Further Experiences of an Irish R.M Part 15

"Stop the dog!" I shouted to my maids-of-honour, "run round and catch her!"

Maria here, in irrepressible appropriation of the mission, bolted between my legs, and sent me staggering backwards into a very considerable boghole.

I will not labour the details. After some flounderings I achieved safety and the awe-stricken comments of the maids-of-honour, as wet as I have ever been in my life, and about five times as cold. One of my young ladies captured Minx in the act of getting ash.o.r.e; the other collected the slaughtered drake and shrouded him in her pinafore, with a grasp of the position that did credit to both heart and head, and they finally informed me that Mrs. Brickley's house was only a small pieceen away.

I had left Mrs. Brickley's house a well-equipped sportsman, creditably escorted by Peter Cadogan and the Widower. I returned to it a muddy and dripping outcast, attended by two little girls, two goats, and her own eight ducks, whom my hand had widowed. My sodden clothes clung clammily about me; the wind, as it pierced them, carried with it all the iciness of the boghole. I walked at top speed to get up some semblance of a circulation; I should have run were it not for the confusion that such a proceeding would have caused to my cortege. As it was, the ducks fled before me in waddling panic, with occasional help from their wings, and panting and pattering in the rear told that the maids-of-honour, the goats, and the dogs were maintaining with difficulty their due places in the procession. As I neared the cottage I saw a boy go quickly into it and shut the door; I pa.s.sed into the yard within the fuchsia hedge and heard some one inside howling and droning a song in Irish, and as I knocked, with frozen knuckles, the house gave the indefinable feeling of being full of people. There was no response; I lifted the latch. The door opened into the frieze-covered backs of several men, and an evenly blended smell of whisky, turf smoke, and crowded humanity steamed forth.

The company made way for me, awkwardly; I noticed a tendency amongst them to hold on to each other, and there was a hilarious light in Mrs.

Brickley's eye as she hustled forward to meet me. My brother-in-law was sitting at a table by the window writing in a notebook by the last light of the waning day; he gave me a glance laden with affairs to which I was superfluous. A red-eyed, red-headed man, evidently the singer, was standing in the middle of the room; it must have been in conformity with some irresistible law of nature that his hair stood out round his head in the orthodox poetic aureole.

In spite of the painful publicity of the moment there was but one course open to me. I tendered to my hostess the corpse of the drake, with abject apologies and explanations. To say that Mrs. Brickley accepted them favourably is quite inadequate. She heaped insults upon the drake, for his age, for his ugliness, for his temerity in getting in my way; she, in fact, accepted his slaughter in the light of a personal favour and an excellent jest combined, and pa.s.sed rapidly on to explain that the company consisted of a few of the neighbours that was gathered to talk to the gentleman, and to be singing "them owld songs" for him; their number and their zeal being entirely due to the deep personal regard entertained for me by Hare Island. She further mentioned that it was Shrove Tuesday, and that people should "jolly themselves" before Lent. I was hurriedly conveyed to what is known as "Back in the room," a blend of best parlour and bedroom, with an immense bed in the corner. A fire was lighted, by the simple method of importing most of the kitchen fire, bodily, in a bucket, and placing it on the hearth, and I was conjured to "sthrip" and to put on a new suit of clothes belonging to my host while my own were being dried. He himself valeted me, inaugurating the ceremony with a tumbler of hot whisky and water. The suit of new clothes was of the thickest blue cloth, stiff as boards, and they smelt horribly of stale turf smoke.

The discovery that the trousers consisted of but a leg and a half was startling; I had forgotten this aspect of the case, but now, in the proprietor's presence, it was impossible to withdraw from the loan. I could, at all events, remain perdu. Through all these preparations I was aware of highly incensed and fruitless callings for "Pidge"; of Peter Cadogan no tidings were forthcoming, and although a conventional sense of honour withheld me from disclosing the information I might have given about the young lady, it did not deter me from mentally preparing a warm reception for her squire.

I sat by the fire in regal seclusion, with my clothes steaming on a chair opposite to me, and the strong glow of the red turf scorching the shin that was unprotected. Maria and Minx, also steaming, sat in exquisite serenity in front of the blaze, retiring every now and then to fling themselves, panting, on a cold s.p.a.ce of floor. The hot whisky and water sent its vulgar and entirely acceptable consolations into the frozen recesses of my being, a feeling of sociability stole upon me; I felt magnanimously pleased at the thought that Maxwell, at least, had had a perfectly successful day; I glowed with grat.i.tude towards Con Brickley and his wife.

Judged by the usual test of hostesses, that is to say, noise, the _conversazione_ in Maxwell's honour was a high success. Gabble and hum, harangue and argument, and, through all, Maxwell's unemotional educated voice in discussion with the poet. Sc.r.a.ps of English here and there presently told me that the talk had centred itself upon the tragedy of the drake. I had the gratification of hearing Mrs. Brickley inform her friends that "if that owld dhrake was shot, itself, he was in the want of it, and divil mend him, going parading there till he had the Major put asthray! Sure that's the gintleman that's like a child!

and Pidge could tell ye the same."

"Faith and thrue for ye," said another apologist, also female, "and ye wouldn't blame him if he didn't leave duck nor dhrake livin' afther him, with the annoyance he got from thim that should be tinding him, and he bloated with the walk and all!"

(I may, in my own interest, explain that this unattractive description merely implied that I was heated from excessive exercise.)

"And as for the same Pidge," broke in Mrs. Brickley with sudden fire, "when I ketch her it isn't to bate her I'll go, no! but to dhrag her by the hair o' the head round the kitchen."

These agreeable antic.i.p.ations were interrupted by other voices. Some one named Paddy was called upon to sing the song about Ned Flaherty's drake.

"Sing up, Paddy boy, for the gentleman! Arrah, what ails ye, Paddy!

Don't be ashamed at all!"

"'Tis a lovely song, your honour, sir!" (this to my brother-in-law).

"Is it an ancient song?" I heard Maxwell enquire with serious eagerness.

"It is, your honour; 'twas himself made it up lasht year, and he sings it beautiful! Oh! Paddy's a perfect modulator!"

With curiosity stimulated by this mysterious encomium I rose softly and half opened the door in order to obtain a view of the Modulator. A lamp with a glaring tin reflector was on the table beside Maxwell; it illumined Paddy, the Modulator, an incredibly freckled youth, standing in front of my brother-in-law, with eyes fixed on the ground and arms hanging limply at his sides, like a prisoner awaiting sentence. It illumined also the artistic contempt on the elder Poet's countenance, and further revealed to me the fact that from twenty-five to thirty men and women were packed into the small kitchen.

The Modulator opened with a long-drawn and nasal cadenza, suggestive of the droning preliminary canter of a bagpipe, which merged into the statement that

The poor little fella', His legs they were yella', His bosom was blue, he could swim like a hake; But some wicked savage, To grease his white cabbage, Murdered Ned Flaherty's beautiful dhrake!

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MODULATOR OPENED WITH A LONG-DRAWN AND NASAL CADENZA]

Riotous applause followed on this startlingly appropriate requiem.

Maxwell coldly laid down his stylograph with the manner of a reporter during an unimportant speech; the Poet took a clay pipe out of his pocket and examined its contents with an air of detachment; Paddy, with a countenance of undiminished gloom, prepared the way for the next verse with some half-dozen jig-steps, ending with a sledge-hammer stamp on the earthen floor. Fresh thunders of approval greeted the effort.

It seemed to me that Con Brickley's hospitality had been a trifle excessive; I even meditated a hint to that effect, but neither my host nor my hostess was visible. They were apparently holding an overflow meeting in a room at the other end of the house, and I noticed that although there was a steady flow of pa.s.sers in and out between it and the kitchen, the door was carefully closed after each opening.

Suddenly the lamp on Maxwell's table flared up smokily as the door of the house was burst open. The second verse of the drake's elegy ceased at its first line. A woman whom I recognised as Kate Keohane, sister of the Widower, drove her way into the kitchen, sweeping back the people on either side of her with her arms, as though she was swimming.

Her face was scarlet.

"Is Jer Keohane within here?" she shouted.

"He is not!" replied several voices.

Instantly the door of the inner room flew open, and like a stag (or a tom-cat, either simile would serve), answering the challenge of a rival, Mrs. Brickley came forth.

"Is it yer brother you're wantin', ma'am?" she said with lofty politeness. "Ye can search out the house for him if ye like. It's little he troubles my house or myself now, thanks be to G.o.d, and to the Magistrates that took my part before all that was in the Coort-house!

Me that he had goin' in dhread o' me life, with him afther me always in me thrack like a lap-dog!"

"And who has him enticed now but your own daughther?" shrieked Miss Keohane with lightning rapidity. "Isn't Ellen, the Chapel-woman, afther tellin' me she seen herself and himself shneakin' down behindside the chapel, like they'd be goin' aisht to the far sthrand, and she dhressed out, and the coat she stole from Mrs. Yeates on her and a bundle in her hand! Sure doesn't the world know she has her pa.s.sage paid to Ameriky this two months!"

"Ye lie!" panted Mrs. Brickley, catching her antagonist by the arm, not in attack, but in the the awful truce of mutual panic.

Miss Keohane flung her off, only the better to gather force for the prolonged and direful howl of which she delivered herself.

"If she didn't come here with him it's to Ameriky she's taken him!

Look in yer box an' ye'll see where she got the pa.s.sage money! She has the boat's share taken from ye in spite of yer teeth!" Miss Keohane here dropped upon her knees. "An' I pray," she continued, lyrically, "that the devil may melt her, the same as ye'd melt the froth off porther----"

Groans, hoots, and drunken laughter overwhelmed the close of this aspiration. Oblivious of my costume, I stepped forward, with the intention of attracting Maxwell's attention, and withdrawing him and myself as swiftly and un.o.btrusively as possible from a position that threatened to become too hot to hold us.

Even as I did so, I saw in the dark blue s.p.a.ce of the open door a face that was strangely familiar, a face at once civilised and martial, whose gaze was set incredulously upon me.

"Here's the Polis!" squeaked a little girl.

The poet blew out the lamp. The house was in an instant full of the voiceless and strenuous shoving and trampling of people trying to escape. I heard the table go over with a crash, and could only suppose that Maxwell had gone with it, and Maria and Minx, convinced that a cat-hunt was at the root of the matter, barked deafeningly and unceasingly.

In a blinding flash of insight I realised that my brother-in-law and I had been taken red-handed in a "Shebeen," that is to say, a house in which drink is illicitly sold without a license.

The Police Sergeant was egregiously tactful. During the conversation that I held with him in the inner room he did not permit his eye to condescend lower than the top b.u.t.ton of Mr. Brickley's coat, a consideration that but served to make me more conscious of the humiliating deficiency below, nor did it deviate towards the empty tumbler, with the incriminating spoon in it, that stood on the table.

He explained to me and to Maxwell, whose presence I felt to be my sole link with respectability, that the raid had been planned in consequence of information received after the trial.

"I was going to you, sir, to sign the warrant, but Mr. Knox and Dr.

Hickey signed it for us. It was Mr. Knox advised us to come here to-day. We've found three half-barrels of porter under the bed in the room over there, and about two gallons of potheen hid under fishing nets. I'll have about thirty summonses out of it."

The Sergeant's manner was distressingly apologetic. I said nothing, but my heart burned within me as I recognised the hand of Flurry Knox.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SERGEANT'S MANNER WAS DISTRESSINGLY APOLOGETIC]

"In case you might be looking for your man Cadogan, sir," went on the Sergeant, "we seen him in a boat, with two other parties, a man and a woman, going to the mainland when we were coming over. The man that was pulling the other oar had the appearance of having drink taken."

A second flash, less blinding than the first, but equally illuminative, revealed to me that the brown boots, the flannel suit, had been a wedding garment, the predetermined attire of the Best Man, and a third recalled he fact that Shrove Tuesday was the last day between this and Easter on which a marriage could take place.

Maxwell and I went back with the police, and Maxwell explained to me at some length the origin of the word shebeen. As I neared the mainland, which to-morrow would ring with Flurry's artistic version of the day's events, the future held but one bright spot, the thought of putting Peter Cadogan to fire and sword.

But even that was denied to me. It must have been at the identical moment that my cook, Mrs. Cadogan (aunt of the missing Peter), was placing her wedding ring in the Shrove Tuesday pancakes that evening, that my establishment was felled as one man by tidings that still remain preeminent among the sensations of Shreelane. They reached me, irrepressibly, with the coffee.

Hard on the heels of the flushed parlour-maid followed the flat and heavy tread of Mrs. Cadogan, who, like the avenging deities, was habitually shod with felt.