THE WILD GOOSE
He remembered a green undulating country out of which the trees seemed
to emerge like vapours, and a line of pearl-coloured mountains showing
above the horizon on fine days. And this was all. But this slight
colour-memory had followed him all through his wanderings. His parents
had emigrated to Manchester when he was nine, and when he was sixteen
he felt that he must escape from Manchester, from the overwhelming
dreariness of the brick chimneys and their smoke cloud. He had joined a
travelling circus on its way to the Continent, and he crossed with it
from New Haven to Dieppe in charge of the lions. The circus crossed in
a great storm; Ned was not able to get about, and the tossing of the
vessel closed the ventilating slides, and when they arrived at Dieppe
the finest lion was dead.
"Well, there are other things to do in life besides feeding lions," he
said; and taking up his fiddle he became interested in it. He played it
all the way across the Atlantic, and everyone said there was no reason
why he should not play in the opera house. But an interview with the
music conductor dispelled illusions. Ned learnt from him that
improvisations were not admissible in an opera house; and when the
conductor told him what would be required of him he began to lose
interest in his musical career. As he stood jingling his pence on the
steps of the opera house a man went by who had crossed with Ned, and
the two getting into conversation, Ned was asked if he could draw a map
according to scale. It would profit him nothing to say no; he
remembered he had drawn maps in the school in Manchester. A bargain was
struck! he was to get ten pounds for his map! He ordered a table; he
pinned out the paper, and the map was finished in a fortnight. It was
of a mining district, and having nothing to do when it was finished he
thought he would like to see the mine; the owners encouraged him to go
there, and he did some mining in the morning--in the evenings he played
his fiddle. Eventually he became a journalist.
He wandered and wrote, and wandered again, until one day, finding
himself in New York, he signed an agreement and edited a newspaper. But
he soon wearied of expressing the same opinions, and as the newspaper
could not change its opinions Ned volunteered to go to Cuba and write
about the insurgents. And he wrote articles that inflamed the Americans
against the Spaniards, and went over to the American lines to fight
when the Americans declared war against Spain, and fought so well that
he might have become a general if the war had lasted. But it was over,
and, overpowered by an extraordinary dislike to New York, he felt he
must travel. He wanted to see Europe again, and remembering the green
plain of Meath, he said: "I'll go to Ireland."
His father and mother were dead, and without a thought of his
relations, he read the legends of Meath on his way out; he often sat
considering his adventures, the circus, the mining camp, and his
sympathy with the Cubans in their revolt against Spain; these convinced
him of his Gaelic inheritance and that something might be done with
Ireland. England's power was great, but Spain's power had been great
too, and when Spain thought herself most powerful the worm had begun.
Everything has its day, and as England decayed, Ireland would revive. A
good time might be on its way to Ireland; if so he would like to be
there or thereabouts; for he always liked to be in the van of a good
time.
He went straight to Tara, his mind bending rather to pagan than to
Christian Ireland. Traces of Cormac's banqueting hall were pointed out
to him, and he imagined what this great hall, built entirely of wood
and hung about with skins, must have been. He was shown the Rath of
Kings and the Rath of Grania. Her name brought to his mind her flight
with Diarmuid and how when they had had to cross a stream and her legs
were wetted, she had said to Diarmuid, who would not break his oath to
Finn, "Diarmuid, you are a great warrior, but this water is braver than
you!" "Perhaps this very stream!" he said, looking towards a stream
that flowed from the well of Neamhtach or Pearly. But he was told it
was this stream that had turned the first water mill in Ireland and
that Cormac had put up the mill to save a beautiful bond-maid from
toiling at the quern.
The morning was spent in seeking the old sites, and in the afternoon he
went to the inn and found a good number of villagers in the tap-room.
He learned from them that there were cromlechs and Druid altars within
walking distance of Tara, and decided on a walking tour. He wandered
through the beautiful country, interested in Ireland's slattern life,
touched by the kindness and simplicity of the people. "Poor people," he
thought, "how touching it is to find them learning their own language,"
and he began to think out a series of articles about Ireland.
"They talk of Cuchulain," he said, "but they prefer an Archbishop, and
at every turn in their lives they are paying the priest. The title of
my book shall be 'A Western Thibet,' an excellent title for my book!"
and leaning on a gate and looking across a hay-field, he saw the ends
of chapters.
Now that he had a book to write, his return to America was postponed; a
postponement was to Ned an indefinite period, and he was glad he was
not returning to America till the spring, for he had found pleasant
rooms in a farm-house. He would make them his head-quarters; for it was
only by living in a farm-house he could learn the life of the people
and its real mind. And he would have written his book just as he had
planned it if he had not met Ellen Cronin.
She was the only daughter of a rich farmer in the neighbourhood. He had
heard so much about her learning and her pretty face that he was
disposed to dispute her good looks; but in spite of his landlady's
praise he had liked her pretty oval face. "Her face is pretty when you
look at it," he said to his landlady. But this admission did not
satisfy her. "Well, enthusiasm is pleasant," he thought, and he
listened to her rambling talk.
"She used to like to come to tea here, and after her tea she and my son
James, who was the same age, used to make paper boats under the
alder-trees."
And the picture of Ellen making boats under alder-trees pleased Ned's
fancy, and he encouraged the land-lady to tell him more about her. She
told him that Ellen had not taken to study till she was twelve and that
it was the priest who had set her reading books and had taught her
Latin.
Ned lay back in his chair smiling, listening to the landlady telling
him about Ellen. She had chosen her own school. She had inquired into
the matter, and had taken her father into her confidence one day by
telling him of the advantages of this school. But this part of the
story did not please Ned, and he said he did not like her a bit better
for having chosen her own school. Nor did he like her better because
her mistress had written to her father to say she had learned all that
she could learn in Ireland. He liked her for her love of Ireland and
her opposition to her father's ideas. Old Cronin thought Ireland a
miserable country and England the finest in the world, whereas Ellen
thought only of Irish things, and she had preferred the Dublin
University to Oxford or Cambridge. He was told that her university
career had been no less brilliant than her school career, and he raised
his eyebrows when the landlady said that Miss Ellen used to have her
professors staying at Mount Laurel, and that they used to talk Latin in
the garden.
But she was long ago done with the professors, and Ned asked the
landlady to tell him what change had come over the mind of this
somewhat pedantic young woman. And he was told that Ellen had abandoned
her studies and professors for politics and politicians, and that these
were a great trial to her father, into whose house no Nationalist
member of Parliament had ever put his foot before. "Now the very men
that Mr. Cronin used to speak of as men who were throwing stones at the
police three years ago are dining with him to-day." And worse than her
political opinions, according to Mr. Cronin, was her resolution to
speak the language of her own country. "When he had heard her talking
it to a boy she had up from the country to teach her, Mr. Cronin stuck
both his hands into his stubbly hair and rushed out of the house like a
wild man."
It was pleasant to listen to the landlady's babble about the Cronins,
for he was going to spend the evening with them; he had been introduced
to her father, a tall, thin, taciturn man, who had somewhat gruffly,
but not unkindly, asked him to come to spend the evening with them,
saying that some friends were coming in, and there would be some music.
Ned's life had been lived in newspaper offices, in theatres, circuses,
and camps. He knew very little of society--nothing at all of European
society--and was curious to see what an Irish country-house was like.
The Cronins lived in a dim, red brick, eighteenth-century house. It
stood in the middle of a large park, and the park was surrounded by old
grey walls and Ned liked to lean on these walls, for in places they had
crumbled, and admire the bracken in the hollows and the wind-blown
hawthorn-trees growing on the other side of the long, winding drive. He
had long wished to walk in the park and now he was there. The hawthorns
were in bloom and the cuckoo was calling. The sky was dark overhead,
but there was light above the trees, and long herds of cattle wandered
and life seemed to Ned extraordinarily lovely and desirable at that
moment. "I wonder what her dreams are? Winter and summer she looks at
these mysterious hollows and these abundant hawthorn groves."
The young lady had been pointed out to him as she went by, and he was
impatient to be introduced to Ellen, but she was talking to some
friends near the window, and she did not see him. He liked her white
dress, there were pearls round her neck, and her red hair was pinned up
with a tortoise-shell comb. She and her friends were looking over a
photograph album, and Ned was left with Mr. Cronin to talk to him as
best he could; for it was difficult to talk to this hard, grizzled man,
knowing nothing about the war in Cuba nor evincing any interest in
America. When Ned asked him about Ireland he answered in short
sentences, which brought the conversation to abrupt closes. America
having failed to draw him out, and Ireland, Ned began to talk of his
landlady. But it was not until he related the conversation he had had
with her that evening about Miss Cronin that the old farmer began to
talk a little. Ned could see he was proud of his daughter; he regretted
that she had not gone to Oxford, and said she would have carried all
before her if she had gone there. Ned could see that what his landlady
had told him was true--that old Cronin thought very little of Ireland.
He hoped to get three minutes' conversation, at least, out of Girton,
but the old farmer seemed to have said everything he had to say on the
subject. The conversation failed again, and Ned was forced to speak to
him of the interest that Miss Cronin took in the Irish language and her
desire to speak it. At the mention of the Irish language, the old man
grew gruffer, and remembering that the landlady had said that Miss
Cronin was very religious, Ned spoke of the priests--there were two in
the room--and he asked Mr. Cronin which of them had encouraged Miss
Cronin to learn Irish. He had never heard the language spoken, and
would like to hear it.
"I believe, Mr. Cronin, it was Father Egan who taught your daughter
Latin?"
"It was so," said Mr. Cronin; "but he might have left the Irish alone,
and politics, too. We keep them as fat as little bonhams, and they
ought to be satisfied with that."
Ned did not know what were little bonhams, and pretended a great
interest when he was told that bonham was the Irish for sucking pig,
and glancing at the priests he noticed that they were fat indeed, and
he said, "There is nothing like faith for fattening. It is better than
any oil-cake."
Mr. Cronin gave a grunt and Ned thought he was going to laugh at this
sally, but he suddenly moved away, and Ned wondered what had happened.
It was Ellen who had crossed the room to speak to her father, and Ned
could see that she had heard his remark, and he could see that the
remark had angered her, that she thought it in bad taste. He prepared
quickly a winning speech which would turn the edge of her indignation,
but before he had time to speak the expression of her face changed and
a look of pleasure passed into it; he could see that the girl liked
him, and he hastened to tell her that his landlady had told him about
the paper boats and the alder-trees. And Ellen began to speak about the
landlady, saying she was a very good, kind woman, and she wanted to
know if Ned were comfortable at the farm-house. But she seemed to have
some difficulty in speaking, and then, as if moved by some mysterious
influence, they walked across the room towards the window and sat under
the shadow of the red damask curtains. A gentle breeze was blowing and
the curtains filled with it and sank back with a mysterious rustle. And
beyond them the garden lay dark and huddled in the shadows of great
trees. He heard her say she was sorry that James, the landlady's son,
had gone to America, and then they spoke of the forty thousand that
were leaving Ireland every year. It was Ned who continued the
conversation, but he could see that what he said hardly entered her
ears at all. Yet she heard his voice in her heart, and he, too, heard
her voice in his heart, and several times she felt she could not go on
talking, and once she nearly lost consciousness and must have swayed a
little, for he put out his hand to save her.
They went into the garden and walked about in the dusk. He told her
about the war in Cuba and about the impulse which had brought him back
to Ireland, and his tale seemed to her the most momentous thing she had
ever heard. She listened to his first impressions about Tara, and every
moment it seemed to her that she was about to hear a great secret, a
secret that had been troubling her a long while; every moment she
expected to hear him speak it, and she almost cried when her father
came to ask Ned if he would play for them.
Ellen was not a musician, and another woman would have to accompany
him. He was tall and thin and his hands were manly. She could hardly
look at his hands without shuddering, so beautiful were they when they
played the violin; and that night music said something more to her than
it had ever said before. She heard again the sounds of birds and
insects, and she saw again the gloom of the trees, and she felt again
and more intensely the overpowering ecstasy, and she yielded herself
utterly and without knowing why. When he finished playing he came to
her and sat by her, and everything she said seemed to fall from her
lips involuntarily. She seemed to have lost herself utterly, she seemed
to have become a fluid, she yielded herself like a fluid; it was like
dying: for she seemed to pass out of herself to become absorbed in the
night. How the time past she knew not, and when her guests came to bid
her good-bye she hardly saw them, and listened to their leave-taking
with a little odd smile on her lips, and when everyone was gone she
bade her father good-night absent-mindedly, fearing, however, that he
would speak to her about Ned. But he only said good-night, and she went
up the wide staircase conscious that the summer night was within the
house and without it; that it lay upon the world, a burden sweet and
still, like happiness upon the heart.
She opened her window, and sat there hoping that something would come
out of the night and whisper in her ear the secret that tormented her.
The stars knew! If she could only read them! She felt she was feeling a
little more than she was capable of understanding. The ecstasy grew
deeper, and she waited for the revelation. But none came, and feeling a
little ashamed she got up to close the window, and it was then that the
revelation broke in her mind. She had met the man who was to lead the
Irish people! They wanted a new leader, a leader with a new idea; the
new leader must come from the outside, and he had come to them from
America, and her emotion was so great that she would have liked to have
awakened her father. She would have liked to have gone into the country
waking the people up in the cottages, telling them that the leader had
come. She stood entranced, remembering all he had said to her. He had
told her he had been moved to return to Ireland after the war in Cuba,
and she had not understood. The word married passed through her mind
before she could stay it. But she was necessary to this man, of this
she was sure; the Voice had told her. She was feeling more than she
could understand, and she lay down in her bed certain that she had
accomplished the first stage of her journey.
And just then Ned was leaning on the garden gate. The summer night was
sweet and still, and he wanted to think of this girl who had come so
suddenly into his life. The idea of marriage flitted across his mind as
it had flitted across hers, and he tried to remember the exact moment
in Cuba when the wish to see Ireland had come into his mind. To believe
in fate and predestination is an easy way out of life's labyrinth, and
if one does not believe in something of the kind the figures will not
come right. How did he know that he had not met this girl for some
unknown purpose. He could see a great white star through a vista in the
trees, and he said: "I believe that that star knows. Why will it not
tell me?"
And then he walked into the woods, and out under the moon, between the
little grey fields. Some sheep had come out on the road and were lying
upon it. "I suppose it's all very natural," he said. "The circus
aspiring to the academy and the academy spying to the circus. Now, what
am I going to do to-morrow? I suppose I must go to see her."
He had visited all the ruins and pondered by all the cromlechs, and was
a little weary of historic remains; the girl was too much in his mind
to permit of his doing much writing. He might go to Dublin, where he
had business, and in the morning he looked out the trains, but none
seemed to suit his convenience, and at five o'clock he was at Laurel
Hill listening to Ellen. She was anxious to talk to him about the
political opportunity he could seize if he were so minded.
"Men have always believed in fate," Ned said, and, interrupting him
suddenly she asked him if he would come to see a pretty house in the
neighbourhood--a house that would suit him perfectly, for he must have
a house if he intended to go in for politics.
They came back in the dusk, talking of painting and papering and the
laying out of the garden. Ellen was anxious that the garden should be
nice, and he had been much interested in the old family furniture at
Laurel Hill, not with the spindle-legged Sheraton sideboard, but with
the big Victorian furniture which the Cronins thought ugly. He liked
especially the black mahogany sideboard in the dining-room, and he was
enthusiastic about the four-post bed that Mr. Cronin had slept in for
thirty years without ever thinking it was a beautiful thing. This
massive furniture represented a life that Ned perceived for the first
time, a sedate monotonous life; and he could see these people
accomplishing the same tasks from daylight to dark; he admired the
well-defined circle of their interests and the calm security with which
they spoke of the same things every evening, deepening the tradition of
their country and of their own characters; and he conceived a sudden
passion for tradition, and felt he would like to settle down in these
grass lands in an eighteenth-century house, living always amid heavy
mahogany furniture, sleeping every night in a mahogany four-post bed:
and he could not help thinking that if he did not get the mahogany
four-post bed with the carved top, perhaps he would not care to marry
Ellen at all.
The next time he saw her their talk turned upon the house she had found
for him, and she said if he did not take it he would certainly go back
to America in the spring. She forgot herself a little; her father had
to check her, and Ned returned home sure in his mind that she would
marry him--if he asked her. And the next day he chose a pair of
trousers that he thought becoming--they were cut wide in the leg and
narrow over the instep. He looked out for a cravat that she had not
seen him wear, and he chose the largest, and he put on his braided
coat. He could not see that his moustache was not in keeping with his
clothes: he had often intended to shave it, but to-day was not the day
for shaving. She had liked his moustache, and he thought it would be a
pity she should not enjoy it, however reprehensible her taste for it
might be. And he pondered his side-whiskers, remembering they were in
keeping with his costume (larger whiskers would be still more in
keeping), and amused by his own fantastic notions, he thought he was
beginning to look like the gentleman of seventy or eighty years ago
that he had seen in varnished maplewood frames in the drawing-room at
the Cronins'. His trousers were of a later period, but they were,
nevertheless, contemporaneous with the period of the mahogany
sideboard, and that was what he liked best.
Suddenly he stopped, remembering that he had never wished to be
married, because he never thought that he could love the same woman
always, and now he asked himself if Ellen were an exception, and if he
had been led back to Ireland to marry her. He had grown tired of women
before, but it seemed to him that he never could grow tired of her.
That remained to be seen; the one certain thing was that he was going
to propose to her.
He was told she was in the garden, and he was glad to dispense with the
servant's assistance; he would find his way there himself, and, after
some searching, he found the wicket. The thing itself and its name
pleased him. When he had a garden he would have a wicket. He had
already begun to associate Ellen with her garden. She was never so much
herself as when attending her flowers, and to please her he had
affected an interest in them, but when he had said that the flowers
were beautiful his eyes went to the garden walls and Ellen had seen
that they had interested him more than the flowers. He had said that
the buttresses were of no use; they had been built because in those
days people took a pleasure in making life seem permanent. The
buttresses had enabled him to admire the roses planted between them,
and he had grown enthusiastic; but she had laughed at his enthusiasm,
seeing quite clearly that he admired the flowers because they enhanced
the beauty of the walls.
At the end of the garden there was a view of the Dublin mountains, and
the long walk that divided the garden had been designed in order to
draw attention to them. The contrast between the wild mountain and the
homely primness of the garden appealed to his sense of the picturesque;
and even now though the fate of his life was to be decided in a few
minutes he could not but stay to admire the mysterious crests and
hollows. In this faint day the mountains seemed more like living
things, more mysterious and moving, than he had even seen them before,
and he would have stood looking at them for a long while if he had not
had to find Ellen. She was at the furthest end of the garden, where he
had never been, beyond the rosary, beyond the grass-plot, and she was
walking up and down. She seemed to have a fishing-net in her hand. But
how could she be fishing in her garden? Ned did not know that there was
a stream at the end of it; for the place had once belonged to monks,
and they knew how to look after their bodily welfare and had turned the
place into a trout preserve. But when Mr. Cronin had bought the
property the garden was waste and the stream overgrown with willow-weed
and meadow-sweet and every kind of brier. And it was Ellen who had
discovered that the bottom of the stream was flagged and she had five
feet of mud taken out of it, and now the stream was as bright and clear
as in the time of the monks, and as full of trout. She had just caught
two which lay on the grass panting, their speckled bellies heaving
painfully.
"There is a great big trout here," Ellen said, "he must be a pound
weight, and we tried to catch him all last season, but he is very
cunning, he dives and gets under the net."
"I think we shall be able to catch him," said Ned, "if he is in the
stream and if I could get another net."
"The gardener will give you one."
And presently Ned came back with a net, and they beat up the stream
from different ends, Ellen taking the side next the wall. There was a
path there nearly free from briers, and she held her light summer dress
round her tightly. Ned thought he had never seen anyone so prettily
dressed. She wore a striped muslin variegated with pink flowers; there
were black bows in her hat and black ribbon was run down the bottom of
her dress; she looked very pretty against the old wall touched here and
there with ivy. And the grace of her movement enchanted Ned when she
leaned forward and prevented the trout from escaping up the stream. But
Ned's side of the stream was overgrown with briers and he could not
make his way through them. Once he very nearly slipped into the stream,
and only saved himself by catching some prickly briers, and Ellen had
to come over to take the thorns out of his hand. Then they resumed
their fishing, hunting the trout up and down the stream. But the trout
had been hunted so often that he knew how to escape the nets, and dived
at the right moment. At last wearied out he let Ned drive him against
the bank. Ellen feared he would jump out of the net at the last moment,
but he was tired and they landed him safely.
And proud of having caught him they sat down beside him on the grass
and Ellen said that the gardener and the gardener's boy had tried to
catch him many times; that whenever they had company to dinner her
father said it was a pity they had not the big trout on the table.
The fishing had been great fun, principally on account of Ellen's
figure, which Ned admired greatly, and now he admired her profile, its
gravity appealed to him, and her attitude full of meditation. He
watched her touching the gasping trout with the point of her parasol.
She had drawn one leg under her. Her eyes were small and grey and
gem-like, and there was a sweet look of interrogation in them now and
then.
"I like it, this lustreless day," said Ned, "and those swallows
pursuing their food up and down the lustreless sky. It all seems like a
fairy-tale, this catching of the fish, you and I. The day so dim," he
said, "so quiet and low, and the garden is hushed. These things would
be nothing to me were it not for you," and he put his hand upon her
knee.
She withdrew her knee quickly and a moment after got up, and Ned got up
and followed her across the grass-plot, and through the rosary; not a
word was said and she began to wonder he did not plead to be forgiven.
She felt she should send him away, but she could not find words to tell
him to go. His conduct was so unprecedented; no one had ever taken such
a liberty before. It was shameful that she was not more angry, for she
knew she was only trying to feel angry.
"But," he said, suddenly, as if he divined her thoughts, "we've
forgotten the fish; won't you come back and help me to carry them? I
cannot carry three trout by myself."
She was about to answer severely, but as she stood looking at him her
thoughts yielded before an extraordinary feeling of delight; she tried
in vain to collect her scattered mind--she wished to reproach him.
"Are you going to answer me, Ellen?" and he took her hand.
"Ned, are you a Catholic?" she said, turning suddenly.
"I was born one, but I have thought little about religion. I have had
other things to think about. What does it matter? Religion doesn't help
us to love one another."
"I should like you better if you were a good Catholic."
"I wonder how that is?" he said, and he admired the round hand and its
pretty articulations, and she closed her hand on his with a delicious
movement.
"I could like you better, Ned, if you were a Catholic.... I think I
could."
"What has my being a good Catholic got to do with your love of me?"
And he watched the small and somewhat severe profile looking across the
old grey wall into the flat grey sky.
"I did not say I loved you," she said, almost angrily; "but if I did
love you," she said, looking at him tenderly, "and you were religious,
I should be loving something eternal. You don't understand what I mean?
What I am saying to you must seem like nonsense."
"No, it doesn't, Ellen, only I am content with the reality. I can love
you without wings."
He watched for the look of annoyance in her face that he knew his words
would provoke, but her face was turned away.
"I like you, but I am afraid of you. It is a very strange feeling. You
ran away with a circus and you let the lion die and you went to fight
in Cuba. You have loved other women, and I have never loved anyone. I
never cared for a man until I saw you, until I looked up from the
album."
"I understand very well, Ellen; I knew something was going to happen to
me in Ireland."
She turned; he was glad to see her full face again. Her eyes were fixed
upon him, but she saw through him, and jealous of her thought he drew
her towards him.
"Let us go into the arbour," he said. "I have never been into the
arbour of clipped limes with you."
"Why do you want to go into the arbour?"
"I want to kiss you.... The gardener can see us now; a moment ago he
was behind the Jerusalem artichokes."
"I hadn't noticed the gardener; I hadn't thought about him."
She had persuaded herself before she went into the arbour, and coming
out of the arbour she said:--
"I don't think father will raise any objection."
"But you will speak to him. Hello! we're forgetting the fish, and it
was the fish that brought all this about. Was it to bring this about
that they lived or are to be eaten to-night at dinner?"
"Ned, you take a strange pleasure in making life seem wicked."
"I'm sorry I've been so unsuccessful, but will you ask you father to
invite me, Ellen? and I'll try and make life seem nice--and the trout
will try too."
Ellen did not know whether she liked or disliked Ned's levity, but when
she looked at him an overpowering emotion clouded her comprehension and
she walked in silence, thinking of when he would kiss her again. At the
end of the walk she stopped to bind up a carnation that had fallen from
its stake.
"Father will be wondering what has become of us."
"I think," said Ned, and his own cowardice amused him, "I think you had
better tell your father yourself. You will tell him much better than I."
"And what will you do?" she said, turning suddenly and looking at him
with fervid eyes. "Will you wait here for me?"
"No, I will go home, and do you come and fetch me--and don't forget to
tell him I caught the trout and have earned an invitation to dinner."
His irresponsibility enchanted her in spite of herself--Ned had judged
the situation rightly when he said: "It is the circus aspiring to the
academy and the academy spying the circus." His epigram occurred to him
as he walked home and it amused him, and he thought of how unexpected
their lives would be, and he hummed beautiful music as he went along
the roads, Schumann's Lotus Flower and The Moonlight. Then he recalled
the beautiful duet, Siegmund's and Sieglinde's May Time, and turning
from sublimity suddenly into triviality he chanted the somewhat common
but expressive duet in Mireille, and the superficiality of its emotion
pleased him at the moment and he hummed it until he arrived at the
farm-house.
Mrs. Grattan could tell his coming from afar, for no one in the country
whistled so beautifully as Mr. Carmady, she said, "every note is clear
and distinct; and it does not matter how many there are in the tune he
will not let one escape him and there is always a pleasant look in his
face when you open the door to him;" and she ran to the door.
"Mrs. Grattan, won't you get me a cup of tea?" And then he felt he must
talk to some one. "You needn't bring it upstairs, I will take it in the
kitchen if you'll let me."
Mrs. Grattan had a beautiful kitchen. It had an old dresser with a
carved top and a grandfather's clock, and Ned liked to sit on the table
and watch the stove. She poured him out a cup of tea and he drank it,
swinging his legs all the time.
"Well, Mrs. Grattan, I'll tell you some news--I think I am going to
marry Miss Cronin."
"Well," said she, "it doesn't astonish me," but she nearly let the
teapot drop. "From the first day you came here I always thought
something was going to happen to you."
He had no sooner told her the news than he began to regret he had told
her, and he said that Miss Cronin had gone to her father to ask his
consent. Of course, if he did not give it, there would be no marriage.
"But he will give it. Miss Ellen does exactly as she likes with him,
and it's a fine fortune you will be having with her."
"It isn't of that I am thinking," said Ned, "but of her red hair."
"And you wouldn't believe me when I said that she was the prettiest
girl in the country. Now you will see for yourself."
Ned hadn't finished his tea when there was a knock at the door.
"And how do you do, Miss Ellen?" said Mrs. Grattan, and Ellen guessed
from her manner that Ned had told her.
"Well, Mrs. Grattan, I am glad that you are the first person to bear
the news to. I have just asked my father's consent and he has given it.
I am going to marry Mr. Carmady."
Mrs. Grattan was sorry there was no cake on the table, but there was
some buttered toast in the oven; and Ellen reminded her of the paper
boats and the alder-trees, and they spoke for a long time about her son
James and about people that Ned knew nothing of, until Ned began to
feel bored and went to the window. Every now and again he heard a word
referring to their marriage, and when the women had done their talk,
Ellen said:--
"Father says you are to come back to dinner."
"Mrs. Grattan," said Ned, "we caught three trout this afternoon," and
Ellen wondered why Ned should take so much trouble to explain the tale
of their fishing, she was intending to talk to them of their honeymoon.
"I was thinking, Ned, that as our love began in a love of Ireland, we
might go for a tour round Ireland, and see the places that Ireland
loves best."
She was eager for a change of scene and a few weeks later they began
their wanderings. The first place they visited was Tara, and, standing
on the Mound of the Hostages, Ellen pointed out the Rath of Crania. All
over Ireland there are cromlechs, and the people point to those as the
places where the lovers had rested in their flight. Grania became one
of Ned's heroines, and he spoke so much of her that Ellen grew a little
jealous. They talked of her under the ruins of Dun Angus and under the
arches of Cormac's Chapel, the last and most beautiful piece of Irish
architecture.
"We were getting on very well," Ned said, "until the English came. This
was the last thing we did and after this no more."
On another occasion he ascribed the failure of the Irish in art and
literature to the fact that they had always loved the next world, and
that the beautiful world under their feet had been neglected or given
over to priests. "I hope, Ned," said she, "that you will soon be at the
head of affairs."
He took her hand and they wandered on amid the ruins, saying that as
soon as their honeymoon was over they were going to live in a pretty
house at the foot of the Dublin mountains.
Her father had offered to make her an allowance, but she preferred a
lump sum, and this lump sum of many thousands of pounds had been
invested in foreign securities, for Ellen wished that Ned should be
free to advocate whatever policy he judged best for Ireland.
"My dear, shall we buy this table?"
And while the price and the marquetry were discussed she remembered
suddenly that a most experienced electioneering agent was coming to
dinner.
"I wish you hadn't asked him," said Ned; "I looked forward to spending
the evening with you," and he watched happiness flash into her eyes.
"There are plenty of evenings before us, and I hope you won't be tired
of spending them with me."
He said he never wished for better company, and they strolled on
through the show-rooms.
Turning from some tapestried curtains, he told her he was weary of the
life of the camp. One night in Cuba they had crossed a mountain by a
bridle-path. At the top of the mountain they had come to a ledge of
rock three feet high and had to leap their horses one by one up this
ledge, and the enemy might have attacked them at any moment. And this
incident was typical of what his life had been for the last few years.
It had been a skein of adventure, and now his wife was his adventure.
Flowers stood in pretty vases on his table in the summer-time and
around the room were his books, and on the table his pens and paper.
The dining-room was always a little surprise, so profusely was the
table covered with silver. There were beautiful dinner and dessert
services to look at; the servants were well trained, they moved about
the table quickly--in a word, his home was full of grace and beauty.
Lately he had been a great deal from home and had come to look on Ellen
as a delicious recompense for the fatigue of a week's electioneering in
the West. The little train journey from Dublin was an extraordinary
excitement, the passing of the stations one by one, the discovery of
his wife on the platform, and walking home through the bright evening,
telling how his speech had been received.
Ellen always took Ned round the garden before they went into dinner,
and after dinner he went to the piano; he loved his music as she loved
her garden. She would listen to him for a while, pleased to find that
she liked music. But she would steal away to her garden in a little
while and he would go on playing for a long while before he would
notice her absence; then he would follow her.
"There were no late frosts this year, and I have never seen so many
caterpillars!" she said one evening when he joined her. "See, they have
eaten this flower nearly all away."
"How bright the moon is, we can find them by the light of the moon."
Passing behind the hollyhocks she threw the snails to Ned, not liking
to tread upon them herself; Ellen was intent on freeing her flowers
from gnawing insects and Ned tried to feel interested in them, but he
liked the moonlight on the Dublin mountains far better. He could not
remember which was Honesty and which was Rockit, and the difference had
been pointed out to him many times. He liked Larkspur and Canterbury
bells, or was it their names that he loved them for? He sometimes
mistook one for the other just as Ellen mistook one sonata for another,
but she always liked the same sonatas.
"In another month the poppies will be over everything," she said, "and
my pansies are beautiful--see these beautiful yellow pansies! But you
are not looking at my garden."
They went towards their apple-tree, and Ellen said it was the largest
she had ever seen; its boughs were thickest over the seat, and shot out
straight, making as it were a little roof. The moon was now brilliant
among the boughs, and drawn by the moon they left their seat and passed
out of the garden by the wicket, for that night they wished to see the
fields with the woods sloping down to the long shores of the sea, and
they stood watching, thinking they had never seen the sea so beautiful
before. Now on the other side were the hills, and the moon led them up
the hillside, up the little path by a ruined church and over a stream
that was difficult to cross, for the stepping-stones were placed
crookedly. Ellen took Ned's hand, and a little further on there were
ash-trees and not a wind in all the boughs.
"How grey the moonlight is on the mountain," Ned said, and they went
through the furze where the cattle were lying, and the breath of the
cattle was odorous in the night like the breath of the earth itself,
and Ned said that the cattle were part of the earth; and then they sat
on a Druid stone and wondered at the chance that brought them together,
and they wondered how they could have lived if chance had not brought
them together.
Now, the stone they were sitting upon was a Druid stone, and it was
from Ellen's lips that Ned heard how Brian had conquered the Danes, and
how a century later a traitor had brought the English over; and she
told the story of Ireland's betrayal with such ferveur that Ned felt
she was the support his character required, the support he had been
looking for all his life; her self-restraint and her gravity were the
supports his character required, and these being thrown into the scale,
life stood at equipoise. The women who had preceded Ellen were strange,
fantastic women, counterparts of himself, but he had always aspired to
a grave and well-mannered woman who was never ridiculous.
She protested, saying that she wished Ned to express his own ideas. He
pleaded that he was learning Ireland from her lips and that his own
ideas about Ireland were superficial and false. Every day he was
catching up new ideas and every day he was shedding them. He must wait
until he had re-knit himself firmly to the tradition, and in talking to
her he felt that she was the tradition; he was sure that he could do no
better than accept her promptings, at least for the present.
"We shall always think the same. Do you not feel that?" and when they
returned to the house he fetched a piece of paper and pencil and begged
of her to dictate, and then begged of her to write what she would like
him to say. He said that the sight of her handwriting helped him, and
he thought his life would crumble to pieces if she were taken from him.
Ellen had always said he would be a success, and he was a success; he
had begun to feel success revolving about him; he had begun to feel
that he was the centre of things: for everyone listened when he spoke;
his opinion was sought out, and he could see the people looking towards
him for guidance. But there was a little rancour in his heart, as there
always is in a man's heart when he is not speaking his whole heart, for
not more than half of himself was engaged in the battle; he knew that
he had given over half of himself as hostage--half of himself was in
his wife's keeping--and he often wondered if it would break out of her
custody in spite of her vigilance and his vows.
He had told her that though he was no friend of the Church, he was not
an active enemy, and believed that he was speaking the truth. The fight
for free will would have to be fought in Ireland some day, and this
fight was the most vital; but he agreed with her that other fights
would have to be fought and won before the great fight could be
arranged for. The order of the present day was for lesser battles, and
he promised again and again he would not raise the religious question,
and every time he promised his wife his life seemed to vanish; the
lesser battles were necessary. It was the fight for free will that
interested him. But a politician is the man who does the day's work.
And in the autumn he agreed to go to America to speechify and to get
money for the lesser battles. It was said he was the man who could get
the money--what better man could they send than an Irish-American? An
American soldier and a journalist. These obvious remarks were on
everyone's lips, but after speaking everyone paused, for,
notwithstanding Ellen's care, Ned was suspected; the priests had begun
to suspect him, but there was no grounds for opposing him.
He himself was despondent, whereas Ellen was enthusiastic. Her
knowledge of Irish politics enabled her to see that Ned's chance had
come.
"If you succeed in America, you'll come back the first man in Ireland."
"Even so," said Ned, "it would be more natural for you to be sorry that
I am going."
"I cannot be sorry and glad at the same time."
"You will be lonely."
"Very likely; but, Ned, I shall not be looking very well for the next
two months."
"You mean on account of the baby; the next few months will be a trying
time for you; I should be with you."
They continued to walk round and round their apple-tree and Ellen did
not answer for a long while.
"I want you to go to America. I don't care that you should see me
losing my figure."
"We have spent many pleasant hours under this apple-tree."
"Yes, it has been a dear tree," she said.
"And in about six years there will be one who will appreciate this tree
as we have never appreciated it. I can see the little chap running
after the apples."
"But, Ned, it may be a girl."
"Then it will be like you, dear."
She said she would send a telegram and Ned shook the boughs, and their
apple-gathering seemed to be portentous. The sound of apples falling in
the dusk garden, a new life coming into the world! "Dear me," Ned said,
"men have gathered apples and led their fruitful wives towards the
house since the beginning of time." He said these words as he looked
over the waste of water seeing Ireland melting into grey clouds. He
turned and looked towards where the vessel was going. A new life was
about to begin and he was glad of that. "For the next three months I
shall be carried along on the tide of human affairs. In a week, in a
week;" and that evening he entered into conversation with some people
whom he thought would interest him. "It is a curious change," he said,
three weeks later, as he walked home from a restaurant; and he enjoyed
the change so much that he wondered if his love for his wife would be
the same when he returned. "Yes, that will be another change." And for
the next three months he was carried like a piece of wreckage from
hotel to hotel. "How different this life is from the life in Ireland.
Here we live in the actual moment." And he began to wonder. He had not
been thinking five minutes when a knock came to the door, and he was
handed a telegram containing two words: "A boy." He had always felt it
was going to be a boy. "Though it does cost a shilling a word they
might have let me know how she is," he thought. And he lay back in his
chair thinking of his wife--indulging in sensations of her beauty,
seeing her gem-like eyes, her pretty oval face, and her red hair
scattered about the pillow. At first he was not certain whether the
baby was lying by the side of the mother, but now he saw it, and he
thrilled with a sense of wonder. The commonest of all occurrences never
ceases to be the most wonderful, and there lay his wife and child in
the room he knew so well--the curtains with a fruit pattern upon them,
the pale wallpaper with roses climbing up a trellis, and pretty blue
ribbons intervening between each line of roses. The room was painted
white, and he knew the odour of the room well, and the sensation of the
carpet. He could see the twilight, and the bulky nurse passing to and
fro; and his thoughts went back to his child, and he began to wonder if
it were like him or like its mother. It was probably like both. His
eyes went to the clock, and he thought of the meeting he was going to.
The notes of his speech were upon the table, but he found great
difficulty in rousing himself out of his chair; it was so pleasant to
lie there, thinking of his wife, of his home, and of his child. But
into this vague wandering sensation of happy and beautiful things there
came a sudden vision and a thought. He saw his wife take the baby and
put it to her breast, and he could not bear to think that that
beautiful breast, so dear to him, should suffer harm. He had often
thought of Ellen as a beautiful marble--she was as full of exquisite
lines as any marble--and only very rarely had he thought of her as a
mother; the thought had never been entertained long, for it was never
wholly sympathetic.
Now his thoughts quickened, and it seemed urgent that he must
communicate at once with his wife. She must not suckle the baby! Only
by telegram could he reach her soon enough, but it was not possible to
telegraph such a thing. He must write, but the letter would take six
days to reach her, and he stood thinking. The post was going out: if he
wrote at once she would get his letter in a week. He was due at the
meeting in about twenty minutes; the notes of his speech still lay on
the table, and he gathered them up and put them in his pocket, and
drawing a sheet of paper towards him, he began a hurried letter. But as
soon as he dipped his pen in the ink, he experienced great difficulty
in expressing his feelings; they were intense enough, but they were
vague, and he must find reasons. He must tell her that he loved her
beauty, and that it must suffer no disfigurement from a baby's lips. No
sooner did he put his feelings into words than they shocked him, and he
knew how much more they would shock Ellen, and he wondered how he could
think such things about his own child. The truth was, there was little
time for thinking, and he had to tell Ellen what she must do. It so
happened that he had heard only the other day that goat's milk was the
exact equivalent to human, but it was often difficult to procure. "You
will find no difficulty," he said, "at the foot of the Dublin mountains
in procuring goat's milk." His thoughts rushed on, and he remembered
the peasant women. One could easily be found who would put her baby on
goat's milk and come and nurse his child for a few shillings--ten or
fifteen shillings a week; Ellen's beauty was worth a great deal more.
The hands of the clock went on, he had to close his letter and post it;
and no sooner was it posted than he was beset by qualms of conscience.
During the meeting he wondered what Ellen would think of his letter,
and he feared it would shock her and trouble her; for, while
considering the rights of the child, she would remember his admiration
of her.
He passed the following days uneasily, and when the seventh day came he
had no difficulty in imagining Ellen reading his letter, and the scene
he imagined was very like what really happened. His letter troubled
Ellen greatly. She had been thinking only of her baby, she had been
suckling it for several days, and it had given her pleasure to suckle
it. She had not thought of herself at all, and Ned's order that she
should pass her child on to another, and consider her personal charm
for him, troubled her even to tears; and when she told the nurse her
husband's wishes the nurse was sorry that Mrs. Carmady had been
troubled, for she was still very weak. Now the child was crying; Ellen
put it to her little cup-like breast, which was, nevertheless, full of
milk, and it was for the nurse to tell her that a foster-mother could
easily be found in the village; but this did not console her and she
cried very bitterly. The doctor called. He did not think there was
anything strange in Ned's letter. He approved of it! He said that Ellen
was delicate and had nursed her baby long enough, and it appeared that
he had been thinking of recommending a nurse to her, and he spoke of a
peasant woman he had just seen. He spoke with so much assurance that
Ellen was soothed, but he had not left her very long before she felt
that medical opinion would not satisfy her, that she must have
theological opinion as well, and she wrote a letter to Father Brennan
asking him to come down to see her, mentioning that she had had a baby
and could not go to see him. It would be a great relief to her to see
him for a few minutes, and if he would come at once she would consider
it a great favour. If it were possible for him to come down that very
afternoon she would be deeply grateful. She wished to consult him, and
on a matter on which she felt very deeply, and nothing, she said, but a
priest's advice could allay her scruples.
The nurse gave her a sheet of paper and a pencil, and she scribbled a
letter as best she could in her bed, and lay back fatigued. The nurse
said she must not fret, that Father Brennan would be sure to come to
her at once if he were at home, and Ellen knew that that was so; and
she felt that she was peevish, but she felt that Ned ought not to have
written her that letter.
The hours that afternoon were very long and she restless and weary of
them, and she asked the nurse many times to go to the window to see if
Father Brennan were coming. At last he came, and she told him of the
letter she had received, not wishing to show him the letter, for it was
somewhat extravagant, and she did not like a priest to read Ned's
praise of her body. She was anxious, however, to give him a true
account of the letter, and she would have talked a long while if the
priest had not stopped her, saying the matter was one for the doctor to
decide. The Church had never expressed any views on the subject:
whether a mother was justified in nursing her child or in passing it
over to a foster-mother. It was entirely a question for the doctor, and
if the doctor advised such a course she would be wrong not to follow
it. Ellen felt that she had been misunderstood, and she tried to tell
the priest that Ned's letter had been inspired by his admiration of
her, and that this seemed to her selfish. She wondered how a father
could consider his wife before the child, but when she said this she
did not feel she was speaking quite sincerely, and this troubled her;
she was on the verge of tears, and the nurse came in and said she had
spoken enough that afternoon, and the priest bade her good-by. The
doctor came in soon after; there was some whispering, and Ellen knew
that the woman he had brought with him was the foster-mother, and the
baby was taken from her, and she saw it fix its gluttonous little lips
on the foster-mother's breast.
Now that the priest had ordered her conscience, she got well rapidly,
and it was a pleasure to her to prepare herself for her husband's
admiration. The nurse thought he would perceive no difference in her,
but when they put on her stays it was quite clear that she had grown
stouter, and she cried out, "I'm quite a little mother!" But the nurse
said her figure would come back all right. Ned's return had been
delayed, and this she regarded as fortunate, for there was no doubt
that in a month she would be able to meet him, slight and graceful as
she had ever been.
As soon as she was able she went for long walks on the hills, and every
day she improved in health and in figure; and when she read Ned's
letter saying he would be in Cork in a few days she felt certain he
would see no change in her. She opened her dress and could discern no
difference; perhaps a slight wave in the breast's line; she was not
quite sure and she hoped Ned would not notice it. And she chose a white
dress. Ned liked her in white, and she tied it with a blue sash; she
put on a white hat trimmed with china roses, and the last look
convinced her that she had never looked prettier.
"I never wore so becoming a hat," she said. She walked slowly so as not
to be out of breath, and, swinging her white parasol over the tops of
her tan boots, she stood at the end of the platform waiting for the
train to come up.
"I had expected to see you pale," he said, "and perhaps a little
stouter, but you are the same, the very same." And saying that he would
be able to talk to her better if he were free from his bag, he gave it
to a boy to carry. And they strolled down the warm, dusty road.
They lived about a mile and a half from the station, and there were
great trees and old crumbling walls, and, beyond the walls, water
meadows, and it was pleasant to look over the walls and watch the
cattle grazing peacefully. And to-day the fields were so pleasant that
Ned and Ellen could hardly speak from the pleasure of looking at them.
"You've seen nothing more beautiful in America, have you, Ned?"
There was so much to say it was difficult to know where to begin, and
it was delicious to be stopped by the scent of the honeysuckle. Ned
gathered some blossoms to put into his wife's dress, but while admiring
her dress and her hat and her pretty red hair he remembered the letter
he had written to her in answer to her telegram.
"I've had many qualms about the letter I wrote you in answer to your
telegram. After all, a child's right upon the mother is the first right
of all. I wrote the letter in a hurry, and hardly knew what I was
saying."
"We got an excellent nurse, Ned, and the boy is doing very well."
"So you said in your letters. But after posting my letter I said to
myself: if it causes me trouble, how much more will it cause her?"
"Your letter did trouble me, Ned. I was feeling very weak that morning
and the baby was crying for me, for I had been nursing him for a week.
I did not know what to do. I was torn both ways, so I sent up a note to
Father Brennan asking him to come to see me, and he came down and told
me that I was quite free to give my baby to a foster-mother."
"But what does Father Brennan know about it more than anyone of us?"
"The sanction of the Church, Ned--"
"The sanction of the Church! What childish nonsense is this?" he said.
"The authority of a priest. So it was not for me, but because a
priest--"
"But, Ned, there must be a code of morality, and these men devote their
lives to thinking out one for us."
He could see that she was looking more charming than she had ever
looked before, but her beauty could not crush the anger out of him; and
she never seemed further from him, not even when the Atlantic divided
them.
"Those men devote their lives to thinking out a code of morality for
us! You submit your soul to their keeping. And what remains of you when
you have given over your soul?"
"But, Ned, why this outbreak? You knew I was a Catholic when you
married me."
"Yes, ... of course, and I'm sorry, Ellen, for losing my temper. But it
is only in Ireland that women submit themselves body and soul. It is
extraordinary; it is beyond human reason."
They walked on in silence, and Ned tried to forget that his wife was a
Catholic. Her religion did not prevent her from wearing a white dress
and a hat with roses in it.
"Shall I go up-stairs to see the baby, or will you bring him down?"
"I'll bring him down."
And it was a great lump of white flesh with blue eyes and a little red
down on its head that she carried in her arms.
"And now, Ned, forget the priest and admire your boy."
"He seems a beautiful boy, so healthy and sleepy."
"I took him out of his bed, but he never cries. Nurse said she never
heard of a baby that did not cry. Do you know I'm sometimes tempted to
pinch him to see if he can cry."
She sat absorbed looking at the baby; and she was so beautiful and so
intensely real at that moment that Ned began to forget that she had
given the child out to nurse because the priest had told her that she
might do so without sin.
"I called him after you, Ned. It was Father Stafford who baptised him."
"So he has been baptised!"
"He was not three days old when he was baptised."
"Of course. He could not have gone to heaven if he had not been
baptised."
"Ned, I don't think it kind of you to say these things to me. You never
used to say them."
"I am sorry, Ellen; I'll say no more, and I'm glad it was Father
Stafford who baptised him. He is the most sensible priest we have. If
all the clergy were like him I should find it easier to believe."
"But religion has nothing to do with the clergy. It is quite possible
to think the clergy foolish and yet to believe that the religion is the
true one."
"I like the clergy far better than their religion, and believe them to
be worthy of a better one. I like Father Stafford, and you like having
a priest to dinner. Let us ask him."
"I'm afraid, Ned, that Father Stafford is getting old. He rarely leaves
the house now and Father Maguire does all the work of the parish."
She liked clerical gossip; the church was finished, and how Biddy heard
the saints singing in the window made a fine tale.
"So now we have a local saint."
"Yes, and miracles!"
"But do you believe in miracles?"
"I don't know. I shouldn't like to say. One is not obliged to believe
in them."
"I'm sure you would enjoy believing in Biddy."
"Oh, Ned, how aggressive you are, and the very day you come back."
But why hadn't she asked him about America and about his speeches? He
had looked forward to telling her about them. She seemed to care
nothing about them; even when she spoke about them after dinner, he
could see that she was not as much interested in politics as she used
to be. However, she wore a white dress and black stockings; her red
hair was charmingly pinned up with a tortoise-shell comb, and taking
her upon his knee he thought it would be well to please himself with
her as she was and forget what she was not.
Next morning when he picked up the newspaper and the daily instalment
of a cardinal's tour through Ireland caught his eye, he remembered that
Ellen had sent for a theologian.... His eyes went down the columns of
the newspaper and he said, "All the old flummery. Ireland's fidelity to
her religion, etc., her devotion to Rome, etc.,--to everything," he
said, "except herself. Propagations of the faith, exhortations to do as
our ancestors had done, to do everything except make life joyous and
triumphant." Looking across the page his eye was caught by the
headline, "Profession of Irish Nuns in France." Further on in large
letters, "Killmessan Cathedral: Bazaar." And these items of news were
followed by a letter from a Bishop. "What a lot of Bishops!" he said.
He read of "worthy" parish priests, and a little further on of
"brilliant" young clergymen, and at every meeting the chair was taken
by the "worthy" or by the "good" parish priest.
"Well," he said, "if the newspaper reflects the mind of the people
there is no hope."
And he heard daily of new churches and new convents and the acquisition
of property by the clergy. He heard tales of esuriency and avarice, and
the persecution of the dancing-girl and the piper.
"The clergy," he said, "are swallowing up the country," and he looked
for some means whereby he might save the Gael.
About this time an outcry was made against the ugliness of modern
ecclesiastical architecture, and a number of enthusiasts were writing
to the newspapers proposing a revival of Irish romanesque; they
instanced Cormac's Chapel as the model that should be followed. Ned
joined in the outcry that no more stained glass should be imported from
Birmingham, and wrote to the newspapers many times that good sculpture
and good painting and good glass were more likely to produce a
religious fervour than bad. His purpose was to point a finger of scorn
at the churches, and he hoped to plead a little later that there were
too many churches, and that no more should be built until the
population had begun to increase again. He looked forward to the time
when he would be able to say right out that the Gael had spent enough
of money on his soul, and should spend what remained to him on his
body. He looked forward to the time when he should tell the Gael that
his soul was his greatest expense, but the time was far off when he
could speak plainly.
The clergy were prepared to admit that German glass was not necessary
for their successful mediation, but they were stubborn when Ned asked
them to agree that no more churches were necessary. They were not moved
by the argument that the population was declining and would not admit
that there were too many churches or even that there were churches
enough. The ecclesiastical mind is a subtle one and it knows that when
men cease to build churches they cease to be religious. The instinct of
the clergy was against Ned, but they had to make concessions, for the
country was awakening to its danger, and Ned began to think that all
its remaining energies were being concentrated in an effort to escape.
Long years ago in America he had watched a small snake trying to
swallow a frog. The snake sucked down the frog, and the frog seemed to
acquiesce until the half of his body was down the snake's gullet, and
then the frog bestirred himself and succeeded in escaping. The snake
rested awhile and the next day he renewed his attack. At last the day
came when the weary frog delayed too long and Ned watched him disappear
down the snake's gullet.
A good deal of Ireland was down the clerical throat and all would go
down if Ireland did not bestir herself. Ireland was weakening daily,
and every part of her that disappeared made it more difficult for her
to extricate herself. Ned remembered that life and death, sickness and
health, success and failure, are merely questions of balance. A nation
is successful when its forces are at balance, and nations rise and fall
because the centre of gravity shifts. A single Spaniard is as good as a
single German, but the centre of gravity is in Spain no longer.
Ned did not look upon religion as an evil; he knew religion to be
necessary; but it seemed to him that the balance had been tilted in
Ireland.
He threw himself more and more into the education of the people, and
politics became his chief interest. At last he had begun to live for
his idea, and long absence from home and long drives on outside cars
and evenings spent in inn parlours were accepted without murmurings;
these discomforts were no longer perceived, whereas when he and Ellen
used to sit over the fire composing speeches together, the thought of
them filled him with despair. He used to complain that Ellen was always
sending him away from home and to hard mutton shops and dirty bedrooms.
He reminded her no more of these discomforts. He came back and spent a
day or two with her, and went away again. She had begun to notice that
he did not seem sorry to leave, but she did not reproach him, because
he said he was working for Ireland. He tried to think the explanation a
sufficient one. Did he not love his home? His home was a delightful
relaxation. The moment he crossed the threshold his ideas went behind
him and in the hour before dinner he played with his child and talked
to Ellen about the house and the garden and the things he thought she
was most interested in. After dinner she read or sewed and he spent an
hour at the piano, and then he took her on his knees.