CHAPTER IX

THE CAPTAIN'S CABIN

Patrick left his brother at the second flight of stairs to run and fling

on a shooting-jacket, into which he stuffed his treasure, after one peep

that eclipsed his little dream of being allowed to keep it; and so he saw

through Philip.

The captain's cabin was the crown of his house-top, a builder's addition

to the roof, where the detestable deeds he revelled in, calling them

liberty, could be practised, according to the convention, and no one save

rosy Mary, in her sense of smell, when she came upon her morning business

to clean and sweep, be any the wiser of them, because, as it is known to

the whole world, smoke ascends, and he was up among the chimneys. Here,

he would say to his friends and fellow-sinners, you can unfold, unbosom,

explode, do all you like, except caper, and there 's a small square of

lead between the tiles outside for that, if the spirit of the jig comes

upon you with violence, as I have had it on me, and eased myself mightily

there, to my own music; and the capital of the British Empire below me.

Here we take our indemnity for subjection to the tyrannical female ear,

and talk like copious rivers meandering at their own sweet will. Here we

roll like dogs in carrion, and no one to sniff at our coats. Here we sing

treason, here we flout reason, night is out season at half-past ten.

This introductory ode to Freedom was his throwing off of steam, the

foretaste of what he contained. He rejoined his cousins, chirping

variations on it, and attired in a green silken suit of airy Ottoman

volume, full of incitement to the legs and arms to swing and set him up

for a Sultan. 'Now Phil, now Pat,' he cried, after tenderly pulling the

door to and making sure it was shut, 'any tale you've a mind

for--infamous and audacious! You're licensed by the gods up here, and may

laugh at them too, and their mothers and grandmothers, if the fit seizes

ye, and the heartier it is the greater the exemption. We're pots that

knock the lid and must pour out or boil over and destroy the furniture.

My praties are ready for peelin', if ever they were in this world! Chuck

wigs from sconces, and off with your buckram. Decency's a dirty petticoat

in the Garden of Innocence. Naked we stand, boys! we're not afraid of

nature. You're in the annexe of Erin, Pat, and devil a constable at the

keyhole; no rats; I'll say that for the Government, though it's a

despotism with an iron bridle on the tongue outside to a foot of the

door. Arctic to freeze the boldest bud of liberty! I'd like a French

chanson from ye, Pat, to put us in tune, with a right revolutionary

hurling chorus, that pitches Kings' heads into the basket like autumn

apples. Or one of your hymns in Gaelic sung ferociously to sound as

horrid to the Saxon, the wretch. His reign 's not for ever; he can't

enter here. You're in the stronghold defying him. And now cigars, boys,

pipes; there are the boxes, there are the bowls. I can't smoke till I

have done steaming. I'll sit awhile silently for the operation.

Christendom hasn't such a man as your cousin Con for feeling himself a

pig-possessed all the blessed day, acting the part of somebody else, till

it takes me a quarter of an hour of my enfranchisement and restoration of

my natural man to know myself again. For the moment, I'm froth, scum,

horrid boiling hissing dew of the agony of transformation; I am; I'm that

pig disgorging the spirit of wickedness from his poor stomach.'

The captain drooped to represent the state of the self-relieving victim

of the evil one; but fearful lest either of his cousins should usurp the

chair and thwart his chance of delivering himself, he rattled away

sympathetically with his posture in melancholy: 'Ay, we're poor

creatures; pigs and prophets, princes and people, victors and vanquished,

we 're waves of the sea, rolling over and over, and calling it life!

There's no life save the eternal. Father Boyle's got the truth. Flesh is

less than grass, my sons; 'tis the shadow that crosses the grass. I love

the grass. I could sit and watch grassblades for hours. I love an old

turf mound, where the grey grass nods and seems to know the wind and have

a whisper with it, of ancient times maybe and most like; about the big

chief lying underneath in the last must of his bones that a breath of air

would scatter. They just keep their skeleton shape as they are; for the

turf mound protects them from troubles: 'tis the nurse to that delicate

old infant!--Waves of the sea, did I say? We're wash in a hog-trough for

Father Saturn to devour; big chief and suckling babe, we all go into it,

calling it life! And what hope have we of reading the mystery? All we can

see is the straining of the old fellow's hams to push his old snout

deeper into the gobble, and the ridiculous curl of a tail totally devoid

of expression! You'll observe that gluttons have no feature; they're jaws

and hindquarters; which is the beginning and end of 'm; and so you may

say to Time for his dealing with us: so let it be a lesson to you not to

bother your wits, but leave the puzzle to the priest. He understands it,

and why? because he was told. There 's harmony in his elocution, and

there's none in the modern drivel about where we're going and what we

came out of. No wonder they call it an age of despair, when you see the

big wigs filing up and down the thoroughfares with a great advertisement

board on their shoulders, proclaiming no information to the multitude,

but a blank note of interrogation addressed to Providence, as if an

answer from above would be vouchsafed to their impudence! They haven't

the first principles of good manners. And some of 'm in a rage bawl the

answer for themselves. Hear that! No, Phil; No, Pat, no: devotion's good

policy.--You're not drinking! Are you both of ye asleep? why do ye leave

me to drone away like this, when it 's conversation I want, as in the

days of our first parents, before the fig-leaf?--and you might have that

for scroll and figure on the social banner of the hypocritical Saxon,

who's a gormandising animal behind his decency, and nearer to the

Arch-devourer Time than anything I can imagine: except that with a little

exertion you can elude him. The whisky you've got between you 's virgin

of the excise. I'll pay double for freepeaty any day. Or are you for

claret, my lads? No? I'm fortified up here to stand a siege in my old

round tower, like the son of Eremon that I am. Lavra Con! Con speaks at

last! I don't ask you, Pat, whether you remember Maen, who was born dumb,

and had for his tutors Ferkelne the bard and Crafting the harper, at

pleasant Dinree: he was grandson of Leary Lore who was basely murdered by

his brother Cova, and Cova spared the dumb boy, thinking a man without a

tongue harmless, as fools do: being one of their savings-bank tricks, to

be repaid them, their heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns at

compound interest, have no fear. So one day Maen had an insult put on

him; and 'twas this for certain: a ruffian fellow of the Court swore he

couldn't mention the name of his father; and in a thundering fury Maen

burst his tongue-tie, and the Court shouted Lavra Maen: and he had to go

into exile, where he married in the middle of delicious love-adventures

the beautiful Moira through the cunning of Craftine the harper. There's

been no harper in my instance but plenty of ruffians to swear I'm too

comfortable to think of my country.' The captain holloaed. 'Do they hear

that? Lord! but wouldn't our old Celtic fill the world with poetry if

only we were a free people to give our minds to 't, instead of to the

itch on our backs from the Saxon horsehair shirt we're forced to wear.

For, Pat, as you know, we're a loving people, we're a loyal people, we

burn to be enthusiastic, but when our skins are eternally irritated, how

can we sing? In a freer Erin I'd be the bard of the land, never doubt it.

What am I here but a discontented idle lout crooning over the empty

glories of our isle of Saints! You feel them, Pat. Phil's all for his

British army, his capabilities of British light cavalry. Write me the

history of the Enniskillens. I'll read it. Aha, my boy, when they 're off

at the charge! And you'll oblige me with the tale of Fontenoy. Why, Phil

has an opportunity stretching forth a hand to him now more than halfway

that comes to a young Irishman but once in a century: backed by the

entire body of the priesthood of Ireland too! and if only he was a

quarter as full of the old country as you and I, his hair would stand up

in fire for the splendid gallop at our head that's proposed to him. His

country's gathered up like a crested billow to roll him into Parliament;

and I say, let him be there, he 's the very man to hurl his gauntlet, and

tell 'm, Parliament, so long as you are parliamentary, which means the

speaking of our minds, but if you won't have it, then-and it 's on your

heads before Europe and the two Americas. We're dying like a nun that 'd

be out of her cloister, we're panting like the wife who hears of her

husband coming home to her from the field of honour, for that young man.

And there he is; or there he seems to be; but he's dead: and the

fisherman off the west coast after dreaming of a magical haul, gets more

fish than disappointment in comparison with us when we cast the net for

Philip. Bring tears of vexation at the emptiness we pull back for our

pains. Oh, Phil! and to think of your youth! We had you then. At least we

had your heart. And we should have had the length and strength of you,

only for a woman fatal to us as the daughter of Rhys ap Tudor, the

beautiful Nesta:--and beautiful she was to match the mother of the curses

trooping over to Ireland under Strongbow, that I'll grant you. But she

reined you in when you were a real warhorse ramping and snorting flame

from your nostrils, challenging any other to a race for Ireland; ay, a

Cuchullin you were, Philip, Culann's chain-bound: but she unmanned you.

She soaked the woman into you and squeezed the hero out of you. All for

Adiante! or a country left to slavery! that's the tale. And what are you

now? A paltry captain of hussars on the General's staff! One O'Donnell in

a thousand! And what is she?--you needn't frown, Phil; I'm her relative

by marriage, and she 's a lady. More than that, she shot a dart or two

into my breast in those days, she did, I'll own it: I had the catch of

the breath that warns us of convulsions. She was the morning star for

beauty, between night and day, and the best colour of both. Welshmen and

Irishmen and Englishmen tumbled into the pit, which seeing her was, and

there we jostled for a glimpse quite companionably; we were too hungry

for quarrelling; and to say, I was one of 'm, is a title to subsequent

friendship. True; only mark me, Philip, and you, Patrick: they say she

has married a prince, and I say no; she's took to herself a husband in

her cradle; she's married ambition. I tell you, and this prince of hers

is only a step she has taken, and if he chases her first mate from her

bosom, he'll prove himself cleverer than she, and I dare him to the

trial. For she's that fiery dragon, a beautiful woman with brains--which

Helen of Troy hadn't, combustible as we know her to have been: but brains

are bombshells in comparison with your old-fashioned pine-brands for

kindling men and cities. Ambition's the husband of Adiante Adister, and

all who come nigh her are steps to her aim. She never consulted her

father about Prince Nikolas; she had begun her march and she didn't mean

to be arrested. She simply announced her approaching union; and as she

couldn't have a scion of one of the Royal House of Europe, she put her

foot on Prince Nikolas. And he 's not to fancy he 's in for a peaceful

existence; he's a stone in a sling, and probably mistaken the rocking

that's to launch him through the air for a condition of remarkable ease,

perfectly remarkable in its lullaby motion; ha! well, and I've not heard

of ambition that didn't kill its votary: somehow it will; 'tis sure to.

There she lies!'

The prophetic captain pointed at the spot. He then said: 'And now I'm for

my pipe, and the blackest clay of the party, with your permission. I'll

just go to the window to see if the stars are out overhead. They're my

blessed guardian angels.'

There was a pause. Philip broke from a brown study to glance at his

brother. Patrick made a queer face.

'Fun and good-fellowship to-night, Con,' said Philip, as the captain

sadly reported no star visible.

'Have I ever flown a signal to the contrary?' retorted the captain.

'No politics, and I 'll thank you,' said Philip: 'none of your early

recollections. Be jovial.'

'You should have seen me here the other night about a month ago; I

smuggled up an old countrywoman of ours, with the connivance of rosy

Mary,' said Captain Con, suffused in the merriest of grins. 'She sells

apples at a stall at a corner of a street hard by, and I saw her sitting

pulling at her old pipe in the cold October fog morning and evening for

comfort, and was overwhelmed with compassion and fraternal sentiment; and

so I invited her to be at the door of the house at half-past ten, just to

have a roll with her in Irish mud, and mend her torn soul with a stitch

or two of rejoicing. She told me stories; and one was pretty good, of a

relative of hers, or somebody's--I should say, a century old, but she

told it with a becoming air of appropriation that made it family history,

for she's come down in the world, and this fellow had a stain of red upon

him, and wanted cleaning; and, "What!" says the good father, "Mika! you

did it in cold blood?" And says Mika, "Not I, your Riverence. I got

myself into a passion 'fore I let loose." I believe she smoked this

identical pipe. She acknowledged the merits of my whisky, as poets do

hearing fine verses, never clapping hands, but with the expressiveness of

grave absorption. That's the way to make good things a part of you. She

was a treat. I got her out and off at midnight, rosy Mary sneaking her

down, and the old girl quiet as a mouse for the fun's sake. The whole

intrigue was exquisitely managed.'

'You run great risks,' Philip observed.

'I do,' said the captain.

He called on the brothers to admire the 'martial and fumial' decorations

of his round tower, buzzing over the display of implements, while Patrick

examined guns and Philip unsheathed swords. An ancient clay pipe from the

bed of the Thames and one from the bed of the Boyne were laid side by

side, and strange to relate, the Irish pipe and English immediately, by

the mere fact of their being proximate, entered into rivalry; they all

but leapt upon one another. The captain judicially decided the case

against the English pipe, as a newer pipe of grosser manufacture, not so

curious by any means.

'This,' Philip held up the reputed Irish pipe, and scanned as he twirled

it on his thumb, 'This was dropped in Boyne Water by one of William's

troopers. It is an Orange pipe. I take it to be of English make.'

'If I thought that, I'd stamp my heel on the humbug the neighbour

minute,' said Captain Con. 'Where's the sign of English marks?'

'The pipes resemble one another,' said Philip, 'like tails of

Shannon-bred retrievers.'

'Maybe they 're both Irish, then?' the captain caught at analogy to

rescue his favourite from reproach.

'Both of them are Saxon.'

'Not a bit of it!'

'Look at the clay.'

'I look, and I tell you, Philip, it's of a piece with your lukewarmness

for the country, or you wouldn't talk like that.'

'There is no record of pipe manufactories in Ireland at the period you

name.'

'There is: and the jealousy of rulers caused them to be destroyed by

decrees, if you want historical evidence.'

'Your opposition to the Saxon would rob him of his pipe, Con!'

'Let him go to the deuce with as many pipes as he can carry; but he

shan't have this one.'

'Not a toss-up of difference is to be seen in the pair.'

'Use your eyes. The Irish bowl is broken, and the English has an inch

longer stem!'

'O the Irish bowl is broken!' Philip sang.

'You've the heart of a renegade-foreigner not to see it!' cried the

captain.

Patrick intervened saying: 'I suspect they're Dutch.'

'Well, and that 's possible.' Captain Con scrutinised them to calm his

temper: 'there's a Dutchiness in the shape.'

He offered Philip the compromise of 'Dutch' rather plaintively, but it

was not accepted, and the pipes would have mingled their fragments on the

hearthstone if Patrick had not stayed his arm, saying: 'Don't hurt them.'

'And I won't,' the captain shook his hand gratefully.

'But will Philip O'Donnell tell me that Ireland should lie down with

England on the terms of a traveller obliged to take a bedfellow? Come! He

hasn't an answer. Put it to him, and you pose him. But he 'll not stir,

though he admits the antagonism. And Ireland is asked to lie down with

England on a couch blessed by the priest! Not she. Wipe out our

grievances, and then we'll begin to talk of policy. Good Lord!--love? The

love of Ireland for the conquering country will be the celebrated

ceremony in the concluding chapter previous to the inauguration of the

millennium. Thousands of us are in a starving state at home this winter,

Patrick. And it's not the fault of England?--landlordism 's not? Who

caused the ruin of all Ireland's industries? You might as well say that

it 's the fault of the poor beggar to go limping and hungry because his

cruel master struck him a blow to cripple him. We don't want half and

half doctoring, and it's too late in the day for half and half oratory.

We want freedom, and we'll have it, and we won't leave it to the Saxon to

think about giving it. And if your brother Philip won't accept this

blazing fine offer, then I will, and you'll behold me in a new attitude.

The fellow yawns! You don't know me yet, Philip. They tell us over here

we ought to be satisfied. Fall upon our list of wrongs, and they set to

work yawning. You can only move them by popping at them over hedges and

roaring on platforms. They're incapable of understanding a complaint a

yard beyond their noses. The Englishman has an island mind, and when he's

out of it he's at sea.'

'Mad, you mean,' said Philip.

'I repeat my words, Captain Philip O'Donnell, late of the staff of the

General commanding in Canada.'

'The Irishman too has an island mind, and when he's out of it he's at

sea, and unable to manage his craft,' said Philip.

'You'll find more craft in him when he's buffeted than you reckoned on,'

his cousin flung back. 'And if that isn't the speech of a traitor sold to

the enemy, and now throwing off the mask, traitors never did mischief in

Ireland! Why, what can you discover to admire in these people? Isn't

their army such a combination of colours in the uniforms, with their

yellow facings on red jackets, I never saw out of a doll-shop, and never

saw there. And their Horse Guards, weedy to a man! fit for a doll-shop

they are, by my faith! And their Foot Guards: Have ye met the fellows

marching? with their feet turned out, flat as my laundress's irons, and

the muscles of their calves depending on the joints to get 'm along, for

elasticity never gave those bones of theirs a springing touch; and their

bearskins heeling behind on their polls; like pot-house churls daring the

dursn't to come on. Of course they can fight. Who said no? But they 're

not the only ones: and they 'll miss their ranks before they can march

like our Irish lads. The look of their men in line is for all the world

to us what lack-lustre is to the eye. The drill they 've had hasn't

driven Hodge out of them, it has only stiffened the dolt; and dolt won't

do any longer; the military machine requires intelligence in all ranks

now. Ay, the time for the Celt is dawning: I see it, and I don't often

spy a spark where there isn't soon a blaze. Solidity and stupidity have

had their innings: a precious long innings it has been; and now they're

shoved aside like clods of earth from the risin flower. Off with our

shackles! We've only to determine it to be free, and we'll bloom again;

and I'll be the first to speak the word and mount the colours. Follow me!

Will ye join in the toast to the emblem of Erin--the shamrock, Phil and

Pat?'

'Oh, certainly,' said Philip. 'What 's that row going on?' Patrick also

called attention to the singular noise in the room. 'I fancy the time for

the Celt is not dawning, but setting,' said Philip, with a sharp smile;

and Patrick wore an artful look.

A corner of the room was guilty of the incessant alarum. Captain Con

gazed in that direction incredulously and with remonstrance. 'The tinkler

it is!' he sighed. 'But it can't be midnight yet?' Watches were examined.

Time stood at half-past the midnight. He groaned: 'I must go. I haven't

heard the tinkler for months. It signifies she's cold in her bed. The

thing called circulation's unknown to her save by the aid of outward

application, and I 'm the warming pan, as legitimately I should be, I'm

her husband and her Harvey in one. Goodbye to my hop and skip. I ought by

rights to have been down beside her at midnight. She's the worthiest

woman alive, and I don't shirk my duty. Be quiet!' he bellowed at the

alarum; 'I 'm coming. Don't be in such a fright, my dear,' he admonished

it as his wife, politely. 'Your hand'll take an hour to warm if you keep

it out on the spring that sets the creature going.' He turned and

informed his company: 'Her hand'll take an hour to warm. Dear! how she

runs ahead: d' ye hear? That's the female tongue, and once off it won't

stop. And this contrivance for fetching me from my tower to her bed was

my own suggestion, in a fit of generosity! Ireland all over! I must hurry

and wash my hair, for she can't bear a perfume to kill a stink; she

carries her charitable heart that far. Good-night, I'll be thinking of ye

while I'm warming her. Sit still, I can't wait; 'tis the secret of my

happiness.' He fled. Patrick struck his knee on hearing the expected

ballad-burden recur.