`What I mean,' said Mr Lyons, `is we have our ideals. Why, now, would we welcome
a man like that? Do you think now after what he did Parnell was a fit man to lead us?
And why, then, would we do it for Edward the Seventh?'
`This is Parnell's anniversary,' said Mr O'Connor, `and don't let us stir up any bad
blood. We all respect him now that he's dead and gone - even the Conservatives,' he
added, turning to Mr Crofton.
Pok! The tardy cork flew out of Mr Crofton's bottle: Mr Crofton got up from his box
and went to the fire. As he returned-with his capture he said in a deep voice:
`Our side of the house respects him, because he was a gentleman.'
`Right you are, Crofton!' said Mr Henchy fiercely. `He was the only man that could
keep that bag of cats in order. "Down, ye dogs! Lie down, ye curs!" That's the way he
treated them. Come in, Joe! Come in!' he called out, catching sight of Mr Hynes in the
doorway.
Mr Hynes came in slowly.
`Open another bottle of stout, Jack,' said Mr Henchy. `O, I forgot there's no
corkscrew! Here, show me one here and I'll put it at the fire.'
The old man handed him another bottle and he placed it on the hob.
`Sit down, Joe,' said Mr O'Connor, `we're just talking about the Chief.'
`Ay, ay!' said Mr Henchy.
Mr Hynes sat on the side of the table near Mr Lyons but said nothing.
`There's one of them, anyhow,' said Mr Henchy, `that didn't renege him. By God, I'll
say for you, Joe! No, by God, you stuck to him like a man!'
`O, Joe,' said Mr O'Connor suddenly. `Give us that thing you wrote - do you
remember? Have you got it on you?'
`O, ay!' said Mr Henchy. `Give us that. Did you ever hear that, Crofton? Listen to this
now: splendid thing.'
`Go on,' said Mr O'Connor. `Fire away, Joe.'
Mr Hynes did not seem to remember at once the piece to which they were alluding,
but, after reflecting a while, he said:
`O, that thing is it... Sure, that's old now.'
`Out with it, man!' said Mr O'Connor.
`'Sh, 'sh,' said Mr Henchy. `Now, Joe!'
Mr Hynes hesitated a little longer. Then amid the silence he took off his hat, laid it on
the table and stood up. He seemed to be rehearsing the piece in his mind. After a
rather long pause he announced:
THE DEATH OF PARNELL
6th October, 1891
He cleared his throat once or twice and then began to recite:
He is dead. Our Uncrowned King is dead.
O, Erin, mourn with grief and woe
For he lies dead whom the fell gang
Of modern hypocrites laid low.
He lies slain by the coward hounds
He raised to glory from the mire;
And Erin's hopes and Erin's dreams
Perish upon her monarch's pyre.
In palace, cabin or in cot
The Irish heart where'er it be
Is bowed with woe - for he is gone
Who would have wrought her destiny.
He would have had his Erin famed,
The green flag gloriously unfurled,
Her statesmen, bards, and warriors raised
Before the nations of the World.
He dreamed (alas, 'twas but a dream!)
Of Liberty: but as he strove
To clutch that idol, treachery
Sundered him from the thing he loved.
Shame on the coward, caitiff hands
That smote their Lord or with a loss
Betrayed him to the rabble-rout
Of fawning priests - no friends of his.
May everlasting shame consume
The memory of those who tried
To befoul and smear the exalted name
Of one who spurned them in his pride.
He fell as fall the mighty ones,
Nobly undaunted to the last,
And death has now united him
With Erin's heroes of the past.
No sound of strife disturb his sleep!
Calmly he rests: no human pain
Or high ambition spurs him now
The peaks of glory to attain.
They had their way: they laid him low.
But Erin, list, his spirit may
Rise, like the Phoenix from the flames,
When breaks the dawning of the day,
The day that brings us Freedom's reign.
And on that day may Erin well
Pledge in the cup she lifts to Joy
One grief - the memory of Parnell.
Mr Hynes sat down again on the table. When he had finished his recitation there was
a silence and then a burst of clapping: even Mr Lyons clapped. The applause
continued for a little time. When it had ceased all the auditors drank from their bottles
in silence.
Pok! The cork flew out of Mr Hynes' bottle, but Mr Hynes remained sitting flushed
and bareheaded on the table. He did not seem to have heard the invitation.
`Good man, Joel' said Mr O'Connor, taking out his cigarette papers and pouch the
better to hide his emotion.
`What do you think of that, Crofton?' cried Mr Henchy. `Isn't that fine? What?'
Mr Crofton said that it was a very fine piece of writing.
A Mother
Mr Holohan, assistant secretary of the Eire Abu Society, had been walking up and
down Dublin for nearly a month, with his hands and pockets full of dirty pieces of
paper, arranging about the series of concerts. He had a game leg, and for this his
friends called him Hoppy Holohan. He walked up and down constantly, stood by the
hour at street corners arguing the point, and made notes; but in the end it was Mrs
Kearney who arranged everything.
Miss Devlin had become Mrs Kearney out of spite. She had been educated in a high-
class convent, where she had learned French and music. As she was naturally pale and
unbending in manner she made few friends at school. When she came to the age of
marriage she was sent out to many houses, where her playing and ivory manners were
much admired. She sat amid the chilly circle of her accomplishments, waiting for
some suitor to brave it and offer her a brilliant life. But the young men whom she met
were ordinary and she gave them no encouragement, trying to console her romantic
desires by eating a great deal of Turkish Delight in secret. However, when she drew
near the limit and her friends began to loosen their tongues about her, she silenced
them by marrying Mr Kearney, who was a bootmaker on Ormond Quay.
He was much older than she. His conversation, which was serious, took place at
intervals in his great brown beard. After the first year of married life, Mrs Kearney
perceived that such a man would wear better than a romantic person, but she never
put her own romantic ideas away. He was sober, thrifty, and pious; he went to the
altar every first Friday, sometimes with her, oftener by himself. But she never
weakened in her religion and was a good wife to him. At some party in a strange
house when she lifted her eyebrow ever so slightly he stood up to take his leave and,
when his cough troubled him, she put the eiderdown quilt over his feet and made a
strong rum punch. For his part, he was a model father. By paying a small sum every
week into a society, he ensured for both his daughters a dowry of one hundred pounds
each when they came to the age of twenty-four. He sent the older daughter, Kathleen,
to a good convent, where she learned French and music, and afterwards paid her fees
at the Academy. Every year in the month of July Mrs Kearney found occasion to say
to some friend:
`My good man is packing us off to Skerries for a few weeks.'
If it was not Skerries it was Howth or Greystones.
When the Irish Revival began to be appreciable Mrs Kearney determined to take
advantage of her daughter's name and brought an Irish teacher to the house. Kathleen
and her sister sent Irish picture postcards to their friends and these friends sent back
other Irish picture postcards. On special Sundays, when Mr Kearney went with his
family to the pro-cathedral, a little crowd of people would assemble after mass at the
corner of Cathedral Street. They were all friends of the Kearneys - musical friends or
Nationalist friends, and, when they had played every little counter of gossip, they
shook hands with one another all together, laughing at the crossing of so many hands,
and said good-bye to one another in Irish. Soon the name of Miss Kathleen Kearney
began to be heard often on people's lips. People said that she was very clever at music
and a very nice girl and, moreover, that she was a believer in the language movement.
Mrs Kearney was well content at this. Therefore she was not surprised when one day
Mr Holohan came to her and proposed that her daughter should be the accompanist at
a series of four grand concerts which his Society was going to give in the Ancient
Concert Rooms. She brought him into the drawing-room, made him sit down and
brought out the decanter and the silver biscuit-barrel. She entered heart and soul into
the details of the enterprise, advised and dissuaded: and finally a contract was drawn
up by which Kathleen was to receive eight guineas for her services as accompanist at
the four grand concerts.
As Mr Holohan was a novice in such delicate matters as the wording of bills and the
disposing of items for a programme, Mrs Kearney helped him. She had tact. She knew
what artistes should go into capitals and what artistes should go into small type. She
knew that the first tenor would not like to come on after Mr Meade's comic turn. To
keep the audience continually diverted she slipped the doubtful items in between the
old favourites. Mr Holohan called to see her every day to have her advice on some
point. She was invariably friendly and advising - homely, in fact. She pushed the
decanter towards him, saying:
`Now, help yourself, Mr Holohan!'
And while he was helping himself she said:
`Don't be afraid! Don't be afraid of it!'
Everything went on smoothly. Mrs Kearney bought some lovely blush-pink
charmeuse in Brown Thomas's to let into the front of Kathleen's dress. It cost a pretty
penny; but there are occasions when a little expense is justifiable. She took a dozen of
two-shilling tickets for the final concert and sent them to those friends who could not
be trusted to come otherwise. She forgot nothing, and, thanks to her, everything that
was to be done was done.
The concerts were to be on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. When Mrs
Kearney arrived with her daughter at the Ancient Concert Rooms on Wednesday
night she did not like the look of things. A few young men, wearing bright blue
badges in their coats, stood idle in the vestibule; none of them wore evening dress.
She passed by with her daughter and a quick glance through the open door of the hall
showed her the cause of the stewards' idleness. At first she wondered had she
mistaken the hour. No, it was twenty minutes to eight.
In the dressing-room behind the stage she was introduced to the secretary of the
Society, Mr Fitzpatrick. She smiled and shook his hand. He was a little man, with a
white, vacant face. She noticed that he wore his soft brown hat carelessly on the side
of his head and that his accent was flat. He held a programme in his hand, and, while
he was talking to her, he chewed one end of it into a moist pulp. He seemed to bear
disappointments lightly. Mr Holohan came into the dressing-room every few minutes
with reports from the box-office. The artistes talked among themselves nervously,
glanced from time to time at the mirror and rolled and unrolled their music. When it
was nearly half past eight, the few people in the hall began to express their desire to
be entertained. Mr Fitzpatrick came in, smiled vacantly at the room, and said:
`Well, now, ladies and gentlemen. I suppose we'd better open the ball.'
Mrs Kearney rewarded his very flat final syllable with a quick stare of contempt, and
then said to her daughter encouragingly:
`Are you ready, dear?'
When she had an opportunity, she called Mr Holohan aside and asked him to tell her
what it meant. Mr Holohan did not know what it meant. He said that the committee
had made a mistake in arranging for four concerts: four were too many.
`And the artistes!' said Mrs Kearney. `Of course they are doing their best, but really
they are not good.'
Mr Holohan admitted that the artistes were no good, but the committee, he said, had
decided to let the first three concerts go as they pleased and reserve all the talent for
Saturday night. Mrs Kearney said nothing, but, as the mediocre items followed one
another on the platform and the few people in the hall grew fewer and fewer, she
began to regret that she had put herself to any expense for such a concert. There was
something she didn't like in the look of things, and Mr Fitzpatrick's vacant smile
irritated her very much. However, she said nothing and waited to see how it would
end. The concert expired shortly before ten, and everyone went home quickly.
The concert on Thursday night was better attended, but Mrs Kearney saw at once that
the house was filled with paper. The audience behaved indecorously, as if the concert
were an informal dress rehearsal. Mr Fitzpatrick seemed to enjoy himself; he was
quite unconscious that Mrs Kearney was taking angry note of his conduct. He stood at
the edge of the screen, from time to time jutting out his head and exchanging a laugh
with two friends in the corner of the balcony. In the course of the evening, Mrs
Kearney learned that the Friday concert was to be abandoned and that the committee
was going to move heaven and earth to secure a bumper house on Saturday night.
When she heard this, she sought out Mr Holohan. She buttonholed him as he was
limping out quickly with a glass of lemonade for a young lady and asked him was it
true. Yes, it was true.
`But, of course, that doesn't alter the contract,' she said. `The contract was for four
concerts.'
Mr Holohan seemed to be in a hurry; he advised her to speak to Mr Fitzpatrick. Mrs
Kearney was now beginning to be alarmed. She called Mr Fitzpatrick away from his
screen and told him that her daughter had signed for four concerts and that, of course,
according to the terms of the contract, she should receive the sum originally stipulated
for, whether the society gave the four concerts or not. Mr Fitzpatrick, who did not
catch the point at issue very quickly, seemed unable to resolve the difficulty and said
that he would bring the matter before the committee. Mrs Kearney's anger began to
flutter in her cheek and she had all she could do to keep from asking:
`And who is the Cometty, pray?'
But she knew that it would not be ladylike to do that: so she was silent.
Little boys were sent out into the principal streets of Dublin early on Friday morning
with bundles of handbills. Special puffs appeared in all the evening papers, reminding
the music-loving public of the treat which was in store for it on the following evening.
Mrs Kearney was somewhat reassured, but she thought well to tell her husband part of
her suspicions. He listened carefully and said that perhaps it would be better if he
went with her on Saturday night. She agreed. She respected her husband in the same
way as she respected the General Post Office, as something large, secure, and fixed;
and though she knew the small number of his talents she appreciated his abstract
value as a male. She was glad that he had suggested coming with her. She thought her
plans over.
The night of the grand concert came. Mrs Kearney, with her husband and daughter,
arrived at the Ancient Concert Rooms three-quarters of an hour before the time at
which the concert was to begin. By ill luck it was a rainy evening. Mrs Kearney
placed her daughter's clothes and music in charge of her husband and went all over
the building looking for Mr Holohan or Mr Fitzpatrick. She could find neither. She
asked the stewards was any member of the committee in the hall and, after a great
deal of trouble, a steward brought out a little woman named Miss Beirne, to whom
Mrs Kearney explained that she wanted to see one of the secretaries. Miss Beirne
expected them any minute and asked could she do anything. Mrs Kearney looked
searchingly at the oldish face which was screwed into an expression of trustfulness
and enthusiasm and answered:
`No, thank you!'
The little woman hoped they would have a good house. She looked out at the rain
until the melancholy of the wet street effaced all the trustfulness and enthusiasm from
