There are some churches in which it is considered desirable to keep
the sexes apart. The men are placed on one side of the central aisle,
the women on the other. At my garden-parties this separation takes
place naturally without the intervention of any authority. The men
gather in a group under a certain chestnut-tree and talk to each other
gloomily in low tones. The women--there are always more women than
men--seat themselves in three distinct rows round the sides of the
tennis-court. The short row across the top of the tennis-court is
reserved by an unwritten, but apparently very strict law for the
ladies of the highest social position. The Dean's wife, for instance,
sits in that row. The seats at the other end of the court are occupied
by people like the Pringles, those who are just eligible for
invitations to my parties, but have, so to speak, no social position
to spare. They always remind me of St. Paul's "righteous" who
"scarcely are saved." The long side of the tennis-court opposite the
chestnut-tree, which forms a kind of male seraglio, is given over to
those of middling station, ladies who are, perhaps, in a position to
shake hands with Lady Moyne, and who do not, perhaps, call on Mrs.
Pringle.
To this strictly observed etiquette there are two exceptions. My
nephew Godfrey does not stand under the chestnut-tree, but keeps close
to the side of Lady Moyne. The other men make it quite clear that
they do not want him. No man whom I have ever met can tolerate
Godfrey's company. He follows Lady Moyne about because he believes her
to be a lady of political influence, and he hopes she will get him a
well-paid post under the government. He is one exception. The other is
Lady Moyne herself. She declines to sit in a row. She walks about,
sometimes walks away from the rest of the party.
My daughter Marion's duty on these occasions is to drag young men from
the shelter of the chestnut-tree and make them play tennis with young
women called from one or other of the rows in which their mothers have
planted them. Marion finds this a difficult duty, requiring her utmost
tact. My own duty, which I fulfil in the most conscientious manner, is
to make as many complete journeys round the tennis-court as possible,
saying something to every lady in all three rows, and giving a kind of
general address of a friendly and encouraging kind to the men under
the chestnut-tree.
On this particular afternoon two unusual incidents broke the monotony
of my party. Lady Moyne refused to be satisfied with the company of
Godfrey. She sat down beside the Dean's wife and made herself
extremely agreeable for nearly ten minutes. Then she crossed the
corner of the tennis-court, seriously interfering with the game in
progress, and "cut out" the Dean from the middle of the group of men
under the chestnut-tree. "Cut out" is strictly the right phrase to
use. It is applied or used to be applied to the operation of capturing
and carrying off ships at anchor under the protecting guns of friendly
forts. It requires great dash and gallantry to "cut out" a ship. The
whole audience gaped in astonishment at Lady Moyne's daring when she
captured the Dean. She walked off with him, when she got him, to the
shrubbery at the far end of the lawn. They were a singularly
ill-assorted pair. Lady Moyne is invariably exquisite, a small woman
with dainty ways and great vivacity. The Dean is an ecclesiastic as
different as possible from the suave dignitaries who lead lives of
scholarly leisure in cathedral closes. We picture the ideal dean, a
slender man, slightly stooped, thin-lipped, with a suggestion of mild
asceticism in his face. He steps slowly through the long window of his
study. He paces the closely shaven lawn. The crows caw reverently in
lofty trees. He holds a calf-bound volume of Plato in his hand. From
time to time he glances from the cramped Greek text to the noble,
weatherworn towers of his cathedral. His life is delicately scented
with a fine mixture of classical culture and Tallis' ferial responses.
Our Dean--he is also rector of our parish--is a man of a wholly
different kind. He is, for one thing, wholly unconnected with any
cathedral and has probably never paced a lawn beneath the shadow of
historic towers in all his life. This kind of detached, independent
dean is not found, I believe, anywhere except in Ireland. He is tall,
cadaverous, rugged, and he can open his eyes so wide that the whites
of them show all round the irises. Besides being a dean and the rector
of our parish, he is honorary Grand Chaplain to the Black Preceptory
of the Orange Order. Crossan, a stern judge of ecclesiastics, has the
highest opinion of him. It was surmised by a lady in the second row to
whom I happened to be talking at the time, that Lady Moyne wanted to
consult with him about the best way of defeating the Home Rule Bill.
Lady Moyne is, of course, a strong Unionist.
The second unusual incident of the afternoon followed the arrival of
Bob Power. He came late, and Godfrey, driven from the side of Lady
Moyne, fastened on to him at once. Bob shook him off and joined
Marion. Marion, who had her duties to do and could not allow Bob to
take possession of her, introduced him to a humble maiden who sat with
her mother in the third row. Bob, it appears, selected the damsel
himself after looking all round the tennis-court. To the great scandal
of every one present he led her away from the tennis-court, and found
his way to the garden. There--I judged by the condition of her gloves
when they returned--they picked strawberries. I have every reason to
believe that Miss Pringle--the girl was the daughter of Godfrey's
banker--enjoyed this garden-party as she had never enjoyed one before.
She was actually laughing, and was looking very pretty when Bob
brought her back to the refreshment tent for tea.
I felt so pleased with Bob for his audacity that I asked him to dine
with us. He refused, saying that he would be busy on the yacht, but he
promised to call on us next morning.
The garden-party wore itself to an end as even the dreariest
festivities always do. Marion and I dined together in a condition of
irritable exhaustion. After dinner we played Patience for an hour in
the library. Then Marion took a novel, and I settled down to read _The
Times_. The night was very close and we sat with both windows wide
open.
_The Times_ had articles and letters on two subjects, the Home Rule
Bill, which was a menace to the Empire and a danger to Irish
Loyalists; and the German Navy, which was also a menace to the Empire
and a danger to every one in the United Kingdom whether loyal or not.
After reading the leading articles I passed on to the letters
addressed to the editor. These are always, in my opinion, the most
interesting part of any newspaper. The editor and leader writers are
no doubt abler men than most of their correspondents; but then they
write because they must, and they write in a hurry. The correspondents
on the other hand write because they have something in them--something
foolish as a rule, but none the less interesting--which is struggling
for expression in print. They also--being for the most part retired
military officers--have abundant leisure and are able to take days,
perhaps weeks, in the preparation of their compositions.
In that particular number of _The Times_, two retired colonels had
written letters. One of them was disquieted by the growth of the
German Navy. He was uninteresting. The other--a Colonel Malcolmson,
whom I meet occasionally at my club--had delivered himself of a plan
of campaign, an actual fighting programme, which he recommended to the
Ulstermen, supposing that they meant to declare war against any one
who wanted them to govern themselves. This letter interested me very
much. Malcolmson offered his lawn as a parade and drill ground for
volunteers. He also said that he thoroughly understood modern guns,
and was prepared to take command of any artillery which Ulster might
happen to possess. I lay back in my chair and tried to form a mental
picture of Malcolmson, who is stout and has a bristly white moustache,
aiming an immense cannon at an income tax collector. The vision was a
pleasant one to linger over, and I added to the scene before my mind
the figure of an athletic policeman threatening to smash Malcolmson's
cannon with a baton. The Nationalist leaders then appeared in the
background waving Union Jack flags, and urging the policeman to fresh
exertions in the cause of law and order. I even seemed to hear them
denouncing Malcolmson as one of those who march through rapine and
bloodshed to the dismemberment of an Empire.
I was aroused from my agreeable reverie by Marion. She was standing at
the window looking out across the bay on the far shore of which stands
the little town of Kilmore, from which my ancestor, who was a Union
peer, took his title.
"I wonder what they're doing in the village to-night," she said.
"There are a lot of lights moving about in the harbour and on the
quay."
I shook myself free of the vision of Malcolmson's artillery duel with
the tax collector, and joined Marion at the window. A half moon lit
the scene before me dimly, making patches of silver light here and
there on the calm waters of the bay. The _Finola_, looking very large,
lay at anchor, broadside on to us, opposite the pier. On her deck
lights moved to and fro, yellow stars in the grey gloom. On the pier
were more lights, lanterns evidently, some stationary, others
flickering in rapid motion. The night was so still that I could hear
distinctly the rattle of oars in rowlocks. Boats were plying between
the _Finola_ and the shore.
"Can they be landing anything from the yacht?" said Marion.
"I don't think so," I said. "Yachts do not carry cargoes, and if they
did they wouldn't land them in the middle of the night."
I looked at my watch. It was almost twelve o'clock. Then another noise
was added to the rattling of oars. A cart, unmistakably a cart,
lumbered across the stones at the end of the pier. After a while this
cart emerged from the black shadows of the houses and we could see it
toiling up the hill which leads out of the town. A very slight
southerly breeze was setting across the bay from the town to us. We
could hear the driver shouting encouragement to his horse as he
breasted the hill. The cart was evidently heavily loaded.
"The boats haven't been out," said Marion. "There cannot have been a
catch of mackerel."
When there is a catch of mackerel the fish are packed in boxes on the
pier, and carts, laden like the one we watched, climb the hill. There
is a regularly organized service of those carts under the control of
Crossan.
"It can't be fish," I said, "unless the _Finola_ has been making a
catch and has come in here to land them."
Another cart bumped its way off the pier, and in a minute or two we
saw it climbing the hill. Then the lights on the _Finola's_ deck went
out one by one. The boats ceased plying between the yacht and the
shore.
"I don't see why they should land fish in the middle of the night,"
said Marion.
The activity of the people on the pier increased. More lights appeared
there and moved very rapidly to and fro.
"Unless they're landing what they're ashamed of," said Marion, "I
don't see why they're doing it at night."
Mysteries always irritate me. I answered Marion impatiently.
"You can't be so foolish as to suppose that Conroy is smuggling. It
wouldn't be any temptation to a millionaire to cheat the revenue out
of the duty on a few pounds of tobacco."
Several more carts followed each other in a slow procession up the
hill. It seemed as if Crossan's entire staff of men and horses was
engaged in this midnight transport service.
"Mr. Conroy might not know anything about it," said Marion. "It may be
done--"
"I don't suppose Bob Power--"
"There was another man on board," said Marion, "and Godfrey seemed to
think that he was--well, not a very nice kind of man."
"The fact that Godfrey called him a cad," I said, "rather goes to show
that he is a man with a great deal of good in him. Besides, as it
happens, I know all about him. His name is McNeice and he is a Fellow
of Trinity College. It's ridiculous to suppose that he's landing a
cargo of port wine for consumption in the common room. Fellows of
College don't do that kind of thing. Besides, he's a good scholar. I
had some correspondence with him when I was writing my article on St.
Patrick's birthplace. I mean to ask him to dinner to-morrow."
That disposed of Marion and her smuggling theory. She gave me a
dutiful kiss and went to bed.
I stood at the window and watched until the last cart had mounted the
hill. The lights on the pier went out. A solitary boat rowed back to
the _Finola_. The town and bay were still again.
I shut the window and went back to my chair. I had some thoughts of
working up my vision of Malcolmson and his artillery into a short
article of a light kind, slightly humorous, with a vein of satire
running through it. I sometimes contribute articles of this kind,
under a pseudonym, to a London evening paper. Unfortunately my mind
refused to return to the subject. I was worried by the impossibility
of finding any explanation of the curious proceedings of the _Finola_.
The more I thought about the matter the less I was able to understand
it. Marion's smuggling hypothesis I dismissed as inherently absurd. It
is true that the government has withdrawn most of the coastguards from
our shores. We used to have twelve of them at Kilmore, and they were
pleasant fellows, always ready to chat on topics of current interest
with any passer-by. Now, having lingered on for some years with only
two, we have none at all. But, as I understand, coastguards are not
the real obstacle to smugglers and never were. The safety of the
revenue depends upon the perfection of the organization of its inland
officers which makes it impossible to dispose of whisky which cannot
show a respectable past history.
I was driven back finally on my own theory--inherently very
improbable--that the _Finola_ had, in the course of her voyage, netted
an immense catch of mackerel and had come into Kilmore harbour to get
rid of them.