Front matter (continued 7)

“This is quite a different sort of case,” said the doctor. “This man’s not dying or the least likely to die.”

“I’ll not go near him,” said the priest.

“I’m sorry to hear you say that, Father. The Rev. Mr. Jackson is coming up, and he’s prepared to ask the man what religion he is in ancient Greek—ancient Greek, mind you, no less. It wouldn’t be a nice thing to have it said about the town that the Protestant minister could talk ancient Greek and that you weren’t fit to say a few words in Latin. Come, now, Father Henaghan, for the credit of the Church say you’ll do it.”

This last argument weighed greatly with the priest. Dr. Whitty saw his advantage and pressed the matter home.

“I’ll put you down,” he said, “for Spanish and Italian.”

“You may put me down if you like, but I tell you he won’t know a word I speak to him.”

“Try him,” said the doctor.

“I’ll not be making a public fool of myself to please you,” said the priest. “If I do it at all I’ll have no one with me in the room at the time, mind that now.”

“Not a soul. You shall have him all to yourself. To tell you the truth, I expect everybody will feel the same as you do about that. The Rev. Mr. Jackson didn’t seem very keen on showing off his ancient Greek.”

Colonel Beresford, when Dr. Whitty called on him, confessed to a slight, a very slight, acquaintance with the Russian language.

“I took it up,” he said, “a long time ago when I was stationed in Edinburgh. There was a Russian scare on at the time and everybody thought there was going to be a war. I happened to hear that there were a couple of Russian medical students in the University, and I thought if I picked up a little of the language I might fall in for a staff appointment. I’ve nearly forgotten it all now, and I didn’t make any special study of religious terms at the time, but I’ll do the best I can for you. You’ve got all the other languages you say.”

“I think so. I have”—the doctor took a list from his pocket—“French, Miss Lizzie Glynn. She was educated at a first-rate convent, and speaks French fluently. Greek (ancient and modern), the Rev. Mr. Jackson. German and allied tongues, Mrs. Jackson. Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, Father Henaghan. That, with your Russian, makes a tolerably complete list.”

“I’d no idea,” said the colonel, “that we were such a polyglot in Ballintra. By the way, you haven’t got Norwegian.”

“No,” said the doctor, “I haven’t and when you come to think of it, a sailor is more likely to be that, or a Swede, than any thing else. Can you speak it?”

“Not a word.”

“Do you happen to have a dictionary, Norwegian or Swedish, in the house?”

“No.”

“That’s a pity. I’d have tried to work it up a little myself if you had.”

“All I have,” said the Colonel, “is a volume of Ibsen’s plays.”

“Give me that,” said the Doctor, “and I’ll do my best.”

“It’s only a translation.”

“Never mind. I’ll pick up something out of it that may be useful. I have two hours before me. Do you mind lending it to me?”

Dr. Whitty went home with a copy of a translation of “Rosmersholm,” “Ghosts,” and “An Enemy of Society.”

At six o’clock the whole party of linguists assembled in the private sitting-room of the master of the workhouse. Dr. Whitty gave them a short address of an encouraging kind, pointing out that, in performing an act of charity they were making the best possible use of the education they had received. He then politely asked Mrs. Jackson if she would like to visit the foreigner first. She did not seem anxious to push herself forward. Her German, she confessed, was weak; and she hoped that if she was reserved until the last he might possibly recognise one of the other languages before her turn came. Everybody else, it turned out, felt very much as Mrs. Jackson did. In the end Dr. Whitty decided the order of precedence by drawing lots. The colonel, accepting loyally the decision of destiny, went first and returned with the news that the sailor showed no signs of being able to understand Russian. Lizzie Glynn went next, and was no more fortunate with her French.

“I’m not sure,” she said, “did I speak it right. But, right or wrong, he didn’t know a word I said to him.”

Mr. Jackson arranged his notes carefully and was conducted by the doctor to the ward. He, too, returned without having made himself intelligible.

“I knew I should be no use,” he said. “I expect modern Greek is quite different from the language I know.”

Father Henaghan’s Latin was a complete failure. He seemed irritated and reported very unfavourably of the intelligence of the patient.

“It’s my belief,” he said, “that the man’s mind’s gone. He must have got a crack on the head somehow, as well as breaking his leg, and had the sense knocked out of him. He looks to me like a man who’d understand well enough when you talked to him if he had his right mind.”

This view of the sailor’s condition made Mrs. Jackson nervous. She said she had no experience of lunatics, and disliked being brought into contact with them. She wanted to back out of her promise to ask the necessary question in German. In the end she consented to go, but only if her husband was allowed to accompany her. She was back again in five minutes, and said definitely that the man knew no German whatever.

“Now,” said the colonel, “it’s your turn, doctor. Go at him with your Norwegian.”

“The fact is,” said the doctor, “that, owing to the three plays you lent me being merely translations, I’ve only been able to get a hold of one Norwegian word. However, as it happens, it is an extremely useful word in this particular case. The Norwegian for a clergyman,” he said, triumphantly, “is ‘Pastor.’ What’s more, I’ve got a hold of the name of one of their clergy. If this man is a Norwegian, and has been in the habit of going to the theatre, I expect he’ll know all about Pastor Manders.”

“It’s clever of you to have fished that out of the book I lent you,” said the colonel. “But I don’t quite see how it will help you to find out whether our friend with the broken leg is a Protestant or a Roman Catholic.”

“It will help if it’s worked properly, if it’s worked the way I mean to work it, that is to say, if the man is a Norwegian, and I don’t see what else he can be.”

“He might be a Turk,” said Father Henaghan.

“No he couldn’t. I tried him with half a glass of whiskey this morn, and he simply lapped it up. If he had been a Turk the smell of it would have turned him sick. We may fairly assume that he is, as I say, a Norwegian, and if he is I’ll get at him. I shall want you, Father Henaghan, and you, Mr. Jackson, to come with me.”

“I’ve been twice already,” said Mr. Jackson. “Do you really think it necessary for me——”

“I shan’t ask you to speak another word of ancient Greek,” said the doctor. “You needn’t do anything except stand where I put you and look pleasant.”

He took the priest and the rector, seizing each by the arm, and swept them with him along the corridor to the ward in which the injured sailor lay. He set them one on each side of the bed, and stood at the foot of it himself. The sailor stared first at the priest and next at the rector. Then he looked the doctor straight in the face and his left eyelid twitched slightly. Dr. Whitty felt almost certain that he winked; but there was clearly no reason why he should wink with any malicious intent, so he put the motion down to some nervous affection.

“Pastor,” said the doctor, in a loud, clear tone, pointing to Father Henaghan.

The sailor looked vacantly at the priest.

“Pastor,” said the doctor again, indicating Mr. Jackson, with his finger.

The sailor turned his face and looked at Mr. Jackson, but there was no sign of intelligence on his face.

“Take your choice,” said the doctor; “you can have either one or the other. We don’t want to influence you in the slightest, but you’ve got to profess a religion of some sort while you’re here, and these clergymen represent the only two kinds we have. One or other of them you must choose, otherwise the unfortunate master of this workhouse will get into trouble for not registering you. Hang it all! I don’t believe the fool knows a single word I’m saying to him.”

Again, the man’s eyelid, this time his right, eyelid, twitched.

“Don’t do that,” said the doctor; “it distracts your attention from what I’m saying. Listen to me now. Pastor Manders!” He pointed to the priest. “Pastor Manders!” He indicated the rector.

Neither Father Henaghan nor Mr. Jackson had ever read “Ghosts,” which was fortunate. If they had they might have resented the name which the doctor imposed on them. Apparently, the sailor did not know the play either. “Manders” seemed to mean no more to him than “Pastor” did.

“There’s no use our standing here all evening,” said Father Henaghan. “You told me to look pleasant, and I have—I haven’t looked so pleasant for a long time—but I don’t see that any good is likely to come of it.”

“Come on,” said the doctor. “I’ve done my best, and I can do no more. I’m inclined to think now that the man must be either a Laplander or an Esquimaux. He’d have understood me if he’d been a Dane, a Swede, a Norwegian, or even a Finn.”

“I told you, as soon as ever I set eyes on him,” said the priest, “that he was out of his mind. My own belief is, doctor, that if you give him some sort of a soothing draught, and get him back into his right senses, he’ll turn out to be an Irishman. It’s what he looks like.”

Michael Geraghty, who had carted the injured sailor from the shipwreck, called on Dr. Whitty next day at breakfast-time.

“I hear,” he said, “that you had half the town up yesterday trying could they get a word out of that fellow that’s in the hospital with the broken leg.”

“I had. We spoke to him in every language in Europe, and I’m bothered if I know what country he belongs to at all. There wasn’t one of us he’d answer.”

“Did you think of trying him with the Irish?”

“I did not. Where would be the good? If he could speak Irish he’d be sure to be able to speak English.”

“Would you have any objection to my saying a few words to him, doctor?”

“Not the least in the world. If you’ve nothing particular to do, go up there and tell the master I sent you.”

An hour later Michael Geraghty re-appeared at the doctor’s door. He was grinning broadly and seemed pleased with himself.

“Well, Michael, did you make him speak?”

“I didn’t like to say a word to you, doctor, till I made sure for fear of what I might be bringing some kind of trouble on the wrong man; but as soon as ever I seen that fellow put into my cart beyond at Carrigwee, I said to myself: ‘You’re mighty like poor Affy Hynes that’s gone, only a bit older. I took another look at him as we were coming along the road, and, says I, ‘If Affy Hynes is alive this minute you’re him. You’ll recollect, doctor, that the poor fellow couldn’t speak at the time, by reason of the cold that was on him and the broken leg and all the hardships he’d been through. Well, looking at him off and on, till I got to the workhouse I came to be pretty near certain that it was either Affy Hynes or a twin brother of his; and Mrs. Hynes, the mother, that’s dead this ten years, never had but the one son.”

“And who was Affy Hynes?”

“It was before your time, of course, and before Father Henaghan was parish priest; but the colonel would know who I mean.” Michael sank his voice to an impressive whisper. “Affy Hynes was the boy that the police was out after in the bad times, wanting to have him hanged on account of the way that the bailiff was shot. But he made off, and none of us ever knew where he went to, though they did say that it might be to an uncle of his that was in America.”

“Did he murder the bailiff?”

“He did not; nor I don’t believe he knew who did, though he might.”

“Then what did he run away for?”

“For fear they’d hang him,” said Michael Geraghty. “Amn’t I just after telling you?”

“Go on,” said the doctor.

“Well, when Affy came to himself after all the hardship he had it wasn’t long before he found out the place he was in. ‘It’s Ballintra,’ says he to himself, ‘or it’s mighty like it.’ There did be a great dread on him then that the police would be out after him again, and have him took; and, says he, into himself like, so as no one would hear him, ‘I’ll let on I can’t understand a word they say to me, so as they won’t know my voice, anyway.’ And so he did; but he went very near laughing one time when you had the priest and the minister, one on each side of him, and ‘Pastor,’ says you——”

“Never mind that part,” said the doctor.

“If it’s displeasing to you to hear about it, I’ll not say another word. Only, I’d be thankful if you’d tell me why you called the both of them Manders. It’s what Affy was saying to me this minute: ‘Michael,’ says he, ‘is Manders the name that’s on the priest that’s in the parish presently?’ ‘It is not,’ says I, ‘but Henaghan.’ ‘That’s queer,’ said he. ‘Is it Manders they call the minister?’ ‘It is not,’ I says; ‘it’s Jackson. There never was one in the place of the name of Manders, priest or minister.’ ‘That’s queer,’ says he ‘for the doctor called both the two of them Manders.’”

“So he understood every word we said to him all the time?” said the doctor.

“Not the whole of it, nor near the whole,” said Michael Geraghty. “He’s been about the world a deal, being a sailor and he said he could make out what Miss Glynn was saying pretty well, and knew the minister’s lady was talking Dutch, though he couldn’t tell what she was saying, for it wasn’t just the same Dutch as he’d been accustomed to hearing. The colonel made a middling good offer at the Russian. Affy was a year one time in them parts, and he knows; but he said he’d be damned if he could make any kind of a guess at what either the priest or the minister was at, and he told me to be sure and ask you what they were talking because he’d like to know.”

“I’ll go up and see him myself,” said the doctor.

“If you speak the Irish to him he’ll answer you,” said Michael.

“I will, if he likes,” said the doctor. “But why won’t he speak English?”

“There’s a sort of dread on him,” said Michael Geraghty. “I think he’d be more willing to trust you if you’d speak to him in the Irish, it being all one to you. He bid me say to you, and it’s a good job I didn’t forget it, that if so be he’s dying, you might tell Father Henaghan he’s a Catholic, the way he’d attend on him; but if he’s to live, he’d as soon no one but yourself and me knew he was in the place.”

Dr. Whitty went up to the workhouse, turned the nurse out of the ward, and sat down beside Affy Hynes.

“Tell me this now,” he said, “why didn’t you let me know who you were? I wouldn’t have told on you.”

“I was sorry after that I didn’t,” said Affy, “when I seen all the trouble that I put you to. It was too much altogether fetching the ladies and gentlemen up here to be speaking to the like of me. It’s what never happened to me before, and I’m sorry you were bothered.”

“Why didn’t you tell me then?”

“Sure, I did my best. Did you not see me winking at you once, when you had the priest and the minister in with me, as much as to say: ‘Doctor, if I thought I could trust you I’d tell you the truth this minute.’ I made full sure you’d understand what it was I was meaning the second time, even if you didn’t at the first go-off.”

“That’s not what I gathered from your wink at all,” said the doctor. “I thought you’d got some kind of a nervous affection of the eye.”

“It’s a queer thing, now,” said Affy, “that the two of them reverend gentlemen should have the same name, and that Manders.”

“We’ll drop that subject,” said the Doctor.

“We will, of course, if it’s pleasing to you. But it is queer all the same, and I’d be glad if I knew the reason of it, for it must be mighty confusing for the people of this place, both Catholic and Protestant. Tell me now, doctor, is there any fear that I might be took by the police?”

“Not a bit. That affair of yours, whatever it was, is blown over long ago.”

“Are you certain of that?”

“I am.”

“Then as soon as I’m fit I’ll take a bit of a stroll out and look at the old place. I’d like to see it again. Many’s the time I’ve said to myself, me being, may be, in some far-away country at the time, ‘I’d like to see Ballintra again, and the house where my mother lived, and the bohireen that the asses does be going along into the bog when the turf’s brought home.’ Is it there yet?”

“I expect it is,” said the doctor.

“God is good,” said Affy. “It’s little ever I expected to set eyes on it.”

A Test of Truth.

From “Irish Neighbours.”

By Jane Barlow.

Jim Hanlon, the cobbler, was said by his neighbours to have had his own share of trouble, and they often added, “And himself a very dacint man, goodness may pity him!” His misfortunes began when poor Mary Anne, his wife, died, leaving him forlorn with one rather sickly little girl, and they seemed to culminate when one frosty morning a few years later he broke his leg with a fall on his way to visit Minnie in hospital. The neighbours, who were so much impressed by her father’s good qualities and bad luck, did not hold an equally favourable opinion about this Minnie, inclining to consider her a “cross-tempered, spoilt little shrimp of a thing.” But Jim himself thought that the width of the world contained nothing like her, which was more or less true. So when she fell ill of a low fever, and the doctor said that the skilled nursing in a Dublin hospital would be by far her best chance, it was only after a sore struggle that Jim could make up his mind to let her go. And then his visit to her at the first moment possible had brought about the unwary walking and slip on a slide, which resulted so disastrously.

It was indeed a most deplorable accident. If it had happened somewhere near Minnie’s hospital, he said to himself, it might have been less unlucky, but, alas, the whole city spread between them and the institution whither he was brought. The sense of his helplessness almost drove him frantic, as he lay in the long ward fretting over the thought that he was tied by the leg, unable to come next or nigh her, whatever might befall, or even to get a word of news about her. But on this latter point his forebodings were not fulfilled, his neighbours proved themselves to be friends in need. At the tidings of his mishap they made their way in to see him from unhandy little Ballyhoy, undeterred by what was often to them no very trivial expense and inconvenience. Nor were they slow to discover that they could do him no greater service than find out for him “what way herself was at all over at the other place.” Everybody helped him readily in this matter, more especially three or four good-natured Ballyhoy matrons. On days when they came into town to do their bits of marketing they would augment their toils by long trudges on foot, or costly drives on tramcars, that they might convey to Jim Hanlon the report for which he pined. They considered neither their heavy baskets, nor the circumstance that they were folk to whom time was time, and a penny a penny indeed.

Yet, sad to say, great as was Jim’s relief and his gratitude, their very zeal did in some degree diminish the value of their kindness. For their evident desire to please and pacify him awakened in his mind doubts about the means which they might adopt; and it must be admitted that his mistrust was not altogether ungrounded. The tales which they carried to him from “the other place” were not seldom intrinsically improbable, and sounded all the more so to him because of his intimate acquaintance with their subject. When Mrs. Jack Doyle averred that Minnie was devouring all before her, and that the nurse said a strong man would scarce eat as much as she did, Jim remembered Minnie’s tomtit-like meals at home, and found the statement hard to accept. It was still worse when they gave him effusively affectionate messages, purporting to come from Minnie, who had always been anything in the world but demonstrative and sentimental. His heart sank as Mrs. Doran assured him that Minnie had sent her love to her own darling treasure of a precious old daddy, for he knew full well that no such greeting had ever emanated from Minnie, and how could he tell, Jim reflected, but that they might be as apt to deceive him about one thing as another? Perhaps there was little or no truth in what they told him about the child being so much better, and able to sit up, and so forth. Like enough one couldn’t believe a word they said. On this terribly baffling question he pondered continually with a troubled mind.

Saturday mornings were always the most likely to bring him visitors, and on a certain Saturday he rejoiced to hear that somebody was asking for him. He was all the more pleased because the lateness of the hour had made him despair of seeing any friends, and because this portly, good-humoured Mrs. Connolly was just the person he had been wishing to come. She explained that she would have paid him a visit sooner, had not all her children been laid up with colds, and then, as he had hoped, she went on to say that she was going over to see after little Minnie. “And the Sister here’s promised me,” said Mrs. Connolly, “she’ll let me in to bring you word on me way back, even if I’m a trifle beyond the right visitin’ time itself.”

Thereupon Jim produced a sixpence from under his pillow, where he had kept it ready all the long morning. “If it wouldn’t be throublin’ you too much, ma’am,” he said, “I was wonderin’ is there e’er a place you would be passin’ by where you could get some sort of a little doll wid this for Minnie.”

“Is it a doll?” said Mrs. Connolly. “Why to be sure I will, and welcome. I know a shop in O’Connell Street where they’ve grand sixpenny dolls, dressed real delightful. I’ll get her a one of them as aisy as anythin’.” Mrs. Connolly knew that the price of the dolls she had in her eye was actually sixpence-halfpenny, but she at once resolved to pay the halfpenny herself and not let on.

“And you might maybe be gettin’ her an orange wid this,” Jim said, handing her a penny.

“Well, now, it’s the lucky child poor Minnie is,” Mrs. Connolly declared, “to have such a good daddy. Finely set up she will be wid a doll and an orange. I’ll bring her the best in Dublin, Jim, no fear.”

“She might fancy the orange, anyway,” Jim said, half to himself, with a queer remorseful sort of look.

Mrs. Connolly having gone, he began to expect her back again with an unreasonable promptitude which lengthened the afternoon prodigiously. He had suffered innumerable apprehensions, and fidgetted himself into a fever of anxiety before she could possibly have returned. At last, however, when her broad, cheerful countenance did reappear to him, looming through the misty March dusk, he felt that he would almost have chosen a further delay. For he had staked so much upon this venture that the crisis of learning, whether it had failed or succeeded could not but be rather terrible.

There was nothing apparently alarming in Mrs. Connolly’s report. She had found Minnie doing finely. Her nurse said she would be out of bed next week, and was very apt to get her health better than before she took bad. The orange had pleased her highly, and she had bid Mrs. Connolly tell her daddy that he might be sending her another one next Saturday if he liked. All this was good as far as it went, but about the doll, Mrs. Connolly kept silence, and it struck Jim that she shrank away from anything which seemed leading towards a reference to the subject. Jim, who at first had half dreaded and half longed every moment to hear her speak of it, began to think that she might go away without mentioning it, which would not do at all. In the end he had to introduce it himself.

“And how about the bit of a doll, ma’am?” he inquired as unconcernedly as he could. “Was you able to get her e’er a one?”

Unmistakably Mrs. Connolly was much disconcerted by the question. Her face fell, and she hesitated for a while before she replied, with evident reluctance—

“Sure, now, man alive, you never can tell what quare notions childer’ll take up wid when they’re sick, and more especially when they do be about gettin’ well agin, the way Minnie is now. Quiet enough the crathurs do be as long as they’re rale bad. But, tellin’ you the truth, Jim, not a bit of her would look at the doll. Some fantigue she had agin it, whatever ailed her, an’ it a great beauty, wid a pink sash on it and all manner. Slingin’ it into the middle of the floor she was, only the nurse caught a hould of it, an’ biddin’ me to take it away out of that. So says I to her, ‘What at all should I do wid the lovely doll, after your poor daddy sendin’ it to yourself?’ And, says she to me, ‘Give the ugly big lump of a thing to the ould divil,’ says she, ‘an’ let him give it to the little young black-leggy divils to play wid if they like.’ I declare to you, Jim, thim was the very words of her, sittin’ up in her bed, not lookin’ the size of anythin’. ‘Deed, now, she’s the comical child. But sure who’d be mindin’ her? And the nurse says she’ll keep the doll till to-morrow, an’ if Minnie doesn’t fancy it then, she’ll give it to the little girl in the next cot that does be frettin’ after her mother, so it won’t go to loss. An’ besides—”

She stopped short in surprise, for Jim, who had been laughing silently to himself, now broke out in tones of positive rapture—

“‘The little young black-leggy divils’—that’s Minnie herself, and no mistake this time, glory be to God! Sorra the fantigue it was, but just the nathur of her, for the thoughts of a doll she never could abide all the days of her life. She’d as lief be playin’ wid a snake or a toad. So if you’d let on to me that she liked it, ma’am, well I’d know ’twas only romancin’ to me you were. But the truth you tould me, right enough, and thank you kindly. The little villin’ll be runnin’ about before I am, plaze goodness. Och, bedad, I can see her slingin’ it neck an’ crop out of the bed.”

As Jim fell to laughing again, Mrs. Connolly looked at him puzzled, and with some disapproval, though she would not express the latter sentiment to him in his invalided condition. But she soon afterwards took leave, and on her homeward way she said to herself, “Musha, good gracious, mightn’t one suppose Jim Hanlon ‘ud have more since than to go sind the poor imp of a child a prisint only for the sake of annoyin’ her? ’Twas the quare, foolish way to be spendin’ a sixpence, in my opinion. But sure, ’twas be way of a joke, an’ the poor man hasn’t much chance of e’er a one lyin’ there. It’s wonderful the store men set by nonsense. Sometimes you’d think they were all born fools, they do be that aisy amused. You’ll hear thim guffawin’ like a jackass bewitched over silly ould blathers that an infant child ‘ud have more wit than to be mindin’.”

Certainly, Jim was so well satisfied with his joke, if joke it were, that when he grew drowsy towards evening, his last thoughts made him chuckle contentedly. “The little black-leggy divils,” he said to himself. “Glory be to God! she’s finely.” And he fell asleep with a glad and grateful heart.

The Wise Woman.

From “A Boy in the Country.”

By John Stevenson.

That she knew far more than all the doctors put together was commonly considered, in the territory of her operations, as truth beyond question. Sometimes a man body, with a pain for which he could not account, fearing the inquisition and expense of the qualified practitioner, would make believe to doubt the potency of her medicines, the reality of her cures. But even the discernment of a boy was sufficient to detect the insincerity of his contemptuous talk about “auld wife’s doctorin’,” and to find lurking behind his brave words the strong desire to consult the wise woman. With much show of impatience, and pretence of anger, at the over-persuasion of his womankind, he would give a seemingly reluctant consent to see Mrs. Moloney, “if she should happen to look in.” He knew as well as that he lived that her coming would be by invitation.

Such a one, receiving in the field the message that “Mrs. Moloney’s in,” would probably say, “Hoots, nonsense,” and add that he had his work to look after. But, very soon, he would find that he needed a spade or a hook, a pot of paint, or a bit of rope, from home, and he must needs go home for it himself. He believed in a man’s doing a thing for himself if he wanted it well done; as like as not a messenger would spend half a day in looking for what he wanted, and bring the wrong thing in the end. At home he would make a fine show of searching out-houses and lofts, passing and repassing, with some noise, the kitchen windows, finally looking in to see if the thing is in the kitchen; and there, of course, quite accidentally, he would see Mrs. Moloney and would not be rude enough to leave without passing the time o’ day. Then the womankind took hold of the case, drew out the man’s story of distress, took notes of the remedy, and saw to it that the medicine was taken according to direction.

“The innards o’ man is tough, and need to be dealt with accordin’,” said Mrs. Moloney, and for man she prescribed a dose which gave him some pain and, usually, cured him. It may be that Nature, provoked by the irritant remedy, got rid of it, and the ailment at once; or it may be that the man body, after the racket in “his innards,” found his ailment, by comparison, easy to live with, and imagined himself cured. In either case, the result was counted as cure to the credit of Mrs. Moloney.

By profession a seller of needles, pins, buttons, and such small wares, she owed her livelihood, in reality, to payment for her medical skill. Not that she took money for her prescription or advice—“Thanks be to God,” she said, “I never took wan penny for curin’ man, woman, or child”; but then, no one ever asked her advice without buying something, and if her charges were just a little more than shop prices, she was entitled to something extra for bringing the shop to the customer. Then she got her meals from grateful and believing patients, and her basket had an uncommercial end, covered with a fair, white cloth, into which the good wife, with some show of doing good by stealth, introduced the useful wreck of a boiled fowl, or a ham-bone with broth possibilities.

She did not meddle with diseases of children, except in cases of measles, for which she prescribed whisky and sulphur, and a diet of sweet milk warm from the cow. Decline, she considered to be due to “a sappin’ o’ the constitution,” and she shared the old-time belief in the noxious effect of night air on consumptives, and would have them warm in curtained four-posters, in rooms into which little light and no fresh air could enter. Beyond a recommendation of port wine, she had no message for healing for these poor sufferers. Her strength lay in the treatment of adults’ ailments which do not necessarily kill. Her list of diseases was a short one. For the numerous forms of hepatic trouble known to the professional, she had one comprehensive title—

Liver Complent,

and for it one remedy, varied only in magnitude of dose. She recognised also as a common ailment—

Stomach Complent,

differentiating under this heading, Andygestion, Waterbrash, and Shuperfluity o’ phlegm on the stomach. She knew, too—

Bowel Complent, Rheumatism, Gineral Wakeness, and Harry Siplars.1

The foundation of her great reputation was, indeed, largely built on her celebrated cure of this last, in the case of Peggy Mulligan. She shall tell of it herself:—

“She come to me, an’ she ses, ‘Mary,’ ses she, ‘can ye cure me, for I’m heart-sick o’ them doctors at the dispinsary, an’ they’re not doin’ me wan pick o’ good.’ Ses I to her, ses I, ‘What did they give ye?’ ses I. ‘O the dear knows,’ ses she. ‘I haven’t tuk anythin’ they said, for I didn’t believe they would do me no good.’ An’ I had pity on the cratur, for her face was the size o’ a muckle pot, an’ lek nothin’ under the sun. Ses I to her, ses I, ‘I can cure you, my good woman, but ye’ll hev to do what you’re tould,’ ses I, ‘an’ I’ll make no saycret about it,’ ses I—‘it’s cow-dung and flour mixed, an’ ye’ll put it on your face, an’ lave it there for a fortnight,’ ses I, ‘an’ when ye’ll wash it off, ye’ll have no Harry Siplars.’ An’ nether she had.”

She had a fine professional manner, and she knew how to set at ease the anxious patient. The concerned man body, wishful to appear unconcerned, she took at his own valuation; appearing more interested in a bit of chat or gossip of the country than in particulars of pains and aches. And while she talked with him of crops and kine, and the good and ill-doings of men’s sons, the wife would urge John to tell Mrs. Moloney about that bit of pain of his and how he could not sleep for it o’ nights. Then the wise woman would mention something which the good wife “might” get for the good man—it would cure him in no time, but—turning to the man,—“‘deed, an’ there’s not much the matter with ye. It’s yerself that’s gettin’ younger lookin’ every year—shows the good care the mistress takes o’ ye.” And the gratified creature would retire, proud to think that he had acted so well the part of the unconcerned, and filled with respect for Mrs. Moloney as a woman of “great sinse and onderstandin’.”

Of new-fangled diseases she had a perfect horror, speaking of them more in anger than in sorrow, as of things which never should have been introduced. Even the New Ralgy she declined to entertain, dismissing the mention of it, contemptuously, in the formula, “New Ralgy or Ould Ralgy, I’ll have nothing to do with it.” To it, however, as Tic Doloro,2 she gave a qualified recognition, allowing its right to existence, but condemning it as outlandish, and a gentry’s ailment, which the gentry should keep to themselves. And while she did not refuse to treat it (with “Lodelum” in “sperrits,” hot milk, and a black stocking tied round the jaws), the patient was made to feel a certain degree of culpability in touching a thing with which she should not have meddled, and that Mrs. Moloney had reason for feeling displeased.

Very different was her attitude to one suffering from Gineral Wakeness. This was her pet diagnosis, and one much craved by overworked and ailing farmers’ wives, for it meant for them justification of rest, and indulgence in food and drink which they would have been afraid or ashamed to ask or take, unfortified by an authoritative command. No man ever suffered from Gineral Wakeness—it was a woman’s trouble, and never failed to draw from Mrs. Moloney a flood of understanding sympathy, which was to the despairing one like cool water on the hot and thirsty ground, making hope and health revive ere yet medicament had been prescribed. Seated before the patient, she would sway slowly back and forward, gently patting the while the afflicted’s hand, and listening, with rapt attention, to the longest and dreariest tale of woe.

The Patient.—O, but it’s the weary woman I am, waitin’ and hopin’ that you would come roun’. ‘Deed, and if it hadn’t been for the hope o’ seein’ ye I would have give up altogether.

Mrs. M.—Puir dear; tell me all aboot it.

The Patient.—It’s a cough and a wakeness and a drappin’-down feelin’, as if my legs were goin’ from under me; and I could no more lift that girdle o’ bread there than I could fly—not if ye were to pay me a thousand pound.

Mrs. M.—I know, dear; if it were writ out I cudn’t see it plainer.

The Patient.—And when I get up in the mornin’, I declare to ye, I have to sit on the edge o’ the bed for five minutes before puttin’ fut to groun’, and if I didn’t take a sup of cold water I couldn’t put on my clothes.

Mrs. M.—That’s it, dear; that’s just the way it goes.

The Patient.—And as for breakfast, I declare to ye, ye couldn’t see what I ate.

Mrs. M.—That’s a sure sign, a sure sign.

The Patient.—And all through the day it’s just the same thing. I’m just in a state of collops the whole time. Niver a moment’s aise the day through, especially in the afternoon. It’s just hingin’ on I am; that’s what it raly is.

After an hour of alternating symptomatic description and sympathetic response, interrupted only by the making and drinking of tea, the wise woman is prepared to utter, and the patient to hear, the words of healing.

“Now, dearie, listen to me, that’s a good woman. It’s Gineral Wakeness that ails ye. I knew it the minute I set fut inside the dure. Ses I to myself, ses I, ‘There’s Gineral Wakeness writ on the mistress’s face; it’s prented on her face like a book,’ ses I, ‘before ever she says a word to me.’ Now listen, dearie, and do what I tell ye. Ye’ll get a bottle o’ sherry wine, and ye’ll take a bate-up egg in milk every day, with a sup o’ sherry in it, at eleven o’clock. And ye’ll fill that pot there with dandelion leaves and roots, and a handful o’ mint on the top o’ it, and ye’ll put as much water on it as’ll cover it, and ye’ll let it sit at the side o’ the fire all day until all the vartue is out o’ it. And ye’ll take a tablespoonful o’ it three times a day, immajintly before your meals. And every day, whin it comes to three o’clock, ye’ll go to your bed and lie down for an hour, and when ye get up ye’ll take a cup o’ tay. Do that now, an’ ye’ll not know yerself whin I come back.”

As Mrs. Moloney’s list of legitimate and proper country diseases was a short one, so was her pharmacopœia a small book. Besides such common remedies as Epsom salts, senna, ginger, and powdered rhubarb, it took account of—

Lodelum which is Laudanum,

Hickery pickery ” Hiera picra,

Gum Go Whackem ” Gum guaiacum,

Assy Fettidy ” Asafoetida,

as chemist’s stuff fit for her practice, and of various herbs (pronounced yarbs), alterative or curative, such as dandelion, camomile, peppermint, and apple-balm. As she said herself, she made no “saycret” of many of her remedies, but she was wise enough to carry and dispense certain agents; for, to the benefit of the wise woman, these free gifts constituted a claim for the liberal purchase of small wares, and the use of one of these gave a certain cachet to an ailment which, with a prescription of hot milk and pepper, or of ginger tea, would have been sufficiently commonplace. These secret remedies were kept in little bottles, each of which had its own sewed compartment in a large linen pocket hanging at the mistress’s waist, between the gown and the uppermost petticoat. A certain solemnity attached to their production—three, four, or five being invariably drawn and set out on the table, even when, as in most cases, the contents of one only was needed. Mrs. Moloney would contemplate the range, attentively and silently, for a few minutes; lifting one after another, wrinkling her brows the while, and, finally, selecting and uncorking one, while she requested “a clane bottle and a good cork.” The selected drug was generally a crystal; the bottle, by request, was half-filled with hot water, in which, through vigorous shaking, the crystal rapidly disappeared. Handing the bottle to the patient, the instruction would be given to take a tablespoonful immediately after eating. Silly young folks, who had no need of the good woman’s services, were known to say that Mrs. Moloney knew perfectly well what she was going to use, that the consideration was simulated, and that the oft-used crystal was common washing-soda and nothing else. But these flighty children took care not to say such things in the hearing of their mothers, who had been treated for Gineral Wakeness.

Doubtless the prescriptions of Mrs. Moloney lacked precision on the quantitative side. A cure of rheumatism was threepence-worth of “Hickery Pickery in a naggin o’ the best sperrits.” To be well shaken and taken by the teaspoonful, alternative mornings, on a fasting stomach. “Sixpence worth o’ Gum Go Wackem,” also made up in the “best sperrits,” was a remedy supposed to acquire special potency from a prodigious amount of shaking. “Show me how ye’ll shake it,” the medicine-woman would say, and when the patient made a great show of half-a-minute’s shaking, she—it was oftenest she—would be surprised to hear that that was no shaking, and an exhibition of what was good and sufficient shaking would be made by Mrs. Moloney. In the case of her sovran remedy for sore eyes, to be used very sparingly—a pennorth o’ Red Perspitherate,3 in a tablespoonful of fresh butter—the quantity for an application was always indicated in special and dramatic fashion. She asked, “And how much will ye be puttin’ in your eye, now?—jist show me.” The patient, desiring to avoid a mean or niggardly use of the remedy, would probably indicate on the finger a lump as large as an eye of liberal measurements could be supposed to accommodate. Then the good woman would lean back and sigh. A pin would be withdrawn from some part of her clothing, and held between the thumb and finger so that only the head appeared.

“Do ye see that pin-head?”

The afflicted nods in acquiescence.

“Do ye see that pin-head? Now take a good look at it.”

Again the sore-eyed indicates accurate observation.

“Well, not a pick more nor that, if ye want to keep your eyesight.”

Other quantitative directions were given in “fulls”—“the full o’ yer fist,” “the full o’ an egg-cup,” even “the full o’ yer mooth.” Or, by sizes of objects, as, “the size o’ a pay,” “the size o’ a marble.” Or by coin areas, “what’ll lie on a sixpence,” or on a shilling, or on a penny. Or by money values, as in the Hickery Pickery prescription. Fists, peas, marbles vary considerably in size, and in the case of money-values a change of chemist might mean a considerable variation in quantity; but, with the possible exception of “Lodelum,” prescribed in drops, the quantities of the good woman’s remedies bore variation to a considerable extent without serious difference in result. That “the best sperrits” were so frequently the medium for “exhibition” of her remedies may account for the great popularity with adults which these remedies enjoyed. These were the days when hospitality was not hospitality without “sperrits” free from medicinal addition, and, late in the afternoon, Mrs. Moloney was accustomed to accept graciously “the full o’ an egg-cup,” qualified by the addition of sugar and hot water. Once, while sipping her punch, she asked that a little should be given to me as a treat, and when the pungent spirit, in the unaccustomed throat, produced a cough, she promptly diagnosed “a wake chist.”

1 Erysipelas.

2 Tic douloureux.

3 Red Precipitate—red oxide of mercury.

The Meet of the Beagles.

From “Patsy.”

By H. de Vere Stacpoole.

Directly Patsy had left the news that the “quality” were coming to the meet and returned to the house the crowd in front of the Castle Knock Inn thickened.

Word of the impending event went from cabin to cabin, and Mr. Mahony, the chimney sweep, put his head out of his door.

“What’s the news, Rafferty?” cried Mr. Mahony.

“Mimber of Parlymint and all the quality comin’ to the meet!” cried a ragged-looking ruffian who was running by.

“Sure, it’ll be a big day for Shan Finucane,” said Mrs. Mahony, who was standing behind her husband in the doorway with a baby in her arms.

Mr. Mahony said nothing for a while, but watched the crowd in front of the inn.

“Look at him,” said Mr. Mahony, breaking out at last—“look at him in his ould green coat! Look at him with the ould whip undher his arm, and the boots on his feet not paid for, and him struttin’ about as if he was the Marqus of Waterford! Holy Mary! did yiz ever see such an objick! Mr. Mullins!”

“Halloo!” replied Mr. Mullins, the cobbler across the way, who, with his window open owing to the mildness of the weather, was whaling away at a shoe-sole, the only busy man in the village.

“Did y’ hear the news?”

“What news?”

“Shan’s going to get a new coat.”

“Faith, thin, I hope he’ll pay first for his ould shoes.”

“How much does he owe you?”

“Siven and six—bad cess to him!”

“He’ll pay you to-night, if he doesn’t drink the money first, for there’s a Mimber of Parlymint goin’ to the meet, and he’ll most like put a suverin in the poor box.”

Mr. Mullins made no reply, but went on whaling away at his shoe, and Bob Mahony, having stepped into his cottage for a light for his pipe, came back and took up his post again at the door.

The crowd round the inn was growing bigger and bigger. Sneer as he might, Mr. Mahony could not but perceive that Shan was having the centre of the stage, a worshipping audience, and free drinks.

Suddenly he turned to his offspring, who were crowding behind him, and singling out Billy, the eldest:

“Put the dunkey to,” said Mr. Mahony.

“Sure, daddy,” cried the boy in astonishment, “it’s only the tarriers.”

“Put the dunkey to!” thundered his father, “or it’s the end of me belt I’ll be brightenin’ your intellects with.”

“There’s two big bags of sut in the cart and the brushes,” said Billy, as he made off to do as he was bidden.

“Lave them in,” said Mr. Mahony; “it’s only the tarriers.”

In a few minutes the donkey, whose harness was primitive and composed mainly of rope, was put to, and the vehicle was at the door.

“Bob!” cried his wife as he took his seat.

“What is it?” asked Mr Mahony, taking the reins.

“Won’t you be afther givin’ your face the lick of a tow’l?”

“It’s only the tarriers,” replied Mr. Mahony; “sure, I’m clane enough for them. Come up wid you, Norah.”

Norah, the small donkey, whose ears had been cocking this way and that, picked up her feet, and the vehicle, which was not much bigger than a costermonger’s barrow, started.

At this moment, also, Shan and the dogs and the crowd were getting into motion, making down the road for Glen Druid gates.

“Hulloo! hulloo! hulloo!” cried Mr. Mahony, as he rattled up behind in the cart, “where are yiz off to?”

“The meet of the baygles,” replied twenty voices; whilst Shan, who had heard his enemy’s voice, stalked on, surrounded by his dogs, his old, battered hunting horn in one hand, and his whip under his arm.

“And where are they going to meet?” asked Mr. Mahony.

“Glen Druid gate,” replied the camp followers. “There’s a Mimber of Parlymint comin’, and all the quality from the Big House.”

“Faith,” said Mr. Mahony, “I thought there was somethin’ up, for, by the look of Shan, as he passed me house this mornin’, I thought he’d swallowed the Lord Liftinant, Crown jew’ls and all. Hulloo! hulloo! hulloo! make way for me carridge! Who are you crowdin’? Don’t you know the Earl of Leinsther when y’ see him? Out of the way, or I’ll call me futman to disparse yiz.”

Shan heard it all, but marched on. He could have killed Bob Mahony, who was turning his triumph into a farce, out he contented himself with letting fly with his whip amongst the dogs, and blowing a note on his horn.

“What’s that nize?” enquired Mr. Mahony, with a wink at the delighted crowd tramping beside the donkey cart.

“Shan’s blowin’ his harn,” yelled the rabble.

“Faith, I thought it was Widdy Finnegan’s rooster he was carryin in the tail pockit of his coat,” said the humourist.

The crowd roared at this conceit, which was much more pungent and pointed as delivered in words by Mr. Mahony; but Shan, to all appearances, was deaf.

The road opposite the park gates was broad and shadowed by huge elm trees, which gave the spot in summer the darkness and coolness of a cave. Here Shan halted, the crowd halted, and the donkey-cart drew up.

Mr. Mahony tapped the dottle out of his pipe carefully on the rail of his cart, filled the pipe, replaced the dottle on the top of the tobacco, and drew a whiff.

The clock of Glen Druid House struck ten, and the notes came floating over park and trees; not that anyone heard them, for the yelping of the dogs and the noise of the crowd filled the quiet country road with the hubbub of a fair.

“What’s that you were axing me?” cried Mr. Mahony to a supposed interrogator in the crowd. “Is the Prince o’ Wales comin’? No, he ain’t. I had a tellygrum from him this mornin’ sendin’ his excuzes. Will some gintleman poke that rat-terrier out that’s got under the wheels of me carridge—out, you baste!” He leaned over and hit a rabbit-beagle that had strayed under the donkey-cart a tip with his stick. The dog, though not hurt, for Bob Mahony was much too good a sportsman to hurt an animal, gave a yelp.

Shan turned at the sound, and his rage exploded.

“Who are yiz hittin’? cried Shan.

“I’m larnin’ your dogs manners,” replied Bob.

The huntsman surveyed the sweep, the cart, the soot bags, and the donkey.

“I beg your pardin’,” said he, touchin his hat, “I didn’t see you at first for the sut.”

Mr. Mahony took his short pipe from his mouth, put it back upside down, shoved his old hat further back on his head, rested his elbows on his knees, and contemplated Shan.

“But it’s glad I am,” went on Shan, “you’ve come to the meet and brought a mimber of the family with you.”

Fate was against Bob Mahony, for at that moment Norah, scenting another of her species in a field near by, curled her lip, stiffened her legs, projected her head, rolled her eyes, and “let a bray out of her” that almost drowned the howls of laughter from the exulting mob.

But Shan Finucane did not stir a muscle of his face, and Bob Mahony’s fixed sneer did not flicker or waver.

“Don’t mention it, mum,” said Shan, taking off his old cap when the last awful, rasping, despairing note of the bray had died down into silence.

Another howl from the onlookers, which left Mr. Mahony unmoved.

“They get on well together,” said he, addressing an imaginary acquaintance in the crowd.

“Whist and hould your nize, and let’s hear what else they have to say to wan another.”

Suddenly, and before Shan Finucane could open his lips, a boy who had been looking over the rails into the park, yelled:

“Here’s the Mimber of Parlyment—here they come—Hurroo!”

“Now, then,” said the huntsman, dropping repartee and seizing the sweep’s donkey by the bridle, “sweep yourselves off, and don’t be disgracin’ the hunt wid your sut bags and your dirty faces—away wid yiz!”

“The hunt!” yelled Mahony, with a burst of terrible laughter. “Listen to him and his ould rat-tarriers callin’ thim a hunt! Lave go of the dunkey!”

“Away wid yiz!”

“Lave go of the dunkey, or I’ll batter the head of you in wid me stick! Lave go of the dunkey!”

Suddenly seizing the long flue brush beside him, and disengaging it from the bundle of sticks with which it was bound, he let fly with the bristle end of it at Shan, and Shan, catching his heel on a stone, went over flat on his back in the road.

In a second he was up, whip in hand; in a second Mr. Mahony was down, a bag half-filled with soot—a terrible weapon of assault—in his fist.

“Harns! harns!” yelled Mahony, mad with the spirit of battle, and unconsciously chanting the fighting cry of long-forgotten ancestors. “Who says cruckeder than a ram’s harn!”

“Go it, Shan!” yelled the onlookers. “Give it him, Bob—sut him in the face—Butt-end the whip, y’idgit—Hurroo! Hurroo! Holy Mary! he nearly landed him then—Mind the dogs—”

Armed with the soot-bag swung like a club, and the old hunting-whip butt-ended, the two combatants formed the centre of a circle of yelling admirers.

“Look!” said Miss Lestrange, as the party from the house came in view of the road. “Look at the crowd and the two men!”

“They’re fighting!” cried the general. “I believe the ruffians dared to have the impudence to start fighting!”

At this moment came the noise of wheels from behind, and the “tub,” which had obtained permission to go to the meet, drew up, with Patsy driving the children.

“Let the children remain here,” said the General. “You stay with them, Violet. Come along, Boxall, till we see what these ruffians mean.”

So filled was his mind with the objects in view that he quite forgot Dicky Fanshawe.

“You have put on the short skirt,” said Dicky, who at that moment would scarcely have turned his head twice or given a second thought had the battle of Austerlitz been in full blast beyond the park palings.

“And my thick boots,” said Violet, pushing forward a delightful little boot to speak for itself.

The children were so engaged watching the proceedings on the road that they had no eyes or ears for their elders.

“Have you ever been beagling before?” asked Dicky.

“Never; but I’ve been paper-chasing.”

“You can get through a hedge?”

“Rather!”

“That’ll do,” said Dicky.

“Mr. Fanshawe,” cried Lord Gawdor from the “tub,” “look at the chaps in the road—aren’t they going for each other!”

“I see,” said Mr. Fanshawe, whose back was to the road—“Violet—”

“Yes.”

“No one’s looking—”

“That doesn’t matter—No—not here—Dicky, if you don’t behave, I’ll get into the tub—Gracious! what’s that?”

“He’s down!” cried Patsy, who had been standing up to see better.

“Who?” asked Mr. Fanshawe.

“The Mimber of Parlyment—Misther Boxall—Bob Mahony’s grassed him—”

“They’re all fighting!” cried Violet. “Come, Mr. Fanshawe—Patsy—” She started for the gates at a run.

When the General had arrived on the scene, Shan had just got in and landed his antagonist a drum-sounding blow on the ribs with the butt of his whip.

“Seize the other chap, Boxall!” cried General Grampound, making for Mahony.

He was just half a second too late; the soot bag, swung like a club, missed Shan, and, catching Mr. Boxall fair and square on the side of the face, sent him spinning like a tee-totum across the road, and head over heels into the ditch.

That was all.

A dead silence took the yelling crowd.

“He’s kilt!” came a voice.

“He isn’t; sure, his legs is wavin’.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s the Mimber of Parlyment! Run for your life, and don’t lave off runnin’ till you’re out of the country.”

“Hold your tongue!” cried General Grampound. “Boxall—hullo! Boxall! are you hurt?”

“I’m all right,” replied Mr. Boxall, who, from being legs upwards, was now on hands and knees in the ditch. “I’ve lost something—dash it!”

“What have you lost?”

“Watch.”

“Come out and I’ll get some of these chaps to look.”

Mr. Boxall came out of the ditch with his handkerchief held to the left side of his forehead.

“Why, your watch and chain are on you!” cried the General.

“So they are,” said Mr. Boxall, pulling the watch out with his left hand, and putting it back. “I’m off to the house—I want to wash.”

“Sure, you’re not hurt?”

“Not in the least, only my forehead scratched.”

“What’s up?” cried Dicky Fanshawe, who had just arrived.

“Nothing,” replied his uncle. “Fellow hit him by mistake—no bones broken. Will you take the governess cart back to the house, Boxall?”

“No, thanks—I’ll walk.”

“His legs is all right,” murmured the sympathetic crowd, as the injured one departed still with his handkerchief to his face, “and his arums. Sure, it’s the mercy and all his neck wasn’t bruck.”

“Did yiz see the skelp Bob landed him?”

“Musha! Sure, I thought it would have sent his head flying into Athy, like a gulf ball.”

Patsy, who had pulled the governess cart up, rose to his feet; his sharp eye had caught sight of something lying on the road.

“Hould the reins a moment, Mr. Robert,” said he, putting them into Lord Gawdor’s hands. He hopped out of the cart, picked up the object in the road, whatever it was, put it in his trousers’ pocket, and then stood holding the pony’s head; whilst the Meet, from which Bob Mahony had departed as swiftly as his donkey could trot, turned its attention to the business of the day, and Shan, collecting his dogs, declared his intention of drawing the Furzes.

“Was that a marble you picked up, Patsy?” asked Lord Gawdor, as the red-headed one, hearing Shan’s declaration, climbed into the “tub” again and took the reins.

Patsy grinned.

*******

Meanwhile Mr. Fanshawe had been writing three important letters in the library. When he had finished and carefully sealed them, he placed them one on top of the other, and looked at his watch.

The three letters he had just written would make everything all right at the other end. This was the hot end of the poker, and it had to be grasped.

Patsy was the person who would help him to grasp it. Patsy he felt to be a tower of strength and ‘cuteness, if such a simile is permissible. And, rising from the writing-table and putting the letters in his pocket, he went to find Patsy. He had not far to go, for as he came into the big hall Patsy was crossing it with a tray in hand.

“Patsy,” said Mr. Fanshawe, “when does the post go out?”

“If you stick your letters in the letter box by the hall door, sir,” said Patsy, “it will be cleared in half-an-hour. Jim Murphy takes the letter-bag to Castle Knock.”

“Right!” said Mr. Fanshawe. “And, see here, Patsy!”

“Yes, sir?”

“I’m in a bit of a fix, Patsy, and you may be able to help.”

“And what’s the fix, sir?” asked Patsy.

“You know the young lady you gave the note to this morning—by the way, how did you give it?”

“I tried to shove it undher her door, sir.”

“Yes?”

“It wouldn’t go, so I give a knock. ‘Who’s there?’ says she. ‘No one,’ says I; ‘it’s only hot wather I’m bringin’ you,’ for, you see, sir, the ould missis, her ladyship, was in the next room, and she’s not as deaf as she looks, and it’s afraid I was, every minnit, her door’d open, and she and her ear-trumpet come out in the passidge. ‘I have hot wather,’ says she. ‘Niver mind,’ says I, ‘this is betther. Open the door, for the love of God, for I can’t get it under the door, unless I rowl it up and shove it through the keyhole.’ Wid that she opens the door a crack and shoves her head out. ‘Who’s it from?’ she says. ‘I don’t know,’ says I; ‘it’s just a letther I found on the stairs I thought might belong to you.’ ‘Thanks,’ says she, ‘it does,’ and wid that she shut the door, and I left her.”

“Well, see here, Patsy!”

“Yes, sir?”

“I’m going to marry Miss Lestrange.”

“Faith, and I guessed that,” said Patsy; “and it’s I that’d be joyful to dance at your weddin’, sir.”

“There won’t be any dancing in the business,” said Mr. Fanshawe, grimly. “You know Mr. Boxall, Patsy?”

“The Mimber of Parlymint?”

“Yes. Well, he wants to marry Miss Lestrange; and the worst of it is, Patsy, that my uncle, General Grampound, wants him to marry her, too.”

“Yes, sir,” said Patsy. “And, Mr. Fanshawe?”

“Yes.”

“I forgot to tell you, sir, you needn’t be afear’d of Mr. Boxall for the next few days.”

“How’s that?”

“When Bob Mahony hit him the skelp on the head wid the sut bag, his eye popped out of his head on the road.”

“His what?—Oh, I remember—”

“Finders is keepers, sir,” said Patsy, with a grin.

“Why, good heavens—you don’t mean to say—”

“I’ve got his eye in my pocket, sir,” said Patsy, in a hoarse whisper. “He’s sint a telygram for another wan but till it comes he’s tethered to his bed like a horse to a—”

“That’s enough—that’s enough,” said Mr. Fanshawe. “Here’s half a crown for you, Patsy, for—carrying my cartridges.”

The Ballygullion Creamery Society, Limited.

From “Ballygullion.”

By Lynn Doyle.

’Twas the man from the Department of Agriculture comin’ down to give a lecture on poultry an’ dairy-farmin’, that set the ball a-rollin’.

The whole farmers av the counthry gathered in to hear him, an’ for days afther it was over, there was no talk at all barrin’ about hens an’ crame, an’ iverybody had a schame av their own to propose.

Ould Miss Armitage ap at the Hall was on for encouragin’ poultry-farmin’; an’ give a prize for the best layin’ hen in Ballygullion, that riz more scunners in the counthry than the twelfth av July itself. There was a powerful stir about it, an’ near iverybody enthered.

Deaf Pether of the Bog’s wife was an easy winner if her hen hadn’t died, an’ nothin’ would satisfy her but it was poisoned; though divil a all killed it but the gorges of Indian male the ould woman kept puttin’ intil it.

Ivery time the hen laid she give it an extra dose of male, “to encourage the crather,” as she said; an’ wan day it laid a double-yolked wan, she put a charge intil it that stretched it out stiff in half-an-hour.

Afther that there was no doubt but Larry Thomas’s wife would win the prize; for, before the end av the month Miss Armitage had allowed for the test, her hen was above a dozen ahead av iverybody else’s.

Howiver, when it came to the countin’ there was a duck-egg or two here an’ there among the lot that nayther Mrs. Thomas nor the hen could well account for, so the both of thim was disqualified.

An’ whin it came to the bit, an’ Mrs. Archy Doran won the prize, she counted up an’ made out that between corn an’ male, she had paid away double the value of it, so she wasn’t very well plazed; an’ thim that had spent near as much on feedin’-stuff, an’ had got no prize, was worse plazed still.

The only one that came out av it well was Miss Armitage herself; for she kept all the eggs, an’ made above twice the prize-money out av thim. But there was nobody else as well plazed about that as she was.

So all round the hen business was a failure; an’ it looked as if there was nothin’ goin’ to come of the lecture at all.

However, iverybody thought it would be a terrible pity if Ballygullion should be behind the other places; an’ at last there was a move made to start a cramery, an’ a committee was got up to set things goin’.

At first the most av us thought they got the crame in the ould-fashioned way, just be skimmin’; but presently it begin to be talked that it was all done be machinery. Some av us was very dubious about that; for sorrow a bit could we see how it was to be done Thomas McGorrian maintained it would be done wi’ blades like the knives av a turnip-cutter, that it would just shave the top off the milk, an’ sweep it intil a pan; but then he couldn’t well explain how they’d avoid shavin’ the top off the milk-dish, too.

Big Billy Lenahan swore it was done with a worm like a still; but, although we all knowed Billy was well up on potheen, there was few had iver seen him havin’ much to do wi’ milk; so nobody listened to him.

At last the Committee detarmined they’d have a dimonsthration; and they trysted the Department man to bring down his machine an’ show how it was done; for all iv thim was agin spendin’ money on a machine till they were satisfied it would do its work.

The dimonsthration was to be held in Long Tammas McGorrian’s barn, an’ on the night set above forty av us was there. We all sat round in a half-ring, on chairs an’ stools, an’ any other conthrivance we could get, for all the world like the Christy Minstrels that comes to the Market House av a Christmas.

The dimonsthrator had rigged up a belt to Tammas’s threshin’-machine, an’ run it from that to the separator, as he called it.

The separator itself was a terrible disappointin’ conthrivance at the first look, an’ no size av a thing at all for the money they said it cost. But whin the dimonsthrator begin to tell us what it would do, an’ how by just pourin’ the milk intil a metal ball an’ bizzin’ it round, ye could make the crame come out av one hole, an’ the milk out av another, we began to think more av it.

Nobody liked to spake out wi’ the man there, but there was a power av whisperin’.

“It’s a mighty quare conthrivance,” sez wan.

“Did ye iver see the like av it?” sez another.

“Boy-a-boys,” sez James Dougherty, “the works av man is wonderful. If my ould grandmother could see this, it would break her heart. ’Twas herself was the handy dairy-woman, too; but what’d she be till a machine?”

But most av thim wouldn’t say one thing or another till they seen it workin’; an’, ‘deed, we were all wishin’ he’d begin. We had to thole, though; for the dimonsthrator was a bumptious wee man, an’ very fond av the sound av his own voice, an’ kept talkin’ away wi’ big, long words that nobody knowed the manin’ av but himself, till we were near deaved.

So we were powerful glad whin he sez to Mrs. McGorrian: “Now, Madam, if you’ll be good enough to bring in the milk, I will proceed to give an actual demonstration.”

But Mrs. McGorrian is a quiet wee woman, an’ wi’ all the crowd there, an’ him callin’ her Madam, she was too backward to get up out av the corner she was in; an’ she nudges Tammas to go, tellin’ him where to get the milk.

So Tammas goes out, an’ presently he staggers in wi’ a big crock in his arms, an’ sets it down.

“Now,” sez the demonsthrator, “if you’ll just get the horses goin’, an’ pour the milk into that receptacle, I’ll start the separator working.”

Tammas in wi’ the milk, an’ the wee son whips up the horses outside, an’ away goes the separator bizzin’ like a hive av bees.

“In a few seconds, gentlemen and ladies,” sez the dimonsthrator, “you will see the milk come out here, an’ the cream here. Kindly pay attention, please.”

But he needn’t have spoke; for iverybody was leanin’ forrard, holdin’ their breath, an’ there wasn’t a sound to be heard but the hummin’ of the separator.

Presently there comes a sort av a thick trickle out av the milk-hole, but divil a dhrap av crame.

The dimonsthrator gathered up his brow a bit at that, an’ spakes out av the barn windy to Tammas’s wee boy to dhrive faster. The separator hums harder than iver, but still no crame. Wan begin to look at the other, an’ some av the wimmen at the back starts gigglin’.

The dimonsthrator begin to get very red an’ flusthered-lookin’. “Are ye sure this milk is fresh an’ hasn’t been skimmed?” he sez to Tammas, very sharp.

“What do you say, Mary?” sez Tammas, lookin’ over at the wife. “Sartin, sir,” sez Mrs. Tammas. “It’s just fresh from the cows this very evenin’.”

“Most extraordinary,” sez the dimonsthrator, rubbin’ his hair till it was all on end. “I’ve niver had such an experience before.”

“It’s the way Tammas feeds his cows,” sez Big Billy Lenahan from the back; “sure, iverybody knows he gives them nothin’ but shavin’s.”

There was a snigger av a laugh at this; for Tammas was well known to be no great feeder av cattle.

But Tammas wasn’t to be tuk down so aisy.

“Niver mind, Billy,” sez he; “av you were put on shavin’s for a week or two, ye’d maybe see your boots again before you died.”

There was another laugh at this, an’ that started a bit av jokin’ all round—a good dale av it at the dimonsthrator; till he was near beside himself. For, divil a dhrop av crame had put in an appearance yet.

All at wanst he stoops down close to the milk.

“Bring me a candle here,” sez he, very sharp.

Tammas reaches over a sconce off the wall. The dimonsthrator bends over the can, then dips the point av his finger in it, an’ puts it in his mouth.

“What’s this?” sez he, lookin’ very mad at Tammas. “This isn’t milk at all.”

“Not milk,” sez Tammas. “It must be milk. I got it where you tould me, Mary.”

The wife gets up an’ pushes forward. First she takes a look at the can av the separator, an’ thin wan at the crock.

“Ye ould fool,” she sez to Tammas; “ye’ve brought the whitewash I mixed for the dairy walls!”

I’ll say this for the dimonsthrator, he was a game wee fellow; for the divil a wan laughed louder than he did, an’ that’s sayin’ something; but sorrow a smile Tammas cracked, but stood gapin’ at the wife wi’ his mouth open; an’ from the look she gave him back, there was some av us thought she was, maybe, more av a tarther than she looked.

Though troth ’twas no wondher she was angry, for the joke wint round the whole counthry, an’ Tammas gets nothin’ but “Whitewash McGorrian” iver since.

Howaniver, they got the machine washed out, an’ the rale milk intil it, an’ there was no doubt it worked well. The wee dimonsthrator was as plazed as Punch, an’ ivery body wint away well satisfied, an’ set on havin’ a cramery as soon as it could be got started.

First av all they wint round an’ got the names av all thim that was goin’ to join in; an’ the explainin’ of the schame took a dale av a time. The co-operatin’ bothered them intirely.

The widow Doherty she wasn’t goin’ to join an’ put in four cows’ milk, she said, whin she’d only get as much out av it as Mrs. Donnelly, across the field, that had only two. Thin, whin they explained to the widow that she’d get twice as much, ould mother Donnelly was clane mad; for she’d thought she was goin’ to get the betther av the widow.

Thin there was tarrible bother over barrin’ out wee Mrs. Morley, because she had only a goat. Some was for lettin’ her in; but the gineral opinion was that it would be makin’ too little av the Society.

Howiver, all was goin’ brave an’ paceable till ould Michael Murray, the ould dunderhead, puts in his oar.

Michael was a divil of a man for pace-makin’, an’ riz more rows than all the county, for all that; for whin two dacent men had a word or two av a fair-day, maybe whin the drink was in them, an’ had forgot all about it, the next day ould Michael would come round to make it up, an’ wi’ him mindin’ them av what had passed, the row would begin worse than iver.

So, whin all was set well agoin’, an’ the committee met to call a gineral meetin’ av the Society, ould Michael he gets up an’ says what a pity it would be if the Society would be broke up wi’ politics or religion; an’ he proposed that they should show there was no ill-feelin’ on either side by holdin’ this giniral meetin’ in the Orange Hall, an’ the nixt in the United Irish League rooms. He named the Orange Hall first, he said, because he was a Nationalist himself, an’ a Home Ruler, an’ always would be.

There was one or two Orangemen beginnin’ to look mighty fiery at the tail-end av Michael’s speech, an’ there’s no tellin’ what would a’ happened if the chairman hadn’t whipped in an’ said that Michael’s was a very good idea, an’ he thought they couldn’t do betther than folly it up.

So, right enough, the first gineral meetin’ was held in the Ballygullion Orange Hall.

Iverything was very quiet an’ agreeable, except that some av the red-hot Nationalists kept talkin’ quare skellys at a flag in the corner wi’ King William on it, stickin’ a man in a green coat wi’ his sword.

But, as fortune would have it, little Billy av the Bog, the sthrongest wee Orangeman in Ulsther, comes in at half-time as dhrunk as a fiddler, sits down on a form an’ falls fast asleep. An’ there he snored for the most av half an hour, till near the end av the meetin’, whin the chairman was makin’ a speech, there was a bit av applause, an’ ap starts Billy all dazed. First he looked up an’ seen King William on the flag. Thin hearin’ the chairman’s voice, he gives a stamp wi’ his fut on the flure, an’ a “hear, hear,” wi’ a mortial bad hiccup between the “hears.” The wee man thought he was at a lodge-meetin’.

All av a sudden he sees ould Michael Murray, an’, beside him, Tammas McGorrian.

Wi’ that he lepps to his feet like a shot, dhrunk as he was, an’ hits the table a terrible lick wi’ his fist.

“Stap, brethren,” sez he, glarin’ round the room.

“Stap! There’s Papishes present.”

Ye niver seen a meetin’ quicker broke up than that wan. Half the men was on their feet in a minit, an’ the other half pullin’ thim down be the coat-tails. Iverybody was talkin’ at the wan time, some av thim swearin’ they’d been insulted, an’ others thryin’ to make pace.

Thin the wimmin begin to scrame an’ hould back men from fightin’ that had no notion av it at the start, an’ only begin to think av it whin they were sure they wouldn’t be let.

Altogether there was the makin’s of as fine a fight as iver ye seen in your life.

However, there was a lot of dacent elderly men on both sides, and wi’ arguin’ an’ perswadin’, and houldin’ back wan, an’ pushin’ out the other, the hall was redd without blows, an’, bit by bit, they all went home quiet enough.

But the Cramery Society was clane split. It wasn’t wee Billy so much; for whin people begin to think about it the next mornin’, there was more laughed at him than was angry; but the party feelin’ was up as bitther as could be.

The Nationalists was mad at themselves for givin’ in to go to a meetin’ in the Orange Hall, for fear it might be taken that they were weakenin’ about Home Rule; an’ the Orange party were just as afeard at the papers makin’ out that they were weakenin’ about the Union. Besides, the ould King William in the corner av the Hall had done no good.

I’m no party man, myself; but whin I see William Robinson, that has been me neighbour this twinty years, goin’ down the road on the Twelfth av July wi’ a couple av Orange sashes on, me heart doesn’t warm to him as it does av another day. The plain truth is, we were bate at the Boyne right enough; but some av us had more than a notion we didn’t get fair play at the fightin’; an’ between that and hearin’ about the batin’ iver since, the look of ould Billy on his white horse isn’t very soothin’.

Anyway, the two parties couldn’t be got to join again. The red-hot wans av both av thim had meetin’s, wee Billy leadin’ wan side, and Tammas McGorrian the other, an’ the nixt thing was that there was to be two Crameries.

The moderate men seen that both parties were makin’ fools av themselves, for the place wasn’t big enough for two; but moderate men are scarce in our parts, an’ they could do nothin’ to soothe matthers down. Whin the party work is on, it’s little either side thinks av the good av thimselves or the counthry either.

It’s “niver mind a dig yourself if ye get a slap at the other fellow.”

So notices was sent out for a meetin’ to wind up the Society, an’ there was a powerful musther av both sides, for fear either of them might get an advantage over the other wan.

To keep clear av trouble it was to be held in the Market house.

The night av the meetin’ come; an’ when I got into the room who should I see on the platform but Major Donaldson an’ Father Connolly. An’ thin I begin to wondher what was on.

For the Major was too aisy-goin’ and kindly to mix himself up wi’ party-work, an’ Father Connolly was well known to be terrible down on it, too.

So a sort av a mutther begin to run through the meetin’ that there was goin’ to be an attempt to patch up the split.

Some was glad and not afraid to say it; but the most looked sour an’ said nothin’; an’ wee Billy and Tammas McGorrian kept movin’ in an’ out among their friends an’ swearin’ them to stand firm.

When the room was well filled, an’ iverybody settled down, the Major gets on his feet.

“Ladies an’ gentlemen,” sez he—the Major was always polite if it was only a travellin’ tinker he was spakin’ to—“Ladies an’ gentlemen, you know why we’ve met here to-night—to wind up the Ballygullion Cramery Society. I wish windin’ up meant that it would go on all the better; but, unfortunately, windin’ up a Society isn’t like windin’ up a clock.”

“Now, I’m not going to detain you; but before we proceed, I’d like you to listen to Father Connolly here for a minute or two. I may tell you he’s goin’ to express my opinion as well as his own. I needn’t ask you to give him an’ attentive hearin’; ye all know, as well as I do, that what he says is worth listenin’ to.” An’ down the Major sits.

Thin Father Connolly comes forward an’ looks roun’ a minit or so before spakin’. Most av his own people that catched his eye looked down mighty quick, for they all had an idea he wouldn’t think much av what had been goin’ on.

But wee Billy braces himself up an’ looks very fierce, as much as to say “there’ll no praste ordher me about,” and Tammas looks down at his feet wi’ his teeth set, much as if he meant the same.

“Men an’ wimmin av Ballygullion,” sez Father Connolly—he was aye a plain-spoken wee man—“we’re met here to end up the United Cramery Society, and after that we’re goin’ to start two societies, I hear.

“The sinsible men av Ballygullion sees that it would be altogether absurd an’ ridiculous for Catholics an’ Protestants, Home Rulers an’ Unionists, to work together in anything at all. As they say, the two parties is altogether opposed in everything that’s important.

“The wan keep St. Patrick’s Day for a holiday, and the other the Twelfth av July; the colours of the one is green, an’ the colours of the other orange; the wan wants to send their Mimbers av Parliament to College Green, and the other to Westminster; an’ there are a lot more differences just as important as these.

“It’s thrue,” goes on the Father, “that some ignorant persons says that, after all, the two parties live in the same counthry, undher the same sky, wi’ the same sun shinin’ on them an’ the same rain wettin’ thim; an’ that what’s good for that counthry is good for both parties, an’ what’s bad for it is bad for both; that they live side by side as neighbours, an’ buy and sell among wan another, an’ that nobody has iver seen that there was twinty-one shillin’s in a Catholic pound, an’ nineteen in a Protestant pound, or the other way about; an’ that, although they go about it in different ways, they worship the same God, the God that made both av thim; but I needn’t tell ye that these are only a few silly bodies, an’ don’t riprisint the opinion av the counthry.”

A good many people in the hall was lookin’ foolish enough be this time, an’ iverybody was waitin’ to hear the Father tell them to make it up, an’ most av them willin’ enough to do it. The major was leanin’ back, looking well satisfied.

“Now,” sez Father Connolly, “after what I’ve said, I needn’t tell ye that I’m av the opinion av the sinsible men, and I think that by all manes we should have a Catholic cramery and a Protestant wan.”

The Major sits up wi’ a start, an’ wan looks at the other all over the room.

“The only thing that bothers me,” sez the Father, goin’ on an’ takin’ no notice, “is the difficulty av doin’ it. It’s aisy enough to sort out the Catholic farmers from the Protestant; but what about the cattle?” sez he.

“If a man rears up a calf till it becomes a cow, there’s no doubt that cow must be Nationalist or Orange. She couldn’t help it, livin’ in this country. Now, what are you going to do when a Nationalist buys an Orange cow? Tammas McGorrian bought a cow from wee Billy there last month that Billy bred an’ reared himself. Do ye mane to tell me that’s a Nationalist cow? I tell ye what it is, boys,” sez the Father, wi’ his eyes twinklin’, “wan can av that cow’s milk in a Nationalist cramery would turn the butther as yellow as the shutters av the Orange Hall.”

By this time there was a smudge av a laugh on iverybody’s face, an’ even Tammas an’ wee Billy couldn’t help crackin’ a smile.

“Now,” sez Father Connolly, “afther all, it’s aisy enough in the case of Tammas’s cow. There’s no denyin’ she’s an Orange cow, an’ either Tammas may go to the Orange cramery or give the cow back to Billy.”

Tammas sits up a bit at that.

“But, thin, there’s a lot of mighty curious cases. There’s my own wee Kerry. Iverybody knows I bred her myself; but, thin, there’s no denyin’ that her father—if that’s the right way to spake av a bull—belonged to Major Donaldson here, an’ was called ‘Prince of Orange.’ Now, be the law, a child follows its father in these matters, an’ I’m bound be it to send the wee Kerry’s milk to the Orange cramery, although I’ll maintain she’s as good a Nationalist as ever stepped; didn’t she thramp down ivery Orange lily in Billy Black’s garden only last Monday?

“So, boys, whin you think the matter out, ye’ll see it’s no aisy matther this separatin’ av Orange an’ Green in the cramery. For, if ye do it right—and I’m for no half-measures—ye’ll have to get the pedigree av ivery bull, cow, and calf in the counthry, an’ then ye’ll be little further on, for there’s a lot av bastes come in every year from Americay that’s little better than haythin’.

“But, if ye take my advice, those av ye that isn’t sure av your cows’ll just go on quietly together in the manetime, an’ let thim that has got a rale thrue-blue baste av either persuasion just keep her milk to themselves, and skim it in the ould-fashioned way wi’ a spoon.”

There was a good dale av sniggerin’ whin the Father was spakin’; but ye should have heard the roar of a laugh there was whin he sat down. An’ just as it was dyin’ away, the Major rises, wipin’ his eyes—

“Boys,” sez he, “if it’s the will av the prisint company that the Ballygullion Cramery Society go on, will ye rise an’ give three cheers for Father Pether Connolly?”

Ivery man, woman, an’ child—Protestant and Catholic—was on their feet in a minit; an’ if the Ballygullion Market-house roof didn’t rise that night, it’s safe till etarnity.

From that night on there was niver another word av windin’ up or splittin’ either. An’ if ever ye come across a print av butther wi’ a wreath of shamrocks an’ orange-lilies on it, ye’ll know it come from the Ballygullion Cramery Society, Limited.