MASQUERADES
THE LATEST LIBRARY NOVELS
_Seven Shillings & Sixpence Net Each_
_A WISE FOOL_ _Edward Charles Reed_
_This is the Prize-Winning Novel in the John Long (2nd) £500 Prize
Competition for the Best_ First _Novel. John Long’s previous £500 Prize
Competition for the Best_ First _Novel was won by Emmeline Morrison
with her Novel, “Good Grain,” probably one of the most popular novels
published in recent years_.
THE WOMAN TEMPTED THE COUNTESS OF CATHCART
THE FACE IN THE NIGHT EDGAR WALLACE
THE MARQUISE RING E. W. SAVI
MASQUERADES SHANE LESLIE
THE CHALLENGE NAT GOULD
DESIRE OF THE DESERT ARTHUR APPLIN
BURNT BRIDGES TEMPLE LANE
THE HIDDEN HOUR J. B. HARRIS-BURLAND
THE ROSE OF ALGIERS CECIL H. BULLIVANT
THE VENUS GIRL LESLIE BERESFORD (“PAN”)
TIGER RIVER ARTHUR O. FRIEL
THE LAIRD WINIFRED DUKE
THE DAY OF RECKONING E. ALMAZ STOUT
THE SEA DEMONS H. M. EGBERT
THE BREAD OF DEPENDENCE EDMUND B. D’AUVERGNE
THE DANCING GIRL GASTON LEROUX
THE ARREST FREDERICK BROCK
THE INVISIBLE NET J. J. BELL
STORM HALLIWELL SUTCLIFFE
THE WORLD OUTSIDE HAROLD MACGRATH
THE CRÊPE DE CHINE WIFE AMY J. BAKER
THE MYSTERY OF WO-SING A. G. HALES
THE COMPULSORY MILLIONAIRE W. HAROLD THOMSON
BARNEY S. B. H. HURST
THREE OF A KIND EMMELINE MORRISON
JOAN PETERSON--SPORT MARGARET ARMSTRONG
THE LEGACY FROM NOWHERE PETER GLADWIN
ROOM 13 EDGAR WALLACE
CHÉRI-BIBI, MYSTERY MAN GASTON LEROUX
THE END OF A CIGARETTE EDWARD GELLIBRAND
MARGOT’S PROGRESS (3s. 6d. net) DOUGLAS GOLDRING
JOHN LONG, LTD., Publishers, LONDON
And at all Libraries and Booksellers everywhere
MASQUERADES
STUDIES IN THE MORBID
BY
SHANE LESLIE
AUTHOR OF
“THE OPPIDAN,” “DOOMSLAND,” ETC.
[Illustration]
London
John Long, Limited
12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket
[_All rights reserved_]
Made and
Printed in
Great Britain
Copyright, 1924, by
John Long, Limited
All rights reserved
_Readers are requested to note that all the characters in this book
are purely fictitious, and the names are not intended to refer to any
real persons_
“Masks, masking and unmasking of masks; all is
Masquerade.”--APOCRYPHA OF SOLOMON.
“_Seigneur, mon Dieu, vous le Créateur, vous le maître; vous qui avez
fait la Loi et la Liberté; vous le Souverain qui laissez faire, vous
le juge qui pardonnez; vous qui êtes plein de motifs et de causes
et qui avez peut-être mis dans mon esprit le goût de l’horreur pour
convertir mon cœur comme la guérison au bout d’une lame; Seigneur,
ayez pitié, ayez pitié des fous et des folles! O Créateur! peut-il
exister des monstres aux yeux de Celui-là seul qui sait pourquoi ils
existent, comment ils se sont faits et comment ils auraient pu ne pas
se faire?_”--
FROM BAUDELAIRE’S FAMILY PRAYERS.
[Illustration]
TO THE ENTERTAINING SOUL
OF THAT SUPERFINE WRITER
FREDERICK ROLFE BARON CORVO
IN PURGATORY
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE POPE’S TEMPTATION 11
CONNEMARA 24
INSPIRATION 43
BALTHASAR THE CRUEL 59
A SAVING PHANTASM 75
JEALOUSY 83
THE DRUMMER OF GORDONMUIR 96
THE SUPREME COMPLIMENT 110
A STUDY IN SMOKE 121
THE MISSIONARY 131
MIDIR AND ETAIN 169
KATHLEEN 177
JOHN SALTUS 197
LOADED DICE 214
AT THE HIGH TABLE 225
A SAINT 235
CANNES 252
THE NECROPHILE 264
THE BEAU GESTE 282
THE EVIL EYE 299
THE WEIRD GILLY 312
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
THE BIG LITERARY EVENT OF 1924
THE JOHN LONG £500 PRIZE NOVEL
A WISE FOOL
By EDWARD CHARLES REED
“A Wise Fool,” by Edward Charles Reed, the Prize-Winning Novel in
the John Long (2nd) £500 Prize Competition for the Best First Novel,
gained the distinction from among several hundred Novels sent in.
It is an exceptionally brilliant Novel, written on really original
lines. Revealing high literary quality, the story, which is modern in
atmosphere, is such as to make the widest appeal. It is a throbbing
tale in which love, adventure, romance and passion are skilfully
combined. There is no gainsaying the ineffable charm of the narrative
nor the lovableness of certain of its characters. In Edward Charles
Reed, the publishers and their advisers have the firm conviction they
have discovered an author destined to make an enduring reputation by
his Novels. It will be recalled that John Long’s previous £500 Prize
Competition for the Best First Novel was won by Emmeline Morrison
with her Novel, “Good Grain,” probably one of the most popular Novels
published in recent years.
_Ready Autumn, 1924. Crown 8vo, Cloth, 7s. 6d. net_
JOHN LONG, LTD., Publishers, LONDON
MASQUERADES
THE POPE’S TEMPTATION
Under the great Dome that floated like a golden bubble upon the red
tranquillity of the sea of sunset lay the indecipherable shadow of
a crumbling City. It was a City of secular silences, and yet it was
filled with the murmur of the prayers of those who were long dead.
It was a City of many mansions and narrow streets, of slow-filling
fountains and great dumb doorways. Upon the time-eaten walls were set
windows, whose dust-shrouded panes separated the twilight without from
the twilight within. In that City was no sign of mart nor sound of
amusement.
Under the Dome stretched the great palace. Through corridors of jacinth
and chalcedony-coloured marble stirred a quiet and unending business.
It was a business that seemed to have begun in the faraway centuries
and to move towards slow fulfilment with the ending of the world. From
time to time the noiseless shadows of men in sable-coloured dress
moved through the corridors or passed into the darkness of the rooms.
Some were slashed with sashes of scarlet as of hyssop or with purple
as of grapes, all of which had high liturgical significance, but
they made little show compared to the soldiery guarding the gates.
Behind balustrades of alabaster and upon snowy marble floors stood the
guardians of the gates. They were magnificently clothed in yellow and
black and vermilion, as though to signify very clearly that their watch
was not withdrawn in the golden morning nor in the red of noon nor yet
in the pitchy darkness of the night.
Behind the gaudy metallurgic gates and past the long corridors of the
colour of jacinth and chalcedony, fenced in an inner chamber by men,
whose swords turned every way, an old man rested in a chair of cedar
wood. The lineaments of his face and the folds of his garments were as
white as fretted ivory. A white cap circled his silver hair. His eyes
were like two wicks burning in a lamp of snowstone. His feet were shod
with shoes whiter than wool. Upon each shoe was woven a crosslet of
tinsel thread. At a little distance it gave the appearance of the print
of a nail of gold. The old man sat resting.
Arranged upon shelves of camphor wood and behind crystal panes were
a few very precious presents from contemporary but mundane rulers.
The table, upon which the old man rested his arm, was a souvenir from
the Emperor of the Sun in recognition of his recovery from water on
the knee by the timely application of a miraculous medal. It was
exquisitely inlaid with the solar radiations that Celestial Royalty
affect on their notepaper. The old man was sometimes seized with a
thought of irony. He himself was the only child of a sunburnt peasant.
Nevertheless, since he had accepted the Pontifical Maximate, his Arms
were the Keys of Heaven and of Hell, and his seal was the Seal of the
Holy Fisherman.
Other very marvellous gifts there were. Upon the pallid marbles
stretched carpets dyed azure with the blood of shell-fish found only in
the Solomon Archipelago. They had been brought by the Queen of Sheba,
a most devout soul, then living as a comfortable exile in Paris. In
the corner stood a life-size lion of gilded bronze with eyes of red
carbuncle sent from the King of the Sahara, who also was a god after
his manner. His love of studied effect was well known to explorers, and
was often mentioned in the Press. In an opposite corner was another
table of pea-green marble all blurred and blotched in a pattern of
streaks, the gift of the Lord of the Everlasting Snows in default of
his ancient allegiance. From the old man’s girdle of white camel-hair
hung a rosary of tawny beads which his devoted liegeman of the Isles
in the North had robbed from the strange Hyperboreans, who are of such
near kindred to the seals that they may be dispensed to take them in
marriage when there is a shortage of their own stock. The floor was of
worn pavement of onyx stone presented to the predecessors of the old
man upon the Throne of the Fisherman by an Oriental Sovereign so long
ago that his name had been forgotten among his own people. And his
people in turn had been forgotten by the historians, which showed that
they had deserved well of the gods.
The old man was glancing through some parchment papers, which his
scribes had written in clear script but in a character without
character. His scribes all wrote alike, and they wrote in a language
that was dead. As the old man finished reading each parchment, of
his spontaneous clemency he affixed his minuscule initials and the
year of his Pontificate. The parchments showed that his duties were
manifold, that he had the souls both of kings and of children in his
keeping, that he was the anointed Reader of Scripture to the Nations,
that the Calendar of the Saints was in his keeping and jurisdiction.
One parchment was the Ban of the greater excommunication of the
Great Mogul, who had audaciously removed the feet of the pontifical
ambassador when he omitted to remove his episcopal sandals. A lesser
excommunication there was directed unto the King of the Wends, who had
married three wives albeit in his sleep, and his court chaplain had
considerately forwarded a certificate that his Master was suffering
from sleeping sickness. Over and above the scroll and screed of
all these precious documents was inscribed in Stephens’ indelible
blue-black ink the supreme style and bearing of the old man, to wit
“THE SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD.”
As the night drew apace, the old man felt very tired, and his hands
seemed weighed down as though with invisible chains. He had indeed
spent a very tiring day. Before dawn had broken in streams of white
fire upon the Dome, he had been roused from his slumbers to say his
prayers. Chamberlains clad in dark green velvet with gold chains
enlinking the pontifical cipher had led him to a velvet stool to
meditate awhile on the four last things, which shall come to man and
woman and priest. The ritual forbade him to eat until he had offered
sacrifice upon the High Altar where none but he was allowed. He had
been brought under the Dome on a palanquin of gilded lattice-work and
carried by carriers in the gestatorial uniform into the Basilica of the
Holy Fisherman. And at the High Altar facing the people he had sung the
Liturgy, moving now to one side and then to the other behind the six
golden candle-sticks. Like a huge-headed moth with heavy scaled wings
he had seemed in the white blaze. And all the while the Holy College
had stood and moved and prayed around him in scarlet, and the crying
of the singers had never ceased. When he sat back upon the Throne that
is above all earthly thrones he had felt faint for food. His secret
Chamberlains had upheld him while his private flabellifers had fanned
him with the great festal fans of ostrich plume. It had been the Feast
day of Him whose emerald enamelled his waxen finger and whose Keys he
carried in his consecrated girdle. The emerald had once served as an
optic glass to the Fantastic World Emperor, who had been indiscreet
enough to use the Servants of God to illuminate his gardens at night.
The hours had passed slowly for the old man watching his venerable
acolytes and eminent assistants through the clouds of incense smoke.
From time to time his closing eyes had lighted on the great Image of
the Divine Fisherman, which was enthroned opposite to him. Time had
made the Image as black as bitumen except for the feet, which the pious
lips of pilgrims had burnished till they shone like molten bronze. And
each time he had thought of the stupendous stewardship for which he
must one day give account. He remembered too the quiet days of study in
his hermitage before he was burdened with the nets of the Fisherman.
Peace and happiness he had forfeited since the dread night when the
three score and ten Princes of the Holy Blood had chosen him by secret
balloting in a golden chalice to be Lord over them. Since that night
men had come from the ends of the world to thrust their burdens upon
him, though his own burden seemed sufficient. Tears had anointed his
waxen cheeks and fallen like transparent drops upon his richly chased
chasuble, upon the stellar stole and upon the jewelled maniple which
hung from his wrist like some dead humming-bird.
But the multitude perceived not that he wept, for his eyes were
turned away from them toward the great Image, which was clothed in
the likeness of the vesture of God. Upon the head of the great Image
the Acolytes had set a treble crown signifying the Sovereignty of the
Gate that is Above and of the Gate that is Below and of the Gates of
Twilight, which lead neither to Heaven nor to Hell. In the hands of
the Image were clutched the Great Keys and, though the philosophers of
the world made light thereof and though the rulers of the world acted
as though it were otherwise, there was no doubt to the folk but that
they symboled the Keys of Heaven and of Hell. From the shoulders to the
sandals of the Image hung a cope of frosted gold, and it was fastened
with a lock of living sapphire. Dire and doomful was the face upon the
Image of the Fisherman, and the Image filled the shadow of one pillar
of the Great Basilica. Now each pillar of the Basilica was about the
thickness of a mortal man’s house.
When the Liturgy was finished, there arose a Deacon with archacolytes
at his side in scarlet vestments, and bowed to the old man, and
straightway the silver trumpets sounded through the Dome as it were
the sound of a single reed of an organ or as the note of a sea-wave
in the hollow of a sea-shell. And all the Princes of the Holy Blood
arose and processed slowly before the old man as he was carried from
the Basilica over the heads of the people. When he was lifted above
the heads of the people he raised his hand higher to bless them. His
fingers fluttered like the wing of a tired dove moving upon the face of
many waters. And all the people moaned like the thunder of the tide, “O
Priest and O King, live for ever!”
When they had brought him within the Palace, they disrobed him of his
heavy vesture and gave him a piece of broiled fish to eat, and to
quench his thirst a slice of pomegranate seethed in old wine. It was
the hour when he should receive the pilgrims, who came from all over
the World-that-is to beg his favour in the World-to-come, or to ask the
eleemosynary aid or the autoscript of the old man; others for dispense
to make forbidden espousals within the circle of blood and others to
be annulled of theirs for ever. To each and to all he spoke softly but
surely, saying, “This may I give to you, and I give it to you without
price,” or “Of this it is not permitted to give you, and I give it to
you not at all.” After the pilgrims had passed upon their way, the
old man gave audience to his own ambassadors in the presence-chamber.
They wore thin chains of gold and Symbols set with amethyst or emerald
according to their degree in the Sacred Precedence. As each went his
way, the soldiers of the guard raised and let fall their spears.
Lastly there had come to the door a Lord of the Most Holy, Indeviable
and Undeniable Inquisition. He was clad in white samite and hooded, so
that the guard looked not on his face. Him the old man bade be seated
and do swiftly whatsoever he was come to do. And the Lord Inquisitor
bowed himself to the ground and kissed the old man’s feet. Then he
arose and heard the old man’s confession such as he was bound to
confess daily, saying to him: “Let my Lord reveal whatever evil he
hath done or caused other to do, and every evil word he hath spoken or
caused other to speak and every evil thought that hath crossed the mind
of my Lord’s Holiness even unto the shadow of the shadow.”
And the old man searched into his own mind and reported gravely, “O
my Lord, thy Lord searcheth and findeth no evil done or deemed this
day save the great weariness thy Lord felt in the continual presence
of the Servants of God.” The Lord Inquisitor looked grave as in his
duty bound and answered, “This even were a sin, O my Lord, for when
the eyes of the Fisherman grow weary then are the nets broken.” And
he bade him say the Seven Penitential Psalms and to pray for the soul
of the Lord Inquisitor. And when he had received the Absolution of
the Lord Inquisitor, the old man smiled for the first time that day.
Then the Lord Inquisitor had knelt to receive the old man’s blessing
and the great green emerald moved symbolwise upon the air. Delicately
and discreetly as a dancing master, who had corrected the steps of an
innocent child, the Lord Inquisitor passed into the corridor. His head
was shrouded once more and bowed as though he had conned the pages of
some very secret and sacred book. As he passed, the soldiers saluted
him but fearfully, knowing the office which was his. It was his to
unlock and lock the soul of him who kept the Keys of Heaven and Hell.
The old man was awearied and his Chamberlain brought him a little broth
of bread and wine, saying to him as of set ceremony: “Gall He had to
eat and vinegar to drink.” When he had eaten, they led him into a small
ungarnished room to sleep. And the day was the thousandth day of his
pontificate, and the night was the thousandth and first.
With the dawn of dark unto the dark of dawn the movement of men to and
fro ceased under the Dome. The old man slept and forgot his visitors of
the day. Yet there stood a visitor at the outer gates. For less than
a moment of that which is called Time a Shadow darkened the Gateway.
Through the corridors which were of marble, the colour of jacinth and
chalcedony, passed the Shadow. And within the small ungarnished room
it sank into shape. No legate announced this visitant, no Chamberlain
ushered it past the doors, and no soldier of the many, who stood
guarding the gates moved his spear-head in salute. The old man neither
stirred nor spoke in his slumber. But on the horizons of sleep he
beheld a vast panorama as of a desert stretching around and beyond him.
Sands that glittered like yellow silk in the garish sunlight, rocks and
caves there were, sands stretching endlessly. In the dead distance a
dot of jet moved and grew larger and larger until it seemed to be like
an eagle flying across the mirage of the air. When it was quite close
it was grown to the stature of a man. And a Voice proceeded, saying to
the old man who watched aghast: “Art thou not lonely in thy weariness
and weary in thy loneliness?”--employing a remarkable zeugma of speech.
The old man answered: “Nay, for He Whose servants I serve is
continually present with me.”
And the other answered: “There is none with thee, for in the wilderness
every soul is one and alone, and here there is neither God nor Man--for
even thyself art above all mankind and but a little lower than the
gods.”
“I know not who or whence thou art,” cried the old man, “but thou
speakest false, for I am not as God and I see the footprints of a man
in the sands before me.”
And the other, laughing horribly, said: “The footprints that thou seest
were left by One That was not Man.”
Then the old man grimly remembered his office and answered with the
tongue that is indefectible from truth: “Nay, but most truly He also
was Man, and let whosoever denieth be Anathema!”
The other, finding him not unwary, spoke again: “I know thee who thou
art, thou holy one. Would’st thou not be set amongst thine own people
again and see the place of thine own home?” To the old man’s anguish
rose a vision of his father’s house and his mother’s hens feeding on
the tiny midden under the little vineyard where he played as a child.
With a parched tongue the old man would have made stress to answer him,
but the plains swayed suddenly in his sight and he perceived the sun
turn to blood and himself compassed by a cloud darker than darkness and
felt himself carried through the thin air, unable to stir or speak,
until he stood planted above the world upon a gilded pinnacle of the
Great Basilica. Below his feet in the distances crowds of people
vibrated as though the carcass of the earth had rotted and had become a
moving mass of maggots.
And the Voice whispered to him: “I have set thee, O thou holy one, upon
the pinnacle of the Temporal Power that thou mightest be a sign in the
sight of all men and strengthen their faith. Cast thyself down from
hence and the Angels of Him, Whom thou servest, shall watch over thee
and keep thy foot lest it be dashed against a stone.”
The old man answered: “With desire have I desired to go down unto the
multitudes, that I might become a servant where they have made me a
Prince, but it is not given unto me to fulfil my own will in this
generation.”
It seemed then as though seven vials of darkness had been loosed from
the sky and that a cloud of iron hemmed the temples of his brain,
and that he was being lifted whither he knew not. When his eyes were
opened, he perceived that he was upon the top of an exceedingly high
mountain and that a light shone at his feet, which was not the light of
the sun nor of the moon nor yet of the stars. He beheld and lo! it was
a great glamour from the jewelled crowns and diamond sceptres of the
Kings of this world. They were all gathered at the foot of the mountain
and their armies were ranged behind them across the plains as far as
the eye could reach. And in the estuaries of the far-away seas the
masts of their ships and galleons trembled like a forest of reeds. And
again the Voice spoke to him, saying: “All the Kingdoms and Dominions
and Principalities that you behold, these all will I give unto thee
with all that they contain and possess if thou wilt genuflect to me but
once.”
And the old man, knowing out of memory what his answer should be,
murmured: “Get thou behind me, for it is written that thou shalt not
tempt the Lord thy God nor even the Servant of the Servants of the Lord
thy God.” Then the Voice that had spoken to him out of the shadow fled
away like a shrill wind moaning to itself in the wilderness. Beyond the
plains of the earth and estuaries of the sea it passed into a wail of
despair. And the wail died away.
In the dead of the night the old man cried out aloud, and the
Chamberlains thrust their gold chains upon their necks and hurried to
his side, and the guards lit their torches and crashed their spears to
the salute. And the old man questioned his Chamberlains, saying: “Who
hath come in, and who hath come out, and who hath questioned me when
I slept?” They answered: “No one hath questioned the Holiness of our
Lord, for no one hath entered in.” And the captain of the guards swore
that not so much as a shadow had passed between the spear-points of
his men. In the morning the old man sent for the Lord Inquisitor and
revealed to him all that had happened in the night. With the answers to
the dire Voice which had proceeded from the shadow the Lord Inquisitor
was well satisfied. And he asked him how he had replied to the Voice
tempting him to see again the place of his father’s house and the
little cottage and the vineyard and the tiny midden and his mother’s
hens, and the old man trembled, saying he had not known how to give
answer, for his tongue had become parched to his mouth.
And the Lord Inquisitor, who was an apt theologian, said: “It was well
that the Voice that spoke from the shadow passed to deal thee other
temptation.”
“With desire that is greater than desire have I desired to return unto
my own home,” said the old man, “but he that tempted me did not press
me above my strength, carrying me away to the top of the Basilica when
I could not give answer.” And the Lord Inquisitor answered: “He that
tempted my Lord dared not continue lest he should remember his own
home, for he too hath been separated from the place of his desire and
of his beginning and of his love. And how shall he tempt others of
temptation that he himself is worse than tempted of? For others may
yield to temptation, but the Tempter cannot yield unto his, which is as
a terrible desire possessing him. He can only be tortured, not tempted,
for the home which he hath lost is eternal. The home which the Holiness
of my Lord hath deigned to desire but hath consented not to revisit is
but an earthly one.”
“Frankly, then,” said the Pope, “the Devil is home-sick.”
“Damned home-sick,” said the Grand Inquisitor.
CONNEMARA
I have been highly recommended in the scholastic world, though that is
not what I have set out to say. I left the London Board School with a
caseful of certificates, and later I gained the highest honours at the
Training College before entering my mission as a teacher. There was
only one phrase in my final dossier which might be read in a derogatory
sense. It was to the effect that my extreme common sense supplanted all
trace of imagination. Heaven knows that no such deficiency can be laid
to my credit now. I am even supposed to have imbibed a little madness.
But to return!
After several years passed in the normal teaching curriculum I began
to experience a desire for change, to which the steadiest and least
neurotic are liable. But I did not feel that I was indulging in
anything fantastic when I applied for the post of governess abroad.
The Agency replied that no suitable place was on their books, but that
if I cared to consider Ireland among exotics, they could offer me
occupation with an old Irish family on the Connemara borders. Though
entirely (I am not sure whether to say blissfully) ignorant of Ireland,
I felt that any change would save my mind from becoming rutted in the
monotonous. The terms were generous and the work promised to be light.
I was expected to accompany three children in their play-hours. There
was no specific mention of lessons. I forwarded my formal acceptance
with a selection of diplomas. A week passed before I received an
answer in Early Victorian copperplate with all the flourishes of our
ancestral script. It was written by some local schoolmaster presumably
in the hedge, if not the liquor-shop, and was intended to convey the
instructions of the fine old Irish family aforesaid:
“GREEK KALENDS, May, 1888,
“Gortinealy Schoolhouse.
“REVERED MADAM,
“I am instructed by my laudable and proficient patron, Mr. Sinnach,
hereditary proprietor of Gortinealy and _fundator optimus_ of the
above seminary, to write you word that your letter has been by me
examined and found syllabically correct. We have made trial of
your enclosed diplomacies and pending special consideration by Mr.
Halloran, our esteemed Curate, with whose sententious monograph
on the Irish Round Towers the London School Board is doubtless
acquainted, and by Mr. McGrath, the gombeen man down the road, we
duly pronounce them creditable to yourself and printer. These ensigns
of learning we duly return with our patron’s command to present
yourself at a near date (next fairday preferred) at Gortinealy
terminus.
“I remain your obedient and certificated _frère_,
TIMOTHEUS O’HUSSEY.
“_Postscriptum ad demonstrandum._--I may divulge that I have had Mr.
Sinnach’s children under mensal and manual instruction since last
lambing. They are already acquaint with Copying, Mathematics and
Dithyrambics.--T. O’H.”
I must say that I felt a little puzzled by this effusion and quite
failed to perceive the pedantic jealousy of the local sage jutting
between the lines. I went to our Carnegie library and read all I could
discover about Irish Round Towers, including one of Moore’s Melodies
which I learnt by heart. Mr. Halloran’s treatise was unfortunately
unknown. I suspected that the Postscript was a variation of the poor
old joke which includes Education under the three R’s, Reading,
’Riting, and ’Rithmetic. Mathematics no doubt corresponded with the
latter. Copying was writing, but Dithyrambics was Greek to me. I hunted
in a dictionary and found it really was Greek, in fact “an ancient
Greek metre peculiar to Dionysian strains.” Even so it conveyed nothing
to my mind. I afterwards discovered that it must have been meaningless
to the writer no less, whose chief object had been to overawe a rival
with his own knowledge.
Meantime I dispatched a telegram of acceptance, and shipped myself to
a southern port of Ireland. I shall always remember arriving in the
early dawn. It was a hot July, and a gossamer of greyish pink trailed
from the inland mountains into the pearly bay. Behind the yellow tidal
rocks the bright green branches of trees pierced the mist. It was like
a picture at the Kensington Art School. As soon as it became day, it
began to drizzle, and whether the sun was shining or not, it continued
to drizzle at intervals all day. I realised that I had changed climates
at least. I am prepared to admit that the Irish climate is as tropical
as its admirers claim, but I add that it always remains at the rainy
season!
On landing in the rain I discovered to my surprise that no inhabitant
carried an umbrella. My sunshade (for it was July) was the only human
contrivance besides the slates on the house-tops for baffling the
elements. I passed down the unsheltered quays to a weather-beaten,
groggy-looking building labelled TEMPERANCE HOTEL. A passing drayman
kindly picked up my luggage, which would otherwise have been abandoned.
At the hotel door I asked the host how much I should pay the driver.
“Nothing at all!” he answered; “but come in and eat for the Glory of
God, for you must be famished.” After breakfast I asked if I could be
driven to the railway station, and again what fare I was expected to
provide. “The old man will give ye a lift,” I was told, “he’s bound
that way.” And as I stared in reply, my host continued: “’Tis a lone
widdy woman he takes ye for, and he thinks it would be unlucky to take
money off ye.” I thought of London busmen!
I was indignantly asserting my real state in life, but he explained
that a fresh young woman travelling in black clothes could only be
taken for a widow woman, and maybe seeking a mate! Again I expostulated
as to my intentions, for he seemed interested in my welfare, and we
chatted until my train was due and indeed long after, for he was sure
that no train would ever be so inconvenient as to leave for Gortinealy
at the right hour. By the time I was driven to the station I had learnt
several lessons not often propounded in London Board Schools, including
that of Irish Hospitality. I spent another hour at the station talking
with the driver. I could not help asking him why we had not seen a
single umbrella that day. Did nobody possess one? “Ye lie!” he answered
kindly; “every son’s mother and mother’s daughter of them does trot out
an umbrella on fairdays.”
“Why fairdays?” I asked.
“To keep the flour and the tea dry, of course,” was the reply. And I
queried no more.
Then I boarded the train and after endless tours and detours, during
which I vaguely dreamed I had crossed the Alps and the Steppes,
I reached Gortinealy towards midnight. It was pitch dark and the
atmosphere was filled with melting clouds. It was not till I saw it in
the morning that I realised that it was not a place at all, at least
not to London eyes, for it consisted of a sprawled line of cabins,
some with thatch and some under slate, surrounded by driving mists and
stationary swamps as far as the eye cared to reach. It was loose space
rather than fixed locality.
A kind of deputation awaited me in the station. There was the Curate,
and I felt that his bulging silk hat must be lined with the famous
manuscript on the Round Towers. There were two grooms in faded hunting
coats and top-boots, and a weird personage, whom I immediately
recognised by the quill pens over each ear as my certificated _frère_,
Timotheus O’Hussey. Their attentions overwhelmed me. The Curate patted
my back, the grooms confiscated my luggage, and Timotheus burbled a
little Latin. I heard him saying: “_Salve Domina!_” How I love the
Irish, and yet I would rather teach conic sections to elfs in Hell than
return as a governess to their country! They immediately offered me
refreshment in their very refreshing way. When they discovered that I
had found food at the port of entry they were immensely surprised, it
not being a fairday. Still, they insisted on my eating home-made bread
in the signalling box and gulping some tea as black as coaldust. “Is
it far to the house?” I asked.
“Not far in daylight but a good step after midnight,” was the
mystifying reply--“maybe getting on for ten miles.” And my heart sank,
for I had been provided with the certain piece of mathematic knowledge
that seven English miles went to five Irish. I climbed with set mouth
into the high-braced trap. The Curate who had been sent to meet me made
a charming little speech of welcome into the arms of the family, who,
I was painfully aware, were still distant by fourteen miles. Then he
stepped into the night. The two grooms threw my luggage into the rear
and held it down as though it were a live thing. Timotheus sat at my
side in front handling the reins as fantastically, I guessed, as the
pen. And so we started to rock and crash through the night.
I immediately began to feel terribly silent and lonely. Thank heavens
one of the axles creaked. It seemed like my last connection with the
civilised world of streets and wheels. A trace of starlight struggled
through the dripping cloudbanks, throwing a little silver gauze upon
the country-side until I could discern a stretch of waste and wood on
either side. One remote scrub was pointed out with a whip flick as the
grandest corner in the world for finding a fox. There were no fences,
but the road was lined by huge boulders, which so far from being there
for macadamising purposes I learnt were lapidary trifles brushed out of
the roadway itself. I began to wish I had taken a course of geology,
which might have been more illuminating to me than geography at the
moment. I was dead tired, but I pricked my ears when I heard Timotheus
enlarging on the pleasures and magnificences of the Big House, to say
nothing of the royal descents of his laudable patron, and his three
children whom he alluded to as “bright-eyed Homerians.” With inspiring
gravity he gave me to understand that he had recently introduced them
to the Greek Syntax. I gathered as well that Mr. Sinnach was a mighty
hunter and spent his time driving and tearing the foxes out of the
woods and the mountains and the ditches. Timotheus assured me that he
did not so much enjoy the fox-hunting as he hated the foxes “with the
illustrious hate of a Lucifer crossed in love.”
For two hours we jogged and jolted through a stretch of that primitive
void called Irish landscape before the carriage lights suddenly haled a
whitewashed portico out of the gulf of night. “Welcome to Gortinealy,”
I heard a soft voice say a minute later. It was Mr. Sinnach, the
Master, as they called him. I shall never forget the first time I saw
him standing with his red hunting coat in the lamplight. He had been
waiting to receive me in all his war paint. He was a real gentleman,
though I used often to shudder hearing him swear. As he led me
courteously into his stronghold I looked round for my luggage. One of
the grooms was throwing it to the other in the window. I looked back
into the night. Between me and civilisation stretched a Sahara of Wet.
Warm, however, was the oak-lined hall within, adorned with innumerable
guns, skins and antlers. At the top of a rickety old stair they lit
a silver candlestick for me and motioned me down a long passage. At
the end was my room, which possessed a key that would have unlocked
the Tower of London. I felt as tired as though I had been through
examinations.
* * * * *
I was still in my travelling dress when I awoke the next morning and
looked out of the window into a courtyard. Beyond the wall lay the
end of the world. I changed and hurried downstairs, but there was no
sign of human life. A servant appeared and familiarly informed me that
my charges had celebrated my arrival by taking to the mountains on
ponies, and that the Master himself always gave the clock a good start
on mornings there was no hunt. Between his long hours in bed and his
longer hours in the hunting field or among his horses and hounds, I
used to see him very little during my stay at Gortinealy, for all his
leisure time was divided between stables and kennel.
But the children, two boys and a girl, proved more delightful company
than a whole Board School of London Cockneys. They knew more queer
things about Natural History than a double course in Biology could have
taught them. They must have been running wild for years, and certainly
they were not guilty of the least education. They may have passed very
learned hours studying Dithyrambics with Timotheus, but I had to begin
by teaching them to spell English. I don’t think the London County
Council inspector would have approved of them entirely. They seemed to
have been taught to boycott correct English. But I grew to love them
more than I can say, which is always the way in Ireland. There is very
little lost there between loving and hating. Nothing is tepid except
the soft rain, and the soft tepid rain--it raineth every day.
As soon as the children discovered that I could not ride or fish or
shoot, they took a kind of pity for me and consented to appear on
certain hours to hear what I had to say for myself. Apparently I
interested them, for they consented to appear fairly often. In the
evening I read them books of Natural History, which proved my sole
means of winning their attention. Punishments were always out of the
question, and they took no notice of my praise. I suppose I taught
them something. But they could always be trusted and did not appear to
get into trouble like most other children. They could shift amazingly
well for themselves. The mornings were at the hazard of lessons, but
every afternoon we went on the bogs or mountains. I gradually forgot
the feel of the pavement and lost my street legs. I learnt the art of
bog-trotting instead. But my real adventures were played in the minds
of the children themselves. They had been brought up without playmates
and had grown almost uncanny in their relations with animals and birds.
The elder boy seemed to be able to charm them by his eyes. As for the
girl, I used to call her Pocahontas, for she was more Indian of the
woods than girl of the schoolroom. Their minds were quite uncramped
by education, and the whispers of nature were audible to them. Their
father took very little interest in their welfare. If he wandered out
for a walk he always took one of his grooms or walked a couple of his
horrible hounds--but never a child.
I could not understand his intense feeling for his smelly hounds,
with their horrible yelping and slobbing mouths. One morning coming
along the passage, I discovered that he actually kept one in his
bedroom at night. He used to make me think that he was a lost soul for
ever in search of his lost time. I never saw so much time lost as in
that household. Mr. Sinnach had no real occupation unless you count
fox-hunting, and between the hunts he showed no sense of rest. To
me he was as gentle and harmless as a child. I sometimes thought his
life was the life of a man who was followed, except there was nothing
that would dare follow him in those woods and hill-sides, over which
he was sovereign and squire. He never made the least inquiry as to the
progress of his children’s lessons. Their sport alone interested him.
I believe that the boys had never been punished for anything except
for not riding straight or for spoiling a puppy. He must have been one
of the world’s authorities on horses. Personally I had no interest
in that direction except for a home for old bus-horses to which I
used to subscribe. I once made this deserving charity the subject of
conversation at dinner, but he only sniffed very fiercely and said
“Dogsmeat! dogsmeat!” I am afraid I could guess what he meant, and it
horrified me.
He became a different character when the fox-hunting began. His step
grew smarter and his hoarse voice could be heard roaring in the small
hours before sunrise as he shouted to the grooms and hounds out of
his window. The hunt used to arrive from all quarters and all the
early morning there was pandemonium getting them started for the
distant meet. How often I was awoken by their stamping horses! How
often I listened to the yelping hounds as the huntsmen flicked them
into seething order! At night the Master used to return wearied out
in body but a raging lion in his heart. I could always tell whether
success had attended him by the sound of his voice. After a blank day
he would curse man and hound, but if Reynard was dead he would ride
up to the house cheering like a schoolboy. His hatred for the fox
was almost inhuman. He used to brandish some blood-stained relic of
the unfortunate animal through the house. Sometimes he used its fresh
pad to stir the wine for his friends. I always stayed upstairs when
they were drinking orgies over their success. At first I was excited
enough by what our Board School Inspector would have called “giving
vent to the passions of Neolithic Man,” but it became monotonous in the
hunting season. I lived, worked and felt well, but I rather lost the
sensation of time. Time stood rather still at Gortinealy and typically
indeed there was only one motionless hand hanging on the face of the
old clock on the stairs. The only use for clockwork in that strange
old house was for timing the length of their runs after the wretched
foxes. The number of minutes in each run was carefully scribbled in
some loose sheets of paper that were generally left between the leaves
of the Family Bible. I found them there one afternoon and spent an
hour pasting them neatly into a copybook. But the Master was wild,
when he returned that night, and for the first and only time he used
bad language to me personally. He questioned me very carefully. Why
had I been opening the Family Bible? Had I read anything besides the
records of family sport? Had I read the private family entries? and so
forth, until my curiosity was thoroughly aroused. He seemed scarcely
to believe my denial. When I tried to find the Bible the next day it
had disappeared. It was not for two weeks that I found it by chance
lying at the back of a shelf of books. I opened it at the flyleaf.
There were columns of births, marriages, and deaths. The death column
was curiously divided into two sections and puzzled me. In some years
there had been as great a mortality as fifty written in numbers, but
I could not believe the clan was so considerable to include so many
deaths. The other column was clear enough, a long list of ordinary
entries. But two struck me with an odd thrill because I could not grasp
their meaning:
“Edward Sinnach--1848--killed by them.
John Edward Sinnach--1871--killed and eaten.”
This was all I had time to read before the Master came in and began
looking furtively at the shelf behind which I had replaced the Bible.
I spent the whole night lying awake and trying to think sense or read
purpose into those words. I went to sleep with a mild conviction that
my employer was the degenerate descendant of a remarkable missionary
family, one of whom had been killed by the heathen in the forties and
another a generation later had not only been killed but eaten, as the
familiar rhyme puts it;
“By a cassowary
On the plains of Timbuctoo
Prayer and Hymnbook too.”
For nights I wept silently for those two uncanonised martyrs. I used
to picture their travels and their adventures, their sermons and
their catechisms, and in more terrible moments the details of their
deaths. But in what countries were they killed? It could only have
been in the Cannibal Islands. And naturally my mind, which always
seeks facts perpetually, returned to the one awful question: “Was
Edward eaten as well as John?” It so preyed upon my mind that I used
to wake with the grim query on my lips. It was a month before I gained
additional information. I had asked the elder boy if he had ever seen
his grandfather John. He replied that he had died when he was quite a
baby and his father would never allow his name to be mentioned. I asked
why? It was because he had died a disgraceful death. In a bed upstairs
instead of in the hunting field or fighting or travelling abroad, like
every other true member of the family. Of course this revelation put an
end to my romance about a young and earnest missionary in the wilds of
Africa and I could only conclude that Family Bibles, like so much else
in Ireland, were used as vehicles for rather gruesome practical jokes.
Winter was fully and icily fledged, and snow made a welcome variation
to rain. The winds swept the last leaves off the trees and ripped
open the loaded clouds till they dropped in hail and flake out of the
firmament. But between frosts the hunting continued, for the Master
seemed unable to sleep if he had failed to have a run in the day. I
think he was only happy after he had seen a fox torn to shreds on the
fangs of his hounds. One stormy evening he returned in a terrible
humour. Though they had enjoyed a wonderful run the fox had escaped,
and the Master alone of the hunt had returned furiously dissatisfied,
railing and roaring. I heard him snarling up and down the long passage
all that evening. When I chanced to pass him he lowered his head, it
seemed to me shamefacedly. The boys crept away from him and came to
hear me read stories in my own room. They were afraid of him, though
in his way he was fond of them. The first time they had been in at
the death of the fox he had gone wild with praise and had dabbled
their faces with gore. He used to say that they had not been properly
baptised till that moment, which made them his true children. I don’t
believe he would have recognised them as legitimate if they had not
been hard riders before they were out of their teens.
On the following day there was a meet at the other end of the county,
and the Master was out and riding long before I came down to breakfast.
I remember hearing him shout to his hounds while I was still in bed,
and their deep belling note in reply. I lay in a drowsy stupor, for
sunrise was still two hours to eastward. Once again the house was full
of stamping boots and clicketing spurs. Once again the old staircase
creaked and rattled to the heavy sound of feet and I heard horses
pawing the courtyard below. Then the whole party rode away, and I fell
back into profound sleep. It was the last time that I ever slept in
that terrible house at peace.
When I came down in the morning the children were waiting for me, as
chivalrous and charming as ever. They condescended to listen to all I
had to say in defence of the awkward rules of spelling which govern
the English language. They were curious children. I could not call
them wise or foolish, backward or advanced. They had had no education
and yet they were grown up. They were little savages outwardly and yet
angels to me. My heart always reaches to them with a sudden ache. That
day I gave them the last lesson I was ever to give them.
All the morning the mist mildewed the window pane, slowly flushing the
roof and choking the gutters and creating tiny waterfalls and leakages
in every direction. I used to think that we were in that part of the
universe where the rain itself is brewed. The sound of water dripping
or running filled every corner of the old house. It was one of those
days which cause sympathy with Noah. The whole afternoon I spent
blinking over a book before a fire in the hall, while the children
sat round me in their charming, chattering way. It had been too wet
for them to hunt that day and they were soon yawning. They made no
objection when I seized a chance to send them to bed early. There was
nobody in the house except the old cook, for the whole household had
departed the previous night, including the old gardener, with spade and
terrier, to be in time at the meet. Darker and darker grew the evening
while the turf fire flickered brighter and brighter until it collapsed
into a tiny avalanche of white ash. It was late when I finally lost
the thread of my reading and was roused by suddenly hearing a long,
distinct howl outside.