catch the train, he wondered at his good fortune--the road was so
pleasant, so wide and smooth and shaded, in fact just as he imagined
the road should be, and Ellen was the very pleasantest companion a man
could wish for. He looked on her, on his child and his house at the
foot of the Dublin mountains, as a little work of art which he had
planned out and the perfection of which entitled him to some credit. He
compared himself to one who visits a larder, who has a little snack of
something, and then puts down the cover, saying, "Now that's all right,
that's safe for another week."
Nevertheless he could see a little shadow gathering. His speeches were
growing more explicit, and sooner or later his wife would begin to
notice that he was attacking the clergy. Had she no suspicion? She was
by nature so self-restrained that it was impossible to tell. He knew
she read his speeches, and if she read them she must have noticed their
anti-clerical tone.
Last Saturday he had spoken to her about politics, but she had allowed
the conversation to drop, and that had puzzled him. He was not well
reported. The most important parts of his speech were omitted and for
these omissions he looked upon the reporters and the editors as his
best friends. He had managed to steer his way very adroitly up to the
present, but the day of reckoning could not much longer be postponed;
and one day coming home from a great meeting he remembered that he had
said more than he intended to say, though he had intended to say a good
deal. This time the reporter could not save him, and when his wife
would read the newspaper to-morrow an explanation could hardly be
avoided.
He had thrown a book on the seat opposite, and he put it into his bag.
Its Nihilism had frightened him at first, but he had returned to the
book again and again and every time the attraction had become stronger.
The train passed the signal box, and Ned was thinking of the
aphorisms--the new Gospel was written in aphorisms varying from three
to twenty lines in length--and he thought of these as meat lozenges
each containing enough nutriment to make a gallon of weak soup suitable
for invalids, and of himself as a sort of illicit dispensary.
Ellen was not on the platform; something had delayed her, and he could
see the road winding under trees, and presently he saw her white summer
dress and her parasol aslant. There was no prettier, no more agreeable
woman than Ellen in Ireland, and he thought it a great pity to have to
worry her and himself with explanations about politics and about
religion. To know how to sacrifice the moment is wisdom, and it would
be better to sacrifice their walk than that she should read unprepared
what he had said. But the evening would be lost! It would be lost in
any case, for his thoughts would be running all the while on the
morning paper.
And they walked on together, he a little more silent than usual, for he
was thinking how he could introduce the subject on which he had decided
to speak to her, and Ellen more talkative, for she was telling how the
child had delayed her, and it was not until they reached the prettiest
part of the road that she noticed that Ned was answering perfunctorily.
"What is the matter, dear? I hope you are not disappointed with the
meeting?"
"No, the meeting was well enough. There were a great number of people
present and my speech was well received."
"I am glad of that," she said, "but what is the matter, Ned?"
"Nothing. I was thinking about my speech. I hope it will not be
misunderstood. People are so stupid, and some will understand it as an
attack on the clergy, whereas it is nothing of the kind."
"Well," she said, "if it isn't it will be different from your other
speeches."
"How is that?"
"All your speeches lately have been an attack upon the clergy direct or
indirect. I daresay many did not understand them, but anyone who knows
your opinions can read between the lines."
"If you had read between the lines, Ellen, you would have seen that I
have been trying to save the clergy from themselves. They are so
convinced of their own importance that they forget that after all there
must be a laity."
Ellen answered very quietly, and there was a sadness in her gravity
which Ned had some difficulty in appreciating. He went on talking,
telling her that some prelate had pointed out lately, and with
approbation, that although the population had declined the clergy had
been increasing steadily year after year.
"I am really," he said, "trying to save them from themselves. I am only
pleading for the harmless and the necessary laity."
Ellen did not answer him for a long while.
"You see, Ned, I am hardly more to you now than any other woman. You
come here occasionally to spend a day or two with me. Our married life
has dwindled down to that. You play with the baby and you play with the
piano, and you write your letters. I don't know what you are writing in
them. You never speak to me of your ideas now. I know nothing of your
politics."
"I haven't spoken about politics much lately, Ellen, because I thought
you had lost interest in them."
"I have lost interest in nothing that concerns you. I have not spoken
to you about politics because I know quite well that my ideas don't
interest you any longer. You're absorbed in your own ideas, and we're
divided. You sleep now in the spare room, so that you may have time to
prepare your speeches."
"But I sometimes come to see you in your room, Ellen."
"Sometimes," she said, sadly, "but that is not my idea of marriage, nor
is it the custom of the country, nor is it what the Church wishes."
"I think, Ellen, you are very unreasonable, and you are generally so
reasonable."
"Well, don't let us argue any more," she said. "We shall never agree,
I'm afraid."
Ned remembered that he once used to say to her, "Ellen, we are agreed
in everything."
"If I had only known that it was going to turn out so disagreeable as
this," Ned said to himself, "I should have held my tongue," and he was
sorry for having displeased Ellen, so pretty did she look in her white
dress and her hat trimmed with china roses; and though he did not care
much for flowers he liked to see Ellen among her flowers; he liked to
sit with her under the shady apple-tree, and the hollyhocks were making
a fine show up in the air.
"I think I like the hollyhocks better than any flowers, and the
sunflowers are coming out," he said.
He hesitated whether he should speak about the swallows, Ellen did not
care for birds. The swallows rushed round the garden in groups of six
and seven filling the air with piercing shrieks. He had never seen them
so restless. He and Ellen walked across the sward to their seat and
then Ellen asked him if he would like to see the child.
"I've kept him out of bed and thought you might like to see him."
"Yes," he said, "go fetch the baby and I will shake the boughs, and it
will amuse him to run after the apples."
"Differences of opinion arise," he said to himself, "for the mind
changes and desire wanes, but the heart is always the same, and what an
extraordinary bond the child is," he said, seeing Ellen leading the
child across the sward. He forgot Ireland, forgot priests, and forgot
politics, forgot everything. He lifted his little son in his arms and
shook the boughs and saw the child run after the falling apples,
stumbling and falling but never hurting himself.
The quarrels of the day died down; the evening grew more beautiful
under the boughs, and this intimate life round their apple-tree was
strangely intense, and it grew more and more intense as the light died.
Every now and then the child came to show them an apple he had picked
up, and Ned said: "He thinks he has found the largest apples that have
ever been seen." The secret of their lives seemed to approach and at
every moment they expected to hear it. The tired child came to his
mother and asked to be taken on her lap. An apple fell with a thud, the
stars came out, and Ned carried his son, now half asleep, into the
house, and they undressed him together, having forgotten, seemingly,
their differences of opinion.
But after dinner when they were alone in the drawing-room their
relations grew strained again. Ned wanted to explain to Ellen that his
movement was not anti-clerical, but he could see she did not wish to
hear. He watched her take up her work and wondered what he could say to
persuade her, and after a little while he began to think of certain
pieces of music. But to go to the piano would be like a hostile act.
The truth was that he had looked forward to the evening he was going to
spend with her, he had imagined an ideal evening with her and could not
reconcile himself to the loss. "The hour we passed in the garden was
extraordinarily intense," he said to himself, and he regretted ever
having talked to her about anything except simple things. "It is unwise
of a man to make a comrade of his wife.... Now I wonder if she would be
angry with me if I went to the piano--if I were to play something very
gently? Perhaps a book would seem less aggressive." He went into his
study and fetched his book, and very soon forgot Ellen. But she had not
forgotten him, and she raised her eyes to look at him from time to
time, knowing quite well that he was reading the book out of which he
drew the greater part of his doctrine that he had alluded to on his way
home, and that he had called the Gospel of Life.
He turned the pages, and seeing that his love of her had been absorbed
by the book, she stuck her needle in her work, folded it up, and put it
into the work-basket.
"I am going to bed, Ned." He looked up, and she saw he had returned
from a world that was unknown to her, a world in which she had no part,
and did not want to have a part, knowing it to be wicked. "You have
been reading all the evening. You prefer your book to me. Good-night."
She had never spoken to him so rudely before. He wondered awhile and
went to the piano. She had gone out of the room very rudely. Now he was
free to do what he liked, and what he liked most was to play Bach. The
sound of the piano would reach her bedroom! Well, if it did--he had not
played Bach for four weeks and he wanted to play Bach. Yes, he was
playing Bach to please himself. He knew the piano would annoy her. And
he was right.
She had just lighted the candles on her dressing-table, and she paused
and listened. It annoyed her that he should go to the piano the moment
she left him, and that he should play dry intellectual Bach, for he
knew that Bach did not interest her. She was tempted to ring for her
maid, and would have sent down word to Ned that she would be obliged if
he would stop playing, had it not seemed undignified to do so.
As she undressed she lost control over herself, and lying in bed it
seemed to her that Ned had hidden himself in a veil of kindness and
good humour, and that the man she had married was a man without moral
qualities, a man who would leave her without resentment, without
disgust, who would say good-by to her as to some brief habit. She could
hear Bach's interminable twiddles, and this exasperated her nerves and
she wept through many preludes and fugues. Later on she must have heard
the fugues in a dream, for the door opened; it passed over the carpet
softly; and she heard Ned saying that he hoped the piano had not kept
her awake. She heard him lay the candle on the table and come over to
her bedside, and, leaning over her, he begged of her to turn round and
speak to him.
"My poor little woman, I hope I have not been cross with you this
evening."
She turned away petulantly, but he took her hand and held it and
whispered to her, and gradually tempted her out of her anger, and
taking some of her red hair from the pillow he kissed it. She still
kept her head turned from him, but she could not keep back her
happiness; it followed her like fire, enfolding her, and at last,
raising herself up in the bed, she said:--
"Oh, Ned, do you still love me?"
When he came into her bed she slipped down so that she could lie upon
his breast, and they fell asleep thinking of the early train he would
have to catch in the morning.
He was going to Dublin, and the servant knocked at the door at seven
o'clock; Ellen roused a little asking if he must go to Dublin. She
would like him to stay with her. But he could not stay, and she felt
she must give him his breakfast. While tying her petticoats she went to
the door of Ned's dressing-room asking him questions, for she liked to
talk to him while he was shaving. After breakfast they walked to the
station together, and she stood on the platform smiling and waving
farewells.
She turned home, her thoughts chattering like the sunshine among the
trees; she leaned over the low, crumbling walls and looked across the
water meadows. Two women were spending the morning under the trees;
they were sewing. A man was lying at length talking to them. This group
was part of external nature. The bewitching sunlight found a way into
her heart, and it seemed to her that she would never be happy again.
Ned had told her that he was not going to say anything about the
priests at this meeting. Ah, if she were only sure he would not attack
religion she would not mind him criticising the priests. They were not
above criticism; they courted criticism, approving of a certain amount
of lay criticism. But it was not the priests that Ned hated; it was
religion; and his hatred of religion had increased since he began to
read those books--she had seen him put one into his bag, and the rest
of the set were in his study. When she got home she paused a moment,
and, without knowing exactly why, she turned aside and did not go into
his study.
But next day the clock in the drawing-room stopped, and, wanting to
know the time, she went into the study and looked at the clock, trying
to keep her eyes from the bookcase. But in spite of herself she looked.
The books were there: they had been thrust so far back that she could
not read the name of the writer. Well, it did not matter, she did not
care to know the name of the writer--Ned's room interested her more
than the books. There was his table covered with his papers; and the
thought passed through her mind that he might be writing the book he
had promised her not to write. What he was writing was certainly for
the printer--he was writing only on one side of the paper--and one of
these days what he was writing would be printed.
The study was on the ground floor, its windows overlooking the garden,
and she glanced to see if the gardener were by, but her wish to avoid
observation reminded her that she was doing a dishonourable action,
and, standing with the papers in her hand, she hoped she would go out
of the study without reading them. She began to read.
The papers in her hand were his notes for the book he was writing, and
the title caught her eye, "A Western Thibet." "So he is writing the
book he promised me not to write," she said. But she could feel no
anger, so conscious was she of her own shame. And she did not forget
her shame until she remembered that it was her money that was
supporting the agitation. He had been spending a great deal of money
lately--they were rich now; her father had died soon after their
marriage and all his money had come to her, and Ned was spending it on
an anti-religious agitation. She had let Ned do what he liked; she had
not cared what happened so long as she kept his love, and her moral
responsibility became clearer and clearer. She must tell Ned that she
could give him no more money unless he promised he would not say
anything against the priests. He would make no such promise, and to
speak about her money would exhibit her in a mean light, and she would
lose all her influence. Now that they were reconciled she might win him
back to religion; she had been thinking of this all yesterday. How
could she tell him that she would take all her money away from him? Ned
was the last person in the world who would be influenced by a threat.
And looking round the room she asked herself why she had ever come into
it to commit a dishonourable act! and much trouble had come upon her.
But two thousand a year of her money was being spent in robbing the
people of Ireland of their religion! Maybe thousands of souls would be
lost--and through her fault.
Ellen feared money as much as her father had loved it.
"Good Heavens," she murmured to herself, "what am I to do?"
Confession.... Father Brennan. She must consult him. The temptation to
confide her secret became more decisive. Confession! She could ask the
priest what she liked in confession, and without betraying Ned. And it
was not ten o'clock yet. She would be in time for eleven o'clock Mass.
Father Brennan would be hearing confessions after Mass, and she could
get to Dublin on her bicycle in an hour. In three-quarters of an hour
she was at the presbytery, and before the attendant could answer she
caught sight of Father Brennan running down-stairs.
"I only want to speak to you for a few minutes."
"I am just going into church."
"Can't I say a word to you before you go in?"
And seeing how greatly agitated she was, he took her into the parlour,
and she told him that though she trusted him implicitly she could not
consult him on this particular question except in the confessional.
"I shall be hearing confessions after Mass."
If the priest told her she must withdraw her money from Ned, her
marriage was a broken one. It was she who had brought Ned into
politics; she had often spoken of her money in order to induce him to
go into politics, and now it was her money that was forcing her to
betray him. She had not thought of confession in her present difficulty
as a betrayal, but it was one, and a needless one; Father Brennan could
only tell her to withdraw her money; yet she must consult the
priest--nothing else would satisfy her. She lacked courage: his advice
would give her courage. But when she had told Ned that she could give
him no more money, she would have to tell him she was acting on the
priest's advice, for she could not go on living with him and not tell
him everything. A secret would poison her life, and she had no
difficulty in imagining how she would remember it; she could see it
stopping her suddenly as she crossed the room when she was thinking of
something quite different. The hardest confession of all would be to
tell Ned that she had consulted the priest, and she did not think he
would ever love her again. But what matter, so long as she was not weak
and contemptible in the eyes of God. That is what she had to think of.
The love of one's husband is of this world and temporary, but the love
of God is for all eternity. All things are in the will of God. It was
God that had sent her into Ned's room. She had been compelled, and now
she was compelled again. It was God that had sent her to the priest;
she was a mere puppet in the hands of God, and she prayed that she
might be reconciled to His will, only daring to implore His mercy with
one "Our Father" and one "Hail Mary." Further imploration would be out
of place, she must not insist too much. God was all wisdom, and would
know if the love of her husband might be spared to her, and she hoped
she would be reconciled to His will even if her child should be taken
from her.
There were two penitents before her. One a woman, faded by time and
deformed by work. From the black dress, come down to her through a
succession of owners and now as nondescript as herself, Ellen guessed
the woman to be one of the humblest class of servants, one of those who
get their living by going out to work by the day. She leaned over the
bench, and Ellen could see she was praying all the while, and Ellen
wondered how Ned could expect this poor woman, earning a humble wage in
humble service, to cultivate what he called "the virtue of pride." Was
it not absurd to expect this poor woman to go through life trying to
make life "exuberant and triumphant"? And Ellen wished she could show
Ned this poor woman waiting to go into the confessional. In the
confessional she would find a refined and learned man to listen to her,
and he would have patience with her. Where else would she find a
patient listener? Where else would she find consolation? "The Gospel of
Life," indeed! How many may listen to the gospel of life, and for how
long may anyone listen? Sooner or later we are that poor woman waiting
to go into the confessional; she is the common humanity.
The other penitent was a girl about sixteen. Her hair was not yet
pinned up, and her dress was girlish even for her age, and Ellen judged
her to be one of the many girls who come up to Dublin from the suburbs
to an employment in a shop or in a lawyer's office, and who spend a few
pence in the middle of the day in tea-rooms. The girl looked round the
church so frequently that Ellen could not think of her as a willing
penitent, but as one who had been sent to confession by her father and
mother. At her age sensuality is omnipresent, and Ellen thought of the
check confession is at such an age. If that girl overstepped the line
she would have to confess everything, or face the frightful danger of a
bad confession, and that is a danger that few Catholic girls are
prepared to face.
The charwoman spent a long time in the confessional, and Ellen did not
begrudge her the time she spent, for she came out like one greatly
soothed, and Ellen remembered that Ned had once described the soothed
look which she noticed on the poor woman's face as "a look of foolish
ecstasy, wholly divorced from the intelligence." But what intellectual
ecstasy did he expect from this poor woman drifting towards her natural
harbour--the poor-house?
It was extraordinary that a man so human as Ned was in many ways should
become so inhuman the moment religion was mentioned, and she wondered
if the sight of that poor woman leaving the confessional would allay
his hatred of the sacrament. At that moment the young girl came out.
She hurried away, and Ellen went into the confessional to betray her
husband.
She was going to betray Ned, but she was going to betray him under the
seal of confession, and entertained no thought that the priest would
avail himself of any technicality in her confession to betray her. She
was, nevertheless, determined that her confession should be technically
perfect. She went into the confessional to confess her sins, and one of
the sins she was going to confess was her culpable negligence regarding
the application of her money. There were other sins. She had examined
her conscience, and had discovered many small ones. She had lost her
temper last night, and her temper had prevented her from saying her
prayers, her temper and her love of Ned; for it were certainly a sin to
desire anything so fervidly that one cannot give to God the love, the
prayers, that belong to Him.
During Mass the life of her soul had seemed to her strange and complex,
and she thought that her confession would be a long one; but on her
knees before the priest her soul seemed to vanish, and all her
interesting scruples and phases of thought dwindled to almost
nothing--she could not put her soul into words. The priest waited, but
the matter on which she had come to consult him had put everything else
out of her head.
"I am not certain that what I am going to tell you is a sin, but I
consider it as part of my confession," and she told him how she had
given Ned her money and allowed him to apply it without inquiring into
the application. "Since my child was born I have not taken the interest
I used to take in politics. I don't think my husband is any longer
interested in my ideas, and now he has told me that some kind of
religious reformation is necessary in Ireland."
"When did he tell you that?"
"Yesterday--the day before. I went to the station to meet him and he
told me as we walked home. For a long time I believed him: I don't mean
that he told me falsehoods; he may have deceived himself. Anyhow he
used to tell me that though his agitation might be described as
anti-clerical no one could call it anti-religious. But this morning
something led me into his room and I looked through his papers. I
daresay I had no right to do so, but I did."
"And you discovered from his papers that his agitation was directed
against religion?"
Ellen nodded.
"I cannot think of anything more unfortunate," said the priest.
Father Brennan was a little fat man with small eyes and a punctilious
deferential manner, and his voice was slightly falsetto.
"I cannot understand how your husband can be so unwise. I know very
little of him, but I did not think he was capable of making so grave a
mistake. The country is striving to unite itself, and we have been
uniting, and now that we have a united Ireland, or very nearly, it
appears that Mr. Carmady has come from America to divide us again. What
can he gain by these tactics? If he tells the clergy that the moment
Home Rule is granted an anti-religious party will rise up and drive
them out of the country, he will set them against Home Rule, and if the
clergy are not in favour of Home Rule who, I would ask Mr. Carmady, who
will be in favour of it? And I will ask you, my dear child, to ask
him--I suggest that you should ask him to what quarter he looks for
support."
"Ned and I never talk politics; we used to, but that is a long time
ago."
"He will only ruin himself. But I think you said you came to consult me
about something."
"Yes. You see a very large part of my money is spent in politics and I
am not certain that I should not withdraw my money. It is for that I
have come to consult you."
Ellen had been addressing the little outline of the priest's profile,
but when he heard the subject on which she had come to consult him he
turned and she saw his large face, round and mottled. A little light
gathered in his wise and kindly eyes, and Ellen guessed that he had
begun to see his way out of the difficulty, and she was glad of it, for
she reckoned her responsibility at a number of souls. The priest spoke
very kindly, he seemed to understand how difficult it would be for her
to tell her husband that she could not give him any more money unless
he promised not to attack the clergy or religion, but she must do so.
He pointed out that to attack one was to attack the other, for the
greater mass of mankind understands religion only through the clergy.
"You must not only withdraw your money," he said, "but you must use
your influence to dissuade him."
"I am afraid," said Ellen, "that when I tell him that I must withdraw
my money, and that you have told me to do so--"
"You need not say that I told you to do so."
"I cannot keep anything back from my husband. I must tell him the whole
truth," she said. "And when I tell him everything, I shall not only
lose any influence that may remain, but I doubt very much if my husband
will continue to live with me."
"But your marriage was a love marriage?"
"Yes, but that is a long time ago. It is four years ago."
"I don't think your husband will separate himself from you, but even so
I think--"
"You will give me absolution?"
She said this a little defiantly, and the priest wondered, and she left
the confessional perplexed and a little ashamed and very much terrified.
There was nothing for her to do in Dublin, she must go home and wait
for her husband. He was not coming home until evening, and she rode
home wondering how the day would pass, thinking the best time to tell
him would be after dinner when he left the piano. If he were very angry
with her she would go to her room. He would not go on living with her,
she was sure of that, and her heart seemed to stand still when she
entered the house and saw the study door open and Ned looking through
the papers.
"I have come back to look for some papers," he said. "It is very
annoying. I have lost half the day," and he went on looking among his
papers and she could see that he suspected nothing. "Do you know when
is the next train?"
She looked out the trains for him, and after he had found the papers he
wanted they went into the garden.
She talked of her flowers with the same interest as she had done many
times before, and when he asked her to go for a walk with him on the
hill she consented, although it was almost unbearable to walk with him
for the last time through the places where they had walked so often,
thinking that their lives would move on to the end unchanged; and they
walked about the hill talking of Irish history, their eyes often
resting on the slender outlines of Howth, until it was time for Ned to
go to the station.
"I shall be back in time for dinner. You will wait dinner a little for
me, I may have to come back by a later train."
And they walked down the hill together, Ned bidding her good-bye at the
garden gate, saying she had walked enough that day, and she feeling the
moment was at hand.
"But, Ned, why are you going to Dublin? You are only going to see
people who are anti-Catholic, who hate our religion, who are prejudiced
against it."
"But," he said, "why do you talk of these things. We have got on very
much better since we have ceased to discuss politics together. We are
agreed in everything else."
She did not answer for a long time and then she said:--
"But I don't see how we are to avoid discussing them, for it is my
money that supports the agitation."
"I never thought of that. So it is. Do you wish to withdraw it?"
"You are not angry with me, Ned? You won't think it mean of me to
withdraw my money? How are you going to go on without my money? You see
I am wrecking your political career."
"Oh," he said, "I shall be able to get on without it. Now, good-bye."
"May I go to the station with you?"
"If you like, only let us talk of something else. Everyone's conscience
is his own law and you must act accordingly."
She trotted by his side, and she begged of him not to laugh at her when
he said that to be truly logical she would have to turn him out of the
house, or at least to charge him for his board and lodging.
The intonation of his voice laid her heart waste; she felt she was done
for, and she walked home repeating the words, "I am done for."
As she passed through her garden she saw that her flowers were dying
for want of water, and she gave them a few cans of water; but she could
not do much work, and though the cans were heavy, they were not as
heavy as her heart. She sat down under the apple-tree and remembered
her life. Her best days were her school-days. Then life was beginning.
Now it seemed to her nearly over, and she only five-and-twenty. She
never could take the same interest in politics as she had once taken,
nor in books. She felt that her intelligence had declined. She was
cleverer as a girl than she was as a woman.
Ned was coming home for dinner, and some time that evening she would
have to tell him that she had read his manuscript. She would have liked
to meet him at the station, but thought it would be better not to go.
The day wore away. Ned was in his best humour, and when she told him
why she did not go to the station to meet him, he said it was foolish
of her not to have come, for there was nothing he liked better than to
stroll home with her in the evening, the road was so pleasant, etc.
She could see that he had not noticed her dress or what he was eating,
and it was irritating to see him sitting there with his spoon full of
soup telling her how the Irish people would have to reduce their
expenditure and think a little less of priests--for a while, at
least--unless they were minded to pass away, to become absorbed in
America.
"I like Brennan," he said, throwing himself back in his chair. "He is a
clever man. Brennan knows as well as I do there's too much money spent
upon religion in Ireland. But, tell me, did he tell you explicitly that
you should give me no more money?"
"Yes. But, Ned--"
"No, no, I am not in the least angry," he said, "I shall always get
money to carry on politics. But what a game it is! And I suppose,
Ellen, you consult him on every detail of your life?"
Her admission that Father Brennan had taken down books and put on his
spectacles delighted him.
"Taking down tomes!" he said. "Splendid! Some of these gentlemen would
discuss theology with God. I can see Father Brennan getting up: 'Sire,
my reason for entering the said sin as a venal sin, etc.'"
Very often during the evening the sewing dropped from her hands, and
she sat thinking. Sooner or later she would nave to tell Ned she had
read his manuscript. He would not mind her reading his manuscript, and
though he hated the idea that anyone should turn to a priest and ask
him for his interpretation regarding right and wrong, he had not, on
the whole, been as angry as she had expected.
At last she got up. "I am going to bed, Ned."
"Isn't it very early?"
"There is no use my stopping here. You don't want to talk to me; you'll
go on playing till midnight."
"Now, why this petulancy, Ellen? I think it shows a good deal of
forgiveness for me to kiss you after the way you have behaved."
She held a long string of grease in her fingers, and was melting it,
and when she could no longer hold it in her fingers, she threw the end
into the flame.
"I've forgiven you, Ellen.... You never tell me anything of your ideas
now; we never talk to each other, and if this last relation is broken
there will be nothing ... will there?"
"I sought Father Brennan's advice under the seal of confession, that
was all. You don't think that--"
"There are plenty of indirect ways in which he will be able to make use
of the information he has got from you."
"You have not yet heard how it happened, and perhaps when you do you
will think worse of me. I went into your room to see what books you
were reading. There was no harm in looking at a book; but you had put
the books so far into the bookcase that I could not see the name of the
author. I took up the manuscript from the table and glanced through it.
I suppose I ought not to have done that: a manuscript is not the same
as a book. And now goodnight."
She had gone to her room and did not expect him. Well, the sensual coil
was broken, and if he did not follow her now she would understand that
it was broken. He had wanted freedom this long while. They had come to
the end of the second period, and there are three--a year of mystery
and passion, and then some years of passion without mystery. The third
period is one of resignation. The lives of the parents pass into the
children, and the mated journey on, carrying their packs. Seldom,
indeed, the man and the woman weary of the life of passion at the same
time and turn instinctively into the way of resignation like animals.
Sometimes it is the man who turns first, sometimes it is the woman. In
this case it was the man. He had his work to do, and Ellen had her
child to think of, and each must think of his and her task from
henceforth. Their tasks were not the same. Each had a different task;
she had thrown, or tried to throw, his pack from his shoulders. She had
thwarted him, or, tried to thwart him. He grew angry as he thought of
what she had done. She had gone into his study and read his papers, and
she had then betrayed him to a priest. He lay awake thinking how he had
been deceived by Ellen; thinking that he had been mistaken; that her
character was not the noble character he had imagined. But at the
bottom of his heart he was true to the noble soul that religion could
not extinguish nor even his neglect.
She said one day: "Is it because I read your manuscript and told the
priest, that you would not come to my room, or is it because you are
tired of me?"
"I cannot tell you; and, really, this conversation is very painful. I
am engaged upon my work, and I have no thoughts for anything but it."
Another time when he came from the piano and sat opposite to her she
raised her eyes from her sewing and sat looking at him, and then
getting up suddenly she put her hands to her forehead and said to
herself: "I will conquer this," and she went out of the room.
And from that day she did not trouble him with love. She obtained
control over herself, and he remembered a mistress who had ceased to
love him, and he had persecuted her for a long while with supplication.
"She is at one with herself always," he said, and he tried to
understand her. "She is one of those whose course through life is
straight, and not zig-zag, as mine is." He liked to see her turn and
look at the baby, and he said, "That love is the permanent and original
element of things, it is the universal substance;" and he could trace
Ellen's love of her child in her love of him; these loves were not two
loves, but one love. And when walking one evening through the shadows,
as they spoke about the destiny we can trace in our lives, about life
and its loneliness, the conversation verged on the personal, and she
said, with a little accent of regret, but not reproachfully:--
"But, Ned, you could not live with anyone, at least not always. I think
you would sooner not live with anyone."
He did not dare to contradict her; he knew that she had spoken the
truth; and Ned was sorry he was giving pain to Ellen, for there was no
one he would have liked to please better. He regretted that he was what
he was, that his course was zig-zag. For a moment he regretted that
such a fate should have befallen Ellen. "I am not the husband that
would have suited her," he said.... And then, after a moment's
reflection, "I was her instinct; another would not have satisfied her
instinct; constancy is not everything. It's a pity I cannot love her
always, for none is more worthy of being loved."
They became friends; he knew there was no danger of her betraying him
again. Her responsibility ended with her money, and he told her how the
agitation was progressing.
"Oh, Ned, if I were only sure that your agitation was not directed
against religion I would follow you. But you will never believe in me."
"Yes, I believe in you. Come to Dublin with me; come to the meeting.
I'd like you to hear my speech."
"I would like to hear you speak, Ned; but I don't think I can go to the
meeting."
They were on their way to the station, and they walked some time
without speaking. Then, speaking suddenly and gravely as if prompted by
some deep instinct, Ellen said:--
"But if you fail, Ned, you will be an outcast in Ireland, and if that
happens you will go away, and I shall never see you again."
He turned and stood looking at her. That he should fail and become an
outcast were not at all unlikely. Her words seemed to him like a
divination! But it is the unexpected that happens, she said to herself,
and the train came up to the station, and he bade her good-bye, and
settled himself down in a seat to consider his speech for the last time.
"I shall say everything I dare, the moment is ripe; and the threat to
hold out is that Ireland is becoming a Protestant country. And the
argument to use is that the Catholics are leaving because there is no
joy in Ireland."
He went through the different sections of his speech introducing the
word joy: Is Ireland going to become joyous? She has dreamed long
enough among dead bones and ancient formulae. The little stations went
by and the train rolled into Harcourt Street. He called a car. He was
speaking at the Rotunda.
He was speaking on the depopulation question, and he said that this
question came before every other question. Ireland was now confronted
with the possibility that in five-and-twenty years the last of Ireland
would have disappeared in America. There were some who attributed the
Irish emigration to economic causes: that was a simple and obvious
explanation, one that could be understood by everybody; but these
simple and obvious explanations are not often, if they are ever, the
true ones. The first part of Ned's speech was taken up with the
examination of the economic causes, and proving that these were not the
origin of the evil. The country was joyless; man's life is joyless in
Ireland. In every other country there were merry-makings. "You have
only to go into the National Gallery," he said, "to see how much time
the Dutch spent in merry-makings." All their pictures with the
exception of Rembrandt's treated of joyful subjects, of peasants
dancing under trees, peasants drinking and singing songs in taverns,
and caressing servant girls. Some of their merry-makings were not of a
very refined character, but the ordinary man is not refined, and in the
most refined men there is often admiration and desire for common
pleasure. In the country districts Irish life is one of stagnant
melancholy, the only aspiration that comes into their lives is a
religious one. "Of course it will be said that the Irish are too poor
to pay for pleasure, but they are not too poor to spend fifteen
millions a year upon religion." He was the last man in the world who
would say that religion was not necessary, but if he were right in
saying that numbers were leaving Ireland because Ireland was joyless he
was right in saying that it was the duty of every Irishman to spend his
money in making Ireland a joyful country. He was speaking now in the
interests of religion. A country is antecedent to religion. To have
religion you must first have a country, and if Ireland was not made
joyful Ireland would become a Protestant country in about twenty-five
years. In support of this contention he produced figures showing the
rate at which the Catholics were emigrating. But not only were the
Catholics emigrating--those who remained were becoming nuns and
priests. As the lay population declined the clerics became more
numerous. "Now," he said, "there must be a laity. It is a very
commonplace thing to say, but this very commonplace truth is forgotten
or ignored, and I come here to plead to-day for the harmless and the
necessary laity." He knew that these words would get a laugh, and that
the laugh would get him at least two or three minutes' grace, and these
two or three minutes could not be better employed than with statistics,
and he produced some astonishing figures. These figures were compiled,
he said, by a prelate bearing an Irish name, but whose object in
Ireland was to induce Irishmen and Irishwomen to leave Ireland. This
would not be denied, though the pretext on which he wished Irish men
and women to leave Ireland would be pleaded as justification. "But of
this I shall speak," Ned said, "presently. I want you first to give
your attention to the figures which this prelate produced, and with
approbation. According to him there were ten convents and one hundred
nuns in the beginning of the century, now there were twelve hundred
convents and twenty thousand nuns. The prelate thinks that this is a
matter for us to congratulate ourselves on. In view of our declining
population I cannot agree, and I regret that prelates should make such
thoughtless observations. Again I have to remind you of a fact that
cannot be denied, but which is ignored, and it is that a celibate
clergy cannot continue the population, and that if the population be
not continued the tail of the race will disappear in America in about
twenty-five years.... Not only does this prelate think that we should
congratulate ourselves on the fact that while the lay population is
decreasing the clerical population is increasing, but he thinks that
Ireland should still furnish foreign missions. He came to Ireland to
get recruits, to beseech Irishmen and Irishwomen to continue their
noble work of the conversion of the world. No doubt the conversion of
the world is a noble work. My point now is that Ireland has done her
share in this noble work, and that Ireland can no longer spare one
single lay Irishman or cleric or any Irishwoman. If the foreign mission
is to be recruited it must be recruited at the expense of some other
country."
Ned suggested Belgium as the best recruiting ground. But it was the
prelate's own business to find recruits, it was only Ned's business to
say that Ireland had done enough for the conversion of the world. And
this prelate with the Irish name and cosmopolitan heart, who thought it
an admirable thing that the clerical population should increase, while
the lay population declined; who thought that with the declining
population Ireland should still send out priests and nuns to convert
the world--was no true Irishman. He cared not a jot what became of his
country, so long as Ireland continued to furnish him with priests and
nuns for the foreign mission. This prelate was willing to bleed Ireland
to death to make a Roman holiday. Ireland did not matter to him,
Ireland was a speck--Ned would like to have said, a chicken that the
prelate would drop into the caldron which he was boiling for the
cosmopolitan restaurant; but this would be an attack upon religion, it
would be too direct to be easily understood by the audience, and as the
words came to his lips he changed the phrase and said, "a pinch of
snuff in the Roman snuff-box." After this, Ned passed on to perhaps the
most important part of his speech--to the acquisition of wealth by the
clergy. He said that if the lay population had declined, and if the
clerical population had increased, there was one thing that had
increased with the clergy, and that was the wealth of the clergy. "I
wish the cosmopolitan prelate had spoken upon this subject. I wonder if
he inquired how much land has passed into the hands of the clergy in
the last twenty years, and how many mortgages the religious hold upon
land. I wonder if he inquired how many poultry-farms the nuns and the
friars are adding to their convents and their monasteries; and now they
are starting new manufactories for weaving--the weaving industry is
falling into their hands. And there are no lay teachers in Ireland, now
all the teaching is done by clerics. The Church is very rich in
Ireland. If Ireland is the poorest country in the world, the Irish
Church is richer than any other. All the money in Ireland goes into
religion. There is only one other trade that can compete with it.
Heaven may be for the laity, but this world is certainly for the
clergy."
More money was spent upon religion in Ireland than in any other
country. Too much money was spent for the moment in building churches,
and the great sums of money that were being spent on religion were not
fairly divided. And passing rapidly on, Ned very adroitly touched upon
the relative positions of the bishops and the priests and the curates.
He told harrowing stories of the destitution of the curates, and he
managed so well that his audience had not time to stop him. Everything
he thought that they could not agree with he sandwiched between things
that he knew they would agree with.
Father Murphy stood a little distance on his right, a thick-set man,
and as the sentences fell from Ned's lips he could see that Father
Murphy was preparing his answer, and he guessed what Father Murphy's
answer would be like. He knew Father Murphy to be an adroit speaker,
and the priest began in a low key as Ned had expected him to do. He
began by deploring the evils of emigration, and Mr. Carmady deserved
their best thanks for attracting popular attention to this evil. They
were indebted to him for having done this. Others had denounced the
evil, but Mr. Carmady's eloquence had enabled him to do so as well,
perhaps even better than it had been done before. He complimented Mr.
Carmady on the picturesque manner in which he described the emptying of
the country, but he could not agree with Mr. Carmady regarding the
causes that had brought about this lamentable desire to leave the
fatherland. Mr. Carmady's theory was that the emptying of Ireland was
due to the fact that the Irish priests had succeeded in inducing men to
refrain from the commission of sin. Mr. Carmady did not reproach the
priests with having failed; he reproached them with having succeeded. A
strange complaint. The cause of the emigration, which we all agreed in
deploring, was, according to Mr. Carmady, the desire of a sinless
people for sin. A strange accusation. The people, according to Mr.
Carmady, were leaving Ireland because they wished to indulge in
indecent living. Mr. Carmady did not use these words; the words he used
were "The joy of life," but the meaning of the words was well known.
"No race," he said, "had perhaps ever been libelled as the Irish race
had been, but of all the libels that had ever been levelled against it,
no libel had ever equalled the libel which he had heard uttered to-day,
that the Irish were leaving Ireland in search of sin.
"They had heard a great deal about the dancing-girl, and according to
Mr. Carmady it would seem that a nation could save itself by jigging."
"He is speaking very well, from his point of view," said Ned to himself.
Father Murphy was a stout, bald-headed man with small pig-like eyes,
and a piece seemed to have been taken from the top of his bony
forehead. He was elegantly dressed in broadcloth and he wore a gold
chain and he dangled his chain from time to time. He was clearly the
well-fed, well-housed cleric who was making, in this world, an
excellent living of his advocacy for the next, and Ned wondered how it
was that the people did not perceive a discrepancy between Father
Murphy's appearance and the theories he propounded. "The idealism of
the Irish people," said the priest, "was inveterate," and he settled
himself on his short legs and began his peroration.
Ned had begun to feel that he had failed, he began to think of his
passage back to America. Father Murphy was followed by a young curate,
and the curate began by saying that Mr. Carmady would be able to defend
his theories, and that he had no concern with Mr. Carmady's theories,
though, indeed, he did not hear Mr. Carmady say anything which was
contrary to the doctrine of our "holy religion." Father Murphy had
understood Mr. Carmady's speech in quite a different light, and it
seemed to the curate that he, Father Murphy, had put a wrong
interpretation upon it; at all events he had put one which the curate
could not share. Mr. Carmady had ventured, and, he thought, very
properly, to call attention to the number of churches that were being
built and the number of people who were daily entering the orders. He
did not wish to criticise men and women who gave up their lives to God,
but Mr. Carmady was quite right when he said that without a laity there
could be no country. In Ireland the clergy were apt to forget this
simple fact that celibates do not continue the race. Mr. Carmady had
quoted from a book written by a priest in which the distinguished
author had said he looked forward to the day when Ireland would be one
vast monastery, and the curate agreed with Mr. Carmady that no more
foolish wish had ever found its way into a book. He agreed with Mr.
Carmady that a real vocation is a rare thing. No country had produced
many painters or many sculptors or many poets, and a true religious
vocation was equally rare. Mr. Carmady had pointed out that although
the population had diminished the nuns and priests had increased, and
Father Murphy must hold that Ireland must become one vast monastery,
and the laity ought to become extinct, or he must agree with Mr.
Carmady that there was a point when a too numerous clergy would
overbalance the laity.
Altogether an unexpected and plucky little speech, and long before it
closed Ned saw that Father Murphy's triumph was not complete. Father
Murphy's face told the same tale.
The curate's argument was taken up by other curates, and Ned began to
see he had the youth of the country on his side.
He was speaking at the end of the week at another great meeting, and
received even better support at this meeting than he had done at the
first, and he returned home wondering what his wife was thinking of his
success. But what matter? Ireland was waking from her sleep.... The
agitation was running from parish to parish, it seemed as if the
impossible were going to happen, and that the Gael was going to be free.
The curates had grievances, and he applied himself to setting the
inferior clergy against their superiors, and as the agitation developed
he told the curates that they were no better than ecclesiastical serfs,
that although the parish priests dozed in comfortable arm-chairs and
drank champagne, the curates lived by the wayside and ate and drank
very little and did all the work.
But one day at Maynooth it was decided that curates had legitimate
grievances, and that the people had grievances that were likewise
legitimate. And at this great council it was decided that the heavy
marriage fees and the baptismal fees demanded by the priests should be
reduced. Concessions were accompanied by threats. Even so it required
all the power of the Church to put down the agitation. Everyone stood
agape, saying the bishops must win in the end. An indiscretion on Ned's
part gave them the victory. In a moment of excitement he was unwise
enough to quote John Mitchel's words "that the Irish would be free long
ago only for their damned souls." A priest wrote to the newspapers
pointing out that after these words there could be no further doubt
that it was the doctrine of the French Revolution that Mr. Carmady was
trying to force upon a Christian people. A bishop wrote saying that the
words quoted were fit words for Anti-Christ. After that it was
difficult for a priest to appear on the same platform, and the curates
whose grievances had been redressed deserted, and the fight became an
impossible one.
Very soon Ned's meetings were interrupted, disagreeable scenes began to
happen, and his letters were not admitted to the newspapers. A great
solitude formed about him.
"Well," he said one morning, "I suppose you have read the account in
the paper of my ignominious escape. That is what they called it."
"The wheel," Ellen said, "is always going round. You may be at the
bottom now, but the wheel is going round, only there is no use opposing
the people in their traditions, in their instinct... . And whether the
race is destined to disappear or to continue it is certain that the
last Gael will die a Catholic."
"And the Red Indian will die with the scalp at his girdle."
"We won't talk about religion, we'll talk about things we are agreed
upon. I have heard you say yourself that you would not go back to
America again, that you never enjoyed life until you came here."
"That was because I met you, Ellen."
"I have heard you praise Ireland as being the most beautiful and
sympathetic country in the world."
"It is true that I love these people, and I wish I could become one of
them."
"You would become one of them, and yet you would tear them to pieces
because they are not what you want them to be."
Sometimes he thought he would like to write "A Western Thibet," but he
was more a man of action than of letters. His writings had been so long
confined to newspaper articles that he could not see his way from
chapter to chapter. He might have overcome the difficulty, but doubt
began to poison his mind. "Every race," he said, "has its own special
genius. The Germans have or have had music. The French and Italians
have or have had painting and sculpture. The English have or have had
poetry. The Irish had, and alas! they still have their special genius,
religious vocation."
He used to go for long walks on the hills, and one day, lying in the
furze amid the rough grass, his eyes following the course of the ships
in the bay, he said: "Was it accident or my own fantastic temperament
that brought me back from Cuba?" It seemed as if a net had been thrown
over him and he had been drawn along like a fish in a net. "For some
purpose," he said. "But for what purpose? I can perceive none, and yet
I cannot believe that an accident brought me to Ireland and involved me
in the destiny of Ireland for no purpose."
And he did not need to take the book from his pocket, he knew the
passage well, and he repeated it word for word while he watched the
ships in the bay.
"We were friends and we have become strangers, one to the other. Ah,
yes; but it is so, and we do not wish to hide our strangerhood, or to
dissemble as if we were ashamed of it. We are two ships each with a
goal and a way; and our ways may draw together again and we may make
holiday as before. And how peacefully the good ships used to lie in the
same harbour, under the same sun; it seemed as if they had reached
their goal, and it seemed as if there was a goal. But soon the mighty
sway of our tasks laid on us as from of old sundered and drove us into
different seas and different zones; and it may be that we shall never
meet again and it may be that we shall meet and not know each other, so
deeply have the different seas and suns changed us. The law that is
over us decreed that we must become strangers one to the other; and for
this we must reverence each other the more, and for this the memory of
our past friendship becomes more sacred. Perhaps there is a vast
invisible curve and orbit and our different goals and ways are parcel
of it, infinitesimal segments. Let us uplift ourselves to this thought!
But our life is too short and our sight too feeble for us to be friends
except in the sense of this sublime possibility. So, let us believe in
our stellar friendship though we must be enemies on earth."
"A deep and mysterious truth," he said, "I must go, I must go," he said
to himself. "My Irish life is ended. There is a starry orbit, and
Ireland and I are parts of it, 'and we must believe in our stellar
friendship though we are enemies upon earth.'"
He wandered about admiring the large windless evening and the bright
bay. Great men had risen up in Ireland and had failed before him, and
it were easy to account for their failure by saying they were not close
enough to the tradition of their race, that they had just missed it,
but some of the fault must be the fault of Ireland.... The anecdote
varies, but substantially it is always the same story: The interests of
Ireland sacrificed to the interests of Rome.
There came a whirring sound, and high overhead he saw three great birds
flying through the still air, and he knew them to be wild geese flying
south....
War had broken out in South Africa, Irishmen were going out to fight
once again; they were going to fight the stranger abroad when they
could fight him at home no longer. The birds died down on the horizon,
and there was the sea before him, bright and beautiful, with ships
passing into the glimmering dusk, and among the hills a little mist was
gathering. He remembered the great pagans who had wandered over these
hills before scapulars and rosaries were invented. His thoughts came in
flashes, and his happiness grew intense. He had wanted to go and the
birds had shown him where he might go. His instinct was to go, he was
stifling in Ireland. He might never find the country he desired, but he
must get out of Ireland, "a mean ineffectual atmosphere," he said, "of
nuns and rosaries."
A mist was rising, the lovely outlines of Howth reminded him of pagan
Ireland. "They're like music," he said, and he thought of Usheen and
his harp. "Will Usheen ever come again?" he said. "Better to die than
to live here." And the mist thickened--he could see Howth no longer.
"The land is dolorous," he said, and as if in answer to his words the
most dolorous melody he had ever heard came out of the mist. "The
wailing of an abandoned race," he said. "This is the soul-sickness from
which we are fleeing." And he wandered about calling to the shepherd,
and the shepherd answered, but the mist was so thick in the hollows
that neither could find the other. After a little while the shepherd
began to play his flageolet again; and Ned listened to it, singing it
after him, and he walked home quickly, and the moment he entered the
drawing-room he said to Ellen, "Don't speak to me; I am going to write
something down," and this is what he wrote:--
THE WILD GOOSE.
[musical excerpt]
"A mist came on suddenly, and I heard a shepherd playing this
folk-tune. Listen to it. Is it not like the people? Is it not like
Ireland? Is it not like everything that has happened? It is melancholy
enough in this room, but no words can describe its melancholy on a
flageolet played by a shepherd in the mist. It is the song of the
exile; it is the cry of one driven out in the night--into a night of
wind and rain. It is night, and the exile on the edge of the waste. It
is like the wind sighing over bog water. It is a prophetic echo and
final despair of a people who knew they were done for from the
beginning. A mere folk-tune, mere nature, raw and unintellectual; and
these raw folk-tunes are all that we shall have done: and by these and
these alone, shall we be remembered."
"Ned," she said at last, "I think you had better go away. I can see
you're wearing out your heart here."
"Why do you think I should go? What put that idea into your head?"
"I can see you are not happy."
"But you said that the wheel would turn, and that what was lowest would
come to the top."
"Yes, Ned; but sometimes the wheel is a long time in turning, and maybe
it would be better for you to go away for a while."
He told her that he had seen wild geese on the hill.
"And it was from you I heard about the wild geese. You told me the
history of Ireland, sitting on a Druid stone?"
"You want to go, Ned? And the desire to go is as strong in you as in
the wild geese."
"Maybe; but I shall come back, Ellen."
"Do you think you will, Ned? How can you if you go to fight for the
Boers?"
"There's nothing for me to do here. I want new life. It was you who
said that I should go."
"For five years you have been devoted to Ireland, and now you and
Ireland are separated like two ships."
"Yes, like two ships. Ireland is still going Rome-ward, and Rome is not
my way."
"You are the ship, Ned, and you came to harbour in Ireland. But you and
I are like two ships that have lain side by side in the harbour, and
now--"
"And now what, Ellen? Go on!"
"It seemed to me that we were like two ships."
"That is the very thing I was thinking on the hills. The comparison of
two ships rose up in my mind on the hill, and then I remembered a
passage." And when he had repeated it she said:--
"So there is no hope for us on earth. We are but segments of a starry
curve, and must be content with our stellar friendship. But, Ned, we
shall never be enemies on earth. I am not your enemy, and never shall
be. So we have nothing to think of now but our past friendship. The
memory of our past--is all that remains? And it was for that you left
America after the Cuban war? There is our child. You love the little
boy, don't you, Ned?"
"Yes," he said, "I love the little boy.... But you'll bring him up a
Catholic. You'll bring him up to love the things that I hate."
"Let there be no bitterness between us to-night, Ned dear. Let there be
only love. If not love, affection at least. This is our last night."
"How is that?"
"Because, Ned, when one is so bent upon going as you are it is better
he should go at once. I give you your freedom. You can go in the
morning or when you please. But remember, Ned, that you can come back
when you please, that I shall be always glad to see you."
They went up-stairs and looked for some time on the child, who was
sleeping. Ellen took him out of his bed, and she looked very pretty,
Ned thought, holding the half-awakened child, and she kept the little
quilt about him so that he might not catch cold.
He put his hands into his eyes and looked at his father, and then hid
his face in his mother's neck, for the light blinded him and he wished
to go to sleep.
"Let me put him back in his bed," Ned said, and he took his son and put
him back, and he kissed him. As he did so he wondered how it was that
he could feel so much affection for his son and at the same time desire
to leave his home.
"Now, Ned, you must kiss me, and do not think I am angry with you for
going. I know you are dull here, that you have got nothing further to
do in Ireland, but it will be different when you come back."
"And is it possible that you aren't angry with me, Ellen, for going?"
"I am sorry you are going, Ned--in a way, but I should be more sorry to
see you stay here and learn to hate me."
"You are very wise, Ellen. But why did you read that manuscript?"
"I suppose because God wished me to."
One thing Ireland had done for him, and for that he would be always
grateful to Ireland--Ireland had revealed a noble woman to him; and
distance would bring a closer and more intimate appreciation of her.
He left early next morning before she was awake in order to save her
the pain of farewells, and all that day in Dublin he walked about,
possessed by the great joyful yearning of the wild goose when it rises
one bright morning from the warm marshes, scenting the harsh north
through leagues of air, and goes away on steady wing-beats. But he did
not feel he was a free soul until the outlines of Howth began to melt
into the grey drift of evening. There was a little mist on the water,
and he stood watching the waves tossing in the mist thinking that it
were well that he had left home--if he had stayed he would have come to
accept all the base moral coinage in circulation; and he stood watching
the green waves tossing in the mist, at one moment ashamed of what he
had done, at the next overjoyed that he had done it.