easier to let the tide of this strange lecture sweep over him than to
make any effort to assert himself.
"Do you mind if I smoke?" he said. "I think I could listen to your
explanation better if I smoked."
He took from his pocket a silver cigar-case.
"Smoke away," said Meldon. "I don't mind in the least. In fact, I'll
take a cigar from you and smoke, too. I can't afford cigars myself, but
I enjoy them when they're good. I suppose a Chief Secretary is pretty
well bound to keep decent cigars on account of his position."
Mr. Willoughby handed over the case. Meldon selected a cigar and lit it.
Then he went on--
"The central position of the pragmatist philosophy and the Ritschlian
theology is that truth and usefulness are identical."
"Eh?"
"What that means is this. A thing is true if it turns out in actual
practice to be useful, and false if it turns out in actual practice to
be useless. I daresay that sounds startling to you at first, but if you
think it over quietly for a while you'll get to see that there's a good
deal in it."
Meldon puffed at his cigar without speaking. He wished to give Mr.
Willoughby an opportunity for meditation. Then he went on--
"The usual illustration--the one you'll find in all the text-books--is
the old puzzle of the monkey on the tree. A man sees a monkey clinging
to the far side of a trunk of a tree--I never could make out how he did
see it, but that doesn't matter for the purposes of the illustration. He
(the man) determines to go round the tree and get a better look at the
monkey. But the monkey creeps round the tree so as always to keep the
trunk between him and the man. The question is, whether, when he has
gone round the tree, the man has or has not gone round the monkey. The
older philosophers simply gave that problem up. They couldn't solve it,
but the pragmatist--"
"Either you or I," said Mr. Willoughby, feebly, "must be going mad."
"Your cigar has gone out," said Meldon. "Don't light it again. There's
nothing tastes worse than a relighted cigar. Take a fresh one. There are
still two in the case and I shall be able to manage along with one
more."
"Would you mind leaving out the monkey on the tree and getting back to
the geological survey story?"
"Not a bit. If it bores you to hear an explanation of the pragmatist
theory of truth, I won't go on with it. It was only for your sake I went
into it. You can just take it from me that the test of truth is
usefulness. That's the general theory. Now apply it to this particular
case. The story I told Higginbotham turned out to be extremely
useful--quite as useful as I had any reason to expect. In fact, I don't
see that we could very well have got on without it. I can't explain to
you just how it was useful. If I did, I should be giving away Major
Kent, Sir Charles Buckley, Euseby Langton, and perhaps old Thomas
O'Flaherty Pat; but you may take it that the utility of the story has
been demonstrated."
Mr. Willoughby made an effort to rally. He reminded himself that he was
Cabinet Minister and a great man, that he had withstood the fieriest
eloquence of Members for Munster constituencies, and survived the most
searching catechisms of the men from Antrim and Down. He called to mind
the fact that he had resolutely said "No" to at least twenty-five per
cent. of the people who came to him in Dublin Castle seeking to have
jobs perpetrated. He tried to realise the impossibility of a mere
country curate talking him down. He hardened his heart with the
recollection that he was in the right and the curate utterly in the
wrong. He sat up as well as he could in the hammock-chair and said
sternly--
"Am I to understand that you regard any lie as justifiable if it serves
its purpose?"
"Certainly not," said Meldon; "you are missing the whole point. I was
afraid you would when you prevented me from explaining the theory of
truth to you. I never justify lies under any circumstances whatever. The
thing I'm trying to help you grasp is this: A statement isn't a lie if
it proves itself in actual practice to be useful--it's true. There, now,
you've let that second cigar go out. You'd better light that one again.
I hate to see a man wasting cigar after cigar, especially when they're
good ones."
Mr. Willoughby fumbled with the matches and made more than one attempt
to relight the cigar.
"The reason," Meldon went on, "why I think you're almost certain to be a
pragmatist is that you're a politician. You're constantly having to make
speeches, of course; and in every speech you must, more or less, say
something about Ireland. When you are Chief Secretary the other fellow,
the man in opposition who wants to be Chief Secretary but isn't, gets up
and says you are telling a pack of lies. That's not the way he expresses
himself, but it's exactly what he means. When his turn comes round to be
Chief Secretary, and you are in opposition, you very naturally say that
he's telling lies. Now, that's a very crude way of talking. You are,
both of you, as patriotic and loyal men, doing your best to say what is
really useful. If the things you say turn out in the end to be useful,
why, then, if you happen to be a pragmatist, they aren't lies."
Mr. Willoughby stuck doggedly to his point. Just so his countrymen,
though beaten by all the rules of war, have from time to time clung to
positions which they ought to have evacuated.
"A lie," he said, "is a lie. I don't see that you've made your case at
all."
"I know I haven't, but that's because you insist on stopping me. If
you'll allow me to go back to the man who went round the tree with the
monkey on it----"
"Don't do that, I can't bear it."
"Very well. I won't. I suppose we may consider the matter closed now,
and go on to talk of something else."
"No. It's not closed," said Mr. Willoughby, with a fine show of spirited
indignation. "I still want to know why you told Mr. Higginbotham that I
sent Major Kent to make a geological survey of this island. It's all
very well to talk as you've been doing, but a man is bound to tell the
truth and not to deceive innocent people."
"Look here, Mr. Willoughby," said Meldon, "I've sat and listened to you
calling me a liar half-a-dozen times, and I havn't turned a hair. I'm
not a man with remarkable self-control, and I appreciate your point of
view. You are irritated because you think you are not being treated with
proper respect. You assert what you are pleased to call your dignity, by
trying to prove that I am a liar. I've stood it from you so far, but I'm
not bound to stand it any longer, and I won't. It doesn't suit you one
bit to take up that high and mighty moral tone, and I may tell you it
doesn't impress me. I'm not the British Public, and that bluff honesty
pose isn't one I admire. All these platitudes about lies being lies
simply run off my skin. I know that your own game of politics couldn't
be played for a single hour without what you choose to describe as
deceiving innocent people. Mind you, I'm not blaming you in the least. I
quite give in that you can't always be blabbing out the exact literal
truth about everything. Things couldn't go on if you did. All I say is,
that, being in the line of life you are, you ought not to set yourself
up as a model of every kind of integrity and come out here to an island,
which, so far as I know, nobody ever invited you to visit, and talk
ideal morality to me in the way you've been doing. Hullo! here's
Higginbotham back again. I wonder if he has brought Thomas O'Flaherty
Pat with him. You'll be interested in seeing that old man, even if you
can't speak to him."
Higginbotham started as he entered the hut. He did not expect to find
Meldon there. He was surprised to see Mr. Willoughby crumpled up,
crushed, cowed in the depths of the hammock-chair, while Meldon,
cheerful and triumphant, sat on the edge of the table swinging his legs
and smoking a cigar.
"You'd better get that oil stove of yours lit, Higginbotham," said
Meldon. "The Chief Secretary is dying for a cup of tea. You'd like some
tea, wouldn't you, Mr Willoughby?"
"I would. I feel as if I wanted some tea. You won't say that I'm posing
for the British Public if I drink tea, will you?"
It was Meldon who lit the stove, and busied himself with the cups and
saucers. Higginbotham was too much astonished to assist.
"There's no water in your kettle," said Meldon. "I'd better run across
to the well and get some. Or I'll go to Michael Pat's mother and get
some hot. That will save time. When I'm there I'll collar a loaf of
soda-bread and some butter if I can. I happen to know that she has some
fresh butter because I helped her to make it."
Mr. Willoughby rallied a little when the door closed behind Meldon.
"Your friend," he said to Higginbotham, "seems to me to be a most
remarkable man."
"He is. In college we always believed that if only he'd give his mind to
it and taken some interest in his work, he could have done anything."
"I haven't the slightest doubt of it. He has given me a talking to this
afternoon such as I haven't had since I left school--not since I left
the nursery. Did you ever read a book on pragmatism?"
"No."
"You don't happen to know the name of the best book on the subject?"
"No, but I'm sure that Meldon--"
"Don't," said Mr. Willoughby. "I'd rather not start him on the subject
again. Have you any cigars? I want one badly. I got no good of the two I
half smoked while he was here."
"I'm afraid not. But your own cigar-case has one in it. It's on the
table."
"I can't smoke that one. To put it plainly, I daren't. Your friend
Meldon said he might want it. I'd be afraid to face him if it was gone."
"But it's your own cigar! Why should Meldon----"
"It's not my cigar. Nothing in the world is mine any more, not even my
mind, or my morality, or my self-respect is my own. Mr. Meldon has taken
them from me, and torn them in pieces before my eyes. He has left me a
nervous wreck of a man I once was. Did you say he was a parson?"
"Yes. He's curate of Ballymoy."
"Thank God, I don't live in that parish! I should be hypnotised into
going to church every time he preached, and then----. Hush! Can he be
coming back already? I believe he is. No other man would whistle as loud
as that. If he begins to illtreat me again, Mr Higginbotham, I hope
you'll try and drag him off. I can't stand much more."
Old Tummus and the Battle of Scarva.
_From "Lady Anne's Walk."_
BY ELEANOR ALEXANDER.
I found old Tummus scuffling Lady Anne's walk; that is to say, he was
busy looking pensively at the weeds as he leaned on his hoe. He never
suddenly pretends to be at work when he is not at work, but always
retains the same calm dignity of carriage. He too frankly despises his
employers to admit that either his occasional lapses into action, or his
more frequent attitude of storing his reserve force are any concern of
theirs.
Gathering that he was graciously inclined for conversation by a not
unfriendly glance which he cast in my direction after he had spat on the
ground, I settled myself to listen.
"Do ye know what I'm goin' te tell ye?"
With this he generally prefaces his remarks. It is, however, merely
rhetorical. He does not expect an answer; unless one were at least a
minor prophet it would be impossible to give one, except in the
negative. "Do ye know what I'm goin' te tell ye?" he repeated, gently,
raising a weed with his hoe into what looked like a sitting position,
where he held it as if he were supporting it in bed to receive its last
communion. "There's not a hair's differ betwixt onny two weemen." I was
speechless, and he continued: "There is thon boy o' mine, and though I
say it that shouldn't, he's a fine boy, so he is, and no ways blate, and
as brave a boy as you'd wish for te see. From the time he was six year
old he was that old-fashioned he wouldn't go to church without his boots
was right jergers (creakers) that ye'd hear all over the church when he
cum in a wee bit late: and he cud say off all the responses as bowld as
brass. Did I no' learn him his releegion mesel, and bid him foller after
him that has gone before?"
A solemn pause seemed only appropriate here, though I had my doubts.
"But whiles he tuk te colloque-in' with the wee fellers round the corner
there in Irish street. That's so. But I soon quet him o' that. Says I te
him: 'Do ye know what I'm goin' te tell ye? Me heart's broke with ye, so
it is. I'll have no colloque-in' from onny boy o' mine, so I won't.
Ye'll have no traffickin', no, nor passin' o' the time o' day with them
that's not yer own sort, and that differs from the Reverend Crampsey;
him and me and Johnston of Ballykilbeg, and the Great Example. What's
that ye say? Who is the Great Example? Now! Now! Who wud it be, but him
on the white horse?'"
This is not, as might be supposed, from the vision of the Apocalypse,
but is easily recognised by those who are in the know, as an allusion to
William of Orange, of "Glorious, pious, and immortal memory," who is
always represented on a white horse.
"But," I argued, "he did traffic with those who disagreed with him; it
is even said, you know, that when he came to England he subsidised the
Pope."
Tummus appeared not to have heard this remark.
"As I was sayin', thon boy o' mine, he has a mind to get hisself
marriet. So says I te him, 'There's not a hair's differ between onny
two o' them.' Ye see, it's this way. He has the two o' them courted down
to the askin', and he's afeard that if he asks the wan he'll think long
for the other, or maybe he'll think he'd sooner have had the other."
"He is not behaving well. He can't, of course, marry them both, and yet
he has raised hopes which _must_ in one case be disappointed; he might
break the poor girl's heart."
"Break her heart! Hoot. Blethers. Heart is it?"
"But," I interjected again, merely, of course, to make conversation, for
I have many times and oft heard his opinion on the subject, and it is
not favourable, "Don't you believe in love?"
Tummus had been twice married. His first wife was called Peggy-Anne, and
only lived a year after her marriage. I try to persuade myself and him
that this was the romance of his life, but it is up-hill work. The
present Mrs. Thomas, who has been his wife for five-and-twenty-years, he
always speaks of as "Thon widdy wumman." She was the relict of one John
M'Adam, whose simple annal in this world seems to be, that he was the
first husband of Tummus's second wife; for the other world, his
successor considers that, owing to his theological views, he is
certainly--well--not in heaven.
"Do I no believe in love? Why, wumman, dear, have I no seen it mesel?
Sure, and I had an uncle o' me own, me own mother's brother, that was
tuk that way, and what did he do? but went and got the whole o' Paul's
wickedest Epistle off, so he did, and offered for te tell it till her,
all at the wan sitting. Boys, oh! but he was the quare poet! And she got
marriet on a boy out o' Ballinahone on him, and do ye know what I'm
goin' te tell ye? he tuk to the hills and never did a hand's turn
after."
"Surely, Thomas, you have been in love yourself, too, now, with
Peggy-Anne, and your present wife? When you asked them to marry you, you
had to pretend it anyhow. What did you say to them?"
"Is it me? Well it was this way; me and Peggy-Anne, we went the pair of
us to Scarva on the twelfth. Did ever ye hear tell of the battle o'
Scarva? I mind it well. I had a wheen o' cloves in me pocket, and
Peggy-Anne she had a wee screw o' pepperment sweeties. Says I te her:
"'Peggy-Anne, wud ye conceit a clove?'
"And says she te me:
"'Tak a sweetie, Tummus!'
"And I went in the mornin' and giv in the names till the Reverend
Crampsey; so I did."
After all, there are many worse ways of concluding the business, and few
that would be more full of symbol. There is the mutual help; the
inevitable "give and take" of married life; the strength and pungency of
the manly clove; the melting sweetness of the maidenly peppermint; two
souls united in the savour of both scents combined rising to heaven on
the summer air.
I could not recall in the tale or history, or the varied reminiscences
of married friends on this interesting topic, any manner of "proposal"
more delicate and less ostentatious. Tummus graciously accepted my
congratulations on his elegant good taste, but when I inquired about the
preliminaries of his second alliance, he only shook his head and
muttered, "Them widdies! Them widdies!"
In this there is almost a suggestion that, like Captain Cuttle, he was
taken at a disadvantage, but one can scarcely credit it. It seems
impossible that he would not have extricated himself with the inspired
dexterity of a Sherlock Holmes, or the happy resource of a Stanley
Weyman hero, from whatever dilemma.
"As I was sayin'," he resumed, "Did ever ye hear tell o' the battle o'
Scarva?"
Of course I had heard of it. Who has not heard of the Oberammergau of
the North? There, in a gentleman's prettily wooded park, on a large open
meadow sloping down to a clear running brook, is yearly enacted a
veritable Passion Play of the Battle of the Boyne.
"I suppose you have often seen it, Thomas."
"I have that; many and many's a time. But there was wan battle that bate
all--do ye know what I'm goin' te tell ye? I would give a hundred pounds
te see thon agin--so I wud. Boys, oh! it was gran'. There was me own
aunt's nephew was King William, and him on the top of the beautifullest
white horse ever ye seen, with the mane o' him tied with wee loops o'
braid, or'nge and bleue. Himself had an or'nge scarfe on him and bleue
feathers te his hat, just like one o' them for'n Princes, and his
Field-marshal and Ginerals just the same, only not so gran'. And King
James, they had a fine young horse for him that Dan Cooke bought off the
Reverend Captain Jack in Moy Fair. But he set his ears back, and let a
squeal out o' him, and got on with quare maneuvers whenever Andy Wilson
came near him, and Andy--that was King James--he says:
"'I am no used with horse exercise, and I misdoubt thon baste.'
"'But,' says Dan Cooke, 'up with ye sonny, and no more about it.'
"Well, with that Andy turned about, and, says he, 'I'll ride no blooded
horse out of Moy. I'd sooner travel. I'll ride none, without I have me
own mare that drawed me and hersel' and the childer out of
Poyntzpass--so I won't.'
"With that the Field-marshals and the Ginerals and the Aiden-scampses
away with them, and they found Andy's mare takin' her piece by the
roadside, and not agreeable to comin' forbye. Howsumever she was coaxed
along with an Aiden-scamp sootherin' her and complimentin' her: 'There's
a daughter, and a wee jooel,' and a Field-marshal holdin' a bite o'
grass in the front o' her, and a Gineral persuadin' her in the rare; and
they got King James ontil her, and the two armies was drawed up on the
banks o' the wee burn that stood for the Boyne Watter. Then they began,
quite friendly and agreeable-ike, temptin' other.
"'Come on, ye thirsty tyrant ye,' says William.
"'Come on, ye low, mane usurper,' says James.
"'Come on ye heedious enemy to ceevil and releegious liberty, ye,' says
William.
"'Come on, ye glorious, pious, and immortal humbug, ye,' says James.
"'Come on ye Glad-stone ye, and Parnell, and Judas, and Koran--and
Dathan--and Abiram,' says William.
"'Come on ye onnatural parasite ye, and Crumwell, and Shadrach--and
Mesech--and Abednego,' says James.
"'Come on ye auld Puseyite, and no more about it,' says William. With
that he joined to go forrard, and James he should have come forrard
fornenst him, but Andy's mare, she just planted the fore-feet o' her
and stud there the same as she was growed in the ground. With that there
was two of the Aiden-scampses come on, and of all the pullin' and
haulin'! But de'il a toe would she budge, and all the boys began
larfin', so they did, and William says, says he:
"'Come on till I pull the neck out o' ye.... Come on, me brave boy....
Fetch her a clip on the lug. Hit her a skelp behint. Jab her with yer
knee, man alive. Och, come on, ye Bap, ye.'
"Well, the skin o' a pig couldn't stand that, and Andy, he was middlin'
smart at a repartee, so 'Bap yersel',' says he, and with that he let a
growl out o' him ye might have heared te Portadown. Ye never heared the
like, nor what's more, Andy Wilson's mare, she never heared the like,
and she just made the wan lep and landed in the strame fornenst William;
then James he tuk a howlt o' William, and 'Bap yersel', says he; and
with that he coped him off his gran' white horse, and he drooked him in
the watter.
"Then there was the fine play, and the best divarsion ever ye seen. Some
they were for William, and some they were for James, and every wan he up
with his fut or his fist, or onny other weepon that come convenient, and
the boys they were all bloodin' other, and murder and all sorts."
"I thought you were all friends at Scarva?"
"And so we were--just friends fightin' through other."
"Was any one hurt?"
"Was anyone hurted? Sure, they were just trailin' theirselves off the
ground. Ye wud have died larfin'. There's Jimmy Hanlon was never his own
man since, and I had me nose broke on me--I find it yet--and some says
there was a wee girl from Tanderagee got herself killed."
"What became of William?"
"He was clean drowned."
"And King James?"
"He's in hell with Johnny M'Adam."
I tried to explain that I had not meant the King himself, but the actor
in whom nature had been stronger than dramatic instinct, but Tummus
either could not or would not dissociate the two. He really was not
attending to me: I had perceived for some time that his thoughts were
wandering far from our conversation. Suddenly a spasm convulsed his
features. With one hand he raised his hoe in the air like a tomahawk,
disregarding the weed of his afternoon's toil, which was left limp and
helpless on the gravel; with the other he grasped his side. I feared the
old man was going to have a fit, but it was only uncontrollable laughter
at some joke as yet hidden from me.
"Well, do ye know what I'm goin' te tell ye? I wud just allow William
was a middlin' polished boy, so he was. He subsidised the Pope o' Rome,
did he? Man, oh! Do ye tell me that? That bates all, and him goin' to
take just twiste what he let on."
Old Tummus unquestionably was absolutely sober at the beginning of our
interview, and had remained "dry" during it, but he now became gradually
intoxicated with what had appeared to him to be his hero's splendid
cunning. The thought of a genius which could overreach someone else in a
bargain rose to his brain like champagne. He swayed on his feet; he ran
his words into each other; he assumed a gaiety of manner and expression
quite unusual to him.
I watched him lurch down the walk, and then pause on the bridge. He
supported himself by the wooden railing, which creaked as he swayed to
and fro, and addressed the stream and the trees--
"Do ye know what I'm goin' to tell ye? I wud just allow he was a
middlin' polished boy--so he was."
The Game Leg.
_From "The Furry Farm."_
BY K. F. PURDON.
Heffernan's house at the Furry Farm stood very backwards from the
roadside, hiding itself, you'd really think, from anyone that might be
happening by. As if it need do that! Why, there was no more snug,
well-looked-after place in the whole of Ardenoo than Heffernan's always
was, with full and plenty in it for man and beast, though it wasn't to
say too tasty-looking.
And it was terrible lonesome. There wasn't a neighbour within the bawl
of an ass of it. Heffernan, of course, had always been used to it, so
that he didn't so much mind; still, he missed Art, after he going off
with little Rosy Rafferty. That was nigh hand as bad upon him as losing
the girl herself. He had got to depend on Art for every hand's turn, a
thing that left him worse, when he was without him. And he was very
slow-going. As long as Julia was there, she did all, and Heffernan might
stand to one side and look at her. And so he missed her now, more than
ever; and still he had no wish to see her back, though even to milk the
cows came awkward to him.
He was contending with the work one evening, and the calves in
particular were leaving him distracted; above all, a small little white
one that he designed for Rosy, when he'd have her Woman of the House at
the Furry Farm. That calf, I needn't say, was not the pick of the bunch,
but as Mickey thought to himself, a girl wouldn't know any better than
choose a calf by the colour, and there would be no good wasting
anything of value on her. At all events, it would be "child's pig and
Daddy's bacon" most likely with that calf. But sure, what matter! Rosy
was never to have any call to it, or anything else at the Furry Farm.