 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information, or to find out how you can volunteer, please go to LibriVox.org Recording by Andy Minter Some Experiences of an Irish RM by Edith Inonis-Somerville and Martin Ross Chapter 10 The House of Fahy Nothing could shake the conviction of Maria that she was by nature and by practice a house-dog. Every one of Shrelaine's many doors, had at one time or another, slammed upon her expulsion, and each one of them had seen her stealthy, irrepressible return to the sphere that she felt herself so eminently qualified to grace. Her, the bone, thriftily interred by Tim Connor's terrier, was a mere diversion. Even the frutage of the ash-bit had little charm for an accomplished habitue of the kitchen. She knew to a nicety which of the doors could be burst open by a salt, at which it would be necessary to wine sycophantically, and the clinic orthomometer alone could furnish a parallel for her perception of mood in those in authority. In the face of Mrs. Cadogan, she knew that there were seasons when instance and complete self-effacement was the only course to pursue. Therefore, when, on a certain morning in July, on my way through the downstairs regions to my office, I saw her approach the kitchen door with her usual circumspection, and on hearing her name enunciated indignantly by my cork, withdraw swiftly to a city of refuge at the back of the hay-rick, I drew my own conclusions. Had she remained as I did, she would have heard the disclosure of a crime that lay more heavily on her digestion than her conscience. I can't put a thing out of my hand, but he's watching me to whip it away," declaimed Mrs. Cadogan, with all the disregard of her kind for the accident of sex in the brute creation. Twas only last night I was back in the scullery when I heard Bridget let out a screech, and there was me brave dog up on the table eating the roast beef that was after coming out from the dinner. The brute, interjected Philippa, with what I well knew to be simulated wroth, and I had planned that bit of beef for the luncheon, continued Mrs. Cadogan in impassioned lamentation, the baby wouldn't have to intrude on the cold turkey. Sure he has it that dragged, that all we can do with it now is to run it through the mincing machine for the major sandwiches. At this appetising suggestion I thought fit to intervene in the deliberations. One thing, I said to Philippa afterwards, as I wrapped up a bottle of Yanitas in a Cadogan jacket and rammed it into an already apoplectic cladston bag, that I do draw the line at, is taking that dog with us. The whole business is black enough as it is. Dear," said my wife, looking at me with almost clairvoyant abstraction, I could manage a second evening dress if you didn't mind putting my tea-jacket in your portmanteau. Little, thank heaven, as I know about yachting, I knew enough to make pertinent remarks and the incongruity of an ancient sixty-tonne hiling and a fleet of smart evening dresses. But nonetheless I left a pair of indispensable boots behind, and the tea-jacket went into my portmanteau. It is doing no more than the barest justice to the officers of the Royal Navy to say that so far as I know them they cherish no mistaken enthusiasm for a home on the rolling deep when a home anywhere else presents itself. Bernard Shute had, unfortunately, proved an exception to this rule. During the winter the invitation to go for a cruise in the yacht that was in process of building for him hung over me like a cloud. A timely strike in the builder's yard brought a respite and, in fact, placed the completion of the yacht at so safe a distance that I was betrayed into specious regrets, echoed with atrocious sincerity by Philippa, into a life pastorally compounded of petty sessions and lawn tennis parties, retribution fell when it was least expected. Bernard Shute hired a yacht in Queenstown, and one short week afterwards the worst had happened, and we were packing our things for a cruise in her. The only alleviation being the knowledge that, whether by sea or land, I was bound to return to my work in four days. We left Shrolain at twelve o'clock, especially depressing hour for a start when breakfast has died in you and lunch is still remote. My last act before mounting the dog-cart was to put her collar and chain on Maria and emure her in the potato house, whence as we drove down the avenue her whales rent the heart of Philippa and rejoiced mine. It was a very hot day with a cloudless sky. The dust lay thick on the white road and on us also, as during two baking hours we drove up and down the long hills and remembered things that had been left behind and grew hungry enough to eat sandwiches that tasted suspiciously of roast beef. The yacht was moored in Clountess Harbour. We drove through the village street, a narrow and unlovely thoroughfare, studied with public houses, swarming with children and poultry, down through an ever-growing smell of fish to the quay. Thence we first viewed our fate, a dingy-looking schooner, and the hope I had secretly been nourishing that there was not wind enough for her to start was dispelled by the sight of her topsoil going up. More than ever at that radiant moment as the reflection of the white sail quivered on the tranquil blue and the still water flattered all it reproduced like a fashionable photographer. Did I agree with George Herbert's advice? Praise the sea, but stay on shore. We must hail her, I suppose, I said, drearily. I assailed the eileen-oog, such being her inappropriate name, with vessel at cries, but achieved no immediate result beyond the assembling of some village children round us and our luggage. Mr. Shulton, the two ladies were to have to screech in here for the vote a while ago. Volunteered a horrid little girl whom I had already twice frustrated in the attempt to seat an infant relative on our bundle of rugs, Timsy Hallehan says to be as good for them to stay ashore for there isn't as much wind outside as a douter candle. With this encouraging statement the little girl devoted herself to the alternate consumption of gooseberries and cockles. All things come to those who wait and to us arrived at length the gig of the eileen-oog and such by this time were the temperatures and the smells of the key that I actually welcomed the moment that found us leaving it for the yacht. Now, St. Clair, aren't you glad you came, remarked Philippa, as the clear green water deepened under us and a light briny air came coolly round us with the motion of the boat. As she spoke there was an outburst of screams from the children on the key, followed by a heavy splash. Oh, stop! cried Philippa in an agony. One of them's fallen in. I can see it's poor little brown head. "'Tis a dog, ma'am,' said briefly the man who was rowing stroke. One might have wished it had been that little girl,' said I, as I steered to the best of my ability for the yacht. We had traversed another twenty yards or so, when Philippa, in the voice in which horror and triumph were strangely blended, exclaimed, "'She's following us.' "'Who? The little girl?' I asked, howlersly. "'No,' returned Philippa. "'Worse.' I looked round, not without a pre-vision of what I was about to see, and behold the faithful Maria swimming steadily after us with her brown muzzle thrust out in front of her, ripping through the reflections like a plow. "'Go home,' I roared, standing up and gesticulating in fury, that I well knew to be impotent. "'Go home, you brute!' Maria redoubled her efforts, and Philippa murmured uncontrollably, "'Well, she is a dear.' Had I had a sword in my hand I should have undoubtedly have slain, Philippa. But before I could express my sentiments in any way a violent shock flung me end-ways on top of the man who was pulling stroke. Thanks to Maria we had reached our destination all unawares. The two men, respectfully awaiting my instructions, had rowed on with disciplined steadiness, and as a result we had rammed the eilean oak amid ships, with a vigour that brought Mr. Shoot tumbling up the companion to see what had happened. "'Oh, it's you, is it?' he said, with his mouth full. "'Come in. Don't knock. Delighted to see you, Mrs. Yates. Don't apologise. There's nothing like a hired ship after all. It's quite jolly to see the splinters fly. It shows you're getting your money's worth.' "'Hello. Who's this?' This was Maria, feigning exhaustion and noisily treading water at the boat's side. "'What poor old Maria wanted to send her ashore, did he?' Heartless brothion! Thus was Maria installed on board the eilean oak, and the element of fatality had already begun to work. There was just enough wind to take us out of Clontis Harbour, and with the last of the outrunning tide we crept away to the west. The party on board consisted of our host's sister, Miss Cecilia Shoot, Miss Sally Knox, and ourselves. We sat about in conventional attitudes in deck-chairs and on adamantine deck-bosses, and I talked to Miss Shoot with feverish brilliancy and wished the patient's cards were not in the cabin. I knew the supreme importance of keeping one's mind occupied, but I dare not face the cabin. There was a long, almost imperceptible swell, with little queer sea-birds that I have never seen before, and trust I shall never see again dotted about on its glassy slopes. The coastline looked low and grey and dull, as I think coastlines always do when viewed from the deep. The breeze that Bernard had promised us we should find outside was barely enough to keep us moving. The burning sun of four o'clock focused its heat on the deck. Bernard stood up among us, engaged in what he was pleased to call handling the stick, and beamed almost as offensively as the sun. Oh, we're slipping along," he said, his odiously healthy face glowing like copper against the blazing blue sky. You're going a great deal faster than you think, and the men say we'll pick up a breeze once we're round the mizzen. I made no reply. I was not feeling ill, merely thoroughly disinclined for conversation. Miss Sally's smiled wanily, and closing her eyes laid her head on Philip's knee. Instructed by a dread-free masonry, I knew that for her the moment had come when she could no longer bear to see the rail rise slowly above the horizon, and with an equal rhythmic slowness sink below it. Maria moved restlessly to and fro, panting and yawning, and occasionally rearing herself on her hind legs against the side, and staring forth with wild eyes at the headache-sliding of the swell. Perhaps she was meditating suicide, and if so, I sympathised with her, and since she was obviously going to be sick, I trusted that she would bring off the suicide with as little delay as possible. Philip her and Miss Shoot sat in unaffected serenity in deck-chairs, and stitched up white things, tea-cloths for the Eileenogue, I believe, things in themselves a mockery, and talked untiringly with that singular indifference to their marine surroundings that I have often observed in ladies who are not seasig. It always stirs me afresh to wonder why they have not remained ashore. Nevertheless, I prefer their tranquil and total lack of interest in seafaring matters to the blatant vikingism of the average male who is similarly placed. Somehow, I know not how, we crawled onwards, and by about five o'clock we had rounded the mizzen, the gaunt spike of a headland that starts up like a boar's tusk above the ragged lip of the Irish coast, and the Eileenogue was beginning to swing and wallop in the long sluggish rollers that the American liners know and despise. I was very far from despising them. Down in the west, resting on the sea's rim, a purple bank of clouds layer waiting the descent of the sun, as seductively and as malevolently as the damp bed at a hotel awaits a traveller. The end, so far as I was concerned, came at tea-time. The meal had been prepared in the saloon, and thither it became incumbent upon me to accompany my hostess and my wife. Miss Sally, long past speech, opened at the suggestion of tea one eye and disclosed a look of horror. As I tottered down the companion, I respected her good sins. The Eileenogue had been built early in the sixties, and the headroom was not her strong point. Neither, apparently, was ventilation. I began by dashing my forehead against the frame of the cabin door, and then, shattered morally and physically, entered into the atmosphere of the pit. After which things, and the sight of a plate of rich cake, I retired in good order to my cabin, and began upon the Anathas. I pass over some painful, intermediate details, and resume at the moment when Bernard Shute woke me from a drugged slumber to announce that dinner was over. It's been raining pretty hard, he said, swaying easily with the swing of the yacht, but we've got a clinking breeze, and we ought to make Luriga harbour tonight. There's a good anchorage there, the men say. There are rather a lot of swabs, but they know this coast, and I don't. I took them over with the ship, all standing. Where are we now? I asked, somewhat heartened by the blessed word anchorage. You're running up Sheepskin Bay. It's a thundering big bay. Luriga's up at the far end of it, and the night's as black as the inside of a cow. Dig out, and get something to eat, and come on day. What, no dinner? I had spoken morosely, with closed eyes. Oh, rot! You're on an even keel now. I promise Mrs. Yates I'd make you dig out. You're as bad as a soldier-officer that we were ferrying to Malta one time in the Old Tamar. He got one leg out of his berth when we were going down the channel, and he was too sick to pull it in again till we got to Gib. I compromised on a drink and some biscuits. The ship was certainly steadier, and I felt sufficiently restored to climb weakly on deck. It was by this time past ten o'clock, and heavy clouds blotted out the last of the afterglow, and smothered the stars at their berth. A wet, warm wind was lashing the eilean oak up a wide estuary. The waves were haunting her, hissing under her stern, racing up to her, crested with the white glow of phosphorus as she fled before them. I dimly discerned in the grainus the more solid grainus of the shore. The mainsail loomed out into the darkness, nearly at right angles to the yacht, with the boom creaking as the following wind gave us an additional shove. I know nothing of yacht sailing, but I can appreciate the grand fact that in running before a wind the boom is removed from its usual sphere of devastation. I sat down beside a bundle of rugs that I had discovered to be my wife, and thought of my whitewashed office at Srilane and its bare but stationary floor with a yearning that was little short of passion. Miss Sally had long since succumbed, Miss Shoe was tired, and had turned in soon after dinner. I suppose she's overdone by the delirious gayatively afternoon," said I, acridly, in reply to this information. Philippa cautiously poked forth her head from the rugs, like a tortoise from under its shell, to see that Bernard, who was standing near the steersman, was out of hearing. In all your life, Sinclair, she said impressively, and knew such a time as Sinclair and I have had down there, we've had to wash everything in the cabins and remake the beds and hurl the sheets away. They were covered with black finger-marks, and while we were doing that in came the creature that calls himself the steward to ask if he might get something of his that he had left in Miss Shoe's birth-place, and he rooted out from under Sinclair's mattress a pair of socks and half a loaf of bread. A consolation to Miss Shoe to know her birth has been well aired, I said, with the nearest approach to enjoyment that I had known since I came on board, and has Sally made any equally interesting discoveries? She said she didn't care what her bed was like. She just dropped into it. I must say I'm sorry for her," went on Philippa. She hated coming. Her mother made her accept. I wonder if Lady Knox will make her accept him, I said. How often has Sally refused him? Does anyone know? Oh, about once a week," replied Philippa, just the way I kept on refusing you, you know. Something cold and wet was thrust into my hand, and the aroma of damp dog arose on the night air. Maria had issued from some lair at the sound of our voices, and was now with palsy trembling slowly trying to drag herself onto my lap. Poor thing, she's been so dreadfully ill," said Philippa. Don't send her away, Sinclair. Mr. Shoot found her lying in his birth not able to move. Didn't you, Mr. Shoot? She found out that she was able to move, said Bernard, who had crossed to our side of the deck. It was somehow borne in upon her when I got at her with a boot-tree. I wouldn't advise you to keep her in your lap-yates. She stole half a ham after dinner, and she might take a notion to make the only reparation in her power. I stood up and stretched myself stiffly. The wind was freshening, and though the growing smoothness of the water told that we were making shelter of some kind, for all that I could see of land, we might as well have been in mid-ocean. The heaving lift of the deck under my feet, and the lurching swing when a stronger gust filled the ghostly sails, were more disquieting to me in suggestion than in reality. To my surprise, I found something almost enjoyable in rushing through darkness at the pace at which we were going. We're a small bit short of the mouth of La Riga Harbour yet, sir," said the man, who was steering, in reply to a question from Bernard. I concede the shore well enough. Sure, I know every yard of water in the bay. As he spoke, he sat down abruptly and violently. So did Bernard. So did I. The bundle that contained Philippa collapsed upon Maria. Main sheet! Bellard Bernard on his feet in an instant as the boom swung in and out again with the terrific jerk. We're a shore! In response to this order, three men in succession fell over me while I was still struggling on the deck, and something that was either Philippa's elbow or the acutest angle of Maria's skull hit me in the face. As I found my feet, the cabin skylight was suddenly illumined by a wavering glare. I got across the slanting deck somehow and the confusion of shouting men and the flapping thunder of the sails and saw through the skylight a gush of flame rising from a pool of fire around an overturned lamp on the swing table. I avalanched down the companion and was squandered like an avalanche on the floor at the foot of it. Even as I fell, McCarthy, the steward, dragged the strip of carpet from the cabin floor and threw it on the blaze. I found myself in some unexplained way snatching a railway rug from his chute and applying it to the same purpose. And in half a dozen seconds we had smothered the flame and were left in total darkness. The most striking feature of the situation was the immovability of the yacht. Great Ned, said McCarthy, invoking I know not what heathen deity. It is on the bottom of the saviour. Well, whether or not, thank God we have the fire quenched. We were not so far at the bottom of the sea, but during the next ten minutes the chances seemed in favour of our getting there. The yacht had run her boughs on a sunken ridge of rock, and after a period of feminine indecision, as to whether she was going to slide off again or roll over into deep water, she elected to stay where she was, and the gig was lowered with all speed in order to tow her off before the tide left her. My recollection of this interval is but hazy, but I can certify that in ten minutes I had swept together an assortment of necessaries and knotted them into my counter-bane, had broken the string of my eyeglass and lost my silver match-box, had found Philippa's curling tongs and put them in my pocket, had carted all the luggage on deck, had then applied myself to the manly duty of reassuring the ladies, and had found Miss Choup merely bored, Philippa enthusiastically anxious to be allowed to help pull the gig, and Miss Sally radiantly restored to health and spirits by the cessation of movement and the probability of an early escape from the yacht. The rain had, with its usual opportuneness, begun again. We stood in it under umbrellas and watched the gig jumping on its tow-rope like a dog on a string as the crew plied the laboring oar in futile endeavour to move the eye-lean oak. We had run on the rock at half tide, and the increasing slant of the deck as the tide fell brought home to us the pleasing probability that at low water, is about 2 a.m., we should roll off the rock and go to the bottom. Had Bernard Choup wished to show himself in the most advantageous light to Miss Sally, he could scarcely have bettered the situation. I looked on in helpless respect while he whom I had known as the scourge of the hunting-field, the terror of the shooting-party, rose to the top of a difficult position and kept there, and my respect was, if possible, increased by the presence of mind with which he availed himself of all critical moments to place a protecting arm round Miss Knox. By about 1 a.m. the two gaffes with which Bernard had contrived to shore up the slowly healing yacht, began to show signs of yielding, and in approved shipwreck fashion we took to the boats. The yachts grew in the gig, remaining in attendance on what seemed like to be the last moments of the Eileenogue, while we, in the dinghy, sought for the harbour. Owing to the tilts of the yacht's deck and the roughness of the broken water round her, getting into the boat was no mean feat of gymnastics. Miss Sally did it like a bird, alighting in the inevitable arms of Bernard. Miss Chute followed very badly, but by an eight-force of character, successfully. Philippa, who was enjoying every moment of her shipwreck, came last, launching herself into the dinghy with my silver shoehorn clutched in one hand and in the other the tea-basket. I heard the hollow clank of its tin cups as she sprang, and appreciated the heroism with which Bernard received one of its quarters in his waist. How or when Maria left the yacht, I know not, but when I applied myself to the bow or, I led off with three crabs, owing to the devotion with which she thrust her head into my lap. I am no judge of these matters, but in my opinion we ought to have been swamped several times during that row. There was nothing but the phosphorus of breaking waves to tell us where the rocks were and nothing to show where the harbour was except a solitary light, a masthead light, as we supposed. The skipper had assured us that we could not go wrong if we kept a westerly course with a little northing in it, but it seemed simpler to steer for the light, and we did so. The dinghy climbed along over the waves with an agility that was safer than it felt. The rain fell without haste and without rest. The oars were as inflexible as crowbars and somewhat resembled them in shape and weight. Nevertheless it was Elysium when compared with the afternoon leisure in the deck of the Eileenogue. At last we came unexplainably into smooth water and it was about this time that we were first aware that the darkness was less dense than it had been and that the rain had ceased. By imperceptible degrees a greyness touched the back of the waves, more a dreariness than a dawn, but more welcome than thousands of gold and silver. I looked over my shoulder and discerned vaguely bulky things ahead, as I did so my oar was suddenly wrapped in seaweed. We crept on. Maria stood up with her paws on the gunnel and whined in high agitation. The dark objects ahead resolved themselves into rocks and without more ado Maria pitched herself into the water. In half a minute we heard her shaking herself on shore. We slid on. The water swelled under the dinghy and lifted her keel onto grating gravel. We couldn't have done it better if we'd been the Hydrographor Oil, said Bernard, wading knee-deep in a light wash of foam with the painter in his hand, but all the same that masked headlight is someone's bedroom candle. We landed, hauled up the boat, and then feebly sat down on our belongings to review the situation and Maria came and shook herself over each of us in turn. We had run into a little cove guided by the philanthropic beam of a candle in the upper window of a house about a hundred yards away. The candle still burned on and the anemic daylight exhibited to us our surroundings and we debated as to whether we could, at 2.45am, present ourselves as objects of compassion to the owner of the candle. I need hardly say that it was the ladies who decided on making the attempt, having, like most of their sex, the courage incomparably superior to ours in such matters. Bernard and I had not a grain of genuine compunction in our souls, but we failed in nerve. We trailed up from the cove, laden with eminence bundles, stumbling on wet rocks in the half-light, and succeeded in making our way to the house. It was a small, two-storey building of that hideous breed of architecture usually dedicated to the rectress of the Irish church. We felt that there was something friendly in the presence of a pair of carpet slippers in the porch, but there was a hint of exclusiveness in the fact that there was no knocker and that the bell was broken, the light still burned in the upper window, and with a faltering hand I flung gravel at the glass. This summons was appallingly responded to by a shriek. There was a flutter of white at the panes and the candle was extinguished. Come away!" exclaimed Miss Shoot. It's a lunatic, a thylem. We stood our ground, however, and presently heard a footstep within. A blind was poked aside in another window, and we were inspected by an unseen inmate. Then some one came downstairs, and the hall door was opened by a small man with a bald head and a long sandy beard. He was attired in a brief dressing-gown, and on his shoulder sat, like an angry ghost, a large white cockatoo. Its crest was up on end. Its beak was a good two inches long and curved like a Malay chris. Its claws gripped the little man's shoulder. Maria uttered in the background a low and thunderous growl. Don't take any notice of the bird-trees, said the little man nervously, seeing our united gaze fixed on this apparition. He's extremely fierce, if annoyed. The majority of our party here melted away to either side of the hall door, and I was left to do the explaining. The tale of our misfortunes had its due effect, and we were ushered into a small drawing-room, our host holding open the door for us, like a nightmare footman with bare shins, a gnome-like bald head, and an unclean spirit swaying on his shoulder. He opened the shutters, and we sat decorously round the room in the afternoon party while the situation was further expanded on both sides. Our entertainer indeed favoured us with the leading items of his family history, among them the fact that he was a Dr. Farhi from Cork, who had taken somebody's rectory for the summer, and had been prevailed on by some of his patients to permit them to join him as paying guests. He said it was a lunatic as they them. Mermon, miss shoot to me. Then point of fact, went on our host, there isn't an empty room in the house, which is where I can only offer your party the use of this room and the kitchen-pair, which I make a point of keeping burning all night. He lent back complacently in his chair and crossed his legs, and then, obviously remembering his costume, sat bolt upright again. We owed the guiding beams of the candle to the owner of the cocker, too, an old Mrs. Buck, as we gathered the most paying of all the patients, and also obviously the one most feared and cherished by Dr. Farhi, as she has a candle burning all night for the bird, and her door open to let him walk about the house when he likes, said Dr. Farhi. Indeed, I may say her passion for him amounts to dementia. He is very fond of me, and Mrs. Farhi is always telling me that I should be thankful, as whatever he did we'd be bound to put up with him. Dr. Farhi evidently had a turn for conversation that was unaffected by circumstance. The first beams of the early sun were lighting up the rep chair covers before the door closed upon his brown dressing-gown and upon the stately white back of the cocker, too, and the demonic possession of laughter that had wrought in us during the interview burst forth unchecked. It was most painful and exhausting, as such laughter always is, but by far the most serious part of it was that Miss Sally, who was sitting in the window, somehow drove her elbow through a pane of glass and burnered in pulling down the blind to conceal the damage, tore it off the roller. Though followed on this catastrophe, a period during which reason tottered and Maria bot furiously. Philippa was the first to pull herself together and to suggest an adjournment to the kitchen fire that in honour of the paying guest was never quenched, and respecting the repose of the household, we proceeded thither with a stealth that convinced Maria that we were engaged in a rat-hunt. The boots of paying guests littered the floor. The debris of their last repast covered the table. A cat in some unforeseen fastness crooned a war-song to Maria, who feigned unconsciousness and fell to scientific research in the scullery. We roasted our boots at the range and burnered with all the sailor's gift for exploration and theft, prowled in noisome perlews, and emerged with a jug of milk and a lump of salt-butter. No one who has not been a burglar can at all realise what it was to roam through Dr Fahy's basement story with the rookery of paying guests asleep above and to feel that so far we had repaid his confidence by breaking a pane of glass and a blind and putting the scullery tap out of order. I have always maintained that there was something wrong with it before I touched it, but the fact remains that when I had filled Philip's kettle no human power could prevail upon it to stop flowing. For all I know, to the contrary, it is running still. It was in the course of our furtive return to the drawing-room that we were again confronted by Mrs. Buck's cockatoo. It was standing in malign meditation on the stairs, and on seeing us it rose without a word of warning on the wing, and with a long screech flung itself at Miss Sally's golden-red head which a ray of sunlight had chance to illumine. There was a moment of stampede as a selected victim pursued by the cockatoo fled into the drawing-room. Two chairs were upset, one, I think, broken. Miss Sally enveloped herself in a window curtain. Philip and Miss Shutey faced themselves beneath the table. The cockatoo, foiled of its prey, skimmed still screeching round the ceiling. It was Bernard who, with a well-directed sofa-cushion, drove the enemy from the room. There was only a chink of the door open, but the cockatoo turned on his side as he flew and swung through it like a woodcock. We slammed the door behind him, and at the same instant there came a thumping on the floor overhead, muffled, yet perontery. That's Mrs. Buck, said Miss Shute, crawling from under the table. The room over this is the one that had the candle in it. We sat for a time in awful stillness, but nothing further happened, save a distant shriek overhead that told the cockatoo had sought and found sanctuary in his owner's room. We had tea, soto voce, and then, one by one, despite the amazing discomfort of the drawing-room chairs, we dozed off to sleep. It was about five o'clock that I woke, with a stiff neck and an uneasy remembrance, that I had last seen Maria in the kitchen. The others, looking each of them about twenty years older than their age, slept in various attitudes of exhaustion. Bernard opened his eyes as I strode forth to look for Maria, but none of the ladies awoke. I went down the evil-smelling passage that led to the kitchen stairs, and there, on a mat, regarding me with intelligent affection, was Maria. But what was the white thing that lay between her forepaws? When the situation was too serious to be coped with alone, I fled noiselessly back to the drawing-room and put my head in. Bernard's eyes, blessed by the light sleep of sailors, opened again, and there was that in mind that summoned him forth, and blessed also with the light step of sailors. We took the corpse from Maria, withholding perforce the language and the slaughtering that our hearts ate to bestow. For a minute or two our eyes communed, I'll get the kitchen shovel," breathed Bernard. You opened the whole door. A minute later we passed like spirits into the open air and on into a little garden at the end of the house. Maria followed us, licking her lips. There were beds of nasturtians and of purple stocks and of marigolds. We chose a bed of stocks, a plump bed that looked like easy digging. The windows were all tightly shut and shuttered, and I took the cockatoo from under my coat and hid it temporarily behind the box border. Bernard had brought a shovel and a coal-scoop. We dug like badgers. At eighteen inches we got down into shale and stones and the coal-scoops struck work. Never mind," said Bernard, we'll plant the stocks on top of him. It was a lovely morning with a newborn blue sky and the light northerly breeze. As we returned to the house we looked across the wavelets of the little cove and saw above the rocky point round which we had groped last night a triangular white patch moving slowly along. The tides lifted her, said Bernard, standing stock still. He looked at Mrs. Buck's window and at me. Yates, he whispered, let's quit. It was now barely six o'clock and not a soul was stirring. We woke the ladies and convinced them of the high importance of catching the tide. Bernard left a note in the hall-table for Dr. Fahey, a beautiful note of leave-taking and gratitude and apologies for the broken window for which he begged to enclose half a crown. No illusion was made to the other casualties. As we near the strand he found occasion to say to me, I put in a post-script that I thought it best to mention that I had seen the cockatoo in the garden and hoped it would get back all right. That's quite true, you know. But look here, whatever you do you must keep it all dark from the ladies. At this juncture Maria overtook us with the cockatoo in her mouth. End of chapter 10 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to find out how you can volunteer please go to LibriVox.org Recording by Andy Minter Some Experiences of an Irish RM by Edith Inoni-Somerville and Martin Ross Chapter 11 Occasional Licenses It's out of the question, I said, looking forbiddingly at Mrs Maloney to the spokes of the bicycle that I was pumping up outside the grocers in Skiborn. Well, indeed, Major Yates said Mrs Maloney, advancing excitedly and placing on the nickel-plating a hand that I had good and recent cause to know was warm. Sure, I know well that if the angel Gabriel came down from heaven looking for a license for the races your honour wouldn't give it to him without a character. But as for Michael, sure the world knows what Michael is. I had been waiting for Philippa for already nearly half an hour and my temper was not of the best. Character or no character, Mrs Maloney, said I with asperity. The magistrates have settled to give no occasional licenses and if Michael were as sober as— Is it sober? God help us! exclaimed Mrs Maloney with an upward rolling of her eyes to the recording angel. I'll tell your honour the truth. I am his wife now, fifteen years, and I never seen the sign of drink on Michael only once. And that was when he went out of good nature helping Timsy Ryan to wipe off his house. And Timsy and himself had a couple of pots of Arthur and look he was as little used to it as his head got light and he walked a way out to drive in the cows at no more than eleven o'clock in the day. Of course the quaterers as much surprise go and hither and over the four corners of the road from him. Faith you'd have to laugh. Michael, says I, to him, you're drunk. I am, says he, and the tears rain from his eyes. I turn the cows from him, go home, I says, and lie down on Willie Tom's bed. At this effecting point my wife came out of the grocers with a large parcel to be strapped to my handle-bar and the history of Mr. Malone's solitary lapse from sobriety got no further than Willie Tom's bed. You see, I said to Philippa as we bicycled quietly home through the hot June afternoon, we've settled we'll give no licenses for the sports. Even young Sheehy, who owns three pubs in Skiborn, came to me and said he hoped the magistrates would be firm about it as these one-day licenses were quite unnecessary and only led to drunkenness and fighting, and every man on the bench has joined in promising not to grant any. How nice, dear, said Philippa absently. Do you know Mrs. MacDonald can only let me have three dozen cups and saucers? I wonder if that will be enough. Do you mean to say you expect three dozen people, said I? Oh, well, it's always well to be prepared," replied my wife evasively. During the next few days I realized the true inwardness of what it was to be prepared for an entertainment of this kind. Games were not at a high level in my district. Football, of a wild guerrilla speethes was waged intermittently, blended in some inextricable way with home-rule and a brass band. And on Sundays gatherings of young men rolled a heavy round stone along the roads, a rudimentary form of sport whose fascination lay primarily in the fact that it was illegal and in lesser degree in betting on the length of each roll. I had had a period of enthusiasm during which I thought I was going to be the apostle of cricket in the neighbourhood, but my mission dwindled to single wicket with Peter Gaduggan, who was indulgent but bored, and I swiped the ball through the dining-room window and someone took one of the stumps to poke the laundry fire. Once a year, however, on that festival of the Roman Catholic Church, which is familiarly known as Peter and Paul's Day, the district was wont to make a spasmodic effort at athletic sports which were duly patronized by the gentry and promoted by the publicans, and this year the honour of a steward's green rosette was conferred upon me. Philip as genius for hospitality here saw its chance and broke forth into unbridled tea-party in connection with the sports, even involving me in the hire of a tent, the conveyances of chairs and tables, and other large operations. It chanced that Flurry Knox had, on this occasion, lent the fields for the sports, with the proviso that horse-races and tug-of-war were to be added to the usual programme. Flurry's participation in events of this kind seldom failed to be of an inflaming character. As he and I planted large spas for the high-jump, and stuck furs-bushes into hurdles, locally known as hurls, and skirmished hourly with people who wanted to sell drink on the course, I thought that my next summer leave would singularly coincide with the festival consecrated to St. Peter and St. Paul. We made a grandstand of quite four feet high, outfold fish-boxes, which smelt worse and worse as the day wore on, but was, nonetheless, a sought-after by those for whom it was not intended, as is the royal enclosure at Ascot. We broke gaps in all the fences to allow carriages onto the ground. We armed a gang of the worst black-ards in Skiborn with cart-whips to keep the course, and felt that organisation could go no further. The momentous day of Peter and Paul opened badly, with heavy clouds and every indication of rain. But after a few thundershowers things brightened, and it seemed within the bounds of possibility that the weather might hold up. When I got down to the course on the day of the sports, the first thing I saw was a tent of that peculiar filthy grey that usually enshrines the sale of porter with an array of barrels in a crate beside it. I bore down upon it in all the indignant majesty of the law, and in so doing came upon Flurry Knox, who was engaged in flogging boys off the grandstand. "'She he's gone one better than you,' he said, without taking any trouble to conceal the fact that he was amused. "'She he?' I said. Why, she he was the man who went to every magistrate in the country to ask them to refuse a licence for the sports. "'Yes, he took some trouble to prevent anyone else having a look in,' replied Flurry. He asked every magistrate but one, and that was the one that gave him the licence. "'You don't mean to say that it was you,' I demanded in high wroth and suspicion, remembering that she he bred horses, and that my friend Mr. Knox was a person of infinite resource in the matter of a deal. "'Well, well,' said Flurry, rearranging a disordered fish-box, and me that such harsh warden sprained my ankle a month ago with running downstairs at my grandmother's to be in time for prayers. Where's the use of a good character in this country?' "'Not much when you keep it eating its head off for want of exercise,' I retorted. But if it wasn't you, who was it?' "'Do you remember old Mauroi Artie out at Castle Ier?' I remembered him extremely well as one of those representatives of the people with whom a paternal government had leavened the defeat ranks of the Irish magistracy. "'Well,' resumed Flurry, that licence was as good as a five-pound note in his pocket. I permitted myself a comment on Mr. Mauroi Artie, suitable to the occasion. "'Oh, that's nothing,' said Flurry easily. He told me one day when he was half-screwed that his commission of the peace was worth a hundred-and-fifty a year to him in Turkish whiskey, and he was telling the truth for once. At this point Flurry's eye wandered, and following its direction, I saw Lady Knox's smart bus leaving its way through the throng of country-people, lurching over the ups and downs of the fields, like a ship in a sea. I was too blind to make out the component parts of the white froth that crowned it on top, and seized forth from it when it had taken up a position near the tent in which Philippa was even now propping the legs of the tea-table. But from the fact that Flurry addressed himself to the door, I argued that Miss Sally had gone inside. Lady Knox's manner had something more than its usual bleakness. She had brought, as she promised, a large contingent. But from the way that the strangers within her gates melted impalpably, and left me to deal with her single-handed, I drew the further deduction that all was not well. Did you ever in your life see such a gang of women as I have brought with me? She began with her won'ted directness, as I piloted her to the grandstand, and placed her on the stoutest looking of the fish-boxes. I have no patience with men who yacht. Bernard Shoot has gone off to the Clyde, and I had counted on his being a man at my dance next week. I suppose you will tell me that you're going away, too?" I assured Lady Knox that I would be a man to the best of my ability. This is the last dance I shall give," went on her ladyship, unappeased. The men in this country consist of children and cats. I admitted that we were a poor lot, but I said Miss Sally told me, Sally's a fool, said Lady Knox, with a falcon eye at her daughter, who happened to be talking to her distant kinsman, Mr. Flurry, of that ilk. The races had by this time begun with a competition known as the Hop Step and Lip. This, judging by the yells, was a highly interesting display. But as it was conducted between two impervious rows of onlookers, the aristocracy on the fish-boxes saw nothing save the occasional purple face of a competitor starting into view above the wall of backs like a jack-in-the-box. For me, however, the odorous sanctuary of the fish-boxes was not to be. I left it guarded by slipper, with a cart-whip of flail-like dimensions, as disreputable an object as could be seen out of low comedy, with someone's old white cords on his bandy legs, butcher-boots three sizes too big for him, and a black eye. The small boys fled before him. The glory of his office he would have flailed his own mother off the fish-boxes had occasion served. I had an afternoon of decidedly mixed enjoyment. My stewardship blossomed forth like air and rod, and added to itself the duties of starter, handicapper, general referee, and chucker-out, besides which I from time to time strove with emissaries who came from Philippa with messages about water and kettles. My brother and I had to deal single-handed with the foot-races, our brothers in office being otherwise engaged at Mr. Chihiz. A task of many difficulties, chiefest being that the spectators all swept forward at the word go, and ran the race with the competitors, yelling curses, blessings, and advice upon them, taking shortcuts over anything and everybody, and mingling inextricably with the finish. By fervent applications of the whips the course was to some extent purged for the quarter-mile, and it would, I believe, have been a triumph of handicapping, had not an unforeseen disaster overtaken the favourite, old Mrs. Knox's bath-chair-boy. Whether, as was alleged, his braces, had or had not been tampered with by a rival, was a matter that the referee had subsequently to deal with in the thick of a free fight. But the painful fact remained that in the course of the first lap what were described as his galussies abruptly severed their connection with the garments for whose safety they were responsible, and the favourite was obliged to seek seclusion in the crowd. The tug of war followed close upon this contour, and had the excellent effect of drawing away, like a blister, the inflammation set up by the grievances of the bath-chair-boy. I cannot, at this moment, remember of how many men each team consisted. My sole aim was to keep the numbers even, and to baffle the volunteers who, in an ecstasy of sympathy, attached themselves to the tail of the rope at moments when their champions weakened. The rival forces dug their heels in, and tugged in an uproar that drew forth the innermost line of customers from Mr. Sheehy's port-a-tent, and even attracted the quality from the haven of the fish-boxes. Slipper, in the capacity of the Squire of Dames, pioneering Lady Knox through the crowd with the cart-whip, and with language whose nature was providentially veiled, for the most part, by the din. The tug of war continued unabated. One team was getting the worst of it, but hung doggedly on, sinking lower and lower till they gradually sat down. Nothing short of the trump of judgment could have conveyed to them that they were breaking rules. And both teams settled down by slow degrees onto their sides, with the rope under them, and their heels still planted in the ground, bringing about complete deadlock. I do not know the record duration for a tug of war, but I can certify that the Cullinar and Knockranny teams lay on the ground at full tension for half an hour, like men in apoplectic fits, each man with his respective adherents calling over him, blessing him, and adoring him to continue. With my own nauseated eyes I saw a bearded countryman, obviously one of Mr. Sheehy's best customers, fling himself on his knees beside one of the combatants, and kiss his crimson and streaming face in a rapture of encouragement. As he shoved unsteadily past me on his return journey to Mr. Sheehy's, I heard him informing a friend that he cried a handful over Danny Malloy when he'd seen the poor, brave boy so stubborn, and indeed he couldn't say why he cried. For good nature you'd cry, suggested the friend. Well, just that, I suppose, returned Danny Malloy's admirer residedly. Indeed, if it was only two cocks you'd seen fighting on the road, your heart had taken part with one of them. I had begun to realise that I might as well abandon the tug of war and occupy myself elsewhere, when my wife's much-harris messenger brought me the portentous tidings that Mrs. Yates wanted me in the tent at once. When I arrived, I found the tent literally bulging with Philip's guests. Lady Knox, seated on a hamper, was taking off her gloves and loudly announcing her desire for tea, and Philip, with a flushed face and a crooked hat, breathed into my ear the awful news that the cream and the milk had been forgotten. But Flurry Knox says he can get me some. She went on. He's gone to send people to milk a cow that lives near here. Go out and see if he's coming. I went out and found, in the first instance, Mrs. Cadogan, who greeted me with the prayer that the devil might roast Julia McCarthy who legged it away to the races like a wild goose and left the cream after her on the servants' hall table. Sure, Mr. Flurry's gone looking for a cow, would there be in a backwards place like this? And look at me striving to keep the kettle simple and on the fire, and not as much coals under it as had read in the pipe. Where's Mr. Knox, I asked. Himself in slippers galloping the country like the deer. I believe it's to the house above they went, sir. I followed up a rocky hill to the house above, and there found Flurry and Slipper, engaged in the patriarchal task of driving two braces of coupled and spanciled goats into a shed. It's the best we can do," said Flurry briefly. There isn't a cow to be found, and the people are all down at the spots. Be down till you slip, and don't let them go from you, as the goats charged and doubled like football players. But goats-milk, I said, paralyzed by horrible memories of what tea used to taste like at Jib. Eh, never know it, said Flurry, cornering a venerable nanny. Here, hold this devil and hold her tight. I have no time to dwell upon the pastoral scene that followed. Suffice it to say that at the end of ten minutes of scorching profanity from Slipper, an incessant warfare with the goats, the latter had reluctantly yielded two small jug-falls, and the dairy-maids had exhibited a nerve and skill in their trade that won my lasting respect. I knew I could trust you, Mr. Knox, said Philippa, with shining eye as we presented her with the two foaming beakers. I suppose a man is never a hero to his wife, but if she could have realised the bruises on my legs, I think she would have reserved a blessing for me also. What was thought of the goats-milk, I gathered symptomatically from a certain fixity of expression that accompanied the first sip of the tea, and from observing that comparatively few ventured on second cups. I also noted that after a brief conversation with Flurry, Miss Sally poured hers secretly onto the grass. Lady Knox had throughout the day preserved an aspect so threatening that no change was perceptible in her demeanour. In the throng of hungry guests I did not for some time notice that Mr. Knox had withdrawn until something in Miss Sally's eye summoned me to her, and she told me she had a message from him for me. Couldn't we come outside? she said. Outside the tent, within less than six yards of her mother, Miss Sally confided to me a scheme that made my hair stand on end. Summarised, it amounted to this. At first she was in the primary stage of a deal with Sheehy for a four-year-old chestnut colt, for which Sheehy was asking double its value on the assumption that it had no rival in the country, that secondly, they had just heard it was going to run in the first race, and thirdly, and lastly, that as there was no other horse available, Flurry was going to take Old Salton out of the bus and ride him in the race, and that Mrs. Yates had promised to keep Mamar safe in the tent while the race was going on, and you know, Major Yates, it would be delightful to be Sheehy after he's getting the better of you all about that licence. With this base appeal to my professional feelings, Miss Knox paused, and looked at me insinuatingly. Her eyes were greeny-gray and very beguiling. Come on, she said, they want you to start them. Pursued by visions of the just wrath of Lady Knox, I weakly followed Miss Sally to the farther end of the second field, from which point the race was to start. The course was not a serious one, two or three natural banks, a stone wall, and a couple of hurdles. There were but four riders, including Flurry, who were seated compositely on Salton smoking a cigarette and talking confidentially to Slipper. Salton, although somewhat stricken in years and touched in the wind, was a brown horse who in his day had been a hunter of no mean repute. Even now he occasionally carried Lady Knox in a sedate and gentlemanly manner, but it struck me that it was trying him rather high to take him from the pole of the bus after twelve miles on a hilly road and hustle him over a country against a four-year-old. My acutest anxiety, however, was to start the race as quickly as possible and to get back to the tent in time to establish an alibi. Therefore I repressed my private sentiments and tying my handkerchief to a stick determined that no time should be fashionably frittered away in false starts. They got away somehow. I believe she his colt was facing the wrong way at the moment when I dropped the flag, but a friend turned him with a stick and with a cordial and timely whack speeded him on his way on sufficiently level terms. And then, somehow, instead of returning to the tent, I found myself with Miss Sally on top of a tall narrow bank in a precarious line of other spectators with whom we toppled and swayed, and in moments of acuter emotion held on to each other in unaffected comradeship. Flurry started well, and from our commanding position we could see him methodically riding at the first fence at a smart hunting canter closely attended by James Canty's brother on a young black mare, and by an unknown youth on a big white horse. The hope of Sheehy's stable, a leggy chestnut written by a cadet of the house of Sheehy, went away from the friend's stick like a rocket and had already refused the first bank twice before Old Sulson decorously changed feet on it and dropped down into the next field with tranquil precision. The white horse scrambled over it on his stomach but landed safely, despite the fact that his rider clasped him round the neck during the process. The black mare and the chestnut shouldered one another over at the hole the white horse had left, and the whole party went away in a bunch and jumped the ensuing hurdle without disaster. Flurry continued to ride at the same steady hunting pace accompanied respectfully by the white horse and by Jerry Canty on the black mare. Sheehy's cold had clearly the legs of the party and did some showy galloping between the jumps but as he refused to face the banks without a lead the end of the first round found the field still a sociable party personally conducted by Mr. Knox. That's a damn nice horse, said one of my hangers on looking approvingly at Sulson as he passed us at the beginning of the second round making a good deal of noise but apparently going at his ease. You might depend your life on him and he have the crabdest jock in the globe of Ireland on him this minute. Canty's mare's very sour, said another. Look at her now, walking the bank. She's as cross as a bag of weasels. Big garb I wouldn't say but she's a little sign lame. Resumed the first. She was going light on one leg on the road a while ago. I tell you what it is, said Miss Sally very seriously in my ear. That chestnut of sheehy's is settling down. I'm afraid he'll gallop away from Sulson at the finish and the wall won't stop him. Flurry can't get another inch out of Sulson. He's riding him well. She ended, in a critical voice which was yet not quite like her own. Perhaps I should not have noticed it but for the fact that the hand that held my arm was trembling. As for me, I thought of Lady Knox and trembled too. There now remained but one bank the trampled remnant of the furs hurdle and the stone wall. The pace was beginning to improve and the other horses drew away from Sulson. They charged the bank at full gallop the black mare and the chestnut flying it perilously and then mill flourish of legs and arms from their riders. The white horse racing up to it with a gallantry that deserted him at the critical moment with the result that his rider turned a somersault over his head and landed amidst the roars of the onlookers sitting on the fence facing his horse's nose. With creditable presence of mind he remained on the bank, toed the horse over scrambled on to his back again and started afresh. Sulton, thirty yards to the bad part, pounded doggedly on and Flurry's cane and heels remained idle. The old horse obviously blown slowed cautiously coming in at the jump. Sally's grip tightened on my arm and the crowd yelled as Sulton answering to a hint from the spurs and a touch at his mouth heaved himself onto the bank. Nothing but sheer riding on Flurry's part got him safe off it and saved him from the consequences of a bad peck on landing. Nonetheless he pulled himself together and went away down the hill for the stone wall as stoutly as ever. The high road skirted the last two fields and there was a gate in the roadside fence beside the place where the stone wall met it at right angles. I had noticed this gate because during the first round Slipper had been sitting on it demonstrating with his usual fervour. Shee his colt was leading with his nose in the air his rider's hands going like a circular saw and his temper, as a bystander remarked, upon end the black mare half mad from spurring was going hard at his heels, completely out of hand. The white horse was steering steadily for the wrong side of the flag and Flurry, by dint of cutting corners and of saving every yard of ground was close enough to keep his antagonist's heads over their shoulders while their right arms rose and fell in unceasing flagellation. There'll be a smash when they come to the wall if one falls they'll all go, bandit Sally. Oh, now Flurry! Flurry! What had happened was that the chestnut colt had suddenly perceived that the gate at right angles to the wall was standing wide open and swinging away from the jump he'd bolted headlong out onto the road and along it at top speed for his home. After him fled Canty's black mare and with her carried away by the spirit of stampede went the white horse. Flurry stood up in his stirrups and gave a view hello as he cantered down to the wall. Sultan came at it with the send of the hill behind him and jumped it with a skill that intensified, if that were possible, the volume of laughter and yells around us. By the time the black mare and the white horse had returned and ignominiously bundled over the wall to finish as best they might, Flurry was leading Sultan towards us. That laggard slipper he said grinning. Everyone'll say I told him to open the gate. But look here I'm afraid we're in for trouble. Sultan's given himself a bad overreach. You could never drive him home to-night and I've just seen Norris lying blind drunk under a wall. Now Norris was Lady Knox's coachman. We stood aghast at this horror on horror's head. The blood trickled down Sultan's heel and the ladder lay in flex on his dripping, heaving sides in irrefutable witness to the iniquity of Lady Knox's only daughter. Then Flurry said, Thank the Lord, here's the rain. At the moment I admit that I failed to see any cause for gratitude in this occurrence. But later on I appreciated Flurry's grasp of circumstances. That appreciation was, I think, at its highest development about half an hour afterwards. When I, an unwilling conspirator, apart with which my acquaintance with Mr. Knox had rendered me but too familiar, unfurled Mrs. Cadogan's umbrella over Lady Knox's head and hurried her through the rain from the tent to the bus, keeping it and my own person well between her and the horses, I got her in with the rest of her bedraggled and exhausted party and slammed the door. Remember, Major Yates, she said through the window, You are the only person here in whom I have any confidence. I don't wish anyone else to touch the rains. This was the glance towards Flurry who was standing near. I am afraid I am only a moderate whip, I said. My dear man," replied Lady Knox testily, Those horses could drive themselves. I slunk round to the front of the bus. Two horses, carefully rugged, were in it with the inevitable slipper at their heads. Slipper's gone with you, whispered Flurry, stepping up to me. She won't have me at any price. He'll throw the rugs over them when you get to the house, and if you hold the umbrella well over her, she'll never see. I've managed to get Sultan over somehow when Norris is sober. That'll be all right. I climbed to the box, without answering, my soul being bitter within me, as is the soul of a man who has been persuaded by womankind against his judgment. Never again, I said to myself, picking up the reins, Let her marry him or Bernard shoot or both of them if she likes, but I won't be roped into this kind of business again. Slipper drew the rugs from the horses, revealing on the near side Lady Knox's majestic carriage-horse and on the off a thick-set brown mare of about fifteen hands. What brute is this? said I to Slipper as he swarmed up beside me. I don't rightly know a way, Master Flurry-Gatha, said Slipper, with one of his hiccups in crows of laughter. Give her the whip, Major, and here he broke into song. Hold to the steel, hold them and lull, she'll run like an eel. If you don't shut your mouth, said I, with pent-up ferocity, I'll chuck you off the bus. Slipper was but slightly drunk and taking this delicate rebuke in good part, he relapsed into silence. Wherever the brown mare came from I can certify that it was not out of double harness. Though humble and anxious to oblige, she pulled away from the poles if it were red-hot and at critical moments had a tendency to sit down. However we squeezed without misadventure among the donkey carts and between the groups of people and bumped at length in safety out onto the high-road. Here I thought it no harm to take Slipper's advice and I applied the whip to the brown mare who seemed inclined to turn round. She immediately fell into an uncertain canter but no effort of mine could frustrate. I could only hope that Miss Sally would foster conversation inside the bus and create a distraction. But judging from my last view of the party and of Lady Knox in particular I thought she was not likely to be successful. Fortunately the rain was heavy and thick and a rising west wind gave every promise of its continuance. I had little doubt but I should catch cold but I took it to my bosom with gratitude how it was drumming on the roof of the bus and blurring the windows. We had reached the foot of a hill about a quarter of a mile from the race-course. The castle Knox horse addressed himself to it with dignified determination but the mare showed a sudden and alarming tendency to jib. Bailed her major, the cipherated Slipper as she hung back from the pole-chain with the collar halfway up her eunuch and give it to the horse too, Healdrager. I was in the act of belting when a squealing winny struck upon my ear accompanied by a light pattering gallop on the road behind us. There was an answering roar from the brown mare a roar as I realised with a sudden drop of the heart of outraged maternal feeling and in another instant a pale yellow foal sprinted up beside us with shrill wickerings of joy. Had there at this moment been a bog-hole handy I should have turned the bus into it without hesitation. As there was no accommodation of the kind I laid the whip severely into everything I could reach including the foal. The result was that we topped the hill at a gallop three abreast like a Russian troika. It was like my usual luck that this identical moment we should meet the police patrol who saluted respectfully. That that Diver made blister and Michael Maloney the ejaculated slipper holding on to the rail didn't I give him the foline and halter on him to keep him I'd hold your point as the wife let him go as she being vexed about the licence. Sure that one's a march foal and he'll run from here to Cork. There was no sign from my inside passengers and I held on at a round pace the mother and child galloping absurdly the carriage-horse pulling hard but behaving like a gentleman. I wildly revolved plans of how I would make slipper turn the foal in at the first gate we came to of what I should say to Lady Knox supposing the worst happened and the foal accompanied us to her hall door and of how I would have flurry's blood at the earliest possible opportunity. And here the fateful sound of galloping behind us was again heard. It's impossible," I said to myself. She can't have twins. The galloping came nearer and Slipper looked back. Murder alive! he said and the stage whisper. Tom Sheehy's after us on the butcher's pony. What's that to me? I said, dragging my team aside to let him pass. I suppose he's drunk like everyone else? Then the voice of Tom Sheehy made itself heard. Stop thief, stop thief! He was bawling. Give up my mare! How will I get me part or home? That was the closest shave I have ever had and nothing could have saved the position but the torrential nature of the rain and the fact that Lady Knox had on a new bonnet. I explained to her at the door of the bus that Sheehy was drunk, which was the one unassailable feature of the case and had come after his foal which, with the faturity of its kind, had escaped from a field and followed us. I did not mention to Lady Knox that when Mr. Sheehy retreated apologetically, dragging the foal after him in a halter belonging to one of her own carriage-horses, he had a sovereign of mine in his pocket, and during the narration I avoided Miss Sally's eye as careful as she avoided mine. The only comments on the day's events that are worthy of record were that Philippa said to me that she had not been able to understand what the curious taste in the tea had been till Sally told her it was turf smoke and that Mrs. Cadogan said to Philippa that night that the major was that drenched that if he had a shirt between his skin and himself he could have wrung it and that Lady Knox said to a mutual friend that though major Yeats had been extremely kind and obliging, even an uncommonly bad win. End of Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Oh Love, Oh Fire It was on one of the hottest days of a hot August that I walked over to Tory Lodge to inform Mr. Flurry Knox, MFH, that the limits of human endurance had been reached and that either Venus and her family, or I and mine, must quit Sri Lain. In a moment of impulse I had accepted her and her numerous progeny as guests in my stable-yard, since when Mrs. Cadogan had given warning once or twice a week and Maria, lawful autocrat of the Ash pit, had had I quote the kitchen maid, tin battles for every male she'd ate. The walk over the hills was not of a nature to lower the temperature, moral or otherwise. The grassy path was as slippery as glass, the rocks radiated heat, the bracken radiated horse-flies. There was no need to nurse my wrath to keep it warm. I found Flurry seated in the kennel-yard in a long and unclean white linen coat engaged in clipping hieroglyphics on the ears of a young outgoing draught, an occupation in itself unfavorable to argument. The young draught had already monopolized all possible forms of remonstrance, from snarling in the obscurity behind the meal-sack in the boiler-house, to hysterical yelling as they were dragged forth by the tail. But through these alarms and excursions I denounced Venus and all her works from slaughtered wine-dots to broken dishes. Even as I did so, I was conscious of something chastened in Mr Knox's demeanour, some touch of remoteness and melancholy, with which I was quite unfamiliar. My indictment weakened, and my grievances became trivial when laid before this grave and almost religiously gentle young man. I'm sorry you and Mrs Yates should be vexed by her. Send her back when you like, I'll keep her. Maybe it'll not be for so long after all. When pressed to expound this dark saying, Flurry smiled wandily and snipped a second line in the hair of the puppy that was pinned between his legs. I was almost relieved when a hard try to bite on the part of the puppy imparted to Flurry's language a transient warmth, but the reaction was only temporary. It had me as good for me to make a present for this lateral Welby as to take the prices offering me. He went on as he got up and took off his highly scented kennel-coat, but I couldn't be bothered fighting him. Come on in and have something. I drink tea myself at this hour. If he had said toast and water, it would have seen no more than was suitable to such a frame of mind. As I followed him to the house, I thought that when the day came that Flurry Knox could not be bothered with fighting old Welby, things were becoming serious. But I kept this opinion to myself and merely offered an admiring comment on the roses that were blooming on the front of the house. I put up every stick and I trellised myself with my own hands, said Flurry, still gloomily. The roses were trailing all over the place for the want of it. We'd like to have a look at the garden where they get in tea. I settled it up a bit since you saw it last. I acceded to this almost alarmingly ladylike suggestion, marvelling greatly. Flurry certainly was a changed man and his garden was a changed garden. It was a very old garden with unexpected harbours madly overgrown with flowering climbers and a flight of grey steps leading to a terrace where a moss-grown sundial and ancient herbaceous plants strove with nettles and briars. But I chiefly remembered it that the treeing was want to hang on black current bushes and the kennel terrier matured his bones and hunted chickens. There was now a rabbit-wire on the gate, the walks were cleaned, the beds weeded. There was even a bed of mignonnette, the row of sweet pea, and the blazing party of sunflowers. And Michael, once second in command in many a filibustering expedition, was now on his knees in gloriously tying carnations to little pieces of cane. We walked up the steps to the terrace. Down below us the rich and southern blue of the sea filled the gaps between scattered fir trees. The hillside above was purple with heather. A bay mare and her foal were moving lazily through the bracken with the sun glistening on it and them. I looked back at the house nestling in the hollow of the hill. I smelt the smell of the mignonnette in the air. I regarded Michael's laboring back among the carnations and without any connection of ideas I seemed to see Miss Sally Knox with her golden red hair and slight figure standing on the terrace beside her ginsmen. Michael, do you know where's Mr. Flurry? squalled a voice from the garden gate, the untrammeled voice of the female domestic at large among her fellows. That hay is wet and there's a man over with a message for ourselves. He was telling me the old hero beyond has given out invitations. A stricken silence fell. Induced no doubt by hasty danger signals from Michael. Who's the old hero beyond? I asked as we turned towards the house. My grandmother, said Flurry, permitting himself a smile that had about as much sociability in it as skim milk. She's given a tenet's dance at Osseless. She gave one about five years ago and I declare you might as well get the influencer into the country. More omission at the chapel. A servant in the place who'll be able to answer their name for a week after it. What with toothache and headache and bladding in the kitchen. We had tea in the drawing room. A solemnity which I could not but be aware was due to the presence of a new carpet, a new wallpaper, and a new piano. Flurry made no comment on these things, but something told me that I was expected to do so, and I did. I'd sell it a lot tomorrow for half what I gave for them, said my host, eyeing them with morose respect as he poured out his third cup of tea. I have all my life been handicapped by not having the courage of my curiosity. Those who have the nerve to ask direct questions on matters that do not concern them seldom fail to extract direct answers. But in my lack of this enviable gift I went home in the dark as to what had before been my landlord and fully aware of how my wife despised me for my shortcomings. Philippa always says that she never asks questions, but she seems nonetheless to get a lot of answers. On my own avenue I met Miss Sally Knox riding away from the house on her white cob. She had found no one at home, and she would not turn back with me, but she did not seem to be in any hurry to ride away. I told her that I had just been over to see her relative, Mr. Knox, who had informed me that he meant to give up the hounds, a fact in which she seemed only conventionally interested. She looked pale, and her eyelids were slightly pink. I checked myself on the verge of asking her if she had hay fever, and inquired instead if she had heard of the tenants' dance at Orseless. She did not answer at first, but rubbed her cane up and down the cob's clipped toothbrush of a mane. Then she said, Major Yates, look here, there's a most awful row at home. I expressed incoherent regret and wished to my heart that Philippa had been there to cope with the situation. It began when Mama found out about Flurry's racing-soulson, and then came our dance. Miss Sally stopped. I nodded, remembering certain episodes of Lady Knox's dance, and Mama says, she says, I waited respectfully to hear what Mama had said. The cob fidgeted under the attention of the horse-flies, and nearly trod on my toe. Well, the end of it is, she said, with the gulp. She said such things to Flurry that he can't come near the house again, and I'm to go over to England to Aunt Dora next week. Will you tell Philippa that I came to say good-bye to her? I don't think I can get over here again. Miss Sally was a sufficiently old friend of mine for me to take her hand and press it in the fatherly manner. But for the life of me I could not think of anything to say, unless I expressed my sympathy with her mother's point of view about detrimentals, which was obviously not the thing to do. Philippa recorded to my news the rare tribute of speechless attention, and then was despicable enough to say that she had foreseen the whole affair from the beginning. From the day that she refused him in the ice-house, I suppose, said I sarcastically. That was the beginning," replied Philippa. Well, I went on judiciously. Whenever it began it was high time for it to end. She can do a good deal better than Flurry. Philippa became rather red in the face. I call that a thoroughly commonplace thing to say," she said. I dare say he has not many ideas beyond horses, but no more has she, and he really does come and borrow books from me. Whittaker's almanac, I murmured. Well, I don't care. I like him very much, and I know what you're going to say, and you're wrong, and I'll tell you why." Here Mrs. Cadogan came into the room. Her cap had rather more than its usual warlike angle over her scarlet forehead, and in her hand the kitchen plate on which a note was ceremoniously laid forth. But this is for you, Mrs. Cadogan," said Philippa, as she looked at it. Ma'am, return, Mrs. Cadogan, with immense dignity. I have no learning, and from what a young man's astral telling me that brought it over from Orseless, I'd rather yourself read it for me than nim girls. My wife opened the envelope and drew forth a gilt-edged sheet of pink paper. Miss Margaret Nolan presents her compliments to Mrs. Cadogan. She read, and I have the pleasure of telling you that the servants of Orseless is inviting you and Mr. Peter Cadogan, Miss Marrouni and Miss Gallacher, Philippa's voice quaver perilously, to a dance on next Wednesday, dancing to begin at seven o'clock, and to go on till five. Yours affectionately, Maggie Nolan. How affectionate she is! Snorted Mrs. Cadogan. Names doubly manners, I dare say. A P.S., continued Philippa. Steward, Mr. Dennis O'Loughlin. Steward S., Mrs. Marrouni. Thoughtful provision, I remarked, I suppose Mrs. Marrouni's duties will begin after supper. Well, Mrs. Cadogan, said Philippa, quelling me with a glance, I suppose you'd all like to go. As for dancing, said Mrs. Cadogan, with her eyes fixed on a level with the curtain-pole, I thank God I'm a widow, and the only dancing I'll do is dance to my grave. Well, perhaps Julia and Annie and Peter, suggested Philippa, considerably overrode. I'd not one of them that holds with loud mockery in her angst, continued Mrs. Cadogan, but if I had any wish for drawing down talk, I could tell you, ma'am, that they'd like, and them has their shares of dances without going to Ocelos. Wasn't it only last Sunday that I went following the turkey that's laying out in the plantation, and the whole of them heisted their sails and back with them to their lovers at the gate-house, and the kitchen maid having a Jew heart to be playing for them. That was very wrong, said the truckling, Philippa. I hope you spoke to the kitchen maid about it. Is it spake to him? rejoined Mrs. Cadogan. No, but what I'd done was to drag the kitchen maid round the passages by the hair of the head. Well, after that I think you might let her go to Ocelos," said I, venturously. The end of it was that everyone in and about the house went to Ocelos on the following Wednesday, including Mrs. Cadogan. Philippa had gone over to stay at the chutes, ostensibly to arrange about a jumble-sale, the real object being, as a matter of history, to inspect the scotch, young lady, before whom Bernard Shute had dumped his affections in his customary manner. Being alone, with every prospect of a bad dinner, I accepted with gratitude an invitation to dine and sleep at Ocelos, and to see the dance. It is only on very special occasions that I have the heart to remind Philippa that she had neither part nor lot in what occurred. It is too serious a matter for trivial glorings. Mrs. Knox had asked me to dine at six o'clock, which meant that I arrived in blazing sunlight and evening clothes punctually at that hour, and that at seven o'clock I was still sitting in the library, reading heavily-bound classics, while my hostess held loud conversations down staircases with Dennis O. Lottlin, the red bearded robins and crew-so, who combined in himself the offices of coachman, butler, and to the best of my belief, valet to the lady of the house. The door opened at last, and Dennis, looking as furtive as his prototype, after he had sighted the footprint, put in his head and beckoned to me. The mistress says, will you go to dinner without her? He said, very confidentially, sure, she's greatly vexed, she should be with Nana, whilst the kitchen chimney got fire, and fair she's after giving Billy Mahoney the sack on the head of it, though indeed his little weed-regard was nowhere here in the other day. Mrs. Knox's woolly dog was the sole occupant of the dining-room when I entered it. He was sitting on his mistress's chair, with all the air of outrage, peculiar to a small and self-important dog when routine has been interfered with. It was difficult to discover what had caused the delay, the meal, not accepting the soup, being a cold collation. It was heavily flavoured with soot, and was hurled onto the table by Crusoe in spasmodic bursts, contemporaneous, no doubt, with Billy Mahoney's fits of hysterics in the kitchen. Its most memorable feature was a noble lake trout, which appeared in two jagged pieces, a matter likely alluded to by Dennis as the result of a little argument between himself and Billy as to the dish on which it was to be served. Further conversation elicited the interesting fact that the combatants had pulled the trout in two before the matter was settled. A brief glance at my attendant's hands decided me to let the woolly dog justify his existence by consuming my portion for me when Crusoe left the room. Old Mrs. Knox remained invisible till the end of dinner when she appeared in the purple velvet bonnet that she were reputed to have worn since the famine and a done-coloured woollen shawl that flashed rainbow fire against the last shafts of sunset. There was a fire in the old lady's eyes, too, the light that I had sometimes seen in flurries in moments of crisis. I have no apologies to offer that are worth hearing, she said, but I have come to drink a glass of port wine with you, if you will, so far on me, and then we must go out and see the ball. My grandson is late as usual. She crumbled a biscuit with a brown and preoccupied hand. Her claw-like fingers carried a crowded sparkle of diamonds upwards as she raised her glass to her lips. The twilight was falling when we left the room and made our way downstairs. I followed the little figure in the purple bonnet through dark regions of passages and doorways where strange lumber lay about. There was a rusty suit of armour, an upturned punt, measuring pictures, and finally by a door that opened into the yard a lady's bicycle, white with the dust of travel. I supposed this latter to have been imported from Dublin by the fashionable Miss Maggie Nolan, but on the other hand it was well within the bounds of possibility that it belonged to old Mrs. Knox. The coach-house at Orsellus was on a par with the rest of the establishment being vast, dilapidated and of unknown age. Its three double doors were wide open and the guests overflowed through them into the cobblestone yard. Above their heads the tin reflectors of paraffin lamps glared at us from among the Christmas decorations of holly and ivy that festooned the walls. The voices of a fiddle and a concertina combined were uttering a polka with the shrill and hideous fluency to which the scraping and stamping of hobnail boots made a ponderous base accompaniment. Mrs. Knox's donkey chair had been placed in a commanding position at the top of the room, and she made her way slowly to it, shaking hands with all varieties of tenants and saying right things without showing any symptom of that flustered boredom that I have myself exhibited when I went round the men's messes on Christmas Day. She took her seat in the donkey chair with the white dog on her lap and looked with her hawk's eyes round the array of faces and looked in the space where the dancers were solemnly bobbing and hopping. Will you tell me who that tom fool is, Dennis? She said, pointing to a young lady in a bald dress who was circling in conscious magnificence and somewhat painful incongruity in the arms of Mr. Peter Cadogan. That's the ladies made from Castle Knox, your honour, ma'am, replied Dennis with something remarkably like a wink at Mrs. Knox. When did the Castle Knox servants come? asked the old lady very sharply. The same time your honour left the table and, hey, view, what's this? There was a clatter of galloping hooves in the courtyard as of a troop of cavalry and out of the heart of it, Fleury's voice shouting to Dennis to drive out the colts and shut the gates before they had the people killed. I noticed that the colour had risen to Mrs. Knox's face due to anxiety about her young horses. I may admit that when I heard Fleury's voice and saw him collaring his grandmother's guests and pushing them out of the way as he came into the coach-house I rather feared that he was in the condition so often defined to me at petty sessions as, not drunk, but having drink taken. His face was white, his eyes glittered, there was a general air of exultation about him that suggested the solace of love according to the most ancient convention. Hello! he said, swaggering up to the orchestra. What's this humbugging thing there playing? A polka, is it? Drop that, John Casey, and play a jig. John Casey ceased subjectly. What a claim, Master Fleury! What the devil do I care? Here, Yates, put a name on it. You're a sort of music under yourself. I know the names of three or four Irish gigs, but on this occasion my memory clung exclusively to one. I suppose because it was the one I felt to be particularly inappropriate. Oh, well, um, haste to the wedding, I said, looking away. Fleury gave a shout of laughter. That's it, he exclaimed. Play it up, John. Give us haste to the wedding. That's made Yates' fancy. Decidedly, Fleury was drunk. What's wrong with you all that you aren't dancing, he continued, striding up the middle of the room. Maybe you don't know how. Here, I'll soon get one that'll show you. He advanced upon his grandmother, snatched her out of the donkey chair, and amid roars of applause led her out, while the fiddle squealed its way through the inimitable twists of the tune, and the concertina surged and panted after it. Whatever Mrs. Cox may have thought of her grandson's behaviour, she was evidently going to make the best of it. She took her station opposite to him in the purple bonnet, the done-coloured shawl, and the diamonds. She picked up her skirt at each side, affording a view of narrow feet in elastic-sided cloth boots, and for three repeats of the tune she stood up to her grandson and footed it on the coach-house floor. What the cloth boots did I could not exactly follow. I could see extremely scientific, while it was hardly so much as a nod from the plumes of the bonnet. Flurry was also scientific, but his dancing did not alter my opinion that he was drunk. In fact, I thought he was making rather an exhibition of himself. They say that that jig was twenty pounds in Mrs. Knox's pocket at the next rent day, but though this statement is open to doubt, I believe that if she and Flurry had taken a walk round there and then, she would have got in the best part of her arrears. After this, the company settled down to business. The dances lasted a sweltering half-hour, old women and young dancing with equal and tireless zest. At the end of each, the gentlemen abandoned their partners without ceremony or comment, and went out to smoke, while the ladies retired to the laundry, where families of teapots stewed and Mrs. Mahoney cut up mighty barn-bracks, and the tea-drinking was illimitable. At ten o'clock Mrs. Knox withdrew from the revel. She said that she was tired, but I have seldom seen anyone look more wide awake. I thought that I might unobtrusively follow her example, but I was intercepted by Flurry. Yates! he said seriously, I'll take it as a kindness if she'll see this thing out with me. We must keep them pretty sober and get this by daylight. I have to get home early. I once took back my opinion that Flurry was drunk. I almost wished he had been, as I could then have deserted him without a pang. As it was, I addressed myself heavily to the night's enjoyment, one with heat, but conscientiously cheerful. I danced with Miss Maggie Nolan, with the Castle Knox ladies made, with my own kitchen-made, who fell into wild giggles of terror when I spoke to her, with Mrs. Cadogan, who had apparently postponed the interesting feet of dancing on her grave, and did what she could to dance me into mine. I am bound to admit that though an ex-soldier and a major, and therefore equipped with a ready-made character for gallantry, Mrs. Cadogan was the only one of my partners with whom I conversed with any comfort. At intervals I smoked cigarettes in the yard, seated by the gate, and overheard such conversation about the price of pigs in Skiborn. At intervals I plunged again into the coach-house, and led forth a perspiring wall-flower into the scrimmage of a polka, or shuffled meaninglessly opposite to her in the long double line of dancers, who were engaged with serious faces in executing a jig or a reel, I neither knew nor cared which. Flurry remained as undefeated as ever. I could only suppose it was his method of showing that his broken heart amended. It's time to be making the punch-matter Flurry, said Dennis, as the harness-room clock struck twelve. Sure, the night's warm, and the men were all gaping far at the creatures. What'll we make it in? said Flurry, as we followed him into the laundry. The rider, to be sure, said Crusoe, taking up a stone of sugar, and preparing to shoot it into the laundry-copper. Stop your fool, it's full of cockroaches, shouted Flurry, amid sympathetic squalls from the throng of countrymen. Go get a bath! Sure, yourself knows there's but one bath in it, retorted Dennis, and that's within the mage's room. Faith, the tinker got his own share yesterday with the same bath, thriving to quench the holes, and there is thick in it as the stars in the sky, and his weeping still the rest of the laundry all he'd done. Well, then, here goes for the cockroaches, said Flurry. What doesn't sicken will fatten. Give me the kettle, and come on, you kitty-collins, and miskibbin' them off. There were no complaints of the punch when the brew was completed, and the dance thundered on with a heavier stamping and a louder hilarity than before. The night wore on. I squeezed through the unyielding pack of freeze-coats and shawls in the doorway, and with feet that momentary swelled in my pumps, I limped over the cobblestones to smoke my eighth cigarette on the mounting-block. It was a dark, hot night. The old castle loomed above me and piled up roofs and gables, and high up in it somewhere a window sent a shaft of light into the sleeping leaves of a walnut tree that overhung the gateway. At the bars of the gate two young horses peered in from the valley of noise and people. Aware in an outhouse a cock-crew hoarsely. The gaiety in the coach-house increased momently till amid shrieks and bursts of laughter, Miss Maggie Nolan fled cliquettishly from it with a long yell, like a train coming out of a tunnel, pursued by the fascinating Peter Cadogan brandishing a twig of mountain ash in imitation of mistletoe. The young horses stampeded in horror, and immediately proceeded from the lighted window above. Mrs. Knox's voice demanding what the noise was and announcing that if she heard any more of it she would have the place cleared. An awful silence fell to which the young horses fleeing hooves lent the final touch of consternation. Then I heard the irrepressible Maggie Nolan say, Oh, God, many comes had! which I take to be a reflection on the mutability of all earthly happiness. Mrs. Knox remained for a moment at the window and it struck me as remarkable that at 2.30 a.m. she should still have on her bonnet. I thought I heard her speak to someone in the room, and there followed a laugh, a laugh that was not a servant and was puzzlingly familiar. I gave it up and presently dropped into a cheerless dose. With the dawn came a period when even Flurry showed signs of failing. He came and sat down beside me with a yawn. It struck me that there was more impatience and nervousness than fatigue in the yawn. I think I'll turn them all out after this next dance is over, he said. I have a lot to do and I can't stay here. I grunted in drowsy approval. It must have been a few minutes later but I felt Flurry grip my shoulder. Yeats! He said, look up at the roof. Do you see anything up there by the kitchen chimney? He was pointing at a heavy stack of chimney in a tower that stood up against the grey and pink of the morning sky. At the angle where one of them joined the roof smoke was oozing busily out and as I stared a little whisp of flames stole through. The next thing that I distinctly remember is being in the van of a rush through the kitchen passages everyone shouting water, water! and not knowing where to find it. Then up several flights of the narrowest and darkest stairs it has ever been my fate to ascend with a bucket of water that I snatched from a woman spilling as I ran. At the top of the stairs came a ladder leading to a trap door and up in the dark loft above was the roar and the wavering glare of flames. My God! That's a strong fire! shouted Dennis, tumbling down the ladder with the brace of empty buckets. We'll never save it. The lake won't quench it. The flames were squirting out through the bricks of the chimney through the timbers and through the slates. It was barely possible to get through the trap door and the booming and crackling strength and every instant. A chain to the lake gasped flurry coughing in the stifling heat as he slashed the water at the blazing rafters. No else no good. Go on yeets! The organising of a double chain out of the mob that thronged and shouted and jammed in the passages and the yard was no mean feat of generalship, but it got done somehow. Mrs. Cadogan and Biddy Mahoney rose magnificently to the occasion cursing, thumping, shoving and stable buckets, coal buckets, milk-pales and kettles were unearthed and sensed swinging down the grass slope to the lake that lay in glittering unconcern in the morning sunshine. Men, women and children worked in a way that only Irish people can work on an emergency. All their cleverness, all their good-heartedness and all their love of eruption came to the front. The screaming and the exhortations were incessant, but so were also the buckets that flew from hand to hand up to the loft. I hardly know how long we were at it, but there came a time when I looked up from the yard and saw that the billows of red and smoke from the top of the tower were dying down and I bethought me of old Mrs. Knox. I found her at the door of her room engaged in tying up a bundle of old clothes in a sheet. She looked as white as a corpse, but she was not in any way quelled by the situation. I'll be obliged to you all the same major Yeats to throw this over the balusters," she said as I advanced with the news that the fire had been got under. Upon my honour I don't know when I've been as vexed as I've been to fight what with one thing and another. It is a monstrous thing to use a guest as we've used you, but what could we do? I threw all the silver out of the dining-room window myself and the poor peahen that had her nest there was hurt by an entree dish and half her eggs were. There was a curious sound not unlike a titter in Mrs. Knox's room. However, we can't make omelettes without breaking eggs, as they say. She went on, rather hurriedly. I don't know what I'm saying. My old head is confused. Here Mrs. Knox went abruptly into her room and shut the door. Obviously, there was nothing further to do for my hostess and I fought my way up the dripping back staircase to the loft. The flames had ceased, the supply of buckets had been stopped and Flurry, standing on a ponderous cross-beam, was poking his head and shoulders out into the sunlight through the hole that had been burned in the roof. Dennis and others were pouring water over charred beams. The atmosphere was still stifling. Everything was black. Everything dripped with inky water. Flurry descended from his beam and stretched himself looking like a drowned chimney-sweep. We've made a night of ity-hates, haven't we, he said, but we bested it anyhow. We were done for only for you. There was more emotion about him than the occasion seemed to warrant and his eyes had a Christy menstrual brightness, not wholly to be attributed by the dirt on his face. What's the time? I must get home. The time, incredible as it seemed, was half-past six. I could almost have sworn that Flurry changed colour when I said so. I must be off, he said. I had no idea it was so late. Why, what's the hurry, I asked? He stared at me, laughed foolishly in his moving directions to Dennis. Five minutes afterwards he drove out of the yard and away at a canter down the long stretch of avenue that skirted the lake with a troop of young horses flying on either hand. He whirled his whip round his head and shouted at them and was lost to sight in a clump of trees. It is a vision of him that remains with me and it always carried with it the bitter smell of wet charred wood. Reaction had begun to set in among the volunteers. The chain took to sitting in the kitchen. Cups of tea began mysteriously to circulate and personal narratives of the fire were already foreshadowing the amazing legends that have since gathered round the night's adventure. I left to Dennis the task of clearing the house and went up to change my wet clothes with a feeling that I had not been to bed for a year. The ghost of a waiter who had drowned himself in the bold-hole would have presented a cheerier aspect than I that I surveyed myself in the prehistoric mirror in my room with the sunshine falling on my unshawn face and begrimed shirt-front. I made my toilet at considerable length and it being now nearly eight o'clock went downstairs to look for something to eat. I had left the house humming with people. I found it silent as Pompeii. The sheeted bundles containing Mrs. Knox's wardrobe were lying about the hall. A couple of ancestors who, in the first alarm, had been dragged from the walls were leaning drunkenly against the bundles. Last night's dessert was still on the dining-room table. I went out on to the hall door steps and saw the entree dishes in a glittering heap in a nasturtium bed and realised that there was no breakfast for me this side of lunch at Freelaine. There was a sound of wheels on the avenue and a broom came into view driving fast upon the long open stretch by the lake. It was the castle Knox-Broom driven by Norris, whom I had last seen drunk at the athletic sports and as it drew up at the door I saw Lady Knox inside. It's all right, the fires out I said, advancing genially and full of reassurance. What fire! said Lady Knox, with an iron countenance. I explained. Well, as the house isn't burnt down, said Lady Knox, cutting short my details, perhaps you would kindly find out if I could see Mrs. Knox. Lady Knox's face was many shades redder than usual. I began to understand that something awful had happened or would happen, and I wished myself safe at Freelaine with the bed-clothes over my head. If it is for the master, she are looking me, Lady, said Dennis's voice behind me in terms of the utmost respect. She went out to the kitchen garden a while ago to get her blushed and the fresh air after the night. Perhaps your ladyship would sit in soid in the library, did I call her. Lady Knox, I'd cruise so suspiciously. Thank you, I'll fetch her myself, she said. Oh, sure, that's too trouble, began Dennis. Stay where you are, said Lady Knox, in a voice like the slam of a door. Be-dad, I'm best pleased she went, whispered Dennis, as Lady Knox set forth alone down the shrubbery walk. But is Mrs. Knox in the garden, said I? The Lord preserve your innocence, sir, replied Dennis with seeming relevance. At this moment I became aware of the incredible fact that Sally Knox was silently descending the stairs. She stopped short as she got into the hall and looked almost wildly at me and Dennis. Was I looking at her wraith? There was again a sound of wheels on the gravel. She went to the hall door, outside which was now drawn up Mrs. Knox's donkey carriage, as well as Lady Knox's broom, and as if overcome by this imposing spectacle, she turned back and put her hands over her face. She'd gone round to the garden, the shore, said Dennis and a horse whisper, going the donkey carriage, could be all right. He seized her by the arm, pushed her down the steps and into the little carriage, pulled up the hood over her to its furthest stretch, snatched the whip out of the hand of the broadly grinning Morris, and with terrific objugation lashed the donkey into a gallop. The donkey boy grasped the position, whatever it might be. He went outside, and the donkey carriage swung away down the avenue with all its incongruous air of hooded and rowdy invalidism. I have never disguised the fact that I am a coward, and therefore went at this dynamitical moment. I caught a glimpse of Lady Knox's hat over a lorristinus, as she returned at high speed from the garden. I slunk into the house and faded away round the dining-room door. This minute I seen the mistress going down through the plantation beyond, said the voice of Crusoe outside the window, and I, after sending Jolly Reagan to her with the little carriage, not to put any more delay on your ladyship. Char, you can see him making all the hasty can. Maybe you'd sit inside in the library till she comes. Silence followed. I peered cautiously round the window curtain. Lady Knox was looking defiantly at the donkey carriage, as it reeled at top speed into the shades of the plantation, strenuously pursued by the woolly dog. Norris was regarding his horse's ears in expressionless respectability. Dennis was picking up the entree dishes with decorous solicitude. Lady Knox turned and came into the house. She passed the dining-room door with an ominous step and went on into the library. It seemed to me that now or never was the moment to retire quietly to my room. Put my things into my portmanteau, and Dennis rushed into the room with the entree-dishes piled up to his chin. She diddled. He whispered, crashing them down on the table. He came at me with his hand out. Three chairs for Master Florian Miss Sally. He hissed, ringing my hand up and down. And was yourself called for haste in the wedding last night long life to you? The Lord save us! There's the mistress going into the library. Through the half-open door I saw old Mrs. Knox approach the library from the staircase with a dignified slowness. She had on a wedding-garment, a long white furnace in which she might easily have been mistaken for a small stout clergyman. She waved back cruiser. The door closed upon her and the battle of giants was entered upon. I sat down. It was all I was able for and remained for a full minute in stupefied contemplation of the entree-dishes. Perhaps of all conclusions to a situation so portentous that which occurred was the least possible. Twenty minutes after Mrs. Knox met her antagonist I was summoned from strapping my portmanteau to face the appalling duty of escorting the combatants to Mrs. Knox's room to the church outside the back gate to which Miss Sally had preceded them in the donkey carriage. I pulled myself together, went downstairs and found that the millennium had suddenly set in. It had apparently dawned with the news that Orseless and all things therein were bequeathed to Flurry by his grandmother and had established itself finally upon the considerations that the marriage was past praying for and that the diamonds were intended for Miss Sally. We fetched the bride and the bridegroom from the church. We fetched old Eustace Hamilton who married them. We dug out the champagne from the cellar. We even found rice and threw it. The hired carriage that had been ordered to take the runaways across country to a distant station was driven by slipper. He was shaved. He wore an old livery-coat that had been draped over. On the following morning he was found asleep on a heap of stones ten miles away. Somewhere in the neighbourhood one of the horses was grazing in a field with a certain amount of harness hanging about it. The carriage and the remaining horse were discovered in a roadside ditch two miles farther on. One of the carriage doors had been torn off and in the interior the hens of the vicinity were conducting exhaustive search for the rice that lurked in the cushions. End of Chapter 12 An End of Some Experiences of an Irish RM by Edith Inonis Somerville and Martin Ross