Hyacinth Part 2

'Because I can't join in your prayers when I am not at all sure that England ought to win.'

'Good Lord!' said Mackenzie. It is possible to startle even the secretary of a prayer union into mild profanity. 'You don't mean to tell me you are a Pro-Boer, and you a divinity student?'

It had not hitherto struck Hyacinth that it was impossible to combine a sufficient orthodoxy with a doubt about the invariable righteousness of England's quarrels. Afterwards he came to understand the matter better.

CHAPTER III

Mackenzie was not at heart an ill-natured man, and he would have repudiated with indignation the charge of being a mischief-maker. He felt after his conversation with Hyacinth much as most men would if they discovered an unsuspected case of small-pox among their acquaintances.

His first duty was to warn the society in which he moved of the existence of a dangerous man, a violent and wicked rebel. He repeated a slightly exaggerated version of what Hyacinth had said to everyone he met. The pleasurable sense of personal importance which comes with having a story to tell grew upon him, and he spent the greater part of the day in seeking out fresh confidants to swell the chorus of his commination.

In England at the time public opinion was roused to a fever heat of patriotic enthusiasm, and the Irish Protestant Unionists were eager to outdo even the music-halls in Imperialist sentiment, the students of Trinity College being then, as ever, the 'death or glory' boys of Irish loyalty. It is easy to imagine how Hyacinth's name was whispered shudderingly in the reading-room of the library, how his sentiments were anathematized in the dining-hall at commons, how plots were hatched for the chastis.e.m.e.nt of his iniquity over the fire in the evenings, when pipes were lit and tea was brewed.

At the end of the week Hyacinth was in an exceedingly uncomfortable position. Outside the lecture-rooms n.o.body would speak to him. Inside he found himself the solitary occupant of the bench he sat on--a position of comparative physical comfort, for the other seats were crowded, but not otherwise desirable. A great English poet had just composed a poem, which a musician, no doubt equally eminent, had set to a n.o.ble tune.

It embodied an appeal for funds for purposes not clearly specified, and hazarded the experiment of rhyming 'cook's son' with 'Duke's son,' which in less fervent times might have provoked the criticism of the captious.

It became the fashion in college to chant this martial ode whenever Hyacinth was seen approaching. It was thundered out by a choir who marched in step up and down his staircase. Bars of it were softly hummed in his ear while he tried to note the important truths which the lecturers impressed upon their cla.s.ses. One night five musicians relieved each other at the task of playing the tune on a concertina outside his door. They commenced briskly at eight o'clock in the evening, and the final sleepy version only died away at six the next morning.

Dr. Henry, who either did not know or chose to ignore the state of the students' feelings, advised Hyacinth to become a member of the Theological Debating Society. The election to membership, he said, was a mere form, and n.o.body was ever excluded. Hyacinth sent his name to the secretary, and was blackbeaned by an overwhelming majority of the members. Shortly afterwards the Lord-lieutenant paid a visit to the college, and the students seized the chance of displaying their loyalty to the Throne and Const.i.tution. They a.s.sembled outside the library, which the representative of Queen Victoria was inspecting under the guidance of the Provost and two of the senior Fellows. It is the nature of the students of Trinity College to shout while they wait for the development of interesting events, and on this occasion even the library walls were insufficient to exclude the noise. The excellent n.o.bleman inside found himself obliged to cast round for original remarks about the ma.n.u.script of the 'Book of Kells,' while the air was heavy with the verses which commemorate the departure of 'fifty thousand fighting men'

to Table Bay. When at length he emerged on the library steps the tune changed, as was right and proper, to 'G.o.d save the Queen.' Strangely enough, Hyacinth had never before heard the national anthem. It is not played or sung often by the natives of Connemara, and although the ocean certainly forms part of the British Empire, the Atlantic waves have not yet learned to beat out this particular melody. So it happened that Hyacinth, without meaning to be offensive, omitted the ceremony of removing his hat. A neighbour, joyful at the opportunity, s.n.a.t.c.hed the offending garment, and skimmed it far over the heads of the crowd. A few hard kicks awakened Hyacinth more effectually to a sense of his crime, and it was with a torn coat and many bruises that he escaped in the end to the shelter of his rooms, less inclined to be loyal than when he left them.

After a few weeks it became clear that the British armies in South Africa were not going to reap that rich and unvarying crop of victories which the valour of the soldiers and the ability of the generals deserved. The indomitable spirit of the great nation rose to the occasion, and the position of those who entertained doubts about the justice of the original quarrel became more than ever unbearable.

Hyacinth took to wandering by himself through parts of the city in which he was unlikely to meet any of his fellow-students. His soul grew bitter within him. The course of petty persecution to which he was subjected hardened his original sentimental sympathy with the Boer cause into a clearly defined hatred of everything English. When he got clear of the college and the hateful sound of the 'cook's son, Duke's son' tune, he tramped along, gloating quietly over the news of the latest 'regrettable incident.'

He was very lonely and friendless, for not even the discomfiture of his enemies can make up to a young man for the want of a friend to speak to.

An inexpressible longing for home came over him. There was a shop in a by-street which exposed photographs of Galway scenery in its windows for a time. Hyacinth used to go day by day to gaze at them. The modest front of the Gaelic League Hyce was another haunt of his. He used to stand Debating his eyes on the Irish t.i.tles of the books in the window, and repeating the words he read aloud to himself until the pa.s.sers-by turned to look at him. Once he entered a low-browed, dingy shop merely because the owner's name was posted over the door in Gaelic characters. It was one of those shops to be found in the back streets of most large towns which devote themselves to a composite business, displaying newspapers, apples, tobacco, and sweets for sale. The afternoon light, already growing feeble in the open air, had almost deserted the interior of the shop. At first Hyacinth saw nothing but an untidy red-haired girl reading in a corner by the Ught of a candle. Ho asked her for cigarettes. She rose, and laid her book and the candle on the counter.

It was one of O'Growney's Irish primers, dirty and pencilled. Hyacinth's heart warmed to her at once. Was she not trying to learn the dear Irish which the barefooted girls far away at home shouted to each other as they dragged the seaweed up from the sh.o.r.e? Then from the far end of the shop he heard a man's voice speaking Irish. It was not the soft liquid tongue of the Connaught peasants, but a language more regular and formal. The man spoke it as if it were a language he had learned, comparatively slowly and with effort. Yet the sound of it seemed to Hyacinth one of the sweetest things he had ever heard. Not even the shrinking self-distrust which he had been taught by repeated snubbings and protracted ostracism could prevent him from making himself known to this stranger.

'The blessing of G.o.d upon Ireland!' he said.

There was not a moment's hesitation on the part of the stranger. The sound of the Gaelic was enough for him. He stretched out both hands to Hyacinth.

'Is it that you also are one of us--one of the Gaels?' he asked.

Hyacinth seized the outstretched hands and held them tight. The feeling of offered friendship and companionship warmed him with a sudden glow.

He felt that his eyes were filling with tears, and that his voice would break if he tried to speak, but he did not care at all. He poured out a long Gaelic greeting, scarcely knowing what he said. Perhaps neither the man whose hands he held nor the owner of the shop behind the counter fully understood him, but they guessed at his feelings.

'Is it that you are a stranger here and lonely? Where is your home? What name is there on you?'

'Maiseadh, I am a stranger indeed and lonely too,' said Hyacinth.

'You are a stranger no longer, then. We are all of us friends with each other. You speak our own dear tongue, and that is enough to make us friends.'

The tobacconist, it appeared, also spoke Irish of a kind. He cast occasional remarks into the conversation which followed, less, it seemed to Hyacinth, with a view of giving expression to any thought than for the sake of airing some phrases which he had somewhat inadequately learned. Indeed, it struck Hyacinth very soon that his new friend was getting rather out of his depth in his 'own dear tongue.' At last the tobacconist said with a smile:

'I'm afraid we must ask Mr. Conneally--didn't you say that Conneally was your name?--to speak the Beurla. I'm clean beaten with the Gaelic, and you can't go much further yourself, Cahal. Isn't that the truth, now.'

'And small blame to me,' said Cahal--in English, Charles--Maguire.

'After all, what am I but a learner? And it's clear that Mr. Conneally has spoken it since ever he spoke at all.'

Hyacinth smiled and nodded. Maguire went on:

'What are you doing this afternoon? What do you say to coming round with me to see Mary O'Dwyer? It's her "at home" day, and I'm just on my way there.'

'But,' said Hyacinth, 'I don't know her. I can hardly go to her house, can I?'

'Oh, I'll introduce you,' said Maguire cheerfully. 'She allows me to bring anyone I like to see her. She likes to know anyone who loves Ireland and speaks Gaelic. Perhaps we'll meet Finola too; she's often there.'

'Meet who?'

'Finola. That's what we call Miss Goold--Augusta Goold, you know. We call her Finola because she shelters the rest of us under her wings when the Moyle gets tempestuous. You remember the story?'

'Of course I do,' said Hyacinth, who had learnt the tale of Lir's daughter as other children do Jack the Giant-Killer. 'And who is Miss O'Dwyer?'

'Oh, she writes verses. Surely you know them?'

Hyacinth shook his head.

'What a pity! We all admire them immensely. She has something nearly every week in the _Croppy_. She has just brought out a volume of lyrics.

Her brother worked the publishing of it in New York. He is mixed up with literary people there. You must have heard of him at all events. He's Patrick O'Dwyer, one of the few who stood by O'Neill when he fought the priests. He gave up the Parliamentary people after that. No honest man could do anything else.'

He conducted Hyacinth to one of the old squares on the north side of the city. When the tide of fashion set southwards, spreading terraces and villas from Leeson Street to Killiney, it left behind some of the finest houses in Dublin. Nowadays for a comparatively low rent it is possible to live in a splendid house if you do not aspire to the glory of a smart address. Miss O'Dwyer's house, for instance, boasted a s.p.a.cious hall and lofty sitting-rooms, with impressive ceilings and handsome fireplaces; yet she paid for it little more than half the rent which a cramped villa in Clyde Road would have cost her. Even so, it was somewhat of a mystery to her friends how Miss O'Dwyer managed to live there. A solicitor who had his offices on the ground-floor probably paid the rent of the whole house; but the profits of verse-making are small, and a poetess, like meaner women, requires food, clothes, and fire. Indeed, Miss O'Dwyer, no longer 'M. O'D.,' whose verses adorned the _Croppy_, but 'Miranda,'

served an English paper as Irish correspondent. It was a pity that a pen certainly capable of better things should have been employed in describing the newest costume of the Lord Lieutenant's wife at Punchestown, or the confection of pale-blue tulle which, draped round Mrs. Chesney, adorned a Castle ball. Miss O'Dwyer herself was heartily ashamed of the work, but it was, or appeared to her to be, necessary to live, and even with the aid of occasional remittances from Patrick in New York, she could scarcely have afforded her friends a cup of tea without the guineas earned by torturing the English language in a weekly chronicle of Irish society's clothes. Even with the help of such earnings, poverty was for ever tapping her on the shoulder, and no one except Mary herself and her one maid-servant knew how carefully fire and light had to be economized in the splendid rooms where an extinct aristocracy had held revels a century before.

Hyacinth and his friend advanced past the solicitor's doors, and up the broad staircase as far as the drawing-room. For a time they got no further than the threshold. The opening of the door was greeted with a long-drawn and emphatic 'Hush!' from the company within. Maguire laid his hand on Hyacinth's arm, and the two stood still looking into the room. What was left of the feeble autumn twilight was almost excluded by half-drawn curtains. No lamp was lit, and the fire cast only fitful rays here and there through the room. It was with difficulty that Hyacinth discerned figures in a semicircle, and a slim woman in a white dress standing apart from the others near the fire. Then he heard a voice, a singularly sweet voice, as it seemed to him, reciting with steady emphasis on the syllables which marked the rhythm of the poem:

'Out there in the West, where the heavy gray clouds are insistent, Where the sky stoops to gather the earth into mournful embraces, Where the country lies saturate, sodden, round saturate hamlets--

'Out there in the sunset where rages and surges Atlantic, And the salt is commingled with rain over desolate beaches, Thy heart, O beloved, is still beating--fitfully, feebly.

'Is beating--ah! not as it beat in the squadrons of Sarafield, Exultantly, joyously, gladly, expectant of battle, With throbs like the notes of the drums when men gather for fighting.

'Beats still; but, ah! not as it beat in the latest Fitzgerald, n.o.bly devote to his race's most n.o.ble tradition; Or in Emmet or Davis, or, last on their list, in O'Brien.

'Beats fitfully, feebly. O desolate mother! O Erin!

When shall the pulse of thy life, which but flutters in Connaucht, Throb through thy meadows and boglands, and mountains and cities?'

A subdued murmur of applause greeted the close of the recitation, and praise more sincere than that with which politeness generally greets the drawing-room performances of minor poets. Hyacinth joined in neither.

It seemed to him that the verses were too beautiful to speak about, so sacred that praise was a kind of sacrilege. Perhaps some excuse may be found for his emotion in the fact that for weeks he had heard no poetry except the ode about 'wiping something off a slate.' The violence of the contrast benumbed his critical faculty. So a man who was obliged to gaze for a long time at the new churches erected in Belfast might afterwards catch himself in the act of admiring the houses which the Congested Districts Board builds in Connaught.

'I am afraid I must have bored you.' It was Miss O'Dwyer who greeted him. 'I didn't see you and Mr. Maguire come in until I had commenced my poor little poem. I ought to have given you some tea before I inflicted it on you.'

'Oh,' said Hyacinth, 'it was beautiful. Is it really your own? Did you write it?'

Miss O'Dwyer flushed. The vehement sincerity of his tone embarra.s.sed her, though she was accustomed to praise.

'You are very kind,' she said. 'All my friends here are far too kind to me. But come now, I must give you some tea.'

The tea was nearly stone cold and weak with frequent waterings. The saucer and spoon, possibly even the cup, had been used by someone else before. Mr. Maguire secured for himself the last remaining morsel of cake, leaving Hyacinth the choice between a gingerbread biscuit and a torn slice of bread and b.u.t.ter. None of these things appeared to embarra.s.s Miss O'Dwyer. They did not matter in the least to Hyacinth.