_ CHAPTER XIV
Dr. O'Grady had drawn a bundle of papers from his pocket and laid them on the table before him.
"Our first business, gentlemen," he said, "is to settle about the illuminated address which Mrs. Ford has kindly consented to present to the Lord-Lieutenant."
Thady Gallagher glared at Dr. O'Grady savagely. He did not like being interrupted in the middle of a speech.
"Order, gentlemen, order," said Father McCor-mack, nervously tapping the table with his pencil.
"With regard to the illuminated address," said Doyle, "I'm of opinion that the carrying out of it should be given into the hands of a Dublin firm. It's our duty to support Irish manufacture. There's too much money sent over to England that might be far better kept at home. You'll agree with me there, Thady."
"What are you going to say in the address?" said the Major.
"Oh, the usual things," said Dr. O'Grady. "I don't think we need go into that in detail. All addresses are pretty much the same."
"I won't sign my name to anything political," said the Major.
"I'm with you there," said Father McCormack. "It's one of the curses of this country the way politics are dragged into business."
"Nobody wants politics," said Dr. O'Grady. "The address will contain nothing but nice little compliments to the Lord-Lieutenant with a word or two about the value of piers put in at the end."
"If the matter's left in the hands of the firm I have in mind," said Doyle, "it'll be done right. They've illuminated three-quarters of the addresses that have been presented in the country, and whether it's a bank manager or a priest going on a new mission, or a Lord-Lieutenant that the address is for, the firm I mean will know what to put into it. They've had the experience, and experience is what is wanted."
"We'll give him names and dates," said Dr. O'Grady, "and tell him that this is a seaport town with no proper pier. With that information any fool could draw up the text of an illuminated address. I propose that the matter be left in the hands of a subcommittee consisting of Mr. Doyle."
"Are you all agreed on that, gentlemen?" said Father McCormack.
Thady Gallagher rose slowly to his feet.
"With regard to what Mr. Doyle has just laid before the meeting," he said, "and speaking of the duty of supporting Irish manufacture, I'm of opinion that his words do him credit. I'm an out and out supporter of the Industrial Revival, and when I look round about me on the ruined mills that once were hives of industry, and the stream of emigration which is flowing from our shores year after year------"
"I don't think we need spend much time discussing the bouquet," said Dr. O'Grady. "It'll have to be ordered from Dublin too."
"There's no flowers here to make a bouquet of," said Doyle, "unless, maybe, the Major----"
"I've a few Sweet-Williams," said the Major, "and a bed of mixed stocks. If you think they'd be any use to you you're welcome to them."
"We might do worse," said Father McCormack.
"We'll have to do better," said Dr. O'Grady. "You can't offer a lady in the position of a Lord-Lieutenant's wife a bundle of ordinary stocks! What we have to get is lilies and roses."
"It's only right that we should," said Father McCormack, "but I think the thanks of the meeting ought to be given to Major Kent for his generous offer."
"I second that," said Doyle. "The Major was always a good friend to anything that might be for the benefit of the town or the locality."
"The ordering of the bouquet," said Dr. O'Grady, "to be left to the same sub-committee which has charge of the address."
"And it to be sent to the hotel here," said Father McCormack, "on the morning of the ceremony, so as it will be fresh. Are you all agreed on that, gentlemen? What's the next business, doctor?"
"The next business is the statue."
"What's the date of the Lord-Lieutenant's visit?" said the Major.
"Thursday week," said Dr. O'Grady.
"That's ten days from to-day," said the Major. "We may just as well go home at once as sit here talking to each other. There's no time to get a statue."
"We'll do our business before we stir," said Dr. O'Grady.
"What's the use of saying things like that?" said the Major. "You know jolly well, O'Grady, that you can't get a statue in ten days. The thing's impossible. It takes a year at least to make a statue of any size. You can't go into a shop and buy a statue, as if it were a hat or an umbrella."
"There's a good deal in what the Major says," said Father McCormack. "I'm inclined to agree with him. I remember well when they were putting up the monument to Parnell in Dublin it took them years before they had it finished."
"It's a good job for everybody concerned," said the Major, "that we're brought up short. We'd simply have made ourselves publicly ridiculous if we'd gone on with this business."
The Major, Dr. O'Grady, and Doyle, spoke when they did speak, in an easy conversational tone without rising from their chairs. But this was not Gallagher's idea of the proper way of conducting public business. He believed that important discussions ought to be carried on with dignity. When he spoke he stood up and addressed the committee as if he were taking part in a political demonstration, using appropriate gestures to emphasize his words. The difficulty about the statue gave him a great opportunity.
"I stand here to-day," he said, "as the representative of the people of this locality, and what I'm going to say now I'd say if the police spies of Dublin Castle was standing round me taking down the words I utter."
Young Kerrigan had been obliged to stop practising "Rule, Britannia" on the cornet in order to eat his dinner. When he had satisfied his appetite and soothed his nerves with a pipe of tobacco he set to work at the tune again. The hour's rest had not helped him in any way. He made exactly the same mistake as he had been making all the morning. It happened that he took up his cornet again shortly before Gallagher began his speech in which he declared himself a representative of the people of the locality. The noise of the music floated through the open window of the committee room. It had a slightly exasperating effect on Gallagher, but he went on speaking.
"What I say is this," he said, "and it's what I always will say. If it is the unanimous wish of the people of this locality to erect a statue to the memory of the great patriot, who is gone, then a statue ought to be erected. If the Major is right--and he may be right--in saying that it takes a year to make a statue, then we'll take a year. We'll take ten years if necessary. Please God the most of us has years enough before us yet to spare that many for a good work."
Young Kerrigan continued to break down at the "never, never, never," part of the tune. Dr. O'Grady began to fidget nervously in his chair.
"Sit down, Thady," said Doyle. "Don't you know that if we postpone the statue we'll never get the Lord-Lieutenant to open it? Didn't he say in his letter that Thursday week was the only day he could come?"
"As for the so-called Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland," said Gallagher, waving his arm in the air, "we've done without him and the likes of him up to this, and we're well able to do without him for the future."
He brought his fist down with tremendous force as he spoke, striking the table with the pad of flesh underneath his little finger. Dr. O'Grady jumped up.
"Excuse me one moment, gentlemen," he said. "That young fool, Kerrigan, is getting the tune wrong every time, and if I don't stop him he'll never get it right at all."
He walked across to the window as he spoke and looked out. Then he turned round.
"Don't let me interfere with your speech, Thady," he said. "I'm listening all right, and I'm sure Father McCormack and the rest of the committee want to hear every word of it."
But Gallagher, in spite of this encouragement, did not seem inclined to go on. He sat down and scowled ferociously at Doyle. Dr. O'Grady put his head out of the window and shouted.
"Moriarty," he called, "Constable Moriarty, come over here for a minute and stop grinning."
Then he drew in his head and turned round.
"Major," he said, "you're a magistrate. I wish to goodness you'd give orders that Moriarty isn't to grin in that offensive way. It's a danger to the public peace."
"I shan't do anything of the sort," said the Major. "In the first place I can't. I've no authority over the police. They are Gregg's business. In the second place----"
He stopped at this point because Dr. O'Grady was not listening to him. He had stretched his head and shoulders out of the window and was talking in a very loud tone to Moriarty.
"Run over," he said, "and tell young Kerrigan to come here to me for a minute. When you've done that go to bed or dig potatoes or do any other mortal thing except stand at the door of the barrack grinning."
"What tune's that young Kerrigan's after playing?" said Gallagher solemnly.
Father McCormack looked anxiously at Major Kent. The Major fixed his eyes on the stuffed fox in the glass case. It was Doyle who answered Gallagher.
"It's no tune at all the way he's playing it," he said. "Didn't you hear the doctor saying he had it wrong?"
"What tune would it be," said Gallagher, "if so be he had it right?"
"I told you before," said Doyle. "I told you till I'm tired telling you that I don't know the name of it. It's not a tune that ever I heard before."
"I'll find out what tune it is," said Gallagher savagely. "I'll drag it out of you if I have to drag the black liver of you along with it."
"Order, gentlemen, order," said Father McCormack. "That's no language to be using here."
"I was meaning no disrespect to you, Father," said Gallagher. "I'd be the last man in Ireland to raise my hand against the clergy."
"It's the doctor's liver you'll have to drag, Thady, if you drag any liver at all," said Doyle, "for he's the only one that knows what the tune is."
Moriarty appeared to have conveyed the message to young Kerrigan. Dr. O'Grady, still leaning out of the window, spoke again, this time evidently to Kerrigan.
"Don'ts you know you're getting it wrong every time?" he said.
Young Kerrigan's voice, faint and apologetic, reached the members of the committee through the window.
"Sure I know that well enough; but the devil's in it that I can't get it right."
"Listen to me now," said Dr. O'Grady.
He whistled the tune shrilly, beating time with his hand.
"Now, Kerrigan," he said, "try it after me."
He whistled it again slowly. Kerrigan followed him note by note on the cornet. After a very short hesitation he got over the difficult passage. Dr. O'Grady drew in his head and returned to the table with a sigh of relief.
"I think he has it now," he said, "but it's a tough job teaching that fellow anything."
"What tune is it?" said Gallagher.
"It's not a tune that ever you heard before," said Dr. O'Grady.
"I'm of opinion that I did hear it," said Gallagher. "But let you speak out now if you're not ashamed of it, and tell me what tune it is."
"It's the 'Battle March of King Malachi the Brave,'" said Dr. O'Grady, "the same that he played when he was driving the English out of Ireland. And you can't possibly have heard it before because the manuscript of it was only dug up the other day at Tara, and this is the first time it's ever been played publicly in the west of Ireland."
"There now, Thady," said Doyle, "didn't I tell you all along that you'd nothing to do only to ask the doctor?"
"I'm of opinion that I did hear it," said Gallagher. "You may say what you like about the Hill of Tara, but I've heard that tune."
"It's just possible," said Dr. O'Grady, "that Mr. Billing may have whistled it while he was here. I believe the people of Bolivia are fond of it. They learned it, of course, from General John Regan. He may have heard it from his grandmother. It's wonderful how long music survives among the people long after the regular professional musicians have forgotten all about it. But I mustn't interrupt you any more, Thady. You were just making a speech about the Lord-Lieutenant. Perhaps you have finished what you were saying. As well as I recollect we were just settling about the statue."
"Major Kent was after saying," said Father McCor-mack, "that we couldn't get a statue in the time."
"My friend Mr. Doyle," said Dr. O'Grady, "has a proposal to lay before the meeting. Where's that card, Doyle, that you showed me last week?"
Doyle drew a bundle of grimy papers from his breast pocket and went through them slowly. One, which appeared to be a letter written on business paper, he laid on the table in front of him. At the bottom of the bundle he came on a large card. He handed this to Father McCormack. The printing on it was done in Curiously shaped letters, evidently artistic in intention, with a tendency towards the ecclesiastical. Round the outside of the card was a deep border of black, as if the owner of it were in mourning for a near relative.
Father McCormack looked at it dubiously.
"Read it out," said Dr. O'Grady. "I'd like the Major to hear exactly what's on it."
"'Mr. Aloysius Doyle,'" read Father McCormack.
"He's a nephew of my own," said Doyle.
"He would be," said Gallagher. "If he wasn't we'd hear nothing about him."
He was still feeling sore about the "Battle March of King Malachi the Brave," and was anxious to make himself disagreeable to someone. It struck him that it would be easy to annoy Doyle by suggesting that he was trying to do a good turn to his nephew at the expense of the statue fund.
"I needn't tell you, gentlemen," said Doyle, with great dignity, "that it's not on account of his being a nephew of my own that I'm recommending him to the notice of this committee. If he was fifty times my nephew I wouldn't mention his name without I was sure that he was as good a man as any other for the job we have on hand."
No one, of course, believed this, but no one wanted to argue with Doyle about it. Father McCormack went on reading from the black-edged card which he held in his hand.
"'Mortuary Sculptor,'"
"Sculptor!" said Dr. O'Grady. "You hear that, Major, don't you? Sculptors are people who make statues."
"Mortuary sculptors, I suppose," said the Major viciously, "make statues of dead men."
"The General's dead anyway," said Doyle, "so that's suitable enough."
"'Address--The Monumental Studio, Michael Angelo House, Great Brunswick. Street, Dublin,'" read Father McCormack. "That'll be where your nephew lives, Mr. Doyle?"
"It's where he has his works," said Doyle. "He lives down near Sandymount."
"'Celtic Crosses, Obelisks and every kind of Monument supplied at the shortest notice,'" said Father McCormack, still reading from the card. "'Family Vaults decorated. Inscriptions Cut. Estimates Free. Low Prices'."
"I don't see that we could possibly do better than that," said Dr. O'Grady.
"Even Doyle's nephew can't make a statue in ten days," said the Major.
"He says 'shortest notice' on his card. You ought to believe the man, Major, until you've some evidence that he's a liar."
"I don't care what he says," said the Major. "He can't make a statue in ten days."
"We'll get to that point in a minute," said Dr. O'Grady. "The first thing we have to decide is whether Mr. Aloysius Doyle is a suitable man to be entrusted with the work."
"There's no other tenders before us," said Father McCormack, "so I suppose we may as well----"
"Excuse my interrupting you, Father," said Doyle, "but before you take the opinion of the meeting on this point, I'd like to say that I'm offering no opinion one way or the other; and what's more I won't give a vote either for or against. I wouldn't like to do it in a case where my own nephew is a candidate."
"You needn't tell us that, Mr. Doyle," said Father McCormack. "We all know that you're not the kind of man who'd be using his public position to further the interests of his relatives. What do you say now, gentlemen? Is Mr. Aloysius Doyle to be given the contract for the statue or not? What do you say, Major?"
"If he can make a full-sized statue of a General in ten days," said the Major, "he's a man who deserves every encouragement we can give him."
"Now, doctor," said Father McCormack, "what's your opinion?"
"I'm for giving him the job," said the Doctor.
"Mr. Doyle won't vote," said Father McCormack.
"I will not," said Doyle firmly.
"So we'd be glad of your opinion, Mr. Gallagher."
"If his price is satisfactory," said Gallagher, "we may as well give him the preference. I'd be in favour of supporting local talent when possible, and although Mr. Aloysius Doyle isn't a resident among us at present, his family belongs to Ballymoy."
"Carried unanimously," said Father McCormack. "And now about the price. What will that nephew of yours do us a statue for, Doyle? And mind you, it must be done well."
"Before we go into that," said Dr. O'Grady, "I'd like the committee to hear a letter which Mr. Doyle has received from his nephew. I thought it well, considering how short the time at our disposal is----"
"Ten days," said the Major. "Ten days to make a statue----"
"The letter which we are just going to read," said Dr. O'Grady, "will meet the Major's difficulty. I thought it well to get into communication with Mr. Aloysius Doyle at once so as to have everything ready for the committee."
"I wonder you haven't the statue ready," said the Major.
"I wrote to him, or rather I got Doyle to write to him, the day before yesterday, and the letter you are now going to hear is his reply. I may say that we laid the circumstances full before him; especially the shortness of the time. You're not the only person who thought of that difficulty, Major. Just read the letter, will you, Doyle?"
Doyle took up the letter which lay on the table in front of him and unfolded it. He glanced at it and then put it down and began to fumble in his pocket.
"Go ahead," said Dr. O'Grady.
"I can't," said Doyle. "This isn't that letter, but another one altogether."
He drew his packet of papers from his pocket again and began to go through them rapidly. There was a light tap at the door.
"Who on earth's that?" said Dr. O'Grady. "I said specially that this meeting was not to be disturbed."
"Possibly Doyle's nephew," said the Major, "with a sample statue. He ought to submit samples to us."
"Come in whoever you are," said Dr. O'Grady.
Mary Ellen half opened the door and put her head into the room. Dr. O'Grady realised the moment he saw her that something must have gone wrong in the dressmaker's shop. He assumed, without enquiry, that Mrs. Ford had been making herself objectionable.
"What has Mrs. Ford done now?" said Dr. O'Grady. "I can't go to her till this meeting is over."
"Mrs. Ford's off home this half hour," said Mary Ellen. "She said she wouldn't put up with the nonsense that was going on."
This was a relief to Dr. O'Grady. If Mrs. Ford had gone home the difficulty, whatever it was, must be capable of adjustment.
"Then what on earth do you want? Surely you and Mrs. Gregg haven't been quarrelling with each other."
"Mrs. Gregg says----" said Mary Ellen.
Then she paused, looked at Dr. O'Grady, looked at Doyle, and finally took courage after a glance at Father McCormack.
"She says, is there to be white stockings?"
"Certainly not," said Dr. O'Grady. "White stockings would be entirely out of place. If we're dressing you as an Irish colleen, Mary Ellen, we'll do it properly. Go and tell Mrs. Gregg that your stockings are to be green, bright green. Did you ever hear such a silly question?" he added turning to the other members of the committee. "Who ever saw an Irish colleen in white stockings?"
"While you're at it, O'Grady," said the Major, "you'd better settle the colour of her garters."
Mary Ellen, grinning broadly, withdrew her head and shut the door.
"What's that about green stockings for Mary Ellen?" said Father McCormack.
"Oh, it's all right," said Dr. O'Grady. "The stockings will scarcely show at all. Her dress will be right down to her ankles, longer by far than the ones she usually wears. I needn't tell you, Father McCormack, that I wouldn't consent to dressing the girl in any way that wasn't strictly proper. You mustn't think----"
"I wasn't thinking anything of the sort," said Father McCormack.
"You very well might be," said Dr. O'Grady, "Anyone would think we intended her to appear in a ballet skirt after that remark of the Major's about her garters."
"All I was thinking," said Father McCormack, "was that if you dressed the girl up in that style she'll never be contented again with ordinary clothes."
"I'd be opposed, so I would," said Gallagher, "to anything that wouldn't be respectable in the case of Mary Ellen. Her mother was a cousin of my own, and I've a feeling for the girl. So if you or any other one, Doctor, is planning contrivances----"
"Oh, don't be ridiculous, Thady," said Dr. O'Grady.
"I tell you she'll be all right. Now, Doyle, will you read us that letter from your nephew? If we don't get on with our business we'll be here all night." _