VERY amusing indeed was Edmund’s parody of the boatman’s
wildly-romantic story. The travesty was composed for the benefit of Miss
Craven, and the time of its communication was between the courses of the
very excellent dinner which Lord Innisfail had provided for his numerous
guests at his picturesque Castle overlooking Lough Suangorm--that
magnificent fjord on the West Coast of Ireland. Lord Innisfail was a
true Irishman. When he was away from Ireland he was ever longing to be
back in it, and when he was in Ireland he was ever trying to get away
from it. The result of his patriotism was a residence of a month in
Connaught in the autumn, and the rest of the year in Connaught Square or
Monte Carlo. He was accustomed to declare--in England--that Ireland
and the Irish were magnificent. If this was his conviction, his
self-abnegation, displayed by carefully avoiding both, except during a
month every year, was all the greater.
And yet no one ever gave him credit for possessing the virtue of
self-abnegation.
He declared--in England--that the Irish race was the finest on the face
of the earth, and he invariably filled his Castle with Englishmen.
He was idolized by his Irish tenantry, and they occasionally left a few
birds for his guests to shoot on his moors during the latter days of
August.
Lord Innisfail was a man of about fifty years of age. His wife was
forty and looked twenty-five: their daughter was eighteen and looked
twenty-four.
Edmund Airey, who was trying to amuse Miss Craven by burlesquing the
romance of the Princess Fither, was the representative in Parlament of
an English constituency. His father had been in business--some people
said on the Stock Exchange, which would be just the opposite. He had,
however, died leaving his son a considerable fortune extremely well
invested--a fact which tended strongly against the Stock Exchange
theory. His son showed no desire to go on the turf or to live within
reach to the European gaming-table. If there was any truth in the Stock
Exchange theory, this fact tended to weaken the doctrine of heredity.
He had never blustered on the subject of his independence of thought or
action. He had attached himself unobtrusively to the Government party
on entering Parlament, and he had never occasioned the Whips a moment’s
anxiety during the three years that had elapsed since the date of his
return. He was always found in the Government Lobby in a division, and
he was thus regarded by the Ministers as an extremely conscientious
man. This is only another way of saying that he was regarded by the
Opposition as an extremely unscrupulous man.
His speeches were brief, but each of them contained a phrase which told
against the Opposition. He was wise enough to refrain from introducing
into any speech so doubtful an auxiliary as argument, in his attempts
to convince the Opposition that they were in the wrong. He had the good
sense to perceive early in his career that argument goes for nothing in
the House of Commons, but that trusted Governments have been turned out
of office by a phrase. This power of perception induced him to cultivate
the art of phrase-making. His dexterity in this direction had now
and again made the Opposition feel uncomfortable; and as making the
Opposition feel uncomfortable embodies the whole science of successful
party-government in England, it was generally assumed that, if the
Opposition could only be kept out of power after the General Election,
Edmund Airey would be rewarded by an Under-Secretaryship.
He was a year or two under forty, tall, slender, and so
distinguished-looking that some people--they were not his friends--were
accustomed to say that it was impossible that he could ever attain to
political distinction.
He assured Miss Craven that, sitting in the stern sheets of the boat,
idly rocking on the smooth swell that rolled through the Lough from the
Atlantic, was by far the most profitable way of spending two hours of
the afternoon. Miss Craven doubted if this was a fact. “Where did the
profit come in except to the boatman?” she inquired.
Mr. Airey, who knew that Miss Craven was anxious to know if Harold had
been of the profitable boating-party, had no idea of allowing his powers
of travesty to be concealed by the account, for which the young woman
was longing, of Harold and the topics upon which he had conversed. He
assured her that it was eminently profitable for anyone interested in
comparative mythology, to be made acquainted with the Irish equivalent
to the Mantuan fable.
“Fable!” almost shrieked Miss Craven. “Mantuan fable! Do you mean to
suggest that there never was a Romeo and Juliet?”
“On the contrary, I mean to say that there have been several,” said Mr.
Airey. “They exist in all languages. I have come unexpectedly upon them
in India, then in Japan, afterwards they turned up, with some delicate
Maori variations, in New Zealand when I was there. I might have been
prepared for them at such a place as this You know how the modern
melodramas are made, Miss Craven?”
“I have read somewhere, but I forget. And you sat alone in the boat
smoking, while the boatman droned out his stories?” remarked the young
woman, refusing a cold _entrée_.
“I will tell you how the melodramas are made,” said Mr. Airey, refusing
to be led up to Harold as a topic. “The artist paints several effective
pictures of scenery and then one of the collaborateurs--the man who
can’t write, for want of the grammar, but who knows how far to go with
the public--invents the situation to work in with the scenery. Last of
all, the man who has grammar--some grammar--fills in the details of the
story.”
“Really! How interesting! And that’s how Shakespeare wrote ‘Romeo and
Juliet’? What a fund of knowledge you have, Mr. Airey!”
Mr. Airey, by the method of his disclaimer, laid claim to a much larger
fund than any that Miss Craven had attributed to him.
“I only meant to suggest that traditional romance is evolved on the same
lines,” said he, when his deprecatory head-shakes had ceased. “Given the
scenic effects of ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ the romance on the lines of ‘Romeo
and Juliet’ will be forthcoming, if you only wait long enough. When you
pay a visit to any romantic glen with a torrent--an amateurish copy of
an unknown Salvator Rosa--ask for the ‘Lover’s Leap’ and it will be
shown to you.”
“I’ll try to remember.”
“Given, as scenic details, the ruin of a Castle on one side of
the Lough, the ruin of a Castle on the other, and the names of the
hereditary enemies, the story comes naturally--quite as naturally--not
to say overmuch about it--as the story of the melodrama follows the
sketch of the scenic effects in the theatre. The transition from
Montague to Macnamara--from Capulet to Cashelderg is easy, and there
you are.”
“And here we are,” laughed Miss Craven. “How delightful it is to be able
to work out a legend in that way, is it not, Mr. Durdan?” and she turned
to a man sitting at her left.
“It’s quite delightful, I’m sure,” said Mr. Durdan. “But Airey is only
adapting the creed of his party to matters of everyday life. What people
say about his party is that they make a phrase first and then look out
for a policy to hang upon it. Government by phrase is what the country
is compelled to submit to.”
Mr. Durdan was a prominent member of the Opposition.