Doctor Francis Mangan, driving his car at something even more than his
usual high rate of speed, to the Parochial House, a mile or so from
the town of Cluhir, what time the sun's last rays were falling upon
the Druid stone on Cnochán an Ceoil Sidhe, would have been far from
pleased had he seen what the sun then saw. On their knees by the Tober
an Sidhe, Larry and Christian were looking into the tiny cave in which
the fairy water rose, and were giving each to each their plighting
word, the old word that they had known since they were children:
"While water stands in Tubber an shee,
My heart in your hands, your heart in me,"
and, observing scrupulously the prescribed rite, were drinking a
mouthful of the water, each from the other's hand.
Dr. Mangan would probably have said that it was all children's
nonsense, and that it was easier to break a promise than to keep it,
but it may be asserted with tolerable certainty that he would not have
been pleased.
He was a strong and able driver, and his big car whirled up Father
Greer's neat and narrow drive, holding undeviatingly the crown of the
high-cambered track, and stopped dead at the front door of the
Parochial House.
That Spirit of the Nation to whom allusion has occasionally been made
in these pages, was by now well accustomed to the discouragement that
she had ever received from the two young lovers whose betrothal she
had been powerless to forbid. She had fled from the benign fairy
influences of the Tober an Sidhe; but now, full of hope, she was
hovering with wide-spread wings over the Parochial House, and, as its
door was opened by Father Greer's elderly and ugly housekeeper, the
Spirit folded her wings and slipped past her, as by a familiar path,
into the priest's sitting-room.
Father Greer was "inside," the elderly and ugly housekeeper said;
"would the Doctor sit in the parlour a minute and he'd come down?"
The Doctor "sat" as requested, in the parlour, noting, as he had often
noted before, its arid asceticism, wondering how any man could stand
the life of a priest, respecting the power that could enable a man to
dispense with all the things that, in his opinion--which, by the way,
he pronounced "oping-en"--made life worth living.
Father Greer came imperceptibly into the room while the Doctor was
still pondering upon the hardness of the black horsehair-covered
armchair in which he was seated.
"Why, Doctor, this is an unexpected pleasure! I heard you were away,"
the priest said, laying a limp hand in the Doctor's big fist.
"So I was too. I was summoned to a consultation. That's what I'm come
to you about, Father. It's old Prendergast. I'm thinking he won't last
much longer."
"D'ye mean Daniel? The Member?"
"I do."
Father Greer took his thin nose, with the nostrils edged with red,
between his finger and thumb, and pinched it slowly downwards several
times.
"Well, what then?" he said at length.
"That's the point," said the Big Doctor, looking at the priest's pale
and bumpy forehead, and trying in vain to catch his eye. "You know
that young Coppinger's name was sent up by our local Committee four
years ago, and the Party approved it."
"I wonder were they in the right!" said Father Greer, still pinching
his nose, and looking up at the Doctor over his knuckles.
"I don't see who we could find that'd do better," said Dr. Mangan,
apologetically. "He's well off, and he holds strong Nationalist
oping-ens; and then, of course, he's a Catholic."
"I'm told he didn't go to Mass since he came home"; Father Greet let
the statement fall without expression.
"Ah well, he's only just back from France. Give him a little time, and
he'll come to himself," said the Doctor, still apologetic.
"I understand he's been painting Miss Christian Talbot-Lowry's
portrait," pursued Father Greer, with limpid simplicity. "I'm told
she's as pretty a young girl as there is in this neighbourhood."
Whether this slight prod of the mahout's _ankus_ was, or was not,
intentional, it is not easy to say, but it took instant effect upon
the Big Doctor.
"There are other pretty young girls in the neighbourhood besides
Christian Lowry," he said sharply. "And maybe prettier! I don't think
it would give us much trouble to find one that Larry Coppinger would
be well satisfied with, and one that's in the bosom of the Church,
too!"
"I greatly deplore mixed marriages," said Father Greer; permitting his
eyes to meet those of Dr. Mangan. "I had hoped that in the case of
this young man beneficial influences might have been brought to
bear--"
"If you want to put a spoke in that wheel," interrupted the Doctor
with eagerness, "you'll support his nomination. I'll undertake to say
there won't be much talk of mixed marriages then!"
Father Greer's small eyes again rested for a second on the Doctor's
broad face, with its strong, overhanging brows and heavy under-jaw,
and drew his own conclusions from the confident smile that showed the
white teeth under the drooping, black moustache that had still
scarcely a grey hair in it.
"I was thinking that might be what he was after!" thought Father
Greer. "Well, he's a good warrant to play his hand well, and more
unsuitable things have occurred before now. Yet, didn't I hear
something--!" Even in thought Father Greer observed a studied
mildness and moderation, and there were contingencies which might
remain unformulated until they crystallised into certainty.
"I'll think it over, Doctor," he said. "I'm inclined to your view, of
the case, and I might be disposed to advocate the candidature of your
nominee. But,"--here Father Greer sniffed several times, indicating
that a humorous aspect of the case had occurred to him, "what will we
do if he turns 'sour-face,' as they say, on us?"
This euphuism, which had been adopted by some of the more extreme of
the Nationalist party to indicate members of the opposing communion,
was received by Dr. Mangan as an apt and entertaining quotation on the
part of his clergyman.
"No fear, no fear!" he said, laughing jovially, "but if you'll allow
me to say so, I think a good deal depends on this business going
through."
The Spirit of the Nation smiled also; it was evident to her that these
ministers of hers were conscientiously intent on doing her pleasure,
and, leaving them with confidence, she spread her wide wings and
followed the broad stream of the river down the valley in the
direction of Mount Music.
Dr. Mangan drove home as swiftly and capably as was his wont. It had
been fair-day in Cluhir, and the people from the country were slowly
and reluctantly forsaking the enjoyments of the town. Large women
piled voluminously on small carts, each with a conducting little boy
and a labouring little donkey somewhere beneath her; men in decent
blue cloth garments, whose innate respectability must have suffered
acutely from the erratic conduct of the limbs inside them; wandering
knots of cattle, remotely attended by the wearers of blue cloth
aforesaid; horses carting themselves and their owners home, with
entire self-control and good sense; and, anchored in the tide of
traffic, the ubiquitous beggar-women, their filthy hands proffering
matches, green apples, bootlaces, their strident tongues mastering the
noises of the street, their rapacious, humorous eyes observant of all
things. All these did Dr. Mangan encounter and circumvent, frustrating
their apparent determination to commit suicide by those diverse
methods of abuse, cajolery, and, on the part of the car, mechanical
activity, that formed an important part of the necessary equipment of
an Irish motorist of the earlier time. Nevertheless, the more intimate
portion of his brain was deeply engaged in those labyrinths of minor
provincial intrigue in which so many able intellects spend themselves,
for want of wider opportunity.
Mrs. Mangan was in the kitchen, where, indeed, she was not
infrequently to be found, when the Doctor came in by the back-door
from the yard.
"I want you, Annie," he said, shouldering his enormous bulk along the
narrow passage, and treading heavily on the cat, who, her mystic
meditations thus painfully interrupted, vanished in darkness, uttering
the baleful cry of her kind, that is so inherently opposed to the
blended forgiveness and apology that give poignancy to a dog's
reproach for a similar injury.
"Look here, Annie. Before I forget it, I want you to take the car on
Saturday--I'll want it myself to-morrow--and call upon Miss Coppinger.
Barty can drive you. I got a wire awhile ago, and I have to go on the
nine o'clock to-night to Broadhaven. It's that unfortunate Prendergast
the Member. There's nothing can be done for the poor fellow, but
whether or no, I must go."
"They'll not be satisfied till they have you dead, too, dragging at
you!" protested Mrs. Mangan. "What nonsense they have, and you there
only this morning! On earth, what can you do more for him?"
"They think more of me, my dear, than you do!" said the Doctor,
cheerfully. "Be listening, now, to what I'm saying. You're to be as
civil as be damned to old Frederica, and tell Barty he's to fix up
with Larry to come here--what day is this to-day is? Thursday?--Tell
him I'll be in on Sunday afternoon, and I want to talk to him on very
special business. Now, will you remember that?"
He repeated his commands, as people will who have learnt, as most
Doctors must learn, the fallibility of the human memory and its
infinite powers of invention and substitution.
Mrs. Mangan listened obediently and promised attention. Although in
matters to which she attached slight importance, such as the
proportions of a prescription, her memory was liable to betray her, in
other affairs, it had the cast-iron accuracy of the peasant, and
without having been privileged with the Doctor's full confidence, she
was probably deeper in it than he was aware.
While still these intentions with regard to young Mr. St. Lawrence
Coppinger were whirling in the air above him, as a lasso swirls and
circles before it secures its victim, that young man was, it is no
exaggeration to say, staggering home under the weight of his
happiness. After the sacrament at the Tober an Sidhe he and Christian
had gone from the hill, hand in hand, like two children. In silence
they had gone through the dark wood, and almost in silence had made
their mutual farewells in the fragrant shadow of the pines.
When the soul is tuned to its highest it cannot find an interpreter.
The lips can utter only broken sounds, pathetically inadequate to
express emotions that may, in some future sphere, make themselves
known in terms other than are permitted to us. There is an inner
radiance that is beyond thought, that might conceivably utter itself
in music or in colour, but that can no more be translated into words
than can the radiance of the mid-day sun be more than indicated by
earthly painters with earthly pigments.
So it was with Larry and Christian. It chances now and then on this
old, and prosaic, and often tearful earth that some kindly spirit
leaves the door of Paradise a little open, and two happy
people--though sometimes it is only one--are caught inside for a time,
and come out, as Larry did, bewildered, dazzled, wandering back to
earth, he scarcely knew how, saying, drunkenly, to himself:
"Good Lord! She is so bright to-night!" as the blackbird said, who was
"blowing his bugle to one far bright star."