who was in a difficulty. He felt for the master of the workhouse. He
also had a natural taste for solving difficult problems, and the
question of the sailor's religion attracted him.
"Tell me this, now," he said. "Had he any kind of a Prayer Book or a
religious emblem of any sort on him when you were taking the clothes off
him?"
"Not one. I looked myself, and the nurse went through his pockets after.
Barring a lump of ship's tobacco and an old knife, there wasn't a thing
on him."
"That's not much use to us," said the doctor. "I never heard of a
religion yet that forbid the use of tobacco or objected to people
carrying penknifes. If you'd found a bottle of whiskey on him, now, it
might have helped us. We'd have known then that he wasn't a Mohammedan."
"What'll I do at all?"
"I'll tell you what it is," said the doctor. "I'll go round the town and
I'll collect all the people in it that can speak any language besides
English. I'll bring them up here and let them try him one by one. It'll
be a queer thing if we can't find somebody that will be able to make him
understand a simple question."
Dr. Whitty called first at the Imperial Hotel, and had an interview with
Lizzie Glynn.
"Lizzie," he said, "you've had a good education at one of the most
expensive convents in Ireland. Isn't that a fact?"
"It is," she said. "And I took a prize one time for playing the piano."
"It's not piano-playing that I expect from you now," said the doctor,
"but languages. You speak French, of course?"
"I learned it," said Lizzie, "but I wouldn't say I could talk it very
fast."
"Never mind how slow you go," said the doctor, "so long as you get it
out in the end. Are you good at German?"
"I didn't learn German."
"Italian?"
"There was one of the sisters that knew Italian," said Lizzie, "but it
wasn't taught regular."
"Russian? Spanish? Dutch?"
Lizzie shook her head.
"That's a pity. Never mind. I'll put you down for French, anyway. I'll
take you up with me to the workhouse hospital at six o'clock this
evening. I want you to speak French to a man that's there, one of the
sailors out of the ship that was wrecked."
"I mightn't be fit," said Lizzie, doubtfully.
"Oh, yes, you will. Just look up the French for religion before you
start, and get off the names of the principal kinds of religion in that
language. All you have to do is to ask the man, 'What is your religion?'
and then understand whatever it is he says to you by the way of an
answer."
Dr. Whitty next called on Mr. Jackson and explained the situation to
him. The rector, rather unwillingly, offered French, and seemed relieved
when he was told that that language was already provided for.
"I thought," said the doctor, "that you'd be sure to know Greek."
"I do," said the Rector, "but not modern Greek."
"Is there much difference?"
"I don't know. I fancy there is."
"Well, look here, come up and try the poor fellow with ancient Greek. I
expect he'll understand it if you talk slowly. All we want to get out
of him is whether he's a Protestant or a Catholic."
"If he's a Greek at all," said the rector, "he'll probably not be either
the one or the other."
"He's got to be one or the other while he's here. He can choose
whichever happens to be the nearest thing to his own religion, whatever
that is. Does Mrs. Jackson know Italian or Spanish?"
"No. I rather think she learned German at school, but I expect----"
"Capital. I'll put her down for German."
"I'm sure she's forgotten it now."
"Never mind. She can brush it up. There's not much wanted and she has
till six o'clock this evening. I shall count on you both. Good-bye."
"By the way, doctor," said Mr. Jackson on the doorstep, "now I come to
think of it, I don't believe there's a word in ancient Greek for
Protestant."
"There must be. It's one of the most important and useful words in any
language. How could the ancient Greeks possibly have got on without it?"
"There _isn't_. I'm perfectly sure there isn't."
"That's awkward. But never mind, you'll be able to get round it with
some kind of paraphrase. After all, we can't leave the poor fellow
without the consolations of religion in some form. Good-bye."
"And--and--Catholic in ancient Greek will mean something quite
different, not in the least what it means now."
The doctor was gone. Mr. Jackson went back to his study and spent two
hours wrestling with the contents of a lexicon. He arrived at the
workhouse in the evening with a number of cryptic notes, the words
lavishly accented, written down on small slips of paper.
Father Henaghan was the next person whom Dr. Whitty visited. At first he
absolutely declined to help.
"The only language I could make any shift at speaking," he said "is
Latin. And that would be no use to you. There isn't one sailor out of
every thousand, outside of the officers of the Royal Navy, that would
know six words of Latin."
"They tell me," said the doctor, "that there's no great difference
between Latin and Spanish or Italian. Anyone that knows the one will
make a pretty good push at understanding the others."
"Whoever told you that told you a lie," said the priest; "and, anyway,
I'm not going near that man until I'm sure he's a Catholic."
"Don't be hard-hearted, Father. Think of the poor fellow lying there and
not being able to tell any of us what religion he belongs to."
"I'll tell you why I won't go," said the priest. "There was one time
when I was a curate in Dublin, I used to be attending one of the
hospitals. People would be brought in suffering from accidents and
dying, and you wouldn't know what they were, Catholic and Protestant. I
got into the way of anointing them all while they were unconcious,
feeling it could do them no harm, even if they were Protestants. Well,
one day I anointed a poor fellow that they told me was dying. What did
he do but recover. It turned out then that he was a Protestant, and,
what's more, an Orangeman, and when he heard what was done he gave me
all sorts of abuse. He said his mother wouldn't rest easy in her grave
when she heard of it, and more talk of the same kind."
"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.