DON’T you think,” remarked Edmund, the next day, as the boat drifted
under the great cliffs, and Brian was discharging with great ability
his normal duty of resting on his oars. “Don’t you think that you should
come to business without further delay?”
“Come to business?” said Harold.
“Yes. Two days ago you lured me out in this coracle to make a
communication to me that I judged would have some bearing upon your
future course of life. You began talking of Woman with a touch of
fervour in your voice. You assured me that you were referring only to
woman in the abstract, and when I convinced you--I trust I convinced
you--that woman in the abstract has no existence, you got frightened--as
frightened as a child would be, if the thing that it has always
regarded as a doll were to wink suddenly, suggesting that it had an
individuality, if not a distinction of its own--that it should no longer
be included among the vague generalities of rags and bran. Yesterday you
began rather more boldly. The effects of education upon the development
of woman, the probability that feeling would survive an intimate
acquaintance with Plato in the original. Why not take another onward
step today? In short, who is she?”
Harold laughed--perhaps uneasily.
“I’m not without ambition,” said he.
“I know that. What form does your ambition take? A colonial judgeship,
after ten years of idleness at the bar? A success in literature that
shall compensate you for the favourable criticisms of double that
period? The ownership of the Derby winner? An American heiress, moving
in the best society in Monte Carlo? A co-respondency in brackets with a
Countess? All these are the legitimate aspirations of the modern man.”
“Co-respondency as a career has, no doubt, much to recommend it to some
tastes,” said Harold. “It appears to me, however, that it would be easy
for an indiscreet advocate to over-estimate its practical value.”
“You haven’t been thinking about it?”
“You see, I haven’t yet met the countess.”
“What, then, in heaven’s name do you hope for?”
“Well, I would say Parliament, if I could be sure that that came within
the rather narrow restrictions which you assigned to my reply. You said
‘in heaven’s name.’”
“Parliament! Parliament! Great Powers! is it so bad as that with you?”
“I don’t say that it is. I may be able to get over this ambition as I’ve
got over others--the stroke oar in the Eight, for instance, the soul of
Sarasate, the heart of Miss Polly Floss of the Music Halls. Up to the
present, however, I have shown no sign of parting with the surviving
ambition of many ambitions.”
“I don’t say that you’re a fool,” said the man called Edmund. He did not
speak until the long pause, filled up by the great moan of the Atlantic
in the distance and the hollow fitful plunge of the waters upon the
rocks of the Irish shore, had become awkwardly long. “I can’t say that
you’re a fool.”
“That’s very good of you, old chap.”
“No; I can’t conscientiously say that you’re a fool.”
“Again? This is becoming cloying. If I don’t mistake, you yourself do a
little in the line I suggest.”
“What would be wisdom--comparative wisdom--on my part, might be
idiotcy--”
“Comparative idiotcy?”
“Sheer idiotcy, on yours. I have several thousands a year, and I can
almost--not quite--but I affirm, almost, afford to talk honestly to the
Working man. No candidate for Parliament can quite afford to be honest
to the Working man.”
“And the Working man returns the compliment, only he works it off on the
general public,” said Harold.
The other man smiled pityingly upon him--the smile of the professor of
anatomy upon the student who identifies a thigh bone--the smile which
the _savant_ allows himself when brought in contact with a discerner of
the obvious.
“No woman is quite frank in her prayers--no politician is quite honest
with the Working man.”
“Well. I am prepared to be not quite honest with him too.”
“You may believe yourself equal even to that; but it’s not so easy as
it sounds. There is an art in not being quite honest. However, that’s a
detail.”
“I humbly venture so to judge it.”
“The main thing is to get returned.”
“The main thing is, as you say, to get the money.”
“The money?”
“Perhaps I should have said the woman.”
“The woman? the money? Ah, that brings us round again in the same circle
that we traversed yesterday, and the day before. I begin to perceive.”
“I had hope that you would--in time.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if we heard the Banshee after dark,” said the Third.
“You are facing things boldly, my dear Harold,” said Edmund.
“What’s the use of doing anything else?” inquired Harold. “You know how
I am situated.”
“I know your father.”
“That is enough. He writes to me that he finds it impossible to continue
my allowance on its present scale. His expenses are daily increasing, he
says. I believe him.”
“Too many people believe in him,” said Edmund. “I have never been among
them.”
“But you can easily believe that his expenses are daily increasing.”
“Oh, yes, I am easily credulous on that point. Does he go the length of
assigning any reason for the increase?”
“It’s perfectly preposterous--he has no notion of the responsibilities
of fatherhood--of the propriety of its limitations so far as an exchange
of confidences is concerned. Why, if it were the other way--if I were to
write to tell him that I was in love, I would feel a trifle awkward--I
would think it almost indecent to quote poetry--Swinburne--something
about crimson mouths.”
“I dare say; but your father--”
“He writes to tell me that he is in love.”
“In love?”
“Yes, with some--well, some woman.”
“Some woman? I wonder if I know her husband.” There was a considerable
pause.
Brian pointed a ridiculous, hooked forefinger toward a hollow that from
beneath resembled a cave, half-way up the precipitous wall of cliffs.
“That’s where she comes on certain nights of the year. She stands at the
entrance to that cave, and cries for her lover as she cried that night
when she came only to find his dead body,” said Brian, neutralizing the
suggested tragedy in his narrative by keeping exhibited that comical
crook in his index finger. “Ay, your honours, it’s a quare story of
pity.” Both his auditors looked first at his face, then at the crook in
his finger, and laughed. They declined to believe in the pity of it.
“It is preposterous,” said Harold. “He writes to me that he never quite
knew before what it was to love. He knows it now, he says, and as it’s
more expensive than he ever imagined it could be, he’s reluctantly
compelled to cut down my allowance. Then it is that he begins to talk of
the crimson mouth--I fancy it’s followed by something about the passion
of the fervid South--so like my father, but like no other man in the
world. He adds that perhaps one day I may also know ‘what’tis to love.’”
“At present, however, he insists on your looking at that form of
happiness through another man’s eyes? Your father loves, and you are to
learn--approximately--what it costs, and pay the expenses.”
“That’s the situation of the present hour. What am I to do?”
“Marry Helen Craven.”
“That’s brutally frank, at any rate.”
“You see, you’re not a working man with a vote. I can afford to be frank
with you. Of course, that question which you have asked me is the one
that was on your mind two days ago, when you began to talk about what
you called ‘woman in the abstract.’”
“I dare say it was. We have had two stories from Brian in the meantime.”
“My dear Harold, your case is far from being unique. Some of its
elements may present new features, but, taken as a whole, it is
commonplace. You have ambition, but you have also a father.”
“So far I am in line with the commonplace.”
“You cannot hope to realize your aims without money, and the only way by
which a man can acquire a large amount of money suddenly, is by a deal
on the Stock Exchange or at Monte Carlo, or by matrimony. The last is
the safest.”
“There’s no doubt about that. But--”
“Yes, I know what’s in your mind. I’ve read the scene between Captain
Absolute and his father in ‘The Rivals’--I read countless fictions up to
the point where the writers artlessly introduce the same scene, then I
throw away the books. With the examples we have all had of the
success of the _mariage de convenance_ and of the failure of the
_mariage d’amour_ it is absurd to find fault with the Johnsonian
dictum about marriages made by the Lord Chancellor.”
“I suppose not,” said Harold. “Only I don’t quite see why, if Dr.
Johnson didn’t believe that marriages were made in heaven, there was any
necessity for him to run off to the other extreme.”
“He merely said, I fancy, that a marriage arranged by the Lord
Chancellor was as likely to turn out happily as one that was--well, made
in heaven, if you insist on the phrase. Heaven, as a match-maker, has
much to learn.”
“Then it’s settled,” said Harold, with an affectation of cynicism
that amused his friend and puzzled Brian, who had ears. “I’ll have to
sacrifice one ambition in order to secure the other.”
“I think that you’re right,” said Edmund. “You’re not in love just
now--so much is certain.”
“Nothing could be more certain,” acquiesced Harold, with a laugh. “And
now I suppose it is equally certain that I never shall be.”
“Nothing of the sort. That cynicism which delights to suggest that
marriage is fatal to love, is as false as it is pointless. Let any man
keep his eyes open and he will see that marriage is the surest guarantee
that exists of the permanence of love.”
“Just as an I O U is a guarantee--it’s a legal form. The money can be
legally demanded.”
“You are a trifle obscure in your parallel,” remarked Edmund.
“I merely suggested that the marriage ceremony is an I O U for the debt
which is love. Oh, this sort of beating about a question and making it
the subject of phrases can lead nowhere. Never mind. I believe that, on
the whole, the grain of advice which I have acquired out of your bushel
of talk, is good, and is destined to bear good fruit. I’ll have my
career in the world, that my father may learn ‘what’tis to love.’ My
mind is made up. Come, Brian, to the shore!”
“Not till I tell your honour the story of the lovely young Princess
Fither,” said the boatman, assuming a sentimental expression that was
extremely comical.
“Brian, Prince of Storytellers, let it be brief,” said Edmund.
“It’s to his honour I’m telling this story, not to your honour, Mr.
Airey,” said Brian. “You’ve a way of wrinkling up your eyes, I notice,
when you speak that word ‘love,’ and if you don’t put your tongue in
your cheek when anyone else comes across that word accidental-like, you
put your tongue in your cheek when you’re alone, and when you think over
what has been said.”
“Why, you’re a student of men as well as an observer of nature, O
Prince,” laughed Edmund.
“No, I’ve only eyes and ears,” said Brian, in a deprecating tone.
“And a certain skill in narrative,” said Harold. “What about the
beauteous Princess Fither? What dynasty did she belong to?”
“She belonged to Cashelderg,” replied Brian. “A few stones of the ruin
may still be seen, if you’ve any imagination, on the brink of the cliff
that’s called Carrigorm--you can just perceive its shape above the cove
where his lordship’s boathouse is built.”
“Yes; I see the cliff--just where a castle might at one time have been
built. And that’s the dynasty that she belonged to?” said Harold.
“The same, sir. And on our side you may still see--always supposing that
you have the imagination--”
“Of course, nothing imaginary can be seen without the aid of the
imagination.”
“You may see the ruins of what might have been Cashel-na-Mara, where the
Macnamara held his court--Mac na Mara means Son of the Waves, you must
know.”
“It’s a matter of notoriety,” said Edmund.
“The Macnamaras and the Casheldergs were the deadliest of enemies, and
hardly a day passed for years--maybe centuries--without some one of the
clan getting the better of the other. Maybe that was how the surplus
population was kept down in these parts. Anyhow there was no talk, so
far as I’ve heard, of congested districts in them days. Well, sir, it
so happened that the Prince of the Macnamaras was a fine, handsome, and
brave young fellow, and the Princess Fither of Cashelderg was the most
beautiful of Irish women, and that’s saying a good deal. As luck would
have it, the young people came together. Her boat was lost in a fog one
night and drifting upon the sharp rocks beyond the headland. The cries
of the poor girl were heard on both sides of the Lough--the blessed
Lough where we’re now floating--but no one was brave enough to put out
to the rescue of the Princess--no one, did I say? Who is it that makes a
quick leap off the cliffs into the rolling waters beneath? He fights his
way, strong swimmer that he is! through the surge, and, unseen by any
eye by reason of the fog, he reaches the Princess’s boat. Her cries
cease. And a keen arises along the cliffs of Carrigorm, for her friends
think that she has been swallowed up in the cruel waves. The keen goes
on, but it’s sudden changed into a shout of joy; for a noble young
figure appears as if by magic on the cliff head, and places the precious
burden of her lovely daughter in the arms of her weeping mother, and
then vanishes.”
“And so the feud was healed, and if they didn’t live happy, we may,”
said Edmund.
“That’s all you know about the spirit of an ancient Irish family
quarrel,” said Brian pityingly. “No, sir. The brave deed of the young
Prince only made the quarrel the bitterer. But the young people had
fallen in love with each other, and they met in secret in that cave that
you see there just above us--the Banshee’s Cave, it’s called to this
day. The lovely Princess put off in her boat night after night, and
climbed the cliff face--there was no path in them days--to where her
lover was waiting for her in the cave. But at last some wretch unworthy
of the name of a man got to learn the secret and told it to the
Princess’s father. With half-a-dozen of the clan he lay in wait for the
young Prince in the cave, and they stabbed him in twelve places with
their daggers. And even while they were doing the murder, the song
of the Princess was heard, telling her lover that she was coming.
She climbed the face of the cliff and with a laugh ran into the
trysting-place. She stumbled over the body of her lover. Her father
stole out of the darkness of the cave and grasped her by the wrist.
Then there rang out over the waters the cry, which still sounds on some
nights from a cave--the cry of the girl when she learned the truth--the
cry of the girl as, with a superhuman effort, she released herself from
her father’s iron grasp, and sprang from the head of the cliff you see
there above, into the depths of the waters where we’re now floating.”
There was a pause before Edmund remarked, “Your story of the
Montague-Macnamaras and the Capulet-Casheldergs is a sad one, Brian. And
you have heard the cry of the young Princess with your own ears, I dare
say?”
“That I have, your honour. And it’s the story of the young Princess
Fither and her lover that I tell to gentlemen that put their tongues
in their cheeks when they’re alone, and thinking of the way the less
knowing ones talk of love and the heart of a woman.”
Both Edmund and Harold began to think that perhaps the Irish boatman was
a shrewder and a more careful listener than they had given him.