Hyacinth Part 8

'Thank you,' said Hyacinth.

'Mind you, there's a good thing to be made out of her. But sure you know that as well as I do myself, and maybe better. What do you say now?'

'I'll think it over,' said Hyacinth, 'and whatever comes of it I'll be greatly obliged to you.'

'Well, don't be delaying too long. And look you here'--his voice sank almost to a whisper--'don't be talking about what I've said to you.

People are queer, and if Father Joyce down in Clifden came to hear that I was working for a Protestant he'd be sure to go talking to the Archbishop, and I'd never get to the end of the fuss that would be made.'

'Indeed, it's very good of you, especially considering who I am--I mean, my father being a convert, and----'

'Say no more,' said the priest--'say no more. Your father was a good man, Catholic or Protestant. I'm not one of these bitter kind of priests, Mr. Con-neally. I can be a good Catholic without hating my neighbours. I don't hold with all this bullyragging in newspapers about "sourfaces" and "saved." Maybe that's the reason that I'm stuck down here at the other end of nowhere all my life, and never got promotion or praise. But what do I care as long as they let me alone to do my work for the people? I'm not afraid to say it to you, Mr. Conneally, for you won't want to get me into trouble, but it's my belief that there's many of our priests would rather have grand churches than contented people.

They're fonder of Rome than they are of Ireland.'

'Really, Father Moran,' said Hyacinth, smiling, 'if you go on like this, I shall expect to hear of your turning Protestant.'

'G.o.d forbid, Mr. Conneally! I wish you well. I wish you to be here among us, and to be prosperous; but the dearest wish of my heart for you is that I might see you back in the Catholic Church, believing the creed of your forefathers.'

The priest's suggestion attracted Hyacinth a great deal more than Dr.

Henry's. He liked the sea and the fis.h.i.+ng, and he loved the simple people among whom he had been brought up. His experiences in Dublin had not encouraged him to be ambitious. Life in the great world--it was thus that he thought of the bickerings of the Dublin Nationalists and the schoolboy enthusiasms of college students--was not a very simple thing. There was a complexity and a confusion in affairs which made it difficult to hold to any cause devotedly. It seemed to him, looking back, that Miss Goold's ideals--and she had ideals, as he knew--were somehow vulgarized in their contact with the actual. He had seen something of the joy she found in her conflict with O'Rourke, and it did not seem to him to be pure or enn.o.bling. At one time he was on the verge of deciding to do what the priest wished. Walking day by day along the sh.o.r.e or through the fields, he came to think that life might very well be spent without ambitious or extended hopes in quiet toil and unexciting pleasures. What held him back was the recollection, which never ceased to haunt him, of his father's prophecy. The thought of the great fight, declared to be imminent, stirred in him an emotion so strong that the peace and monotony he half desired became impossible.

He never made it clear to himself that he either believed or disbelieved the prediction. He certainly did not expect to see an actual gathering of armed men, or that Ireland was to be the scene of a battle like those in South Africa. But there was in him a conviction that Ireland was awakening out of a long sleep, was stretching her limbs in preparation for activity. He felt the quiver of a national strenuousness which was already shaking loose the knots of the old binding-ropes of prejudice and cowardice. It seemed to him that bone was coming to dry bone, and that sooner or later--very soon, it was likely--one would breathe on these, and they would live. That contest should come out of such a renaissance was inevitable. But what contest? Against whom was the new Ireland to fight, and who was truly on her side? Here was the puzzle, insoluble but insistent. It would not let him rest, recurring to his mind with each fresh recollection of his father's prophecy.

It was while he was wearying himself with this perplexity that he got a letter from Augusta Goold. It was characteristic of her that she had written no word of sympathy when she heard of his father's death, and now, when a letter did come, it contained no allusion to Hyacinth's affairs. She told him with evident delight that she had enlisted no less than ten recruits for the Boer army. She had collected sufficient money to equip them and pay their travelling expenses. It was arranged that they were to proceed to Paris, and there join a body of volunteers organized by a French officer, a certain Pierre de Villeneuve, about whom Miss Goold was enthusiastic. She was in communication with an Irishman who seemed likely to be a suitable captain for her little band, and she wanted Hyacinth back in Dublin to help her.

'You know,' she wrote, 'the people I have round me here. Poor old Grealy is quite impracticable, though he means well. He talks about nothing but the Fianna and Finn McCool, and can't see that my fellows must have riding lessons, and must be got somehow to understand the mechanism of a rifle. Tim Halloran has been in a sulk ever since I told him what I thought of his conduct at the Rotunda. He never comes near me, and Mary O'Dwyer told me the other day that he called my volunteers a "pack of blackguards." I dare say it's perfectly true, but they're a finer kind of blackguard than the sodden loafers the English recruit for their miserable army.'

She went on to describe the series of Boer victories which had come one after another just at Christmas-time. She was confident that the cause of freedom and nationality would ultimately triumph, and she foresaw the intervention of some Continental Power. A great blow would be struck at the already tottering British Empire, and then--the freedom of Ireland.

Hyacinth felt strangely excited as he read her news. The letter seemed the first clear note of the trumpet summoning him to his father's Armageddon. Politics and squabbling at home might be inglorious and degrading, but the actual war which was being waged in South Africa, the struggle of a people for existence and liberty, could be nothing but n.o.ble. He saw quite clearly what his own next step was to be, and there was no temptation to hesitate about it. He would place his money at Miss Goold's disposal, and go himself with her ten volunteers to join the brigade of the heroic de Villeneuve.

CHAPTER IX

The prospect of joining Augusta Goold's band of volunteers and going to South Africa to fight afforded Hyacinth great satisfaction. For two days he lived in an atmosphere of day-dreams and delightful antic.i.p.ations. He had no knowledge whatever of the actual conditions of modern warfare.

He understood vaguely that he would be called upon to endure great hards.h.i.+ps. He liked to think of these, picturing himself bravely cheerful through long periods of hunger, heat, or cold. He had visions of night watches, of sudden alarms, of heart-stirring skirmishes, of scouting work, and stealthy approaches to the enemy's lines. He thought out the details of critical interviews with commanding officers in which he with some chosen comrade volunteered for incredibly dangerous enterprises. He conceived of himself as wounded, though not fatally, and carried to the rear out of some bullet-swept firing-line. He was just twenty-three years of age. Adventure had its fascination, and the world was still a place full of splendid possibilities.

At the end of his two days of dreaming he returned, flushed with his great purposes, to the realities of life. He went to Father Moran to tell him that he would not buy Durkan's boat. He laughed to himself at the thought of doing such a thing. Was he to spend his life fis.h.i.+ng mackerel round the rocky islands of Connemara, when he might be fighting like one of the ancient heroes, giving his strength, perhaps his life, for a great cause? The priest met him at the presbytery door.

'Come in, Mr. Conneally--come in and sit down. I was expecting you these two days. What were you doing at all, walking away there along the rocks by yourself? The people were beginning to say that you were getting to be like your poor father, and that n.o.body'd ever get any good out of you. But I knew you'd come back to me here. I hope now it's to tell me that you'll buy the boat you've come.'

They entered the house, and the priest opened the door of the little sitting-room. Hyacinth knew it well. There was the dark mahogany table with the marks burnt into it where hot dishes were set down, the shabby arm-chair, the worn cocoanut-matting on the floor, the dozen or so books in the hanging shelf, the tawdry sacred pictures round the wall. He had known it all, and it all seemed unchanged since he was a child.

'Sit you down--sit you down,' said the priest. 'And now about the boat.'

'I'm not going in for her,' said Hyacinth. 'I'm as thankful to you for suggesting it as if I did buy her. I hope you'll understand that, but I'm not going to buy her.'

He found it difficult to speak of his new plan to Father Moran.

'Do you tell me that, now? I'm sorry for it. And why wouldn't you buy her? What's there to hinder you?'

Hyacinth hesitated.

'Well, now,' said the priest, 'I can guess. I thought the auction turned out well for you, but I never heard for certain, and maybe you haven't got the money for the boat. Whisht now, my son, and let me speak. I'm thinking the thing might be managed.'

'But, Father Moran------'

'Ah now, will you be quiet when I bid you? I haven't the money myself.

Never a penny have I been able to save all my life, with the calls there are on me in a parish like this. Sure, you know yourself how it is.

There's one will have a cow that has died on him, and another will be wanting a lock of potatoes for seed in the springtime; and if it isn't that, it'll be something else. And who would the creatures go to in their trouble but the old priest that christened and married the most of them? But, indeed, thanks be to G.o.d, things is improving. The fis.h.i.+ng brings in a lot of money to the men, and there's a better breed of cattle in the country now, and the pigs fetch a good price since we had the railway to Clifden, and maybe the last few years I might have saved a little, but I didn't. Indeed, I don't know where it is the money goes at all, but someway it's never at rest in my breeches pockets till it's up and off somewhere. G.o.d forgive us! it's more careful we ought to be.'

'But, Father Moran, I don't----'

'Arrah then, will you cease your talking for one minute, and let me get a word in edgeways for your own good? What was I saying? Oh, I was just after telling you I hadn't got the money to help you. But maybe I might manage to get it. The man in the bank in Clifden knows me. I borrowed a few pounds off him two years ago when the Ca.s.sidys' house and three more beside it got blown away in the big wind. Father Joyce put his name on the back of the bill along with my own, and trouble enough I had to get him to do it, for he said I ought to put an appeal in the newspapers, and I'd get the money given to me. But I never was one to go begging round the country. I said I'd rather borrow the money and pay it back like a decent man. And so I did, every penny of it. And I think the bank will trust me now, with just your name and mine, more especially as it's to buy a boat we want the money. What do you say to that, now?' He looked at Hyacinth triumphantly.

'Father Moran, you're too good to me--you're too good altogether. What did ever I do to deserve such kindness from you? But you're all wrong.

I've got plenty of money.'

'And why in the name of all that's holy didn't you tell me so at once, and not keep me standing here twisting my brains into hard knots with thinking out ways of getting what you don't want? If you've got the money you'll buy the boat. What better could you do with it?'

'But I don't want to buy the boat. I don't want to live here always. I'm going away out into the world. I want to see things and do things.'

'Out into the world! Will you listen to the boy? Is it America you're thinking of? Ah, now, there's enough gone out and left us lonely here.

Isn't the best of all the boys and girls going to work for the strangers in the strange land? and why would you be going after them?'

'I'm not going to America. I'm going to South Africa. I'm going to join some young Irishmen to fight for the Boers and for freedom.'

'You're going out to fight--to fight for the Boers! What is it that's in your head at all, Hyacinth Con-neally? Tell me now.'

Again Hyacinth hesitated. Was it possible to give utterance to the thoughts and hopes which filled his mind? Could he tell anyone about the furious fancies of the last few days, or of that weird vision of his father's which lay at the back of what he felt and dreamed? Could he even speak of the enthusiasm which moved him to devote himself to the cause of freedom and a threatened nationality? In the presence of a man of the world the very effort to express himself would have acted as some corrosive acid, and stained with patches of absurdity the whole fabric of his dreams. He looked at Father Moran, and saw the priest's eyes lit with sympathy. He knew that he had a listener who would not scoff, who might, perhaps, even understand. He began to speak, slowly and haltingly at first, then more rapidly. At last he poured out with breathless, incoherent speed the strange story of the Armageddon vision, the hopes that were in him, the fierce enthusiasm, the pa.s.sionate love for Ireland which burnt in his soul. He was not conscious of the gaping inconsequences of his train of emotion. He did not recognise how ridiculous it was to connect the Boer War with the Apocalyptic battle of the saints, or the utter impossibility of getting either one or the other into any sort of relation with the existing condition of Ireland.

A casual observer might have supposed that Hyacinth had made a mistake in telling his story to Father Moran. A smile, threatening actual laughter, hovered visibly round the priest's mouth. His eyes had a shrewd, searching expression, difficult to interpret. Still, he listened to the rhapsody without interrupting it, till Hyacinth stopped abruptly, smitten with sudden self-consciousness, terrified of imminent ridicule.

Nor were the priest's first words rea.s.suring.

'I wouldn't say now, Hyacinth Conneally, but there might be the makings of a fine man in you yet.'

'I might have known,' said Hyacinth angrily, 'that you'd laugh at me. I was a fool to tell you at all. But I'm in earnest about what I'm going to do. Whatever you may think about the rest, there's no laughing at that.'

'Well, you're just wrong then, for I wasn't laughing nor meaning to laugh at all. G.o.d forbid that I should laugh at you, and I meant it when I said that there was the makings of a fine man in you. Laugh at you!

It's little you know me. Listen now, till I tell you something; but don't you be repeating it. This must be between you and me, and go no further. I was very much of your way of thinking myself once.'

Hyacinth gazed at him in astonishment. The thought of Father Moran, elderly, rotund, kindly; of Father Moran with sugar-stick in his pocket for the school-children and a quaint jest on his lips for their mothers; of Father Moran in his ruffled silk hat and shabby black coat and baggy trousers--of this Father Moran mounted and armed, facing the British infantry in South Africa, was wholly grotesque. He laughed aloud.

'It's yourself that has the bad manners to be laughing now,' said the priest. 'But small blame to you if it was out to the Boers I was thinking of going. The gray goose out there on the road might laugh--and she's the solemnest mortal I know--at the notion of me charging along with maybe a pike in my hand, and the few gray hairs that's left on the sides of my head blowing about in the breeze I'd make as I went prancing to and fro. But that's not what I meant when I said that once upon a time I was something of your way of thinking. And sure enough I was, but it's a long time ago now.'

He sighed, and for a minute or two he said no more. Hyacinth began to wonder what he meant, and whether the promised confidence would be forthcoming at all. Then the priest went on:

'When I was a young man--and it's hard for you to think it, but I was a fine young man; never a better lad at the hurling than I was, me that's a doddering old soggarth now--when I was a boy, as I'm telling you, there was a deal of going to and fro in the country and meetings at night, and drillings too, and plenty of talk of a rising--no less.

Little good came of it that ever I saw, but I'm not blaming the men that was in it. They were good men, Hyacinth Conneally--men that would have given the souls out of their bodies for the sake of Ireland. They would, sure, for they loved Ireland well. But I had my own share in the doings.