Humours of Irish Life Part 48

"And who was Affy Hynes?"

"It was before your time, of course, and before Father Henaghan was parish priest; but the colonel would know who I mean." Michael sank his voice to an impressive whisper. "Affy Hynes was the boy that the police was out after in the bad times, wanting to have him hanged on account of the way that the bailiff was shot. But he made off, and none of us ever knew where he went to, though they did say that it might be to an uncle of his that was in America."

"Did he murder the bailiff?"

"He did not; nor I don't believe he knew who did, though he might."

"Then what did he run away for?"

"For fear they'd hang him," said Michael Geraghty. "Amn't I just after telling you?"

"Go on," said the doctor.

"Well, when Affy came to himself after all the hardship he had it wasn't long before he found out the place he was in. 'It's Ballintra,' says he to himself, 'or it's mighty like it.' There did be a great dread on him then that the police would be out after him again, and have him took; and, says he, into himself like, so as no one would hear him, 'I'll let on I can't understand a word they say to me, so as they won't know my voice, anyway.' And so he did; but he went very near laughing one time when you had the priest and the minister, one on each side of him, and 'Pastor,' says you----"

"Never mind that part," said the doctor.

"If it's displeasing to you to hear about it, I'll not say another word.

Only, I'd be thankful if you'd tell me why you called the both of them Manders. It's what Affy was saying to me this minute: 'Michael,' says he, 'is Manders the name that's on the priest that's in the parish presently?' 'It is not,' says I, 'but Henaghan.' 'That's queer,' said he. 'Is it Manders they call the minister?' 'It is not,' I says; 'it's Jackson. There never was one in the place of the name of Manders, priest or minister.' 'That's queer,' says he 'for the doctor called both the two of them Manders.'"

"So he understood every word we said to him all the time?" said the doctor.

"Not the whole of it, nor near the whole," said Michael Geraghty. "He's been about the world a deal, being a sailor and he said he could make out what Miss Glynn was saying pretty well, and knew the minister's lady was talking Dutch, though he couldn't tell what she was saying, for it wasn't just the same Dutch as he'd been accustomed to hearing. The colonel made a middling good offer at the Russian. Affy was a year one time in them parts, and he knows; but he said he'd be d.a.m.ned if he could make any kind of a guess at what either the priest or the minister was at, and he told me to be sure and ask you what they were talking because he'd like to know."

"I'll go up and see him myself," said the doctor.

"If you speak the Irish to him he'll answer you," said Michael.

"I will, if he likes," said the doctor. "But why won't he speak English?"

"There's a sort of dread on him," said Michael Geraghty. "I think he'd be more willing to trust you if you'd speak to him in the Irish, it being all one to you. He bid me say to you, and it's a good job I didn't forget it, that if so be he's dying, you might tell Father Henaghan he's a Catholic, the way he'd attend on him; but if he's to live, he'd as soon no one but yourself and me knew he was in the place."

Dr. Whitty went up to the workhouse, turned the nurse out of the ward, and sat down beside Affy Hynes.

"Tell me this now," he said, "why didn't you let me know who you were? I wouldn't have told on you."

"I was sorry after that I didn't," said Affy, "when I seen all the trouble that I put you to. It was too much altogether fetching the ladies and gentlemen up here to be speaking to the like of me. It's what never happened to me before, and I'm sorry you were bothered."

"Why didn't you tell me then?"

"Sure, I did my best. Did you not see me winking at you once, when you had the priest and the minister in with me, as much as to say: 'Doctor, if I thought I could trust you I'd tell you the truth this minute.' I made full sure you'd understand what it was I was meaning the second time, even if you didn't at the first go-off."

"That's not what I gathered from your wink at all," said the doctor. "I thought you'd got some kind of a nervous affection of the eye."

"It's a queer thing, now," said Affy, "that the two of them reverend gentlemen should have the same name, and that Manders."

"We'll drop that subject," said the Doctor.

"We will, of course, if it's pleasing to you. But it is queer all the same, and I'd be glad if I knew the reason of it, for it must be mighty confusing for the people of this place, both Catholic and Protestant.

Tell me now, doctor, is there any fear that I might be took by the police?"

"Not a bit. That affair of yours, whatever it was, is blown over long ago."

"Are you certain of that?"

"I am."

"Then as soon as I'm fit I'll take a bit of a stroll out and look at the old place. I'd like to see it again. Many's the time I've said to myself, me being, may be, in some far-away country at the time, 'I'd like to see Ballintra again, and the house where my mother lived, and the bohireen that the a.s.ses does be going along into the bog when the turf's brought home.' Is it there yet?"

"I expect it is," said the doctor.

"G.o.d is good," said Affy. "It's little ever I expected to set eyes on it."

A Test of Truth.

_From "Irish Neighbours."_

BY JANE BARLOW.

Jim Hanlon, the cobbler, was said by his neighbours to have had his own share of trouble, and they often added, "And himself a very dacint man, goodness may pity him!" His misfortunes began when poor Mary Anne, his wife, died, leaving him forlorn with one rather sickly little girl, and they seemed to culminate when one frosty morning a few years later he broke his leg with a fall on his way to visit Minnie in hospital. The neighbours, who were so much impressed by her father's good qualities and bad luck, did not hold an equally favourable opinion about this Minnie, inclining to consider her a "cross-tempered, spoilt little shrimp of a thing." But Jim himself thought that the width of the world contained nothing like her, which was more or less true. So when she fell ill of a low fever, and the doctor said that the skilled nursing in a Dublin hospital would be by far her best chance, it was only after a sore struggle that Jim could make up his mind to let her go. And then his visit to her at the first moment possible had brought about the unwary walking and slip on a slide, which resulted so disastrously.

It was indeed a most deplorable accident. If it had happened somewhere near Minnie's hospital, he said to himself, it might have been less unlucky, but, alas, the whole city spread between them and the inst.i.tution whither he was brought. The sense of his helplessness almost drove him frantic, as he lay in the long ward fretting over the thought that he was tied by the leg, unable to come next or nigh her, whatever might befall, or even to get a word of news about her. But on this latter point his forebodings were not fulfilled, his neighbours proved themselves to be friends in need. At the tidings of his mishap they made their way in to see him from unhandy little Ballyhoy, undeterred by what was often to them no very trivial expense and inconvenience. Nor were they slow to discover that they could do him no greater service than find out for him "what way herself was at all over at the other place." Everybody helped him readily in this matter, more especially three or four good-natured Ballyhoy matrons. On days when they came into town to do their bits of marketing they would augment their toils by long trudges on foot, or costly drives on tramcars, that they might convey to Jim Hanlon the report for which he pined. They considered neither their heavy baskets, nor the circ.u.mstance that they were folk to whom time was time, and a penny a penny indeed.

Yet, sad to say, great as was Jim's relief and his grat.i.tude, their very zeal did in some degree diminish the value of their kindness. For their evident desire to please and pacify him awakened in his mind doubts about the means which they might adopt; and it must be admitted that his mistrust was not altogether ungrounded. The tales which they carried to him from "the other place" were not seldom intrinsically improbable, and sounded all the more so to him because of his intimate acquaintance with their subject. When Mrs. Jack Doyle averred that Minnie was devouring all before her, and that the nurse said a strong man would scarce eat as much as she did, Jim remembered Minnie's tomt.i.t-like meals at home, and found the statement hard to accept. It was still worse when they gave him effusively affectionate messages, purporting to come from Minnie, who had always been anything in the world but demonstrative and sentimental. His heart sank as Mrs. Doran a.s.sured him that Minnie had sent her love to her own darling treasure of a precious old daddy, for he knew full well that no such greeting had ever emanated from Minnie, and how could he tell, Jim reflected, but that they might be as apt to deceive him about one thing as another? Perhaps there was little or no truth in what they told him about the child being so much better, and able to sit up, and so forth. Like enough one couldn't believe a word they said. On this terribly baffling question he pondered continually with a troubled mind.

Sat.u.r.day mornings were always the most likely to bring him visitors, and on a certain Sat.u.r.day he rejoiced to hear that somebody was asking for him. He was all the more pleased because the lateness of the hour had made him despair of seeing any friends, and because this portly, good-humoured Mrs. Connolly was just the person he had been wishing to come. She explained that she would have paid him a visit sooner, had not all her children been laid up with colds, and then, as he had hoped, she went on to say that she was going over to see after little Minnie. "And the Sister here's promised me," said Mrs. Connolly, "she'll let me in to bring you word on me way back, even if I'm a trifle beyond the right visitin' time itself."

Thereupon Jim produced a sixpence from under his pillow, where he had kept it ready all the long morning. "If it wouldn't be throublin' you too much, ma'am," he said, "I was wonderin' is there e'er a place you would be pa.s.sin' by where you could get some sort of a little doll wid this for Minnie."

"Is it a doll?" said Mrs. Connolly. "Why to be sure I will, and welcome.

I know a shop in O'Connell Street where they've grand sixpenny dolls, dressed real delightful. I'll get her a one of them as aisy as anythin'." Mrs. Connolly knew that the price of the dolls she had in her eye was actually sixpence-halfpenny, but she at once resolved to pay the halfpenny herself and not let on.

"And you might maybe be gettin' her an orange wid this," Jim said, handing her a penny.

"Well, now, it's the lucky child poor Minnie is," Mrs. Connolly declared, "to have such a good daddy. Finely set up she will be wid a doll and an orange. I'll bring her the best in Dublin, Jim, no fear."

"She might fancy the orange, anyway," Jim said, half to himself, with a queer remorseful sort of look.

Mrs. Connolly having gone, he began to expect her back again with an unreasonable prompt.i.tude which lengthened the afternoon prodigiously. He had suffered innumerable apprehensions, and fidgetted himself into a fever of anxiety before she could possibly have returned. At last, however, when her broad, cheerful countenance did reappear to him, looming through the misty March dusk, he felt that he would almost have chosen a further delay. For he had staked so much upon this venture that the crisis of learning, whether it had failed or succeeded could not but be rather terrible.

There was nothing apparently alarming in Mrs. Connolly's report. She had found Minnie doing finely. Her nurse said she would be out of bed next week, and was very apt to get her health better than before she took bad. The orange had pleased her highly, and she had bid Mrs.

Connolly tell her daddy that he might be sending her another one next Sat.u.r.day if he liked. All this was good as far as it went, but about the doll, Mrs. Connolly kept silence, and it struck Jim that she shrank away from anything which seemed leading towards a reference to the subject.

Jim, who at first had half dreaded and half longed every moment to hear her speak of it, began to think that she might go away without mentioning it, which would not do at all. In the end he had to introduce it himself.

"And how about the bit of a doll, ma'am?" he inquired as unconcernedly as he could. "Was you able to get her e'er a one?"