Читать книгу The Godstone and the Blackymor - T. H. White - Страница 7

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In this village, on the west coast of Ireland, the population was about five hundred. There were two hotels. I stayed at the small one. So did the school-mistress, Miss Keily, and the representative of the Land Commission. We had our meals at the same table in the dining-room, with occasional transients who were passing through. There were the Hen Woman, a few commercial travellers, and the usual Inspectors of this and that. Tea-time was about six o'clock.

One evening in the middle of July, I walked down the passage to the dining-room, thinking about two things at the same time. One was, the relationship between Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinever: the other was, whether the slight rain of that morning would have brought enough water into the river, where I had a stretch of salmon fishing. It is possible to think about two things at the same time, as it is possible to love two women at the same time, and I was absorbed in both topics as I turned the chromium-plated handle in the door, which was painted to represent the grain of deal.

I went into the room, and, for one half of a heartbeat, the world stood still. I stood—I saw myself from outside, standing—with the door knob in my right hand, my left or advancing foot two inches from the floor, my eyes widening and my mouth open. Then I shut my mouth, narrowed my eyes, put down my foot, closed the door with an effort and advanced as graciously as possible upon the tea-table. I was determined not to seem discourteous.

For there, at the snow-white linen table cloth, vis-à-vis with Miss Keily, who sat spell-bound, like a rabbit confronting a rattle-snake, at tea-time in Eire, in the parish nearest to America, there sat and jauntily conversed a coal-black cannibal.

If only I could give you the impact of him, in that humdrum, customary hotel: of his sharp teeth, actually filed to points, and of his pink, parrot tongue, munching lettuce: of his retreating conical forehead capped with fuzzy hair like black sheepskin cut close: of the thick, ebon back of his neck, like a motor tyre: of his small eyes, like a pig's, but toffee-coloured and only able to meet the European eye up to a certain point. Like a dog he did not face you eye-to-eye for long. His nose suddenly gave up the effort to have a bony shape. It curled over at the end in a fat blob which hid the nostrils, and sank down resignedly upon the upper lip, as if it were a black wax nose which had been left out in the sun. Then there were his great shooting simian lips, only much plumper than an ape's—and the scar on his right cheek—and the tattoo scars on his temples, giving him such a savage look—and his long, dark, shiny fingers, pink inside—and his very good taste in dress, which recognized that sultry blues with a touch of chocolate, in the shirt and tie, were the becoming colours for a Moor. His beautiful, bony, well-built body was over six feet two inches in height (he told me later) and he weighed 174 pounds. His wrist-watch covered a scar on the left wrist, inside, but it was difficult to be sure, on the dark skin, whether it was a scar or some horribly greasy patch—which it certainly was not. There was a huge single glass diamond in his gold ring. He was utterly, Nigerianly black. He was not a brown man, or a coloured man, or a crooner. He was absolutely a sable savage, a strong, bony, black, cannibal negro. And there he munched away at his lettuce, voraciously, so that we felt that he might suddenly lean across the tea-table and plunge his fork into Miss Keily, and gobble her up with bold, sinuous, strange movements of his blueish lips, and savour her trotters with circular turns of his small, round-ended, repellent, pink tongue. Looking into his mouth was like having a private view of somebody's intestines.

It was our Fair Day in the village, and that was why he was there. He was some sort of quack or witch-doctor or racing tipster, like the people you see at horse races, crying, 'I have a horse!' He sold patent medicine.

I sat down meekly before him, noting at the same time that Miss Keily was about to faint.

Mr Montgomery-Majoribanks—for that was his name—summed me up in a flash. Before you could say Jack Robinson—or, better still, Man Friday—he was off again with a phony Oxford accent, which he put on for my benefit. The accent was just on the Music-Hall side of Public-School. He had guessed that I would be interested in doctors, and had noted the red setter which entered the eating-room at my heels. He gabbled away in this Old-School-Tie voice, about materia medica and nature cures and how he was madly fond of dogs—for which he obviously had a supreme, savage contempt. He told us how he had paid fabulous sums to a vet, to keep one of his dogs alive: and how he kept Alsatians—a whole kennel of them—all of the utmost pedigree and all doted upon. ('Dogs?' Miss Keily must have thought, 'to eat?' At this point she fled the room.)

Then there was the handshake with which we parted after tea. Mr Montgomery-Majoribanks just perceptibly hesitated to offer me his hand: which I thereupon seized emphatically, determined not to be a sahib, curling my palm round his collection of chocolate-pink fingers with a sort of electric shock, and letting go with relief.

I drove out in the Jaguar, to see about the salmon water.

Looking back on him after many years, it was the setting of that Blackymor which made him such a vivid figure—the incongruous setting of the West. For now, as I flogged the unyielding river in the late afternoon, I was in the centre of the desolate Irish scene:

The river, shallow with summer, rippled in herring-bone patterns, like the roof of your mouth, the colour of weak beer, cutting its winding way six feet below the level of the bog. And the bog stretched flat for miles and miles, a landscape out of Browning's Childe Roland. Round the rim of the saucer, there were the mountains, as bare, calm and empty as the bog. Perhaps all beauty is melancholy. It seems sad to be lovely.

There were half a dozen cottages along the miles of river, and one abandoned shooting-lodge. The cottages were two-roomed blocks of white-washed material, thatched. The thatch was held down by straw ropes with rocks tied to them. In these, there was a population of old people and grandchildren. Nobody seemed to be middle-aged.

The cottagers took an interest in me. They were kind, and spoke English very well, although their natural speech was Gaelic. Mrs Neary knitted long stockings to go under my waders, with wool from her own sheep, spun on her own wheel, warm and waterproof with the natural lanolin still in them, and shamefully cheap. Paddy Barrett, who was getting on for eighty and bent into a hoop with rheumatism, would hobble down to discuss world politics. Dennis Burke, who was only seventy and not quite so stiff, had elected himself to be my unpaid ghillie. He was a volatile, wizened, bird-like, scarecrow figure, with a wide sense of wonder and curiosity—who had begun by calling me Your Honour, but soon got over it. We were a source of interest and surprise to one another. For instance, at one time I bargained to rent the empty shooting-lodge, of which he was the caretaker. In this bargain, I ignorantly offered three times its real value—while at the same time vehemently asserting that I would not pay a penny more—a situation which baffled him. On the rare times when we hooked a fish, he would leap about behind me, crying 'Take yer time, now', 'Don't stir'—all the while taking no time himself, and stirring like mad, as he hopped on his stiff leg.

It was he who sang, and later wrote laboriously for me in his own hand, the following song about the island of Inniskea:

SONG CALLED THE PRIDE OF INNISKEA

One Evening fine,

I did incline

To leave my native home

To iniskea

I took my way,

I carelessly did roam.

She was modest mild,

loving and kind,

She is the Pride of iniskea.

I quickly stepped up to her,

and saluted this fair maid.

Said I my dear

What brought you here,

I Pray from whence you came,

or was it Cupid,

Sent you here,

with his swords so bright this day?

I am in despair,

for you my dear,

Sweet Pride of iniskea.

She quickly made an Answer,

Saying young Man don't me annoy,

for I am but A simple maid,

therefore Pass me by,

my father is A Fisherman,

and he is away at Sea,

my dwelling Place,

lies but A space,

so young man, go your way.

Said I my Pretty fair maid,

I hope you will me excuse.

As you are A fisherman's daughter,

Oh do not me refuse,

I am A wealthy farmer,

I came bathing to the sea,

and when my month is over,

with me you'll come away,

and if it's to the sea you came,

young man where are your pains,

or are you Parilised she said,

or are you blind or lame?

if you have Patience Kind sir,

she said,

yonder lies the main,

and you may swim there like a Duck,

and it will cure you of your Pain.

all the water in that sea,

from here to Achill Sound,

would not cure me of my Pains,

or heal me of my wounds,

since I have seen your loving face,

from you I cannot go,

I live near Crossmolina town,

in the County of Mayo.

Kind sir

you might be A foreigner,

that came here for to bathe,

although you do pertend to me

Your riches it is Great,

I'd rather have A fisherman

that would Sail and Plough the Sea,

and rowell me on his arms

when crossing over the deep.

Farewell, farewell

to iniskea,

as now my month is over,

although I came to Cure my pains,

I am worse A Great dale more,

if I could Gain that lovely maid

so Beautiful and fair,

its forever I'd live Content,

with my love in Ineskea.

Another of Dennis Burke's accomplishments was to tell stories about local history. One of his best stories went like this: 'In Kildun there is a stone, marked with a cross, which is said to cover the resting place of the Giant of Kildun. This giant was shaving one day, and had the half of his face shaved, when a white hare burst into his dwelling and ran about. It leaped up into his arms, and he clutched it, and surveyed it. Then it ran out of the door and made off in the direction of the Fort of Drumgollagh. At this fort there lived another giant, a friend of the giant's at Kildun. The shaving giant, laying down his razor, determined to follow the magic hare, and did so. It led him to Drumgollagh, where the giant of that place, his friend, told him to leave off chasing the hare, because he claimed it for himself. At this, the two giants had high words. Each said that he was as good a man as the other, and was as much entitled to the hare as he was, and finally they fell to fighting. The giant of Kildun hit the giant of Drumgollagh upon the forehead and made him dead. Then he returned to his home in Kildun, a broken man, finished shaving, and committed suicide from the remorse that was at him.'

It was Dennis Burke also, this elderly, bright, jerky, patched rag-bag of a bard, who told me the features of the river. He shewed me the Mass Pool, beside which, in the old days of persecution, the Catholic peasants used to come for their worship. He shewed the ruins of the church of Tean, which had been built by St Tean, with the aid of some religious sheep. They carried the stones for him.

In return for his entertainment and instruction, I did my best for the rheumatism of Dennis and Paddy, bringing them celery pills and Fynnon's salt and other nostrums.

So now, with our cannibal in the offing, I began to have one of my schemes. Whatever his qualifications as a doctor, the black man had claimed that he was, and had shewn himself by his conversation to be, an enthusiastic masseur. Perhaps they might have perfected some massage of their own, in the hinterlands of Nigeria?

I confided to my two friends that I would try to bring Mr Montgomery-Majoribanks with me, to treat their aching joints next evening. Paddy, in his old, beautiful, soft, assuring voice, said that I was a kind man. He said 'kind' kindly. Dennis became excited.

When it was time to reel in and leave the river, with nothing caught, Dennis said angrily to the fishes something like 'Marbh faiscithe ar an iasc'—a death tightening on the fish. Perhaps he referred to the band with which they tie up a corpse's chin. He was cross with them for not having been caught.

I packed up and left the heart of Ireland for the heart of Africa.

On the second day of the Fair, Mr Montgomery-Majoribanks turned up to tea once more, and we were alone. He said that he had had a 'disastrous' day. (Probably he had had a good one.) But he looked tired, and was quieter. He did not lecture about medicine and manipulation, but now accepted me as an intellectual equal. I began to feel a warmth for him—though it was still a strange feeling. He only told two lies, and he dropped the Music-Hall accent. I asked about the colour bar.

He said stoically that he 'could take it'. He took no notice of the sahib business, he said, as he was tough enough to ignore it, and 'had good nerves'. All human beings were horrible, he thought, and one form of horribleness was much the same as another. So he took the horrors of the white men philosophically. (I was surprised to notice that he was talking like a grown-up.) Questioned about his present life—it did not seem right to probe the pre-civilized era of his tattoo marks, for his attitude had made it plain that he did not want to be seen in that light—he told me that he had been 'trained' in England, 'practised' in various parts, 'choosing the place carefully, to avoid prejudice'. He told how he had been in Ireland for four years and had a big round—how he had been run out of some place by the local talent—how he had insured his massaging hands for £25,000. (He was as poor as a church mouse, of course, and could not have insured them for anything. Or could he—as a kind of panacea, as a kind of gesture to keep his courage up, like the glass diamond ring?) He told how he now toured the country from fair to fair, selling medicine. He intended to set up a practice in Cork, and had just come from there, a terrible journey, in one day, by car, to be at our tiny festival. Then he rambled on a bit about dogs and his love for them, to please me. He observed at last that he had 'always kept himself neat and decent'.

It dawned on me then what a splendid fellow he was, this lone savage so bold in the civilized jungle. He was infinitely poor, bearing up against the unrelenting stares and hostility, keeping himself 'neat and decent' in his fighting colours of blue and chocolate. He only had one suit, which he sponged and cleaned every night. He was not welcome in hotels. They would not give him sheets, believing his colour to be dirty. I suddenly saw him in his bare, enemy, empty bedroom, much cleaner than I was—surgically clean—pressing his one suit under the mattress, a lone wolf. He did physical jerks, morning and evening, and banted on vegetables whenever his weight rose above twelve stone six. He kept himself fit and neat and tried 'to take it'. He had to. Like a white man in the depths of the jungle, depending upon his fitness, he was a jungle man in the depths of civilization, a leopard stepping catlike, dainty, through the traffic of Oxford Circus.

What a noble front to life! How brave! And think of that nightmare drive from Cork, to collect a few shillings among us. For, when I shewed him a road map, discussing the best route, I found that he could not read it. 'Is this all Ireland?' he asked, looking at a large-scale map of Mayo. Then he read with pleasure the name of a bay. 'Blacksod!' he exclaimed with delight.

'Don't you get very tired,' I asked, 'driving from fair to fair like this?'

'I have Good Nerves. I can Take It.'

'But all those people standing round you this afternoon, and staring like cattle, while you shouted and lectured. Doesn't all that lecturing exhaust you?'

'I only lecture for half an hour. Then I sit in the car and have a cigarette. I try to sell them bottles. Then I lecture again.'

I had a vivid picture of his passionate bawling, waving his arms like a tipster, in the dirty, dung-spattered market place, among the scared, drivelling bullocks, and I said again: 'Well, I would not be able to keep it up.'

He suddenly admitted comically: 'It is dreadful. Nobody goes to fairs to buy medicine. They go to enjoy themselves, and they don't want medicine a bit. I have to make them want it.'

'What a wicked profession!'

'It's diabolical,' he said, with satisfaction. 'I take strong, healthy men, and make them feel ill, and then I sell them a bottle!'

'Don't you get mixed up in a lot of fights? I mean, everybody is always drunk at fairs, and...'

But I did not like to mention the tipsy white people, wanting to mob him because he was not white.

'I am a Tiger in the North,' he said proudly. 'We have better facilities in the North.'

Then, more proudly: 'If a drunk man hits me there, I let him have it. And the police will protect you. But here, in the South, the guards can't protect you. So I can't hit back here.'

How valiant these fellows must be, I thought—the Indians and others who circulate through Europe—explorers in a strange, hostile, dangerous forest of civilization, far more dangerous than the Amazon, selling us cheap rugs, living on a bit of rice, risking their bronze-skinned lungs in fogs not understood. What Livingstones and Stanleys meet in Whitechapel I wonder?

Reflecting on the subject of drink, he confided that only two bottles of stout would make him 'stinking' drunk—there came a strong revulsion in my mind when he used this adjective—but he said that when he was drunk he was not quarrelsome, only very sleepy.

He agreed to visit our patients in the evening, and he questioned me shrewdly enough about their age and about how long they had had their rheumatics. Obviously he had little hope of doing anything for them.

'Will they keep to a diet?'

'No, of course not. They can't afford to have diets. They have to eat what they have. But you might relieve them for the moment, and cheer them up.'

He insisted that I should go with him, either fearing to lose his way or else being bashful. Bashful? That warrior? Well, yes, it was the barrier about his colour—faced dauntlessly but it was there. He was an energetic, enthusiastic, athletic, brave, simple and honest charlatan, and he was sensitive. I never asked how old he was. He was in the prime of life, probably about thirty.

I went across the road to the Garage, to ask Jack whether he wanted to come. There were two businessmen from Dublin with him, something to do with motor cars, who were on their way back from a holiday in Donegal. They wanted to come too. They said it would be 'something not to miss', to see the darkie massaging the simple crofters. This made me feel uncomfortable, for I had not been meaning any kind of joke. I wanted to give Mr Montgomery-Majoribanks a chance of earning a little money, and to pay my friends Dennis and Paddy a delicate attention. However, the subtle Dublin mind saw it as an elaborate trap or hoax or lampoon, which made me unhappy.

There were the usual troubles about getting our party en route. Its members kept breaking off to have tea, or another drink, or to fetch something. It was getting on for evening. The Guardai had already dispersed three fair-day fights in the main street—though it was too early yet for the baton charge. At last we managed to fix it that the masseur should go in his own car with Jack, while I followed in their car with the Dubliners, taking rods in case we wanted to fish afterwards. At the last moment a drunk sea-fisherman from the islands saluted me. 'Conas ta tu?' 'Ta me go mait, go raibh mile mait agat.' 'How are you?' he wanted to know. 'I am doing fine, thank you very much.' What sort of weather was it going to be, we asked each other. He wanted to talk, to share the warmth of his heart. He threw his arms round my neck, saying that he had heard I was a Russian, and, as for him, he would rather have the Russians here than the English. This was to flatter me, on the supposition that I might be a Russian, and partly to find out if I was. I mentioned that it would be better not to have either. He agreed, readily, but reverted to his previous proposition. He was a large, whiskery man. I pacified him at last and escaped—while he staggered off to wait for the baton charge, satisfied as to my nationality. It was now eight o'clock.

Great was the welcome which waited us at the home of Dennis, who had given us up and was dressed in his working clothes. For that matter, he had never really expected us. There was such a lot of blarney in Eire that people put little reliance on each other's word, and did not fret about disappointments.

We stepped into the stone-floored room of the cottage, with its built-in bed and black chimney, holding a turf fire. Mysterious articles hung from the rafters of the roof. There was a gramophone with a tin horn. Everybody dashed about shyly. Neighbours began to arrive to share the excitement. The gramophone was started, and a little girl of three or four began to dance. She hopped or shuffled gravely round and round, her bare feet whispering on the wet floor, her gaze fixed upon us, not very much in time with the metal music.

Jack called her to him. 'Here is a present for you. Open your hand and let me put it in.' But she held the cold paw tight shut, staring with big, expressionless eyes. 'Don't be afraid now.' 'Sweets,' said Dennis's sister. So the paw opened, and sixpence was put in.

Chickens, nephews and others entered. A boy was sent to fetch old Paddy from the other side of the river—kind Jack volunteering to carry the old man over. The Dubliners and I sat in a row by the window, conversing with the company, admiring the pot-hook and the strong tea in a metal pot at the fire, with its rusty ashes. Mr Montgomery-Majoribanks, a towering, ebon figure, stood proudly in the background, silent, important, professionally reserved. All agreed that Dennis would soon be supple.

It was an impressive moment when he was laid upon the bed, chirping, protesting feebly as his trousers were taken down. And impressive it was too, in the lamplight and the gathering dusk, as the huge, double-jointed, umbrageous fingers seized him by the ankles and twisted and yanked his knotted white legs in every possible direction, and spanked and chopped and rubbed his stomach and his spine, in deadly serious taciturnity. Every eye was fixed upon the scene, the hush broken only by the squeaks, remarks and muffled exclamations of the patient. ('Sure, I could jump me own heighth wance. Ow!') Excitement grew as the limbs began to seem more elastic. The fingers kneaded into him, probing into the roots of his bones. Jack came over the river with ancient Paddy pick-a-back, entered ('Good avening, ma'am'), and set him down. The eighty-year-old gentleman, small, gentle, pleased, impressed, watched the final stages of the operation, shrunk into himself. It was evident that every angle of Dennis was bending and folding better than it had done for twenty years.

The maestro paused, relented. He was enjoying himself tremendously, showing off. There was no patter now, no fair-ground spieling, but only a genuine manipulator—he was really good—soaking his ego in the admiration which I was happy to lend him. He was play-acting for me to the top of his bent, being mysterious, monosyllabic, withdrawn. He was bubbling inside, wanting to shout with pleasure at himself, but the act was lofty grandeur—Sir James Montgomery-Majoribanks, the eminent surgeon! Well, he had been kicked round Ireland as a quack for four years, so it was high time that somebody loved him.

The eminent surgeon did me the honour of calling me into consultation.

We withdrew to a corner of the room and whispered. The trouble was deep seated, he said. He could do nothing more without his lamp. (It was one of those round, copper, electric radiators, and he had it in the car.) I mentioned to my leader that the cottage was not wired for electricity, but he fetched the radiator all the same. It was obvious that he was longing to get at Dennis with it while he was still supple. He was succeeding, and he wanted to do a good job. It was also obvious that he did not understand about electricity. The lamp was like the maps to him. He held it in loving reverence. It was his fetish.

Everybody began to discuss the whereabouts of the nearest electricity, and whether the two old gentlemen would feel it worth while, so late at night, to be driven the ten miles to our hotel, where we knew there was some. The atmosphere had to be tested cautiously. If we had suggested that they ought to come, they would have done so out of politeness. It was important to be allusive, sensitive, tangential, important not to suggest anything. We wagged our antennae at each other with delicate inquiry, like ants meeting. Eventually it turned out that they did want to come. Dennis was awe-struck by the fact that he could bend his stiff knee at last. Both were fervent patients and believers already, and they had been holding back only for fear that they might be a nuisance to the gentry.

So it was decided that the Blackymor should drive them to the village and back again, for their electric treatment, while we, the anglers, went off to fish at the Pool of Peace.

If it seems odd that we should go fishing at this time of night, it has to be remembered that it was Fair Day. We had taken a couple of bottles of Jameson to entertain the neighbourhood, being determined to do some good to the patients, one way or another, and the bottles were now empty.

The Pool of Peace, an inlet of the sea, communicated with the Main through a narrow race. The passage flowed at a tremendous rate of knots, and the right moment for the big sea-trout was at the turn of the tide. There was a ferry, operated by a wild Gaelic family called McMennamin—who had some sort of fishing rights with a salmon net, and who used to provide us, if warned, with sand-eels for bait.

But it was late, and we had not warned them, and the family themselves were hauling on their net. We flogged away with the wet fly for a while, in the turmoiling water, and the summer twilight drew in with rain and mist, as the salmon and sea-trout jumped with surprising plops that raised a fever in the blood. Then we went over to watch the men at the net.

This inlet was many miles from the home of Dennis, and we had no rights in it. Who had? The sporting rights of Eire were claimed by proprietors of the richer classes, but denied by the locals. Since prehistory, the rights of hunting had been common to all. You paid for them or did not pay for them in proportion as you were locally accepted. Jack and I were more or less accepted, and had never paid, and did not know whom to pay. It was enough to tip the McMennamins for the sand-eels, or to hire their boat. Now some message or other had been left for us by a distant water bailiff, saying naughtily that we were to hand over five shillings or give our names. We all stood about in the drizzle, plunged once more in the sensitive, receptive, interrogative reserve of Irish silence, our antennae rigid. Ought we to pay or was this bailiff cheating us and what exactly was the intrigue? Being in Eire was rather like being married. You had to concentrate and be wide awake, to recognize what the lady meant. Can you have rights in tidal water? Who, if so, was actually the absent proprietor? Were we local or were we gentry? What prehistoric brehon law was the one which did in fact prevail? We pondered severally, while the foreman of the net, who had delivered the message half in Gaelic, stood non-committally by, with a soft kind of laissez-faire or laissez sentir.

The net came shorewards the last few yards, and the still scene exploded into action. The taut, brown, sinewy, speechless, taciturn haulers burst into a wild hilarity of barbarism, leaped in among the slashing, arching, silver bodies, grabbed them and bashed them savagely with bits of wood, clumsily, hitting the wrong places, shouting, grinning, ferocious, hysterical, more Italian than anything north of Sicily.

There were eleven salmon.

Then there was the long drive home in the pouring dark, with more whisky discovered in the boot of the car. There was the village street abandoned to the aftermath of the Fair, cow-pats and tattered paper and broken wands for beating the cattle, gleaming in the headlights and the rain. The Blackymor's car stood empty outside the hotel. The annual baton charge was over, and it was midnight.

Jack invited us in, and produced a crate of Guinness. Our faces glowing with liquor, our eyes more flashing, our tongues volubly tripping and repeating, we had great concert of talk and narrative, admiring ourselves and one another with warm, welcoming, smiling, appreciative, comradely, rosy hearts. We talked of motor engines and Henry Ford, of poithín and the fairy fire, of famous poachers and deeds of blood and all the subtle stratagems of the Gael.

At 2 a.m. I went across the road to bed. I was feeling tired now, and pettish. That attempt to extract five shillings from us at the race! Everybody swindled me all the time, I thought, and all the people I tried to help ended by stinging me. The Blackymor had driven at least forty miles on his errands of mercy, had seriously improved the patients, and would have to be paid. He was leaving next morning—or rather this one. I sat down and wrote him a note, enclosing two pound notes: 'Dear Mr Montgomery-Majoribanks, I hope this will be all right? Yours sincerely.' Well, he would be certain to kick up a shindy about it, to claim that his usual fee was five guineas, to clamour for more—the eternal parasitic avaricious treacherous beggary which was everywhere in Ireland! Besides, he was a quack, a trickster. He would know that I was soft, and would behave like all the other predators in the jungle of civilization, who seek their prey. He would have me routed out of bed at an early hour, to create a scene. But I was feeling drunk, and wanted a long sleep.

Our landlady was still up. I gave her the envelope.

'Mrs Corduff, please give this to the blackymor. It's his fee. He's bound to ask for more, but make him take it. Don't wake me up. Just make him take it and go away. You see?'

So I was wrong as usual.

In the morning, there was a neat note on the breakfast table. It said:

Dear Mr White

Many thanks for enclosed fee, but honestly I did not expect so much being we are friends.

Sincerely yours,

JAMES MONTGOMERY-MAJORIBANKS

I suddenly felt happy about him, and also about the sufferers. Even if it did no permanent good to their rheumatism, perhaps it was good for their spirits. It gave them something to think about in the boundless bog, gave them mental fuel. It had made them for a brief space the centre of interest and importance. It was a change.