The town of Cluhir had more features than those that have already been
enumerated, to entitle it to respect. There was, primarily, the great
river, that moved majestically in its midst, bearing a church,
impartially, on its either bank, and hiding and nourishing in its
depths the salmon that gave the town its reason for existence. There
was the tall and noble bridge that spanned the river, and joined the
rival churches together (a feat of which it is safe to say no other
power in Ireland was capable). It was made of that blue-grey limestone
that builds bridges, and churches, and houses, with an equal success,
and it was the equivalent of a profession for many of the inhabitants
of the town, who were accustomed to spend long, meditative hours upon
it, criticising the fishermen on the bank below, watching the fish,
talking of fish, thinking of fish, without haste, and with a good deal
of rest. There was also Hallinan's Hotel, that was very far from being
a mere country hotel. The stately bow-windows of its coffee-room have
already been mentioned, but its wide verandah must not be forgotten,
stone-paven, glass-roofed, umbrageous with tropic vegetation, beneath
whose shade, on the sunny days that are enjoyed by the lesser world of
men, sad anglers, in ancient tweed suits, lolled, broken-heartedly, in
basket-chairs. And, finally, on the town's highest level, was The
Mall, reserved, dignified, with a double row of great beech-trees, and
behind them, on both sides of the wide roadway, the reserved and
dignified houses of the magnates of Cluhir. Eminent in both these
qualities was No. 6; almost too much so, Mrs. Mangan thought
sometimes. On a wet day she would say, it would be as good for you to
be in the Back of Beyond itself, as here, where you might be
flattening your nose all day and not see as much as a bike going by.
Dr. Mangan, however, fully recognised the value of this seclusion. His
surgery was at the back of the house, and its unbroken quiet was
grateful to a man who had much to do, and plenty to think of. He was
seated in it, one mild February evening, some months after the
election of Dr. Aherne. It had been market-day in Cluhir; patients had
been many, and fees satisfactory. The Doctor reclined in front of a
good turf and wood fire, and smoked a mellow pipe, and reviewed the
run of events. Danny Aherne had been in, to speak to him about a case,
that afternoon, and Dr. Mangan's thoughts ran back to that little
affair of the Knock Ceoil Dispensary, and of Major Talbot-Lowry's part
in the matter. Danny had just nipped in before the Local Government
Bill took the power away from the old Dispensary Committees. Dam' luck
for Danny. The Major had been useful enough. It hadn't been his vote,
so much as his influence, that had got the boy the job. The affair, as
far as the Doctor was concerned, was of quite minor importance, but it
had been useful in promoting the feeling of intimacy between the
houses of Mangan and Talbot-Lowry. That omniscient composite
authority, "The people on the roads," whose views had been quoted by
Mrs. Twomey, had not been wrong in hinting that the Doctor had
permitted the Major to have the best of the bargain about the big
brown horse. Old Tom Aherne had made it well worth his while to do so,
so everyone had come comfortably out of the transaction. Nor had Dr.
Mangan, in diagnosing Major Talbot-Lowry, been wrong in his assumption
that Dick, generous, and elated by his success in bargaining, would
wish to indemnify his opponent for having had the worst of it, and
would consider the support of Danny Aherne as a suitable expression of
the wish.
The Big Doctor's intimacy with Dick had progressed of late with
remarkable rapidity. During one of those friendly talks over the Mount
Music library fire, that had latterly been recurring with increasing
frequency, an opportunity had risen for the Doctor--"a warm man," as
has been said--to offer to the Major a tangible proof of his
friendship.
"After all, there's the money lying idle at my bank," the Doctor had
said, breezily.
Dick, in a moment of irritation and perplexity, had expatiated on the
expenses consequent on launching sons into professions, and also on
the pig-headed determination of annuitants to "hang on," regardless of
the inconveniences occasioned to a heavily burdened property by this
want of consideration.
"Three half-sisters of my father's," says Dick, "as old as three men
each of 'em, and not a notion of dying among 'em! They'll see
_me_ out, I'll swear!"
It was then that that idle money had been tactfully referred to.
"I'll knock better interest out of you, Major, than the bank'll give
me!" said the Big Doctor, jovially. "I want no security from
_you_! Your word--"
"Oh, that will never do, my dear fellow," Dick had replied, as he was
meant to reply. "Of course it must be a _pukka_ business deal.
I'll give you--"
In his relief, Dick was ready to give to this kind William of
Deloraine any security that he would suggest. It was, of course, a
purely nominal affair--but still--what about a mortgage on the house
and demesne? How would that do?
The Doctor thought it would do very well.
It should be established, while it was still possible to induce the
reader to accept such a statement, that the Big Doctor was, as he
himself might have said, "not too bad a fellow altogether!" In public
life, a fighter, wily and skilled; compassionate to the poor, yet
exacting, implacably, practical recognition of his compassion. In his
own house, easy-going and autocratic; in his Church, a slave; a
confidential slave, whose gladiatorial gifts were valued, and whose
idiosyncrasies might be humoured, but none the less, a slave. He was
like an elephant in his hugeness, and suppleness, his dangerousness,
and his gentleness. His head was not crowned with the bald benevolence
that an elephant wears, but seated on his neck was a mahout, and the
mahout was Father Greer, the Parish Priest of Cluhir.
Now, on this quiet evening, he sat and smoked by the fire, and,
touching "the tender stops of various quills," his eager thought
paused longest on the note that stood for Tishy. Tishy was, in her own
way, as sound an asset as any that he possessed, a thoroughly
well-made article, a right-down handsome girl, the Big Doctor thought
complacently, good enough for any position, and for any man.
"But she's not for any man, I can tell them!" thought Tishy's father;
"that's just where the difference of it is! I'll see to that, you may
take your oath!"
Then he began to consider his son. He could not feel the same
confidence in Barty that Tishy inspired. Where Barty got hold of all
his dam-silly notions was more than anyone, least of all his father,
could imagine. Nevertheless, they had had their uses, and might still
justify themselves "in a sense," he thought; "if not in one way, maybe
in another." He moved on to his wife. How could she contribute to the
Great Ideas? Ideas were not much in her line, but if you told her what
to do, she'd do it. After all, that was the main thing. Women's own
notions were often more bother than they were worth. Poor Annie! His
big mouth, under the coarse black moustache, spread into a smile, and
his blue-grey eyes smiled with it. "I was a fool once about her, and
b' Jove, I think I'm not much better now!" he said to himself,
indulgently. The handsomest woman this minute in the barony, and she
had never so much as looked crooked at any man since the day he
married her. After all, she had been a credit at that Mount Music
show. There wasn't a woman to touch her in the place; she had held her
own with them; she had spent his money as he had told her to spend it.
Like a lady. "I like that; how much? Here's your money!" That was what
he had told her to say, and she had said it all right. No damned
huxterings. And those women whom he wished her to get on with, she
_had_ got on with. They liked her. It was easy to see that; and
Lady Isabel had often come in to see her since the show, and had
stayed for tea, as friendly as you please. Annie was all right.
The gossip of Cluhir had been as mistaken in the matter of the Mangans
as gossip often is. Francis Mangan had married his wife for the
entirely unjudicious reason that her beauty had mastered his common
sense. After his marriage his common sense, having regained the upper
hand, was satisfied that, even though her
"Charms were to change by to-morrow
And fleet in his arms,"
she would still be the only wife in the world for him. None the less
he did not pretend indifference to the knowledge that his wife was the
handsomest woman in Cluhir, and there was, indeed, no reason why he
should do so. And thus the Big Doctor had a double triumph.
There came a fumbling tap on the door, it opened a little, and
Hannah's head came twisting round it.
"Docthor!" spoke the head, like a Teraph, "the Misthress says to have
ye come in. The supper's ready, and the priest is in it."
This remarkable statement was accepted by the Doctor with composure,
as expressing the fact that Father Greer had arrived.
"Tell her I'm coming this minute," he said, rising ponderously to his
feet; "say to them to go down without me."
He locked up the fees that were lying on the table, being a careful
man, and washed his huge, pale hands with the particularity that a
doctor brings to that task. Huge though they were, they had the
sensitiveness that is the gift of music, and is also part of the
endowment of the surgeon.
"Ah, here he is now!" said Mrs. Mangan, as the Doctor came,
enormously, into the small dining-room. "For shame for you, Francis,
to be so late."
"Ah, don't scold him, Mrs. Mangan!" said the priest simpering
conventionally. "Wasn't it ministering to the afflicted that delayed
him! Doctors mustn't be subjected to the rules that bind ordinary
people!"
"That's right, Father," said the Doctor, beginning to carve a large,
cold goose, with the skill that his trade bestows; "stand up for me
now! Don't let her bully me--though indeed I might be used to it by
this time!"
"Doesn't he look like it, the poor fella!" scoffed Mrs. Mangan,
directing a melting look at her husband; "starved and pairsecuted!
That's what he is!"
Father Greer smiled permissively over the rim of his glass of whisky
and water; it was strong and good, and the food was good also, and
abundant. Mrs. Mangan's suppers were as generous as her own contours,
and were noted for their excellence. She herself was not so much to
the priest's taste. He was celibate by nature as well as by
profession. Women were antagonistic to him, and Mrs. Mangan, godly
matron though she was, seemed to him to symbolize a very different
ordering of life to that which he approved; but the Big Doctor was an
asset of the Church who must be simpered upon, and for whose sake a
little social boredom must be unrepiningly endured. He was an older
man, by a good many years, than the Doctor, and was nearer sixty than
fifty, but his figure was slight and active, and his scant hair was
dark and silky, though there was a light dust of grey in it over the
ears, which were thin and outstanding, and shared with his nostrils
and eyelids the tinge of red that was denied to the rest of his face.
He had the wide, brains-carrying forehead of a fox, as well as a fox's
narrow jaw, but his eyes were small and black, and as quick as a
bird's.
Barty and Tishy, who were not agreed in many things, were agreed in
being afraid of him. They sat in perfect silence, while their mother
occupied herself with directions to Hannah, who hovered,
indeterminately, near the door, and their father discoursed the
visitor. Father Greer was something of a traveller, and he was now
giving an instructive account of a recent visit to Switzerland, and of
the "winter sports" that had occupied the energies of all in the hotel
save himself.
"I found the air as bracing and as serviceable to me as you had led me
to expect," he said to his host, "but the sports seemed to me to make
a toil of pleasure, and the dancing that went on every night--'twas
impossible to sleep! Well! Youthful frivolity, I suppose, must be
condoned, but I may say I was greatly annoyed at an incident that
occurred at a neighbouring hotel. Mostly English, the visitors were,
and they held a Protestant service on Sunday in the saller-mongy."
Barty looked secretly at his sister. His expression said: "And why
shouldn't they?"
Father Greer ignored the look, and continued his recital: "As was
quite right and proper for them to do."
There was a blink of the black eyes, and Barty recognised that he had
not been unobserved.
"There was what is called a Reading-party of young min, with a tutor,
at the hotel," went on the priest. "Protestants they were--so far as
they had any religion--but only wun of them attended that service. It
was said he was the wun and only person able to play the piano in the
hotel. Some English ladies requested him to play--I believe there was
some very unsuitable joking about it--and he consented. He attended
that service; he played their English hymns," Father Greer paused, and
gathered up the table with a glance before his climax. "That young
man, I regret to say, was an Irish Catholic, one whom you all
know--young Mr. St. Lawrence Coppinger!"
Mrs. Mangan, who had been too much harassed by Hannah's failure to
decode her signals, to attend, heard the name only, and said lovingly:
"The dear boy! How nice for him and you to meet so far away from home,
Father!"
Barty's satisfaction at his mother's unexpected comment took the form
of kicking his sister, heavily. Tishy, who sang in the chapel choir,
and was at this time inclined to regard herself as a pillar of the
Church, returned the kick with a viciousness that indicated a hostile
point of view, and said loftily:
"But to think they'd ask him! The English are very lax. Don't you
think so, Father?"
Dr. Mangan laughed apologetically.
"Well, it's a wonder that a party of sheep would let a poor goat into
their fold at all!" he said, in a voice that asked for forgiveness for
the erring goat. "I suppose the young ladies got him in a corner, and
'twas hard for him to refuse. You'd hardly blame him for that!"
Father Greer looked bleakly down his nose and said nothing.
Barty scowled, considering that his hero stood in no need of apology.
Dr. Mangan continued his endeavour to save the situation.
"But there's no understanding of Protestants!" he resumed,
good-humouredly; "I met an old fellow on the train th' other day, old
William Henderson of Glen Brickeen, and he was telling me of a row he
had with his clergyman, the Reverend Wilson. 'Oh,' says he, 'I gave up
going to church on the head of it!' 'And isn't that a great sin for
you,' says I, 'to give up going to church?' 'Oh,' says he, 'I explain
that to God every Saturday. He understands well what Mr. Wilson done
to me, and why I wouldn't go to church as long as he was in it.'
'Maybe,' said I, funning him, 'some day he might be before you in
Heaven with his story, and what'll you do then?' 'Oh,' said he, I'll
make out a place for myself, never fear! There's places of all sorts
in it!' says he. 'I suppose it's the many mansions you're thinking
of!' said I. 'You think the poor Roman Catholics don't know their
Bibles, but I know that much!'"
"Well, Francis," said Mrs. Mangan, admiringly, "I never knew you that
you'd be without an answer, no matter what anyone'd say to you! 'Many
mansions,' says you! I declare I'd never have thought of that! Father,
wouldn't you say he answered him well!"
Father Greer, having made his point, smiled indulgently, and, as he
was deeply involved in a mouthful of tough goose, the smile, blended
with the act of mastication, made him look more than ever like a fox,
a fox in a trap, gnashing at his captors.
"I always knew the Doctor could be trusted to 'give a knave an
answer,' as Shakespeare says," he said, when the power of speech was
restored to him; "I'm often surprised at the liberty, I might almost
say the licence, that is met with in Protestants in connection with
their religion. Take the case of young Mr. Coppinger that I was
speaking of. That was a melancholy instance of evil communications
corrupting good manners. I may say that I regard with anxiety a too
great freedom, what I may call an unrestrained intercourse, between
members of the two churches--that is, indeed, if I am justified in
describing as a church that which I have heard stigmatised as 'a
fortuitous concourse of atheistic atoms'!"
Father Greer's nose came down over his upper lip, the corners of his
mouth went up, and a succession of sniffs indicated that he was
laughing.
"That may be rather severe," he conceded, "but I may say that, for my
part, I consider that Catholics have a sufficiency of pleasing society
within their own communion, without striving to go beyond it!"
Father Greer paused, looked round the table as if to receive the
general assent, and put his sharp nose into the tumbler of brown
whisky and water, to whose replenishing the Doctor had not failed to
attend.
A rather stricken silence followed. Mrs. Mangan's large and handsome
brown eyes turned guiltily to her husband, and moved on from his face
to one of the many trophies of the Mount Music Sale, a Protestant
chair back, now flaunting itself on a Catholic chair, under the very
eyes of the Parish Priest!
Barty glowered at his plate; Tishy, who had not enjoyed herself at the
Sale, felt, in consequence, that she was now justified in doing so at
the expense of her family, and held up her head, and looked at her
father. It was plain to see that the elephant had felt the prick of
the Mahout's _ankus_. The Big Doctor's face was perturbed. Tishy
saw him look at the little priest's glass, and knew that he wished it
were empty, in order that he might pour into it a propitiatory
oblation. He cleared his throat once or twice before he spoke.
"Very true, Father, very true. I used to think the same thing in
England. The chaps I used to meet there--no one would know what
religion they belong to, no more than if they were heathens. That
young lad that you weren't pleased with--young Coppinger--I believe
he's as good a Catholic as any of us, but he happens to be thrown
mostly among Protestants. I often think it's no more than our duty as
Catholics to try and see as much as we can of him. He and Barty here,
got to be very great with each other the time he was with us, but it's
only an odd time now that we get a sight of him."
"I was talking to him a long while, the last time he was home," said
Barty, looking up, with something smouldering in his voice, "he told
me he was going to Oxford next October. It's well to be him!" he ended
defiantly.
"Now, I wouldn't be too sure of that at all!" said Father Greer, with
a smoothness that implied the laying aside of the _ankus_; "I
think, my young friend, that your good father's house is as safe and
happy a place for you as you could wish for!" He turned to the Doctor.
"I may say that there is a belief among certain classes that no one is
properly edjucated without they've been sent to England. I thought my
friend Barty, was a better Irishman than it seems he is!"
"I'm as good an Irishman as any man!" said Barty, in a sudden blaze,
"and may-be better than some!"
His face had turned white, and his eyes, that were as large and dark
as his mother's, met those of Father Greer with the courage of anger.
"What harm is it to want to get a better education than what I have? I
don't see why I shouldn't want to go to Oxford, or Switzerland either,
for the matter o' that--as well as another!"
Father Greer, as Dr. Mangan remarked subsequently, took Barty's making
a fool of himself very well. He put his head on one side, his black
eyebrows went up, and he again uttered that succession of sniffs that
served him for a laugh.
"It seems that I have made a railing accusation without meaning it,
and brought down fire from heaven, like the Prophet Elijah, only to
find that I am myself to forrum the burnt offering!" he said,
pleasantly. "Well, well, Barty, don't consume me entirely in your just
indignation, and I'll promise you to make no insinuendoes in future as
to whether you're a good or bad Irishman!"
I am unable to determine if Father Greer deliberately devised this
felicitous amalgamation of the two words that were in his mind, or if
it was unintentional, and an indication that Barty's brief flare of
revolt had flustered him a little. I am inclined to the latter theory.
In any case, the word is a useful one.