Inflexible determination is one of the qualities which the truly great leader of men shares with the domestic pig; though in the case of the pig it is generally spoken of as obstinacy. But the leader—General, Prime Minister or Captain of Industry—is distinguished from the pig by a certain intellectual suppleness which makes his obstinacy a more effective though less showy thing. The pig, being determined to go his own way, has no better idea than to tug desperately against the rope which is tied round his ankle. He tugs unwaveringly up to the very last moment, but in the end he is beaten because his master, having at command stout sticks and other instruments of torture, is stronger than he is. It is noble and heroic of the pig to persist in refusing to recognise that merely tugging the opposite way is no use to him. The great commander is wiser and in reality no less noble. He realises very early that destiny, armed with whips and goads, has a rope round his leg. He tugs, but when he finds that the rope will not break and that the whip cuts cruelly, he stops tugging and goes about to outwit destiny. Pretending to yield to the pull of the rope, he succeeds at last in getting his own way. Thus a general, faced by a hostile army, securely entrenched on the opposite bank of a deep river, does not make more than one attempt to swim his men across in the face of a concentrated rifle fire. The pig would make several attempts, would go on trying until he had no soldiers left, because he would feel that the only thing really worth doing was to assert himself against the confident foe. But the general, when he has lost enough men to convince him of the impossibility of a frontal attack by swimming, stops trying it and adopts another plan. He sees not only the insolent flags which wave upon the opposite bank, but the far off end of the campaign. He is not less determined than the pig would be to chastise the foe which is thwarting him, but he sees that this can be done quite as effectually by occupying the enemy’s capital as by the mere winning of a battle. He understands that it is good to sacrifice the immediate for the sake of the ultimate object. He gives up the idea of fighting his way across and sends out scouts to discover the source of the river. When he finds it he leaves part of his army to watch the enemy while the other part marches round the end of the river and enters the enemy’s chief stronghold from the back. Thus he gains his object and establishes his character for determination without losing half his army.
Dr. Lucius O’Grady was a born leader of men. He discovered very soon that in the matter of the performance of “God Save the King” by the town band, fate had a rope round his leg and was likely to scourge him uncomfortably if he pulled against it. The introduction of variations into the tune proved to be a much more difficult matter than he had supposed. He worked hard for six hours on Major Kent’s piano, and produced two versions of which he thought well, though neither of them completely satisfied him. He sent for Constable Moriarty and played them over to him. Moriarty sat and listened to the first.
“Would you know what that tune was, Moriarty?” said Dr. O’Grady.
“I would, of course. Anybody would. I don’t say but there’s bits in it that isn’t right, but you have the tune safe enough.”
“Would Thady Gallagher know it?”
“He would,” said Moriarty, “and what’s more he’d be lepping mad when he heard it. And you couldn’t wonder. You wouldn’t like it yourself, doctor, if somebody was to play a tune at you that you hated worse nor you hate the devil.”
Dr. O’Grady was disappointed.
“Are you sure now,” he said, “that he wouldn’t be taken in by the variations? I don’t know whether you quite realise the number of variations there are? Just listen to me again.”
He played his composition through once more, touching the notes which gave the tune very softly, hammering hard at the long runs and fiery groups of semi-quavers which he had sandwiched in between the scraps of tune.
“I wouldn’t say,” said Moriarty, “that you’ve destroyed it altogether; though it’s my opinion that it’s better the way it was before you set your hand to it. But anyhow you needn’t be uneasy. There isn’t a man, woman or child that ever heard the tune but would know what you’re aiming at.”
Dr. O’Grady felt that Moriarty’s judgment in the matter was too decisive and confident to be ignored.
“Very well,” he said. “Now listen to this.”
He played through the second of his two compositions.
“Now,” he said, “what tune is that, Moriarty?”
Moriarty scratched his head and looked inquiringly at the doctor.
“Is it what tune is that that you’re asking me?” he said.
“Exactly. What tune is it?”
“It’s no tune at all,” said Moriarty.
“Do you mean to say you don’t recognise it?”
“I do not, and what’s more nobody could. For there’s no tune in it, only noise.”
The doctor hesitated. Moriarty’s opinion was in one respect quite satisfactory. Neither Gallagher nor anyone else in Ballymoy was likely to recognise the tune. It might, of course, fail to impress the Lord-Lieutenant as being quite the proper thing. But that was a difficulty which could be got over. The Lord-Lieutenant was not likely to listen very attentively, and if he were told definitely that the band was playing “God Save the King” he might possibly believe it.
“I’m thinking,” said Dr. O’Grady, “of teaching that piece of music to the town band.”
“It’ll fail you to do that,” said Moriarty.
“I don’t see why.”
“You can try it,” said Moriarty, “but you’ll not be able. Anything those fellows could play, I’d be able to whistle, and if it’s what I couldn’t whistle they’ll not be able to play it.”
“You could whistle that all right if you tried.”
“I could not. Nor I couldn’t play it on an ivy leaf, nor yet on a comb, and if I couldn’t there’s nobody else could. I’m not saying it isn’t good music, doctor, for it may be. But there’s neither beginning nor end of it, nor there isn’t anything in the middle that a man would be able to catch hold of.”
Dr. O’Grady shut the piano with a bang. Constable Moriarty rose from his seat.
“If there’s nothing more you’ll be wanting with me, doctor,” he said, “it might be as well if I was getting back to the barrack. The sergeant’s terrible particular these times. Mr. Gregg, the D.I., has him annoyed with finding fault here and there and everywhere. Not that I blame Mr. Gregg, for everybody knows he’s a nice quiet kind of a man who’d ask for nothing only to be let alone. But that’s what he can’t get on account of Mr. Ford.”
“Mr. Ford’s a public nuisance,” said Dr. O’Grady; “but I think we’ll be able to get rid of him.”
“It would be no great harm if he was dead,” said Moriarty.
“The Lord-Lieutenant,” said Dr. O’Grady, “is almost sure to promote him. That kind of man who never can let other people’s business alone, is just suited to Dublin Castle.”
Moriarty got as far as the door of the room and then stopped.
“Will it be all right,” he said, “about Mary Ellen? You’ll remember, doctor, that I was speaking to you about her, the way she’d be given the chance of speaking to the Lord-Lieutenant.”
“I’ll settle about her at once,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Did you say you were going straight back to the barrack?”
“I am,” said Moriarty. “It’ll be better for me if I do on account of the way Mr. Ford does be talking to——”
“Are you going so straight that you won’t see Mary Ellen on the way?”
“It could be,” said Moriarty, “that I might see her.”
“Very well, then, do. And tell her to meet me at Mrs. Gregg’s house at——” He glanced at his watch.
“Let me see, it’s nearly half past two, and I’ll have to spend a few minutes pacifying the Major. Suppose you tell her to meet me at Mrs. Gregg’s at a quarter past three. Will you be sure to give her that message?”
“I will,” said Moriarty.
“And don’t you keep the girl late now, Moriarty, with love making in the pig-stye or any nonsense of that kind.”
“Is it likely I would?”
“It is very likely. But don’t do it.”
“It is not likely then, seeing as how I ought to be back in the barrack this minute on account of the way Mr. Gregg has the sergeant annoyed——”
“There’s only one thing worse than keeping Mary Ellen late,” said Dr. O’Grady, “and that is delaying me. Be off with you at once.”
Constable Moriarty marched off towards the barrack, fully determined to call on Mary Ellen on the way. Dr. O’Grady went into the stable yard to look for Major Kent. He found him smoking a pipe and reading the last number of theConnacht Eaglein an empty loose box.
“I thought you’d like to know,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that I’ve finished with the piano, so you can go back into the house again.”
“Quite sure you’re finished?” said the Major.
“Quite.”
“Because if there are any final touches to put to your oratorio, you’d better do them to-day. The piano won’t be there to-morrow. I’ve made up my mind to sell it at once.”
“Silly thing to do,” said Dr. O’Grady. “You won’t get half what it’s worth if you sell it in a hurry like that.”
“Even if I have to pay someone to take it away,” said the Major, “I shall make a good bargain. It’s better to lose a little money than to spend the rest of my life in a lunatic asylum.”
“You know your own business best, of course, and if you think you can preserve what little intelligence you have by giving Thady Gallagher or some other fellow a present of your piano—”
“I think I can save myself from being turned into a gibbering maniac,” said the Major, “by making sure that you’ll never have the chance of composing music in my house again. Since eight o’clock this morning you’ve been at it. I could hear you whenever I went, mixing up hymns and waltzes and things with ‘God Save the King.’ I tried to get a bit of lunch at half past one, but I had to fly from the house.”
“It’s over now anyhow,” said Dr. O’Grady. “And you needn’t sell the piano. I’ve given up the idea of producing a new version of that tune for the Lord-Lieutenant. I find that the thing can’t be done in the time. I’m going to give him ‘Rule Britannia’ instead.”
“With variations?”
“No. Quite plain. It’ll do him just as well as the other. In fact from his point of view it’s rather the more patriotic tune of the two, and there won’t be any local objection to it because nobody can possibly recognise it.”
It was in this way that Dr. O’Grady showed the true greatness of his mind. A weaker man, daunted by the difficulty of arranging “God Save the King” in such a way as to suit all tastes, might have given up the attempt to provide a musical welcome for the Lord-Lieutenant. A man of narrow obstinacy, the kind of man who is really like a pig, would have persevered, in spite of Constable Moriarty’s warning, in trying to teach his variations to the town band. Dr. O’Grady, knowing that the main thing was the success of his general scheme, turned from a tune which presented insuperable difficulties, and fixed upon another, which would, he hoped, be comparatively easy to manage. The Major ought to have admired him; but did not He was in a condition of extreme nervous exasperation which rendered him unfit to admire anything.
“You’ll get us all into an infernal mess with your foolery,” he said sulkily, “and when you do, you needn’t come to me to help you out.”
“I won’t. But don’t forget the committee meeting to-morrow morning. Half past eleven, in Doyle’s Hotel.”
“What committee?”
“Strictly speaking,” said Dr. O’Grady, “it’s two committees—the Statue Erection Committee and the Lord-Lieutenant Reception Committee—but the same people are on both, so we may as well make one meeting do.”
“I’ll go,” said the Major, “in the hope, utterly vain of course, of keeping you from further excesses.”
“Good,” said Dr. O’Grady. “And now I must hurry off. I’ve a lot to do between this and then.”
Major Kent was a kind-hearted man. He had suffered intensely during the earlier part of the day and for some hours had been seriously angry with Dr. O’Grady. But his sense of hospitality was stronger than his resentment.
“Stop for half an hour,” he said, “and have something to eat Now that you’ve given up punishing my poor old piano we might have lunch in peace.”
“Can’t possibly waste time in eating. I’ve far too much to do. To tell you the truth, Major, I don’t expect to sit down to a square meal until I join the Lord-Lieutenant’s luncheon party. Till then I must snatch a crust as I can while running from one thing to another.”
Dr. O’Grady mounted his bicycle and hurried off. He reached the Greggs’ house at twenty minutes past three, Mary Ellen was standing on the step outside the door, smiling in a good-humoured way. Mrs. Gregg, who looked hot and puzzled, was just inside the door.
“Oh, Dr. O’Grady,” she said, “I’m so glad you’ve come. This girl won’t go away and I can’t make out what she wants.”
“It was Constable Moriarty bid me come,” said Mary Ellen.
“It’s all right,” said Dr. O’Grady. “I arranged for her to be here. I’ll explain everything in one moment. Is that the only frock you own, Mary Ellen?”
“It is not; but I have another along with it.”
“I don’t expect the other is much better,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Just look at that dress, will you, Mrs. Gregg?”
Mrs. Gregg looked at Mary Ellen’s clothes carefully. She did not appear to admire them much.
“There’s a long tear in the skirt,” she said. “It might be mended, of course, but—and she has only one button on her blouse, and her boots are pretty well worn out, and she’s horribly dirty all over.”
“In fact,” said Dr. O’Grady, “you couldn’t very well present her to the Lord-Lieutenant as she is at present.”
“The Lord-Lieutenant!” said Mrs. Gregg.
“Perhaps I forgot to mention,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that Mary Ellen must be presented. She’s the grand niece of General John Regan.”
“Are you really?” said Mrs. Gregg.
“It’s what the doctor has put out about me,” said Mary Ellen.
“It isn’t a matter of what I’ve put out or haven’t put out,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Mr. Billing has publicly acknowledged her as the grand niece of the General. Didn’t he, Mary Ellen?”
“He did,” said Mary Ellen.
“And Mr. Billing is the greatest living authority on everything connected with the General. So that settles it. Under those circumstances she must, of course, be presented to the Lord-Lieutenant when he comes down to unveil the statue.”
“I wonder what Mrs. Ford will say?” said Mrs. Gregg.
“We’ll talk about that afterwards. What I want to get at now is this: Will you undertake to see that Mary Ellen is properly dressed for the ceremony?”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly.”
Mrs. Gregg looked at Mary Ellen again as she spoke, looked at her very carefully and then smiled.
Mary Ellen was also smiling. The proper dressing of Mary Ellen was plainly a very difficult task. Mrs. Gregg’s smile was at first contemptuous. Mary Ellen’s, on the other hand, was purely good-natured, and therefore very attractive, Mrs. Gregg began to relent.
“Won’t you come in?” she said to Dr. O’Grady.
“Certainly,” he replied. “Mary Ellen, you sit down on that chair in the hall and wait till we call you.”
“I don’t know can I wait,” said Mary Ellen.
“If Moriarty’s lurking about for you,” said Dr. O’Grady, “let him wait. It’ll do him good. It’s a great mistake for you to make yourself too cheap. No girl ought to. Moriarty will think a great deal more of you in the end if you keep him waiting every day for half an hour or so.”
“It’s not him I’m thinking of,” said Mary Ellen, “but it’s Mr. Doyle.”
Dr. O’Grady took no notice of this remark. He did not believe that Mary Ellen was very much afraid of Mr. Doyle. He followed Mrs. Gregg into the dining-room. Mary Ellen sat down.
“She really is rather a pretty girl,” said Mrs. Gregg.
“Then you’ll undertake the job,” said Dr. O’Grady. “You won’t have to pay for anything, you know. We’ll charge whatever you like to buy against the statue fund.”
Mrs. Gregg did not appear to be listening. She was thinking deeply.
“I have an old silk slip,” she said, “which might be made down.”
“Capital! A silk slip will be the very thing.”
Dr. O’Grady had no idea what a silk slip might be. But his enthusiastic welcome of the suggestion passed unnoticed. Mrs. Gregg was still thinking.
“I could get a white muslin,” she said, “with an embroidered yoke and a wide collar. It wouldn’t cost very much.”
“We’d like the thing done well,” said Dr. O’Grady, “not extravagantly, of course, but well.”
“Shell look quite sweet,” said Mrs. Gregg; “but what will Mrs. Ford say?”
“She’ll have to be kept in a good temper.”
“Kept!” said Mrs. Gregg, giggling delightedly.
She was very much afraid of Mrs. Ford, but she found a fearful joy in entering into a conspiracy against her with Dr. O’Grady for ally.
“Kept!” she repeated, “but she never is.”
“My idea,” said Dr. O’Grady, “is that you should dress Mary Ellen yourself, according to your own ideas, and at the same time consult with Mrs. Ford, giving her the impression that she’s doing the whole thing herself. I should think you ought to be able to manage that.”
This did not seem to Mrs. Gregg a very easy thing to do. She hesitated.
“I’m afraid I couldn’t,” she said at last. “I don’t see how I could.”
“All that’s required,” said Dr. O’Grady, “is a little tact. You are always good at tact, Mrs. Gregg. I’m perfectly certain that you’ll be able to manage. You must suggest each garment you intend to put on the girl in such a way that Mrs. Ford will think that she suggested it. That ought to be easy enough.” Everybody likes being credited with the possession of tact. This is curious, because hardly anyone likes being called a liar; and yet tact is simply a delicate form of lying. So, of course, is politeness of every kind, and nobody considers it wrong to aim at being polite. Mrs. Gregg, who would certainly have resented an accusation of habitual untruthfulness, felt flattered when Dr. O’Grady said she was tactful. She even believed him and allowed herself to be persuaded to undertake the management of Mrs. Ford.
“Good,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Then I’ll leave the whole business in your hands. I have to be off. But you’ve no time to lose. You’ll have to set about your work at once. I’ll send Mary Ellen to you as I go through the hall. You can measure her, and then take her over to see Mrs. Ford. After that you’d better order the new dress. If there’s any hitch in the proceedings you can send for me, but I don’t see why there should be.”
He shook hands with Mrs. Gregg and hurried from the room, without giving her the chance of making any kind of protest or asking any more questions.
He found Mary Ellen seated on an uncomfortable oak chair in the hall.
“Mary Ellen,” he said, “would you like a new dress?”
“I would.”
“Then go into the dining-room—the room I’ve just come out of. You’ll find Mrs. Gregg there. Do exactly what she tells you without making any objections or asking questions. If she insists on your washing your face, wash it, without grumbling. If Moriarty is waiting for you anywhere between this and the town—— Is Moriarty waiting for you?”
“He might.”
“Well, if he is, I’ll clear him out of the way. You’ll be going into the town in a few minutes with Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Gregg. It wouldn’t do at all to have him making eyes at you from the side of the road when you’re walking with those two ladies. Mrs. Gregg mightn’t mind; but Mrs. Ford would be certain to object. She’s not the kind of lady who likes to see other people enjoying themselves.”
“He wouldn’t do the like,” said Mary Ellen.
“I wouldn’t trust him,” said Dr. O’Grady.
Moriarty was, in fact, waiting for Mary Ellen about a hundred yards from the gate of the Greggs’ house. Dr. O’Grady rebuked him sharply. Moriarty asserted that he was engaged in patrolling that particular road in simple obedience to the call of duty.
“That may possibly be true,” said Dr. O’Grady, “though it doesn’t sound likely.”
“It was the sergeant gave me my orders,” said Moriarty.
“Patrol some other road, then,” said Dr. O’Grady. “You’re not wanted here.”
“What the sergeant said was that it would be better for me to patrol along between Mr. Gregg’s house and Mr. Ford’s, so that if either the one or the other of them was to see me he’d know that Iwaspatrolling. I wouldn’t say a word against Mr. Gregg, who’s a nice gentleman enough, and easy pleased. But it’s hard to pacify Mr. Ford, and the sergeant thought——”
“I can tell you this,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that if Mrs. Ford catches you lying in wait for Mary Ellen on the road outside her house, it will be a jolly sight harder to pacify Mr. Ford than it was before. Surely you can understand that.”
Moriarty understood it thoroughly. He was not very well pleased, but he was a young man of considerable prudence, and was filled with a sincere desire to rise in his profession. He spent the rest of the afternoon in patrolling a road at the other end of Ballymoy.
Dr. O’Grady hurried on. His next stop was at the door of Kerrigan’s shop. The elder Kerrigan was leaning against the wooden slab on which he was accustomed to cut up joints. He was smoking a pipe.
“Where’s your son?” said Dr. O’Grady.
“He’s within in the back yard,” said Kerrigan.
“Tell him I want to see him.”
“I’m not sure can he come to you; for he’s taking the skin off a sheep that he’s just after slaughtering.”
“Let him wash his hands,” said Dr. O’Grady. “The sheep can wait.”
“I’m not sure will he come,” said Kerrigan. “He’s not overly much pleased with you this minute, doctor, and that’s the truth.”
“What’s the matter with him?”
“It’s on account of your saying that he was thinking of getting married to Mary Ellen.”
“It was Gallagher said that. I’d nothing to do with it one way or the other.”
“I wouldn’t be minding myself what you said,” said Kerrigan, “knowing well that you wouldn’t be meaning any harm, whatever it was; though the girl’s no match for him, and I wouldn’t care for him to be carrying on with her, when it’s a girl with a fortune he ought to get, and what’s more, can get, whenever I choose to ask for her. But I wouldn’t pay any attention to what was put out about him and Mary Ellen. I’m only telling you so as you’d know why it is that the boy’s mind is riz against you.”
“What nonsense! Everybody in the place knows that it’s Constable Moriarty who’s after the girl.”
“It’s just that that’s troubling the boy. On account of Constable Moriarty being a comrade of his; so that he wouldn’t like him to be thinking—— But sure, I’ll fetch him for you, if you like.”
Young Kerrigan appeared a few minutes later. His father did not come back with him. He may have felt it necessary, in the interests of his business, to go on skinning the sheep. It was evident at once that the young man was in a bad temper, but Dr. O’Grady did not mean to waste time in explanations if he could possibly help it.
“Listen to me, Kerrigan,” he said, “do you know this tune?”
He whistled “Rule Britannia” slowly and distinctly.
“I do not know it,” said young Kerrigan, “nor I don’t want to.”
Dr. O’Grady whistled it through again.
“It’s a good tune,” he said. “It would be a nice one for the band to learn.”
“It would not.”
“What’s the matter with you?” said Dr. O’Grady. “To look at the expression of your face anybody’d think that the sheep in the back yard had been skinning you.”
“You know well what’s the matter with me.”
“If you’re nursing a grievance,” said Dr. O’Grady, “because Thady Gallagher told the American gentleman that you were married to Mary Ellen and had twins, you ought to have more sense.”
It is always very difficult to remain in a bad temper with anyone who insists on being pleasant and cheerful. Young Kerrigan began to give way. He grinned unwillingly.
“That’s the first I heard of twins,” he said.
“And he only said it to please the American gentleman,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Nobody believed him.”
“Sure I know well enough,” said young Kerrigan, “that there has to be lies told to the likes of that one. How else would you content them? I wouldn’t mind myself what was said, knowing it was meant for the best, only that Constable Moriarty——”
“Moriarty doesn’t mind a bit,” said Dr. O’Grady; “so if it’s only his feelings you’re thinking of, you may just as well listen to this tune.”
He whistled “Rule Britannia” through once more. He threw great spirit into the last few bars.
“It’s a good tune enough,” said young Kerrigan.
“Could the band learn it?”
“It could, of course, if so be that I had the tune right on the cornet. It would be a queer thing if I couldn’t incense the rest of them into doing what had to be done with the other instruments.”
“I can’t play the cornet myself,” said Dr. O’Grady, “but I’ll whistle the tune to you as often as you like, or if you prefer it we might get the loan of a piano somewhere, and I’ll play it for you. I can’t borrow the Major’s again for reasons which I’m not in a position to explain to you, but we can easily get the use of another if you think it would help you.”
“The whistling will do,” said young Kerrigan. “Will you come inside with me now and I’ll try can I get it. But, doctor——”
He hesitated and looked doubtfully at Dr. O’Grady. It was plain that he had a favour to ask and was a little afraid of asking it.
“Well,” said Dr. O’Grady encouragingly.
“If so be that you were to see Moriarty——” said young Kerrigan.
Then he hesitated again.
“I see far too much of him,” said Dr. O’Grady.
“I’d be obliged to you if you’d tell him that I never looked next nor nigh Mary Ellen, nor wouldn’t. Even if I wanted the girl I wouldn’t go behind Moriarty’s back to get her; and I don’t want her.”
“I’ll make that perfectly plain to him. Come along now and learn the tune.”
The cornet is of all instruments in an ordinary band the one which produces the most penetrating sounds. While young Kerrigan was practising a new tune on it all the inhabitants of the town of Bally-moy were able to hear him. He was aware of this and sorry for it. He did not, indeed, pity his fellow-citizens. He would not have understood a complaint made by a nervous person who found himself tortured by a long series of efforts to get a note in the middle of a tune right. It would have struck him as mere affectation if anyone had objected to hearing the same tune with the same gasping wheeze in the middle of it played over a hundred or a hundred and fifty times in one evening. Young Kerrigan’s dislike of the necessary publicity of his practising was similar to that which other artists feel when members of the public break in and see their work in an incomplete condition. He liked his music to be appreciated. He felt that acknowledgment of the stages by which it came to its ultimate perfection was likely to diminish its glory. But he had no place in which he could practise except the back yard of his father’s house, and that, unfortunately, was in the very middle of the town.
In order to get out of his difficulty young Kerrigan adopted the plan of learning new tunes only in autumn and winter, when strong gales were blowing. On a calm summer evening every note of the cornet, whether right or wrong, was heard. Even the sounds which were not quite notes but only painful grunts penetrated open windows and doors. But when a storm was raging most of the notes were blown away, and only occasionally, when there happened to be a lull, did anybody except young Kerrigan himself hear anything. The plan worked out very satisfactorily. Amid the rush and clatter of a tempest people took no notice of such stray wailings of the cornet as reached their ears. But, like many excellent plans, this one was liable to break down in emergencies. It broke down badly when Dr. O’Grady insisted that the band should learn “Rule Britannia” in the middle of August.
Young Kerrigan readily got a grip on the tune. He could whistle it and hum it quite correctly after he had heard it six or seven times. But to reproduce it on the cornet required practise, and the weather was remarkably calm and fine. Kerrigan, in spite of his dislike of being heard, was obliged to devote the evening to it after the doctor left him. Next morning he went at it again, beginning at about eleven o’clock. He got on very well up to the point at which the words declare that “Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.” The notes which went to the “nevers” were particularly troublesome. He tried them slowly, one by one, leaving a short interval between them. He tried them fast, running them into each other. He tried beginning the tune again after each mistake, in hope of getting over his difficulty, as a bicyclist sometimes gets up a hill, by running. He was a man of patient disposition, and he was still working hard at one o’clock.
Mr. Thaddeus Gallagher spent the morning transcribing shorthand notes in his office. There had been a singularly interesting meeting of the County Council the day before in the neighbouring town of Dunbeg. Gallagher had written down every word of an acrimonious debate. He wanted to publish a verbatim report of it. As a rule noise of any kind affected him very little, and at first he took no notice whatever of young Kerrigan’s cornet. But the continual repetition of the tune gradually beat it into his brain. He found his pencil moving across the paper in a series of short staccato bounds every time young Kerrigan got to “Never, never, never.” He became by degrees vaguely uneasy. The tune was one which he had certainly heard before. He could not remember where he had heard it. He could not remember what it was. But he became more and more sure that it was connected in his mind with some unpleasant associations. At last he found it impossible to go on with his work. The most passionate invective of the most furious of the County Councillors failed to move him to any interest. He glanced at his watch. It was just one o’clock. The meeting of the Reception Committee was to take place at half-past one. Gallagher felt that he had just time to investigate thoroughly the disagreeable tune. He got up and left his office.
Constable Moriarty was standing at the door of the barrack listening to young Kerrigan. Being himself a musician, he appreciated the difficulty of playing “Rule Britannia” on a cornet, and enjoyed hearing young Kerrigan’s efforts. When he saw Gallagher come out of his office he was greatly pleased, and showed his feeling by grinning broadly. Gallagher saw the grin, and his suspicion that the tune was an offensive one deepened at once. He crossed the road.
“What’s that,” he said, “that young Kerrigan’s playing?”
“It’s a new tune,” said Moriarty, “and it’s hoped that the town band will learn it.”
“Where did he get it?”
“I’m after hearing,” said Moriarty, “that it was the doctor taught it to him. But I don’t know is that true. You can’t believe the half of what you hear in this town.”
“What tune is it?”
“I don’t know that I could put a name to it this minute; but there’s no need for you to be uneasy, Mr. Gallagher. It’s not what you think it is.”
“I’m not thinking about it at all,” said Gallagher, very untruthfully.
“I’m glad of that,” said Moriarty. “I was afraid from the look of you as you came out of the office that you might be thinking it was ‘God Save the King.’ But it’s not.”
“I was thinking no such thing, for young Kerrigan knows and the doctor knows, and you know yourself, Constable Moriarty, that the people of this town is all good Nationalists, and that if the tune you’re after naming was to be played in the streets——”
“It’s not it, anyway,” said Moriarty, “so you may make your mind easy.”
Gallagher’s mind was very far from being easy, but he saw that he was not likely to get any more information out of Constable Moriarty. He crossed the road and entered the hotel. Doyle was in the commercial room trying to induce Mary Ellen to sweep the floor. It was in the commercial room that the meeting of the Committee was to be held that afternoon. Doyle wanted some, if not all, of the dirt removed from the floor beforehand.
“What tune’s that young Kerrigan’s playing?” said Gallagher.
“I don’t know,” said Doyle. “I’ve more to do than to be listening to tunes. Mary Ellen, can you not see that there’s three corks out of porter bottles underneath the table? Will you take them out of it now, like a good girl?”
“I’m not satisfied in my mind about that tune,” said Gallagher.
“What harm is there in it?”
“I don’t know yet is there any harm, but I don’t like it, and I’d be glad if I knew what tune it is. I have it in my mind that it’s a tune that ought not to be played.”
“Mary Ellen,” said Doyle, “what tune is it that young Kerrigan’s playing?”
“How would I know?” said Mary Ellen.
“Well, put down that sweeping brush,” said Doyle. “For all the good you’re doing with it you might as well never have taken it up. I never seen such a girl. Put it down now and run across to Constable Moriarty, who’s standing at the door of the barrack——”
“I’d be ashamed,” said Mary Ellen, “so I would.”
“If you’re not ashamed of the state this room’s in,” said Doyle, “it would take more than Moriarty to shame you. Run along now, when you’re bid, and ask him what tune it is that Kerrigan’s playing.”
Mary Ellen, who hoped that the interruption might put an end to the sweeping once for all, left the room.
“If there’s one in the town that knows the tune,” said Doyle, “it’ll be Moriarty. I’d say myself that he must know pretty near every tune there is in the world.”
“He might tell her,” said Gallagher, “or he might not. I was talking to him this minute and he wouldn’t tell me.”
“He’ll tell Mary Ellen,” said Doyle. “He’s always after that girl, and it’s my belief he’ll tell her anything that she’d ask him. There’s some that’s took that way. Foolishness I call it.”
“It’s the way he wouldn’t tell me when I asked him,” said Gallagher, “that and the grin on his face when he saw me that has me sure that there’s some insult intended to the people of this town with that tune. It’s what I wouldn’t stand, and the doctor and the rest of them may make their minds up to it. It’s what I won’t stand is to have tunes played here that is against the political convictions of the people.”
“Who’d do the like?” said Doyle soothingly.
“What I say is this,” said Gallagher, “if there’s no reason to be ashamed of the tune, let them say out boldly what tune it is. I have it in the back of my mind that I’ve heard that tune before now, and it’s not the kind of tune that decent men would be listening to.”
“Have sense, can’t you, Thady. There’s nobody wanting to annoy you.”
“There may not be,” said Gallagher, “but there’s more than one in this town that’s the enemies of the Irish people and would be glad to see the cup of freedom dashed from the lips of the men that have spent their lives in the struggle for Home Rule and that has it now as good as got.”
“Have sense,” said Doyle, but he spoke without real energy or much purpose. He had little hope that Gallagher, once embarked on a peroration, would stop until he had used up all the words at his command. He was quite right in his reading of his friend’s character. Gallagher went on:
“It isn’t the declared enemies of the people that we’d be afraid of,” he said. “We’ll meet them in the open field as we’ve always met them and they’ll fly before the spectacle of a united people as they’ve always fled, the tyrants of other days, the blood-sucking landlords——”
“God help the poor Major,” said Doyle.
“But the traitors within the camp,” said Gallagher, “the men that is occupying positions in the gift of the people of Ireland, that’s taking our pay, and at the same time plotting contrivances for the heaping of insults on the dearest convictions of our hearts——”
Mary Ellen entered the room while Gallagher was speaking. Bewildered by the splendour of his eloquence she stopped short just inside the door and gazed at him with her mouth open. Doyle took advantage of a slight hesitation in Gallagher’s oration to speak to her.
“What tune is it, Mary Ellen?” he said.
“I couldn’t rightly say,” said Mary Ellen.
“Didn’t I tell you,” said Gallagher, “that there was underhand work going on?”
“What tune did Moriarty say it was?” said Doyle.
“He said it was a tune the doctor is after teaching young Kerrigan,” said Mary Ellen.
“What did I tell you?” said Gallagher. “Maybe you’ll believe me now.”
“The best thing for you to do, Thady.” said Doyle, “if you’re dead set on finding out about that tune is to go and ask young Kerrigan what it is. The boy’s a decent boy, and he’ll tell you if you speak civil to him.”
“I’ll do that same,” said Gallagher, “and if I discover——”
“You’d better be quick about it then,” said Doyle, “for the committee is to meet at half after one and I wouldn’t like you’d miss the proceedings.”
“Come along with me,” said Gallagher. “I wish you to hear the way I mean to talk to young Kerrigan.”
Doyle did not want to listen to Gallagher browbeating young Kerrigan, but he realised that he would save time and a long argument if he went at once. He made a last appeal to Mary Ellen to collect at least the corks which were on the floor. Then he went out with Gallagher. In the porch of the hotel they met Major Kent who was a scrupulously punctual man, on his way to the committee meeting.
“You’re a bit early, Major,” said Doyle. “But if you’ll step into the commercial room you won’t have long to wait. Thady and I have to cross the street on a matter of business but we’ll be back in less than five minutes. The doctor might be here any time and I see Father McCormack coming along from the presbytery.”
Doyle was unduly optimistic. He was not back in five minutes. He did not, indeed, get back for nearly half an hour.
Kerrigan, very red in the face, and rather exhausted, was still blowing vigorously into his cornet when Gallagher and Doyle entered the back-yard. Gallagher went straight to business without wasting any time on preliminary politeness.
“Will you stop that blasted noise,” he said.
Kerrigan took the cornet from his lips and gazed at Gallagher in extreme surprise.
“Speak civil to the boy,” said Doyle.
“What tune is that?” said Gallagher.
“What Mr. Gallagher’s meaning to say,” said Doyle, “is that party tunes is unsuitable to this locality where the people has always lived in peace and harmony, Protestant and Catholic together, and respected one another. That’s what Mr. Gallagher means, and if Constable Moriarty didn’t annoy him it’s what he’d say.”
“It’s a tune the doctor taught me,” said young Kerrigan, “and it’s a fine tune, so it is.”
“What’s the name of it?” said Gallagher.
“That,” said young Kerrigan, “is what I was meaning to ask the doctor next time he happened to be passing but if you’re in a hurry to know, Mr. Gallagher, you can ask him yourself. It’s likely you’ll be seeing him before I do.”
Young Kerrigan’s words were perfectly civil; but there was a look in his eyes which Gallagher did not like and the tone in which he spoke suggested that he meant to be impudent.
“I’ll take no back talk from you,” said Gallagher. “What tune is it?”
“I don’t know what tune it is,” said Kerrigan.
“You’re a liar,” said Gallagher. “You know well what tune it is.”
“Speak civil now, Thady,” said Doyle, “speak civil to the boy.”
“I may be a liar,” said Kerrigan, “but it’s the truth I told you this minute. And liar or no liar it’s the truth I’ll speak now, when I tell you that I’m not near as damned a liar as yourself, Mr. Gallagher. So there’s for you. What do you mean by telling the American gentleman that I was married to Mary Ellen and her with twins? Was that a lie now or was it not? Twins! Cock the like of that one up with twins! If I’m a liar I’d tell more sensible lies than that.”
“Whisht, now, whisht,” said Doyle. “Sure if Mr. Gallagher said that, isn’t the girl a cousin of his own, and hadn’t he the best right to say it?”
“Come along out of this,” said Gallagher.
“The sooner you’re gone the better I’ll be pleased,” said Kerrigan.
“And let me tell you this, Mr. Kerrigan, junior. You’ll be sorry for this day’s work for the longest day ever you live. When the League boys hear, and they will hear, about the tune that you mean to play——”
“Come along now, Thady,” said Doyle. “Come along. You’ve enough said. We’re late for the meeting of the committee already, and we’ll be later yet if you don’t come on. You wouldn’t like to keep Father McCormack waiting on you.”
“I’ve had enough of your committee,” said Gallagher. “What’s your statue only foolishness?”
“Sure everybody knows that,” said Doyle.
“And what’s your Lord-Lieutenant only——”
“Come on, now,” said Doyle, “isn’t it for the benefit of the town we’re doing it? And it’s yourself that’s always to the fore when there’s good work to be done.”
“I will not go with you,” said Gallagher.
They had passed through Kerrigan’s shop and reached the street, when Gallagher delivered this ultimatum. Doyle hesitated. He was already late for the committee meeting. If he waited to coax Gallagher out of his bad temper he might miss the meeting altogether. He looked at the door of the hotel. Father McCormack was standing at it, waiting, perhaps, for him and Gallagher.
“Come now, Thady,” he said, “have sense. Don’t you see Father McCormack waiting for you?”
“I see him,” said Gallagher.
“And don’t you know well enough that you’ll have no luck if you go against the clergy?”
The appeal was a strong one, and had he been in any ordinary temper Gallagher would have yielded to it at once. But he was very angry indeed, far too angry to be influenced by purely religious considerations. He walked straight across the square to his office, entered it, and slammed the door behind him. Doyle followed him as far as the threshold. There he stopped and looked round. He saw Father McCormack go into the hotel. A minute later Mrs. Gregg hurried down the street and went into the hotel. Doyle sighed heavily and entered Gallagher’s office. Difficult and unpleasant as his task was likely to be, he felt that he must propitiate Thady Gallagher.
“Thady,” he said, “is there a drop of anything to drink in the place?”
“There is not,” said Gallagher, “nor I wouldn’t drink it if there was.”
This confirmed Doyle’s view of the extreme seriousness of the situation. That Gallagher should be prepared to defy the clergy was bad enough. That he should adopt an ascetic’s attitude towards drink was worse. But Doyle did not quite believe that Gallagher meant what he said. He opened a door at the far end of the office and whistled loudly. A small boy who had been cleaning type in the printing-room, appeared, rubbing his inky hands on his trousers.
“Michael Antony,” said Doyle, “will you step across to the hotel and tell Mary Ellen to give you the bottle of whisky that she’ll find in the cupboard in my own room? If you can’t find Mary Ellen—and it’s hardly ever she is to be found when she’s wanted—you can fetch the bottle yourself. If you don’t know the way to my room you ought to.”
Michael Antony, who was very well accustomed to errands of this kind, went off at once. Doyle glanced at Gallagher, who appeared to be absorbed in completing the transcription of his shorthand notes, the task at which he had been interrupted in the morning by young Kerrigan’s cornet playing. He seemed to be very busy. Doyle got up and left the room, went into the kitchen which lay beyond the printing-room, and returned with two tumblers and a jug of water. Gallagher looked up from his writing for an instant. Doyle noticed with pleasure the expression of violent anger was fading from his eyes. Michael Antony, who was a brisk and willing boy, returned with a bottle rather more than half full of whisky.
“Mary Ellen was upstairs along with a lady,” he said. “But I found the bottle.”
“If you were three years older,” said Doyle, “I’d give you a drop for your trouble. But it wouldn’t be good for you, Michael Antony, and your mother wouldn’t be pleased if she heard you were taking it.”
“I have the pledge since Christmas, anyway,” said Michael Antony.
“Thady,” said Doyle, when the boy had left the room, “it’s a drink you want to quench the rage that’s in you.”
Gallagher looked up from his papers. He did not say anything, but Doyle understood exactly what he would have said if his pride had not prevented him from speaking.
“The width of two fingers in the bottom of the tumbler,” said Doyle, “with as much water on top of that as would leave you free to say that you weren’t drinking it plain.”
The amount of water necessary to soothe Gallagher’s conscience was very small. Doyle added it from the jug in driblets of about a teaspoonful at a time. At the sound of the third splash Gallagher raised his hand. Doyle laid down the jug at once. Gallagher, without looking up from his papers, stretched out his left hand and felt about until he grasped the tumbler. He raised it to his lips and took a mouthful of whisky.
“Thady,” said Doyle, “you’ve no great liking for Mr. Ford.”
“I have not,” said Gallagher. “Isn’t he always going against me at the Petty Sessions, he and the old Major together, and treating me as if I wasn’t a magistrate the same as the best of them?”
“He does that, and it’s a crying shame, so it is, that he’s allowed to; but sure that’s the way things are in this country.”
Gallagher took another gulp of whisky and waited. Doyle said nothing more. He appeared to have nothing more to say and to have mentioned Mr. Ford’s name merely for the sake of making conversation. But Gallagher wished to develop the subject.
“What about Mr. Ford?” he said, after a long silence.
“He’s terrible down on the erection of the statue to General John Regan.”
“I’m that myself,” said Gallagher.
“Mr. Ford will be pleased when he hears it; for there’ll be no statue if you set your face against it. It’ll be then that Mr. Ford will be proud of himself. He’ll be saying all round the Country that it was him put a stop to it.”
“It will not be him that put a stop to it.”
“It’s what he’ll say, anyway,” said Doyle.
Gallagher finished his whisky in two large gulps.
“Let him,” he said.
“Have another drop,” said Doyle. “It’s doing you good.”
Gallagher pushed his tumbler across the table. Doyle replenished it.
“I’d be sorry,” said Doyle, “if Mr. Ford was to be able to say he’d got the better of you, Thady, in a matter of the kind.”
“It’ll not be me he’ll get the better of.”
“He’ll say it,” said Doyle, “and what’s more there’s them that will believe it. For they’ll say, recollecting the speech you made on Tuesday, that you were in favour of the statue, and that only for Mr. Ford you’d have had it.”
“If I thought that——” said Gallagher.
“Come along over now to the committee,” said Doyle, “and we’ll have the statue just in derision of him.”
“It isn’t the statue that I’m objecting to,” said Gallagher, “nor it isn’t the notion of a new pier. You know that, Doyle.”
“I do, of course.”
“And if it’s the wish of the people of this locality that there should be a statue——”
“It is the wish,” said Doyle. “Didn’t you say yourself that the people was unanimous about it after the meeting in the market square?”
Gallagher rose from his chair and pushed his papers back on the table. He crushed his soft hat down on the back of his head and turned to the door.
“Come on,” he said.
“I knew well,” said Doyle, “that you’d do whatever was right in the latter end. And as for the tune that was troubling you, it’s even money that the band will never play it. Father McCormack was telling me yesterday that the big drum’s broke on them on account of one of the boys giving it a kind of a slit with the point of a knife. The band will hardly ever be able to play that tune or any other tune when they haven’t got a big drum.”