General John Regan Part 25

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. "n.o.body 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."

CHAPTER XII

The cornet is of all instruments in an ordinary band the one which produces the most penetrating sounds. While young Kerrigan was practising a new tune on it all the inhabitants of the town of Bally-moy were able to hear him. He was aware of this and sorry for it. He did not, indeed, pity his fellow-citizens. He would not have understood a complaint made by a nervous person who found himself tortured by a long series of efforts to get a note in the middle of a tune right. It would have struck him as mere affectation if anyone had objected to hearing the same tune with the same gasping wheeze in the middle of it played over a hundred or a hundred and fifty times in one evening. Young Kerrigan's dislike of the necessary publicity of his practising was similar to that which other artists feel when members of the public break in and see their work in an incomplete condition. He liked his music to be appreciated. He felt that acknowledgment of the stages by which it came to its ultimate perfection was likely to diminish its glory. But he had no place in which he could practise except the back yard of his father's house, and that, unfortunately, was in the very middle of the town.

In order to get out of his difficulty young Kerrigan adopted the plan of learning new tunes only in autumn and winter, when strong gales were blowing. On a calm summer evening every note of the cornet, whether right or wrong, was heard. Even the sounds which were not quite notes but only painful grunts penetrated open windows and doors. But when a storm was raging most of the notes were blown away, and only occasionally, when there happened to be a lull, did anybody except young Kerrigan himself hear anything. The plan worked out very satisfactorily.

Amid the rush and clatter of a tempest people took no notice of such stray wailings of the cornet as reached their ears. But, like many excellent plans, this one was liable to break down in emergencies. It broke down badly when Dr. O'Grady insisted that the band should learn "Rule Britannia" in the middle of August.

Young Kerrigan readily got a grip on the tune. He could whistle it and hum it quite correctly after he had heard it six or seven times. But to reproduce it on the cornet required practise, and the weather was remarkably calm and fine. Kerrigan, in spite of his dislike of being heard, was obliged to devote the evening to it after the doctor left him. Next morning he went at it again, beginning at about eleven o'clock. He got on very well up to the point at which the words declare that "Britons never, never, never shall be slaves." The notes which went to the "nevers" were particularly troublesome. He tried them slowly, one by one, leaving a short interval between them. He tried them fast, running them into each other. He tried beginning the tune again after each mistake, in hope of getting over his difficulty, as a bicyclist sometimes gets up a hill, by running. He was a man of patient disposition, and he was still working hard at one o'clock.

Mr. Thaddeus Gallagher spent the morning transcribing shorthand notes in his office. There had been a singularly interesting meeting of the County Council the day before in the neighbouring town of Dunbeg.

Gallagher had written down every word of an acrimonious debate. He wanted to publish a verbatim report of it. As a rule noise of any kind affected him very little, and at first he took no notice whatever of young Kerrigan's cornet. But the continual repet.i.tion of the tune gradually beat it into his brain. He found his pencil moving across the paper in a series of short staccato bounds every time young Kerrigan got to "Never, never, never." He became by degrees vaguely uneasy. The tune was one which he had certainly heard before. He could not remember where he had heard it. He could not remember what it was. But he became more and more sure that it was connected in his mind with some unpleasant a.s.sociations. At last he found it impossible to go on with his work. The most pa.s.sionate invective of the most furious of the County Councillors failed to move him to any interest. He glanced at his watch. It was just one o'clock. The meeting of the Reception Committee was to take place at half-past one. Gallagher felt that he had just time to investigate thoroughly the disagreeable tune. He got up and left his office.

Constable Moriarty was standing at the door of the barrack listening to young Kerrigan. Being himself a musician, he appreciated the difficulty of playing "Rule Britannia" on a cornet, and enjoyed hearing young Kerrigan's efforts. When he saw Gallagher come out of his office he was greatly pleased, and showed his feeling by grinning broadly. Gallagher saw the grin, and his suspicion that the tune was an offensive one deepened at once. He crossed the road.

"What's that," he said, "that young Kerrigan's playing?"

"It's a new tune," said Moriarty, "and it's hoped that the town band will learn it."

"Where did he get it?"

"I'm after hearing," said Moriarty, "that it was the doctor taught it to him. But I don't know is that true. You can't believe the half of what you hear in this town."

"What tune is it?"

"I don't know that I could put a name to it this minute; but there's no need for you to be uneasy, Mr. Gallagher. It's not what you think it is."

"I'm not thinking about it at all," said Gallagher, very untruthfully.

"I'm glad of that," said Moriarty. "I was afraid from the look of you as you came out of the office that you might be thinking it was 'G.o.d Save the King.' But it's not."

"I was thinking no such thing, for young Kerrigan knows and the doctor knows, and you know yourself, Constable Moriarty, that the people of this town is all good Nationalists, and that if the tune you're after naming was to be played in the streets??"

"It's not it, anyway," said Moriarty, "so you may make your mind easy."

Gallagher's mind was very far from being easy, but he saw that he was not likely to get any more information out of Constable Moriarty. He crossed the road and entered the hotel. Doyle was in the commercial room trying to induce Mary Ellen to sweep the floor. It was in the commercial room that the meeting of the Committee was to be held that afternoon.

Doyle wanted some, if not all, of the dirt removed from the floor beforehand.