Walking out from the public-house into the street, Gypo felt as if he
had leapt suddenly into an arena, where he was to perform astounding
feats, while an amazed audience, with two million eyes, gazed silent
and spell-bound. He thrust his head into the air. He let his arms hang
limply from his shoulders in front of his body. He took two staggering
steps forward and uttered a long-drawn-out yell.
It was that peculiar yell that mountaineers will utter in the west of
Ireland, when the fair is over in the district town and night is
falling, as they issue from the public-houses, bareheaded and
wild-eyed, dragging their snorting and shivering mares after them by
the halter.
Gypo’s yell was just such a one. It was like a challenge to mortal
combat issued to all and sundry. He felt beside himself with strength.
He was free again. Had not Gallagher given him his word that
everything would be all right? Would he not be taken back again into
the Organization? Had he not thrown suspicion on to the Rat Mulligan?
He was free again. Ye-a-a-aw!
He staggered to the kerbstone and yelled, letting his body go
completely limp with ecstasy. Then, breathing heavily through his
nostrils, he stood erect and looked about him to see what effect his
yell had produced. There was a small crowd of people near by. They had
just come out of Ryan’s public-house and from Shaughnessy’s, another
public-house ten yards away at the corner of a lane. The corner was
brilliant with light, from the public-houses, from a fried-fish and
potato shop, and from a drapery shop where the lights were kept on all
night by the owner, with the idea that the light might terrify gunmen
and housebreakers.
Gypo stood out in the blaze of light, on the kerbstone, with the beads
of rainwater on his white woollen muffler reflected like dewdrops in
the artificial light. The people looked at him in amazement and with
that intense satisfaction which the proletariat of the slums always
derives from something unexpected and extraordinary happening, at no
cost to themselves. A spectacle had presented itself. The crowd began
to swell.
Gypo had not intended to carry the affair any further. In fact he had
not intended to yell at all. But when he saw the crowd he became
amused. He pitched on a man who stood near, a tall, thin, respectably
dressed man, who had a sour expression on his face.
“What are ye lookin’ at me for?” cried Gypo, staring the fellow in the
face insolently.
“I’m not lookin’ at ye,” snapped the man irritably.
“Yer a liar,” bellowed Gypo, “don’t I see ye lookin’ at me?”
“Well a cat can look at a king,” cried the stranger, thrusting out his
chin and spitting venomously to his left.
“What are ye sayin’ about kings?” said Gypo angrily.
“Better say nothin’ about kings around here, me lad. I think yer
lookin’ for trouble. I’ve got a good mind to give ye a wallop in the
jaw.”
“Ye would, would ye?” cried the stranger, making a move to take his
hands out of his coat pockets.
But he was too late. Gypo’s right hand swung around. The man went down
like a bag of nails dropped to an iron deck. Somebody cried: “Lord,
save us.” Gypo stood over the fallen man with his chest heaving. A
policeman appeared from somewhere in the rear. He advanced rapidly,
shouldering the people and trying to snatch something from under his
cape as he made for Gypo.
“Look out, look out,” cried an old woman, through her cupped hands.
Gypo looked on either side hurriedly and then he heard the excited
breathing of the policeman approaching from behind. He tried to turn
about, but the policeman was upon him. The policeman’s hands closed
about his biceps and jerked back both his arms to lock them behind his
back. The arms were half-way back before Gypo could mobilize his vast
strength to arrest their retreat. There was a loud snap of bones being
strained taut when Gypo’s strength collided with the policeman’s
strength at the point on Gypo’s biceps where the policeman’s hands
rested.
Both men groaned loudly. The policeman’s boots tore at the wet
pavement, making a noise like dry cloth being rent, as he struggled to
keep firm. Slowly Gypo leaned forward until the policeman’s body was
on his back.
Then he thrust back his head with a snarl. His poll collided with the
policeman’s chin. There was a dull thud and a snap. Gypo uttered an
oath and thrust his head downwards towards his knees, holding his
thighs rigid. Before the head had reached the knees, the policeman had
hurtled through the air with a scream of terror, right over Gypo’s
head.
He fell with three separate soft sounds to the street, with his right
side against the concrete wall of a house. He fell on his back. He
rose again in the middle, resting on his right hand and on his heels.
He brandished his left hand towards Gypo and at the same time he tried
to grip a fleeing spectator with it. Then he moaned and subsided
again.
“Run, Gypo,” said somebody.
Gypo ran towards a lane at a fast run. He was followed by a crowd.
Others gathered around the fallen policeman.
Gypo halted at the far end of the lane, in a dark corner. The crowd
gathered around him. Everybody was panting with excitement. They all
stared down the lane towards the blaze of light where the policeman
lay. They began to jabber.
“I can see trouble comin’,” said one. “The sojers ’ll be here shortly.
Then yer goin’ to see some pluggin’.”
“Gwan,” said another contemptuously. “There’s no sojers goin’ to come
down here. Ye wouldn’t get a sojer in the town to dare come within a
mile of Titt Street on this blessed night, after what happened
to-day.”
At the mention of “what happened to-day,” a man cursed, a woman
crossed herself piously under her shawl, an angry silence fell.
Gypo stood with his hands in his pockets, paying no heed to the talk.
With his lips stuck out, he was looking gloomily down the lane towards
the blaze of light. He was enjoying himself immensely.
“Hist, hist!” somebody cried. “Look, look.”
Two policemen crossed the blaze of light, bearing their fallen comrade
between them. A few women and small boys followed them. Then two more
policemen came, hauling along the man whom Gypo had struck. They were
dragging him unceremoniously, holding him by the armpits, with his
feet trailing along the ground and his arms dangling. They were
probably under the impression that it was he who had felled their
comrade. The man made an effort to wrench himself free, but they
tightened their hold on his arms. He writhed and went limp again,
allowing himself to be dragged lifelessly. A woman, with straggling
red hair and a child on her back in a black shawl, danced in front of
the policemen, screaming and gesticulating, demanding the man’s
release. Then the procession passed out of sight with a mad rush of
feet and a medley of indiscriminate noises.
“Let’s go back,” muttered a young man who had a slight hump.
Gypo grunted and hitched up his trousers. He put his hand to his head
to settle his hat jauntily before leading the way back. But instead he
uttered an oath. His little round torn hat was not there. His massive
round skull stood bare under the night. It stood naked, hummocked and
gashed here and there, like a badly shorn sheep. He traversed the
skull with his right palm, in little flurried rushes, as if he had had
a vague suspicion that the hat was hiding somewhere along the expanse
of skull. Then he set out at a wild rush down the lane, followed by
the crowd, to retrieve the hat, as if his life depended on it. For the
first time, since Gallagher had given his word, terror again invaded
his mind. If they discovered the hat they might be able to discover
the identity of that ponderous fellow who had gone into the
police-station. . . .
But no. He rushed into the road and brought up with a slither of his
right foot on the wet pavement. The hat was lying in the gutter before
his eyes. It lay crushed beside a flattened little cardboard chocolate
box and an orange skin. It had been trodden on by a small bare foot.
The impress of a wet heel was on its right side.
He grabbed it up hurriedly, punched it into shape and crammed it on to
his skull with both hands. Then he laughed aloud and turned to the
people.
“I thought I had lost it,” he cried affectionately. “I had it this two
years.”
The crowd gaped at the hat as if it had magical properties. Others who
had run up without knowing what had already happened gaped at Gypo’s
humpy face, at his ruminative eyes and his eyebrows that were like
snouts, at the red fat backs of his hands, as he held them to his
throat tightening the white woollen muffler about his neck. There were
agitated whispers on the outskirts of the ragged crowd.
“He’s stronger than any bull.”
“How? Why? What did he do?” from a dozen throats.
“Wait till I tell ye. I saw him with me own eyes send Scrapper Moloney
o’ the B Division flyin’ over his shoulder like a man divin’ off the
Bull Wall. I declare to me——”
“I know him well. He used to be a bobby himself once. His name is
Nolan. Gypo Nolan. Didn’t ye ever hear of him?”
“Sure; usen’t he be pals with Frankie McPhillip that was shot to-day?”
“Sure I was,” broke in Gypo, overhearing the remark; “an’ when ye
speak o’ the dead, ye might add Lord Have Mercy on him.”
“Hear, hear,” cried several voices. “Hit him a puck in the jaw. Who is
he?”
A noisy argument and a scuffle arose. The culprit was hustled away,
kicked and struck about the face, until he made his escape by running
at full speed up the lane. Then they all crowded around Gypo again.
He stood head and shoulders above them, revelling in the attention he
was attracting. He stood so impassively with his arms folded, that he
might be mistaken for a great scowling statue at a distance. Then he
suddenly raised his right hand and made a circular movement with it.
“Come on,” he cried wildly. “I’m goin’ to give everybody here a feed.
Come on. Come on every mother’s son in this crowd that’s hungry.”
He waved his arm towards the fried-fish and chip shop and headed off
towards the door.
“Hurrah!”
“Long life to ye, me darlin’ son of Erin.”
“More power to yer elbow.”
“Up the rebels.”
Gypo strode in front of the disreputable throng as proud as a king
leading his courtiers. They came after him with pattering feet,
panting, pushing, snivelling, emitting that variegated murmur of sound
that comes from a pack of wild things in a panic, coming from afar,
unseen, without a guiding reason. They were the riff-raff and the
jetsam of the slums, the most degraded types of those who dwell in the
crowded warrens on either bank of the Liffey. But to Gypo they were an
audience to acclaim his words and his deeds.
“Before long ye’ll see me cock o’ the walk around here,” he thought,
as he strode into the shop. “Me an’ Gallagher. Come on, every man jack
an’ woman too. Come on.”
They packed the little shop to the door. There was an overflow
outside. It was warm within after the drizzling rain and the sharp
wind outside. The air within the shop became almost immediately full
of the vapour of human breath. The low murmur of breathing could be
heard distinctly through the hum of whispered conversation.
“Hey there, towny,” cried Gypo to the shopkeeper, “chuck us a feed for
all hands. I’m payin’ for the lot.”
The shopkeeper was an Italian, a dark middle-aged fellow with
plaintive eyes. He looked at Gypo and then at the crowd. Curiosity,
fear, suspicion and surprise raced across his face. Then he smiled and
nodded his head. He said something in a foreign language to the girl
who stood behind him and then he began immediately to put steaming
portions of potatoes and fish into slips of old newspapers that lay
ready to hand. The girl, a red-cheeked young woman with big black
eyes, dressed in white, busied herself, pushing to and fro on a long
arrangement like a sink, more fish and potatoes that were being fried.
A crackling noise came from this frying. A hot, sweet and acrid smell
permeated the whole room.
The starved wastrels revelled in that smell. They looked towards the
frying food with eager mouths and glistening eyes. Their nostrils
smelt its heat and its savour greedily. Their faces were all fierce
and emaciated. Their bodies were unkempt, crooked, weazened. But just
then, the joy of an unexpected banquet had filled even their haggard
and stupefied souls with a pleasure that made them laugh and chatter
irresponsibly like children. The sorrows and the miseries of life were
forgotten in that moment of common rejoicing. And perhaps that joyous
mumble of chattering voices, rising through the steam in that slum
eating-house, was a beautiful hymn of praise to the spirit of life.
And Gypo stood among them like some primeval monster just risen from
the slime in which all things had their origin.
While around him crowded the others, like insects upon which he had
been destined to fatten.
As he looked about him, with the slow, languorous eye movement of a
resting bull, he felt the exaltation and conceit of a conqueror at the
hour of victory. An intelligent being, gifted with such strength and
the power to analyse his sensations, would have said: “This is the
greatest moment of my life.” But Gypo did not think. There was nothing
about him in relation to which he could think. A queen will not dream
of flaunting her beauty and her raiment at a boors’ banquet. But she
will, on a public holiday, bow to their clamorous cheers. So with
Gypo.
The cumbersome mechanism of his mind had been put in motion that
evening by the necessity for forming a plan after leaving the
police-station. The unaccustomed strain had unmoored it. It floundered
about until Gallagher’s promise perched it on a foolish eminence
whence it regarded the rest of humanity with contempt. It sprawled its
ponderous foundations on that crazy eminence as arrogantly as if it
were about to rest there for eternity.
He rolled his eyes about at the heads that were standing thickly
around him, some on a level with his biceps, some on a level with his
waist, while here and there a tall man like himself, stood with a red,
lean, knotted neck strained forward, with throbbing throat, towards
the food counter.
“Biga lot o’ people,” murmured the Italian suddenly, making a polite
gesture with his hands to indicate the number of people present and
the nature of his suspicions.
“That’s all right,” muttered Gypo. “Count ’em as ye hand out the grub.
I’ll pay. Don’t you fret yersel’. Keep back there.”
He had been standing with his palms against the edge of the
marble-topped counter. Now, in order to put his hand into his right
trousers pocket, he had to pick up a small-sized man and crush him in
between two women, who leaned away behind their shawls. Then he thrust
his hand into his pocket and fingered the wad of Treasury notes. The
very touch of them sent a wave of remembrance through his body. A
slight tremor ran up, almost tangibly like a breath of cold wind in a
hot place, up the extent of his body until it entered his brain. The
remembrance of the origin of that wad of notes staggered him
momentarily. He remembered the fat white hand, surmounted by a
carefully brushed blue sleeve, that had handed him the wad over a
desk, saying ever so icily: “You’ll find twenty pounds there. Go.”
But after the first shock he curled his thick upper lip slightly and
licked it with the tip of his tongue. The movement of his mouth had
the appearance of a grin. The girl who happened to glance at him just
then, found his gaze centred on her. She dropped the fish slice into
the pan with some sort of an exclamation in a foreign language. But
Gypo, though he was looking at her, did not see her. He was busy with
his clumsy thick fingers, separating a single note from the roll
without taking the roll from his pocket. At last he succeeded in doing
so. He grunted and pulled out a single Treasury note.
He held it up.
“Here ye are,” he cried. “This’ll pay for the lot. Hand out the grub.”
The Italian smiled immediately and began to serve the packages into
the eager hands that reached out for them. He counted out loud as he
did so: “One, two, three, four . . .”
An uproar commenced immediately. People crowded in from the door
struggling to get served. Those who had been served struggled to get
out into the street, with their food in steaming, dripping, paper
packages in their hands. Altercations arose. The shop was full of
sound. There were catcalls, whistling, cursing and laughing. Then a
big docker brought the uproar to a climax by smashing his big boot
through the wooden bottom of the counter, uttering a drunken yell as
he did so. Then he sprawled over the counter, laughing foolishly and
reaching out with his two hands towards the girl who shrank away
terrified. The Italian uttered an exclamation of terror. Gypo turned
towards the docker, lifted him up by the back and shouted:
“Keep quiet.”
The two words re-echoed through the shop, like two rocks rolled down
from opposite precipices and meeting in a glen, with two separate
sounds, a heavy thick sound as they collide, a loud rasping sound as
their splintered fragments fly clashing into the air.
The words had scarcely passed out the door into the night before a
silence fell. Everybody stood still. One man stopped in the act of
sucking a fish-bone between his lips.
“Now carry on,” continued Gypo, “but don’t kick up a row like a lot o’
cannibals. Don’t disgrace yer country. A man ud think ye didn’t see a
bite for a year.”
Then he himself turned towards the counter and asked the Italian how
many meals had been served. Twenty-four meals had been served. He
threw the pound note on the counter.
“Take out o’ that for three rounds for mesel’,” he said.
Then he pushed back his hat, drew a paper full of food towards him and
began to eat. Without speaking, the Italian held the Treasury note
between him and the electric light and peered at each side of it
several times. Then he nodded his head and opened his till.
Mulholland had also strained his neck to peer at the Treasury note. He
had been standing in the angle of the doorway all the time, silent and
immovable. As soon as he saw the pound note, he drew out into the open
and craned over the heads of the people to look at it. A neighbour
noticed him, a ragged little fellow, who mistook the cause of
Mulholland’s curiosity.
“Didn’t ye get any grub?” said the little man to Mulholland. “It’s yer
own fault if ye didn’t. Come on, man. Don’t stand there hungry. Go on
up to the counter.”
He caught Mulholland by the arm and tried to push him towards the
counter.
“Leave me alone,” hissed Mulholland. “I don’t want any grub. Let go.”
“Go on up,” pursued the little fellow; “go on, man. Didn’t ye hear him
say he was standin’ a round for everybody. Go on up.”
“Let go, I tell ye. Let go. I don’t want it, I say.”
But it was no use for Mulholland to refuse. The more he refused the
more the little fellow was determined that he should be fed. Others
joined in, eager for some amazing reason or other that Mulholland
should be fed. It seemed that they suspected something indecent and
improper in Mulholland’s refusal to eat.
“Call out,” cried somebody, “call out for another ration. Bring it
down to him.”
“Yes, why shouldn’t he have his share as well as the next?”
“Let me alone,” cried Mulholland in a rage; “let me alone, or I’ll
smash yer skull for ye.”
That put a different aspect on the question. There were a dozen angry
oaths.
“So that’s what’s the matter with ye. Yer lookin’ for fight, eh?”
“Stand back an’ let me at him,” cried somebody in the rear, pressing
forward.
Mulholland tried to rush for the door, but they held on to him.
“What the hell is the matter now?” thundered Gypo, striding over.
Immediately the scuffling stopped. Gypo came face to face with
Mulholland. He saw Mulholland’s little eyes, gleaming and flashing
like the eyes of a cat beset by dogs. There was a tense moment during
which Gypo struggled with obscure suspicions. But suddenly the
expression on Mulholland’s face changed into an expression of cunning
intimacy. His face instead of being fierce and resentful suddenly
seemed to say: “We are members of the Revolutionary Organization, you
and I. Get this rabble out of my way.” Gypo immediately remembered
Gallagher’s promise. He looked at Mulholland with a good-natured
condescension. “Ha,” he thought, “this fellah’ll be useful.”
“Let him alone,” he cried arrogantly; “he’s a friend o’ mine. How are
ye gettin’ on, Bartly?”
Then he continued carelessly, to impress the crowd with his own
importance and his intimacy with the affairs of the Revolutionary
Organization, which was the most impressive thing in the lives of
those about him.
“Hear anythin’ yet about what I was tellin’ ye? I mean about the
fellah that informed on Frankie McPhillip?”
Mulholland was amazed for a moment. What audacity! But it was not
audacity. Gypo had completely forgotten the ponderous fellow in the
little tattered round hat who had gone into the police-station. His
sudden conceit had completely swallowed that ponderous fellow.
“He must be drunk,” thought Mulholland. He said aloud, whispering to
Gypo, as he bent his head close and turned up his face sideways in his
peculiar manner, “I was just passin’ an’ saw ye. I just thought I’d
drop in an’ tell ye I’d be there at one o’clock. Ye know where I mean?
No, we didn’t hear anythin’ yet about that.”
He winked his right eye. Gypo winked his right eye and nodded
solemnly. Then Mulholland walked quickly out the door, evidently going
off somewhere in a hurry. But he halted at the corner of the lane,
distended his eyes and gritted his teeth. He rubbed his chin
meditatively, looking at the ground. He couldn’t make it out, whatever
it was, that was troubling his mind.
Gypo turned once more to the counter and continued his meal. He ate as
if he were about to travel for days and he were deliberately devouring
a store of food sufficient to last to the end of the journey. Behind
him and on either side of him, they were talking about his strength
and praising him, but he paid no heed to them. He was immersed in
dreams about his future, now that Gallagher was going to take him back
again into the Organization.
“Aha!” cried an old woman, with watery blue eyes and a wrinkled white
face, as she shook her fist upwards at him, “I wish I had a son like
ye. Me own Jimmy, Lord Have Mercy on him, was killed in the big war.
He was the boy that could bate the polis! Don’t be talkin’. I seen him
wan night an’ it took six o’ them to pull him off a coal cart an’ he
holdin’ on to the horse’s reins all the time with wan hand while he
was fightin’ them with th’ other.”
She stamped on the floor and yelled, her eyes gleaming ferociously, as
if the contemplation of her dead son’s fight gave her tangible
pleasure. Then she walked towards the door, trailing her shawl and her
arms with bravado. The poor woman was slightly insane as the result of
paralysis.
A tall, sour-faced, lean man, with a red nose shaped like a reversed
scimitar, who had just come in, looked after the old woman and shook
his head. He mumbled something under his breath. The old lady halted
and looked at him contemptuously.
“What are ye sniggerin’ at,” she cried, “you with a face like a plate
o’ burnt porridge?”
There was a loud laugh.
“Mary Hynes,” said the hook-nosed man, “if ye were more careful of yer
son’s upbringin’ an’ of yer own immortal soul, ye wouldn’t be in the
state ye are in now. Is it boastin’ of yer son’s lawlessness ye are?
Are ye boastin’ of his livin’ crimes an’ he already gone to meet his
God?”
The hook-nosed man raised his right hand dramatically to point at the
ceiling and he glared at the old woman with fierce and menacing
sorrow. But his words produced a contrary effect to that which he
expected on the old woman. She looked at him contemptuously and then
curled her mouth up in anger.
“Yerrah, d’ye call it a crime to bate a policeman?” she cried in
amazed indignation.
“Certainly it is a crime,” cried the hook-nosed man.
“Damn an’ blast it, what are ye talkin’ about, Boxer Lydon?” cried a
burly fellow coming up to Lydon and staring him excitedly and angrily
in the face. “Didn’t ye hear of what the polis did to-day to Frankie
McPhillip? D’ye call it a crime to bate that murderin’ lot? Aye or
shoot them either!”
“I don’t say they were justified in what they did to-day,” cried
Lydon, raising his voice to a querulous shout in order to drown the
uproar; “but neither will I say that the dead man was justified in
what he done. Do none o’ ye think o’ the man McPhillip killed? Wasn’t
he a fellow-man like yersel’? Wasn’t he an Irishman of the same flesh
an’ blood?”
“Aw! that’s nationalism,” cried somebody. “What’s an Irishman no more
than a Turk? Ye belong to the I. R. B., an’ that’s where ye get yer
lingo. Up the workers!”
The hook-nosed man paused with his hand raised until the interrupter
finished. Then he continued unmoved:
“Do none o’ ye think that maybe that man left a mother an’ a——”
But he had to stop. His voice was drowned in the uproar and the
scuffling. The old woman began to sing “Kelly the boy from Killane,”
as she strolled out the door. Another man was pushing his way in
through the crowd at the door towards the hook-nosed man. This
new-comer had been standing at the door for some time. He was dressed
from head to foot in a heavy black overcoat. He was better dressed
than everybody present, but he looked as pale and haggard as the
others. His face continually twitched and his eyes were bloodshot. He
looked at the hook-nosed man fiercely and seized him nervously by the
buttonhole. The hook-nosed man edged away.
“For God’s sake, let up on that rubbish,” cried the new-comer,
stammering at each word. His upper lip was contorting as if he were in
a fit.
“Let me go,” cried the hook-nosed man. “I’ll have my say, an’ I won’t
be intimidated by any Socialist agitator. Keep back from me.”
“I only wanted to tell ye,” shouted the other, “I only wanted to tell
ye . . . I say . . . I say . . .”
Then nothing could be distinguished above the uproar. Everybody
present took part in the argument. The ragged fellows who had come in
with Gypo, curiously enough, took no interest in the argument. Those
of them that had not already disappeared as soon as they got their
food, now took their leave when the argument began. There was even a
look of fear in their faces as they slunk away, as if this
demonstration of interest in the affairs of the world terrified them,
who had no interest in anything, since their souls were numbed by the
hopelessness of despair. Only a few of the most wretched remained,
crouching against the counter, in the comforting shadow of Gypo’s
immensity. They remained because the presence of his powerful
personality comforted them and gave them the imaginary feeling of
having something to protect them from the menace of civilized life.
Those that were now taking part in the argument were of a better
class. They were workers of all sorts, members of trade unions and
respectable people. They had appeared somehow, one by one but rapidly,
in that mysterious way in which crowds of people of a certain type
gather in the Titt Street district and carry on an argument with
furious heat.
Gypo suddenly turned around and looked at the wrangling group, at the
open mouths, the listening ears, the distorted faces, the glittering
eyes. He listened. He blinked. Then he laughed softly within himself.
He felt a crazy desire to yell and fall on them with his fists. The
mixed murmur of their agitated voices had a maddening effect on him.
But he looked back at the counter. He still had food to eat. He
continued his meal. The argument went on.
The man with the long overcoat who had just arrived held the attention
of the crowd. He was a well-known man in the district and all over the
city. He owned a small tobacconist and newsvendor’s shop. He was
called The Crank Shanahan and indeed he was a crank. He belonged to no
organization, he went about alone, he attended every political meeting
in the city and he was continually, in all weathers, agitating and
preaching in a loud shrill voice his own peculiar philosophy of social
life. That philosophy was a mixture of all sorts of political creeds,
but its main basis was revolt against every existing institution,
habit or belief. He was called an anarchist, but he was not an
anarchist. He was just a fanatic who was dissatisfied with life. At
night he was given to fearfully morbid thoughts that caused him to
lock and bar himself in his room and sleep with the blankets right
over his head. He was even supposed to put cotton-wool into his ears
at night lest he might hear a sound. And once the policeman on duty
found him wandering around the street in which he lived, at three
o’clock in the morning, dressed in a torn nightshirt, trembling and
gnashing his teeth with terror. He had jumped up horrified by a
nightmare and rushed out in that state.
“Listen,” he cried. “I don’t agree with the Revolutionary
Organization, but the man that killed McPhillip . . . no . . . no,
no . . . I mean the man . . . can’t ye let me speak? . . . I mean the
farmer that McPhillip killed, he was an agent of the capitalist class.
Then it follows logically that he was an enemy of the working class.
McPhillip was an agent of the working class. He was justified in
killing the man. That’s the matter treated logically and brought to a
logical conclusion. Everything must be approached logically. Listen.
Taking the question from a wider standpoint we can get a broader
judgment that will fit all cases of the kind that may arise”—he raised
his voice to a scream to drown the noise of a scuffle at the door—“in
the near future. We are at the base of a world revolutionary wave.
According as that wave advances and gathers strength the whole process
of capitalist society will crumble up. Then there will be a gradual
increase in the number of these skirmishes, as it were on the . . .”
His voice was drowned suddenly by a big man who began to swing his
arms about his head uttering a fearful torrent of oaths. He was drunk.
Then Lydon shouted:
“Murder is murder, I say. Murder is always murder and the gospel of
Our Lord Jesus Christ says——”
“There must be no mercy,” yelled a little man with a black moustache,
who rushed into a corner where he had room to prance about. “There
must be no mercy. To hell with everybody. That right, boys? Wha’?”
“What are ye talkin’ about?” cried Gypo, suddenly turning about.
Silence fell immediately. Everybody looked at him. His face was
perspiring. He rubbed his hands on his chest. He curled up his lips.
He gave his little hat a slight push towards the back of his head.
Then he was seized by another fit of strange humour. He yelled once
more and staggered towards the crowd, with his arms hanging loose,
pretending to be dead drunk. They fell away from him in amazement. He
stood in the middle of the room and looked about him.
“What ye talkin’ about?” he drawled ponderously, swaying backwards and
forwards.
He glared from face to face, but each pair of eyes was turned away as
he sought them. He was delighted with the terror he caused. Behind the
counter the Italian, still smiling, had grasped a large knife and
stood perfectly still. The girl was crouching on the floor. Then Gypo
broke into a loud laugh, stuck his hands in his trousers pockets and
strolled towards the door.
He hesitated for a moment outside the door. Then he headed straight
across the road. They all ran to the door to look after him. His huge
long frame, clad in blue dungarees that clung to his thighs, shone in
the light of the lamps as he crossed the wide road, one foot advancing
past the other slowly, the trousers brushing with the sound of hay
being cut with a scythe. Then the figure left the area of light and
grew dim as he gained the pavement at the far side, and turned to the
left under the shadow of an abrupt tall house. Then he fell away into
the night.
Presently a lean slouching figure crept across the street in pursuit.
He also disappeared under the shadow of the abrupt house. Nobody
noticed him. It was Mulholland tracking Gypo.