The prospect of joining Augusta Goold’s band of volunteers and going to
South Africa to fight afforded Hyacinth great satisfaction. For two days
he lived in an atmosphere of day-dreams and delightful anticipations. He
had no knowledge whatever of the actual conditions of modern warfare.
He understood vaguely that he would be called upon to endure great
hardships. He liked to think of these, picturing himself bravely
cheerful through long periods of hunger, heat, or cold. He had visions
of night watches, of sudden alarms, of heart-stirring skirmishes, of
scouting work, and stealthy approaches to the enemy’s lines. He thought
out the details of critical interviews with commanding officers in
which he with some chosen comrade volunteered for incredibly dangerous
enterprises. He conceived of himself as wounded, though not fatally, and
carried to the rear out of some bullet-swept firing-line. He was just
twenty-three years of age. Adventure had its fascination, and the world
was still a place full of splendid possibilities.
At the end of his two days of dreaming he returned, flushed with his
great purposes, to the realities of life. He went to Father Moran to
tell him that he would not buy Durkan’s boat. He laughed to himself
at the thought of doing such a thing. Was he to spend his life fishing
mackerel round the rocky islands of Connemara, when he might be fighting
like one of the ancient heroes, giving his strength, perhaps his life,
for a great cause? The priest met him at the presbytery door.
‘Come in, Mr. Conneally--come in and sit down. I was expecting you these
two days. What were you doing at all, walking away there along the rocks
by yourself? The people were beginning to say that you were getting to
be like your poor father, and that nobody’d ever get any good out of
you. But I knew you’d come back to me here. I hope now it’s to tell me
that you’ll buy the boat you’ve come.’
They entered the house, and the priest opened the door of the little
sitting-room. Hyacinth knew it well. There was the dark mahogany table
with the marks burnt into it where hot dishes were set down, the shabby
arm-chair, the worn cocoanut-matting on the floor, the dozen or so books
in the hanging shelf, the tawdry sacred pictures round the wall. He had
known it all, and it all seemed unchanged since he was a child.
‘Sit you down--sit you down,’ said the priest. ‘And now about the boat.’
‘I’m not going in for her,’ said Hyacinth. ‘I’m as thankful to you for
suggesting it as if I did buy her. I hope you’ll understand that, but
I’m not going to buy her.’
He found it difficult to speak of his new plan to Father Moran.
‘Do you tell me that, now? I’m sorry for it. And why wouldn’t you buy
her? What’s there to hinder you?’
Hyacinth hesitated.
‘Well, now,’ said the priest, ‘I can guess. I thought the auction turned
out well for you, but I never heard for certain, and maybe you haven’t
got the money for the boat. Whisht now, my son, and let me speak. I’m
thinking the thing might be managed.’
‘But, Father Moran------’
‘Ah now, will you be quiet when I bid you? I haven’t the money myself.
Never a penny have I been able to save all my life, with the calls there
are on me in a parish like this. Sure, you know yourself how it is.
There’s one will have a cow that has died on him, and another will be
wanting a lock of potatoes for seed in the springtime; and if it isn’t
that, it’ll be something else. And who would the creatures go to in
their trouble but the old priest that christened and married the most
of them? But, indeed, thanks be to God, things is improving. The fishing
brings in a lot of money to the men, and there’s a better breed of
cattle in the country now, and the pigs fetch a good price since we had
the railway to Clifden, and maybe the last few years I might have saved
a little, but I didn’t. Indeed, I don’t know where it is the money goes
at all, but someway it’s never at rest in my breeches pockets till it’s
up and off somewhere. God forgive us! it’s more careful we ought to be.’
‘But, Father Moran, I don’t----’
‘Arrah then, will you cease your talking for one minute, and let me get
a word in edgeways for your own good? What was I saying? Oh, I was just
after telling you I hadn’t got the money to help you. But maybe I might
manage to get it. The man in the bank in Clifden knows me. I borrowed a
few pounds off him two years ago when the Cassidys’ house and three more
beside it got blown away in the big wind. Father Joyce put his name on
the back of the bill along with my own, and trouble enough I had to get
him to do it, for he said I ought to put an appeal in the newspapers,
and I’d get the money given to me. But I never was one to go begging
round the country. I said I’d rather borrow the money and pay it back
like a decent man. And so I did, every penny of it. And I think the bank
will trust me now, with just your name and mine, more especially as
it’s to buy a boat we want the money. What do you say to that, now?’ He
looked at Hyacinth triumphantly.
‘Father Moran, you’re too good to me--you’re too good altogether. What
did ever I do to deserve such kindness from you? But you’re all wrong.
I’ve got plenty of money.’
‘And why in the name of all that’s holy didn’t you tell me so at once,
and not keep me standing here twisting my brains into hard knots with
thinking out ways of getting what you don’t want? If you’ve got the
money you’ll buy the boat. What better could you do with it?’
‘But I don’t want to buy the boat. I don’t want to live here always. I’m
going away out into the world. I want to see things and do things.’
‘Out into the world! Will you listen to the boy? Is it America you’re
thinking of? Ah, now, there’s enough gone out and left us lonely here.
Isn’t the best of all the boys and girls going to work for the strangers
in the strange land? and why would you be going after them?’
‘I’m not going to America. I’m going to South Africa. I’m going to join
some young Irishmen to fight for the Boers and for freedom.’
‘You’re going out to fight--to fight for the Boers! What is it that’s in
your head at all, Hyacinth Conneally? Tell me now.’
Again Hyacinth hesitated. Was it possible to give utterance to the
thoughts and hopes which filled his mind? Could he tell anyone about
the furious fancies of the last few days, or of that weird vision of
his father’s which lay at the back of what he felt and dreamed? Could
he even speak of the enthusiasm which moved him to devote himself to the
cause of freedom and a threatened nationality? In the presence of a man
of the world the very effort to express himself would have acted as some
corrosive acid, and stained with patches of absurdity the whole fabric
of his dreams. He looked at Father Moran, and saw the priest’s eyes lit
with sympathy. He knew that he had a listener who would not scoff, who
might, perhaps, even understand. He began to speak, slowly and haltingly
at first, then more rapidly. At last he poured out with breathless,
incoherent speed the strange story of the Armageddon vision, the hopes
that were in him, the fierce enthusiasm, the passionate love for
Ireland which burnt in his soul. He was not conscious of the gaping
inconsequences of his train of emotion. He did not recognise how
ridiculous it was to connect the Boer War with the Apocalyptic battle
of the saints, or the utter impossibility of getting either one or the
other into any sort of relation with the existing condition of Ireland.
A casual observer might have supposed that Hyacinth had made a mistake
in telling his story to Father Moran. A smile, threatening actual
laughter, hovered visibly round the priest’s mouth. His eyes had a
shrewd, searching expression, difficult to interpret. Still, he listened
to the rhapsody without interrupting it, till Hyacinth stopped abruptly,
smitten with sudden self-consciousness, terrified of imminent ridicule.
Nor were the priest’s first words reassuring.
‘I wouldn’t say now, Hyacinth Conneally, but there might be the makings
of a fine man in you yet.’
‘I might have known,’ said Hyacinth angrily, ‘that you’d laugh at me. I
was a fool to tell you at all. But I’m in earnest about what I’m going
to do. Whatever you may think about the rest, there’s no laughing at
that.’
‘Well, you’re just wrong then, for I wasn’t laughing nor meaning to
laugh at all. God forbid that I should laugh at you, and I meant it when
I said that there was the makings of a fine man in you. Laugh at you!
It’s little you know me. Listen now, till I tell you something; but
don’t you be repeating it. This must be between you and me, and go no
further. I was very much of your way of thinking myself once.’
Hyacinth gazed at him in astonishment. The thought of Father Moran,
elderly, rotund, kindly; of Father Moran with sugar-stick in his pocket
for the school-children and a quaint jest on his lips for their mothers;
of Father Moran in his ruffled silk hat and shabby black coat and baggy
trousers--of this Father Moran mounted and armed, facing the British
infantry in South Africa, was wholly grotesque. He laughed aloud.
‘It’s yourself that has the bad manners to be laughing now,’ said
the priest. ‘But small blame to you if it was out to the Boers I was
thinking of going. The gray goose out there on the road might laugh--and
she’s the solemnest mortal I know--at the notion of me charging along
with maybe a pike in my hand, and the few gray hairs that’s left on the
sides of my head blowing about in the breeze I’d make as I went prancing
to and fro. But that’s not what I meant when I said that once upon a
time I was something of your way of thinking. And sure enough I was, but
it’s a long time ago now.’
He sighed, and for a minute or two he said no more. Hyacinth began
to wonder what he meant, and whether the promised confidence would be
forthcoming at all. Then the priest went on:
‘When I was a young man--and it’s hard for you to think it, but I was a
fine young man; never a better lad at the hurling than I was, me that’s
a doddering old soggarth now--when I was a boy, as I’m telling you,
there was a deal of going to and fro in the country and meetings at
night, and drillings too, and plenty of talk of a rising--no less.
Little good came of it that ever I saw, but I’m not blaming the men that
was in it. They were good men, Hyacinth Conneally--men that would have
given the souls out of their bodies for the sake of Ireland. They would,
sure, for they loved Ireland well. But I had my own share in the doings.
Of course, it was before ever there was a word of my being a priest.
That came after. Thanks be to God for His mercies’--the old man crossed
himself reverently--‘He kept me from harm and the sin that might have
been laid on me. But in those days there were great thoughts in me, just
as there are in you to-day. Faith! I’m of opinion that my thoughts were
greater than yours, for I was all for fighting here in Ireland, for the
Poor Old Woman herself, and it’s out to some foreign war you’d be
going to fight for people that’s not friends of yours by so much as one
heart’s drop. Still, the feeling in you is the same as the feeling that
was in me, not a doubt of it. But, indeed, so far as I’m concerned, it’s
over and gone. I haven’t spoken to a mortal soul about such things these
thirty years, and I wouldn’t be doing it now only just to show you that
I’m the last man in Ireland that would laugh at you for what you’ve told
me.’
‘I’m glad I told you what’s in my heart,’ said Hyacinth; ‘I’d like to
think I had your blessing with me when I go.’
‘Well, you won’t get it,’ said Father Moran, ‘so I tell you straight.
I’ll give you no blessing when you’re going away out of the country,
just when there’s need of every man in it. I tell you this--and you’ll
remember that I know what I’m talking about--it’s not men that ’ll fight
who will help Ireland to-day, but men that will work.’
‘Work!’ said Hyacinth--‘work! What work is there for a man like me to do
in Ireland?’
‘Don’t I offer you the chance of buying Thady Durkan’s boat? Isn’t there
work enough for any man in her?’
‘But that’s not the sort of work I ought to be doing. What good would
it be to anyone but myself? What good would it be to Ireland if I caught
boatloads of mackerel?’
‘Don’t be making light of the mackerel, now. He’s a good fish if you get
him fresh, and split him down and fry him with a lump of butter in the
pan. There’s worse fish than the mackerel, as you’ll discover if you go
to South Africa, and find yourself living on a bit of some ancient tough
beast of an ostrich, or whatever it may happen to be that they eat out
there.’
In his exalted mood Hyacinth felt insulted at the praise of the mackerel
and the laughter in the priest’s eyes when he suggested a dinner off
ostrich. He held out his hand, and said good-bye.
‘Wait, now--wait,’ said the priest; ‘don’t be in such a tearing hurry.
I’ll talk as serious as you like, and not hurt your feelings, if you’ll
stay for a minute or two. Listen, now. Isn’t the language dying on the
people’s lips? They’re talking the English, more and more of them every
day; and don’t you know as well as I do that when they lose their Irish
they’ll lose half the good that’s in them? What sort will the next
generation of our people be, with their own language gone from them, and
their Irish ways forgotten, and all the old tales and songs and tunes
perished away like the froth of the waves that the storm blew up across
the fields the night your father died? I’ll tell you what they’ll
be--just sham Englishmen. And the Lord knows the real thing is not the
best kind of man in the world, but the copy of an Englishman! sure,
that’s the poorest creature to be found anywhere on the face of God’s
good earth. And that’s what we’ll be, when the Irish is gone from us.
Wouldn’t there be work enough for you to do, now, if you were to buy
Thady Durkan’s boat, and stay here and help to keep the people to the
old tongue and the old ways?’
Hyacinth shook his head. His mood was altogether too heroic to allow
him to think highly of what the priest said to him. He loved the Irish
language as his native speech--loved it, too, as a symbol, and something
more, perhaps--as an expression of the nationality of Ireland. But it
did not seem to him to be a very essential thing, and to spend his life
talking it and persuading other people to talk it was an obscure kind of
patriotism which made no strong appeal to him--which, indeed, could not
stand compared to the glory of drawing the sword.
‘You’ve listened to what I’ve told you, Father Moran, and you say that
you understand what I feel, but I don’t think you really do, or else you
wouldn’t fancy that I could be satisfied to stay here. What is it you
ask of me? To spend my time fishing and talking Irish and dancing jigs.
Ah! it’s well enough I’d like to do it. Don’t think that such a life
wouldn’t be pleasant to me. It would be too pleasant. That’s what’s the
matter with it. It’s a temptation, and not a duty, that you’re setting
before me.’
‘Maybe it is now--maybe it is. And if it’s that way you think of it,
you’re right enough to say no to me. But for all that I understand you
well enough. Who’s this now coming up to the house to see me?’ He went
over to the window and looked out. ‘Isn’t it a queer life a priest lives
in a place like this, with never a minute of quiet peace from morning to
night but somebody will be coming interrupting and destroying it? First
it’s you, Hyacinth Conneally--not that I grudge the time to you when
you’re going off so soon--and now it’s Michael Kavanagh. Indeed, he’s
a decent man too, like yourself. Come in, Michael--come in. Don’t be
standing there pulling at the old door-bell. You know as well as myself
it’s broken these two years. It’s heartbroken the thing is ever since
that congested engineer put up the electric bell for me, and little
use that was, seeing that Biddy O’Halloran--that’s my housekeeper, Mr.
Conneally; you remember her--poured a jug of hot water into its inside
the way it wouldn’t annoy her with ringing so loud. And why the noise
of it vexed her I couldn’t say, for she’s as deaf as a post every time
I speak to her. Ah, you’re there, Michael, are you? Now, what do you
want?’
A young farmer, black-haired, tall and straight, stood in the doorway
with his hat in his hand. He had brought a paper for Father Moran’s
signature. It related to a bull which the Congested Districts Board
proposed to lend to the parish, and of which Kavanagh had been chosen
to be custodian. A long conversation followed, conducted in Irish. The
newly-erected habitation for the animal was discussed; then the best
method of bringing him home from Clifden Station; then the kind of
beast he was likely to turn out to be, and the suitability of particular
breeds of cattle to the coarse, brine-soaked land of Carrowkeel.
Kavanagh related a fearful tale of a lot of ‘foreign’ fowls which had
been planted in the neighbourhood by the Board. They were particularly
nice to look at, and settings of their eggs were eagerly booked long
beforehand. Then one by one they sickened and died. Some people thought
they died out of spite, being angered at the way they had been treated
in the train. Kavanagh himself did not think so badly of them. He was of
opinion that their spirits were desolated in them with the way the rain
came through the roof of their house, and that their feet got sore with
walking on the unaccustomed sea-sand. However their death was to be
explained, he hoped that the bull would turn out to be hardier. Father
Moran, on his part, hoped that the roof of the bull’s house would
turn out to be sounder. In the end the paper was signed, and Kavanagh
departed.
‘Now, there,’ said the priest, ‘is a fine young man. Only for him, I
don’t know how I’d get on in the parish at all. He’s got a head on his
shoulders, and a notion of improving himself and his neighbours, and it
would do you good to see him dance a jig. But why need I tell you that
when you’ve seen him yourself? He is to be the secretary of the Gaelic
League when we get a branch of it started in Carrowkeel. And a good
secretary he’ll make, for his heart will be in the work. I dare say,
now, you’ve heard of the League when you were up in Dublin. Well, you’ll
hear more of it. By the time you’re back here again---- Now, don’t be
saying that you’ll not come back. I’ll give you a year to get sick of
fighting for the Boers, and then there’ll be a hunger on you for the old
place that will bring you back to it in spite of yourself.’
‘Good-bye, Father Moran. Whatever happens to me, I’ll not forget
Carrowkeel nor you either. You’ve been good to me, and if I don’t take
your advice and stay where I am, it’s not through want of gratitude.’
The priest wrung his hand.
‘You’ll come back. It may be after I’m dead and gone, but back you’ll
come. Here or somewhere else in the old country you’ll spend your days
working for Ireland, because you’ll have learnt that working is better
than fighting.’