I
Now that he had found Eleanor again, he was able to settle down to
work. It was necessary, he told himself, that he should have some
substantial achievements behind him before she and he were married,
particularly as he had lost his employment on the _Daily
Sensation_. The money he possessed would not last for ever and he
could hardly hope to sponge on his Uncle William ... even if he were
inclined to do so ... for the rest of his life. He must earn money by
his own work and earn it quickly. In one way, it was a good thing that
he had lost his work on the newspaper ... for he would have all the
more time to write his tragedy. The sketch for the Creams had been
hurriedly finished and posted to them at a music-hall in Scotland where
they were playing, so Cream wrote in acknowledging the MS., to
"enormous business. Dolly fetching 'em every time!..." Two pounds per
week, John told himself, would pay for the rent and some of the food
until he was able to earn large sums of money by his serious plays. The
tragedy would establish him. It would not make a fortune for him, for
tragedians did not make fortunes, but it would make his name known, and
Hinde had assured him that a man with a known name could easily earn a
reasonable livelihood as an occasional contributor to the newspapers.
It was Hinde who had proposed the subject of the tragedy to him. For
years he had dallied with the notion of writing it himself, he said,
but now he knew that he would never write anything but newspaper
stuff!...
"Do you know anything about St. Patrick?" he said to John.
"A wee bit. Not much."
"Well, you know he was a slave before he was a saint?" John nodded his
head. "A man called Milchu," Hinde continued, "was his master. An
Ulsterman. He was the chieftain of a clan that spread over Down and
Antrim. Our country. He had Patrick for six years, and then he lost
him. Patrick escaped. He returned to Ireland as a missionary and sent
word to Milchu that he had come to convert him to Christianity, and
Milchu sent word back that he'd see him damned first. Milchu wasn't
going to be converted by his slave. No fear. And he destroyed
himself ... set fire to his belongings and perished in his own flames
rather than have it said that an Ulster chieftain was converted by his own
slave. That's a great theme for a tragedy. I suppose you're a
Christian, Mac?"
"I am. I'm a Presbyterian!"
"Oh, well, you won't see the tragedy of it as well as I see it. Think
of a slave trying to convert a free man to a slave religion. There's a
tragedy for you!..."
"I don't understand you," said John.
"No? Well, it doesn't matter. There's a theme for you to write about. A
free man killing himself rather than be conquered by a slave! Of
course, the real tragedy is that St. Patrick converted the rest of
Ireland to Christianity! ... Milchu escaped: the others surrendered. It
wasn't the English that beat the Irish, Mac. They were beaten before
ever the English put their feet on Irish ground. St. Patrick beat them.
The slave made slaves of them!..."
"Is that what you call Christians?" John indignantly demanded.
"Slaves?"
Hinde shrugged his shoulders. "The Irish people are the most Christian
people on earth," he said. "That's all!..."
They put the subject away from them, because they felt that if they did
not do so, there must be antagonism between them. But John determined
that he would write a play about St. Patrick and the Pagan Milchu.
Hinde lent him his ticket for the London Library, and he spent his
mornings reading biographies of the saint: Todd and Whitley, Stokes and
Zimmer and Professor J. B. Bury; and accounts of the ancient Irish
church. Slowly there came into his mind a picture of the saint that was
not very like the picture he had known before and was very different
from Hinde's conception of the relationship between Milchu and St.
Patrick. To him, the wonderful thing was that the slave had triumphed
over his owner. Milchu, in his conception, had not been sufficiently
manly to stand before Patrick and contend with him, and to own himself
the inferior of the two. He had run away from St. Patrick! With that
conception of the two men in his mind, he began to write his play.
"You're wrong" said Hinde. "Milchu was a gentleman and Patrick was a
slave!..."
"The son of a magistrate!" John indignantly interrupted.
"A lawyer's son!" Hinde sneered. "And Milchu, being a gentleman, would
not be governed by a slave. Think of an Irish gentleman being governed
by an Irish peasant!" There was a wry look on his face, "And a little
common Irish priest to govern a little common Irish peasant!... They
won't get gentlemen to live in a land like that!"
"I'm a peasant," said John. "There's not much difference between a
shopkeeper and a peasant!..."
"I'm talking of minds," said Hinde, "not of positions. I believe in
making peasants comfortable and secure, but I believe also in keeping
them in their place. I'm one of the world's Milchus, Mac. I'd rather
set fire to myself than submit to my inferiors!"
John sat in his chair in silence for a few moments, trying to
understand Hinde's argument. "Then why do you write for papers like the
_Daily Sensation_?" he asked at last.
Hinde winced. "I suppose because I'm not enough of a Milchu," he
replied.