* * * * *
When he had read through the advertisement twice, Uncle Matthew broke
the haberdasher's window!
He was seized by a policeman, and in due time was brought before the
magistrates who, in addition to fining him and compelling him to pay
for the damage he had done, caused the Resident Magistrate to admonish
him not merely for breaking the window and interfering with the
business of a respectable merchant, but also for offering a frivolous
excuse for his behaviour. Uncle Matthew had said that he broke the
window as a protest against a counterjumper's traffic in a nation's
grief. "I loved the Queen, sir," he said, "and I couldn't bear to see
her death treated like that!" This was more than the Magistrates could
endure, and the Resident Magistrate made an impatient gesture and said,
"Tch, tch, tch!" with his tongue against his palate. He went on to say
that Uncle Matthew's loyalty to the Throne was very touching, very
touching, indeed, especially in these days when a lot of people seemed
to have very little respect for the Royal Family. He thought that his
brother-magistrates would agree with him. ("Hear, hear!" and "Oh, yes,
yes!" and an "Ulster was always noted for its loyalty to the Queen!"
from his brother-magistrates.) But all the same, there had to be
moderation and reason in everything. It would never do if people were
to go about the country breaking other people's windows in the name of
patriotism. It was bad enough to have a pack of Nationalists and
Papists going about the country, singing disloyal songs and terrorising
peaceable, lawabiding loyalists, without members of respected
Protestant and Unionist families like the prisoner ... for Uncle
Matthew was in the dock of the Custody Court and had spent the night in
a cell ... imitating their behaviour in the name of loyalty. He had
taken into the consideration the fact that the prisoner had acted from
the best motives and not from any feeling of disaffection to the
Throne, and also the fact that he belongs to a respectable family, and
so he would not send him to gaol. He gave him the option of paying a
fine, together with costs and the bill for repairing the window, or of
going to prison for one calendar month; and he warned the public that
any other person who broke a window, however loyal he might be, would
be sent to gaol without the option of a fine.
Uncle Matthew had turned to where Uncle William was sitting with the
family solicitor in the well of the court, and Uncle William had nodded
his head comfortingly. Then the warder had opened the door in the side
of the dock, and Uncle Matthew had stepped out of the place of shame
into the company of the general public. The solicitor had attended to
the payment of the fine and the cost of repairing the fractured glass,
and then Uncle William had led Uncle Matthew away. Someone had tittered
at Uncle Matthew as they passed up the steps of the court towards the
door, and Uncle William, disregarding the fact that he was in a court
of law, had turned on him very fiercely, and had said "Damn your
sowl!..." but a policeman, saying "S-s-sh!", had bustled him out of the
court before he could complete his threat. And an old woman, with a
shawl happed about her head, had gazed after Uncle Matthew and said,
"The poor creature! Sure, he's not right!"
The arrest and trial of Uncle Matthew had created a great scandal in
Ballyards, and responsible people went about saying that he had always
been "quare" and was getting "quarer." Willie Logan's father had even
talked of the asylum. Whose windows, he demanded, were safe when, a
fellow like that was let loose on the town? Uncle William had gone to
see Mr. Logan ... no one knew quite what he said to that merchant ...
but it was evident ever after that he had accepted Uncle William's
advice to keep a civil tongue in his head. The Reverend Mr. McCaughan,
who was manager of the Ballyards National School, went specially to the
house of Mr. Cairnduff, the headmaster of the school, to consult him on
the subject. He said that something would have to be done about the
matter. The MacDermotts, he said, were a highly-respected family ... a
MacDermott had been an elder of the church for generations past... and
he would be very sorry, very sorry, indeed to do anything to upset
them, but it was neither right nor reasonable to expect parents to rest
content while their children were taught their lessons by a man who was
both queer in his manner and very nearly a criminal ... for after all,
he had spent a night in a prison-cell and had stood in the dock where
thieves and forgers and wife-beaters and even murderers had stood!
Mr. Cairnduff was in complete agreement with Mr. McCaughan. He, too,
had the greatest respect for the MacDermotts ... no man could help
having respect for them ... and he might add that he had the greatest
possible respect for Matthew MacDermott himself ... a well-read and a
kindly man, though a wee bit, just a _wee_ bit unbalanced
mebbe!...
"Aye, but it's that wee bit that makes all the difference, Mr.
Cairnduff!" said the minister, interrupting the schoolmaster.
"It is," Mr. Cairnduff agreed. "You're right there, Mr. McCaughan. You
are, indeed. All the same, though, I would not like to be a party to
anything that would hurt the feelings of a MacDermott, and if it could
be arranged in some way that Matthew should retire from the profession
through ill-health or something, with a wee bit of a pension, mebbe, to
take the bad look off the thing... well, I for one would not be against
it!"
"You've taken the words out of my mouth," said the minister. "I had it
in my mind that if something of the kind could be arranged!..."
"It would be the best for all concerned," said Mr. Cairnduff.
But it had not been possible to arrange something of the kind. The
member for the Division was not willing to use his influence with the
National Board of Education in Uncle Matthew's behalf. He remembered
that Uncle Matthew, during an election, had interrupted him in a
recital of his services to the Queen, by a reminder that he was only a
militia man, and that rough, irreverent lads, who treated an election
as an opportunity for skylarking instead of improving their minds, had
followed him about his constituency, jeering at him for "a mileeshy
man." Uncle Matthew, too, had publicly declared that Parnell was the
greatest man that had ever lived in Ireland and was worth more than the
whole of the Ulster Unionist members of parliament put together...
which was, of course, very queer doctrine to come from a member of an
Ulster Unionist and Protestant family. The member for the Division
could not agree with Mr. McCaughan and Mr. Cairnduff that the
MacDermotts were a bulwark of the Constitution. Matthew MacDermott's
brother... the one who was dead... had been a queer sort of a fellow.
Lady Castlederry had complained of him more than once!... No, he was
sorry that, much as he should like to oblige Mr. McCaughan and Mr.
Cairnduff, he could not consent to use his influence to get the Board
to pension Matthew MacDermott....
"That man's a blether!" said the minister, as he and the schoolmaster
came away from the member's house. "He won't use his influence with the
Board because he hasn't got any. We'd have done better, mebbe, to go to
a Nationalist M.P. Those fellows have more power in their wee fingers
than our men have in their whole bodies. I wonder, now, could we
persuade Matthew to send in his resignation. I can't bear to think of
the Board dismissing him!"
Uncle William solved their problem for them. "Don't bother your heads
about him," he said when they informed him of their trouble. "I'll
provide for him right enough. He'll send in his resignation to you the
night, Mr. McCaughan. I'm sure, we're all queer and obliged to you for
the trouble you have taken in the matter."
"Ah, not at all, not at all," they said together.
"And I'll not forget it to either of you, you can depend on that. I
daresay Matthew'll be a help to me in the shop!..."
Thus it was that, unpensioned and in the shadow of disgrace, Uncle
Matthew left the service of the National Board of Education.
John admitted to himself, though he would hardly have admitted it to
anyone else, that his Uncle Matthew's behaviour had been very unusual.
He could not, when invited to do so, imagine either Mr. McCaughan or
Mr. Cairnduff breaking the windows of a haberdasher's shop because of
an advertisement which showed, in the opinion of some reputable people,
both feeling and enterprise. Nevertheless, he did not consider that
Uncle Matthew, on that occasion, had proved himself to be lacking in
mental balance. He said that it was a pity that people were not more
ready than they were to break windows, and he was inclined to think
that Uncle Matthew, instead of being forcibly retired from the school,
ought to have been promoted to a better position.
"If you go on talking that way," his mother said to him, "people'll
think you're demented mad!"
"I wouldn't change my Uncle Matthew for the whole world," John stoutly
replied.
"No one's asking you to change him," Mrs. MacDermott retorted. "All
we're asking you to do, is not to go about imitating him with his
romantic talk!"