Part 10 (1/2)
Hamilton has no opinion of him at all. 'Deed, now, his poor grandfather's to be pitied, losin' such a fine young lad.” And he also remembered having occasionally heard his great-aunt say that Nicholas took after his poor mother, and would never comb a grey head. Now, therefore, the figure of Nicholas sitting out on the bank in a vibrating mist of rain, with his feet in a puddle, and his hair flickering in damp strands about his thin face, became for Dan an ominous and saddening spectacle.
But while he was ruefully contemplating it one day, a happy idea struck him. He would get Nicholas some clean white paper to draw his _dygrims_ on. ”And then belike he'd be contint to sit in be the fire, instead of to be catchin' his death scrawmin' out there in the mud under teems of rain.” Grand writing-paper was to be had at Isaac Tarpey's, down in Ballybrosna, and Dan at this time happened to be in possession of a whole s.h.i.+lling, which he dedicated more than willingly to the purchase.
Isaac Tarpey presided over the Ballybrosna Post-office, which was in some respects a singularly complete establishment, as not only was the raw material for a letter kept in stock there, but the letter itself could, for a consideration, be written on the premises by the postmaster in person. It is true that Isaac did not supply more than the barest necessaries of scribes, the bread and water, so to speak, of stationery, the very plainest pens and paper and ink. He kept his ink in a single moderate-sized jar, out of which he measured penn'orths and ha'p'orths into the various receptacles brought by customers who came to demand ”a sup” or ”a drain.” On these sales his profits were certainly enormous, not less than cent. per cent., but then the consumption of that article was extremely small in Ballybrosna. It took a long while to reach the sediment at the bottom of the jar, and Isaac's letter-writing, done at the rate of thruppence a-piece, probably was a more lucrative branch of his business, though the correspondence of the Town was not large enough to put his services in frequent requisition. Partly on this account, and partly because he was by nature a strong conservative, Mr. Tarpey set his face sternly against the spread of education. He was distressed by the appearance of any symptoms of it among the neighbouring youth, even when it took the form of an inquiry for his limp paper and skewer-like pens. In fact, the diffusion of penmans.h.i.+p was what he most seriously deprecated and discountenanced. ”The Lord knows,” his main argument ran, ”the foolery them spalpeens 'ill be gabbin' permiscuis would sicken you, widout givin' them the chance to be sittin' down aisy and invintin' it.”
His wife once suggested that ”the crathurs might be more sinsible like, when they were takin' time to considher themselves.” But Isaac said, ”Pigs may fly.”
At the time when Dan came for his paper the office was occupied by Norah Fottrell, engaged in dictating a letter to her sweetheart, Stevie Flynn, away in Manchester. The composition still looked discouragingly brief, despite Isaac's big, flouris.h.i.+ng hand, yet Norah's ideas had already run so short that she was staring in quest of more up among the cobwebby rafters over her head.
”You might say,” she said, after a pause, ”that I hope he's gettin' his health where he is.”
”I've said that twyste before,” Isaac objected severely.
”Och, murdher, have you?” said Norah, reverting to the rafters with a distracted gaze.
”Couldn't you tell him the price your father got for the last baste he sould?” said Isaac.
”Bedad, I might so,” said Norah; ”'twas on'y thirty s.h.i.+llin', but it 'ud take up a good bit of room. And look-a, Mr. Tarpey, couldn't we lave the rest of the page clane? As like as not the bosthoon wouldn't be botherin' his head spellin' out the half of it.”
The adoption of this course expedited Norah's love-letter to a happy close. But when Dan took her place at the counter Isaac a.s.sured him, not without satisfaction, that ”they were cliver and clane run out of all their writin' paper, barrin' it might be a sort of b.u.t.t-ind of loose sheets left litterin' at the bottom of the drawer, and they that thick wid dust you could be plantin' pitaties in them, forby gettin' mildewed lyin' up in the damp so long.”
It was not so much compunction at Dan's disappointed countenance as an irresistible hankering after a good bargain that ultimately led the postmaster to sweep this uninviting remnant together, and fix upon it the price of sixpence. The charge was exorbitant, considering the small quant.i.ty and damaged state of the goods, yet Dan carried off his little packet quite contentedly, announcing that he would step over again for another sixpenn'orth next week, when, as Isaac reluctantly admitted, a fresh supply of stationery would have arrived.
As Dan left the office he pa.s.sed an unknown gentleman, tall, with a shrewd sallow face, dark, peaked beard, and alert grey eyes, who had been leaning against the door while the bargain was struck. The stranger was Mr. Alfred B. Willett, of New York, a wealthy engineer, who on his way home from Europe had been visiting his friend Dr. Hamilton of Ballybrosna. His curiosity now was roused by Dan's evident eagerness to acquire materials for the drawing of diagrams, the pursuit striking him as so strangely incongruous with the aspect of the brown-faced stalwart ragged youth, that he stepped inside when the place was empty to make inquiries on the subject. The post-master's information was to the effect that ”the O'Beirnes above at the forge had always had the name of bein' very dacint respectable people up to then, and he'd never before seen any of the young ones settin' themselves up to be askin' after such things. He hoped it mightn't be a sign that the old man was goin'
foolish, and lettin' the lads get past his control. But sure enough we must all of us put up wid growin' good for nothin' sometime, unless we happint to ha' never been worth anythin' to begin wid. And he wished he had a penny ped him for every one of that sort he'd met in the coorse of his life.”
This cynical disquisition was not very enlightening. However next week when Dan slipped over again for his second sixpenn'orth, Mr. Willett it chanced was there too, having called to report on the excessive thickness and other undesirable peculiarities of some ink lately supplied to him. It had been, in fact, composed of ”the sidimint”
artfully diluted with a drop of vinegar; but Isaac Tarpey said it was ”thick wid the stren'th was in it,” and set about uncorking his fresh jar with an affronted air, when his customer persisted in pointing out that its adhesive properties were less valuable in ink than in glue.
Meanwhile Mr. Willett fell into a conversation with Dan, which ended in his engaging the lad to accompany him as guide on a shooting expedition next day. The arrangement turned out satisfactorily, and was repeated more than once, with the consequence that Dan and the stranger talked about many things in the course of several long tramps, until one evening the latter, sitting on a stone wall after a steep pull uphill, made Dan an offer which caused the most familiar objects to seem unreal, because a marvellous dream was coming true among them. For Mr. Willett proposed to take Dan home with him, and have him taught whatever he most wished to learn. ”You're a smart lad, Dan,” he said, ”and I reckon you'll make more of that in the States than in this country.”
”Ah! the doctorin',” said Dan, turning as red as the young sorrel leaves, and letting his darling wish slip out in his surprise as involuntarily as he would have blinked at a flash of lightning. But next moment he remembered Nicholas, and fell silent; Nicholas, who had not looked him in the face since that snowy evening weeks ago. The dream seemed to stop coming true.
”There's no need to make up your mind in a hurry,” said Mr. Willett, ”you can be thinking it over between this and Monday.”
Dan did think it over deeply that night and the next day and the day after. He thought how fine, if rather fearful, it would be to go on such a journey; and what a splendid thing to learn the doctoring business, and some day come home again able to cure everybody of anything that ailed them. ”For out in the States, like enough, they had all manner of contrivances the people over here had never taught Dr. Hamilton,” whose skill was occasionally baffled. He imagined the neighbours' surprise when he came driving up on his car; if possible he would be driving a little blue-roan mare like Farmer Finucane's Rosemary, with whom he had made friends in the course of many shoeings. He thought he would be sorry to miss seeing them all for so long; and yet it would certainly be very pleasant, in a way, to get to a place where things were a bit different sometimes, not like here where when you were getting up in the morning you knew what was bound to be happening all day just as well as you did when you were going to bed that night. And next he thought that such days would be coming to Nicholas, while he himself was away seeing and learning ”all manner of everything;” and that if he had held his tongue that time, maybe Nicholas would have got his chance with Mr.
Polymathers's money, instead of its all being spent away on nothing. And he thought that it wasn't his fault, for what else could he say when he was asked all of a minute, except the first thing that came into his head? And he wondered how it would be if anything happened to his grandfather. Nicholas wasn't over-strong, and too young altogether besides. And then he thought again that Mr. Willett was cleverer than anybody he had ever seen, and more good-natured; it was a pleasure to go about with him; and people were great fools to give up their chances.
Maybe Nicholas might get another some day. And maybe Mr. Polymathers had been mistaken in thinking that he was the one best worth teaching.
All these things Dan thought, and the result of his cogitations was that on the Monday he stole a sheaf of Nicholas's most complicated cobweb-like diagrams from their hiding-place in the wall, and brought them with him when he went by appointment to meet his patron off beyond Knockfinny. And when Mr. Willett said to him: ”Well, Dan, what about the States and the doctoring?” he replied inconsequently by holding out the sheets of paper with the explanation: ”It's me brother, Nicholas, sir, does be doin' them mostly out of his own head.”
Mr. Willett looked at them for some minutes with interested e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns. ”Upon my word,” he then said, ”if these were done out of his own head, he must have about as much mathematics located in it by nature as a spider.”
”Aren't they good for anythin' at all then, sir?” said Dan, not knowing exactly what he hoped and feared.
”Good? They're astonis.h.i.+ng,” said Mr. Willett. He asked some questions about Nicholas's age, schooling, and so forth; after which he said: ”You must take me to see this brother of yours, Dan. I expect he'll have got to come right along with us.”
But Dan stared round and round the s.p.a.cious brown-purple floor they were standing on, and after a far-off flight of wild fowl, and up at the sky, where the clouds travel without let or hindrance, before he answered hesitatingly: ”The two of us couldn't ever both go, sir. How could we be lavin' the forge and all on me ould grandfather? And Nicholas never makes any great hand of the work.”
”Ah! is that the way the land lies?” said Mr. Willett, as if half impatient, and half amused, but not best pleased. He looked hard at Dan, and thought he saw how matters stood, ”You've no mind to leave the old grandfather and the rest of the concern, but you think it would be more in the other lad's line.”
As a matter of fact Dan was at that particular moment feeling strongly how easily he could have reconciled himself to the separation, and how entirely it would be the making of him to do so. But he did not gainsay Mr. Willett's statement. To himself he said, ”He's a right to have his chances; and the one of us is bound to stop in it”--a mode of expressing his sentiments which showed that he had much need of culture; and aloud: ”Nicholas always had a powerful wish to be gettin' some larnin'; and I'm a fool to him at the geomethry anyway.”