your eye, that time."
The tears welled up again as the other replied: "There is something
else you will never guess, thank God."
"No?"
"No, my boy."
Rodolfo looked up, and smiled, without irrelevant curiosity. He was too
content, afloat there.
The Honorable Langdon Openshaw took charge of the tiller, the son to
whom he had twice given life still at his feet. With neither oar nor
sail the guided boat came home from the upper waters to the port,
in the mellowing afternoon, borne on the mighty ebb-tide of the
Piscataqua.
THE PROVIDER.
NORA cried out: "'Tis so pretty to-day!" The barefooted children were
threading the slopes of Howth towards Raheny. Far-off, the city, with
its lights and stretches of glorified evening water, was lying there
lovely enough between the mountains and the sea. It was Nora's tenth
birthday, and, to please her, they had been on the march all afternoon,
their arms full of rock-born speedwell and primrose. "'Tis so pretty!"
echoed little Winny, with enthusiasm. But the boy looked abroad without
a smile. "'T'd be prettier when things is right," he answered severely.
Hughey was a man of culture; but his speech was the soft slipshod of
the south. The three trudged on in silence, for Hughey was a personage
to his small sisters; and Hughey in a mood was to be respected. He,
alas, had been in a mood too long. He had carried Winny over the
roughest places, and shown her Ireland's Eye, and, alongshore, the
fishing-nets and trawls; he had given his one biscuit to be shared
between them all; and lying in the velvet sward by the Druid stone, he
had told them all he knew of the fairy-folk in their raths, for the
seventieth time. But he was full of sad and bitter brooding the while,
thinking of his mother, his poor mother, his precious mother, working
too hard at home, for whom there never seemed to be any birthdays or
out-of-door pleasures.
Hugh was nearly twelve now, and mature as the eldest child must
always be among the poor. He could remember times in the county
Wexford, before his father, who was of kin to half the gentry in the
countryside, died; times when life had a very different outlook, and
when his peasant mother, with short skirts and her sleeves rolled
up, would go gayly between her great stone-flagged kitchen and the
well or the turkey-hen's nest under the blackthorn hedge, singing,
singing, like a lark. They had to leave that pleasant farm, and the
thatched roof which had sheltered them from their fate, and move up to
cloudier Dublin, to a stifling garret over a beer-shop; and it was a
miserable change. Malachi O'Kinsella, the cheerful thriftless man, with
his handsome bearing and his superfluous oratory, was gone; and his
Hughey was too young to be of service to those he left behind. A fine
monument, with _Glory be to God_ on it, had to be put up over him in
the old churchyard, two years ago; and there had been since the problem
of schooling, feeding, and clothing Hughey, Nora, and Winny. Then Rose,
three years old, fell into a lime-kiln, and was associated with the
enforced luxury of a second funeral; and Dan, the baby, born after his
father's death, was sickly, and therefore costly too; and now the rent
had to be paid, and the morrow thought of, on just nothing a week! All
of which this Hugh, with his acumen and quick sympathy, had found out.
He worshipped his mother, in his shy, abstinent Irish way; his heart
was bursting for her sake, though he but half knew it, with a sense of
the mystery and wrong-headedness of human society.
That April Tuesday night, when the wildflowers were in a big earthen
basin on the table, like streaks of moonlight and moon-shadow, and
the girls were in bed, Hughey blew out his candle, shut up his penny
_Gulliver_, and went over to the low chair in their one room, where
his mother was crooning Dan to sleep on her breast. It shocked him to
see how thin she was. Her age was but three-and-thirty; but it might
have been fifty. She wore a faded black gown, of decent aspect once in
a village pew; her thick eyelashes were burning wet. Outside and far
below, were the polluted narrow cross-streets, full of flaring torches,
and hucksters' hand-carts, and drunken voices; and beyond, loomed the
Gothic bulk of Saint Patrick's, not a star above it.
"Mother! 'tis not going to school any more Oi'll be." His tired,
unselfish mother swallowed a great sigh, but said nothing. "Oi'll
worruk for ye, mother; Oi'll be your man. Oi can do't."
There was another and a longer pause; and then Moira O'Kinsella
suddenly bent forward and kissed her first-born. Like all the
unlettered class in Ireland, she adored learning from afar, and
coveted it for her offspring. That he should give up his hope of
"talkin' Latin" touched her to the quick. "God love ye, Hughey darlint!
Phwat can a little bhoy do?" But she slept a happier woman for her
knight's vow.
As for Hughey, there was no sleep for him. By the first white light he
could see the two pathetic pinched profiles side by side, the woman's
and the babe's, both set in the same startling flat oval of dark locks.
The faces on the mattress yonder were so round and ruddy! They had not
begun to think, as Hughey had; even scant dinners and no warmth in
winter had not blighted one rose as yet in those country cheeks. Up to
yesterday, he had somehow found his mother's plight bearable, thanks
to the natural buoyancy of childhood, and the hope, springing up every
week, that next week she would have a little less labor, a few more
pence. Besides, it was spring; and in spring hearts have an irrational
way of dancing, as if a fairy fiddler had struck up _Garryowen_. But
now Hughey was sobered and desperate.
There was no breakfast but a crust apiece. The McCarthy grandmother, on
the stairs, gave Nora, starting for school, some fresh water-cresses.
Just then Mrs. O'Kinsella happened to open the door. Poor Nora had
yielded to temptation and filled her mouth, and pretended, holding
her head down, to be much concerned about a bruise on her knee. She
could not look in her mother's honest eyes, ignorant as these were
of any blame in Nora. Mrs. O'Kinsella went wearily to her charing,
and seven-year-old Winny set up housekeeping with Dan, the primroses
and a teapot-shaped fish-bone for their only toys. Hughey had already
gone, nor was he at his desk in the afternoon, when his teacher and
Nora looked vainly for him; nor did he return to his lodgings until
after sundown. When he came, he brought milk with him, earned by
holding a gentleman's horse at the Rotunda; and with that and some
boiled potatoes, there was a feast. Hughey's vocation, it would
appear, had not yet declared itself. He had haunted Stephen's Green
and its sumptuous purlieus in vain. He had not been asked to join
partners with Messrs. Pim, nor to accept a Fellowship at Trinity. The
next day's, the next month's history was no more heroic. There were
so many of those bright, delicate-featured, ragged-shirted boys in
Dublin, coming about on foggy mornings with propositions! The stout
shop-keepers were sated with the spectacle of the unable and willing.
The days dragged. An affable policeman who had known Hughey's mother at
home in New Ross, seeing him once gazing in a junk-shop door, finally
presented him to the proprietor: "Toby, allow me t' inthroduce a good
lad wants a dhrive at glory. Can ye tache um the Black Art, now? He can
turrun his hand to most anythin', and his pomes, Oi hear, do be grand,
for his age."
The junk-man, good-naturedly scanning Hughey, saw him burst into
tears, and beat the air, though the giant of the law had passed on.
That his chief and most secret sin should be mentioned aloud, to
prejudice the world of commerce against him, was horrible. His mother
had told on him! She must have found some lines on Winny's slate last
Sunday, entitled _Drumalough: a Lament for the Fall of the Three
Kings, Written at Midnight._ Worra, worra! Hughey was descended, on
the paternal side, through a succession of ever-falling fortunes, from
a good many more than three kings, and used to wonder where their
crowns and sceptres were, not that he might pawn them, either. The
O'Kinsellas were a powerful aboriginal sept in the old days, and lived
in fortress castles, and playfully carried off cattle and ladies from
their neighbors of the Pale. Malachi O'Kinsella's mother, a heroine of
romance who ran away with a jockey lover, and never throve after, was
of pure Norman blood, and most beautiful, with gray eyes, water-clear,
like Hughey's own, and the same bronze-colored hair; and it was said
she could play the harp that soft it would draw the hearing out of
your head with ecstasy! Now the junk-man was fatherly, and presented
Hughey, in default of a situation, with a consolatory coin; but
foregoing events had been too trying for the boy's nerves: he dropped
it, and fled, sobbing. He simply couldn't live where his po'try was
going to rise up against him, and wail like a Banshee in the public
ear. He charged, in his wrath and grief, across the crowded bridge, and
down the line of quays east of it, straight into a fat, gray-headed,
leather-aproned person directing a group of sailors unloading a boat.
This person, sent of Heaven, with miraculous suddenness, and with
musical distinctness, exclaimed: "'Aven't I been a-wishin' of 'im, and
directly 'e runs into me harms! Crawl into that barrel, sonny, and if
you 'old it steady, I'll 'eave you tuppence." Hughey, foreordained
likewise, crawled in. When he came out, Mr. J. Everard Hoggett looked
him over, from his moribund hat to his slight patrician ankle. "I
likes a boy wot's 'andy, and 'as little to sy, like you." He resumed
critically, "'E don't appear to be from any of 'Er Marjesty's carstles,
'e don't. Perhaps 'e might like to 'ang about 'ere, and earn three bob
a week?" Hughey hugged his twopenny piece, blushed, trembled, twisted
his legs in the brown trousers too big for him, and replied in gulps:
"O sir! Yes, sir." Whereby his annals begin.
This perfectly amazing luck befell towards the end of May. Mr. Hoggett,
going home, beckoned him, took him into a little eating-house, sat
him down, paid for a huge order, and departed. "There's a couple o'
lion cubs hinside wot ought to be your westcot, needs 'am and heggs.
Fill 'em full; and mind you come to-morrow at a quarter to ight. I'll
'ave no lyzy lubbers alongside o' me." With which fierce farewell, and
disdaining thanks, Mr. Hoggett faded wholly away.
Hughey, half-dazed, sat at a table alone, sniffing celestial fragrances
from the rear, with the joy in his breast jumping like a live creature
in a box. To quiet it, while he waited, he took up a torn journal which
was lying on the nearest chair. At first, what he read seemed to have
no meaning, but when some moments had passed, still odorous only, and
non-flavorous, Hughey's collected and intelligent eye had taken in the
dramatic political crisis, the stocks, the African news, the prospects
of Irish literature, and the latest London wife-beating. On the
advertisement page, one especial paragraph in sensational print rooted
his attention. This was it:--
"SERVANTS AND APPRENTICES, ATTENTION! Here is the best Chance of
your lives. It will Never come again. _Trade with us, and you lay
the_ FOUNDATION _of your_ FORTUNE! With every sixpenny worth of
goods bought of us on any Saturday night, we give a COUPON on the
Ninth anti-Sassenach Bank of Belfast. _Fifty of these_ entitle the
Bearer at the end of the year to a gift of TEN POUNDS IN GOLD!!
Honesty the best Policy our motto. Best Material at Lowest Prices;
come and see. _Do not Neglect your own_ GOOD. McClutch & Gullim,
Linen-drapers, No. 19-- ---- St."
Hughey, the innocent prospective capitalist, took a stubby pencil
from the only sound pocket in his habiliments, and began to figure on
the margin of the paper; for he had an inspiration. "Mother would be
thundherin' rich!" was what flashed into his mind. Before he had done
with his emergency arithmetic, ham and eggs, with all their shining
train, were set before him. With them, he gallantly swallowed his
conscience, for Hughey, like a nobler Roman before him, was resolving
to be gloriously false, and, for piety's sake, to trade his soul. He
foresaw vaguely that he would not be allowed, out of his royal wages of
three shillings, to spend full half every Saturday night, at McClutch
and Gullim's; yet to do it was the imperative thing now, and that he
felt impelled to do it was his own super-private business, and his
warrant. Therefore would he keep his secret close, and make what excuse
he might. He could not even think of asking advice; how should any one
else be able to realize how he must act towards his mother? The angels
had given her into his hands; and he knew at last what was to be done
for her. She should be rich and gay, and have a coach, perhaps, like
a real lady; and Danny should have a goat, and a sash with stripes in
it, like the little twin Finnegans; and the Misses Honora and Winifrid
O'Kinsella should walk abroad with parasols! Proper manoeuvring now
would fetch twenty-five pounds sterling next summer. But he would hide
away what he bought, and never tell until the beatific hour when his
mother should have the money, and the linen, and the truth about them,
all together!
Hughey went home in a series of hops and whirls, like a kitten's. He
brought a flood of riotous sunshine in with him. It was supper-time;
the children had each a ha'penny bun, and some tea. Mrs. O'Kinsella was
lying down, with an ache between her lungs and her spine, after a long
day's lifting and scrubbing. She felt the good news, before the child
spoke. "O mother! 'tis the most illigant thing's happened: ye niver
heard the loike." Hughey's pale comely little face was radiant.
"Phwhere is ut, and phwhat d'ye get, dear?" Then Hughey screwed up his
courage, and told his only, his masterly lie: "North Wall, mother; and
a shillin' and six every week." "A shillin' and six!" shrieked Nora.
"O Hughey!" But the critic for whose opinion he cared was not quite so
enraptured. She smiled, and praised him, but took it too tamely, her
son thought. However, he reflected that she little knew the felicities
in store.
In the morning, his career began, and it maintained itself with vigor,
inasmuch as by the autumn he was of real value to his employers. He
had many duties and some trusts. His orders all came directly from
the benevolent bluff Mr. Hoggett, or from his mild reflection and
under-study, a small, bald, capable head-clerk from the north, who
was known as Jibtopsails; for what reason, Hughey could never divine,
unless it was that his ears were uncommonly large and flapping.
Jibtopsails sent him here and there with parcels and messages, and
he had been faithful; he had made no grave mistake yet, nor had he
been unpunctual. But every Saturday of his life saw him posing as
a purchaser at 19-- ---- Street, where a hard-featured old woman,
supposed mother of the supposed junior partner, served him always with
the same ironically deferent, "Good day, sir; and what can I show you?"
Jibtopsails inquired occasionally after the health of Hughey's family,
particularly after Hughey had told him that Mrs. O'Kinsella was not so
well as she used to be. For the rest, the sympathy of that gentle cynic
made the child's blood run cold: he had such a paralyzing fear that
Jibtopsails might call there at the house, and talk to his mother, and
say something about three shillings a week! Kind people in the parish,
if they knew, would bring her in wood, and coal, and wine; but again,
in the hallucination of his jealous determined heart, the boy prayed
passionately that they might not know, and that he alone should be the
deliverer. The dread of his secret being found out, little by little
made his life intolerable. He had grown older since he had that to
cherish in his bosom, and it seemed less delicious than while as yet it
was nothing but a dream.
His mother broke down, and could toil no longer. Mrs. Drogan, who
lived downstairs, began to come up with her mending, and sit between
the bed and the window. Nora was clever, for so young a girl; but she
stumbled a great deal in her roomy charity boots, and had to be scolded
for awkwardness by Mrs. Drogan, who had brought up sixteen rebels, and
was disposed to command. As for Winny and Dan, they made a noise, and
therefore had to be exiled to the street, foul and dangerous as it was,
almost all day, while the invalid slept the sleep of utter exhaustion.
It occurred often to Hughey, and with increasing force, that to secure
a future good, he was doing a very vicious wrong; that it would be far
better for his mother to have the money now, to provide comforts and
make her well, than for her to do without it now, and be too feeble
in consequence to enjoy it when it would come, all in a lump. Heavy
and sharp was this dilemma to the little fellow, as he labelled the
great bales, or set Mr. Hoggett's dusted ledgers back on their shelves.
"Phwhat ought I be doin'?" he would groan aloud, when he was alone.
If he confessed to his mother, and handed over hereafter the total of
his wages, there was an end to the big income sprouting and budding
wondrously at Belfast, the income which would be hers yet, with ever so
little patience. But if he should not confess, and, meanwhile, if she
should not recover,--what would all the world's wealth be then to poor
Hughey?
October was damp and dispiriting; Mrs. O'Kinsella coughed more, but
apparently suffered little. Hughey still brought her, week by week,
his pittance of a shilling and sixpence. Ill as she was, her alert
instinct divined that something ailed him; she pitied him, and worried
about him, and kissed his tears away with a blessing, very often.
Doctor Nugent was called in for the first time, one rainy noon. He
told Mrs. Drogan, laconically, that his patient was going to die, and
stopped her gesture of remonstrance. "Say nothing to those children of
hers," he added, aside, on the threshold; "there is no immediate need
of it, and the eldest looks melancholy enough without it."
But the eldest was at his elbow. With a still ardor painful to see,
he raised himself close to the tall doctor, and whispered into his
ear. "Phwhat wud save me mother? Wudn't money do it, MONEY?" The boy
looked so thrillingly, impressively earnest that the doctor rose to the
occasion. "Perhaps! That is, a winter in France or Italy might delay
the end. But dear me! how on earth--" His voice wavered, and he hurried
down.
On the way back to the office, Hughey crossed Augier Street, and
stalked into McClutch and Gullim's. He had business with the old woman,
imminent business. Would the Ninth anti-Sassenach Bank of Belfast
advance half of an annual interest? that is, would they allow him,
Hugh O'Kinsella of Dublin, merchant's errand-boy, what was due on his
receipts of purchases up to date? He found that circumstances over
which he had no control prevented his waiting until May: please might
he draw out the eleven odd pounds now? The old woman had recently
had other queries of that nature, which proved that the victims were
getting restless; that it would soon be advisable, in short, to strike
camp, and betake herself and her nefarious concerns to Leeds or
Manchester. Her sourness vented itself promptly on Hughey. Decidedly,
the Ninth anti-Sassenach Bank would do nothing of the sort; it was
against the rules; it never advanced cash except in case of death, when
coupons from McClutch and Gullim's would hold good for a life-insurance
policy to the corpse's relatives. "And now g'long to the divil wid ye,
ye limb!" concluded Mrs. Gullim, in a burst of vernacular indignation.
Hughey fairly reeled out to the pavement, with wheels humming in his
brain, and a large triangular rock, sharper than knives and smeared
with poison (a not unfamiliar rock, of late), lodged in the middle of
his throat. As he turned down the windy North Wall, among the sleek
cattle waiting for exportation, and pushed open the warehouse door by
the Liffey, Jibtopsails took his pen from behind his capacious ear, and
peered over his spectacles.
"_Cead mille failthe, Brian Boruihme!_ and how is the royal fam----."
He got no further; the young face opposite was so awry with the
spirit's mortal anguish that Jibtopsails was truly sorry he had tried
to be jocose. It was almost a first offence.
And now, with much introspection, and heart-searching, and resolve,
Hughey's tragedy gathered itself together. On Sunday, after church,
he had occasion to go out of town. As he wished to deal with Nora, he
offered to give her a ride on the tram: a species of entertainment
which she accepted with enthusiasm. When they were at the end of their
route, they set forth on foot, up-hill, over two miles of exquisite
moorland, to the house of the retired first mate of the Grace Greeley,
who was summoned by the firm of Hoggett as witness in a lawsuit. Nora
was in her usual spirits, and her brother tried to wait until they
should show signs of flagging. O the heavenly freedom of the country!
the pleasant smell of damp leaves! But Hughey's heart would not rise.
As they passed the sheep-folds, the pretty huddled creatures made Nora
laugh, standing still, agape, in her blue faded frock; and he grabbed
her roughly by the arm, albeit his sad forbearing tone was not rough.
"D'ye love me at all, Nora?"
"That Oi do, Hughey O'Kinsella; and ye needn't be scrunchin' of me to
foind ut out."
"Nora!"
"Phwhat is ut?"
"There's somethin' Oi do be bound to say to ye." A pause.
"Can ye keep a secret?"
"Shure, Oi can."
"'Tis turrible."
"Niver ye moind, Oi'll keep ut!" said the loyal other.
Hughey lifted his face to the sweet blowy autumn afternoon, took
breath, and increased his pace. "Mother is loike to be doyin' soon.
Maybe ye didn't hear o' that. But she cud live a hunderd year if ut
wasn't so cruel poor we are. Oi've been a-thinkin' wan reason of ut is
she has too many childher. 'Tis good little Rosy is with the saints.
Childher all eats and wears clothes, and isn't much use. If mother
wasn't ill, there'd be nothin' the matther wid me; we cud go on along,
and Oi'd have power to do the beautiful things, Nora dear. Ye'd all be
proud as paycocks o' me whin next the cuckoo'll be in the green bush
down be the Barrow; only mother wud be undher the ground. So 'tis long
before that Oi must be doin' phwhat Oi'm meanin' to do. Now's the toime
for her to be cured, and the toime for me to behave the usefullest to
her is to-morrow, just afther Oi'm dead."
The younger child was bewildered, over-awed. "May the Lorrud have mercy
upon your sowl, Hughey!" she murmured with vague solemnity, taking
in the legendary word "dead" and nothing else. Her light feet ran
unevenly beside his, up the slope and down the hollow, and over stiles
and pasture-walls, bright with their withering vines. She was all ear
when her brother began again, irrelevantly and more softly, on his
tremendous theme, so old now to his thoughts that he was conscious of
no solecism in the abrupt utterance of it. "Whin ye dhrown, ye niver
look bad at a wake. A man kilt in the battle looks bad, but not a
dhrowned man. 'Tis grand to be a marthyr to your counthry; howsomiver,
the guns isn't convanient, and Oi must hould to the wather. The rest
Oi can't tell, becaze ye're a woman, and wudn't undhersthand; but
there's pounds and pince in ut, and 'tis the foine thing intoirely for
mother." He turned upon her his most searching gaze. "Ye'll be constant
and koind to her, now? Ye'll be runnin' and bringin' her a chair, and
takin' the beef out o' your mouth for her as long as ye live? (Shure
Oi forgot there's goin' to be tons o' beef for yez all.) Promus me,
Nora." She looked at him, and her wide blue eyes filled; and presently
she sank down all in a heap, her face in the grass, her heels in the
air. It looked like revolt; but it was regret, or rather the utter
helplessness of either. The boy never flinched. "Promus me, Nora."
"Oh, Oi do, brother Hughey, Oi do!" she sobbed. He stood by her a
moment, then with firmness followed the path out of sight, his slender
withdrawing figure significant against the sky.