_ CHAPTER XVII
"You may as well drive me into Ballymoy, Doyle," said Meldon, as they walked up together from the shore. "You've your trap with you, I suppose?"
"I have, and I'll drive you of course, but I'll be expecting that you'll do something when we get there the way the judge won't be leaving the hotel altogether."
"You may put that out of your head at once," said Meldon, "for I'll do nothing of the sort. I've already explained to you at some length that my chief object at present is to chase away the judge, not only from your hotel but from Ballymoy."
Doyle relapsed into a sulky silence. He did not speak again until he and Meldon were half way into Ballymoy. Then he broke out suddenly.
"Any way," he said, "Sabina Gallagher won't spend another night under my roof. She'll be off back to her mother as soon as ever she can get her clothes packed. I'll give her a lesson that will cure her of playing off tricks on the gentlemen that stops in my hotel."
"If you take that kind of revenge on Sabina," said Meldon, "you will be doing an act of gross injustice for which you will be sorry up to the day of your death."
"I will not, but I'll be serving her out the way she deserves."
"She has been acting all through," said Meldon, "in your interests, though you can't see it; and you'll make a kind of dog Gelert of her if you sack her now. You know all about the dog Gelert, I suppose, Doyle?"
"I do not," said Doyle, "and what's more I don't care if there was fifty dogs in it. Sabina'll go. Dogs! What has dogs got to do with Sabina and myself? It's not dogs I'm thinking of now."
"You evidently don't know anything about the dog I'm speaking of," said Meldon. "He belonged to a Welsh king whose name at this moment I forget. The king also happened to have a baby which slept, as many babies do, in a cradle. You're listening to me, I suppose, Doyle?"
"I am not," said Doyle. "It's little good I, or any other body, would get by listening to you. Sabina Gallagher listened to you, and look at the way she is now. It's my belief that the less anybody listens to you the better off he'll be."
"All the same, I expect you are listening," said Meldon. "In any case, as I'm speaking distinctly, and you can't get away, you're bound to hear, so I'll go on with the story. One day the king came in and found the dog close to the cradle with his mouth all covered with blood. He leaped to the conclusion that he'd eaten the baby."
"He was a damned fool if he thought that," said Doyle. "Who ever heard of a dog eating a baby?"
"You are listening to me," said Meldon. "I thought you would when the story began to get interesting. And you're perfectly right. The king was a fool. He was such a fool that he killed the dog. Afterwards it turned out that the dog had really been behaving in the most noble way possible--had, in fact, been fighting a wolf which wanted to eat the baby. Then the king was sorry, frightfully sorry, because he saw that through his own hasty and ill-considered action he had killed his best friend, a friend who all along had been acting in his interests. You see the point of that story, don't you? You'll be exactly in the position of the king, and you'll suffer endless remorse just as he did if you go and sack Sabina."
Doyle meditated on the story. It produced a certain effect on his mind, for he said,--
"If so be it wasn't Sabina that put the paraffin oil into the judge's dinner, but some other one coming in unbeknown to her, and Sabina maybe doing her best to stop it, then of course there wouldn't be another word said about it; though as soon as ever I found out who it was--"
"You mustn't push the parable to those extremes," said Meldon. "No parable would stand it. Sabina did pour in the paraffin oil. I'm not pretending that a wolf or any animal of that sort came in and meddled with the judge's food. I'm merely trying to explain to you that later on, when you understand all the circumstances, you'll find yourself tearing out your hair, and rubbing sack-cloth and ashes into your skin, just as the king did when he realised what he had done in the case of the dog Gelert. As well as I recollect the poor man never got over it."
"Dogs or no dogs," said Doyle, "Sabina Gallagher will have the wages due to her paid, and then off with her out of my house. For conduct the like of hers is what I won't stand, and what nobody in a hotel would stand."
"Very well," said Meldon; "I've told you what the consequences of your action will be. If you choose to face them you can. I've done my best to save you. But you are evidently bent on going your own way. I daresay you may be quite right in supposing that you won't suffer much, even when you find out that you have committed a gross injustice. After all, it requires a man to have some sort of a conscience to suffer in that sort of way, and you apparently have none. But there's another consideration altogether that I'd like to bring under your notice. I've had some talk with Sabina during the last few days, and I've come to the conclusion that she's a young woman with a talent for cooking of a very rare and high kind. There's nothing that girl couldn't do if she got a little encouragement. Give her the smallest hint and she acts on it at once."
"I wish to God then," said Doyle, "that you'd held off from giving her hints, as you call it. Only for you I don't believe she'd ever have thought--"
"I'm not speaking now of the paraffin oil business. You mustn't allow that to become an obsession with you, Doyle. There are other things in the world besides that judge's meals. As it happens, I was giving Sabina a short lecture on the art of cookery some days before I heard of the judge's arrival. I was speaking to her about the advisability of knocking together an occasional omelette for you, or a nice little savoury made of olives and hard-boiled eggs. I found her unusually receptive, and quite prepared to follow up the ideas I put before her. There was just one thing stood in her way--"
"Who'd eat the like of them things?" said Doyle.
"You would," said Meldon, "if you got them. But you won't, not from Sabina Gallagher, because you're determined to sack her. And not from any other cook as long as you pay the perfectly miserable wages you do at present. You can't expect first-rate results when you sweat your employees. That's a well-known maxim in every business, and the sooner you get it into your head the better. You set yourself up here in Ballymoy as a sort of pioneer of every kind of progress. You're the president of as many leagues and things as would sink a large boat. There isn't hardly a week in the year but you make a speech of some sort. Ah! here we are at the hotel. Remind me some time again to finish what I was saying to you. I must find out now what has happened to the judge."
He leaped out of the trap and walked straight through the hotel to the kitchen. He found Sabina there.
"Good morning, Sabina Gallagher," he said. "I hear you did exactly as I told you. You're a good girl, Mr. Doyle is angry just at present, and you'd better keep out of his way."
"He'll hunt me," said Sabina.
"He will not," said Meldon. "If you have the sense to keep out of his way until he has cooled down a bit, and cook him decent dinners in the meanwhile. I've spoken to him very strongly about you, and I don't think he'll dare to push matters to extremities, although he may grumble a bit. If he catches you, and you find his temper particularly bad, just mention the dog Gelert to him. I told him the story this morning and it produced a great impression on his mind."
"He'll hunt me," said Sabina tearfully. "Whatever dog I might talk to him about he'll hunt me."
"If he does," said Meldon, "I'll engage you myself. We'll be wanting a girl as soon as ever we go home, to look after the baby a bit and do the cooking and washing, and keep the whole place clean generally. You'd like to come and live in the house with me, wouldn't you, Sabina?"
"I'm not sure would I."
"You would. There's no doubt about it. But we need not discuss that yet, for I don't expect Mr. Doyle will sack you. What I really want to talk to you about is that judge. Where is the judge?"
"He's gone," said Sabina.
"I know that," said Meldon. "But he'll come back all right. He must come back for his luggage."
"He will not then. It's not an hour ago since Patsy Flaherty, the same that does be driving the car, came in and said he had orders to take all the luggage there was and the fishing-rods, and the rest of whatever there might be in the place belonging to the gentleman."
"He was not taking them to the train, I suppose?"
"He was not then, but up to Ballymoy House."
"Nonsense! He couldn't possibly have been taking them up to Ballymoy House."
"It's what he said any way, for I asked him. And he told me that the gentleman had it made up with the young lady that does be stopping there beyond, the way he'd go and live with her."
"This," said Meldon, "is perfectly monstrous. I must go and see about it at once. He has evidently been bullying that unfortunate Miss King, coercing her with threats until she has agreed to board and lodge him. I can't have that sort of thing going on under my very eyes. You'll excuse me, Sabina, if I run away from you. It's absolutely necessary that I should go up to Ballymoy House at once. I'll borrow Mr. Doyle's bicycle again."
He went out through the back door into the yard, and found Doyle stabling his pony.
"I suppose," he said, "that I can have your bicycle again. Affairs have taken a turn which I'm bound to say I did not foresee. I have to get at that judge as soon as possible. He seems to have been ill-treating Miss King. I expected that he'd go for her over that paraffin oil affair, but--"
"Amn't I telling you," said Doyle, "that she'd neither act nor part--"
"I know that; but the judge thinks she had, and he's-- You'd hardly believe it, Doyle, but he's had the unparalleled insolence to go and quarter himself on her in Ballymoy House."
"It's what I said he'd do," said Doyle, "and I'm not surprised."
"If you understood the peculiar and delicate relations which exist between that judge and Miss King--but of course you don't, and I, unfortunately, can't explain them to you. If you did, you'd see at once that the judge must simply have forced himself on Miss King, using, I have no doubt, the most unchivalrous and despicable threats to achieve his end. Considering that he's getting his board and lodging out of her he might very well be prosecuted for blackmail. Just conceive to yourself, Doyle-- But I can't talk about it. Where's the bicycle?"
"You took it out with you to Portsmouth Lodge last night," said Doyle, "and so far as I know you didn't bring it back again. But there's an old one in the stable belonging to Patsy Flaherty, and you can take that if you like."
"It can't be worse than yours," said Meldon, "with that loose pedal. Just you wheel it round to the door for me, and pump up the tyres if they want it. There's something I forgot to ask Sabina. I'll go through the kitchen, and meet you by the time you have the machine ready."
He darted into the kitchen, leaving Doyle to tie up his pony and pump the bicycle.
"Is that you back?" said Sabina. "I thought you were gone. Didn't you tell me there was a hurry on you?"
"I'm just going," said Meldon; "but before I start I want to ask you how you managed the boiled egg. I suppose the judge had a boiled egg for breakfast. Did you put paraffin into it?"
"I did."
"How? I'm most anxious to know how it was done."
"It's what the gentleman asked me himself," said Sabina, "and I told him the truth."
"Then tell it to me."
"I'm not sure will I. The gentleman was terrible upset when he heard it, worse than you'd think; for he had the egg ate."
"There can't have been much paraffin in it, then."
"There was not; but there was some."
"And how did you get it there?"
"It was with a hairpin I did it."
"Do you mean to say that you took a hairpin out of your head, and--"
"I did, of course. Where else would I get one?"
"And dipped it in paraffin, and then stuck it through the egg. I declare I could find it in my heart to be sorry for that judge. Only that he deserves all that he's got on account of the way he has behaved to Miss King, I'd go and apologise to him. You're a smart girl, Sabina. I always said you were, and now you've proved that I was perfectly right in my estimate of your abilities. Good-bye again. This time I really must be off."
He seized Sabina's hand, and greatly to her surprise shook it heartily. Then he left the kitchen and slammed the door behind him. Doyle was waiting for him with Patsy Flaherty's bicycle. Meldon jumped on it and rode off, ringing his bell as he went along the street. Doyle watched him disappear, and then turned and walked into the kitchen. Sabina, forgetful of his wrath and her own threatened fate, broke out when she saw him.
"Well now, did any one ever see the like? Many's the queer one I've come across since I entered this house, but never the equal of him for goings on. Anybody would think he was--"
"It's not drink," said Doyle. "Nobody ever saw the sign of it on him."
He was angry, angry with Sabina Gallagher, and perhaps more angry with Meldon; but he had a sense of justice, and was loyal to the man who had once been his friend. He thought that Sabina was going to make an accusation which might be natural enough, but was certainly false. As a matter of fact, she had not meant to say anything of the sort, and disclaimed the suggestion hotly.
"I wasn't saying it was drink. I know well it couldn't be, for he's a simple, innocent kind of gentleman that wouldn't do the like. But I'd say he was one that liked a bit of sport, and didn't care what foolishness he might be after so long as he got it."
She smiled amiably at Doyle, as she spoke; but he was not a man to be diverted from his purpose by smiles, or lulled into forgetfulness by the charm of general conversation.
"You'll go upstairs this minute, Sabina Gallagher," he said, "and you'll pack up whatever clothes you have--and that's not many--and as soon as you have that done you'll go off home, for I'll not have you in this house another night."
"I was thinking," said Sabina, "that you'd likely be saying that."
"I'd say more," said Doyle, "only if I did I might say what I'd be sorry for after."
"You might surely."
"Though I wouldn't say more than you deserve whatever I said. What in the name of all that's holy did you mean by poisoning the gentleman that came here to stop in the hotel, and would have paid me three pounds a week and maybe more?
"It was Mr. Meldon told me," said Sabina, "and how was I to know but you sent a message to me by him, the way I'd be doing what it was you wanted done?"
"Is it likely I'd send him to you on a message? Oughtn't you to have more sense than to think I'd trust that one with a message? And wouldn't anybody that wasn't a born fool know that I didn't want the lamp upset over the dinner?"
"It was you told me to put the stuff the doctor was after giving you on the sheets of the gentleman's bed, and after the like of that was done on him, it wouldn't make much matter what other devilment he'd have to put up with. Sure there's nothing in the world worse on a man than a damp bed, and me after airing them sheets at the kitchen fire for the best part of the morning, so as no one would have it to say that they wasn't dry. If you didn't want him hunted out of the house, why did you bid me do that?"
Doyle felt the force of the argument; felt it more acutely than Sabina could guess. He himself, at the bidding of Meldon, had done much to make an honoured and profitable guest uncomfortable. Could he fairly blame Sabina for acting in a similar way with precisely the same excuse? He felt the necessity for speaking very sternly.
"Will you get out of this?" he said, "for I'm in dread but I might raise my hand to you if you stand there talking to me any more. You'd provoke the patience of a saint; but I wouldn't like to have it cast up to me after that ever I struck you."
"I'm going. You needn't think I'm wanting to stay. There's plenty will be glad to get me, and pay me more wages than ever you done."
Doyle recognised the truth of this. He had got Sabina cheap--cheap even by the standard of wages which prevails in Connacht. He felt half inclined to reconsider his determination. The judge was gone. The dismissal of Sabina, though a pleasant and satisfying form of vengeance, would not bring the lost three pounds back again; while there might be a good deal of trouble in getting another cook.
"Before I go," said Sabina, who did not want to go, and was watching Doyle's face for signs of relenting, "before I go I've a message to give you from Mr. Meldon."
"I seen him myself this morning," said Doyle, "and I don't know what there could be in the way of a message for me that he wouldn't have told me himself."
"What he bid me tell you was this--" Sabina paused. "Well now," she said, "if I haven't gone and forgot the name of the dog!"
"Was it a dog that a king killed one time," said Doyle, "on account of his thinking it had his baby ate?"
"It might," said Sabina. "It was a queer name he had on it, and I disremember what it was."
"I disremember it myself," said Doyle, "but it was likely the same dog as he was telling me about when I was driving him in. He always did have a liking for dogs, that same Meldon."
"It might be that one or it might be another. Any way, he thought a deal of it, for he said to me no later than this minute that if I mentioned the name of it to you, you wouldn't hunt me."
"Listen to me now, Sabina Gallagher. I'll let you stay on here, though it's a deal more than you deserve--I'll let you stay on and do the cooking the same as you used to, on account of the respect I have for your mother, who is a decent woman, and your father that's dead--I'll let you stay on if you'll tell me this: What had the dog to do one way or the other with the paraffin oil you put on the judge's dinner?"
"I never seen the dog; and I don't know that I ever heard tell of any dog doing the like."
"Then what are you talking to me about the dog for if it didn't do something, be the same less or more, in the way of helping you to destroy the judge's dinner?"
"It was Mr. Meldon told me to mention the name of the dog to you. And I would, I'd do it this minute, only I disremember it."
"Will you ask him the next time he's here, and tell me after, what it was the dog had to do with the matter?"
"I will, of course, if it's pleasing to you."
"Then you may stay on a bit yet, Sabina. You may stay on till you learn enough about cooking to be able to better yourself; and it's what you should be able to do soon with the opportunities that you have in this house. But I'd like if you could find out about the dog, for Mr. Meldon was saying a lot about him this morning, and I'd be thankful if I knew what sort of a dog he was." _