Bob Power called on me next morning. Marion and I were busy at my
history of Irish rebellions when Bob was shown into the library. The
sun, I recollect, was shining so brightly outside that I had the
blinds pulled down in order to soften the light. Bob's entrance had
much the same effect as pulling up the blinds again. He brought the
sunshine with him, not in the trying form of heat and glare, but
tempered with a sea breeze, and broken, so it seemed to me, into the
sparkle of leaping waves. His work, the night before, whatever it was,
had not affected his spirits.
As a rule I dislike being interrupted when I am engaged in my literary
work. I always absolutely hate it when Godfrey is the interrupter. But
I found myself quite pleased when Bob Power said that we ought not to
sit indoors on so fine a day. Marion ran off to get her hat and joined
us on the lawn. Bob Power led us straight to the garden, and when we
got there, made for the strawberry bed. He owned to a pleasant
recollection of the feast he had enjoyed the day before.
There is a good deal of the school-boy about Bob Power, and Marion is
quite young enough to enjoy gorging herself with ripe strawberries. I,
alas! am nearly sixty years of age. A very small number of
strawberries satisfies me, and I find that stooping to gather them
from beneath their nets tires me after a short time. Bob Power and
Marion wandered far into the remoter parts of my strawberry bed. I
stayed near the pathway. Their voices reached me and their laughter;
but I could not hear what they were saying to each other. I felt
suddenly lonely. They were getting on very well without me. I went on
by myself and inspected my melon frames. I left them after a while and
took a look at my poultry yard.
The rearing of poultry is one of the things which I do in order to
benefit my country. Quite ordinary chickens satisfy my personal
needs, and the egg of the modest barndoor fowl is all I ask at
breakfast-time. But an energetic young lady in a short tweed skirt and
thick brown boots explained to me two years ago that Ireland would be
a much happier country if everybody in it kept fowls with long
pedigrees. She must have been right about this, because the government
paid her a small salary to go round the country saying it; and no
government, not even ours, would pay people to say what is not true.
Her plan for introducing the superior hens into the homes of the
people was that I should undertake the care of such birds as she sent
me, and give their eggs, under certain conditions, to any one who
asked for them. This I agreed to do, and my new fowl yard, arranged
exactly as the young lady in thick boots wished, is my latest effort
in patriotism.
The hens which inhabited it were very fine-looking birds, and the cock
who dominated them was a credit to any government. I watched them with
real pleasure for some time. Then it occurred to me as curious that a
government which recognized the value of good blood in birds, bulls,
boars, horses, and even bees--if bees have blood--should be not only
indifferent but actually hostile to our human aristocracy. For years
past animals of pedigree have been almost forced upon Ireland. Men of
pedigree have as far as possible been discouraged from remaining in
this country. This idea struck me as very suitable for one of my light
newspaper articles. I was unwilling to lose grip of it and allow it to
fade away as Malcolmson and his cannons had faded the night before. I
took a sheet of paper and a pencil from my pocket and sat down on a
stone to make a rough draft of the article. Before I had written three
sentences I heard Marion's voice.
"Oh, there you are, father. We were looking for you everywhere. Mr.
Power and I want you to come and play tennis with us."
I rose and stuffed my paper into my pocket. I felt quite glad that
they had found me, although I do not care for playing tennis, and, as
a rule, enjoy writing articles.
"You will get on much better without me," I said.
"Oh no," said Marion; "Mr. Power is sure to beat me in a single; but I
think I'd have a pretty good chance if you are on his side."
I was to act as a handicap. My efforts to help Power were reckoned to
be worth one, perhaps two strokes in every game for Marion. This was
not complimentary to me; but I dare say my tennis deserves no more
respectful treatment. I agreed to be a handicap, and I was a good one.
Marion won the first set. I got exceedingly hot, but, up to the middle
of the second set, I enjoyed myself. Then Godfrey appeared. He watched
my efforts with an air of cold superiority and contemptuous surprise.
My heart failed me and I was obliged to ask to be allowed to stop.
Bob Power invited us to lunch on the _Finola_. Marion accepted the
invitation joyfully. Godfrey also accepted, although I do not think
Power meant to ask him. But Godfrey is not the kind of man to miss the
chance of getting into touch, however remotely, with any one as rich
as Conroy. Power eyed him with an expression of frank dislike.
Godfrey, it seemed to me, did not much like Power. He was probably
annoyed at the way in which Power made himself agreeable to Marion.
Godfrey regarded Marion as, in a sense, his property, although there
was nothing in the way of an engagement between them.
McNeice, whom I had hoped to meet, was not on the yacht. The steward
explained to us that he was spending the day with Crossan. I could see
that the thought of any one spending the day with Crossan outraged
Godfrey's sense of decency. By way, I suppose, of annoying Power, he
asked what had been happening on the _Finola_ at twelve o'clock the
night before.
"I was awakened up," he said, "by the noise of carts going along the
street and I looked out. I could see lights on the yacht and on the
pier. What on earth were you doing at that time of night?"
"Coaling," said Power, shortly.
It was plain to me that he disliked being asked questions. It must
have been plain to Godfrey, too, for he immediately asked another.
"How did you get coal in a place like this?"
"Dear me," said Marion, "how very unromantic! I thought you were
smuggling!"
Godfrey's face assumed an expression of quite unusual intelligence. He
suspected Power of evil practices of some sort. Marion's suggestion
of smuggling delighted him.
"But where did you get the coal?" he persisted.
"My dear Godfrey," I said, "for all you or I know there may be
hundreds of tons of it piled up in the co-operative store. Crossan has
a wonderful business instinct. He may have speculated on a visit from
some large steamer and be making a large profit. I am the principal
shareholder, and nothing pleases me better than to see the store
succeeding."
I knew, as a matter of fact, that Crossan had no coal. I also knew
that the _Finola_ was not coaling. The carts were loaded when they
were going up the hill. They would have been empty if they had been
going to get coal for the _Finola_. I made my remark in the hope of
discouraging Godfrey from asking more questions.
"I wish you would smuggle something," said Marion. "I should love to
have some French lace laid at my door in a bale in the middle of the
night."
Marion reads novels, and the smugglers in these import French lace. In
real life the only people who try to cheat the nation out of its duty
on lace are tourist ladies, and they would not share their spoils with
Marion.
"But why did you coal in the middle of the night?" said Godfrey.
One of Godfrey's most striking characteristics is his persistent
curiosity. There is hardly anything in the world which Godfrey will
not find out if he is given time. A secret has the same attraction for
him that cheese has for a mouse. Some day, I hope, he will find a trap
baited with a seductive mystery.
"We always coal at night," said Power.
"Of course," said Marion, "the dirt shows so much less at night than
it would in daylight."
"But," said Godfrey, "I don't understand why you--"
I rose and said that we must go ashore. I invited Power to dinner, and
urged him to bring McNeice with him if possible. I made it quite plain
that I was not inviting Godfrey. Power accepted the invitation, and
sent us off in a boat. I said good-bye firmly to Godfrey at the end of
the pier. I was annoyed with him for cross-questioning our host at his
own table. Marion and I walked home. Godfrey walked up the hill
towards the co-operative store. I am sure he did not want to see
Crossan. I cannot suppose that he would venture to catechise McNeice.
I expect he meant to prowl round the premises in hopes of discovering
casks of smuggled brandy or cases full of tobacco.
McNeice came to dinner, and I am bound to say that I found myself very
nearly in agreement with Godfrey's opinion of him. He was a singularly
ill-mannered man. Power devoted himself to Marion, and I felt at once
that their conversation was not of a kind that was likely to be
interesting either to McNeice or me. They were talking about ski-ing
and skating in Switzerland. McNeice made no effort to talk at all. He
sucked his soup into his mouth with a loud hissing noise, and glared
at me when I invited him to admire our scenery. His fish he ate more
quietly, and I took the opportunity of reminding him of our
correspondence about St. Patrick. The subject roused him.
"There are," he said, "seventeen different theories about the place of
that man's birth."
I knew nine myself, my own, of which I was a little proud, being the
ninth. I did not expect McNeice to deliver a harangue on the whole
seventeen, but that is what he did. Having bolted his fish, he began
in a loud, harsh voice to pour contempt on all attempts at
investigating the early history of our national saint. He delayed our
progress through dinner a good deal, because he would neither refuse
nor help himself to the _entree_ which my butler held at his elbow. It
was not until he had finished with the whole seventeen theories about
the saint that he turned his attention to dinner again. I ventured to
suggest that he had not even mentioned my own theory.
"Oh," he said, "you have a theory too, have you?"
My theory, at the time of its first appearance, occupied ten whole
pages of the _Nineteenth Century_, and when republished, with notes,
in pamphlet form, was reviewed by two German papers. I felt hurt by
his ignorance of it, and reminded him again that we had corresponded
about the subject while I was writing the article.
"If you've time to waste on that sort of thing," he said, "why not
devote it to living bishops instead of one who has been dead over a
thousand years?"
The idea of investigating the origins of our existing bishops was new
to me but not in the least attractive.
"Wouldn't it be rather waste of labour," I said, "to build up an
hypothesis about the birthplace of a living bishop when--"
"It's certainly waste of labour to build up an hypothesis about a dead
one."
"I meant to say," I added, "that if one did want to know such a
thing--"
"Nobody does," said McNeice.
"It would," I went on, "be much simpler to write and ask him."
I gathered from the way in which he spoke that McNeice did not like
bishops; but I was not prepared for the violence of the speech which
he made to me after dinner. Marion and Power were at the piano, which
stands in a far-off corner of my rather oversized drawing-room.
McNeice settled himself in front of the fire, his long legs straddled
far apart, the bow of his white tie twisted under his ear. He is a man
of singularly ferocious appearance. He has very bushy eyebrows which
meet across the bridge of his nose, shining green eyes, a large jaw
heavily underhung, and bright red hair.
He addressed me for more than half an hour on the subject of bishops
in general. I should be very sorry to write down the things he said.
Some of them were quite untrue. Others were utterly unjust. It is
quite wrong, for instance, to impute it as a crime to a whole class of
men that their heads are bald. Nobody can help being bald if his hair
will not grow any more than he can help being fat if his stomach will
swell. Fatness was another of the accusations which McNeice hurled
against the bishops. I suppose this violent hatred of an inoffensive
class of men was partly the result of McNeice's tremendous
Protestantism. The poet Milton, I think, felt in the same way about
the prelates of his day. Partly it may have been the expression of his
naturally democratic temperament. Bishops like to be called "my lord"
by servants and clergymen. McNeice, I imagine, has a quite evangelical
dislike of such titles. I dare say that it was the fact of my being a
lord which made him so rude to me.
On the afternoon of my garden-party I happened to be standing close
beside Lady Moyne when she was saying good-bye to the Dean. Her final
remark was addressed quite as much to him as to me.
"What we have got to do," she said, "is to make use of this virile
democracy of ours; to mould it into an instrument for the preservation
of social order. The introduction of the Home Rule Bill gives us just
about the chance we want."
I found myself wondering, while the diatribe against the bishops was
in full swing, whether Lady Moyne would succeed in moulding McNeice
into a weapon for her hand. It seemed to me more probable at the
moment that McNeice would in the end tumble her beautiful head from
the block of a guillotine into the basket of sawdust which waited
underneath.
Marion and Bob Power were singing songs from Gilbert and Sullivan's
operas while McNeice preached to me. They at least were having an
enjoyable evening. I dare say McNeice enjoyed himself too. If so, my
dinner-party was not given in vain. One cannot reasonably expect more
than three out of every four people to be happy at the same time. It
was my misfortune that I happened to be the fourth.