The _Finola_ steamed out of our bay next morning. Marion saw her go,
and became quite lyrical at breakfast about the beauty of her "lines,"
a word which, as applied to the appearance of a yacht, she can only
have learned from Bob Power. I was not able to share her rapture
because the _Finola_ went out at 6 a. m., an hour at which I make it a
settled rule to be in bed. Marion is generally in bed at 6 a. m. too.
She made an exceptional effort that morning.
For a week I enjoyed almost unbroken peace, and accumulated quite a
large sheaf of notes for my work on the Irish Rebellions. Even Godfrey
refrained from worrying me. But such happiness was too good to last
long. On Saturday morning three things happened, every one of them of
a disturbing kind. I received a letter from Lady Moyne in which she
invited me to spend three days during the following week at Castle
Affey. Castle Affey is Lord Moyne's chief Irish place. He has three
others in various parts of the country and one in England. It is about
ten miles from my home. Lady Moyne invited Marion too; but this was
evidently an after thought, and she discounted the value of the
invitation by saying that her party was to consist almost entirely of
men and might be dull for Marion. I suspected politics at once, and
advised Marion to refuse the invitation. I accepted it. Politics bore
me a good deal; but it is interesting to watch politicians at their
game. It is also pleasant, very pleasant, to be in the company of Lady
Moyne. The prospect of the visit was as I have said disturbing. I
prefer monotony. But if things must fall splashing into the pool of my
life, I would as soon they took the form of visits to Castle Affey as
any other.
The next thing which happened that morning was a deputation. It
consisted of six out of the twenty carters whom Crossan has organized
in the interests of our fishing industry. They made the modest request
that I should drive my nephew Godfrey out of the neighbourhood. I felt
the strongest possible sympathy with them. If I were a carter, a
fisherman, a shopkeeper, or a farmer, and lived in Kilmore, I should
certainly wish Godfrey to live somewhere else. I did not even question
the members of the deputation about their special reasons for wanting
to get rid of Godfrey. They told me in general terms that he was
interfering in business which was "none of his." I wanted no evidence
in support of such a statement. Godfrey always interferes in
everything. A very freckled young man who seemed to be junior member
of the deputation, added that Godfrey "spied" upon them. Of course
Godfrey spied on them. He spies on me.
Strong as my sympathy was with the perfectly reasonable request of the
deputation, I could not act as I was asked. Godfrey is, of course, in
my employment. He collects the head rents still payable to me from
some parts of the town which were not sold when I parted with the rest
of my estate. For this I pay him L200 a year. I could, I suppose,
dismiss him if I chose; but the plain fact is that if I dismissed
Godfrey he would immediately starve or go to the workhouse. He is
quite unfit to earn his living in any way. Once, after great
exertions, I secured for him a kind of minor clerkship in a government
office. His duties, so far as I was able to learn, were to put stamps
on envelopes, and he was provided with a damp sponge to prevent any
injury which might happen to his tongue through licking the stamps. At
the end of a year he was dismissed as hopelessly incompetent. He came
back to me, beautifully dressed, with a small despatch-box full of
tradesmen's bills, and a grievance against the government. It was
plain to me after that experiment that Godfrey could never earn his
own living. I did not see my way to let him drift into the workhouse.
He is, little as I like him, the heir to my title, and, in mere
decency, I could not allow the cost of his support to fall on the
rates.
This is just one of the ways in which the democratic spirit of
independence has affected us all without our knowing it. In the
seventeenth century any member of the aristocracy who was afflicted
with an heir like Godfrey had him shut up in the Bastille, or the
Tower, by means of _lettres de cachet_ or whatever corresponded to
such instruments in England. There the objectionable young man ate
bread and drank water at the expense of the public funds. Nobody seems
to have suffered any discomfort at the thought that the cost of the
support of his relative was falling either on the rates or the taxes.
(I am not sure which it was but it must have been one or the other.)
Nowadays we are horribly self-conscious in such matters. The
debilitated labourer began it, objecting, absurdly, to being fed by
other people in the workhouse. His spirit spread to the upper classes,
and it is now impossible, morally, for me, a peer, to send my heir to
the workhouse. Fortunately public opinion is swinging round again. The
latest type of working-man has no objection to receiving an Old Age
Pension, and likes to hear of his children being given free breakfasts
at school. In time this new feeling will soak through to the class to
which I belong. Then I shall be able, without a qualm, to send Godfrey
to the workhouse. At present, I regret to say, I cannot.
I explained all this carefully to the deputation. It pained me to have
to say no to their request, but I said it quite firmly. My decision, I
think, was understood. My feelings I fear were not.
Very soon after the deputation left, Godfrey himself arrived. He
wanted me to dismiss Crossan. I am not at all sure that I could
dismiss Crossan even if I wanted to do so. He is the manager of our
co-operative store, and although most of the money which went to the
starting of that enterprise was mine there is a considerable number of
small shareholders. Crossan also runs the fishing business and our saw
mill. I capitalized both these industries, lending money to the men to
buy nets and good boats, and buying the various saws which are
necessary to the making of planks. This no doubt gives me some hold
over Crossan, but not enough to enable me to dismiss him as I might a
cook. Besides, I do not want to dismiss Crossan. He is managing these
different enterprises in such a way that they earn fair interest on
the capital I put into them.
"I've been looking into things a bit, Excellency," said Godfrey.
I quite believed that. The deputation of carters said the same thing
in other words.
"And you'll find yourself in an awkward place one of these days if
that fellow Crossan is allowed to go on as he's going."
"I hope you're not going to drag up that dispute about the carters,
Godfrey. I'm sick of it."
The dispute about the carters is really an unpleasant business. As
originally organized there were eight Protestant carters and four
Roman Catholics. A year ago Crossan dismissed the four Roman Catholic
carters, and one of the Protestants who was suspected of religious
indifference. Their places were filled by five Orangemen of the most
determined kind. Now the profits of this carting business are
considerable. The five men who were dismissed appealed to Godfrey.
Godfrey laid their case before me. I gathered that Godfrey had a high
opinion of the outcasts who always spoke to him with the respect due
to his position. He had a low opinion of the five interlopers who were
men of rude speech and democratic independence of manner. I was
foolish enough to speak to Crossan about the matter. He met me with a
blunt assertion that it was impossible to trust what he called
"Papishes." There, as a lover of peace rather than justice, I wanted
to let the matter rest; but Godfrey took up the subject again and
again in the course of the following year. He persisted, not out of
any love for justice though this once he was on the side of justice,
but simply out of hatred of Crossan.
"It's not only the dismissal of those carters," said Godfrey. "There's
a great deal more behind that. There's something going on which I
don't understand."
"If you don't understand it," I said, "you can't expect me to."
"Look here, Excellency, you remember the time that yacht of Conroy's,
the _Finola_, was in here?"
"Of course I do. You went and left my cards on Bob Power."
"I'm very sorry now that I did. There's something fishy about that
yacht. What was she doing on the night she was here?"
"Coaling," I said; "I don't see why I should dismiss Crossan because
Conroy's yacht came in here for coal."
"She wasn't coaling," said Godfrey.
I knew that, of course; so I said nothing, but left Godfrey to
develope his grievance whatever it was.
"Ever since that night," said Godfrey, "there has been something or
other going on in the yard behind the stores. Those carters are in it,
whatever it is, and a lot more men, fishermen and young farmers.
They're up there every night."
"Probably dancing," I said.
"Much more likely to be drinking."
"I wish you wouldn't talk nonsense, Godfrey. You know perfectly well
that the store has not got a licence, and there's no drink sold there.
Besides Crossan is a fanatical teetotaller."
"That wouldn't stop him," said Godfrey, "if he could sell the stuff
cheap and make money on it; if"--here he sank his voice--"if it hadn't
paid duty."
Now Crossan is one of those Christians who has added to the original
Ten Commandments a Mohammedan prohibition of alcohol in any form.
Godfrey, I have no doubt, would break any of the commandments which he
recognized, if he saw his way to making a small profit on the sin. But
I did not think that even a 25 per cent. dividend would tempt Crossan
to disregard his self-imposed prohibition of alcohol.
"That's all nonsense," I said. "In the first place the _Finola_ didn't
come in here to land a cargo of smuggled goods."
"Then what did she come for?"
I did not know, so I ignored Godfrey's question.
"And in the second place Crossan wouldn't debauch the whole place by
making the men drunk night after night on smuggled spirits. Why, only
three weeks ago he spoke to me seriously about the glass of claret I
drink at dinner. He did it quite respectfully and entirely for my
good. I respected him for it."
"He's up to some mischief," said Godfrey, sulkily, "and it won't be
too pleasant for you, Excellency, when the Inland Revenue people find
out, and you are let in for a prosecution. I tell you that every night
for the last week men have been going up to that store after dark,
twenty or thirty of them, truculent, disrespectful blackguards out of
the Orange Lodge. I've watched them."
"Did you watch them coming out again?"
"I did, twice," said Godfrey. "They didn't go home till nearly one
o'clock in the morning. I couldn't stop up every night, so I only saw
them twice."
"Well," I said, "were they drunk?"
"No," said Godfrey, unwillingly, "they were not. They walked quite
straight."
"That explodes your theory then. If they had been drinking smuggled
spirits for hours and hours, they would have been drunk."
"They were at some mischief," said Godfrey.
"They were probably getting up a concert," I said.
"No, they weren't, for--"
"Look here, Godfrey," I said, "I've listened to you pretty patiently
for a long time; but I really cannot spare you the whole morning. If
you have anything to do I wish you'd go and do it. If you haven't
you'd better go to bed and sleep off your absurd suspicions."
One has to speak very plainly to Godfrey. Hints are simply wasted on
him. Even after my last remark he hesitated for a moment. Then he
turned and went.
I felt in the mood to write a short story which I have had in my mind
for some time. I very often write short stories; but have never yet
got an editor who cares to print any of them. The one I had in my mind
when Godfrey left me was, however, likely to be particularly good. It
was to be the autobiography of a murderer; not an ordinary murderer
who slays through desire of gain or in obedience to an inborn criminal
instinct. My murderer was to be a highly respectable, God-fearing man,
a useful citizen, a good father, a man of blameless life and almost
blameless thoughts, generous, high-principled, beloved. He was to slay
his victim with one of the fire-irons on his hearth. The murderous
impulse was to take possession of him quite suddenly but with
absolutely irresistible force. He was to kill a man who had been
boring him for hours. My intention was to write the story in such a
way as to win public sympathy for my murderer and to make every one
feel that the dead man deserved his fate. I meant to model the dead
man on my nephew Godfrey.
I still think that a very good short story might be written along
those lines, but I doubt whether I shall ever write it. I wrote about
two thousand words that morning before I was interrupted by the
luncheon gong. I was unable to go on writing after luncheon because
the conversation I had with Marion distracted my mind and turned my
thoughts to another subject.
"Father," she said, "do you think that Mr. Power could really have
been smuggling things in that yacht?"
"No," I said; "he couldn't possibly."
"It's very queer," said Marion.
"What's queer?"
"Oh, nothing. Only this morning Rose had a new gold brooch, quite a
handsome one."
Rose is Marion's maid, a pleasant and I believe efficient girl of
agreeable appearance.
"Even if Mr. Power was smuggling," I said, "it's exceedingly unlikely
that he'd bring in a cargo of gold brooches to give to the servants in
the district."
"Oh, I didn't mean that," said Marion. "In fact Rose told me that her
young man gave her the brooch. He's a very nice, steady young fellow
with a freckly face and he drives one of the carts for Crossan."
He must, I suspect, be the same young man who accused Godfrey of being
a spy. If so he is evidently a judge of character, and his selection
of Rose as a sweet-heart is a high compliment to her.
"He promised her a gold bracelet next week," said Marion, "and Rose is
very mysterious about where he gets the money."
"As long as he doesn't steal it from me," I said, "I don't care where
he gets it."
"It's very queer all the same. Rose says that a lot of the young men
in the village have heaps of money lately, and I thought it might
have something to do with smuggling."
This is what distracted my mind from the story of the man who murdered
Godfrey. I could not help wondering where Rose's young man and the
others got their money. They were, I assumed, the same young men who
frequented the co-operation store during the midnight hours. It was,
of course, possible that they might earn the money there by some form
of honest labour. But I could not imagine that Crossan had started one
of those ridiculous industries by means of which Government Boards and
philanthropic ladies think they will add to the wealth of the Irish
peasants. Besides, even if Crossan had suddenly developed symptoms of
kindly idiocy, neither wood-carving or lace-making could possibly have
made Rose's freckly faced young man rich enough to buy a gold brooch.
The thing puzzled me nearly as much as did the _Finola's_ midnight
activity.