George A. Birmingham

“ Mrs. Doolan loosed her hold on the doctor’s arm, but she did not go home. She followed Lovaway up the street, moving, for so old a woman, at a surprising pace.
“Doctor, dear,” she said, “don’t be giving medicine to them childer. Don’t do it now. You’ll only anger them that’s done it, and it’s a terrible thing when them ones is angry.”
“Get away home out of that, Biddy Doolan,” said the sergeant.
“Don’t be hard on an old woman, now, sergeant,” said Mrs. Doolan. “It’s for your own good and the good of your child I’m speaking. Doctor, dear, there’s no cure but the one. ”

“ Mrs. MacDermott was further puzzled about her nephew’s nervous breakdown when she suggested about 7 o’clock that it was time to dress for dinner. Bertram who had been talking cheerfully and smoking a good deal, put his arm round her waist and ran her upstairs.
“Jolly thing to have an aunt like you,” he said.
Mrs. MacDermott was slightly out of breath and angry with herself for blushing again. At bedtime she refused a good-night kiss with some dignity. Bertram protested.
“Oh, I say, Aunt Nell, that’s all rot, you know. An aunt is just one of the people you do kiss, night and morning.” ”

“ The king took a different view. He knew by painful experience something about law, chiefly that part of the law which deals with the relations of creditor and debtor. He was seriously alarmed at what Gorman said.
“Alas, Corinne,” he said, “in Megalia, yes. But in England, no. The English law is to me a black beast. With the law I am always the escaping goat who does not escape. Gorman, I love your England. But there is, as you say, a shift in the flute. In England there is too much law. Do not, do not let the dentist go to law. ”

“ She rushed straight to the king and flung her arms round his neck.
“Konrad,” she said, “my Konrad. You shall not go to Megalia. Never, never will I say ‘Be a King.’ Never shall you live with those so barbarous people. I said ‘Go.’ I admit it. I was wrong, my Konrad. Behold!”
She released the king from her embrace, fumbled in her handbag and drew out a small leather case. She opened it, took out a magnificent looking pendant. She flung it on the ground and trampled on it. Gorman stepped forward to rescue the emeralds. ”

“ Gorman, that you are acquainted with the present King of Megalia.”
“If you mean Konrad Karl,” said Gorman, “I should call him the late king. They had a revolution there, you know, and hunted him out, I believe Megalia is a republic now.”
“None of the Great Powers,” said Sir Bartholomew, “has ever recognised the Republic of Megalia.”
He spoke as if what he said disposed of the Megalians finally. The front of his yellow waistcoat expanded when he mentioned the Great Powers. This was only proper. A man who speaks with authority about Great Powers ought to swell a little. ”

“ Fate has a nasty trick of hitting us just where we feel most secure. The sergeant himself was a healthy man. His wife did not know what it was to be ill. Molly, his twelve-year old daughter, was as sturdy a child as any in the town. But Molly had an active mind and an enterprising character. On the afternoon of Doctor Lovaway’s arrival, her mother, father, and most other people being fully occupied, she made her way round the back of the village, climbed the wall of the doctor’s garden and established herself in an apple tree. ”

“ Finnegan could not understand.
The drive home ought to have been in every way pleasanter than the drive out to Ballygran. Patsy Doolan’s mare was subdued in temper; so docile, indeed, that she allowed Jimmy to put her between the shafts. She made no attempt to stand on her hind legs, and did not shy even at a young pig which bolted across the road in front of her. Dr. Lovaway could sit on his side of the car without holding on. ”

“ Twenty-five shillings a week! It ought to be thirty shillings, so it ought. But sure, twenty-five shillings is something, and I’d be in favour of taking it, so I would. Let the people of Ireland take it, I say, as an instalment of what’s due to them, and what they’ll get in the latter end, please God!”
“Can you make out how a man’s to get it?” said Lady Corless.
“Man!” said old Malone. “Man! No, but man and woman. There isn’t a girl in the country, let alone a boy, but what’s entitled to it, and I’d like to see the police or anyone else interfering with them getting it.” ”

“ Lovaway did not enjoy himself. Being an Englishman he had a strong sense of duty, and was afflicted as no Irishman ever is by a civic conscience. He felt that he ought to bring home somehow to Sergeant Rahilly a sense of the iniquity of trying to shut up sane, or almost sane, people in lunatic asylums. ”

“ It was eight o’clock by Willie Thornton’s watch before the people became aware of what had happened to their street. They were surprised and full of curiosity, but they were not in the least annoyed. No one in Dunedin had the slightest intention of rebelling. No one even wanted to shoot a policeman. The consciences, even of the most ardent politicians, were clear, and they could afford to regard the performance of the soldiers as an entertainment provided free for their benefit by a kindly Government. ”

“ There’s nothing too bad for those fellows to do, and no daughter of mine will mix herself up with them!”
“Denis isn’t doing anything wrong, mother,” said Mary. “And if he thinks Ireland ought to be a free republic, hasn’t he as good a right to his own opinion as you or me, or my father either?”
“No man has a right to be shooting and murdering innocent people, whether they’re policemen or whatever they are. And that’s what Denis Ryan and the rest of them are at, day and night, all over the country. And if they’re not doing it here yet, they soon will. ”

“ This irritated him, and when he reached the George Inn he was in no mood to listen patiently to Jones’ refusal to leave the dinner.
Jones did refuse, firmly and decisively. Geoffrey argued with him, attempted to bribe him, finally swore at him. The girl stood by and laughed. Jones turned on her truculently.
“If young ladies,” he said, “would stay in their homes, which is the proper place for them, and not go driving about in motor cars, there’d be less trouble in the world; and decent men who work hard all day would be left to eat their dinners in peace.” ”

“ O’Farrelly was painfully aware that a demonstration without a band is a poor business. He rose sadly and said good night. Hinde felt sorry for him.
“If the police had any instruments,” he said, “I’d lend them to you. But we haven’t a band of our own here. There aren’t enough of us.”
This assurance, though it was of no actual use, cheered O’Farrelly. It occurred to him that though the police had no band instruments to lend it might be possible to borrow elsewhere. The Loyal True-Blue Invincibles, for instance, had a very fine band, well supplied in every way, particularly with big drums. ”

“ Farelly, “fairies aren’t politics.”
“They may or they may not be,” said the sergeant. “But believe me, doctor, the men that talks about them things, fairies and all that, is the same men that’s at the bottom of all the leagues in the country, and it wouldn’t do for me to be countenancing them. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you now, doctor. If I can’t get fairies for him I’ll see that anything that’s to be had in the district in the way of a fee for a lunatic or the like goes to the young fellow you’re bringing here. ”

“ What is the use of belonging to the aristocracy of labour, of being a member of the Motor Drivers’ Union, of being able to hold up civilisation to ransom, if you are yourself liable to be held up and made to stand in the rain by a common soldier, a man no better than an unskilled labourer. ”

“ The door of an Irish farmhouse is a frail thing ill-calculated to withstand assault. Murnihan flung himself against it, and it yielded. He stepped into the kitchen with his revolver in his hand. Denis Ryan was beside him. Behind him were the other four men pressing in. In the chimney nook, in front of the still glowing embers of the fire, were Mrs. Drennan and her daughter. Mary stood, fearlessly, holding a candle in a steady hand. ”

“ To have the honour of meeting His Majesty the King of Megalia. R.S.V.P.”
“The king,” said Gorman, “is going in his uniform as Field Marshal of the Megalian Army. It took me half an hour to persuade him to do that, and I don’t wonder. It’s a most striking costume—light blue silk blouse, black velvet gold-embroidered waistcoat, white corded breeches, immense patent leather boots, a gold chain as thick as a cable of a small yacht with a dagger at the end of it, and a bright red fur cap with a sham diamond star in front. The poor man will look an awful ass, and feel it. ”

“ Money comes between lovers sometimes; but it was not money, nor the want of it, which kept Mary and Denis apart. She was the daughter of a prosperous farmer—a rich man, as riches are reckoned in Ireland. He was a clerk in a lawyer’s office, and poorly paid. But he might have earned more. She would gladly have given up anything. And the objections of parents in such cases are not insuperable. But between these two there was something more. Denis Ryan was a revolutionary patriot. Mary Drennan’s parents were proud of another loyalty. ”

“ But the motion was pleasant to Sir James. Any forward movement of that train would have been pleasant to him. Each bump and jerk brought him a little nearer to Dunadea and therefore a little nearer to Miss Molly Dennison. Sir James was very heartily in love with a girl who seemed to him to be the most beautiful and the most charming in the whole world. Next day, such was his good fortune, he was to marry her. Under the circumstances a much weaker man than Sir James would have withstood the engine driver and resisted the invitation of Mrs. Mulcahy’s hotel in Finnabeg. ”

“ There are not, indeed, very many kings left in the world now. Peter Gahan gave a vicious dab at his engine with his oil-can, and then emerged feet first from the shelter of the fore deck. This talk about kings irritated him.
“It’s the publican down by the harbour Michael Kane’s speaking about,” he said. “King, indeed! What is he, only an old man who’s a deal too fat!”
“He may be fat,” said Michael; “but if he is, he’s not the first fat man to get married. And he’s a king right enough. There’s always been a king on Inishrua, the same as in England.” ”

“ But Geoffrey was a good-humoured young man and the girl was very pretty indeed. He was prepared to make allowances for a little petulance. No temper is exactly sunny after a struggle with a refractory engine.
“I ought to know something about motors,” he said. “I’m driving one.”
He looked round as he spoke at his own large and handsome car. The girl’s car in comparison, was insignificant.
“It doesn’t in the least follow that you know anything about it,” said the girl. “I was driving that one.” She pointed to the car in the middle of the road. ”

“ The sergeant and his men were sitting in their compartment smoking cigarettes. Their heads were bare. Most of them had their tunics unbuttoned. One of them was singing a song, in which the whole party joined:
“Mary, Jane and Polly Find it very jolly When we take them out with us to Tea—tea—tea!”
There was not a single rifle to be seen anywhere.
“There now,” said Tom. “You see for yourselves. You can’t call those men munitions of war.”
The guard, who had seen the soldiers march into the station, was puzzled; but the engine driver seemed convinced that there had been some mistake. ”

“ Are we ready to fight when the day for fighting comes? We are not. For what arms have we among us? Only two revolvers. Two revolvers, and that’s all. Not a gun, though you know well, and I know, that there’s plenty of guns round about us in the hands of men that are enemies to Ireland. I could name twenty houses in the locality where there are guns, and good guns, and you could name as many more. Why don’t we go and take them? Are we cowards?”
The men around him shouted angrily that they were no cowards. Denis Ryan, excited and intensely moved, shouted with the rest. ”

“ Gorman. You know the king. You are, I may say, his friend.”
“Pretty nearly the only friend he has,” said Gorman.
“Exactly. Now I, unfortunately—I fear that the king rather dislikes me.”
“You weren’t at all civil to him when he offered you the Order of the Pink Vulture; but I don’t think he has any grudge against you on that account. He’s not the sort of man who bears malice. The real question is—what is the king to get out of it? What are you offering him?”
“The Allies,” said Sir Bartholomew, “would recognise him as the King of Megalia, and—er—of course, support him.” ”

“ It’s worry and work which kill men, and I’ve neither one nor the other.”
It was Lady Corless’ custom to spend the evenings with her husband in the smoking-room. When he had dined—and he always dined well—he settled down in a large armchair with a decanter of whisky and a box of cigars beside him.
There was always, summer and winter, a fire burning on the open hearth. There was a good supply of newspapers and magazines, for Sir Tony, though he lived apart from the world, liked to keep in touch with politics and the questions of the day. ”

“ She was by profession a journalist, and had conceived the idea of visiting Ireland and writing articles about that unfortunate country. Being an intelligent journalist she knew that articles about the state of Ireland are overdone and very tiresome. Nobody, especially during the holiday season, wants to be bored with Irish politics. But for bright, cheery descriptions of Irish life and customs, as for similar descriptions of the ways of other strange peoples, there is always a market. Miss Clarence determined to exploit it. ”

“ Patsy Doolan, looking back over his left shoulder, spoke words of encouragement.
“It’ll be a bit strange to you at first, so it will,” he said. “But by the time you’re six months in Dunailin we’ll have you taught to sit a car, the same as it might be an armchair you were on.”
Dr. Lovaway, clinging on for his life while the car bumped over boulders, did not believe that a car would ever become to him as an armchair.
Ballygran is a remote place, very difficult of access. At the bottom of a steep hill, a stream, which seemed a raging torrent to Dr. Lovaway, flowed across the road. ”