”
“He won’t be. Not at this hour. It takes a lot to make Doyle drunk.”
“When the letter arrives, if it ever does, I shall consult Mr. Ford as to what answer I shall give.”
“I can tell you what he’ll say beforehand,” said Dr. O’Grady. “He’ll realise the importance of the illuminated address. He’ll understand that it’sthething and that the bouquet——”
“Good-bye, Dr. O’Grady,” said Mrs. Ford.
The doctor mounted his bicycle. His face was very nearly as purple as Mrs. Ford’s. He had, with the greatest difficulty survived a crisis. He rode at top speed into Ballymoy, and dismounted, very hot, at the door of the hotel. It was shut. He ran round to the back of the house and entered the yard. Constable Moriarty and Mary Ellen were sitting side by side on the wall of the pig-stye. They were sitting very close together. Moriarty was whistling “Eileen Allan-nah” softly in Mary Ellen’s ear.
“Where’s Mr. Doyle?” said Dr. O’Grady.
“As regards the visit of the Lord-Lieutenant,” said Constable Moriarty rousing himself and moving a little bit away from Mary Ellen, “what I was saying this minute to Mary Ellen was——”
“Where’s Mr. Doyle?” said Dr. O’Grady.
“He’s within,” said Mary Ellen. “Where else would he be?”
“As regards the Lord-Lieutenant,” said Constable Moriarty, “and seeing that Mary Ellen might be a near friend of the gentleman that the statue’s for——”
Dr. O’Grady hurried through the back door. He found Doyle sitting over account books in his private-room. That was his way of spending Sunday afternoon.
“A sheet of notepaper,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Quick now, Doyle. I have my fountain pen, so don’t bother about ink.”
“Where’s the hurry?” said Doyle.
“There’s every hurry.”
He wrote rapidly, folded the letter, addressed it to Mrs. Ford, and handed it to Doyle.
“Put that in your trousers’ pocket,” he said, “and roll it round a few times. I want it to look as if it had been there for two or three days.”
“What’s the meaning of this at all?” said Doyle.
“Now get your hat. Go off as fast as you can pelt to Mr. Ford’s house. Give that letter to the servant and tell her that you only found out this afternoon that you’d forgotten to post it.”
“Will you tell me——?”
“I’ll tell you nothing till you’re back. Go on now, Doyle. Go at once. If you hurry you’ll get to the house before she does. She was two miles out of the town when I left her and too exhausted to walk fast. But if you do meet her remember that you haven’t seen me since yesterday. Have you got that clear in your head? Very well. Off with you. And, I say, I expect the letter will be looking all right when you take it out again, but if it isn’t just rub it up and down the front of your trousers for a while. I want it to be brownish and a good deal crumpled. It won’t do any harm if you blow a few puffs of tobacco over it.”