Inflexible determination is one of the qualities which the truly great
leader of men shares with the domestic pig; though in the case of the
pig it is generally spoken of as obstinacy. But the leader—General,
Prime Minister or Captain of Industry—is distinguished from the pig by
a certain intellectual suppleness which makes his obstinacy a more
effective though less showy thing. The pig, being determined to go his
own way, has no better idea than to tug desperately against the rope
which is tied round his ankle. He tugs unwaveringly up to the very
last moment, but in the end he is beaten because his master, having at
command stout sticks and other instruments of torture, is stronger
than he is. It is noble and heroic of the pig to persist in refusing
to recognise that merely tugging the opposite way is no use to him. The
great commander is wiser and in reality no less noble. He realises very
early that destiny, armed with whips and goads, has a rope round his
leg. He tugs, but when he finds that the rope will not break and
that the whip cuts cruelly, he stops tugging and goes about to outwit
destiny. Pretending to yield to the pull of the rope, he succeeds at
last in getting his own way. Thus a general, faced by a hostile army,
securely entrenched on the opposite bank of a deep river, does not
make more than one attempt to swim his men across in the face of a
concentrated rifle fire. The pig would make several attempts, would go
on trying until he had no soldiers left, because he would feel that
the only thing really worth doing was to assert himself against the
confident foe. But the general, when he has lost enough men to convince
him of the impossibility of a frontal attack by swimming, stops trying
it and adopts another plan. He sees not only the insolent flags which
wave upon the opposite bank, but the far off end of the campaign. He is
not less determined than the pig would be to chastise the foe which is
thwarting him, but he sees that this can be done quite as effectually
by occupying the enemy’s capital as by the mere winning of a battle. He
understands that it is good to sacrifice the immediate for the sake of
the ultimate object. He gives up the idea of fighting his way across and
sends out scouts to discover the source of the river. When he finds
it he leaves part of his army to watch the enemy while the other
part marches round the end of the river and enters the enemy’s chief
stronghold from the back. Thus he gains his object and establishes his
character for determination without losing half his army.
Dr. Lucius O’Grady was a born leader of men. He discovered very soon
that in the matter of the performance of “God Save the King” by the
town band, fate had a rope round his leg and was likely to scourge him
uncomfortably if he pulled against it. The introduction of variations
into the tune proved to be a much more difficult matter than he had
supposed. He worked hard for six hours on Major Kent’s piano, and
produced two versions of which he thought well, though neither of them
completely satisfied him. He sent for Constable Moriarty and played them
over to him. Moriarty sat and listened to the first.
“Would you know what that tune was, Moriarty?” said Dr. O’Grady.
“I would, of course. Anybody would. I don’t say but there’s bits in it
that isn’t right, but you have the tune safe enough.”
“Would Thady Gallagher know it?”
“He would,” said Moriarty, “and what’s more he’d be lepping mad when
he heard it. And you couldn’t wonder. You wouldn’t like it yourself,
doctor, if somebody was to play a tune at you that you hated worse nor
you hate the devil.”
Dr. O’Grady was disappointed.
“Are you sure now,” he said, “that he wouldn’t be taken in by the
variations? I don’t know whether you quite realise the number of
variations there are? Just listen to me again.”
He played his composition through once more, touching the notes which
gave the tune very softly, hammering hard at the long runs and fiery
groups of semi-quavers which he had sandwiched in between the scraps of
tune.
“I wouldn’t say,” said Moriarty, “that you’ve destroyed it altogether;
though it’s my opinion that it’s better the way it was before you set
your hand to it. But anyhow you needn’t be uneasy. There isn’t a man,
woman or child that ever heard the tune but would know what you’re
aiming at.”
Dr. O’Grady felt that Moriarty’s judgment in the matter was too decisive
and confident to be ignored.
“Very well,” he said. “Now listen to this.”
He played through the second of his two compositions.
“Now,” he said, “what tune is that, Moriarty?”
Moriarty scratched his head and looked inquiringly at the doctor.
“Is it what tune is that that you’re asking me?” he said.
“Exactly. What tune is it?”
“It’s no tune at all,” said Moriarty.
“Do you mean to say you don’t recognise it?”
“I do not, and what’s more nobody could. For there’s no tune in it, only
noise.”
The doctor hesitated. Moriarty’s opinion was in one respect quite
satisfactory. Neither Gallagher nor anyone else in Ballymoy was
likely to recognise the tune. It might, of course, fail to impress
the Lord-Lieutenant as being quite the proper thing. But that was a
difficulty which could be got over. The Lord-Lieutenant was not likely
to listen very attentively, and if he were told definitely that the band
was playing “God Save the King” he might possibly believe it.
“I’m thinking,” said Dr. O’Grady, “of teaching that piece of music to
the town band.”
“It’ll fail you to do that,” said Moriarty.
“I don’t see why.”
“You can try it,” said Moriarty, “but you’ll not be able. Anything those
fellows could play, I’d be able to whistle, and if it’s what I couldn’t
whistle they’ll not be able to play it.”
“You could whistle that all right if you tried.”
“I could not. Nor I couldn’t play it on an ivy leaf, nor yet on a comb,
and if I couldn’t there’s nobody else could. I’m not saying it isn’t
good music, doctor, for it may be. But there’s neither beginning nor end
of it, nor there isn’t anything in the middle that a man would be able
to catch hold of.”
Dr. O’Grady shut the piano with a bang. Constable Moriarty rose from his
seat.
“If there’s nothing more you’ll be wanting with me, doctor,” he
said, “it might be as well if I was getting back to the barrack. The
sergeant’s terrible particular these times. Mr. Gregg, the D.I., has
him annoyed with finding fault here and there and everywhere. Not that
I blame Mr. Gregg, for everybody knows he’s a nice quiet kind of a man
who’d ask for nothing only to be let alone. But that’s what he can’t get
on account of Mr. Ford.”
“Mr. Ford’s a public nuisance,” said Dr. O’Grady; “but I think we’ll be
able to get rid of him.”
“It would be no great harm if he was dead,” said Moriarty.
“The Lord-Lieutenant,” said Dr. O’Grady, “is almost sure to promote him.
That kind of man who never can let other people’s business alone, is
just suited to Dublin Castle.”
Moriarty got as far as the door of the room and then stopped.
“Will it be all right,” he said, “about Mary Ellen? You’ll remember,
doctor, that I was speaking to you about her, the way she’d be given the
chance of speaking to the Lord-Lieutenant.”
“I’ll settle about her at once,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Did you say you were
going straight back to the barrack?”
“I am,” said Moriarty. “It’ll be better for me if I do on account of the
way Mr. Ford does be talking to——”
“Are you going so straight that you won’t see Mary Ellen on the way?”
“It could be,” said Moriarty, “that I might see her.”
“Very well, then, do. And tell her to meet me at Mrs. Gregg’s house
at——” He glanced at his watch.
“Let me see, it’s nearly half past two, and I’ll have to spend a few
minutes pacifying the Major. Suppose you tell her to meet me at Mrs.
Gregg’s at a quarter past three. Will you be sure to give her that
message?”
“I will,” said Moriarty.
“And don’t you keep the girl late now, Moriarty, with love making in the
pig-stye or any nonsense of that kind.”
“Is it likely I would?”
“It is very likely. But don’t do it.”
“It is not likely then, seeing as how I ought to be back in the barrack
this minute on account of the way Mr. Gregg has the sergeant annoyed——”
“There’s only one thing worse than keeping Mary Ellen late,” said Dr.
O’Grady, “and that is delaying me. Be off with you at once.”
Constable Moriarty marched off towards the barrack, fully determined to
call on Mary Ellen on the way. Dr. O’Grady went into the stable yard to
look for Major Kent. He found him smoking a pipe and reading the last
number of the Connacht Eagle in an empty loose box.
“I thought you’d like to know,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that I’ve finished
with the piano, so you can go back into the house again.”
“Quite sure you’re finished?” said the Major.
“Quite.”
“Because if there are any final touches to put to your oratorio, you’d
better do them to-day. The piano won’t be there to-morrow. I’ve made up
my mind to sell it at once.”
“Silly thing to do,” said Dr. O’Grady. “You won’t get half what it’s
worth if you sell it in a hurry like that.”
“Even if I have to pay someone to take it away,” said the Major, “I
shall make a good bargain. It’s better to lose a little money than to
spend the rest of my life in a lunatic asylum.”
“You know your own business best, of course, and if you think you can
preserve what little intelligence you have by giving Thady Gallagher or
some other fellow a present of your piano—”
“I think I can save myself from being turned into a gibbering maniac,”
said the Major, “by making sure that you’ll never have the chance of
composing music in my house again. Since eight o’clock this morning
you’ve been at it. I could hear you whenever I went, mixing up hymns
and waltzes and things with ‘God Save the King.’ I tried to get a bit of
lunch at half past one, but I had to fly from the house.”
“It’s over now anyhow,” said Dr. O’Grady. “And you needn’t sell the
piano. I’ve given up the idea of producing a new version of that tune
for the Lord-Lieutenant. I find that the thing can’t be done in the
time. I’m going to give him ‘Rule Britannia’ instead.”
“With variations?”
“No. Quite plain. It’ll do him just as well as the other. In fact from
his point of view it’s rather the more patriotic tune of the two, and
there won’t be any local objection to it because nobody can possibly
recognise it.”
It was in this way that Dr. O’Grady showed the true greatness of his
mind. A weaker man, daunted by the difficulty of arranging “God Save
the King” in such a way as to suit all tastes, might have given up the
attempt to provide a musical welcome for the Lord-Lieutenant. A man of
narrow obstinacy, the kind of man who is really like a pig, would have
persevered, in spite of Constable Moriarty’s warning, in trying to teach
his variations to the town band. Dr. O’Grady, knowing that the main
thing was the success of his general scheme, turned from a tune which
presented insuperable difficulties, and fixed upon another, which would,
he hoped, be comparatively easy to manage. The Major ought to have
admired him; but did not He was in a condition of extreme nervous
exasperation which rendered him unfit to admire anything.
“You’ll get us all into an infernal mess with your foolery,” he said
sulkily, “and when you do, you needn’t come to me to help you out.”
“I won’t. But don’t forget the committee meeting to-morrow morning. Half
past eleven, in Doyle’s Hotel.”
“What committee?”
“Strictly speaking,” said Dr. O’Grady, “it’s two committees—the Statue
Erection Committee and the Lord-Lieutenant Reception Committee—but the
same people are on both, so we may as well make one meeting do.”
“I’ll go,” said the Major, “in the hope, utterly vain of course, of
keeping you from further excesses.”
“Good,” said Dr. O’Grady. “And now I must hurry off. I’ve a lot to do
between this and then.”
Major Kent was a kind-hearted man. He had suffered intensely during the
earlier part of the day and for some hours had been seriously angry
with Dr. O’Grady. But his sense of hospitality was stronger than his
resentment.
“Stop for half an hour,” he said, “and have something to eat Now that
you’ve given up punishing my poor old piano we might have lunch in
peace.”
“Can’t possibly waste time in eating. I’ve far too much to do. To tell
you the truth, Major, I don’t expect to sit down to a square meal until
I join the Lord-Lieutenant’s luncheon party. Till then I must snatch a
crust as I can while running from one thing to another.”
Dr. O’Grady mounted his bicycle and hurried off. He reached the Greggs’
house at twenty minutes past three, Mary Ellen was standing on the step
outside the door, smiling in a good-humoured way. Mrs. Gregg, who looked
hot and puzzled, was just inside the door.
“Oh, Dr. O’Grady,” she said, “I’m so glad you’ve come. This girl won’t
go away and I can’t make out what she wants.”
“It was Constable Moriarty bid me come,” said Mary Ellen.
“It’s all right,” said Dr. O’Grady. “I arranged for her to be here. I’ll
explain everything in one moment. Is that the only frock you own, Mary
Ellen?”
“It is not; but I have another along with it.”
“I don’t expect the other is much better,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Just look
at that dress, will you, Mrs. Gregg?”
Mrs. Gregg looked at Mary Ellen’s clothes carefully. She did not appear
to admire them much.
“There’s a long tear in the skirt,” she said. “It might be mended, of
course, but—and she has only one button on her blouse, and her boots are
pretty well worn out, and she’s horribly dirty all over.”
“In fact,” said Dr. O’Grady, “you couldn’t very well present her to the
Lord-Lieutenant as she is at present.”
“The Lord-Lieutenant!” said Mrs. Gregg.
“Perhaps I forgot to mention,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that Mary Ellen must
be presented. She’s the grand niece of General John Regan.”
“Are you really?” said Mrs. Gregg.
“It’s what the doctor has put out about me,” said Mary Ellen.
“It isn’t a matter of what I’ve put out or haven’t put out,” said Dr.
O’Grady. “Mr. Billing has publicly acknowledged her as the grand niece
of the General. Didn’t he, Mary Ellen?”
“He did,” said Mary Ellen.
“And Mr. Billing is the greatest living authority on everything
connected with the General. So that settles it. Under those
circumstances she must, of course, be presented to the Lord-Lieutenant
when he comes down to unveil the statue.”
“I wonder what Mrs. Ford will say?” said Mrs. Gregg.
“We’ll talk about that afterwards. What I want to get at now is this:
Will you undertake to see that Mary Ellen is properly dressed for the
ceremony?”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly.”
Mrs. Gregg looked at Mary Ellen again as she spoke, looked at her very
carefully and then smiled.
Mary Ellen was also smiling. The proper dressing of Mary Ellen
was plainly a very difficult task. Mrs. Gregg’s smile was at first
contemptuous. Mary Ellen’s, on the other hand, was purely good-natured,
and therefore very attractive, Mrs. Gregg began to relent.
“Won’t you come in?” she said to Dr. O’Grady.
“Certainly,” he replied. “Mary Ellen, you sit down on that chair in the
hall and wait till we call you.”
“I don’t know can I wait,” said Mary Ellen.
“If Moriarty’s lurking about for you,” said Dr. O’Grady, “let him wait.
It’ll do him good. It’s a great mistake for you to make yourself too
cheap. No girl ought to. Moriarty will think a great deal more of you in
the end if you keep him waiting every day for half an hour or so.”
“It’s not him I’m thinking of,” said Mary Ellen, “but it’s Mr. Doyle.”
Dr. O’Grady took no notice of this remark. He did not believe that Mary
Ellen was very much afraid of Mr. Doyle. He followed Mrs. Gregg into the
dining-room. Mary Ellen sat down.
“She really is rather a pretty girl,” said Mrs. Gregg.
“Then you’ll undertake the job,” said Dr. O’Grady. “You won’t have
to pay for anything, you know. We’ll charge whatever you like to buy
against the statue fund.”
Mrs. Gregg did not appear to be listening. She was thinking deeply.
“I have an old silk slip,” she said, “which might be made down.”
“Capital! A silk slip will be the very thing.”
Dr. O’Grady had no idea what a silk slip might be. But his enthusiastic
welcome of the suggestion passed unnoticed. Mrs. Gregg was still
thinking.
“I could get a white muslin,” she said, “with an embroidered yoke and a
wide collar. It wouldn’t cost very much.”
“We’d like the thing done well,” said Dr. O’Grady, “not extravagantly,
of course, but well.”
“Shell look quite sweet,” said Mrs. Gregg; “but what will Mrs. Ford
say?”
“She’ll have to be kept in a good temper.”
“Kept!” said Mrs. Gregg, giggling delightedly.
She was very much afraid of Mrs. Ford, but she found a fearful joy in
entering into a conspiracy against her with Dr. O’Grady for ally.
“Kept!” she repeated, “but she never is.”
“My idea,” said Dr. O’Grady, “is that you should dress Mary Ellen
yourself, according to your own ideas, and at the same time consult with
Mrs. Ford, giving her the impression that she’s doing the whole thing
herself. I should think you ought to be able to manage that.”
This did not seem to Mrs. Gregg a very easy thing to do. She hesitated.
“I’m afraid I couldn’t,” she said at last. “I don’t see how I could.”
“All that’s required,” said Dr. O’Grady, “is a little tact. You are
always good at tact, Mrs. Gregg. I’m perfectly certain that you’ll be
able to manage. You must suggest each garment you intend to put on the
girl in such a way that Mrs. Ford will think that she suggested it.
That ought to be easy enough.” Everybody likes being credited with the
possession of tact. This is curious, because hardly anyone likes being
called a liar; and yet tact is simply a delicate form of lying. So, of
course, is politeness of every kind, and nobody considers it wrong to
aim at being polite. Mrs. Gregg, who would certainly have resented an
accusation of habitual untruthfulness, felt flattered when Dr. O’Grady
said she was tactful. She even believed him and allowed herself to be
persuaded to undertake the management of Mrs. Ford.
“Good,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Then I’ll leave the whole business in your
hands. I have to be off. But you’ve no time to lose. You’ll have to set
about your work at once. I’ll send Mary Ellen to you as I go through
the hall. You can measure her, and then take her over to see Mrs. Ford.
After that you’d better order the new dress. If there’s any hitch in the
proceedings you can send for me, but I don’t see why there should be.”
He shook hands with Mrs. Gregg and hurried from the room, without
giving her the chance of making any kind of protest or asking any more
questions.
He found Mary Ellen seated on an uncomfortable oak chair in the hall.
“Mary Ellen,” he said, “would you like a new dress?”
“I would.”
“Then go into the dining-room—the room I’ve just come out of. You’ll
find Mrs. Gregg there. Do exactly what she tells you without making
any objections or asking questions. If she insists on your washing
your face, wash it, without grumbling. If Moriarty is waiting for you
anywhere between this and the town—— Is Moriarty waiting for you?”
“He might.”
“Well, if he is, I’ll clear him out of the way. You’ll be going into the
town in a few minutes with Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Gregg. It wouldn’t do at
all to have him making eyes at you from the side of the road when you’re
walking with those two ladies. Mrs. Gregg mightn’t mind; but Mrs. Ford
would be certain to object. She’s not the kind of lady who likes to see
other people enjoying themselves.”
“He wouldn’t do the like,” said Mary Ellen.
“I wouldn’t trust him,” said Dr. O’Grady.
Moriarty was, in fact, waiting for Mary Ellen about a hundred yards from
the gate of the Greggs’ house. Dr. O’Grady rebuked him sharply. Moriarty
asserted that he was engaged in patrolling that particular road in
simple obedience to the call of duty.
“That may possibly be true,” said Dr. O’Grady, “though it doesn’t sound
likely.”
“It was the sergeant gave me my orders,” said Moriarty.
“Patrol some other road, then,” said Dr. O’Grady. “You’re not wanted
here.”
“What the sergeant said was that it would be better for me to patrol
along between Mr. Gregg’s house and Mr. Ford’s, so that if either the
one or the other of them was to see me he’d know that I was patrolling.
I wouldn’t say a word against Mr. Gregg, who’s a nice gentleman enough,
and easy pleased. But it’s hard to pacify Mr. Ford, and the sergeant
thought——”
“I can tell you this,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that if Mrs. Ford catches you
lying in wait for Mary Ellen on the road outside her house, it will be a
jolly sight harder to pacify Mr. Ford than it was before. Surely you can
understand that.”
Moriarty understood it thoroughly. He was not very well pleased, but he
was a young man of considerable prudence, and was filled with a sincere
desire to rise in his profession. He spent the rest of the afternoon in
patrolling a road at the other end of Ballymoy.
Dr. O’Grady hurried on. His next stop was at the door of Kerrigan’s
shop. The elder Kerrigan was leaning against the wooden slab on which he
was accustomed to cut up joints. He was smoking a pipe.
“Where’s your son?” said Dr. O’Grady.
“He’s within in the back yard,” said Kerrigan.
“Tell him I want to see him.”
“I’m not sure can he come to you; for he’s taking the skin off a sheep
that he’s just after slaughtering.”
“Let him wash his hands,” said Dr. O’Grady. “The sheep can wait.”
“I’m not sure will he come,” said Kerrigan. “He’s not overly much
pleased with you this minute, doctor, and that’s the truth.”
“What’s the matter with him?”
“It’s on account of your saying that he was thinking of getting married
to Mary Ellen.”
“It was Gallagher said that. I’d nothing to do with it one way or the
other.”
“I wouldn’t be minding myself what you said,” said Kerrigan, “knowing
well that you wouldn’t be meaning any harm, whatever it was; though the
girl’s no match for him, and I wouldn’t care for him to be carrying on
with her, when it’s a girl with a fortune he ought to get, and what’s
more, can get, whenever I choose to ask for her. But I wouldn’t pay any
attention to what was put out about him and Mary Ellen. I’m only telling
you so as you’d know why it is that the boy’s mind is riz against you.”
“What nonsense! Everybody in the place knows that it’s Constable
Moriarty who’s after the girl.”
“It’s just that that’s troubling the boy. On account of Constable
Moriarty being a comrade of his; so that he wouldn’t like him to be
thinking—— But sure, I’ll fetch him for you, if you like.”
Young Kerrigan appeared a few minutes later. His father did not come
back with him. He may have felt it necessary, in the interests of his
business, to go on skinning the sheep. It was evident at once that the
young man was in a bad temper, but Dr. O’Grady did not mean to waste
time in explanations if he could possibly help it.
“Listen to me, Kerrigan,” he said, “do you know this tune?”
He whistled “Rule Britannia” slowly and distinctly.
“I do not know it,” said young Kerrigan, “nor I don’t want to.”
Dr. O’Grady whistled it through again.
“It’s a good tune,” he said. “It would be a nice one for the band to
learn.”
“It would not.”
“What’s the matter with you?” said Dr. O’Grady. “To look at the
expression of your face anybody’d think that the sheep in the back yard
had been skinning you.”
“You know well what’s the matter with me.”
“If you’re nursing a grievance,” said Dr. O’Grady, “because Thady
Gallagher told the American gentleman that you were married to Mary
Ellen and had twins, you ought to have more sense.”
It is always very difficult to remain in a bad temper with anyone who
insists on being pleasant and cheerful. Young Kerrigan began to give
way. He grinned unwillingly.
“That’s the first I heard of twins,” he said.
“And he only said it to please the American gentleman,” said Dr.
O’Grady. “Nobody believed him.”
“Sure I know well enough,” said young Kerrigan, “that there has to be
lies told to the likes of that one. How else would you content them? I
wouldn’t mind myself what was said, knowing it was meant for the best,
only that Constable Moriarty——”
“Moriarty doesn’t mind a bit,” said Dr. O’Grady; “so if it’s only his
feelings you’re thinking of, you may just as well listen to this tune.”
He whistled “Rule Britannia” through once more. He threw great spirit
into the last few bars.
“It’s a good tune enough,” said young Kerrigan.
“Could the band learn it?”
“It could, of course, if so be that I had the tune right on the cornet.
It would be a queer thing if I couldn’t incense the rest of them into
doing what had to be done with the other instruments.”
“I can’t play the cornet myself,” said Dr. O’Grady, “but I’ll whistle
the tune to you as often as you like, or if you prefer it we might get
the loan of a piano somewhere, and I’ll play it for you. I can’t borrow
the Major’s again for reasons which I’m not in a position to explain to
you, but we can easily get the use of another if you think it would help
you.”
“The whistling will do,” said young Kerrigan. “Will you come inside with
me now and I’ll try can I get it. But, doctor——”
He hesitated and looked doubtfully at Dr. O’Grady. It was plain that he
had a favour to ask and was a little afraid of asking it.
“Well,” said Dr. O’Grady encouragingly.
“If so be that you were to see Moriarty——” said young Kerrigan.
Then he hesitated again.
“I see far too much of him,” said Dr. O’Grady.
“I’d be obliged to you if you’d tell him that I never looked next nor
nigh Mary Ellen, nor wouldn’t. Even if I wanted the girl I wouldn’t go
behind Moriarty’s back to get her; and I don’t want her.”
“I’ll make that perfectly plain to him. Come along now and learn the
tune.”