Our Casualty, and Other Stories Part 23

"If you wouldn't mind waiting a minute, Mr. Gallaher," said the sergeant, "the D.I. would like to speak to you."

"What about?" said Gallaher.

The sergeant winked ponderously.

"It might be," he said, "about the hay you're just after buying."

"If he wants it," said Gallaher, "he can have it, and I'll deliver it to him at his own home at half the price I paid for it."

The District Inspector, smiling and tapping his gaiters with a riding switch, explained in a few words that he did not want the hay and did not intend to pay for it.

"I'm taking over the contents of that loft," he said, "in the name of the Government under the provisions of D.O.R.A."

"I don't know," said Gallaher, "that you've any right to be taking over what I've bought in that kind of way, and what's more you'll not be able to do it without you show me a proper order in writing, signed by a magistrate."

"If I were you," said the D.I., "I wouldn't insist on any kind of legal trial about that hay. At present there's no evidence against you, Mr.

Gallaher, except that you paid a perfectly absurd price for some hay that you didn't want, and I'm not inclined to press the matter now I've got what I wanted; but if you insist on dragging the matter into Court----"

"I do not," said Gallaher.

At ten o'clock that evening Dan Gallaher and James McNiece sat together in the private room behind the bar of Sam Twining's public-house. The house was neutral ground used by Orangemen and Nationalists alike, a convenient arrangement, indeed a necessary arrangement, for there was no other public-house nearer than Curraghfin.

"Dan," said James McNiece, "I'm an Orangeman and a Protestant and a loyalist, and what I've always said about Home Rule and always will say is this:--We'll not have it and to h.e.l.l with the rebels. But I'm telling you now I'd rather you had them, papist and rebel and all as you are, than see them swept off that way by the police. And what's more, I'm not the only one says that. The Colonel was talking to me after he heard what happened, and what he said was this--'The Government of this country,' said he, meaning the police, 'is a disgrace to civilization.'"

"Give me your hand, James McNiece," said Gallaher. "Let me shake your hand to show there's no ill feeling about the way I bid against you at the sale to-day."

McNiece laid down the gla.s.s of whisky which he was raising to his lips and stretched out his hand. Gallaher grasped it and held it.

"Tell me this now, James McNiece," he said, "for it's what I was never sure of--How many was there behind that hay?"

McNiece looked round him carefully and made sure that no third person could hear him. Neglecting no precaution he sank his voice to a whisper.

"Twenty rifles," he said, "of the latest pattern, the same as the soldiers use, and four hundred rounds of ball cartridge."

"Gosh," said Gallaher, "but we'd have done great work with them. Either your lads or mine, James McNiece, would have done great work with them.

But, sure, what's the use of talking? The police has them now."

"d.a.m.n the police," said James McNiece.

XIII -- OLD BIDDY AND THE REBELS

The other servants--there were four of them--spoke of her as "the ould cat" or in moments of extreme exasperation "that divil Biddy O'Halloran." When they spoke to her they called her "Mrs. O'Halloran,"

or even "Mrs. O'Halloran, ma'am." Even Lady Devereux, though nominal mistress of the house, did not dare to call her "Biddy," She would as soon have addressed an archbishop as "d.i.c.kie," if, indeed, there is an arch-bishop whose Christian name is Richard. There is probably not a woman anywhere, however brave, who would venture to speak to Mrs.

O'Halloran face to face and call her "Biddy." But a man, especially if he be young and good-looking, is in a different case. Harry Devereux called her "Biddy." He had earned the right to be familiar with his aunt's cook.

As a schoolboy Harry spent most of his holidays at his aunt's house in Dublin, and in those days Mrs. O'Halloran used to box his ears and occasionally spank him. When he grew to be a man and was called in due course to the Irish Bar, he was often at his aunt's house and still visited Mrs. O'Halloran in her kitchen. She gave up smacking him but she still called him "Master Harry," After the outbreak of war Harry Devereux became a Second Lieutenant in the Wess.e.x Regiment. He displayed himself in his uniform to his aunt, who admired his appearance in her placid way. He also showed himself to Mrs. O'Halloran, who snubbed him sharply.

"So it's fighting you're for now, Master Harry," she said. "Well, it's what'll suit you. It's my opinion that you're never out of mischief only when you're in something worse. It is that way with you as long as I know you and that's since you were born or pretty near. It's the Germans, is it? Well, I'm sorry for them Germans if there's many like you going to be soldiers."

Harry took this as a compliment It was his hope that the Germans would be sorry for themselves when he got out to France with his platoon of Wess.e.x men.

After dinner. Molly, the parlourmaid, her day's work ended, became sentimental. She said it was a terrible thing to think of all the fine men that would be killed, and maybe young Mr. Devereux among them. Mrs.

O'Halloran checked her flow of feeling.

"Is it Master Harry be killed? Talk sense, can't you? Sure you couldn't kill the like of that one. Haven't I seen him, not once but a dozen times, climbing out on the roof of the house and playing himself to and fro among the chimneys. If that wasn't the death of him, and him not more than twelve years old at the time, is it likely the Germans would be able to kill him? The like of him is the same as fleas that you'd be squeezing with your finger and thumb or maybe drowning in a basin of water. You know well they'd be hopping over you after the same as before."

Molly sniffed. It was not wise to argue with "Ould Biddy," who had a talent for forcible speech.

Mrs. O'Halloran had the best right in the world to the free use of her tongue. She was a really good cook. She had satisfied Sir Joseph Devereux while he lived. She satisfied Lady Devereux afterwards. And Lady Devereux appreciated good cooking. Her husband dead, her three daughters safely married, she had leisure to enjoy eating and had money enough to pay for the best which the Dublin markets provided. Next to good food Lady Devereux valued peace and the absence of worry. Mrs.

O'Halloran enjoyed strife and liked a strenuous life. She took all the annoyances of the household on herself, and when they proved too few for her, created unnecessary worry for herself by hara.s.sing the maids. Lady Devereux slept untroubled at night, rose late in the morning, found all things very much to her liking, and grew comfortably fat.

For eight months of the year, from October till the end of May, Lady Devereux lived in one of the fine Georgian houses which are the glory of the residential squares of Dublin. It was a corner house, rather larger than the others in the square, with more light and more air, because its position gave it a view up and down two streets as well as across the lawn which formed the centre of the square.

Before the war Harry Devereux used to say that his aunt's house was the best in Dublin for a dance. It pained him to see its possibilities wasted. After receiving his commission he looked at the world with the eye of a soldier and gave it as his opinion that the house occupied the finest strategic position in Dublin. There was not much chance of persuade ing plump old Lady Devereux to give a ball. There seemed even less chance of her home ever being used as a fortress. But fate plays strange tricks with us and our property, especially in Ireland. It happened that Lady Devereux' house was occupied more or less by the soldiers of one army, and shot at with some vigour by the soldiers of another on Easter Monday, 1916. Oddly enough it was neither the rebels nor the soldiers who earned credit by their military operations, but old Biddy O'Halloran.

Mrs. O'Halloran always enjoyed Bank holidays greatly. She did not go out, visit picture houses or parade the streets in her best clothes. She found a deeper and more satisfying pleasure in telling the younger maids what she thought of them when they asked and obtained leave to go out for the afternoon, and in making scathing remarks about their frocks and hats as they pa.s.sed through the kitchen to reach the area door. On that particular Easter Monday she was enjoying herself thoroughly. A kitchenmaid--she was new to the household or she would not have done it--had asked Lady Devereux' permission to go out for the afternoon and evening. She got what she asked for. Everybody who asked Lady Devereux for anything got it as a matter of course. The kitchenmaid ought to have made her application through Mrs. O'Halloran. It is the rule in all services that remote authorities must be approached only through the applicant's immediate superiors. Mrs. O'Halloran took her own way of impressing this on the kitchenmaid.

"I suppose now," she said, "that you'll be trapsing the streets of Dublin in the new pink blouse that you spent your last month's wages on?"

That was exactly what the kitchenmaid meant to do. Mrs. O'Halloran looked the girl over critically.

"I don't know," she said, "that I ever seen a girl that would look worse in a pink blouse than yourself. The face that's on you is the colour of a dish of mashed turnips, and the pink blouse will make it worse, if worse can be."

The kitchenmaid was a girl of some spirit She felt inclined to cry, but she pulled herself together and snorted instead.

"I suppose," said Mrs. O'Halloran, "that you'll be looking out for a young man to keep you company?"

The kitchenmaid did, in fact, hope to walk about with a young man; but she denied this.

"I'll be looking for no such thing," she said.

"It's well for you then," said Mrs. O'Halloran, "for I'm thinking you'd look a long while before you found one. It's very little sense men has, the best of them, but I never met one yet that hadn't more sense than to go after a girl like you. If you were any good for any mortal thing a man might be content to marry you in spite of your face; but the way you are, not fit to darn your own stockings, let alone sew for a man, or cook the way he could eat what you put before him, it would be a queer one that would walk the same side of the street with you, pink blouse or no pink blouse."

The kitchenmaid, though a girl of spirit, was still young. She was washing potatoes in the scullery while Mrs. O'Halloran spoke to her. Two large tears dropped from her eyes into the sink. Mrs. O'Halloran smiled.

Then Molly, the parlourmaid, flung open the kitchen door and rushed to Mrs. O'Halloran. Her face was flushed with excitement and terror. Her eyes were staring. She was panting. Her nice frilly cap was over one ear. She held her ap.r.o.n crumpled into a ball and clutched tightly in her hand.

"It's murdered we'll be, killed and murdered and worse! There's them in the house with guns and all sorts that'll ruin and destroy everything that's in it The mistress is dead this minute and it's me they're after now. What'll we do at all, at all?"

The kitchenmaid, stirred from her private grief by the news, left her potatoes and came to the kitchen. She and Molly clung to each other.

"It's the Sinn Feiners," she said, "and they're out for blood."

"Where's the police?" said Molly. "What good is the police that they wouldn't be here and us being murdered?"