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 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM 
 
 SEVENTH IMPRESSION 
 
 NEW YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 1913
 
 TA ME AG TABHAIRT AN LEABHAR SEO 
 
 DHUIT 
 A BHEAN-UASAI, MO CHROIDHE. 
 
 2065730
 
 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 THE December afternoon darkened rapidly over the 
 crowd which had gathered round the court-house door. 
 Inside the gloom prevented men from seeing each 
 other's faces, and lights were sent for before the last 
 act of the day's drama commenced. Two candles 
 were brought and set upon the table before the judge. 
 They illuminated the papers which lay before him, 
 made his robes and wig visible, and even cast a few 
 straggling rays upon the face of the prisoner. The 
 rest of the court seemed only darker for their 
 presence. 
 
 1 Gerald Geoghegan,' said the judge, ' you have 
 been found guilty of taking up arms in open rebellion 
 against your lawful Sovereign, Queen Victoria, in this 
 her kingdom of Ireland. Your crime is one which in 
 an ignorant peasant might move our pity, might be 
 found, perhaps, to have some shadow, not of justifica^ 
 tion, but excuse. But you are a member of a Church 
 which has always inculcated loyalty upon her children 
 
 1
 
 2 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 as a sacred duty, and taught the sinfulness of rebel- 
 lion. You have enjoyed the advantages of an educa- 
 tion which should have shown you the folly of the 
 attempt which you have made. You are a member 
 of a class whose traditional boast it has been that 
 they are England's garrison in this country. In your 
 case, therefore, there is no plea to be urged in pallia- 
 tion of your monstrous crime. I sentence you to be 
 hanged by the neck until you be dead, in the market- 
 place of this town. I direct that your body be cut 
 into four by the common hangman, the portions after- 
 wards to be disposed of in accordance with the pleasure 
 of Her Majesty. May the Lord have mercy upon 
 your soul.' 
 
 They led the prisoner away. 
 
 It had been a poor business at the best, the rebel- 
 lion of Gerald Geoghegan. He had led a dwindling 
 band of half-starved peasants among the by-roads of 
 Tipperary. He had fired upon a police patrol. He 
 had surrendered himself to a country magistrate. 
 That was the whole story. It was saved from being 
 a subject of laughter for the nations only by the 
 ferocity of the judge's sentence. For a few days 
 Gerald Geoghegan hugged the consolation that at 
 least he was to be allowed to die. In the end even 
 this was taken from him. His sentence was changed 
 into one of transportation for life. He sailed for 
 Australia in a convict ship, the last and the most 
 ineffective of the long line of those who have drawn 
 the sword for Ireland.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 3 
 
 His brother, Sir Thomas Geoghegan of Clogher, 
 heard of his exile without a word, and received his 
 last letter without reading it. He had disowned 
 Gerald when he first declared himself a member of 
 the Young Ireland party. He determined after the 
 fiasco of the rebellion not to speak, and if possible 
 not to hear, his name again. 
 
 Australia proved a kinder land to Gerald Geoghe- 
 gan than Ireland had been. It had no wrongs to 
 lure him into desperate politics. He worked, and as 
 an old man reaped a harvest for his toil. A farm 
 prospered with him. A gentle wife helped his old age 
 to slip peacefully away. A younger Gerald grew up 
 to be a hopeful boy before the end came for ' Geoghe- 
 gan the rebel.' 
 
 12
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 WHEN Sir Giles Geoghegan died, his title passed to his 
 cousin Gerald, who lived on an Australian farm. The 
 estates and the personal property went with the title, 
 because Sir Giles had been more or less imbecile all 
 his life, and no one had ever urged him to make a 
 will. The news of the inheritance came as a surprise 
 to Gerald Geoghegan. His father had never talked 
 much about his Irish relations, and, although Gerald 
 had somehow gathered that he belonged to a family 
 of which there was no need to be ashamed, he was 
 quite unaware that he stood next in succession to the 
 baronetcy and the Clogher estate. 
 
 It is not to be wondered at that he made the journey 
 from Melbourne as quickly as possible. It seemed to 
 him, in spite of all he could do, to be interminable. 
 In London his excitement rose to fever-heat, and even 
 when at last he seated himself in the Irish mail, he 
 fretted with impatience. For Sir Gerald Geoghegan 
 was young, barely five-and-twenty, and the prospect 
 of taking up the position of a great landed proprietor 
 and a very wealthy man is one which might shake 
 the equanimity of a gray-haired philosopher. He had 
 
 4
 
 THE SEETHING POT 5 
 
 one fellow-traveller in his compartment, a thin, sharp- 
 faced man whose clothes and figure suggested a groom. 
 Sir Gerald spoke to him, because in his excitement he 
 could not remain silent. 
 
 'I suppose this train runs pretty punctually ta 
 Holyhead.' 
 
 The other man looked up from his paper. 
 
 ' Yes ; and the steamer is punctual, too. You will 
 be in Dublin at five o'clock.' 
 
 As he spoke he looked steadily at Sir Gerald. His 
 face developed curious tangles of wrinkles round the 
 eyes and mouth, and he ceased to look like a 
 groom. 
 
 ' I think I'm safe in guessing,' he added, after a 
 pause, ' that you are an Irishman.' 
 
 ' I suppose I am,' said Sir Gerald ' at least, my 
 father was ; but I've never set foot in the country in 
 my life. What made you think I was Irish ? I can 
 hardly have inherited a brogue.' 
 
 ' Well,' said the other, * I have studied human 
 types a bit. I guess wrong pretty frequently, but 
 when I see a man with a narrow head, deep-set eyes 
 that are nearly black, straight dark hair, a figure and 
 hands like yours, I can't be far out in saying " Irish- 
 man." I'll go further if you like, and say you're a 
 Celt, and a Connaught Celt. Am I right ?' 
 
 ' I dare say you are. To tell you the truth, I don't 
 know. I'm going to Connaught, anyhow to Mayo 
 and I call it going home.' 
 
 'The type has a wonderful way of impressing
 
 6 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 itself Your people may have married Englishwomen 
 for generations, or they may have been English 
 themselves and married Irishwomen. It makes no 
 matter. The Celtic type is the dominant one. It 
 works itself into any strain and stays.' 
 
 ' You seem to know something about Ireland,' said 
 Sir Gerald. 
 
 ' Well, I ought to,' said the other. ' I've done 
 nothing all my life but think about Ireland and talk 
 about Ireland chiefly the latter. Let me introduce 
 myself. My name is Desmond O'Hara. I'm the 
 editor and owner of The Critic.' 
 
 He drew himself up as he spoke, and the wrinkles 
 gathered with extraordinary thickness over his face. 
 
 'Oh!' said Sir Gerald. 'I'm very glad to meet 
 you.' 
 
 'You don't seem to be much impressed,' said 
 O'Hara, and it would have been hard to tell whether 
 he was offended or amused by the vagueness of 
 Sir Gerald's tone. ' Perhaps you don't read The 
 Critic. You ought to if you are an Irishman.' 
 
 ' I've never come across it, but, you see, I've lived 
 all my life in Australia.' 
 
 ' That's no excuse. I've several readers in Australia 
 three, I think. Anyhow, you can begin to read it 
 now. The Critic represents the intellect of Ireland. 
 It aims at bringing all the people in the country who 
 can think into touch with each other. The price is 
 twopence a week, but I give it for a penny to anyone 
 who can't afford more.'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 7 
 
 > 
 
 Sir Gerald smiled. 
 
 ' I dare say my finances will stand the regular sub- 
 scription,' he said. 
 
 'Good,' said O'Hara. 'Then, you'll subscribe regu- 
 larly. I can't think why on earth people are fools 
 enough to buy my paper, but quite a surprising 
 number of them do. It isn't worth twopence, you 
 know. It's nothing on earth but talk spread over 
 paper in big print, and very poor talk at that.' 
 
 ' I thought,' said Sir Gerald, ' that you represented 
 the intellect of Ireland.' 
 
 ' I don't know who you are, but you ought to be 
 aware that there is no intellect in Ireland. From the 
 Provost of Trinity in his hall to the farmer's daughter 
 behind the dunghill there is not one single individual 
 that can, properly speaking, be said to think.' 
 
 Sir Gerald began to suspect that he had stumbled 
 upon a lunatic, but O'Hara's laugh reassured him. 
 It was an eminently sane and wholesome laugh. 
 
 ' Don't look so serious,' he said. ' That's only one 
 of my tricks, designed to produce thought. I printed 
 that remark in The Critic about three months ago. 
 I had just recovered from influenza at the time, and 
 felt depressed. By the way, if I am to send you the 
 paper, you must tell me who you are and where you 
 live. "Celt, Connaught," would hardly find you, 
 though you are a type.' 
 
 'Gerald Geoghegan I mean, Sir Gerald Geoghe- 
 gan' he reddened as he made the correction 
 ' Clogher House, County Mayo.'
 
 8 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 1 Surely,' said O'Hara, ' you're not I didn't hear 
 that poor Sir Giles was dead. You must be the son 
 of Gerald Geoghegan the ' He paused. 
 
 ' Of Gerald Geoghegan the rebel, you were going to 
 say. You needn't have hesitated ; I am not ashamed 
 of my father or of anything he did.' 
 
 'Ashamed! Indeed I should think not. You 
 ought to be puffed up with pride in such a father. 
 He was the last great Irish gentleman. You know 
 his story, of course ?' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Sir Gerald : ' he told it me himself out 
 there, before he died. He said he'd been a fool.' 
 
 ' Of course he was a fool, as we count fools. A 
 man is 'a fool to set up a few starved peasants against 
 the power of England ; but that kind of fool is the 
 only thing worth being in the world. Don't think 
 I'm advising you to go and do likewise. The thing is 
 not to be done that way now. We've got on to 
 a new track. We're working out salvation another 
 way.' 
 
 ' Tell me. I want to know about Ireland. You see, 
 I'm going to live there.' 
 
 ' This train only takes six hours to get to Holyhead. 
 After that I shall tell you nothing, for I shall be 
 infernally sea-sick. I always am. No mortal man 
 eould explain Ireland to you in six hours.' 
 
 'Tell me something tell me what an Irish land- 
 lord ought to do, and how he ought to live.' 
 
 The task suited O'Hara exactly. The Critic was 
 accustomed from time to time to wander into the
 
 THE SEETHING POT 9 
 
 regions of archaeology for a week or two. Sometimes 
 several numbers were devoted entirely to folk-lore, 
 or the industrial revival, or the Irish language. Once 
 it seemed likely to turn into a kind of almanac for 
 amateur gardeners. It always returned, however, to 
 the subject of landlords, their prospects and duties, 
 their sins and mistakes. Its true position was that 
 of candid friend to the unfortunate class whom 
 England in self-defence is being obliged to squeeze 
 out of existence. 
 
 O'Hara rubbed his hands, and began : 
 
 1 You are an Irish gentleman, Sir Gerald, and 
 therefore one of the natural leaders of the Irish 
 people.' 
 
 'Excuse my interrupting you,' said Sir Gerald, 
 ' but isn't that a little mediaeval out of date, you 
 know ? Of course, I may be prejudiced, coming from 
 Australia, but I always thought that the idea of a 
 gentleman, as a gentleman, being a leader had quite 
 passed out of existence everywhere, especially, perhaps, 
 in Ireland.' 
 
 ' Now, there you're mistaken entirely. Don't you 
 go starting life in Ireland with any of those fine 
 democratic one -man's -as -good -as -another notions. 
 They may be all right in the colonies. They are good 
 enough for trotting out at election times to the 
 British working man ; but they're no kind of use 
 in Ireland. We're an aristocratic people, and we're 
 loyal to our leaders. We don't set up to be inde- 
 pendent sons of toil or any nonsense of that sort.
 
 10 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 Unfortunately, our gentry, our aristocracy, stand out 
 and won't lead us, so we fall back on priests and 
 politicians. Leaders of one sort or another we must 
 have, and we ought to have you and your class.' 
 
 WeU ?' said Sir Gerald. ' Go on.' 
 
 O'Hara went on. The train flew through the mid- 
 lands while he discoursed on the part the landed 
 aristocracy ought to take in the industrial revival. 
 He sang the praises of Irish manufacturers. Clogher 
 House ought to be furnished with Donegal carpets; 
 its chairs, tables, and sofas could be made in Dublin ; 
 linen of every kind must of course come from Belfast ; 
 the floors should be washed with Irish soap; the 
 housemaid's caps could be best stiffened with Irish 
 starch. Sir Gerald himself ought to smoke Irish 
 manufactured tobacco, and light his pipe with an 
 Irish match. 
 
 ' A man like you,' the editor continued, ' who own 
 a great estate, and therefore pay your bills, is in a 
 position to bully his tailor. I can't, of course ; I can 
 only differentially persuade. But I've got these trousers 
 made of Irish tweed. Look at them !' 
 
 He stretched out a pair of lean legs, round which 
 a yellowish tweed hung despondingly. The material 
 may have been all right, but the garments did not 
 advertise the merits of O'Hara's tailor. 
 
 ' You,' he continued, ' ought to be dressed from 
 head to foot in Irish flannel, Irish tweed, and Irish 
 socks. What's that you're smoking? An English- 
 made pipe. Now, to-morrow I'll show you a shop in
 
 THE SEETHING POT 11 
 
 Dublin where you can get every kind of pipe, from a 
 briar to a meerschaum, made at home.' 
 
 During luncheon O'Hara passed on to the question 
 of the financial relations between Great Britain and 
 Ireland. He admitted that the public had lost 
 interest in the matter. 
 
 ' We had our chance,' he said, ' and we missed it. 
 All the same, you oughtn't to forget the fact that 
 England is robbing us systematically of three millions 
 a year. The thing is as plain as daylight.' 
 
 It may have been plain in itself, but O'Hara's way 
 of presenting the facts tended to confuse his pupil's 
 mind. Immense sums of money had a way of trans- 
 forming themselves into decimals per head which 
 bewildered him. A conception which recurred at 
 short intervals in the editor's discourse under the 
 title of ' taxable capacity ' gradually lost the vague 
 meaning it at first seemed to have, and mixed itself 
 hopelessly with other things called ' standards of 
 value.' 
 
 ' I'm afraid,' said Sir Gerald, ' I shall have to read 
 the subject up a bit. I don't seem to master it.' 
 
 ' There's not the least necessity to master it,' said 
 O'Hara. 'Look here.' He seized a loaf from the 
 attendant who passed down the car. ' Here's a parcel 
 of tea. Here's another.' He balanced a potato in a 
 spoon. 'All you've got to do is to go round the 
 country showing the small parcel first. "This," you 
 say, " is the amount of tea you get at present for two 
 shillings. This " here you show the large parcel
 
 12 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 " is what you ought to get. And England takes the 
 difference." Why, you would have all Ireland at 
 your back in a week, and be in a position to dictate 
 terms to any Chancellor of the Exchequer who ever 
 framed a Budget.' 
 
 After lunch the two men returned to their smoking- 
 carriage, and O'Hara started afresh. 
 
 ' Of course the land question ' 
 
 ' Ah !' said Sir Gerald, ' isn't that the real question 
 the thing that matters, I mean ?' 
 
 ' Certainly not,' said O'Hara. ' The land question 
 is an accident. It is temporary. It might be settled 
 to-morrow. The real thing is the nation. We must 
 unite, nobles and commons, rich and poor, to pre- 
 serve our nationality, to prevent the complete Anglici- 
 zation of our country.' 
 
 ' But union ' began Sir Gerald. 
 
 'Now, don't interrupt me. I know what you're 
 going to say. Union is impossible conflicting in- 
 terests, and that sort of thing. I know all that, and 
 it's not true, not a word of it. Ireland might be 
 united, and there's one man who could effect the 
 union if he chose.' O'Hara sank his voice impres- 
 sively, and lifted his cap from his head with a certain 
 reverence. ' The King,' he said. 
 
 Sir Gerald opened his mouth to speak, but only 
 gasped. He hesitated between the laughter due to 
 an extravagant jest and a feeling that O'Hara might 
 be in earnest. 
 
 'I know what you're thinking,' said O'Hara:
 
 THE SEETHING POT 13 
 
 you've got the usual notion of the King as a sort of 
 glorified head of the Civil Service. Now, I dare say it's 
 different with England. The Lord alone knows how an 
 Englishman likes to be governed. But Ireland can't 
 be ruled by cynical politicians in Secretaries' offices, 
 or noblemen who drive four-in-hand to Punchestown 
 with pretty wives beside them. Ireland wants a King. 
 Give us a King to love us, and we will be a united 
 nation and loyal not loyal, mind you, to that system 
 of government by people with long tongues and no 
 consciences that's called the British Constitution, but 
 loyal to the throne and to ourselves.' 
 
 O'Hara proceeded to demonstrate from history the 
 loyalty of the Irish. He succeeded in giving a series 
 of curious twists to established facts. The names 
 ' rebel ' and ' loyalist ' got tacked on to quite unusual 
 parties. Sir Gerald was deeply interested. It 
 appeared that various heroes, from Silken Thomas 
 down to Wolfe Tone, whom he had regarded, not 
 without sympathy and admiration, as rebels, were in 
 reality the only faithful servants of the Kings of 
 Ireland. Unfortunately, just as O'Hara had reached 
 the point where Sir Gerald's father attempted to alter 
 the course of Irish history, the train steamed into 
 Holy head. 
 
 O'Hara sighed. ' Good-bye,' he said. ' I shan't 
 see you again. I don't care how calm it is, I'm 
 bound to be hideously sick. In half an hour my 
 principles will have given way to the wish that some 
 English engineer had succeeded in consummating
 
 U THE SEETHING POT 
 
 the union between the two countries by building a 
 bridge.' 
 
 ' Stop a minute,' said Sir Gerald ; ' I want to see 
 you again. Won't you give me your address, and let 
 me call on you ?' 
 
 O'Hara handed him an envelope. ' There's my 
 office address. My house is away out at Dalkey. 
 Come and see me to-morrow. I'll take you to a show, 
 if you like, where you'll meet some of the intellect of 
 Ireland. Good-bye; I must hasten to find a place 
 where I may hide my shame.' 
 
 Sir Gerald stood awhile watching the porters hurry- 
 ing on board with mail-bags and trunks. Soon the 
 steamer slipped from the pier, and the wind blew the 
 great columns of her smoke flat across the wavelets of 
 the harbour. For a time he watched the land behind 
 him grow dim, and then turned his face westwards 
 for the first glimpse of the Irish shore. All his life 
 he had dreamed of this coming home. It had always 
 been as home that he had thought of Ireland. As 
 a child he had wondered vaguely at the pathetic 
 reverence with which his father spoke of home. A 
 spiritualized Ireland was associated with the prayers 
 and creed his mother taught him. He had listened 
 to his father's evening readings of Mangan's verses 
 until he learnt to repeat them for himself. In lonely 
 places he found expression for the passions which fill 
 the souls of boys by shouting aloud Red Hugh 
 O'Donnell's dedication of himself to the service of the 
 Dark Rosaleen. As he grew older his father's teach-
 
 THE SEETHING POT 15 
 
 ing made him familiar with the hopes and ideals of 
 Thomas Davis and the Young Ireland party. His 
 day-dreams were of a return to take up the dropped 
 thread of The Nation's work. He had pictured to 
 himself a life spent in his country's service, a begin- 
 ning in obscurity and poverty, a rising to influence 
 and fame. After his father's death, contact with the 
 actual conditions of life's struggle sobered his dreams. 
 He no longer thought of himself as one of Ireland's 
 heroes, but his love for her remained strong in him. 
 Then came the great surprise of his inheritance. He 
 realized suddenly that he was indeed to return to 
 Ireland, and that, not as an unknown adventurer, but 
 as a great man, the owner of a vast estate, the bearer 
 of an ancient title. Of the actual Ireland of to-day 
 he knew next to nothing, but his old dreams came 
 back to him, and on the voyage home he found him- 
 self again sketching out an heroic future. Ireland 
 was spiritualized once more. She looked for his 
 coming, awaiting him ' The young deliverer of Kath- 
 aleen-ni-Houlahan.' 
 
 O'Hara's talk in the train had bewildered and 
 excited him. Already the service of Ireland ceased 
 to seem a very simple thing. He was vaguely con- 
 scious of great conflicting interests which he did not 
 understand. Then that talk about the King ! that 
 was wholly new to him. It made a certain appeal to 
 the romance in him, and yet he distrusted it. His 
 father had not taught him to reverence the throne of 
 an English monarch.
 
 16 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 After the arrival of the steamer at Kingstown, a 
 friendly fellow-traveller pointed him out the obelisk 
 which marks the place where George IV. landed. 
 It seemed a perfect refutation of O'Hara's fantastic 
 theory of loyalty, tfcat the only Hanoverian monarch 
 who was ever popular in Ireland should have left his 
 mark upon the country in a stone monument, and the 
 change of a name from Dunleary to Kingstown.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 SIR GERALD determined to postpone his journey to 
 Clogher, and spend a day in Dublin in order to avail 
 himself of O'Hara's invitation. He looked forward 
 with some eagerness to meeting Irish intellectual 
 people. The Young Ireland movement, of which his 
 father had been one of the leaders, had created a 
 genuinely Irish literature. He had learnt to admire 
 the poetry and the essays in The Nation. He expected 
 to meet the men and women upon whom the mantles 
 of Davis and Mangan had fallen. 
 
 He arrived at the office of The Critic early in the 
 afternoon, and found that the editor had not yet put 
 in an appearance. The staff of the paper, which con- 
 sisted of a sandy-haired young man with a Belfast 
 accent, was endeavouring to brew himself a cup of tea 
 with the help of a rather decrepit spirit-stove. Sir 
 Gerald explained his business, and was invited to 
 share the prospective tea with the utmost friendliness. 
 Mr. Gamble such, it appeared, was the youth's name 
 proved to be a most entertaining companion. He 
 combined a naive worship for O'Hara's literary ability 
 with a complete contempt for his way of doing business. 
 
 17 2
 
 18 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 Sir Gerald learnt, with some surprise, that O'Hant 
 was not only the greatest writer in Ireland, but the 
 only true political guide, and a prophet of righteous- 
 ness whose genius amounted to inspiration. 
 
 *I can't write a bit myself,' said Mr. Gamble. 
 ' Sometimes I do commercial articles on Irish manu- 
 factures, but they are deadly dull. We have a few 
 other contributors, but they are not much use. 
 O'Hara is The Critic himself; it's only his writing 
 that makes it go.' 
 
 Mr. Gamble was not, however, at all inclined to 
 hide his own proper talents under a bushel. But for 
 his incredible exertions in the matter of book-keeping 
 and attracting advertisers, it appeared that O'Hara 
 would long ago have found himself in the bankruptcy 
 court. He got down a ledger with a view to giving 
 Sir Gerald some illustrations of O'Hara's methods of 
 keeping accounts, when the kettle suddenly boiled. 
 Two cups and a tin of condensed milk were produced 
 from Mr. Gamble's desk. 
 
 ' I advise you,' he said, ' to have tea with me now. 
 I know the place the chief means to take you to. It's 
 an exhibition of Jim Tynan's pictures. There'll b 
 tea of a sort, but it will be cold slop before you get 
 there if you ever get there at all. It's a mere chance 
 whether O'Hara turns up this afternoon.' 
 
 His forebodings in this respect were ill-founded. 
 O'Hara arrived while Sir Gerald was finishing his 
 first cup of tea. 
 
 * Sorry to have kept you waiting,' he said. 'But
 
 THE SEETHING POT 19 
 
 there's no hurry. Finish your tea. What have you 
 been doing ? Reading back numbers of The Critic ? 
 No? Well, I dare say you were right. The poor 
 Critic doesn't look like its old self a bit since Gamble 
 covered the outside pages with his beastly advertise- 
 ments.' 
 
 'I've been hearing your praises sung by your 
 staff,' said Sir Gerald. ' You seem to be an exception 
 to the rule about no man being a hero to his own 
 valet.' 
 
 ' Oh,' said O'Hara, 'he may praise me behind my 
 back. I wouldn't thank you for that sort of praise. 
 I like to be flattered to my face, and abused I 
 suppose we must all be abused sometimes when I'm 
 not there. Now, Gamble bullies me frightfully. He's 
 not content with disfiguring the poor Critic with 
 advertisements of soap and candles ' 
 
 ' Irish manufacture,' said Gamble apologetically. 
 
 ' I don't care if they were dug out of the Hill of 
 Tara,' said O'Hara, ' they're advertisements. But 
 that's not the worst of it. He objected the other day 
 to my printing the same article three weeks running.' 
 
 ' I did,' said Gamble firmly. ' No subscribers in 
 the world would stand it. Besides, there was that 
 poem business just before. Lots of people wrote to 
 complain.' 
 
 1 The poem,' said O'Hara, ' was an unfortunate 
 incident. I happened to be in a particularly bad 
 temper when I read it, so I published it with rather 
 cutting comments of my own. When I read it in 
 
 22
 
 $0 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 print, it struck me as rather good ; so I waited three 
 weeks, and then printed it again, and said that its 
 rhythm haunted me in my sleep. No one would ever 
 have supposed that it would be recognised. I never 
 knew before that poetry in papers was read by anyone 
 but the author.' 
 
 Jim Tynan's pictures were exhibited in a rather 
 gloomy room which you reach from the street by 
 descending a dark and steeply sloping passage. About 
 twenty people were congregated round a tea-table at 
 one end. They all seemed to be intimate friends. 
 The general public had not patronized the show. 
 
 -'Dublin,' said O'Hara, 'is a miserable place for an 
 artist. Poor Tynan won't take a ten-pound note out 
 of the whole city. You see, the only people here who 
 have money are the officials who draw good salaries 
 for muddling the affairs of the country. Their artistic 
 needs are satisfied with coloured photographs of Frank 
 Dicksee's pictures, done up in black-reeded frames. 
 This sort of thing doesn't appeal to them.' 
 
 It didn't appeal much at first to Sir Gerald. The 
 pictures struck him as only half finished. Gradually, 
 however, he began to feel their suggestion of reality. 
 He paused to look at a series of sketches labelled 
 'Country Types.' There was 'His Reverence' in a 
 greasy coat, fat and benevolent, with beady eyes. 
 Then came 'The Agent,' with a suggestion of the 
 militia about his figure, and a hunting-crop in his 
 hand. Next him was 'The Farmer,' a slouching figure 
 with outstretched face and deprecating eyes.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 2i 
 
 ' I sketched those in county Sligo last summer,' said 
 a gentle voice. 
 
 Sir Gerald turned, and saw a lanky boy in a dirty 
 collar with an appealingly tender smile. 
 
 'Are you Mr. Tynan the artist ?' he asked, surprised. 
 
 ' I really am,' said the boy ; and Sir Gerald forgot 
 the figure, and the dirt of the collar, and fell to 
 wondering at the smile and the beautiful dark blue 
 eyes, which seemed to have eternity in them. 
 
 ' Come,' said the artist, ' I will show you something 
 better worth looking at than these.' 
 
 He led the way to a picture which hung by itself 
 near the door. In the foreground were two great- 
 dogs, Irish wolf-hounds, whose jaws dropped red. 
 Behind there was the nude figure of a man viewed 
 from the back. The light fell strongly on the left 
 foot and leg, which were splashed with red. Sir 
 Gerald realized that it was blood which dripped from 
 the dogs' jaws and coloured the man's flesh. There 
 was a dim suggestion of a human body, mangled and 
 torn, in the background. 
 
 ' We Catholics,' said the artist, 'are supposed never 
 to read our Bibles, but that is a Scriptural subject. 
 Do you remember how it says in the Psalms, " That 
 thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, 
 and the tongue of thy dogs may be red through tha 
 same " ?' 
 
 Sir Gerald gazed at it. 
 
 4 1 don't understand it,' he said at last. ' I like the 
 Irish ones best.'
 
 22 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 ' Ah !' said the artist, ' perhaps you are right. But 
 all my work is Irish, this as well as the rest national 
 in sentiment, I mean.' 
 
 'But surely your conception of that bloodthirsty 
 verse has nothing to do with Irish feelings.' 
 
 ' I imagine,' said the artist, ' that we Irish have felt 
 that way sometimes hi the past. Perhaps we do still, 
 now and then.' 
 
 Sir Gerald turned from the pictures and looked at 
 him. The same pathetically tender smile lurked on 
 his lips. His eyes still suggested nothing but mystical 
 religion. O'Hara bustled up, and Tynan effaced him- 
 self quietly in the background. 
 
 ' I see you are studying Ireland,' said the editor, 
 'under the guidance of Mr. Tynan. But come, I 
 want to get you a cup of tea and to introduce you 
 to another distinguished Irishman, Mr. Browne 
 Dennis Browne, the poet. I am sure you know his 
 name.' 
 
 ' Dennis Browne !' said Sir Gerald. ' I know his 
 reputation, of course ; but I thought he was English 
 by birth and French by choice. Is he an Irishman ?' 
 
 'You had better not let him hear you doubt it,' 
 said O'Hara. ' After trying to live in Paris and 
 London, he has come to the conclusion that Dublin 
 is the only city not wholly given over to the bour- 
 geoisie. The divine spark, he says, still smoulders in 
 the Celt, and he has undertaken to fan it to a flame.' 
 
 ' Dear me !' said Sir Gerald. ' Will the Irish people 
 appreciate his kind of writing ? I thought '
 
 THE SEETHING POT 23 
 
 ' Oh,' said O'Hara, ' I understand what you mean ; 
 but he has dropped that kind of thing, more or less 
 at least, in his writings. Besides, you know, he really 
 does belong to a fine old Irish family. They have 
 been rebels for generations. They say his grand- 
 father was the first man to welcome Humbert when 
 he landed with the French hi Killala in '98.' 
 
 The famous poet stood near the tea-table surrounded 
 by a group of admiring ladies. It was noticeable that 
 Dennis Browne's audience was generally composed of 
 women. Either the coarser minds of men were unable 
 to appreciate the subtleties of his conversation, or he 
 did not care to put forth his powers for their benefit. 
 Nor did all women care to listen to him. Matrons, 
 without assigning any reason, avoided him as far as 
 possible, and kept their daughters out of his way. On 
 the present occasion his admirers were all spinsters of 
 an age which enabled them to claim their independence. 
 He received Sir Gerald very graciously. 
 
 ' I heard you were coming over to Ireland,' he said. 
 ' I have a little property down in the west, near yours. 
 I have never been there myself, but I get all the local 
 gossip from my agent. You are quite right to come 
 and live here. Ireland is the only country for a man 
 with a soul. We breathe freely in a Celtic atmo- 
 sphere. By the way I am sure you have not noticed 
 it the one drawback to Ireland is that the people 
 can't cook. I don't suppose you have eaten a decent 
 meal since you landed.' 
 
 Sir Gerald was conscious of having thoroughly
 
 24 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 enjoyed his dinner at the Shelbourne the night 
 before. 
 
 ' Really,' he said, ' I've been such a short time here, 
 I am hardly in a position to judge.' 
 
 ' You'll find out the truth of what I tell you,' said 
 Browne. ' Why, only last night my cook sent me up 
 what she said was an omelet. I called it an outrage. 
 I sent for her and explained my views on omelets and 
 on her powers as a cook. She became hysterical, and 
 complained that my language was violent. She brought 
 in a policeman to protect her " from talk the like of 
 which no decent girl could be expected to listen to !" 
 I told the policeman that the omelet was one which 
 no decent man could be expected to eat. I asked him 
 to try it himself, and then say whether my language, 
 or indeed any language, was not entirely justifiable.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Sir Gerald, whose sympathies were 
 with the cook, ' what happened next ?' 
 
 ' Nothing more happened,' said Browne. ' I rather 
 think the cook giggled. Anyhow, they both left, she 
 and the policeman, taking the outrage with them.' 
 
 The lady at the end of the table, who had been 
 watching her opportunity, offered Sir Gerald tea and 
 cake. Dennis Browne resumed what was apparently 
 a lecture to his female audience. 
 
 ' It is,' explained the lady, ' of his new play that he 
 is speaking.' 
 
 Apparently she wished to listen, so Sir Gerald 
 forbore any attempt at conversation with her. 
 
 ' The greatest difficulty,' the poet was saying, ' with
 
 THE SEETHING POT 25 
 
 which we have to contend in representing the Celtic 
 heroic legends on the modern stage is the matter of 
 costume. The ladies of the Red Branch epoch cer- 
 tainly never wore certain garments now considered 
 quite indispensable. The modern actress insists upon 
 wearing them. I fear an audience would be shocked 
 if they discovered she appeared without them. And 
 yet true art is necessarily realistic in these matters, 
 and refuses to be fettered by conventional ideas of 
 decency.' 
 
 Sir Gerald looked round the audience. The ladies 
 exhibited signs of a certain pleasurable embarrass- 
 ment, but were evidently anxious to hear the solution 
 of the difficulty. He felt himself unwilling to share 
 with them any further disclosures about the lingerie 
 of either ancient heroines or modern actresses, and 
 turned with a commonplace remark to the lady 
 who had given him tea. She was in no mood for 
 exchanging platitudes with a stranger when she might 
 be drinking in theories of art from the lips of a poet. 
 So Sir Gerald found himself hurriedly introduced to 
 a stout man who stood outside the tea-table group. 
 O'Hara explained to him who his new acquaintance 
 was. 
 
 ' Mr. Donovan,' he said, ' is one of our greatest 
 Celtic scholars. He is deeply interested in the revival 
 of the Irish language.' 
 
 'Perhaps,' said Sir Gerald, with an effort to be 
 civil, ' you have been helping Mr. Browne with his 
 new play.'
 
 26 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 ' Certainly not/ said Donovan. ' I shall never 
 willingly assist in the defilement of our heroic 
 literature by the introduction into its stories of the 
 spirit of French decadent poets of the school of Paul 
 Verlaine.' 
 
 Sir Gerald felt he had blundered, and was casting 
 about for a fresh subject, when Donovan began again : 
 
 ' I said I should never willingly help Mr. Browne in 
 his work,' he said, with a harsh laugh. ' It has been 
 my misfortune to very materially assist him against 
 my will. His new play is plagiarized deliberately 
 and shamelessly plagiarized without acknowledgment 
 from one which I wrote myself in Irish, and 
 intended to have acted by a company of Irish-speak- 
 ing peasants, trained specially for the purpose.' 
 
 'You interest me immensely,' said Sir Gerald. 
 ' Can you get an audience willing to listen to a play in 
 Irish?' 
 
 ' We can even here in Dublin. But my hope is 
 that in the future Irish literature and Irish plays 
 will spread to every village where Irish is the spoken 
 language. Our movement makes its appeal to the 
 peasantry. The educated classes are beyond hope. 
 We are building up a new Ireland from the cabins of 
 Connaught and the children of the National Schools.' 
 
 Sir Gerald caught a note of genuine enthusiasm in 
 the voice of the man, now that he had passed away 
 from his grievance against Dennis Browne. 
 
 * But tell me,' he said ' I am not asking in any 
 critical spirit what is the use of reviving a language
 
 THE SEETHING POT 27 
 
 which, in the natural course of events, would be dead 
 in the course of the next ten years ?' 
 
 O'Hara laughed, and it was he who answered 
 ' Mr. Donovan hopes to make it more and more diffi- 
 cult for Englishmen to live in our country. Last 
 summer I was down in a little town in the west where 
 the names of the streets are posted up in Irish. It 
 was a positive treat to see a touring cyclist obviously 
 a Sassenach gaping up at them." 
 
 ' Don't take Mr. O'Hara too seriously,' said Donovan. 
 'After all, hospitality is one of our virtues. What 
 we really feel is that we can't allow our nationality to 
 be merged in that of England. We mean to maintain 
 our individuality amongst nations. But how can a 
 nation exist without its language ? If we adopt the 
 speech of our conquerors, we shall adopt along with it 
 their thought and their ideals." 
 
 ' But,' said Sir Gerald, ' isn't it almost too late now 
 to revive the language ?' 
 
 ' Almost, yes, but not quite. After the passing of 
 another generation it would have been hopeless. Now 
 we have just a chance, and everything ought to be 
 sacrificed to taking advantage of it. I'm no politician, 
 and, as far as religion goes, I am only a very luke- 
 warm Protestant. If I could, I would smother every 
 political and religious controversy until the people 
 who take part in them are able to say what they want 
 to say in their own proper tongue.' 
 
 Sir Gerald walked back to his hotel puzzled and 
 dissatisfied. His glimpse of the intellect of Ireland
 
 28 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 if, indeed, it was the intellect of Ireland to which he 
 had been introduced was not inspiring. Dennis 
 Browne he disliked. .The man struck him as a 
 ' poseur ' ; his writings he knew to be morbidly dis- 
 gusting, and only the more dangerous because they 
 were touched with genius. Donovan seemed to be an 
 enthusiast spending himself in a cause foredoomed to 
 failure. 
 
 His plaoe at dinner that night was reserved for him 
 next a party consisting of an elderly gentleman, a 
 girl apparently his daughter and a younger man, 
 whom they greeted by his Christian name when he 
 joined them at table. The girl was beautifully 
 dressed ; her rings and her necklace sparkled as she 
 moved. She held herself confidently, and threw her 
 laughter back in return for what the man said to her, 
 as if she knew that admiration was her simple right. 
 The attitudes and manners of the whole three told of a 
 conviction that life was good, and that the best part 
 of what was pleasant in it belonged, and ought to 
 belong, to them. They were Irish people, for they 
 spoke of hunting during the winter in places which 
 bore Irish names, and of race-meetings at famous 
 Irish courses. The young man told a story of an 
 effort made by some ' blackguards belonging to the 
 League ' to stop the hunting near his place. The 
 elder man replied with a bitter scoff at a political 
 agitator, one Michael McCarty, whom he had helped 
 to send to a well-deserved period of hard labour in 
 gaol. The girl laughed.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 29 
 
 1 Do you remember,' she said, ' how old Lady 
 Louisa used to speak of them as the "canaille"? 
 It's just what they are.' 
 
 Sir Gerald felt that these people belonged to a 
 different world from that of the men and women 
 whom he had met in the afternoon. They repre- 
 sented the class that O'Hara had said ought to be 
 leading the people. What folly it seemed to think 
 such a thing possible ! 
 
 He remembered, with a sensation of pleasure which 
 surprised him, that he, too, belonged to this class 
 belonged to it by right of birth and wealth and station. 
 In the future he might find himself beside this brilliant 
 girl, might watch her smile when he spoke to her. 
 It had been among these people, or those like them, 
 that his father had moved. He had, perhaps, known 
 the old man in his boyhood had, it might be, laughed 
 with old Lady Louisa when she flashed like the girl 
 who quoted her. And his father had given it all up 
 and gone out to the others, the people, the ' canaille ' 
 no doubt the word had been in vogue in those days. 
 What had Lady Louisa thought or said of him ? 
 Certainly his father had attempted to lead the people ; 
 ineffectually, perhaps, but even his attempt made the 
 thing seem possible. Perhaps, after all, O'Hara was 
 not so foolish as he seemed. Voices which cry in the 
 wilderness are heard sometimes by those whose hearts 
 drive them out to seek for more than a man clothed 
 in soft raiment.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE journey from Dublin to the western sea- coast is 
 not one to move the lover of picturesque scenery to 
 enthusiasm. The carefully-tilled farms of Kildare and 
 the broad grazing-lands of Westmeath suggest comfort 
 and moderate prosperity. Mullingar, seen from the 
 train, seems a fourth-rate Irish town, squalid, of 
 course, but not squalid enough to be deemed char- 
 acteristic of the country. Even the Shannon at 
 Athlone fails to be impressive. The lazy stream, 
 broadening from the railway-bridge northwards to 
 Lough Ree, does not help the sentimental student of 
 history to realize the day when -Ginkel's soldiers 
 caught the Irish officers feasting, and forced their way 
 across it. The pettily pretentious meeting-house of 
 some Dissenting sect catches and holds the eye of him 
 who tries to conjure up a vision of Sarsfield's troopers 
 riding up the banks. It is indeed something to feel, 
 as the train slows down into Athlone, that a certain 
 boundary is passed, and that Connaught is reached. 
 This is the land which Cromwell thought so ill of that 
 it seemed to him indifferent whether the vanquished 
 
 80
 
 THE SEETHING POT 31 
 
 Celt went to hell or Connaught. This is the land 
 whose spirit Davis rated so highly that he wrote : 
 
 4 The West's asleep, the West's asleep 
 Alas ! and well may Erin weep, 
 When Connaught lies in slumber deep.* 
 
 Henceforward the country grows, if not beautiful, 
 at least deeply interesting. The train crawls more 
 and more slowly through Roscommon and across 
 Mayo. The traveller can study in detail tracts 
 of bog, patched with bright green fields or black 
 ploughed land. Farmhouses have disappeared, and 
 their place is taken by thatched cabins, with lean 
 small cattle and barelegged children round their doors. 
 The stoppages become more frequent. From every 
 station little huddled towns are to be seen, each a 
 shade shabbier than its sister next on the east. The 
 spires and towers and walls of great garish churches 
 overtop and dwarf the houses. Featureless ranges of 
 convent buildings have seized the vantage-ground of 
 neighbouring hills. The church has dominated these 
 towns, but not, as sometimes in England, where a 
 minster looks down like a venerable mother upon 
 the streets beneath. Here the ecclesiastical buildings 
 are obtrusive, self-assertive, new. Bedraggled houses 
 cluster round them, less, it seems, because they love 
 them than from a desire to share a spurious smartness. 
 On every platform there congregate similar groups of 
 cattle-jobbers and small farmers clad in meanly-made 
 shop-clothes. Very rarely among them there is some 
 older man who still wears the rough gray frieze. The
 
 32 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 women as they pass reek of sour turf smoke. Men 
 and women alike have still the cowed look on their 
 faces which is their inheritance from the generations 
 that England really ruled. The inevitable police- 
 man who stands by to see the train arrive and leave 
 is a kind of symbol that Ireland is still held by a 
 garrison. 
 
 To Sir Gerald the whole journey was intensely 
 interesting. He formulated no impressions of what 
 he saw, but he felt that in the west far more than in 
 Dublin he actually touched Ireland. The tones of the 
 ^ople's voices, the shapes of the fields, and cabins, 
 tne very air he breathed, seemed possible nowhere but 
 in Ireland. When the train at last struggled wearily 
 into Clogher Station, he strained his head out of the 
 carriage window, like a schoolboy coming home, for a 
 first glimpse of the place he already felt he loved. 
 
 To his surprise, he saw that the platform was 
 crowded. As the train drew up a band struck up 
 ' God save Ireland,' and the people burst into a cheer. 
 Sir Gerald observed a little group of black-coated 
 men who stood together and peered eagerly into the 
 windows of the passing carriages. It flashed across 
 his mind that the towns-people had come up to wel- 
 come him home. Evidently the men who stood in 
 front were members of some local body, of the Urban 
 Council or the Poor Law Guardians. He was immensely 
 touched and gratified. He had already began to con- 
 sider rapidly how he might best express his feelings, 
 when he heard himself addressed :
 
 THE SEETHING POT 3g 
 
 * Sir Gerald Geoghegan, I presume.' 
 
 The speaker was a tall, elderly man, unmistakably 
 a gentleman, dressed in a well-fitting tweed suit, witfe 
 tight brown gaiters round his legs. 
 
 'Yes,' said Sir Gerald, who was watching the crow 
 gather round a carriage near the end of a train. 
 
 ' So I guessed. I am Mr. Godfrey, your agent. 
 Have you many traps ? I have the carriage outside. 
 Shall we go over to it at once, and send for the luggage 
 afterwards ?' 
 
 Mr. Godfrey seemed hurried and a little anxious. 
 
 'But,' said Sir Gerald, ' ought I not to say some- 
 thing to these people ? I hardly like to run away lika 
 this when they have come up to meet me.' 
 
 Mr. Godfrey stared at him. Then slowly the ghost 
 of a smile flickered across his lips. 
 
 ' Good Lord !' he said slowly. 
 
 Sir Gerald did not hear him. He was watching 
 the crowd. A young man had mounted on a porter's 
 barrow, and was making a speech. Sir Gerald could 
 not hear what he said, but he saw the crowd gathering 
 round him. The band stopped playing and joined the 
 people round the speaker. 
 
 Mr. Godfrey took him by the arm. 
 
 ' It's not you they've come to meet, but Michael 
 McCarty, who's just got out of prison. Come on.' 
 
 ' Wait a moment,' said Sir Gerald. He saw the 
 speaker stretch out his arm and point to where he 
 and Mr. Godfrey were standing. The crowd turned 
 their faces towards him. Suddenly a shrill-voiced 
 
 3
 
 84 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 woman shrieked out something he could not catch, 
 and shook her fist at him. The crowd groaned 
 loudly. Then he heard curses shouted by the men. 
 Mr. Godfrey glanced quickly at a smart young police- 
 officer who stood with about twenty of his men 
 watching the crowd. 
 
 ' Come along,' he said. ' Let's get out of this. 
 There'll only be trouble if we stay. I'll explain any- 
 thing you want to know when we get into the carriage.' 
 
 They crossed the line and passed through the gate 
 of the station. The road was blocked by two great 
 brakes and a dozen or more cars. The carriage stood 
 at some distance, unable to approach the station. 
 
 Mr. Godfrey singled out the driver of one of the 
 brakes. 
 
 ' Pull your horses out of that,' he said. > What 
 the mischief do you mean by blocking up the whole 
 road ! Do you suppose we're going to wade through 
 the mud to please you ?' 
 
 The man looked for a moment as though he 
 resented the order. Then he pulled at his reins and 
 shouted to a boy who stood near him : 
 
 ' Catch the mare by the head, can't you, Patsey ? 
 Don't you see Mr. Godfrey and the gentleman stand- 
 ing there?' And then to Mr. Godfrey, touching his 
 hat as he spoke : ' Your honour won't think I was 
 meanin' to interfere with the carriage ?' 
 
 As soon as they had got clear of the station and 
 were driving down the street, Mr. Godfrey's anxiety 
 disappeared. He leant back and chuckled quietly.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 35 
 
 ' You'll excuse my laughing,' he said. ' Keally 
 the whole thing was extremely funny. Fancy your 
 thinking ' 
 
 Sir Gerald, who failed to see any joke in the scene 
 at the railway-station, interrupted him. 
 
 ' Who is Michael McCarty ?' he asked, ' and why 
 should they welcome him ?' 
 
 ' Oh,' said Mr. Godfrey, ' of course you can't under- 
 stand yet. Michael McCarty is M.P. for this division 
 of the county, one of John O'Neill's lambs, and a fine 
 specimen of the breed. He has spent the last two 
 months in Maryborough Gaol. His sentence was 
 three months with hard labour. I can't imagine why 
 he was let out too soon.' 
 
 ' What was he sentenced for ?' 
 
 ' Inciting to outrage at least, that's what they 
 called it. It happened just after the county was 
 proclaimed.' 
 
 ' But were there any outrages ?' asked Sir Gerald. 
 ' I didn't hear of any.' 
 
 ' No, I can't say there were,' said Mr. Godfrey ; 
 * but it wasn't McCarty's fault if there weren't. He 
 made violent speeches. You heard him yourself 
 to-day. That's the sort of thing they shut him 
 up for. I expect they'll be sorry now they let him 
 out.' 
 
 ' I couldn't hear what he was saying. What 
 was it ?' 
 
 ' I couldn't, either, but I can make a pretty good 
 guess that he was denouncing you and me princi- 
 
 32
 
 86 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 pally me, of course. I was probably represented as 
 your evil angel.' 
 
 Sir Gerald pondered this information for awhile, 
 and then asked : 
 
 ' Who was the woman who shouted at us ?' 
 
 ' That was the widow Henaghan. Her's is really a 
 funny story. I flatter myself I scored rather neatly 
 off John O'Neill over her. Last Christmas I had to 
 evict her from a wretched little mountainy farm away 
 beyond the bog. She owed six years' rent, and there 
 wasn't the remotest prospect of her ever being able to 
 pay anything. John O'Neill took the matter up, and 
 wrote letters to some of the English radical papers. I 
 remember he called me " a sinister Santa Glaus." He 
 drew a harrowing picture of ^ the widow sitting in a 
 snowdrift trying to suckle her child from a breast 
 shrunk with starvation. It was exceedingly pretty 
 and effective, only there hadn't been any snow, and 
 Mrs. Henaghan's husband is dead these eight years. 
 As a matter of fact, her youngest child is a well-grown 
 \ boy of ten or thereabouts. I replied to Mr. O'Neill, 
 : and asked him what he meant by taking away a 
 
 respectable woman's character in such a way.' 
 ! ' Well ?' said Sir Gerald. 
 
 'That's all,' said Mr. Godfrey. 'John O'Neill 
 stopped writing letters on that subject.' 
 
 ' But the woman ?' asked Sir Gerald. 
 
 ' Oh, the woman ! I would have been glad enough 
 to help her a bit, but she wouldn't take money from 
 me. She insisted on making rows, and has spent
 
 THE SEETHING POT 37 
 
 most of her time in prison since for breaches of the 
 peace.' 
 
 The town of Clogher consists mainly of one long 
 street, which runs straight to the gates of Sir Gerald's 
 demesne. At one end stands the Koman Catholic 
 church, obtrusively raw and remarkable, even among 
 Irish Eoman Catholic churches, for the peculiar 
 hideousness of its architecture. It is much to be 
 desired that the authorities of Maynooth College 
 would appoint a Professor of Ecclesiastical Art We 
 might then hope to hear some Archbishop launch an 
 excommunication against the architects who design 
 these buildings. It cannot but be subversive of the 
 faith and morals of a people to be obliged every day 
 to look at edifices of which even an English church- 
 warden, bent on restoration, would be ashamed. At 
 the other end of the street, on a patch of ground cut 
 out of the demesne, stands the fane of the Church of 
 Ireland. It has turned its back deliberately, even 
 ostentatiously, on the town. Within the locked gates 
 that lead to it, the gravel walk is smoothly raked, and 
 the grass on the graves trim and tidy. The edifice 
 itself is decent, according to the conception of the old 
 Ecclesiastical Commissioners. Compared to its newer 
 and wealthier rival, it has the prim air of a decayed 
 gentlewoman in the presence of some self-assertive 
 noureau riche. Two banks, a court-house, and a work- 
 house make up the rest of Clogher's public buildings. 
 
 The demesne gates stood wide open for the home- 
 coming of the new master. A respectful police
 
 38 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 pensioner saluted the carriage as it passed, while his 
 wife and daughter peered from the gate-lodge windows 
 to catch a glimpse of Sir Gerald. 
 
 A long avenue, shaded with lime-trees, led to the 
 house. Cattle grazed at will on the rough grass on 
 either side of it. The house itself stood gray and 
 stiff above a broad artificial lake. Long rows of 
 windows promised ample room within. Two heraldic 
 eagles which perched against the skyline at the 
 corners of the long front witnessed to a certain 
 appreciation of pomp in some deceased Geoghegan. 
 
 ' The place isn't very tidy,' said Mr. Godfrey. ' Of 
 course, your poor cousin didn't mind. He rambled 
 about all day among the bullocks, which were the 
 only things he seemed to care for. I should think 
 you'll want to make some sort of lawn, and not have 
 them grazing right up to your steps.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Sir Gerald, ' we must try to improve 
 things a bit. I suppose there are some servants in 
 the house.' 
 
 ' Old Jameson and his wife are there. He was 
 your uncle's butler, and she was the cook. I dare 
 say they'll make you pretty comfortable. I told 
 Mrs. Jameson some time ago to get a handy-looking 
 country girl and break her into housemaid work. Of 
 course, your cousin's personal servant his keeper, you 
 know, for that's what it came to left after he died.' 
 
 ' Will you come in and lunch with me ?' asked Sir 
 Gerald. ' I suppose they'll have something for us to 
 eat.'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 39 
 
 'I think not, thanks. I ought to look in at the 
 office before I go home. Besides, it would be a shame 
 to deprive old Jameson of the pleasure of showing you 
 over the house. He's always boasting that he remem- 
 bers your father.' 
 
 ' Really,' said Sir Gerald eagerly. ' I suppose 
 hardly anyone else does now ?' 
 
 ' I think not,' said Mr. Godfrey. And then quickly, 
 like a man who avoids an unpleasant subject : ' When 
 shall I see you in the office ? I don't want to bore 
 you with business when you will naturally wish to 
 explore your territory and get to feel at home, but 
 there are a lot of things that want to be looked into. 
 Your poor cousin's infirmity left a great deal of 
 responsibility on me, more than I care for.' 
 
 Mr. Godfrey walked back to the town. At the 
 demesne gate he met Canon Johnston, the Rector. 
 It would scarcely be true to say that the Canon was 
 lurking round the gate in the hope of meeting Mr. 
 Godfrey, but it was certainly a fortunate accident that 
 he had stopped to consult the police pensioner about 
 the condition of his bees. When he met Mr. Godfrey, 
 he was undisguisedly anxious to hear what kind of 
 man Sir Gerald was. 
 
 1 Well, Godfrey ?' he said after shaking hands. 
 
 Mr. Godfrey, who had a sense of humour, inquired 
 for Mrs. Johnston, and then for each of her six 
 children. The Canon pushed his way through his 
 family, and asked point-blank : 
 
 ' Has he arrived ? What do you think of him ?'
 
 *t> THE SEETHING POT 
 
 ' Who ?' asked Mr. Godfrey, with an innocent smile. 
 Then, remembering that a considerable portion of 
 the Rector's income and his chances of a quiet and 
 comfortable life depended on the character of the new 
 owner of the property, he took pity, and said : ' He 
 geems all right so far.' 
 
 ' He's not ' the Canon tapped his forehead ' like 
 that last man, is he ?' 
 
 ' Not the least, I should say,' said Mr. Godfrey. 
 Then he recollected Sir Gerald's sudden eagerness at 
 the mention of his father, and added : ' Any way, I 
 bope not. You never can be quite sure. They're a 
 queer family, you know. The last man was simply 
 an imbecile. His father was the sort of miser one 
 might well call a monomaniac, and this man's father 
 Was a rebel.' 
 
 ' I hope to goodness he's not going to take after 
 him,' said the Canon, so sincerely as to leave no doubt 
 4hat in his opinion both the imbecile and the miser 
 Were to be preferred to the Young Ireland leader. 
 
 ' I think he got a dose to start with,' said Mr. God- 
 frey. ' That ought to cure him of any leanings that 
 Way. McCarty came down in the same train, and 
 denounced him to his face before a crowd on the 
 platform.' 
 
 'Ah,' said the Canon, 'that will let him see what 
 those fellows are like !' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Mr. Godfrey ; ' and, oh, by the way, I 
 
 nearly forgot to tell you ' He launched into the 
 
 story of Sir Gerald's mistake. The Canon proved an 
 amused and sympathetic listener.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 MICHAEL MCCARTY was also escorted from the railway- 
 station to the town. The band went in front, filling 
 the first brake. They gave a jolty version of ' The 
 Bonny Banks of Lough Lomond ' as the horses 
 trotted down the hill. In the other brake sat the 
 emancipated member of Parliament, supported by the 
 chairmen of the Poor Law Guardians and the Urban 
 District Council, with as many members of their 
 boards as could succeed in squeezing themselves in. 
 The rest of the crowd followed in an irregular pro- 
 cession, some on cars and others on foot. Barefooted 
 enthusiasts ran beside the band and excited its 
 members to fresh exertions. 
 
 The whole cavalcade halted outside the Presbytery. 
 Father Tom Fahy and his curates stood bareheaded 
 on the pavement to offer their welcome. Father Fahy 
 had been but recently appointed administrator of the 
 parish. He came from a remote parish, and brought 
 with him a reputation as a politician. He was known 
 to the members of the League as ' Father Tom, the 
 patriot, God bless him !' Mr. Godfrey spoke of him 
 as a ' regular firebrand, the worst type of priest.' He 
 
 41
 
 42 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 shook McCarty warmly by the hand, and led him 
 into the Presbytery. A select number of the deputa- 
 tion of welcome followed with the curates. The whole 
 party assembled in the dining-room and ranged them- 
 selves uncomfortably against the walls. The centre 
 of the room was occupied by a table of hospitable size, 
 spread with a coarse cloth. Knives, forks, and spoons 
 of various patterns were arranged with a certain 
 freedom from conventionality. A shining red mahog- 
 any sideboard was covered with a great array of 
 drinkables. In the front stood six bottles, whose 
 gold-tinselled corks proclaimed them champagne. 
 Behind and beside them were ample decanters of 
 port and sherry. In the background, multiplied into 
 an apparently endless array by the sideboard's mirror, 
 stood John Jameson's whisky in the bottles of its 
 maker, unashamed. The walls of the room were 
 hung with garish prints, apparently designed to foster 
 the piety of those who shared the priest's hospitality. 
 Over the chimney-piece was an immense frame con- 
 taining small portraits of every Pope from the original 
 Linus down to Pius IX. 
 
 'Mary,' shouted Father Fahy cheerfully, 'make 
 haste, like a good girl, and bring in the dinner. Mr. 
 McCarty is starving.' 
 
 ' Did they give you a good breakfast before you left 
 this morning?' asked Mr. Walsh, the chairman of 
 the District Council. 
 
 The delicate suggestiveness of his wit drew forth a 
 hearty laugh, and raised a crowd of imitators.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 43 
 
 ' Was it bread and water they fed you on ?' asked 
 one. 
 
 ' They say the prison soup has mortal little flavour,' 
 added a Poor Law Guardian. 
 
 ' Faith, and it's yourself ought to be a judge of that 
 same!' said a curate. 'Didn't you taste the work- 
 house dinner after they said you were starving the 
 paupers ?' 
 
 Mary, hot-faced but smiling, pushed her way round 
 the table while the jest wore itself threadbare. She 
 deposited great joints of mutton at the head and foot. 
 Two hams and large dishes of potatoes were arranged 
 along the sides. The food steamed invitingly. Father 
 Fahy whetted his knife. 
 
 ' Will you eat your mutton roast or boiled, Mr. 
 McCarty? I recommend the boiled to you. Mary 
 knows how to do it to a turn, and I told McKeown to 
 give us the best meat he had for to-day.' 
 
 'Faith, and it's yourself knows how to choose a 
 joint, Father Fahy. I'll engage McKeown didn't 
 send the equal to that down to Sir Gerald to-day.' 
 
 ' It would be queer if he did. Who'd have a right 
 to the best if it wasn't the priest ?' 
 
 ' And the people's representative,' said Father 
 Fahy, ' the martyr to the cause. Gentlemen, what 
 will you drink ?' 
 
 The connection of thought seemed obvious to every- 
 one. In Ireland all ' causes ' create thirst. Even 
 temperance reformers recognise that enthusiasm re- 
 quires some liquid refreshment, and suggest tea.
 
 44 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 The younger of the two curates fetched over the 
 decanters and bottles. 
 
 ' I shall support the native article,' said McCarty, 
 laying hands on a bottle of whisky. 
 
 ' 'Deed, and you will not,' said Father Fahy ' not 
 to-day, anyhow. Nothing less than the fizz will serve 
 for you and me on this occasion.' 
 
 He wrestled with the wire of the cork, and at last 
 produced a satisfactory explosion. A large green 
 glass, of the kind out of which people once drank 
 hock, was filled for McCarty. Father Fahy quaffed 
 his own share without misgiving. He was no judge 
 of wine, and had bought this particular brand on the 
 strength of an advertisement which described it aa 
 ' a peculiar vintage.' Its character had been under- 
 stated. It was more than ' peculiar.' Quite possibly 
 it was unique. The majority of the guests stuck to 
 the whisky. 
 
 ' After all,' said Mr. Walsh, ' it's hard to beat ould 
 Ireland in the matter of drinks.' 
 
 ' I hear,' said Mr. James Duffy, locally known as 
 Sheid Amoch, or Blow-out, on account of his gift for 
 expansive oratory, ' that Canon Johnston has put the 
 R.M. up to opposing ould Biddy Halloran's application 
 for a license at the next sessions.' 
 
 ' More shame for him !' said Walsh. ' What does 
 he want to be spoiling an honest woman's chance of 
 earning a living for, and her a widow ?' 
 
 ' That's true, too,' said a local publican; 'but there's 
 a powerful lot of public-houses in the town already.'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 45 
 
 ' "Well, and isn't a public-house better than a 
 shebeen ?' said Sheid Amoch. ' I'ld be in favour 
 myself of letting a man sell drink as he likes, the 
 same as stockings. Them licenses is nothing but a 
 scheme for taking the money out of the country over 
 to England.' 
 
 The joints of mutton and the hams were after 
 awhile succeeded by large rhubarb tarts. These also 
 steamed. Indeed, Mary moved, as she brought in the 
 last of them, through an atmosphere calculated to 
 swell the beads of perspiration on her forehead. Fresh 
 bottles replaced those whose contents had disappeared. 
 Conversation became general and loud. Father Fahy 
 made a speech in proposing Mr. McCarty's health. 
 It differed from other speeches of its kind only in 
 being plentifully adorned with witticisms based on 
 prison-life. Mr. McCarty replied eloquently. In a 
 peroration he expressed his willingness to proceed, if 
 necessary, from the prison cell to the scaffold. He 
 closed by reminding his hearers, amid shouts of 
 applause, that ' the West was awake.' 
 
 One of the curates had opened a fourth bottle of 
 the ' peculiar vintage ' while McCarty spoke, and 
 proceeded, as he sat down, to replenish his glass. 
 McCarty put his hand over it. The curate persisted. 
 McCarty turned the glass upside down, a token of 
 determination to drink no more. 
 
 ' Go on, man,' said Father Fahy ; ' it won't harm 
 you. It's not every day a man comes out of prison.' 
 
 ' I've got to go and see Mr. O'Neill this afternoon,"
 
 46 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 he explained. 'I really think I'd better not have 
 another glass.' 
 
 ' Bedad, then, maybe you're right,' said Walsh. 
 ' O'Neill's a patriot, and a good one. I'ld be the last 
 man to say a word against him. But speaking 
 privately and we're all friends here if he has a 
 fault, it's his distrust of a drop of drink.' 
 
 ' I'll send you out on my car,' said Father Fahy, 
 ' if you must go. Come with me, and we'll tell the 
 boy to put to the mare.' 
 
 He led McCarty from the dining-room. 
 
 ' Mr. McCarty,' he said, when they got outside, 
 ' there's something I want to say to you. Things 
 have been going on a bit since you were away. John 
 O'Neill isn't quite as big a man as he used to be. You 
 understand me ?' 
 
 ' I do not,' said McCarty. 
 
 1 Well, I can't be saying too much,' said the priest ; 
 ' only, don't you sit down under his grand talk.' He 
 lowered his voice to a whisper : ' There's people that 
 aren't satisfied with John O'Neill.' 
 
 ' Well, I'm not one of them,' said McCarty. 
 
 ' I'm not saying I am, either,' said the priest. ' Only 
 just if I was a member of Parliament, I wouldn't let 
 myself be put upon and treated like a dog.' 
 
 ' I I don't know what you mean,' said McCarty. 
 ' I wouldn't let myself be bullied by John O'Neill any 
 more than another.' 
 
 The priest looked at him curiously. 'That's right,' 
 he said. ' Stand up to him.'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 47 
 
 John O'Neill lived about two miles from the town 
 of Clogher. His house nestled down to the shore of 
 one of the innumerable little inlets of the great bay. 
 At full tide the sea washed against the wall at the 
 bottom of the lawn. The windows, from which in 
 summer-time the final glory of the sunset might be 
 watched, were often crusted with sea-salt after a 
 stormy autumn night. The house itself was an un- 
 pretentious one. Originally it had been a ' lodge,' let 
 during the summer to tradesmen from inland towns 
 whose families sought for health in sea - bathing. 
 Since O'Neill had bought it, rooms had been added to 
 one side, .and then to the other, without much regard 
 to the external appearance of the whole. Here, in the 
 intervals of quiet which he snatched from his politics, 
 John O'Neill lived a lonely life. As the leader of 
 the National Parliamentary party he was cut off abso- 
 lutely from the society of the few gentry who lived in 
 the neighbourhood. Himself a gentleman and sprung 
 from an historic Irish family, he not only did not care 
 to cultivate, but deliberately avoided, social intimacy 
 with most of the men who followed his leading in the 
 House of Commons. His religion formed yet another 
 safeguard for his solitude, for he was a Protestant. 
 His own co-religionists hated him heartily. The 
 Pioman Catholic priesthood distrusted him even while 
 they supported his policy. 
 
 On the afternoon when Michael McCarty set out 
 from the priest's house to call on him, he was idling 
 in a deep chair in his study with a French translation
 
 48 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 of one of Gabriele d'Annunzio's novels. A pipe and a 
 litter of tobacco-ashes lay on the table beside him. 
 Two or three newspapers and magazines were strewed 
 on the floor. His broad writing-table in its corner 
 was covered with a confused mass of papers. His 
 listless attitude suggested nothing of the boundless 
 energy and force which had made him the unques- 
 tioned leader of a great party, the dictator of a nation's 
 policy. His face, especially his eyes, proclaimed a 
 strength of character, but not the kind of strength 
 which is likely to capture the imaginative loyalty of 
 the Celt. John O'Neill was a puzzle to his enemies 
 and friends alike. He indulged in no sunbursts of 
 oratory at political meetings. He spoke rarely, and 
 then not effectively, in the House of Commons. It 
 was suspected that he planned and engineered the 
 ' scenes in the House ' over which the English press 
 raged impotently, but he took no active part in them. 
 No member of the party possessed his confidence, nor 
 was it easy to see that any great principle guided his 
 moves upon the political chessboard. At critical times 
 he received with equal indifference the bids which the 
 two great English parties made for his support. It 
 was rumoured amongst his supporters that he had once 
 said to a Prime Minister : ' I have no objection what- 
 ever to selling my eighty votes to you for any pur- 
 pose, good or bad, but I must have my price.' John 
 O'Neill's price was an independent Parliament for 
 Ireland, and no English Minister had as yet succeeded 
 in persuading his party to pay it.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 49 
 
 Michael McCarty's courage, born of the priest's 
 champagne and the priest's advice, oozed quietly 
 away as he entered his chief's room. O'Neill made 
 no pretence of politeness to his follower. He neither 
 rose from his chair nor offered to shake hands. 
 
 ' So that's you, McCarty,' he said. ' Take a chair.' 
 
 McCarty dragged one a few feet from the wall it 
 stood against and sat down. 
 
 ' They've let you out of Maryborough Gaol before 
 your time's up,' continued O'Neill. ' I dare say you're 
 not sorry. Three months in prison now isn't so 
 pleasant as it used to be. This new plan of giving 
 you hard labour rather spoils the little holiday, I 
 expect. How did you like it?' 
 
 ' I was pretty well treated,' said McCarty. ' They 
 didn't expect me to do much work.' 
 
 ' How did you put in your time ?' asked O'Neill. 
 * Did you sit in a cell and twiddle your thumbs ? I 
 suppose they didn't let you have the newspapers.' 
 
 ' No,' said McCarty ; ' but I got books. I tried to 
 make the best use I could of them. You know I had 
 little or no education, only what I got at a national 
 school. I tried to learn a little Latin in the gaol.' 
 
 ' Good Lord !' said O'Neill. ' What for ?' 
 
 'I suppose you'll only laugh at me,' said McCarty, 
 ' but I've always felt rny want of education. They 
 say knowledge is power.' 
 
 ' That saying,' said O'Neill, ' is a ridiculous lie. 
 No man is so helpless as the man who knows a iot 
 of things.' 
 
 4
 
 50 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 ' But,' said McCarty, looking round at the crowded 
 bookshelves, ' you must read a good deal.' 
 
 * I read,' said O'Neill, ' to amuse myself. No dne, 
 except a few silly young women, read for any other 
 purpose. I see you looking at my books. Do you 
 know what they are ? There are a couple of shelves 
 of political economy great nonsense, all of it. What's 
 true in that science any fool can see for himself 
 without a book, and the rest no one but a fool would 
 read. There are a couple of dozen volumes of poetry. 
 Every other book in the room is a novel. Some are 
 amusing, some aren't. I dare say your mother could 
 tell you just as good stones if you would listen to her.' 
 
 McCarty looked at him pathetically. He had 
 struggled hard at his Latin grammar. It was cruel 
 now to have his ideal of knowledge and power shat- 
 tered. He had a peasant's reverence for a printed 
 book of any kind. He could not understand how his 
 mother's rambling traditions could be of value as com- 
 pared, for instance, to the matter in a strange tongue 
 that lay open beside O'Neill. 
 
 ' Then, you think it's no use my trying to educate 
 myself,' he said. ' I hoped ' 
 
 ' Not the least bit in the world,' said O'Neill. 
 ' Read the newspapers. Everything that's worth 
 reading is in them. By the way, now you're home 
 again, what do you mean to do with yourself ? There 
 is no use our going over to Westminster this summer, 
 and there'll be no autumn session. I advise you take 
 a holiday.'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 51 
 
 McCarty looked round him again. A pleasant fire 
 burnt in the grate, though the May sun was shining 
 outside. There was a soft carpet under his feet, and 
 an atmosphere of what seemed luxury around him. 
 His thoughts flew back to the cabin where his mother 
 lived. He remembered that hens pecked about the 
 earthen floor of the kitchen, that great pots of turnips, 
 boiled for the pigs, reeked in the corners. The mouldy 
 rooms of hotels in country towns seemed abodes of 
 comfort to him when he was on a political tour. A 
 holiday, he felt, was one thing to John O'Neill, 
 another thing to him. Perhaps O'Neill understood 
 something of what was passing in his mind, for he 
 said : 
 
 ' Take a turn on the farm this year a little hay- 
 making and turf-cutting. It'll do you all the good in 
 the world. You're not the man to be ashamed of the 
 home where you were reared.' 
 
 'I'm not ashamed/ said McCarty; 'I love every 
 sod of the old place ; but but well, I thought of 
 getting up a few meetings, rousing up the boys in the 
 League, and putting a little life into the agitation.' 
 
 ' Now, that is just exactly the thing you're not to do. 
 I want no agitation here at present. If speeches are 
 going to burst out of you in spite of yourself, you 
 must go a good way off, down to Kerry or Donegal or 
 somewhere, but you mustn't blow them off here.' 
 
 ' I'm sorry,' said McCarty. 'I thought and, 
 besides, I've ' 
 
 ' You haven't surely made a speech already ?' 
 
 42
 
 52 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 1 Not a speech,' said McCarty. ' Just a few words 
 at the railway-station. There was a deputation to 
 meet me.' 
 
 "What did you say ?' 
 
 ' I don't exactly remember. The new landlord, Sir 
 Gerald, you know, came down in the same train ' 
 
 ' That'll do,' said O'Neill. ' You denounced him, 
 of course. That's just the kind of idiotic thing you 
 would do. But," he added more kindly, ' I mustn't 
 blame you. It was my own fault. I ought to have 
 warned you beforehand not to do it. But no more of 
 it. I'll give you plenty of talking to do next spring in 
 Westminster. Just keep quiet now for a while. And 
 look here : if you really want to read, take any of my 
 books you like. They're totally useless, of course, but 
 they amused me more or less, and it's just possible 
 they might amuse you.' 
 
 McCarty refused the offer. 
 
 * Well,' said O'Neill, ' I suppose you are wanting to 
 get home to see your mother. Good-bye. I'm glad 
 you came to see me at once.' 
 
 It did not seem to occur to O'Neill to offer his 
 follower even the limited hospitality of a cup of tea, 
 but as soon as McCarty left he went into the drawing- 
 room to look for some. His wife was busy over some 
 account-books when he entered. She was a pale, 
 faded little woman with gentle eyes, the kind of 
 woman who would have rejoiced in motherhood. 
 Being childless, she devoted herself to charity. So 
 teal and so unpretentious were her good works that
 
 THE SEETHING POT 5$ 
 
 even her husband's political opponents, men that 
 would not willingly have admitted the good points of 
 a dog belonging to John O'Neill, were so far charitable 
 as to express their regrets that ' the poor little woman 
 should be tied to a scoundrel like O'Neill.' In reality, 
 this pity was entirely wasted, and their estimate ol 
 Mrs. O'Neill's position and character wrong. She wae 
 not ' a poor little woman,' but one of those fortunate 
 ones who had won and kept the love and confidence of 
 a husband. No one would have guessed by looking at 
 her that John O'Neill, who scorned the world's judg- 
 ment of his conduct, respected hers, and, even where 
 he would not yield to her, listened carefully to what 
 she had to say. She alone enjoyed his confidence, 
 and, what she valued yet more, she alone ever saw 
 that other ' soul- side ' which a man shows to a woma? 
 when he loves her. 
 
 O'Neill crossed the room very quietly and kissed 
 her. 
 
 ' John,' she said, ' don't be silly. You've inter- 
 rupted me.' 
 
 ' What are you doing ?' he said. ' Some of your 
 charity accounts? You know, Lucy, you'll have ug 
 ruined with all you give away. Stop now, anyhow, 
 and let's have tea. It must be five o'clock, and I'm 
 thirsty with talking to a fool.' 
 
 ' I saw you had a visitor,' she said. ' Was it that 
 young man who has just got out of prison ?' 
 
 ' Yes, 1 said O'Neill, ' and a precious ass he's made 
 of himself since he got loose.'
 
 54 THE SEETHING TOT 
 
 ' I wish,' said his wife, ' you'd try and be more 
 what shall I say? more sympathetic with these 
 people. No men living will stand being treated the 
 way you treat them. Some day they'll turn on you.' 
 
 ' You're wrong there, Lucy at least, I think you're 
 wrong. You don't understand the Celt. He's not a 
 man to reason with or persuade. He requires a 
 master, someone to stand over him with a whip. If I 
 didn't bully him, someone else would. Probably he'ld 
 lie down on his back and ask his priest to walk on 
 him.' 
 
 ' Exactly,' said Mrs. O'Neill ; ' but you forget that 
 his priest has a sort of right to walk on him, and you 
 haven't. Take care he doesn't find that out. But 
 what about this particular Celt ? How did he make 
 an ass of himself ?' 
 
 ' He made a speech,' said O'Neill, ' just the one 
 particular kind of speech I didn't want made here at 
 present. Did you hear that Sir Gerald Geoghegan 
 arrived here to-day ?' 
 
 ' No,' said his wife. ' But go on about the speech.' 
 
 ' I'm going on,' said O'Neill. ' I can't go any 
 faster. Well, McCarty came in the same train. A 
 lot of Poor Law Guardians, and people of that sort, 
 went up to meet him, and the young fool went and 
 made a speech abusing Sir Gerald to his face before 
 he'd been ten minutes in the town.' 
 
 ' Surely you're not really expecting to win over 
 that young man ?' 
 
 ' I mean to have a try. I shall go and call on him.'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 55 
 
 Mrs. O'Neill was painfully conscious oi the con- 
 dition of social ostracism in which they lived. She 
 Buffered from it for her own sake, and yet more, 
 perhaps, for her husband's. 
 
 ' I wish you wouldn't,' she said ; ' you'll only throw 
 yourself open to a fresh snub.' 
 
 ' Lucy,' he said, ' you don't know what it is for me 
 to be the leader of a party like mine. When they talk 
 about my band of hired gladiators, and throw it in 
 my teeth that I'm financing an agitation with the 
 wages of New York servant-girls, I feel as if I would 
 do anything almost to have just one man of position 
 and property on my side. If there was the faintest 
 chance that the gentry of the country would ever do 
 anything else than lick the boots of Englishmen, I'ld 
 chuck up this wretched land agitation to-morrow. 
 But they won't. I know them. They care nothing 
 about Ireland. They'ld see her turned into an 
 English shire to-morrow without an effort to help 
 her, if they could only make sure of getting their 
 beggarly rents. But this young man is different, 
 Lucy at least, he ought to be different.' 
 
 ' Because of his father, you mean ?' 
 
 ' Yes,' said O'Neill ; ' he must know what his father 
 did in '48. The blood's in him the good fighting 
 Irish blood. It's worth trying. I might get him,' 
 
 Mrs. O'Neill sighed. 
 
 'It's a poor chance, John, and I'm afraid you'll 
 suffer.' 
 
 ' Don't be so solemn over it,' he said. ' Wake up,
 
 56 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 and let us make plans crafty, diabolical plans for 
 snaring the young man's soul. What would you say 
 if I put on a top-hat and go to church with you next 
 Sunday?' 
 
 ' I wish you would.' 
 
 ' Oh, I'll only go in the worst possible spirit. Last 
 time I went, you know, Canon Johnston compared me 
 to Judas Iscariot. You can't expect a man to go in a 
 Christian spirit to listen to politics grafted into the 
 New Testament.' 
 
 ' He's quite given up political sermons lately,' said 
 Mrs. O'Neill. 'He has started off at the Book of 
 Genesis. I gave up listening after the first sermon 
 on the subject, but I know he said something about 
 its being a mosaic of ancient fragments.' 
 
 ' That sounds pretty safe,' said O'Neill. ' I think 
 I'll venture. He can hardly work me into the higher 
 criticism of the Book of Genesis, though, indeed, if 
 he knew I came in the hopes of seducing young Sir 
 Gerald from the true political fold, he might see a 
 resemblance between me and Potiphar's wife.'
 
 CHAPTEK V 
 
 Sr\ GEBALD found his new life very much to his 
 liking. It seemed to him full of interests and possi- 
 bilities. In the first place, he was determined to 
 master the details of the management of his estate. 
 Mr. Godfrey welcomed him warmly in the rent-office, 
 and was untiring in answering questions and explain- 
 ing the meaning of the various Acts of Parliament 
 which have affected the tenure of Irish land. Sir 
 Gerald entered on his investigation with a prejudice 
 against his own position. He had learnt somehow to 
 think of Irish landlords as a race of tyrants from 
 whose clutches benevolent Governments were trying 
 to rescue helpless tenants. He realized with a good 
 deal of surprise that most of the enactments of Par- 
 liament dealing with Irish land were well-intentioned 
 blunders which had resulted in a kind of deadlock. 
 Landlords could not, and tenants would not, attempt 
 any improvements. He was still further surprised to 
 find that his own estate had been managed for many 
 years with the greatest consideration for the tenants. 
 Many of them were very poor. Large portions of the 
 estate were divided into miserably small holdings, for 
 
 57
 
 58 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 which the tenants paid rents that were little more 
 than nominal. Even these rents were often far hi 
 arrear, but it was very seldom that anyone had been 
 severely pressed for payment. Evictions were ex- 
 tremely rare, and only took place when there seemed 
 no possibility of the tenant ever becoming solvent. 
 Mr. Godfrey showed him a private list of charities, 
 from which it appeared that considerable sums were 
 paid every year for the relief of exceptional distress 
 among the poorer tenants. Here were entered gifts 
 of W to men who had lost a couple of bullocks, and 
 to others whom illness had incapacitated for work. 
 Here were repeated doles to widows, loans for the 
 purchase of seed oats or potatoes, apprentice fees 
 paid for boys, and money allowed for the outfit of 
 girls going out to service. 
 
 ' This money,' said Mr. Godfrey, ' was entrusted to 
 me by your predecessors. I hope you will give me a 
 similar sum. Many of your people require such help 
 from time to time, and it will hardly be possible for me 
 to explain the merits of each particular case to you.' 
 
 Sir Gerald was pleased to see that the Church was 
 liberally supported. A regular sum was set apart yearly 
 for the payment of the Rector's stipend and the main- 
 tenance of the schools and other parochial charities. It 
 appeared, also, that ^6100 a year was paid over to the 
 Roman Catholic administrator of the parish. It 
 gratified Sir Gerald to think that the religion of the 
 majority of his tenants received substantial help from 
 the estate.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 59 
 
 ' I see,' he said, ' that you enter this money as paid 
 to Father Fahy for the support of parochial institu- 
 tions. I hope it is wisely expended.' 
 
 Mr. Godfrey smiled. 
 
 ' I know nothing about that. 
 
 Sir Gerald was puzzled. 
 
 ' But the parochial institutions what are they ? 
 Reading-rooms, clothing-clubs, and that sort of thing, 
 I suppose ?' 
 
 ' I never ask questions about the money,' said 
 Mr. Godfrey, ' and if I did I shouldn't get an answer.' 
 
 ' But surely ' said Sir Gerald. 
 
 ' If you are wise, you'll allow that money to be paid 
 as it has always been.' 
 
 His agent's reticence and obvious dislike of speaking 
 his mind irritated Sir Gerald, and roused in him a 
 spirit of opposition. 
 
 ' Why do you attach such importance to this par- 
 ticular payment ?' he asked. 
 
 ' It's worth w hile making it because if you will 
 have it because it gives us a sort of hold over Father 
 Fahy. It might be stopped, you know, and well, as 
 long as it is paid things won't get much beyond 
 the talking stage here. The estate will be easily 
 managed.' 
 
 ' I see,' said Sir Gerald slowly. ' The money is, in 
 fact, a bribe to the priest to keep the people quiet. 
 It is my danegelt.' 
 
 ' I shouldn't put it that way,' said Mr. Godfrey. 
 * I prefer to say that you liberally support the Roman
 
 60 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 Catholic clergy, and that they are not so hostile to 
 you as to most of the Protestant landlords. This 
 estate came through the bad times better than any 
 other in the county. The agitation here never reached 
 a dangerous head. If the rest of the gentry had done 
 as your family did, there never would have been a 
 land agitation. The priests would have been our 
 most valuable allies.' 
 
 ' I think I understand/ said Sir Gerald, ' but I don't 
 like it.' 
 
 ' I don't see,' said Mr. Godfrey, ' why you need 
 bother yourself about the rights and wrongs of it. It 
 works well, and when you know this country a bit 
 better you'll be thankful to get a hold of a thing that 
 will work at all.' 
 
 Sir Gerald left the office profoundly dissatisfied. 
 It had not yet become clear to him that a landlord's 
 sole aim ought to be the successful gathering in of his 
 rents. That Mr. Godfrey's plan worked well for that 
 end did not seem to be a complete justification of it. 
 Besides, there was another side to the question on 
 which Mr. Godfrey had not touched. A bargain he 
 tried to put the thing nakedly to himself between a 
 landlord and a priest might be well enough, but there 
 were also the people to be considered. He disliked 
 the idea of setting himself against Mr. Godfrey's 
 wishes and advice in a matter touching the practical 
 management of the estate. Very much of what he 
 had learnt about his agent's methods was so entirely 
 in accordance with his own ideas of what was right
 
 THE SEETHING POT 61 
 
 that it was hard to object to this particular point. 
 He was also beginning to understand how difficult a 
 task an Irish land agent undertakes. To be popular 
 with the people was, he saw, a complete impossibility. 
 To secure the landlord's interests without open war- 
 fare was hard enough. Why should he make it 
 harder by interfering in a matter which his agent was 
 likely to understand much better than he did ? And 
 his interests had been well looked after. His income 
 was a good one, it even seemed to him a princely 
 one. Could he, in common gratitude, turn round and 
 accuse of dishonourable conduct for that was what it 
 amounted to the man who served him so well ? 
 
 Sir Gerald's mind was still vacillating between 
 what seemed the reasonable course and his instinctive 
 shrinking from the bargain, when he paid his next 
 visit to the office. Mr. Godfrey evidently assumed 
 that there was nothing more to be said on the subject 
 of the grant to Father Fahy. He entered upon a 
 discussion about some land which was in Sir Gerald's 
 own hands. There was a question about the letting 
 of this land for grazing purposes or stocking and 
 working it. As he turned over some maps which lay 
 upon his desk, Mr. Godfrey came upon a newspaper. 
 
 ' Ah,' he said, ' I was nearly forgetting to show you 
 this. It is sure to amuse you.' 
 
 Sir Gerald looked at it. It was a copy of The 
 Connaitght News. 
 
 * It's our local Tag,' said Mr. Godfrey, ' published 
 every week This week it's particularly spicy. It
 
 62 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 contains a full account of your arrival in Clogher, and 
 a report of McCarty's speech.' 
 
 Sir Gerald glanced at the article pointed out to him. 
 It was headed ' A Degenerate Son.' He began to read, 
 and after the first few lines the meaning of the title 
 dawned on him. The article opened with a brief 
 sketch of his father's political career. A highly 
 coloured word-picture followed of an entirely imaginary 
 scene at the departure of his father from Ireland. 
 ' The noble exile,' he read, ' stood at the stern of the 
 departing ship, waving his hands and speaking words 
 of comfort and encouragement to the weeping crowds 
 who knelt upon the shore. It was for their sakes that 
 Gerald Geoghegan, " the rebel," braved death and 
 suffered imprisonment and banishment.' The article 
 went on to describe the son of this patriot the 
 present Sir Gerald returning to the home of his 
 ancestors. Crowds meet him, but only to scorn and 
 ' vituperate him.' The editor's feelings sometimes 
 required the use of the longest words discoverable, 
 ' One hand alone is stretched out to welcome him, 
 and that the hand of the hired tool of his tyrannies.' 
 
 Sir Gerald folded the paper and rose. His face was 
 flushed with anger and shame. He tried to speak 
 quietly, but only succeeded in stammering out : 
 
 ' May I take this home with me ? I should like to 
 read it by myself.' 
 
 Mr. Godfrey saw that the young man was really 
 hurt by the article. He laid a hand upon his arm. 
 
 ' My dear fellow/ he said, ' you must not take these
 
 THE SEETHING POT 63 
 
 things to heart. When you have had as much of 
 thin sort of abuse as I have, it will only amuse you.' 
 
 ' Why need they have dragged my father into it ?' 
 
 ' These fellows,' said Mr. Godfrey, 'are nothing but 
 a pack of blackguards. What can you expect from a 
 pig but a grunt ?' 
 
 Sir Gerald walked down the street and through the 
 gates of the demesne with the paper in his hand. 
 When he felt himself free from observation, he un- 
 folded and read it again. The editor drew a touching 
 picture of McGarty returning emaciated from the 
 prison-house of the oppressor. The enthusiasm of a 
 great people greeted this martyr as he stepped from 
 his third-class carriage. ' The curled and scented 
 representative of the ancient tyranny descends from 
 the luxurious cushions of his saloon. Which of the 
 two is the true son, the spiritual son, of Gerald 
 Geoghegan the rebel ?' 
 
 When he reached his study, he flung himself into a 
 chair and sobbed aloud. There is a certain power in 
 printed words. When they are cruel or unjust, it 
 seems as if nothing can ever be right again. After a 
 time, no doubt, the men whom newspapers delight to 
 discuss become callous ; but at first and this was 
 Sir Gerald's first experience of publicity life has few 
 keener pleasures and few sharper pains than printed 
 words convey. 
 
 If he had been familiar with Irish life, he might 
 have been able to estimate the true worth of what he 
 read. In Ireland no one ever tries to be just. Public
 
 64 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 speakers and writers for the daily press are entirely 
 without a sense of responsibility. Like the fool in the 
 Book of Proverbs, they fling firebrands, not considering 
 that there may be inflammable matter about. Their 
 conduct is really not so bad as it seems, for men on 
 every side have learnt to treat three-fourths of what 
 they hear and read as merely a kind of vigorous 
 emphasis. In a street row, when a man damns your 
 soul frequently and freely, you do not suppose that 
 he either contemplates or wishes for your residence 
 in hell hereafter. In Ireland language is used in the 
 same kind of way. The editor of The Connauglit News 
 had no special feeling of dislike for Sir Gerald. Very 
 likely he rather despised McCarty. But Sir Gerald 
 was on one side, and he was on another, in a not dis- 
 agreeable tussle, so he poured forth his curses without 
 the least idea that anyone would take them seriously. 
 Occasionally an English Government official pounces 
 suddenly on a fervid orator or scribe, and insists 
 foolishly that his words bear their obvious meaning. 
 No one is more surprised than the victim when he is 
 sent to prison. The sense of injustice rankles in him, 
 for he knows he did not mean what he said, and that 
 no one except a Government officiaHvould suppose he 
 did. 
 
 Unfortunately, Sir Gerald didn't understand Ireland 
 any more than English politicians do. He took what 
 he read at its face value, and suffered, accordingly, in 
 a quite unnecessary way. ' They might have waited,' 
 he thought, ' till they knew me.' He was conscious
 
 THE SEETHING POT 65 
 
 of his own desire to servo his country. He had come 
 among the people without one selfish thought. He 
 had desired to love Ireland, to give himself for Ireland!, 
 and already he was judged and condemned on no 
 better grounds than that he had travelled first-clasfc 
 and shaken hands with his agent. His irritation 
 gradually got the better of the pain he felt. 
 
 'After all,' he said aloud, ' they are what Godfrey 
 called them a pack of blackguards.' 
 
 He had just spread the paper out on the table t 
 read the article again, when a visitor was announced ; 
 
 ' Canon Johnston to see you, sir.' 
 
 The Canon, following hard on the servant, entered 
 the library. The clergyman was no fool in ordinary 
 life. He suffered under the disadvantage of being the 
 only man in Clogher who ever read anything except 
 a second-rate novel. The consequence of this was 
 that he had a quite ridiculously high opinion of his 
 own intellectual attainments. In the pulpit he boldly 
 dogmatized on subjects he would never have dared to 
 touch if he had lived among educated people. It really 
 mattered very little, however, what he preached about, 
 for no one, not even his wife, ever listened to him. 
 Out of the pulpit he talked sense on every-day matters, 
 and there were few of his parishioners, from Mr. 
 Godfrey down, who did not recognise gladly that hi* 
 advice made for a practical kind of righteousness. 
 
 It was his first visit to the new landlord, and his 
 eyes, roaming in search of indications of what kind of 
 man Sir Gerald was, fell on The Connaught Neivs 
 
 5
 
 66 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 spread open at the offending article. Before his formal 
 greeting was over, he saw that Sir Gerald was disturbed 
 and annoyed. 
 
 4 I see,' he said, 'you've been reading that scoundrel 
 Murphy's article about you.' 
 
 4 Yes,' said Sir Gerald. ' It's a disgraceful libel. I 
 came here ' He hesitated. 
 
 ' Of courser's disgraceful,' said the Canon ; ' Murphy 
 wouldn't print it if it wasn't. It's really a credit to a 
 man, a sort of hall-mark of respectability, to be abused 
 in The Connaugkt News.' 
 
 4 But it's dreadful,' said Sir Gerald ; ' I wanted to 
 be friends with the people and to help them.' 
 
 4 So you can, and so you will, but they will abuse 
 you just the same. They're bound to do it, you 
 know. The political ball has got to be kept rolling. 
 You are on one side, and they are on the other.' 
 
 4 But we are all Irishmen. We ought to unite for 
 the good of our country.' 
 
 4 When you are here a little longer/ said the Canon, 
 4 you will understand excuse my speaking plainly 
 that that sort of thing is all moonshine. Of course 
 we are all Irishmen in a sense. I live in Ireland, so 
 I suppose I'm Irish ; but what is Ireland, after all, but 
 a geographical expression ? There is an Ireland in 
 just the same way that there is a Yorkshire, but no 
 more.' 
 
 4 1 don't agree with you in the least,' said Sir 
 Gerald. 
 
 4 Ah, I dare say not ; but after a while you will. You
 
 THE SEETHING POT 67 
 
 don't suppose, now, that Murphy cares a pin about 
 Ireland, or abuses you because he thinks you are a 
 foreigner. Not a bit of it. Patriotism is all talk. 
 The real matter is quite different. If you declared 
 yourself a Nationalist or a Fenian to-morrow, it 
 wouldn't make a bit of difference.' 
 
 ' I don't understand,' said Sir Gerald. ' What are 
 Irish politics about if they are not a struggle for 
 nationality ?' 
 
 The Canon laughed. 
 
 ' They are about the same thing as politics every- 
 where else, I suppose. There is a struggle between 
 those who have got something and want to keep it, 
 and those who haven't got something but want to get 
 it. In Ireland the only thing to have or get is land. 
 You happen to have it ; they want to get it. That is 
 the beginning and end of Irish politics. Everything 
 else is high-falutin talk thrown in for the sake of 
 decency.' 
 
 ' I can't believe that,' said Sir Gerald. ' The whole 
 thing would be impossibly degrading.' 
 
 ' I suppose,' said the Canon after a pause, ' that it 
 is, as you say, degrading ; but, you see, we can't help 
 ourselves. You and I are on one side ; I put in 
 myself because the interests of Protestantism are 
 bound up with those of the landlords. We are born 
 on one side, put there by the Almighty, and we've 
 got to fight our corner and keep our end up as long 
 as we can. They fight their corner, and I shouldn't 
 blame them if they only fought fair, but they don't.' 
 
 52
 
 68 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 He laid his hand upon The Connaught News to illus- 
 trate his point. 
 
 Sir Gerald hesitated. Certainly the editor was not 
 fighting fair, and it did seem as if his utterly unpro- 
 voked attack had arisen out of some understanding of 
 the situation similar to Canon Johnston's. At last 
 he said : ' But surely in these matters there is some 
 right and wrong ?' 
 
 ' Of course there is,' said the Canon. ' Our side is 
 right and theirs is wrong. They want to take your 
 property, and they are gradually getting it. There 
 are two commandments in the decalogue which apply 
 the tenth and the eighth. I don't say anything 
 about either the ninth or the sixth, though they don't 
 hesitate to break them both when it suits them.' 
 
 The Canon's philosophy was amazingly simple, and 
 the man himself was evidently quite sincere in his 
 belief in it. Moreover, there was something in its 
 straightforward acceptance of battle as inevitable that 
 appealed to Sir Gerald. As his feelings about the 
 article grew cooler, there arose in him a great desire 
 to hit back at the man or the party that had stabbed 
 him.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 ANGER with most people is like a scratch on a healthy 
 body : it stings for a little while, but if there is nothing 
 to rub it and keep up the irritation, it rapidly heals. 
 Sir Gerald was surprised to find how soon the article 
 in The Connaught News ceased to trouble him. Not 
 only did he find it quite impossible to nurse his desire 
 of being revenged for the insult : he even caught him- 
 self occasionally sentimentalizing somewhat in his old 
 fashion about Kathaleen ny-Houlahan and the glories 
 and wrongs of Ireland. His first actual touch on 
 Irish political life had a certain effect on his dream- 
 ings. Before he came to Ireland he had been accus- 
 tomed to think of himself as one of the people, 
 identified with their hopes, a willing soldier in the 
 battle they were fighting. Now he liked rather to 
 look back into the past, or forward to a remote future. 
 He shrank from bringing his sentimental patriotism 
 into any relation with what was going on around him. 
 There was nothing to force him to take any active 
 part in local affairs or in the wider politics of the 
 nation. Everyone around him assumed, as Canon 
 Johnston did, that the part he had to play was settled 
 
 69
 
 70 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 for him by his position. An Irish landlord is like a 
 general in a strongly entrenched position. So far as 
 public life is concerned, he is confined to a policy of 
 defensive inactivity. It is impossible for him to take 
 part in local administration, and only a few are in a 
 position to make their influence felt in the counsels 
 of the Government. After a while, too, Sir Gerald 
 realized that there was very little for him to do in 
 the management of his estate. The details which 
 Mr. Godfrey submitted to his consideration did not 
 interest him. He came by degrees to a comfortable 
 decision to leave the whole matter in his agent's 
 hands. 
 
 Yet his life during the first few weeks at Clogher 
 was far from dull. Mrs. Jameson, the butler's wife, 
 was anxious to assume the position of housekeeper 
 in a great establishment. She impressed upon Sir 
 Gerald the necessity of engaging a proper staff of 
 servants. There was no reason at all why she should 
 not be gratified. Sir Gerald appreciated the orderly 
 regularity of his household under her management. 
 He rapidly acquired a taste for a certain ceremonial 
 stateliness in his surroundings. It pleased him to sit 
 down to dinner with snowy linen and shining silver 
 and glass before him. When a footman was found to 
 join Jameson in attending him, there seemed to be a 
 pleasant dignity added to life. He had understood 
 comfort before he came to Ireland, for his father had 
 left him well off. He now came to appreciate the 
 ritual of smoothly ordered service which goes to make
 
 THE SEETHING POT 71 
 
 up the dignity of a rich man's life. Jameson, too, 
 had suggestions to make. There were wines which 
 should be bought, furniture which required renewing. 
 He deferentially pointed out certain deficiencies in Sir 
 Gerald's wardrobe. Out of doors things were much 
 the same. The coachman had during his late master's 
 time been obliged to confine his energies to the care 
 of two elderly horses and a rather dilapidated landau. 
 Sir Gerald was not inclined to provide himself at once 
 with a large stud, but it seemed reasonable to purchase 
 a smart dogcart and to look out for a good cob. The 
 help of a groom was accepted by the coachman as an 
 instalment of the large stable establishment he hoped 
 to rule in future. The gardener, who made no secret 
 of his belief that a Lady Geoghegan with a taste for 
 flowers might be expected, required certain additions 
 to his staff and improvements in his hothouses. The 
 gamekeeper did his best to awaken sporting instincts 
 in his new master. There are few pleasanter things 
 than spending and planning to spend considerable 
 sums of money when there is no fear whatever of 
 overdrawing a banking account. These tasks are 
 robbed of any possible irksomeness when a number of 
 intelligent and deferential men and women suggest 
 various obviously advantageous schemes of outlay. 
 
 Another interest in Sir Gerald's life was furnished 
 by the visits of those of the inhabitants of Clogher 
 whose social position entitled them to call upon him. 
 The doctor, an elderly gentleman with a smart pair of 
 horses, spent his time with Sir Gerald in explaining
 
 78 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 the iniquities of the Irish dispensary system. The 
 manager of the Bank of Ireland, after feeling his way 
 round several topics, finally rode through his visit on 
 his own hobby, which was gardening. A militia 
 Colonel, who owned a small property in the neighbour- 
 hood, was evidently anxious that Sir Gerald should 
 promote sociability by giving garden-parties. Most 
 of the great land- owners of the neighbourhood were 
 absentees, but Lord Clonfert, who had resided all his 
 Mfe on his estate, was among the first to call at 
 Clogher House. 
 
 This nobleman had inherited while still a young 
 man a hopelessly mortgaged and almost bankrupt 
 estate from his father, a famous rake, who had 
 married in his old age a very pretty peasant girl, the 
 daughter of one of his own tenants. He had insisted 
 n her becoming a Protestant and spending her days 
 in the drawing-room. It may have been the coldness 
 f her new faith, the want of freedom, or, as was un- 
 kindly suggested, the unaccustomed confinement of 
 shoes and stockings, which ruined the health of this 
 Lady Clonfert. She died young, leaving her husband 
 with a little boy, for whom he did nothing but provide 
 too much pocket-money at Eton, and, his affairs at 
 that time having reached a climax, an insufficient 
 allowance at Oxford. Shortly after coming of age, 
 this Lord Clonfert performed the one definite action 
 of his life : he married the only daughter of a wealthy 
 London stockbroker. The lady brought not only 
 money, but brains, and a strong sense of duty to the
 
 THE SEETHING POT 73 
 
 dilapidated Clonfert estate. Her money cleared Lord 
 Clonfert from all embarrassment, and left him free to 
 breed cattle in an inefficient way and grumble quietly 
 at the way Ireland was governed. Her brains and 
 capacity in practical matters secured him comfort and 
 amusement. It did not annoy him in the least that 
 she should take the management of his affairs into 
 her hands, or that she should regard him as little 
 better than a fool. Her sense of duty threatened, as 
 years went on, to become the most serious trouble of 
 his life. At first it had confined her energies almost 
 entirely to the bringing forth and rearing of two sons 
 and a daughter. Since the boys had both obtained 
 their commissions in the army, and her daughter had 
 left the schoolroom and shaken herself more or less 
 free of her mother's control, Lady Clonfert's sense of 
 duty led her to undertake the improvement of her 
 neighbours. Her ' own clergyman ' it was thus that 
 she always spoke of old Mr. Conerney was the first to 
 suffer. But the Church of Ireland in the West offers 
 only a limited scope for an energetic woman, and she 
 soon turned her attention to the private lives of her 
 husband's tenants. It was at this point that she 
 began to interfere with Lord Clonfert's happiness. 
 He detested improvements of all kinds. He had the 
 strongest sympathy with the people who wanted to be 
 let alone, and he particularly disliked being made to 
 write letters and act on committees. 
 
 He was too wise a man to openly oppose, or even 
 publicly grumble at, his wife's plans. He found vent
 
 74 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 for his feelings in copious abuse of the Congested 
 Districts Board. The excellent gentlemen who com- 
 pose this Board devise schemes for improving the 
 breeds of horses, cows, pigs, and hens, in the West of 
 Ireland. They try to persuade the peasants to grow 
 potatoes on an improved system, and to catch fish in 
 larger numbers. They sometimes buy estates and 
 build remarkably ugly houses on the tops of shelter- 
 less hills for the tenants to live in. All these things- 
 were sins in the eyes of Lord Clonfert. His detesta- 
 tion of the Board gradually became the strongest 
 feeling in his life. On one occasion he had publicly 
 shaken hands with and commended a particularly 
 disreputable local politician called Kerrigan. This 
 man had made a speech in which he described the 
 agents of the Congested Districts Board as a ' lot of 
 spalpeens who'd never rest continted till every blessed 
 cock in the country laid an egg before his breakfast 
 in the morning.' It was this which had warmed old 
 Lord Clonfert's heart to the man. 
 
 His visit to Sir Gerald marked the beginning of a 
 friendship between then. Sir Gerald liked him from 
 the first. He told stories about the Geoghegan 
 family in bygone days even about Sir Gerald's 
 father. The political career of the latter did not 
 seem to interest him. His recollections of ' the 
 rebel' were concerned with shooting - parties and 
 fishing expeditions. 
 
 'Your father,' said Lord Clonfert, 'was the best 
 man to throw a fly I ever met. He had a way of
 
 THE SEETHING POT 75 
 
 knowing where a fish would rise a regular instinct. 
 You'ld think he knew how the trout felt about flies. 
 He was nothing of a shot, though. Many's the bird 
 I've seen him miss. I always said that if his politics 
 ever led to fighting as they did in the end, you 
 know there would be no lives lost in the British 
 Army through his bullets. They say the English 
 soldiers can't shoot worth a hang, but I'ld back the 
 worst of them to have winged your father in the end 
 if they started fair. There would have been an 
 awful waste of ammunition, though.' 
 
 No feelings could be hurt with talk like this. 
 Besides, Lord Clonfert took the warmest interest in 
 Sir Gerald's new purchases. He admired the cob, 
 and afterwards tasted the wine. Sir Gerald, on his 
 side, pleased the old man. He treated him with 
 deference, and listened without being bored to stories 
 of the Congested Districts Board's iniquities. Before 
 he left, the old gentleman gave Sir Gerald a warm 
 invitation to spend a few days with him at Clonfert 
 Castle. 
 
 Another visitor was much less hospitably treated. 
 Sir Gerald was lounging over a cigarette and a 
 newspaper in the library, when Jameson announced : 
 
 ' Mr. O'Neill has called, sir. Shall I say you are 
 out?' 
 
 ' Of course not,' said Sir Gerald. ' You showed 
 him into the big drawing-room, I suppose. I'll be 
 with him in a moment.' 
 
 ' I did not show him in, sir,' said Jameson, adding,
 
 76 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 as if in self-defence : ' It's Mr. John O'Neill, the 
 Member of Parliament.' 
 
 Now, Mr. Godfrey had suggested that O'Neill had 
 written the article in The Gonnaught News : it seemed 
 likely that he had, at all events, inspired the speech. 
 
 ' Stop a minute. Did you tell him I was at home ?' 
 said Sir Gerald. 
 
 ' No, sir ; I said I'ld find out.' 
 
 ' I don't see that there is any good in my meeting 
 him,' said Sir Gerald. ' It would be most unpleasant 
 for me. You had better just say you find I am out.' 
 
 1 Quite right, sir, if you will allow me to say so. I 
 call it impudence in the fellow, coming to the door of 
 the house at all.' 
 
 Afterwards Sir Gerald thought about this visit and 
 the way he had treated the Irish leader. He was 
 walking round the shores of the little lake that lay 
 below his house. The sunset and the cooing of the 
 wood-pigeons among the trees favoured introspective 
 and sentimental thought. 
 
 ' I wonder,' he said to himself, ' why the man came 
 here. He must have known I could not be a friend 
 of his.' 
 
 Then there came into his mind an old story his 
 father had told him, of how one of his friends had 
 cut him in the street after he first became notorious 
 as a Nationalist. Sir Gerald remembered his boyish 
 indignation against this almost incredible bigotry. He 
 had not been able to understand then how anyone 
 who was an Irishman could be anything else than a
 
 THE SEETHING POT 77 
 
 Nationalist. Now he appeared to have learnt, not 
 only devotion to the English Government, but con- 
 tempt and hatred for those who resisted it. 
 
 ' I wonder if he thought I was a Nationalist, too,' 
 he said. 
 
 He confessed that O'Neill might have thought so 
 might have expected the son of Gerald Geoghegan 
 ' the rebel ' to be on the side of nationality. He tried 
 to persuade himself that he was, arguing that he did 
 not object to O'Neill's principles, but only to his 
 methods. It was no use. The thought kept recurring 
 that his conduct had been the same as that of his 
 father's friend, the man whom he had always regarded 
 as the very type of stupid bigotry. It was almost as if 
 he had shut the door of the house in his own father's 
 face. He grew uneasy. Yet it was hard to see how 
 else he could have acted. He fell back upon Canon 
 Johnston's philosophy. The whole thing was in- 
 evitable, since he was what he was. It might have 
 been different if he had not been a great landlord and 
 bound to stand by his class. Yet he wished sincerely 
 that the decision had not been forced on him so soon, 
 that John O'Neill had not called.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 SIB GEKALD found his visit to Clonfert Castle most 
 agreeable. He was charmed at first with Lady Clon- 
 fert. She possessed the faculty, which marks the 
 true grande dame, of making every guest who shook 
 hands with her feel that he or she was peculiarly, even 
 confidentially, welcome to her house. During dinner 
 on the evening of his arrival, she gave Sir Gerald an 
 account of the various industries she had started 
 among her husband's tenants. She allowed him to 
 gather the impression that his approval was a vital 
 necessity to her. It was with a pleasant sense of his 
 own importance that Sir Gerald realized that his 
 wearing Clonfert tweed and having his handkerchiefs 
 embroidered by Clonfert ' spriggers ' would secure the 
 success of his hostess's undertakings. 
 
 Miss Carew rescued him from committing his entire 
 wardrobe to her mother's care. 
 
 ' If you do get a suit of our tweed,' she said, ' I 
 advise you at least to avoid the local tailor. Have 
 you seen father's latest suit ? I assure you two people 
 could fit quite comfortably into the coat.' 
 
 ' I find it very difficult,' said Lady Clonfert, ' to get 
 78
 
 THE SEETHING POT 79 
 
 good tailors to buy my tweeds. Of course, I know 
 you must take what your man offers you in the way 
 of material. You can't go to a fashionable tailor with 
 a roll of stuff under your arm and ask him to cut it 
 for you. But, really, the local tailor is not so bad 
 as Hester makes out. You must take into considera- 
 tion Clonfert's figure. It can't be easy to make 
 clothes look well on a man with shoulders like ' 
 
 Like a lamp-post,' said her husband, with a gentle 
 smile. 
 
 ' Patronize the sprigging, anyhow,' said Miss Carew. 
 ' Some of mother's girls do initials on handkerchiefs 
 wonderfully well.' 
 
 ' So they do,' said Lord Clonfert. ' But look here, 
 Sir Gerald. Did you ever hear of such a thing ? No 
 sooner has my wife had the girls taught embroidery, 
 and put them in the way of earning a few shillings, 
 than that meddling Congested Board sends a woman 
 down to the national school to teach them lace- making.' 
 
 ' It does seem rather absurd,' said Sir Gerald, ' to 
 try and start two industries in the same place. I sup- 
 pose, Lady Clonfert, that your work does a great deal 
 of good makes the people more comfortable, I mean ?' 
 
 Lord Clonfert and his daughter exchanged a smile. 
 There was evidently an understanding between them 
 about the amount of comfort produced by Lady 
 Clonfert's energy. 
 
 ' Of course,' said the lady herself. ' I hope by 
 degrees to teach them habits of industry and self- 
 reliance.' She spoke as if she were quoting some-
 
 80 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 thing. ' At present they are deplorably indolent ; 
 and as for the state of the houses, they are simply 
 shocking. I wish I could import some Englishwomen 
 for a few months just to show them what cleanness 
 means.' 
 
 ' Mother would like to turn us all into English- 
 women,' said Hester. ' I hope, Sir Gerald, that you 
 are Irish enough to like a little dirt.' 
 
 ' Do you know,' went on Lady Clonfert without 
 noticing the interruption, ' I was trying to explain to 
 a woman the other day that she ought sometimes to 
 wash her children's faces, and what do you think she 
 said to me ? " Saving your ladyship's presence, so 
 long as they are clean enough to be healthy and dirty 
 enough to be happy, and don't be cutting and burning 
 themselves, I'll rest content."' 
 
 ' I'm afraid I rather sympathize with her,' said Sir 
 Gerald. 
 
 ' Well done !' laughed Hester. ' We'll make an 
 Irishman of you yet. Fancy the folly of spending 
 the day in trying to keep children's faces clean !' 
 
 ' I have had three children,' said Lady Clonfert, 
 'and I used to have their faces regularly scrubbed.' 
 
 1 Indeed you did, mother ; I remember it.' 
 
 ' Scrubbed,' repeated Lady Clonfert with emphasis, 
 'as long as they were under my control.' 
 
 ' Which is as much as to say that they have been 
 dirty ever since,' said Hester. ' Father, tell me : is 
 my face absolutely black, or only grimy ?' 
 
 After dinner Lord Clonfert entertained his guest,
 
 THE SEETHING POT 81 
 
 with a long tale about a pier which the Congested 
 Districts Board had recently built in the neighbour- 
 hood with a view to encouraging sea-fishing. It 
 appeared that the Board's engineer had only succeeded 
 in erecting a monument to his own incapacity. The 
 pier could not be reached from the land except by 
 crossing a sort of salt-water morass, a journey dreaded 
 under the most favourable circumstances by the local 
 donkeys. From the sea it was only accessible at the 
 top of a high tide, and not then unless the wind was 
 from the east. 
 
 ' And, you know,' said Lord Clonfert, ' that on this 
 coast the wind is from the west nine days out of ten, 
 and on the tenth day there is no wind at all.' 
 
 ' By the way,' he went on after a pause, ' what 
 would you like to do with yourself while you are here ? 
 I can give you a day's fishing if you like, but I 
 fancy your own is better. Do you care for sailing ? 
 We might go out on the bay in my little boat, and 
 take our luncheon with us. Hester would pilot us. She 
 knows the rocks as well as any man about the place.' 
 
 Sir Gerald thought the plan sounded delightful. 
 
 'We'll go up to the drawing-room, then, and ask 
 Hester. Unless you will take something more to 
 drink. No ? Well, I'll show the way.' 
 
 Hester Carew used to say that the bay, at the end 
 of which Clogher stood, was too beautiful to have any 
 attractions for the British tourist. There was some 
 truth in her remark, for the taste of the tourist has 
 been educated to appreciate a certain kind of natural 
 
 6
 
 82 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 beauty. Bold cliffs, rugged mountains, narrow gorges, 
 waterfalls, and well-wooded valleys come within his 
 definition of the picturesque. Clogher Bay offers 
 none of these. The mountains on its shores brood 
 rather than tower above it. There is no sugges- 
 tion of the fiord about its broad stretch of sunlit or 
 mist-shadowed waters. The tides flow gray over long 
 flat reaches of muddy sand. Hundreds of low green 
 islands are dotted over the water, each with its bluff 
 feeing the Atlantic to the west, and grass sloping east- 
 wards down to the verge of the sea. Among them 
 Lord Clonfert's little boat threaded her way, with 
 Hester steering her. Sometimes she beat up a narrow 
 passage between two of them ; sometimes she ran 
 free along an oily tideway, or drifted smoothly over 
 shallows where the long cords of weed brushed caress- 
 ingly against her sides. Once Hester took them 
 beneath the clay bluff and great boulders of one of 
 the outermost fringe of islands. The broad swell 
 lifted and swayed the boat gently. A silence fell upon 
 them, a kind of awe. Westward stretched the great 
 ocean, shoreless to the icy coast of Newfoundland. It 
 seemed no hard thing to believe that beyond them, 
 hidden in the glory of the sunset, there might lie 
 the Tir-na-nogue, the land of immortality, which 
 St. Brendan sailed to look for, and doubtless found. 
 
 The breeze was off shore, and the water rippled out 
 to them across the great ocean swell. Hester looked 
 up suddenly, and said, more to herself than to her 
 father or Sir Gerald :
 
 THE SEETHING POT 83 
 
 ' I should like to let the sheet go now, and run on 
 into the West, sail into the sunset and the islands of 
 the blessed.' 
 
 Sir Gerald understood her feeling sufficiently not 
 to speak in reply. Their eyes met, and she knew that 
 he also acknowledged the power of the great romance, 
 the brooding enchantment which has made the Irish 
 of all races the least practical, a failure, as the Anglo- 
 Saxon reckons failure or success, everlastingly irre- 
 sponsive to the sanest schemes for its improvement. 
 
 Once, quite suddenly, rounding a long point, they 
 came upon an island home. A low thatched cabin 
 stood half on the coarse grass, half on the stony 
 beach. Behind it a man leaned on his spade in the 
 middle of a patH of ground dug into potato ridges. 
 Beyond him a woman, barefooted, and bent with the 
 weight of a basket on her back, walked on the outer- 
 most verge of the bank which sloped eastwards towards 
 the cabin, and shouted encouragement to three cows 
 straggling homewards beneath her along the beach. 
 Once they passed close by a crowd of girls on a rock, 
 left bare by the low spring- tide. Some were ankle- 
 deep among the pools, some poised on stones hidden 
 by the seaweed. Each carried a tin pail to fill with 
 small shellfish. 
 
 'They are all island girls," said Hester. 'Their 
 whelks are shipped to Glasgow.' 
 
 Sir Gerald dwelt with a certain sad pleasure on the 
 contrast between the gathering and the final market- 
 ing of the fish. The artisan's wife, bargaining for a 
 
 62
 
 54 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 * relish' at a barrow in some dusty city highway, 
 seemed a whole world apart from the group of girls 
 before his eyes, who stooped among the rocks and 
 dabbled feet and hands in the salt water. In the 
 evening they passed them again. This time the girls 
 were rowing homewards. The tide flowed with them 
 Ske a river, and they dipped their oars in time to the 
 gong they sang. 
 
 Once in a narrow waterway they watched two boys 
 land on the beach opposite their home. They chased 
 Cowards the sea a mingled flock of geese and ducks. 
 The birds, pushed, as it were, from the land by the 
 shouting boys, flew clamorously over the strait, and 
 dne by one struck the water with their breasts, splash- 
 ing it right and left, and shooting along the surface 
 with the impetus of their flight. The boys followed 
 in their crazy boat, herding the whole flock to the 
 door of the opposite cottage. 
 
 'These people,' said Sir Gerald, as they drifted 
 slowly past, ' must lead the best of all lives and the 
 happiest.' 
 
 ' Some of them,' said Lord Clonfert, ' are your 
 tenants, and some, I'm sorry to say, are mine. When 
 'A comes to paying their rents, they don't describe their 
 homes as earthly paradises.' 
 
 ' Once,' said Hester, ' I used to visit a girl who lived 
 in the cottage we have just passed. She was in the 
 Workhouse infirmary. I knew she was dying. Every- 
 one knew it except herself. It was wonderful to hear 
 ier talk about her home. She had no education, and
 
 THE SEETHING POT 85 
 
 I don't suppose she could have analyzed her owe 
 feelings ; but her whole soul was wrapped up in 9 
 desire to be back with her people and living their life 
 among the islands. 1 
 
 The fourth day of their sailing was a holiday. 
 They found themselves among a fleet of boats making 
 for the landing-place opposite the chapel on the main- 
 land. Large black hookers, with queer curved bows* 
 that reached upwards out of the water, pushed their 
 way solemnly shorewards. Among them went little 
 boats, each with a single sail, manned by a steersman, 
 and perhaps a boy, with a couple of women sitting by 
 the mast. The people shouted greetings to each other 
 across the water. Sir Gerald asked what they were 
 saying. 
 
 'I only know a few words of Irish,' said Hester,, 
 'but I can translate that much for you. Listen-! 
 That man shouted, " God bless you !" and the womaa 
 there answered him, " The blessing of God and Mary 
 on yourself !" Almost every Irish phrase of greeting 
 and parting has God's name in it. If the sun shine% 
 it is a fine day, "thank God !" If everything is being 
 ruined by the rain, it is " the weather the Lord i? 
 pleased to send us." We are ashamed to talk to eack 
 other in that way. If we believe in God, we don't 
 want anyone to find it out. Is it not an amazing 
 piece of arrogance for anyone to start trying to convert 
 these people ?' 
 
 ' Now, Hester,' said Lord Clonfert, ' don't start 
 talking theology. I'm always afraid of my life,' he
 
 86 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 added to Sir Gerald, with a laugh, ' that Hester will 
 turn Roman Catholic and try to convert me.' 
 
 ' Nonsense !' said Hester. ' I admire the religion 
 which makes our people what they ae, but it can't be 
 my religion.' 
 
 : ' Now, why,' said Sir Gerald, 'do you say can't? 
 I suppose you can turn Roman Catholic if you like. 
 I mean religion is a matter of choice, isn't it ?' 
 
 ' I don't think so. I don't want to be a Roman 
 Catholic, but even if I did I couldn't. I don't know 
 how it is in other countries, but here you are born 
 one thing or the other, Protestant or Roman Catholic, 
 just as you are born a boy or a girl. You can't 
 change. I never heard of anyone in Ireland changing 
 his religion. Did you, father ?' 
 
 'Well, no,' said Lord Clonfert 'at least, no one 
 who had any religion to change. There are always a 
 few " soupers," as they call them, knocking about 
 but I don't count them.' 
 
 ' I don't think,' said Sir Gerald, ' even if I swallowed 
 the whole Roman system, Infallibility and all, I should 
 be any nearer being able to say, " A fine day, thank 
 God !" to a man I met casually on the road. 1 
 
 ' That's curious,' said Lord Clonfert. ' I've no 
 difficulty about that at all. I couldn't say it to you, 
 of course, but if I see a man digging potatoes in a 
 field, it is quite natural to me to say to him, " God 
 bless your work !" ' 
 
 1 That's just one of the things about you, father, 
 which shows that you are a true Irishman. I'm
 
 THE SEETHING POT 87 
 
 afraid I have a lot of mother's Englishness in me. I 
 often feel " God bless the work !" but I never can get 
 my lips round saying it.' 
 
 During these days of sailing on the bay the three 
 had many such conversations. The close companion- 
 ship of the little boat and the strangeness of their 
 surroundings dissolved the conventional restraints 
 which make ultimate talk impossible except for old 
 friends. Sometimes they had slow wandering dis- 
 cussions lasting for an hour or more. Sometimes 
 they sat in silence, the men smoking while Hester 
 steered. Sir Gerald found a steadily increasing 
 pleasure in watching her. He had found a way of 
 stretching himself on the floor boards of the boat, 
 leaning against the mast. He could look steadily at 
 Hester without her knowing that he watched her. 
 He became familiar with the grip of her hand on the 
 tiller, and the sway of her body as she loosened or 
 pulled in the sheet. Generally she seemed un- 
 conscious of his gaze. When by chance she caught 
 his eyes fixed on her, she spoke to him, as if she 
 counted his gaze a reproach for her silence. 
 
 Once they talked about Lady Clonfert's approach- 
 ing exhibition of industries. It was to put an end to 
 the sailing, even if the weather held good. They 
 had successfully avoided the last of the preliminary 
 committee meetings, and Sir Gerald boasted that he 
 had bought their freedom at the price of his name 
 as a patron and the promise of a prize for knitted 
 socks.
 
 88 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 ' I wish you would offer ten more prizes,' said Lord 
 Clonfert, * and let us escape the thing itself.' 
 
 'You're very ungrateful, father,' said Hester. 
 ' Think of the time you'ld be having to-day, taking 
 notes of all the valuable suggestions the members of 
 the committee made.' 
 
 ' I know,' said Lord Clonfert ' I know very well 
 what I've escaped. Last time I tried to make the 
 dear people see that there was something a little 
 comic in offering a prize for the best hand -sewn 
 night-dress, and then confining the competition to 
 farmers of less than 30 valuation. Nobody saw my 
 point, and when I explained that very few farmers 
 of any valuation could sew even a button on their 
 trousers, much less make a night-dress, your mother 
 frowned at me, and that wretched Mr. Ford from 
 Kilsallagh said that it would be ridiculous to offer a 
 prize for sewing buttons on trousers. I gave it up 
 after that, seeing that things were getting a little 
 mixed.' 
 
 ' Doesn't it do any good ?' asked Sir Gerald. 
 
 * I don't know,' said Lord Clonfert. ' Personally, I 
 regard all these efforts to improve people as most 
 insulting to them and very boring to us. I don't see 
 why they should not take the initiative for a change, 
 and try to improve us. It would be a great deal 
 more amusing. You and I, Sir Gerald, might find 
 ourselves competing for a prize offered to the gentle- 
 man who gave least trouble to his domestic servants. 
 I suppose that is the sort of prize they would offer/
 
 THE SEETHING POT 89 
 
 ' What do you say, Miss Carew ? Are you in 
 sympathy with the exhibition ?' 
 
 ' I've had rather unfortunate experiences of com- 
 mittee meetings, too,' said Hester. ' At the last one 
 there was an animated discussion about luncheon. 
 There are to be two tents one for the gentry, in 
 which you are charged three shillings ; the other for 
 the common people, in which you are fed for one 
 shilling. The three-shilling lunchers are to have the 
 privilege of ordering champagne or claret if they like. 
 The question arose as to whether the others were to 
 be allowed a bottle of porter, or were to be strictly 
 confined to lemonade.' 
 
 ' As well as I recollect,' said Lord Clonfert, ' I 
 voted for the porter. Your mother was on the side 
 of the lemonade.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Hester. ' But it was not so much the 
 question itself, as the way it was discussed, that 
 irritated me.' 
 
 ' It irritated more than you, Hester. Did you 
 notice the way Mrs. Courtenay looked at me when 
 I said that no one could get riotously drunk on a 
 bottle of porter ? My way of discussing the question 
 irritated her.' 
 
 ' I don't see,' said Hester, ' why it should be taken 
 for granted that every man who can't pay three 
 shillings for his luncheon is bound to get drunk if 
 he has the chance.' 
 
 'He generally does, though,' said Lord Clonfert. 
 ' I'm not blaming him ; I'm only stating a fact.'
 
 90 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 ' Nonsense, father ! That's just what that horrid 
 Mrs. Courtenay seemed to think. She would have 
 carried her point, too, only that Miss Hill reminded 
 the committee that, as they were running the show 
 to make themselves popular, there was no use being 
 offensive about drinks.' 
 
 'Very sensible of Miss Hill,' said Lord Clonfert. 
 ' It's much better to be cheered by a drunken man 
 than scowled at by a sober one.' 
 
 'It was utterly degrading,' said Hester, her face 
 flaming. * If these grand ladies ' 
 
 ' I wish Mrs. Courtenay and Miss Hill could hear 
 you,' said her father. ' How pleased they would be 
 at being called " grand ladies " !' 
 
 ' Well, they think themselves grand enough, any- 
 how. If they are giving prizes and patronizing the 
 farmers' wives simply to make themselves popular, 
 the whole thing is a fraud, just as John O'Neill said 
 it was. 1 
 
 ' What did John O'Neill say about it ?' asked Sir 
 Gerald, with interest. 
 
 ' I don't remember his exact words, but he advised 
 the people not to allow themselves to be made into 
 toys for great ladies to play with when they come 
 over from London for a holiday. I think he was 
 perfectly right.' 
 
 Sir Gerald suddenly realized that Hester was 
 beautiful. He had watched her face in repose, and 
 found it full of romantic possibilities. He had seen 
 flashes of intelligence light it up, and shadows of
 
 THE SEETHING POT 91 
 
 puzzled thought pass over it. Now he saw it on 
 fire with indignation. There was a flush of crimson 
 on her cheek, and a gleam almost fierce in her 
 eyes. He wished to keep to the subject which made 
 her angry and beautiful. 
 
 'Do you know,' he said, 'that John O'Neill called 
 and left his card on me just before I came here ?' 
 
 1 He's got the cheek of the Old Gentleman himself,' 
 said Lord Clonfert. 
 
 * I suppose I shall have to return his call. 1 
 
 ' God bless my soul ! Don't do that/ said Lord 
 Clonfert, startled out of his usual good-humour ; ' you 
 can't do that. There isn't a gentleman in the county 
 but would cut you if you were a friend of John 
 O'Neill's. Of course you don't understand, but I 
 can remember when they were shooting us like par- 
 tridges. Poor old Thompson, the Sub-sheriff, was 
 shot dead, and lots more. I was shot at myself. You 
 can't go and call on a man who would pot you from 
 behind a hedge." 
 
 ' That's all years and years ago,' said Hester. 
 ' Nobody is shot at now.' 
 
 ' No thanks to John O'Neill if they're not,' said 
 Lord Clonfert. ' He's one of the same infernal gang. 
 Don't talk nonsense, Hester, on serious subjects. You 
 were only a child in those days. Ask your mother 
 about it. 1 never went out after dark but she spent 
 her time on her knees praying for my life till I came 
 home again. I remember when a man daren't sit in 
 a room with a lighted lamp and an open window.'
 
 92 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 Sir Gerald was amazed. This was a wholly new 
 light on Irish politics. Afterwards, when he thought 
 over Lord Clonfert's words, the recollection of his own 
 indignation at the newspaper article helped him to 
 understand the feelings of the men who had lived 
 through the ' bad times ' of the land agitation. He 
 admitted that they could scarcely feel otherwise than 
 they did. Yet he was conscious of a certain want of 
 nobility in Lord Clonfert's attitude. A gospel of 
 mere hatred does not appeal to the young and 
 imaginative mind, and it seemed that for Lord Clon- 
 fert politics were summed up in one simple hatred. 
 He wearied himself with thinking round and round 
 the subject. The more he thought, the more im- 
 possible it seemed to find any clear vantage-ground 
 on which to stand, from which to press forward to 
 useful action. Once more he was forced back upon 
 the fatalism of his last decision. He was a gentleman 
 and the representative of a class. He had no possible 
 duty except to fight as well as he could the battle of 
 his side, or else to let things slip along as they might 
 without his interference. 
 
 Yet his old dream of loving Ireland lingered still at 
 the back of his resolution. Kathaleen ny-Houlahan 
 haunted him, the beautiful figure of Ireland ; but now 
 he saw her face, and it was the face of Hester Carew.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE day of the exhibition was fortunately fine, and 
 the lawn in front of Clonfert Castle looked gay, dotted 
 over with white tents arranged for the accommodation 
 of the exhibits. At quite an early hour the scene 
 became animated. Members of the committee, male 
 and female, adorned themselves with large green 
 badges, and fussed with increasing velocity from tent 
 to tent. Two very great ladies from a remote corner 
 of the county arrived by an early train, and drove out 
 laden with bales f tweed and stockings made by their 
 husbands' tenants. Their costumes were devised 
 specially for the occasion, and were intended to 
 advertise the suitability of home-made materials for 
 ladies' wear. The inferior members of the local 
 committee received them with joyful deference, ad- 
 miring, while they wondered at, the daring yellow 
 of one skirt or the luxuriant flounces of crochet 
 which adorned the other. Sharp-faced young women, 
 representing convents which traded in lace and linen, 
 struggled with each other, and even irreverently 
 jostled the great ladies in the effort to secure the 
 best positions for exhibiting their goods. Amateur 
 
 93
 
 94 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 gardeners unpacked sodden-looking hampers of flowers 
 and vegetables in inconvenient places. They inquired, 
 at first hopefully, afterwards with a certain querulous- 
 ness, for water to fill their exhibition glasses. After 
 a time they gathered in little groups and anathema- 
 tized the committee's arrangements. Bewildered 
 country-women, whose fowls had escaped from con- 
 trol, pursued them with cries round, and even 
 tirftmgh, the tenta. Small girls, bringing loaves of 
 home-baked bread and rolls of butter, clamoured 
 persistead^ to have them stalled in quite impossible 
 places. 
 
 Amid the general confusion, Lady Clonfert displayed 
 the powers of organization and prompt action which 
 have made her race commercially great. She had 
 arrayed herself in a dress of the purple flannel which 
 Mayo country-women use for petticoats. The colour 
 rendered her a conspicuous mark for everyone with a 
 grievance or a difficulty. Agitated members of the 
 committee appealed to her at every corner. She 
 soothed them into comparative sanity without show- 
 ing a sign of irritation. Exhibitors, whom anger 
 rendered uncivil, attributed their failure to find a 
 place for their goods to her personal incapacity. She 
 pointed out to them that their difficulties rose from 
 want of attention to the printed directions in their 
 hands, and succeeded in leaving them smiling and 
 content. She gave over to Hester the task of pacify- 
 ing a Countess whom an injudicious member of the 
 committee had forbidden to hang a rainbow of shoot-
 
 THE SEETHING POT 95 
 
 ing stockings round the tent devoted to the shilling 
 lunchers. 
 
 Lord Clonfert strolled through the crowd in perfect 
 good-humour. He congratulated a country-woman 
 on the activity of her chickens in a way which brought 
 smiles and blessings to her lips, and something like 
 tears of irritated vexation to the eyes of a young 
 woman who was trying to protect some ecclesiastical 
 lace from their flutterings. He assured an amateur 
 gardener that his carnations were absolutely certain 
 to take a prize, and apologized amiably when he dis- 
 covered that this particular man was only exhibiting 
 vegetables. The people who asked him where they 
 were to bestow their goods, he directed with reassur- 
 ing promptitude to the tent which happened at the 
 moment to be furthest off. In this way he avoided 
 the worry of trying to find out the right place, and 
 generally succeeded in escaping the subsequent re- 
 proaches of his victims. 
 
 Sir Gerald, who knew nothing of the arrangements 
 of the show, and was a stranger to almost everyone 
 there, enjoyed himself quietly; smoking a series of 
 cigars and watching Hester deal with the angry 
 Countess. Early in the afternoon he was captured by 
 Lady Clonfert, and told to secure lunch for a very 
 great man who had just arrived with his wife. The 
 Right Honourable George Chesney was a Cabinet 
 Minister, and was popularly supposed to govern 
 Ireland. In reality, his position was like that of a 
 football in a tightly-packed scrimmage. Vigorous
 
 96 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 forwards impelled him, more by kicking than persua- 
 sion, in opposite directions. The equilibrium which 
 might have resulted was continually being interfered 
 with by adroit players, who shoved him sideways or 
 heeled him out backwards. He was occasionally 
 rushed into peculiarly uncomfortable positions when 
 someone succeeded in what is technically known 
 among football-players as ' screwing the scrimmage.' 
 He was never without the consciousness that alert 
 half-backs were lurking in Westminster, eager for a 
 chance of picking him up and whisking him away. 
 It speaks for the toughness of the leather in which he 
 was encased that the Right Honourable Mr. Chesney 
 not only enjoyed life, but continued fully distended 
 with that wind which is the prime necessity of poli- 
 ticians who make many speeches. 
 
 Lady Clonfert had captured him for her show by 
 means of a skilfully planted series of telegrams. He 
 had been enjoying an entirely unofficial motor tour 
 through Connemara, when she got knowledge of his 
 whereabouts. He succumbed with a comparatively 
 good grace to the fourth message which he found 
 awaiting him at an hotel, and arrived at Clonfert 
 Castle primed with a speech. His wife, who, fortu- 
 nately, was wealthy, did her duty by the exhibits. 
 She supplied her husband with an immense number 
 of stockings, and secured for herself several enormous 
 flounces of crochet and a quantity of lace, which some 
 pious nuns had designed for a Bishop's vestments. 
 The great man himself asked amiably intelligent
 
 THE SEETHING POT 97 
 
 questions on a variety of industrial topics, and evaded 
 the different attempts to induce him to promise 
 Government grants for starting factories. 
 
 Sir Gerald conducted him through the show to the 
 luncheon tent. His duty as cicerone was easier thai* 
 he expected. It was his first experience of intercourse 
 with a prominent politician, and he was surprised to 
 find himself chatting naturally to a man whose words 
 and actions formed the raw material for the leading 
 articles of the daily papers. Mr. Chesney possessed 
 an apparently inexhaustible fund of information oa 
 every subject except politics. After luncheon Lady 
 Clonfert interrupted him in the middle of a dis.- 
 sertation on the probable future of a newly-invented 
 kind of golf-ball. He braced himself for an effort 
 as his hostess led him to a tent placarded ' Cafe 
 Chantant.' 
 
 The function of this pavilion was entirely un- 
 connected with coffee, or, indeed, with any other 
 beverage, but the second half of its title was justified 
 by a series of short concerts held in it during the 
 afternoon and evening. A large audience had collected 
 in expectation of a speech from Mr. Chesney. The 
 two very great ladies occupied chairs in the front 
 Round and behind them were grouped minor dames 
 with such of their husbands and sons as they had 
 succeeded in dragging with them to the show. 
 Behind these, on forms, closely packed, were the 
 local clergy with their wives, doctors, solicitors, and 
 some of the leading shopkeepers from Clogher. At 
 
 7
 
 98 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 the back of all were a few farmers. Here and there 
 were newspaper reporters. Mr. Godfrey was acting 
 as master of the ceremonies. He made an effort to 
 plant Sir Gerald on a still vacant chair in the front 
 row, but the latter clung to a position in a corner near 
 the entrance in spite of him, and was rewarded for his 
 humility by finding himself standing next to Desmond 
 O'Hara. They had no time for more than a mutual 
 recognition before Lord Clonfert mounted the platform 
 and introduced the Right Honourable orator to the 
 audience. 
 
 A tent is a bad place for enthusiastic applause. 
 The men stamped their feet quite noiselessly on the 
 damp grass, and the clapping of gloved hands died 
 away in a faint flutter against the canvas. Under 
 the circumstances, it was nice of Mr. Chesney to 
 express himself pleased with the warmth of his 
 reception. He assured his audience, with flattering 
 earnestness, that he felt himself to be standing in 
 the midst of those who were really working for the 
 good of Ireland. What the country wanted was 
 less politics and more industry. It was his misfor- 
 tune to be engaged in politics ; it was the privi- 
 lege of his audience to be furthering the cause of 
 industry. 
 
 At this point Mr. Godfrey made a vigorous but 
 only partially successful effort to start a cheer. 
 Mr. Chesney bowed in acknowledgment of the inten- 
 tion, and proceeded. 
 
 The eminence of English statesmen perhaps of
 
 THE SEETHING POT 99 
 
 statesmen in all popularly - governed countries 
 appears to depend very much on their capacity for 
 giving utterance to platitudes in such a way as to 
 persuade their listeners that they are hearing new 
 and profound truths. Mr. Chesney was a master of 
 this useful art. He was able also to add puerilities 
 to his platitudes with an air of serious wisdom which 
 carried his audience with him. In Lady Clonfert's 
 tent he was at his very best. No one recognised his 
 general panegyric of industry as a paraphrase of 
 Dr. Watts's famous verses about the little busy bee. 
 Descending to the particular case of Ireland, he 
 dwelt at considerable length on the advantages which 
 would accrue to the country if the people would take 
 to making useful articles for which a market could be 
 found in England. Great Britain, he assured his 
 audience, was a generous pay-mistress to those who 
 ministered to her wants. 
 
 Sir Gerald recollected the girls who picked whelks. 
 They got, he had been told, as much as eightpence a 
 stone for what they collected. When he picked up 
 the thread of Mr. Chesney's discourse again, he found 
 himself listening to an eloquent prophecy of a wave 
 of prosperity for Ireland when the people learned to 
 make toy boats and children's dolls. An immense 
 amount of money, it appeared, went every year to 
 Germany and Switzerland for these necessaries of 
 modern life. Why should not all this money come to 
 Ireland ? Mr. Chesney did not know, nor did his 
 audience. The idea of making dolls was new to 
 
 72
 
 100 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 them ; it was probably quite new also to Mr. Chesney. 
 If it were, lie made the most of the inspiration. 
 estimated the nation's annual expenditure on dolls at 
 many thousands of pounds. He himself, for family 
 reasons his glance indicated Mrs. Chesney to the 
 audience contributed largely to this expenditure. 
 Probably the majority of those present did so, 
 too. 
 
 The ladies in the front rows smiled their apprecia- 
 tion. Mr. Godfrey inaugurated another round of 
 applause. 
 
 Sir Gerald felt a touch on his arm, and O'Hara 
 whispered to him : 
 
 ' I've had enough of this speech. Is there any 
 place where we can get tea ?' 
 
 Sir Gerald slipped after him from the tent. 
 
 ' I suppose you didn't expect to see me down here/ 
 said O'Hara. 'When you know me better, you'll 
 realize that I'm like a microbe liable to be met with 
 anywhere. At present I am a sort of Biblical devil 
 wandering through dry places seeking whom I may 
 devour. Did it ever occur to you that microbes may 
 be little devils ? I dare say not. It never struck me 
 till just this moment, but there's something in the 
 idea. It would reconcile modern medical science 
 with the New Testament idea of possession, and 
 account for the herd of swine which ran violently 
 into the sea. You might think the thing out, and, 
 when you've nothing particular to do, write a letter 
 about it to The Critic.'' He paused for a moment, as
 
 THE SEETHING POT 101 
 
 if to adjust his thoughts, and then went on: 'Did you 
 ever hear such drivel as Chesney was talking in that 
 tent ? Here's a nation gripped with the birth-pangs 
 of her own regeneration, in the pains of bringing 
 forth herself now don't interrupt me by saying that's 
 a bull: I know it's a bull. No great truth can be 
 uttered except in the form of a bull. That is why 
 bulls are peculiarly Irish. It is our function to dis- 
 cover and utter great truths for the salvation of a 
 sordid and commercial Empire. But what was I 
 saying when you looked as if you were going to 
 interrupt me ? Oh yes ! here we are trying to 
 give birth to our own nationality, and this man, who 
 ought to be our midwife, talks to us about making 
 dolls.' 
 
 ' Here is the place,' said Sir Gerald, laughing, ' and 
 here is Miss Carew. I must introduce you. She's a 
 great admirer of your paper.' 
 
 The introduction was a real pleasure to Hester. 
 She read and appreciated the articles which appeared 
 in The Critic on the ancient history and poetry of 
 Ireland. Once she had ventured to send some verses 
 of her own to the editor, which had been duly 
 printed. O'Hara recollected that she was both a 
 subscriber and a contributor. 
 
 ' Why don't you send me some more poetry ?' he 
 asked. ' The last was very good. Young ladies 
 ought to write verses when they can, instead of 
 wasting their time in making stockings.' He waved 
 his hands comprehensively towards the tents where
 
 102 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 the exhibits were piled. 'Poems are of more value 
 to the nation than tweeds.' 
 
 ' But, Mr. O'Hara,' said Hester, ' when you printed 
 my poor little verses, you put in a note, signed " Ed.," 
 saying that the verses were very good, but that I ought 
 to be doing something useful. Even young ladies, you 
 said, had no right to be fiddling while Rome was 
 burning.' 
 
 ' Did I say that ?' said O'Hara. ' What can I have 
 been thinking about, to be cross to a charming young 
 lady who wrote verses ? Perhaps it happened when I 
 was recovering from the influenza last spring. I'll 
 apologize publicly if you like in the next number. 
 Anyhow, you must not take The Critic too seriously. 
 It is an irresponsible, playful sprite, the Ariel of Irish 
 politics.' 
 
 'The first time I met you,' said Sir Gerald, 'you 
 told me to furnish my house from top to bottom with 
 Irish manufactures, and now you are telling Miss 
 Carew not to make stockings, and abusing Mr. 
 Chesney for suggesting an Irish doll-factory.' 
 
 'If it gives you any pleasure to find me out in 
 inconsistences,' said O'Hara, ' you are likely to have 
 a happy life. I'm not consistent. There's nothing 
 which goes under the name of a virtue that I despise 
 more thoroughly than I do consistency. Any way, I 
 said that about the manufactures in England. I'd 
 been breathing a commercial atmosphere for a fort- 
 night. I'm back in Ireland now, thank God ! and can 
 say what I like about Mr. Chesney and his factories.'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 103 
 
 Before they finished their tea, Sir Gerald persuaded 
 O'Hara to pay him a visit at Clogher. 
 
 ' I suppose I can give the public a holiday,' said 
 O'Hara ; ' I'm sure they deserve one. I'll just polish 
 oft' this week's number to-night, and then there will 
 be no more Critics for a fortnight.' 
 
 Sir Gerald proposed a stroll through some part of 
 the grounds not invaded by the show. O'Hara pre- 
 ferred to finish his round of the tents; but Hester, 
 with misgivings on the score of neglected duty, 
 allowed herself to be persuaded to go. They took 
 a path through a plantation to an open space, where 
 the grass, fragrant with thyme, gave way reluctantly 
 to the coarse spiked growth of the billowy sand-hills. 
 Beyond them lay the broad, flat beach and the bay, 
 stretching away into a mist across a belt of red light 
 from the west. For awhile neither Hester nor Sir 
 Gerald spoke. Both felt the solemnity of the sea and 
 its desolation. The noise and bustle of the show 
 grounds, the babble of talk, the inane braying of the 
 band, seemed suddenly remote ; but time was needed 
 to adjust the mind to its new surroundings. It was 
 Hester who spoke first. 
 
 'I'm glad Mr. O'Hara is going to stay with you. 
 He's a true Irishman in spite of all his oddity.' 
 
 ' Yes, I'm glad he's coming,' said Sir Gerald; 'but 
 why did you say that about his being a true Irish- 
 man ? Do you think I require to be converted to 
 patriotism ?' 
 
 ' I think,' said Hester and her own boldness
 
 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 surprised her as she spoke ' that you ought to be an 
 Irishman : I mean an Irishman who loves Ireland, not 
 Hke like the others, who only care for themselves or 
 their party.' 
 
 ' That's what I hoped to be, but you don't know how 
 hard it is. There are puzzles and difficulties which 
 meet one at every turn.' 
 
 ' It ought not to be so hard for you.' 
 
 ' But why for me ? It seems to be harder for me 
 than for anyone else.' 
 
 It was some time before she answered him. Then 
 she said : 
 
 ' Perhaps you will be angry with me for saying this, 
 but it ought not to be hard for the son of Gerald 
 Geoghegan to love Ireland.' 
 
 ' But I do love Ireland. Only, what am I to do ? 
 How can I help Ireland ?' 
 
 ' I've always thought that your father was one 
 of the noblest men in all our history. Of course 
 he failed. They all failed. Everyone who ever tried 
 to work for Ireland failed. But his failure was so 
 much better than any success. I love to think of him 
 when everyone deserted him and betrayed him, and he 
 was left alone at last,' 
 
 ' Don't reproach me,' said Sir Gerald earnestly. ' I 
 love his memory better than you can. I'ld rather be 
 Hke him, even fail like him, than anything in the 
 world. But what can I do ?' You don't under- 
 stand.' 
 
 ' No, I don't understand,' said Hester. ' I'm only
 
 THE SEETHING POT 105 
 
 a girl, and how can I understand your parties and 
 your politics ? I hate them all, and I hate this 
 pretence of helping Ireland, and all the fighting and 
 the bitterness. I only love Ireland.' 
 
 What she said was all very disjointed and ridi- 
 culous, but behind it was a real emotion amounting 
 to a passion. 
 
 'I am ashamed,' he said 'utterly ashamed. Do 
 you know, when I came here a week ago I had my 
 mind made up to let Irish affairs drift, and just to 
 enjoy myself as best I could ?' 
 
 She turned on him fiercely. 'You can't do that. 
 You are Gerald Geoghegan's son, and you can't live 
 for your own pleasure in Ireland.' 
 
 ' I know now that I can't. I've seen that since 
 since you showed it to me. I can't live for my own 
 pleasure, because it would always be spoiled for me 
 by the thought of Ireland ; but I can't do anything 
 else, either. I am frightened by every difficulty, 
 and swayed this way and that. I'm nothing but a 
 coward,' 
 
 Her mood altered suddenly. 'Don't talk like 
 that,' she said softly. ' I cannot think of you as a 
 coward.' 
 
 Her words fell on his ears as he stood a little apart 
 from her, gazing out across the sea. He did not turn 
 to her. There was neither passion nor hope in his 
 voice as he said : 
 
 ' I might do something and be some good if I had 
 you always with me.'
 
 106 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 She shrank away from him silent and frightened. 
 For a while he stood with his head bowed, and 
 did not look at her. Then suddenly he turned 
 to her. 
 
 She stood still and looked up at him. ' I do not 
 understand,' she said. 
 
 'I do not understand, either, but I love you. Is 
 there anything more that I can say? I love you, 
 Hester, and have loved you since I knew you.' 
 
 When she spoke again, it was very softly. 'I 
 suppose I could not have spoken to you as I did I 
 mean, as I did about your father and Ireland unless 
 unless ' 
 
 Then she stretched out her hand to him. He took 
 it and held it in his for a long time silently. Then, 
 half frightened at what he did, he drew her to him 
 and kissed her on the lips. 
 
 ' Hester, you will give me strength and courage in 
 the time to come. You will teach me what to do and 
 what to think. I shall not be a coward any more, or 
 a fool, for I shall always have you with me always, 
 
 1 It is very wonderful to think of,' she said. ' It 
 seems too great and good.' 
 
 ' It is very great. We love each other, and we 
 both love Ireland, and we have all our lives be- 
 fore us.' 
 
 ' Gerald,' she said and it seemed to him that her 
 eyes flashed and her whole face glowed with inspira- 
 tion ' I said that everyone who ever tried to work for
 
 THE SEETHING POT 107 
 
 Ireland failed. You and I cannot fail. We have all 
 that goes to secure success.' 
 
 ' All,' he said. ' And we love each other ; so that 
 it will matter nothing to us what the world thinks 
 of us. I have you, Hester, and that will always 
 be enough.'
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 O'HARA proved himself a sympathetic companion 
 when he joined his host at Clogher House. If Sir 
 Gerald mixed politics with his first attempt at love- 
 making, he made up for it afterwards by refusing 
 to discuss any subject which did not lead directly or 
 indirectly to Hester. O'Hara listened without ap- 
 parent boredom to raptures, and even stimulated Sir 
 Gerald by quoting appropriate poetry. He entered 
 whole - heartedly into plans for making Clogher 
 House fit for the reception of its new mistress. He 
 discovered deficiencies in the furniture, and suggested 
 the names of Irish firms who could supply what was 
 wanted. He undertook a complete reformation of the 
 garden and greenhouses, but was defeated by the 
 dour obstinacy of the gardener. Adams was a Scots- 
 man, and proved impervious to blandishments. He 
 declined to accept the kinship which O'Hara offered 
 him as a Gael ' from over the water.' He even 
 scoffed at the editor's favourite theory that the West 
 of Ireland might rival the Channel Islands in the 
 growth of early vegetables and flowers. Mr. Godfrey, 
 
 103
 
 THE SEETHING POT 109 
 
 who was also called into consultation, was less sym- 
 pathetic, but a great deal more practical. It was 
 he who suggested new fireplaces for the great recep- 
 tion-rooms, and unearthed a carved marble chimney- 
 piece which had lain in its packing cases since 
 some bygone Geohegan had imported it from Italy. 
 Canon Johnston called to offer his congratulations, 
 and contributed a suggestion that the library should 
 be catalogued and arranged. 
 
 It was while be was describing to the other three 
 men the lamentable confusion of the books that an 
 apple of discord fell into the midst of the party. A 
 letter was handed to Sir Gerald which contained a 
 request that he would receive a deputation appointed 
 by the District Council. They wished, so the letter 
 informed him, to propose a scheme for the benefit of 
 the tenants on his estate. 
 
 ' Of course, I shall receive them,' he said, handing 
 the letter to Mr. Godfrey. 
 
 'Well,' said the agent, 'I suppose it can't do any 
 harm to listen to them ; but I know what they want, 
 and the thing is impossible.' 
 
 ' Who are the members of the deputation ?' asked 
 Canon Johnston. 
 
 It appeared that there were three : Father Fahy, 
 Michael McCarty, M.P., and Mr. Walsh, chairman of 
 the District Council. 
 
 ' I shouldn't touch that lot with the end of a 
 forty-foot pole," said the Canon when he heard their 
 names.
 
 110 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 ' What they want,' said Mr. Godfrey, ' is to get 
 you to divide up the grazing-lands and plant them 
 with judicial tenants. That, of course, is quite im- 
 possible ; it would mean a loss of a couple of hundred 
 a year to you.' 
 
 ' If it is a question,' said O'Hara, * of putting men 
 where bullocks roam, and substituting the smoking 
 homestead for the desolate sheep-walk, it ought to be 
 done at any cost. The true wealth of a nation 
 consists of men, not bullocks.' 
 
 Mr. Godfrey and the Canon stared at him, the 
 latter with sheer amazement, the former with scarcely 
 veiled contempt. 
 
 ' Surely ' began the Canon. 
 
 ' You are a clergyman,' said O'Hara. ' Isn't there 
 something in the Bible very like a curse for those who 
 add field to field till there is no place left for people 
 to live ?' 
 
 ' My dear sir,' said the Canon, ' you must recognise 
 that it is perfectly absurd to quote the Old Testa- 
 ment prophets as if they wrote about the management 
 of a modern Irish estate. The conditions of life in 
 those times and in those countries were entirely 
 different from our own.' 
 
 ' They preached righteousness,' said O'Hara, ' and 
 that, I take it, is eternal.' 
 
 ' Look here,' said Mr. Godfrey : ' there's no use 
 starting an argument about Isaiah when we've got to 
 deal with two blackguards and a particularly rampant 
 kind of priest. You don't want to lose a couple
 
 THE SEETHING POT 111 
 
 of hundred a year; and even if you are willing to 
 let that go, they'ld ask you next day for another 
 two hundred. I know these people, and it's quite 
 impossible to satisfy them. You'd far better leave me 
 to deal with them. I see they want to come here 
 to-morrow. That's the day you are expecting Lady 
 Clonfert and Miss Carew to luncheon. You and 
 Mr. O'Hara stay here and entertain the ladies. I'll 
 deal with the deputation at the office. 1 
 
 At last Sir Gerald spoke : 
 
 ' I shall receive the deputation here, and listen to 
 what they have to say. I ask you, Mr. Godfrey, to be 
 present and support me.' 
 
 Mr. Godfrey shrugged his shoulders. ' Very well,' 
 he said ; ' I shall be here at twelve o'clock, and if 
 you choose to give in to them, I shall have done my 
 duty in warning you. Perhaps, Canon, you and I 
 had better be getting home.' 
 
 'Wait a minute,' said Sir Gerald; 'I want to under- 
 stand this business. This land which they want 
 appears to be in my hands at present. Do I farm it 
 myself, or, rather, do you farm it for me ?' 
 
 ' No,' said Mr. Godfrey ; ' but the men who hold it 
 now can't go into the land courts to get their rents 
 reduced. The tenants Father Fahy wants you to put 
 in can and will. The present men pay the full value 
 of the land. The rent is settled by competition. If 
 they don't like their bargain, they give it up. The 
 new tenants, if we are to have new tenants, will get 
 rents fixed at two-thirds of the market value of the
 
 112 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 land. You will lose the difference. I put it at two 
 hundred a year, but it may be more.' 
 
 ' I see,' said Sir Gerald. 
 
 ' That's not quite all,' went on Mr. Godfrey. ' What 
 do you suppose happens to the money you lose ? It 
 goes straight into the pockets of the men you put on 
 the land. The day after a tenant gets possession of 
 one of your new farms he can sell his interests in it 
 for something between fifty pounds and five hundred 
 before he has so much as put a spade into the 
 ground. Now, Mr. O'Hara, you appear to be a bit of 
 a Socialist: how do you like that for an unearned 
 increment ?' 
 
 ' I see that,' said Sir Gerald. ' That is the price of 
 his fixity of tenure.' 
 
 'Of his fixity of tenure,' said Mr. Godfrey, ' and his 
 artificially fixed rent. But that's not all yet. If you 
 accept Father Fahy's scheme, I suppose you will 
 accept the tenants Father Fahy suggests to you. You 
 will get twenty or thirty poverty-stricken harvest-men 
 from the bogs, without capital enough to buy a cow 
 apiece. They'll start borrowing from the nearest 
 gombeen man at ruinous interest, and you'll have to 
 forgive them half the rent or turn them out. They 
 won't be a pin the better for the change. The only 
 person who will benefit will be Father Fahy.' 
 
 ' How on earth does he come in ?' asked O'Hara. 
 
 ' Your study of the prophet Isaiah/ said Mr. God- 
 frey, ' has evidently not taught you the nature of a 
 priest. He'll marry every one of his bankrupt harvest-
 
 THE SEETHING POT 113 
 
 men in the inside of six months to a fine healthy girl 
 from off the mountains, and get a five-pound note for 
 each ceremony. Then he'll have a nice little income 
 coming in for the next fifteen years for christening 
 babies at a pound a head, and a trifle extra for 
 churching the mothers. I've been watching philan- 
 thropists and Government officials fiddling at these 
 schemes for years back, and I never saw one of them 
 yet good for anything but breeding paupers to pay 
 priests.' 
 
 Mr. Godfrey and the Canon took their departure 
 together. 
 
 'Who or what is that meddling idiot O'Hara ?' asked 
 the agent as they walked down the avenue. 
 
 ' He runs a paper,' said the Canon. ' I never read 
 a copy of it myself, but I believe he is one of that 
 half-Nationalist lot, like Dennis Browne. There's 
 some excuse for Browne he's a Roman Catholic; 
 but how any man who's a Protestant and comes of a 
 decent family, as I believe O'Hara does, can mix 
 himself up with that set is more than I can under- 
 stand.' 
 
 ' I wish he would keep his mouth shut. I'm 
 greatly afraid Sir Gerald is just the kind of man 
 to be taken with the high-falutin stuff those fellows 
 talk.' 
 
 ' I call it extremely bad form,' said the Canon, if 
 not worse, to go dragging the Bible into a discussion 
 of the kind.' 
 
 Sir Gerald and O'Hara sat up far into the night 
 
 8
 
 114 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 discussing the situation. The editor quoted more or 
 less appropriate passages from Carlyle, and produced 
 from his own brain sentiments clothed in language 
 which might have been Carlyle's. He fished out a 
 Bible from his portmanteau, and read aloud some 
 terrific denunciations of unrighteousness from Ezekiel 
 and the minor prophets. Sir Gerald was suitably 
 impressed, but kept reverting uneasily to the financial 
 aspect of the question. 
 
 'It isn't that I mind about the 200 a year,' he 
 said. ' God knows I don't want to grind the faces of 
 the poor, or extract the last possible penny of rent. 
 But look at the thing this way : is it right for me to 
 pick out, arbitrarily, a handful of my tenants and give 
 them a present that I'm not in a position to give to 
 the rest. Wouldn't that be most unjust I mean, 
 unjust to everybody else ? Then, there's another 
 thing. It's no good putting men without capital on 
 to the land, and it's for the poorest of the poor that 
 I'm asked to do this.' 
 
 O'Hara admitted the force of the argument, but 
 clung to his conviction that somehow the thing ought 
 to be done. 
 
 ' It's better for the land,' he said, ' to be tilled than 
 grazed. It's better for the country to have men in it 
 than bullocks. It's better for the people to have farms 
 to live on than to be pushed away to the degradation 
 of life in the great American cities. It's better for 
 you, too, though you do lose money by it. Why, you 
 have it in your power to become a genuine aristocrat.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 115 
 
 one of the good men of the world with power in 
 your hands. You may be a captain of the world's 
 greatest industry.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Sir Gerald, ' I see all that. But look 
 here : if I were a shoemaker instead of a landlord, 
 would it be for the good of people in general if I 
 picked out a dozen or so of my customers and 
 gave each a present of a pair of shoes that didn't 
 fit, which would be of no use to them except to 
 sell ?' 
 
 ' I refuse,' said O'Hara, ' to be bound down to that 
 view of the case. This is a great controversy. It's 
 three great controversies rolled into one. It's Homo 
 versus Bos, and I'm on the side of man. It's Ireland 
 or America for our people, and I'm on the side of 
 Ireland. It's money-grubbing or a great captainship 
 for you, and there can be no hesitation about your 
 choice.' 
 
 ' For heaven's sake, O'Hara, talk sense,' said Sir 
 Gerald peevishly. 
 
 ' I am talking sense. I am talking the only real 
 kind of sense there is in the world, but I'll climb down 
 if you like. Here's the situation : You admit my 
 principles. I can't answer your political economy, or, 
 rather, Mr. Godfrey's, for it was he who blocked us 
 with these money questions. Now, there must be 
 some way out of the difficulty. We are both right, 
 and all we want is some suggestion, probably a 
 ridiculously simple one, to join our two rights into a 
 possible course of action. There is just one man I 
 
 82
 
 116 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 know who might be able to help us. He's the ablest 
 man in Ireland to-day. Will you let me lay the matter 
 before him ?' 
 
 ' There is no time,' said Sir Gerald. ' The deputa- 
 tion comes to-morrow.' 
 
 1 There is time enough. The man I mean lives 
 within a mile of your gate. His name is John 
 O'Neill.' 
 
 Sir Gerald remained silent. 
 
 'I know it is a good deal to ask of you,' said 
 O'Hara. 
 
 ' I don't like him. I believe him to be responsible 
 for a most insulting and quite unprovoked attack 
 on me.' 
 
 ' Once,' said O'Hara, ( there was a king called Ahab, 
 and he went to his death because he would not listen 
 to the advice of a prophet. Do you remember why 
 he wouldn't listen ? " For he doth not speak good 
 concerning me, but evil." ' 
 
 ' You ought to have been a parson, O'Hara.' 
 
 1 Well, may I consult Micaiah, the son of Imlah ?' 
 
 'I don't see how he can help us,' said Sir Gerald; 
 'but I will go with you to-morrow and call on 
 him.' 
 
 Sir Gerald went to bed in no mood for self-con- 
 gratulation. Yet, though he did not know it, he 
 had done a great day's work. He had set himself 
 free from leading-strings, and had taken a line of 
 his own in opposition to his agent. He had stood 
 firm against O'Hara's rhetoric. He had decided on
 
 THE SEETHING POT 117 
 
 visiting and consulting John O'Neill, although he 
 partly realized that in doing so he would outrage 
 the dearest prejudices of the people who were natu- 
 rally his friends. 
 
 O'Neill was still lingering over the remains of his 
 breakfast next morning when his visitors were an- 
 nounced. He was an admirer of O'Hara's work in 
 The Critic, although the editor had more than once 
 condemned unsparingly the actions of the Parlia- 
 mentary party. O'Hara wrote as a gentleman and 
 a man of scrupulous honour, and O'Neill recognised 
 the justice of some of his attacks. Once he had 
 favoured The Critic with a letter, a characteristic 
 apology for a particularly outrageous incident in the 
 agitation for which the chief admitted his responsi- 
 bility. 'If we were engaged,' he wrote, 'in a 
 controversy with men who recognised the force of 
 reason, or who wanted to legislate for the good of 
 Ireland, I should refrain from advocating the policy 
 which you condemn. Unfortunately, we are carrying 
 on a war with the leaders of a nation for whom 
 appeals to reason or justice are of no force whatever. 
 English politicians are, in the first place, incurably 
 stupid, and, in the next place, determined to exploit 
 Ireland for the benefit of their own country. The only 
 weapon which remains to us is force. We must render 
 the government of Ireland impossible until substantial 
 justice is done to us.' O'Hara printed the letter 
 with a note, characterizing it as a piece of diabolical 
 cynicism. O'Neill never again attempted to justify
 
 118 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 himself in the columns of The Critic ; but he re- 
 spected O'Hara, and welcomed the opportunity of 
 making his acquaintance. 
 
 When he entered the study where Sir Gerald and 
 O'Hara awaited him, he simply bowed, and sat down 
 opposite his visitors. 
 
 ' I presume, gentlemen,' he said, ' since you have 
 come here at ten o'clock in the morning, that you 
 have some business to transact with me. If I am 
 right, we need not waste time in saying we are glad to 
 see each other.' 
 
 Sir Gerald felt strongly inclined to leave the house 
 at once. His statement, when he brought himself to 
 make one, was bald, and he left it to O'Hara to ask 
 for the advice they had come to get. 
 
 ' I take it for granted,' said O'Neill, ' that you wish 
 to act for the benefit of your tenants. Otherwise I 
 think your wisest plan will be to leave the whole 
 matter in Mr. Godfrey's hands.' Sir Gerald nodded, 
 and O'Neill went on : ' You realize that if you attempt 
 to carry through any scheme of reform on your 
 estate you will have to face the opposition of your 
 agent and the hostility of the neighbouring land- 
 owners.' 
 
 ' I am prepared for that,' said Sir Gerald. 
 
 ' You are perhaps not aware,' continued O'Neill, 
 ' that if you want to do real good you will also have 
 to face the hostility of the people you are working for. 
 I believe you will not shrink from unpopularity. 
 You come here with good credentials, you are the son
 
 THE SEETHING POT 119 
 
 of a great man, and you come with a good introduc- 
 tion when you come with Mr. O'Hara.' 
 
 Sir Gerald felt his sense of offended dignity vanish 
 as O'Neill spoke. He found himself waiting for the 
 chief's next words with an assurance that his course 
 would be made clear to him, and that he would have 
 no choice but to follow it. 
 
 ' Your difficulty,' said O'Neill, ' has long been 
 familiar to me, and, indeed, to everyone who follows 
 the course of the expensive experiments which English- 
 men insist on trying in this unfortunate country. 
 Of course Mr. Godfrey is perfectly right in saying 
 that it is folly or worse to make a present of the 
 tenant's interest in the proposed farms to a set of 
 paupers. It's wrong to make presents of that kind to 
 anyone, and it's folly to put men without capital on 
 the land. Your new tenants must pay for what they 
 get. When you have divided up your grazing-land, 
 put the tenants' interest up to auction. You'll get 
 more than its proper value in each case. Taking 
 Mr. Godfrey's figures as correct, you ought to get 
 6,000 for the tenants' interest in your new farms. 
 That would be your 200 a year capitalized at a little 
 over 3 per cent., roughly speaking. You probably 
 will get nearer 8,000, because all over the country 
 farmers are willing to give more than the right value 
 for the privilege of paying a judicial rent. Now 
 comes your second difficulty. When your new 
 tenant has paid this fine which he will pay willingly 
 he will be practically a pauper. He won't be abla
 
 120 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 to stock or work his farm. I suggest that you lend 
 him the money he has just paid you, at such a rate 
 of interest as will bring you in the 200 a year you 
 stand to lose by the fixing of the judicial rents. You 
 see how the thing works out. You get between rent 
 and interest what you always did get for the land. 
 No land court can touch the interest on your bond. 
 You also get the kind of man you want as tenant 
 the man who has money to pay his way. He in his 
 turn is saved from being pauperized by a gift which 
 could only in the end destroy his self-respect and 
 self-reliance. How does the plan strike you? I 
 hope,' he added, smiling, ' that Mr. O'Hara will not 
 find it profoundly immoral or diabolically cynical.' 
 
 ' It is a beautiful financial dodge,' said O'Hara. 
 It's the most beautiful dodge I ever heard of. But 
 I don't know why on earth you put us up to it. 
 You've worked all your life as if you hated landlords. 
 You've done more than anyone else to rob them 
 systematically, and now you show us a way to defeat 
 the law you fought for yourself.' 
 
 ' You quite mistake my position,' said O'Neill. ' I 
 don't hate landlords hi the least. There is nothing 
 in the world I'd rather have than the Irish aris- 
 tocracy on my side. Unfortunately, I can't get them. 
 They are English at heart, and not Irish ; therefore, 
 like everything else that stands in the way of Irish 
 nationality, they have got to go. We have taken 
 their power and most of their influence from them. 
 Now we are taking their property. I am sorry for it.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 121 
 
 I would rather they were with us to help to govern 
 Ireland in the days that are coming. If they choose 
 to cling to England, I can't help it. They will be 
 robbed more and more. But who robs them ? Their 
 own friends, the English Government. Why could 
 they not have understood twenty years ago that the 
 English care nothing for them or their properties? 
 If they had stood by their country, they would have 
 been sitting to-day in an Irish Parliament helping to 
 govern Ireland, instead of licking the boots of 
 politicians in Westminster, who will go on betraying 
 them right to the end.' 
 
 He paused. 
 
 ' Go on/ said Sir Gerald. ' I want to hear more of 
 what you think about Ireland.' 
 
 ' I think that, if you mean to meet your deputation 
 at twelve o'clock, you had better be going. I'm glad 
 if I have been of any use to you, but I don't think it 
 is good for you to talk politics to me. I am on the 
 other side, you know.' 
 
 ' Sir Gerald is on the side of Ireland,' said O'Hara ; 
 ' so am I, and so are you.' 
 
 ' Ah !' said O'Neill. ' Then, we ought all to be on 
 the same side. Isn't that so ? But, you see, we are 
 not. There are some things you would not do for 
 Ireland, Mr. O'Hara so you tell us in The Critic 
 now and again. There are some things Sir Gerald 
 wouldn't do, either. You see, you are both gentle- 
 men, and gentlemen don't do certain things. Well, I 
 do them the dirty things not fit for gentlemen. I
 
 122 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 do them, and I expect my followers to do them for 
 Ireland. So you see, Mr. Editor, though we are all 
 three for Ireland, we can't be on the same side, 
 can we ?' 
 
 He rose and held out his hand to Sir Gerald. 
 
 ' Unless,' he said, smiling slightly, ' you would 
 rather not shake hands with a man who is on my 
 side in politics.' 

 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 SIR GERALD, Mr. Godfrey, and Mr. O'Hara awaited 
 the deputation in the great gallery of Clogher House. 
 Mr. Godfrey was extremely uncomfortable and anxious 
 lest his employer should make a fool of himself. Sir 
 Gerald had an annoying feeling that he had not 
 treated his agent fairly. He awaited rather nervously 
 the explanation which he knew must come, and the 
 protest which was sure to follow it. O'Hara suffered 
 from misgivings about the wisdom of having brought 
 Sir Gerald and O'Neill together. All three wished 
 the interview with the deputation well over. 
 
 Sir Gerald observed with some curiosity and wonder 
 the conduct of the visitors when they arrived. He 
 had gathered from Mr. Godfrey's tone that Father 
 Fahy was the man he had really to deal with ; but the 
 priest kept himself in the background. He walked 
 down the long gallery behind his colleagues, and 
 saluted Sir Gerald with a deprecating bow. His 
 manner and attitude were those of a man who has 
 been forced, rather against his will, into a position 
 which he feels to be doubtful. The chairman of the 
 District Council was fidgety and ill-at-ease. Michael 
 
 123
 
 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 McCarty alone seemed sure of himself and satisfied 
 with the part he had to play. 
 
 It was he who produced a lengthy document and 
 read from it a quite surprising list of figures. He 
 showed how Sir Gerald's property was for the most 
 part divided between two classes of tenants. There 
 were a few who held big tracts of land and paid 
 large rents. There was a large number living on 
 holdings of five or six acres. He then described 
 the condition of these small tenants, showing, by 
 careful estimates of their possibilities of making money 
 off their land, how difficult it was for them to exist 
 under the most favourable circumstances. He quoted 
 figures to show how many of them emigrated to the 
 United States, and how many went every year to 
 England or Scotland as agricultural labourers. ' The 
 whole potential wealth of the district,' so the document 
 concluded, ' is in the hands of the landlord and a 
 few individuals who refuse to develop it. The great 
 majority of the people live under conditions which 
 condemn them to hopeless poverty.' 
 
 1 1 remember reading an address,' said Mr. Godfrey, 
 ' which you presented some time ago to Mr. Chesney. 
 You wanted the Government to build some light 
 railways. You then represented this district as a 
 perfect hive of industry and prosperity, which required 
 nothing but a few steam tramways to make it wealthy 
 and contented. How do you account for the dis- 
 crepancy between that statement and the one you 
 have just read to us ?'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 125 
 
 The deputation consulted together in whispers. It 
 was apparently Father Fahy who suggested the 
 answer to which Mr. Walsh gave utterance, with a 
 smile of engaging simplicity. 
 
 'Them statistics, which you refer to, Mr. Godfrey, 
 was compiled for an entirely different purpose.' 
 
 Mr. Godfrey also smiled. 
 
 ' And which of the two sets,' he asked, ' comes 
 nearest to the actual truth ?' 
 
 ' Sure, then, Mr. Godfrey,' said Walsh, ' you 
 wouldn't be wishing us to miss the chance of getting 
 what might be got out of the Government. What 
 harm would it do anyone if they spent a few pounds 
 in the country ?' 
 
 ' Well,' said Sir Gerald, ' perhaps you'll tell us 
 now for what purpose these statistics were com- 
 piled ?' 
 
 'We propose,' said McCarty, 'that the grazing- 
 lands at present in your own hands should be divided 
 into farms of twenty acres or thereabouts, and let 
 to the tenants who are at present living on smaller 
 farms. In complying with our request you will 
 confer a lasting benefit upon the tenants. You will 
 ameliorate ' 
 
 Sir Gerald cut him short. 
 
 ' The day I arrived in Clogher, Mr. McCarty, you 
 called me a tyrant and a bloodsucker. I think these 
 were the words. Now, do you think it is any use 
 appealing to a tyrant and a bloodsucker to confer a 
 benefit on anyone or to ameliorate anything ?'
 
 126 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 Mr. Godfrey breathed a sudden sigh of relief. After 
 all, it seemed that Sir Gerald was not going to give 
 himself away. He hastened to share in the dis- 
 comfiture of the foe, and for the first time spoke 
 with his usual confidence. ' Mr. Walsh,' he said, 
 ' you're a business man, and a successful one in your 
 own line. Don't you know perfectly well that the 
 first thing the new tenants would do would be to 
 go into the land courts and get their rents reduced ? 
 Do you seriously propose that Sir Gerald is to submit 
 to a loss of 200 a year for the sake of a set of 
 men who have never done anything but abuse him 
 or his predecessors, and who wouldn't even so much 
 as pretend to be grateful ?' 
 
 No one answered, or indeed heeded, Mr. Godfrey's 
 question. There was a struggle going on between 
 McCarty and the priest. It seemed as if Father Fahy 
 were trying to restrain his friend. At last McCarty 
 thrust the priest aside. He took a step forward and 
 raised his hand. His eyes shone, and it was clear 
 that he was under the spell of a strong emotion. 
 Mr. Godfrey leaned back with a smile. He was quite 
 satisfied that in his excitement McCarty would say 
 something outrageous, which would alienate for ever 
 any lingering sympathy Sir Gerald might have 
 with the deputation. McCarty spoke as if he were 
 delivering an oration to a crowded assembly. He 
 gesticulated with his hands. His voice rose almost 
 to a shout. 
 
 ' Mr. Godfrey,' he said, ' you'll bear me witness
 
 THE SEETHING POT 127 
 
 that I speak the truth. What I am going to tell Sir 
 Gerald Geoghegan is down in the books of the estate. 
 After the famine the people were cleared off the very 
 lands we're talking of. It's nothing but our own old 
 homes we ask for back again. My own mother, sir, 
 was a girl at the time. Her mother was turned out, 
 and she a widow with young children. She was a 
 decent woman one that worked hard, and paid her 
 rent, and reared her family well. Yes, and she loved 
 your people. They were the old stock, and why 
 wouldn't she love them? But it's little your uncle 
 cared. He turned her and her children out on to the 
 roadside. He burnt the house before their eyes. 
 They might have starved, and they would have 
 starved as many a family starved on the roadside in 
 those days but for a brother of my grandmother's 
 that took them in, into the same little cabin where my 
 mother is living this minute. We haven't forgotten, 
 sir, and we can't forget never, so long as the breath 
 of life is in us what happened in those times, nor 
 how your people treated our people. If I spoke of you 
 as a tyrant, didn't them that went before you deserve 
 the name of us ? And I say this ' 
 
 'Hush to you now!' said the priest. 'Isn't that 
 enough for you to say? Don't you see that Sir 
 Gerald is wanting to speak ?' 
 
 Mr. Godfrey, still smiling, glanced at O'Hara. He 
 already turned over in his mind the sweets of his 
 coming triumph. 
 
 Sir Gerald spoke quietly, almost coldly, but with a
 
 128 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 certain tension in his voice. What McCarty said had 
 moved him. 
 
 ' I make this proposal to you, gentlemen. I shall 
 divide up the land in question, as you wish, into farms 
 of about twenty acres each. I shall fix the rents at a 
 figure which the land court is not likely to reduce. 
 I shall then put the tenants' interest in the new 
 farms up to public auction, exactly as is done every 
 day by outgoing tenants. The money I receive from 
 these sales I shall be prepared to lend to the incoming 
 tenants at a moderate rate of interest. I shall thus 
 secure myself from loss, and at the same time get a 
 class of tenants who have capital enough to work the 
 land.' 
 
 The members of the deputation consulted together 
 in whispers. Then for the first time the priest took 
 a leading part in the proceedings. ' May I ask,' he 
 said, ' whether this plan is of Mr. Godfrey's making, 
 or whether the gentleman on your left hand had 
 anything to do with it ?' 
 
 'I don't see,' said Sir Gerald, 'that it matters in 
 the least who proposed the plan. I have laid it before 
 you, and I am prepared to act on it.' 
 
 'Have you considered,' said the priest and this 
 time there was a note of menace in his voice 
 ' what will happen if the League forbids anyone to 
 take the farms on your terms ? How will you be 
 situated with your land striped and the graziers 
 gone ?' 
 
 ' Surely,' said O'Hara, ' the League has more sense
 
 THE SEETHING POT 129 
 
 than to issue such an order. I don't believe the 
 people would obey it if they did.' 
 
 ' We should like,' said the priest, ' to report your 
 proposal to the District Council before we say what we 
 think of it.' 
 
 ' Keport it to the League, you mean,' said Mr. God- 
 frey as the deputation withdrew. 'Everyone knows 
 the Council daren't do anything but what the League 
 tells them.' 
 
 After they were gone, he shook Sir Gerald warmly 
 by the hand. 
 
 ' I congratulate you,' he said. ' You cornered the 
 blackguards neatly. You need never divide that land 
 at all. Father Fahy runs the League, and you may 
 take your oath he won't have your plan at any price. 
 The man who is prepared to put down a good round 
 fine for his farm is a careful and independent man. 
 That's not the class Father Fahy wants to see settled 
 on the land. I wish, though, you'd told me before- 
 hand what you were going to do. I felt infernally 
 anxious, quite thought you might give in. Instead of 
 that, you've taken as neat a score off them as 1 ever 
 heard of.' 
 
 ' I'm afraid you're mistaken,' said Sir Gerald. ' I 
 didn't mean to score off them. I admit the justice of 
 what they said, and I think the people ought to have 
 the land. 1 
 
 ' Oh, quite so,' said Mr. Godfrey, smiling. 
 
 ' You don't appear to think,' said O'Hara, ' that Sir 
 Gerald is in earnest. I don't know how you can 
 
 9
 
 130 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 expect him to listen to the story of those famine clear- 
 ances without wanting to do something in atonement 
 for all the suffering.' 
 
 'My dear sir/ said Mr. Godfrey, 'I haven't the 
 smallest objection to your kind of philanthropy and 
 fine talk as long as it doesn't cost money. In this 
 case I feel perfectly safe. Father Fahy is the master 
 of the League, and there is just as much chance of 
 his turning Protestant as of his allowing the people 
 to accept that proposal. 1 
 
 His coolly contemptuous tone nettled O'Hara. 
 
 *I think,' he said, 'Father Fahy won't have much 
 of a say this time. The League has got another 
 master, as you know very well, Mr. Godfrey. John 
 O'Neill is a bigger man than Father Fahy.' 
 
 ' I dare say he is,' said Mr. Godfrey ; ' but I don't 
 see any reason for supposing that he'll interfere in the 
 matter one way or other.' 
 
 ' There is a very good reason, though,' said O'Hara. 
 ' The plan is his own from start to finish. Sir Gerald 
 and I consulted him this morning.' 
 
 ' Is this true ?' asked Mr. Godfrey, turning to Sir 
 Gerald. 
 
 ' Perfectly true. I meant to have told you myself, 
 and told you in a different way, but it is as well for 
 you to know now. I'm sorry, though, that you have 
 heard it in the way you have.' 
 
 ' Sir Gerald, ' said Mr. Godfrey after a short pause, 
 f I ask you to accept my resignation of the agency. I 
 absolutely decline to share the management of your
 
 THE SEETHING POT 131 
 
 estate with John O'Neill. Thank God, 1 have neither 
 wife nor child, and am an independent man. I can 
 live on what I have, but I'd rather starve in a ditch 
 than associate myself with a man who is a rebel and 
 a murderer. I'll say this, too : If John O'Neill is to 
 be your confidant and friend, I decline the honour of 
 your acquaintance.' 
 
 O'Hara and Sir Gerald stared blankly at each other 
 when Mr. Godfrey left them. 
 
 'The fat is in the fire,' said O'Hara, 'and no 
 mistake !' 
 
 ' This is frightful,' said Sir Gerald ; ' I couldn't have 
 believed it possible that political prejudice could have 
 driven a man so far.' 
 
 ' Well, I'm not sure that I should call it simply 
 political prejudice. You see, Godfrey went through 
 the " bad times " here. He was a great friend of 
 that poor fellow Morris who was shot. He was fired 
 at himself once or twice. That kind of thing leaves 
 its mark on a man. 1 
 
 ' I'm sorry,' said Sir Gerald, ' more sorry than I can 
 say, that this has happened.' 
 
 ' I'm sorry, too ; but, after all, the man was im- 
 possible. Nothing can be done with men of that 
 stamp. He belongs to the old order. He would 
 always have been a thorn in your side. In the new 
 Ireland, where all classes are to unite for the common 
 good of their country, there is no room for the irre- 
 concilables.' 
 
 ' I shall ask him to reconsider his decision.' 
 
 92
 
 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 ' Not a bit of use. He won't do that unless you 
 apologize for consulting John O'Neill, and promise 
 him to be a good boy and never do such a thing 
 again.' 
 
 ' That's impossible, of course,' said Sir Gerald. ' I 
 erossed my rubicon this morning. If Godfrey won't 
 keep on the agency, I shall ask O'Neill to suggest 
 someone to take his place.' 
 
 ' I don't think,' said O'Hara, laughing, ' that you 
 ean exactly ask O'Neill to recommend an agent to 
 you. Of course he is an able man and all that, but 
 well, it would be rather like a shepherd asking the 
 wolf for the name of a good reliable watch-dog. 
 Besides, I don't think you ought to get too thick with 
 O'Neill. He is a marked man, very indelibly marked 
 indeed. There is no use your flying in the face of 
 prejudice. You ought to aim at arousing a national 
 spirit among the upper classes. You have a magnifi- 
 cent opportunity, and you must not throw it away by 
 getting yourself branded at the outset as a friend of 
 John O'Neill's. If you do, you will make an enemy 
 of every gentleman in Ireland, and your influence will 
 be gone.' 
 
 ' O'Hara, you are the merest dreamer. I've not 
 had a twentieth part of your experience of Ireland 
 but I know this that the hope of rousing our gentry 
 to a sense of patriotism is a delusion. Look at 
 Godfrey and his conduct to-day and he's a type.' 
 
 It appeared that O'Hara was right in supposiag 
 lhat Mr. Godfrey would persist in his determination to
 
 THE SEETHING POT 13* 
 
 resign the agency. The next morning brought a letter 
 from him. 
 
 ' I hope you will understand,' he wrote, ' that I take 
 this step solely because it is impossible for me to 
 associate myself with Mr. John O'Neill in the manage- 
 ment of your estate. I have spent forty years of my 
 life in fighting Irish agitators, and I am too old now 
 to change the colour of my coat and adapt my ways 
 to theirs. I hope that you will not think that I bear 
 you, personally, any ill-will. I may have spoken too 
 strongly in your house to-day. I was very much 
 amazed and shocked at what you told me. If I said 
 anything which seemed to you offensive, I ask yon. 
 to accept my apologies. Now that our relations as 
 employer and employed are at an end, I hope you 
 will allow me, as an older man and your sincere well- 
 wisher, to offer you a piece of advice. Do not drift 
 into an intimacy with John O'Neill. You are bound 
 to discover sooner or later that he is an entirely 
 unscrupulous man. I give you my opinion of him 
 deliberately and carefully. He has no sense of 
 honour, nor any conscience capable of distinguishing 
 right from wrong. It is not possible for you to be 
 his friend without finding yourself committed, sooner 
 or later, to some course of which you cannot possibly 
 approve.' 
 
 O'Hara's comment on the letter was characteristic: 
 ' He has blotted himself out of the book of the 
 living. He has disappeared as the rest of the clasa 
 to which he belongs is disappearing. It is a pity, for
 
 134 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 it is gentlemen that Ireland wants to-day, and will 
 want more in the future.' 
 
 It is likely that O'Hara was right. The future 
 historian will probably view the ruin of the Irish 
 aristocracy as a great, though inevitable, misfortune. 
 The end of the seventeenth century saw the passing 
 away of one Irish aristocracy. The Jacobite nobility 
 and gentry, who were driven from the service of 
 Ireland into that of France, Spain, and Austria, were 
 lost through their incurable loyalty to a King who was 
 a fool. Ireland suffered. She lay like a corpse for 
 a century. Yet her case was not wholly hopeless, 
 because the aristocracy she lost was succeeded by 
 another. Strong men took the place of those who 
 were gone, and they in their turn learnt to be Irish- 
 men. After breathing the atmosphere of Ireland for 
 a- hundred years, this race of men rose up, demanded 
 and got freedom for the country of their adoption. 
 The end of the nineteenth century saw the ruin, the 
 beginning of the twentieth will see the final extinction, 
 of this aristocracy. It is curious that they, too, are 
 perishing through mistaken loyalty. They have quite 
 forgotten that their grandfathers stood for Irish 
 nationality. They have chosen to call themselves 
 English. In the future men will speak of them as 
 stupid and blind almost beyond belief, but no one 
 will call them either cowardly or base. At different 
 stages of the struggle they might have saved them- 
 selves and led a really united Ireland in a great battle 
 for nationality. They never did, and never would.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 135 
 
 They conceived of themselves as an English garrison, 
 and held loyalty to England as their prime duty. 
 Never, surely, not even in the case of James II., has 
 loyalty been so hopelessly misplaced. England has 
 betrayed them again and again, has deliberately 
 sacrificed them not once or twice. There is probably 
 no more pathetic instance of dog-like fidelity than the 
 way the Irish gentry have turned, and still turn, to 
 lick the foot that spurns them. This has been their 
 grand mistake, their crime, since excessive stupidity 
 must in history be reckoned for a crime. The 
 peasantry whom they despised were wiser ; for long 
 ago, in their own tongue, they made a proverb which 
 might have saved the gentry if they had known it : 
 ' Beware of the head of a bull, of the heels of a horse, 
 of the smile of an Englishman.'
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THERE is a passage somewhere in his works in 
 which Swift expresses his admiration of the excellent 
 bishops sent over in his time from England to 
 govern the Irish Church. Unfortunately, as the 
 Dean points out, these worthy men were invariably 
 attacked by highwaymen shortly after leaving London. 
 Their robes and their papers were taken from them, 
 and the impudent robbers travelled over to Ireland 
 and entered into possession of the vacant sees, there- 
 by working quite incalculable mischief. Something 
 of the same kind seems to have been happening ever 
 since. England, indeed, no longer sends over bishops. 
 She now devises laws for the government of the 
 country, and sends them over to Dublin Castle by 
 post or telegraph. The laws when they leave West- 
 minster are admirable, as admirable as the bishops 
 whose fate Swift deplored. Unfortunately, some subtle 
 change comes over them before they cross St. George's 
 Channel. We can hardly lay the blame on highway- 
 men nowadays. Besides, would any highwayman, 
 even a desperate and broken barrister, care to steal an 
 Act of Parliament ? We must imagine that there 
 
 136
 
 THE SEETHING POT 137 
 
 lurks somewhere in Wales a malevolent Celtic sprite 
 who finds a pleasure in effecting those subtle changes 
 in the beautiful laws of the English Parliament which 
 make them such troublesome and harmful enactments 
 when they arrive. It may be difficult for the modern 
 mind to accept the existence of this sprite, but the 
 only other hypothesis which would account for the 
 facts of the case is that the laws made by the collec- 
 tive wisdom of Great Britain are not wise laws. This 
 is, of course, wholly impossible to believe, and we are 
 thrown back, until scientific men investigate the 
 matter further, on the hypothesis of a supernatural 
 agency. 
 
 Nothing, for instance, could have been more ad- 
 mirable, when it left Westminster, than the statute 
 which regulates the local government of Ireland. The 
 genius for politics which has always characterized 
 England's dealings with inferior races suggested a 
 clause which forbade any priest or minister of religion 
 becoming a member of a board or council. Nothing 
 could have been wiser. Everyone knows that if the 
 Nationalist priests and Orange parsons could only be 
 kept from interfering, Irish local politicians would 
 work calmly and unitedly for the people's good. 
 Clearly, the Local Government Act was in a fair way 
 to solve the whole problem of Irish government. 
 Unfortunately, owing to one of those subtle changes, 
 which, except on the Welsh sprite hypothesis, it is 
 impossible to explain, the plan didn't work out. 
 Priests don't, of course, sit on local boards as elected
 
 138 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 members. They preside over preliminary meetings 
 of the particular League which happens at the time to 
 be in fashion. Here the business of local government 
 is discussed, resolutions are prepared, and affairs come 
 before the actual board or council merely to receive 
 formal approval. 
 
 Thus, it happened that Sir Gerald's proposal for 
 dealing with his land was brought before the local 
 branch of the League. The nominal president of tke 
 branch was John O'Neill, but local politics interested 
 him very little, and he generally left it to Father Fahy 
 to act as chairman of the meetings. The priest had 
 worked hard beforehand to insure a decisive rejection 
 of Sir Gerald's proposal. He knew very well that 
 moat of the farmers and many of the shopkeepers 
 would regard the suggested terms as fair, and would 
 be prepared to give the plan a trial. In Ireland, 
 however, it is always quite possible to induce an 
 assembly collectively to give a vote of which every 
 individual voter disapproves. If you can privately 
 persuade each man that he is likely to find himself a 
 member of a small and obnoxious minority, he will 
 readily agree, not only to hold his tongue, but to give 
 his vote to what he conceives to be the popular side. 
 Father Fahy was an adept at the art of private 
 persuasion. He called it ' personal explanation.' 
 He and his curates worked hard, with the result that, 
 when the day of the meeting arrived, he felt fairly 
 confident of securing a contemptuous rejection of the 
 proposal he disliked.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 139 
 
 He was surprised to find, on his arrival, that John 
 O'Neill occupied the chair. He didn't understand 
 why the president should have chosen this particular 
 occasion for taking part in the proceedings of the 
 League. It did not appear, however, that the chair- 
 man's part was likely to be an active one. After the 
 briefest possible description of the business before the 
 meeting, O'Neill called on Father Fahy to give an 
 account of the work of the deputation. 
 
 The priest rose to the occasion. He told his 
 audience the well-known tale of the clearances which 
 followed the famine years. He reminded them of the 
 ruined cottages and broken fences which were scattered 
 over the wide ranches where the cattle grazed. He 
 told them of their sons and daughters driven away 
 to America, through want of employment and the 
 impossibility of getting land. He compared Ireland 
 to Egypt on the night of the last great plague. 
 
 ' There is not a house,' he said, ' hi the land but 
 mourns its first-born, gone as completely as if death 
 had taken him. For all this a remedy is at hand. 
 You are starving in the midst of plenty. Land, land 
 in abundance, is at your doors the very land which 
 your fathers tilled, land that to-day would support 
 your sons, where brave men might build homes for 
 your daughters.' 
 
 Every word the priest said was true; and his 
 audience recognised the truth, not as an abstract 
 proposition, but as a matter of personal experienca 
 They had felt the poverty, and the bitterness of part-
 
 140 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 ing. As the speech reached its climax it was inter- 
 rupted with cheer after cheer. The priest held up his 
 hand for silence. He went on to describe Sir Gerald's 
 answer to the deputation. He stated the proposed 
 terms honestly enough, but he allowed his audience 
 no time to grasp their meaning. 
 
 ' What he demands is this,' he continued : ' You are 
 to give him your savings. You are to beg their wages 
 from your children in America. You are to toil in the 
 harvest- fields of England. You you who can scarcely 
 fill your mouths with bread you are to give him 
 6,000 ; you are to give it to him in return for land 
 that by the right of God's law is your own already. 
 And that is not all. You are to be his debtors, too. 
 You are to sign yourself into the worst slavery the 
 world knows of bondage to the gombeen-man. We 
 have known our landlords as tyrants in the past, 
 and learnt to hate them. For the future we are to 
 see them as usurers as well, and learn to despise 
 them.' 
 
 The meeting was worked up to a frenzy of excite- 
 ment There were shouts; sticks and hats were 
 waved. John O'Neill alone seemed perfectly unmoved. 
 During the earlier part of the speech he had scribbled 
 idly on the paper before him. Afterwards he took a 
 book from his pocket and read it, leaning back in his 
 chair. 
 
 Michael McCarty followed Father Fahy. He de- 
 scribed Sir Gerald's proposal as a trap. ' It emanates/ 
 he said, ' from the rent office. It is worthy of the
 
 THE SEETHING POT 141 
 
 worst traditions of the old Orange ascendancy. We 
 can guess at its author. We know of old the malig- 
 nant craft of the hireling who oppresses and enslaves 
 us. Let us fling it back in the teeth of its author and 
 his employer. Let us tell Mr. Godfrey and Sir Gerald 
 Geoghegan that we prefer open war to the poison of 
 pretended friendship. Are they afraid to meet us 
 with the arms of men, that they attack us with the 
 cunning of hell V 
 
 Mr. Walsh rose next. His position was a difficult 
 one. He had to speak to an audience excited to fever- 
 heat and craving for the stimulus of violent words. 
 The possibilities of the English language were com- 
 pletely exhausted ; there were really no more terrific 
 phrases left. Under the circumstances, he probably 
 did wisely in simply proposing a resolution which 
 declared Sir Gerald's scheme to be detestable. 
 
 Then O'Neill rose slowly to his feet. He looked 
 round the meeting with a half-smile, which hardened 
 gradually about the corners of his mouth, as his eyes 
 rested on Father Fahy. When he spoke, his cold, 
 unimpassioned tones held the audience silent by force 
 of their contrast with what had gone before. 
 
 ' Before this resolution is seconded,' he said, * I 
 should like to say that in attributing Sir Gerald 
 Geoghegan's proposal to Mr. Godfrey you are putting 
 the saddle on the wrong horse. The scheme which 
 you seem inclined to condemn is mine. I was the 
 author of it. I suggested it to Sir Gerald Geoghegan.' 
 
 He sat down again and took up his book, which he
 
 142 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 had left face downwards on the table. There was 
 dead silence in the room. No man looked at another, 
 and if by chance one caught his neighbour's eye, he 
 looked away. After allowing the silence to continue 
 for a minute, which seemed like an hour, O'Neill rose 
 again. 
 
 ' Does anyone now second Mr. Walsh's motion ?' 
 
 There was the faintest possible emphasis on the 
 word ' now.' 
 
 Walsh himself got slowly, as if by painful effort, on 
 to his feet. 
 
 ' After what our honoured president has just told 
 us,' he said, ' I should like to withdraw my-' 
 
 Father Fahy sprang up. His face was crimson with 
 passion. His hands convulsively gripped the back of 
 the chair in front of him. 
 
 ' I second the motion,' he shouted. ' I denounce 
 the scheme as treachery ; and I proclaim the author 
 of it, whoever he may be, as a reptile traitor to the 
 people of Ireland.' 
 
 There was a horse yell from the audience. Men 
 leaped to their feet, and clenched fists were shaken 
 in the air. The priest's voice was drowned. He 
 scrambled on to the table in front of O'Neill, and stood 
 above the crowd with outstretched arms, vociferating. 
 There was a sudden sway in the audience. Someone 
 crashed against the table and upset it Father Fahy 
 fell with it. In a moment he was up again. His 
 cheek was cut, and the blood flowed down into his 
 mouth as he gasped for breath. The tumult ceased
 
 THE SEETHING POT 143 
 
 instantly, and men drew back from him half 
 frightened. 
 
 ' I am afraid, 1 said John O'Neill, ' that Father Fahy 
 has hurt himself. We shall be deprived of the rest of 
 his, no doubt, interesting speech.' The ghost of a smile 
 hovered round his lips as he watched his adversary 
 spitting out the blood, and he added : ' If the table 
 had been stronger, the speech might have been 
 longer.' 
 
 The priest's position was sufficiently ridiculous, and 
 laughter, of a kind, follows as a reaction on any violent 
 excitement. Someone giggled. Father Fahy looked 
 round him. Laughter, half suppressed or wholly 
 uncontrolled, was on every face. The major excom- 
 munication which his Church has devised for the 
 annihilation of obstinate heretics would have been 
 too gentle a form of words to express what he felt. 
 He pushed his way sullenly from the room. O'Neill 
 remained standing, and again addressed the meeting : 
 ' Before I put to the meeting the motion which you 
 have heard proposed and seconded, I should like to 
 say a few words on the subject myself. You want 
 land. Very well. Sir Gerald Geoghegan offers you 
 land. He offers it on certain terms. Are they fair ? 
 I address a certain number of shopkeepers. When 
 you offer your goods to the public, you expect to be 
 paid for them. I also address farmers. When you 
 give up a piece of land, you expect to be paid for your 
 interest in it. That is fair. Sir Gerald Geoghegan 
 expects to be paid, too, in exactly the same way
 
 144 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 What is fair in one case is fair in the other. The 
 only difference is that if you sell a thing you expect to 
 handle the price. Sir Gerald is content to let his 
 money lie in your hands at an extremely low rate of 
 interest. There is no trap of any sort. The plan, as 
 I told you before, is mine. Is it likely that I would 
 join a landlord in setting a trap for you ? I shall now 
 put Mr. Walsh's motion to the meeting.' 
 
 Mr. Walsh rose to his feet and requested permission 
 to withdraw his motion. No one offered any 
 objection. 
 
 ' Very well,' said O'Neill. ' We may, then, take it 
 for granted that at its next meeting the District 
 Council will thank Sir Gerald Geoghegan for his 
 generous response to their request.' 
 
 The meeting broke up. Excitement and cheering 
 induce thirst, and little groups of men made their 
 way to one or another of the various public- houses. 
 John O'Neill beckoned McCarty to come to him. 
 
 ' Well ?' he said, and then waited. The apology he 
 seemed to expect was forthcoming. 
 
 ' I'm sorry,' said his follower, ' for what occurred 
 at the meeting to-day. Of course, if I'd known the 
 scheme was yours I should not have spoken as 
 I did.' 
 
 ' I suppose not,' said O'Neill. ' Why did you let 
 the priest talk you over ? I've repeatedly told you 
 to be careful about allowing yourself to be Led by the 
 nose by the priests. They are more or less on our 
 side now, but they will desert us when it comes
 
 THE SEETHING POT 145 
 
 to the pinch. The Church doesn't want an inde- 
 pendent Ireland. It gets too much money out of 
 England to want to cut the connection.' 
 
 ' I'm sorry,' said McCarty ; ' but it's all right, isn't 
 it ? You beat Father Fahy to-day.' 
 
 ' Yes, I beat him to-day. But shall I always be able 
 to beat him ?' 
 
 ' I don't know. The priests distrust you. For one 
 thing, they don't like your being a Protestant. Then, 
 they think you've got too much power. I think they 
 would like to beat you.' 
 
 ' I know all that. But is there anything else-^ 
 anything new that I ought to know ?' 
 
 ' Well, Father Fahy has sounded me two or three 
 times lately. The last time was just after the 
 Bishop's visit here. He asked me what you were 
 going to do when the question of the immigration of 
 the foreign Religious Orders came up next session.' 
 
 'Ah! Now, what might Father Fahy and his 
 Bishop think about that matter ?' 
 
 ' He says that it's a Church question, and that 
 the Irish party are bound to support the Govern^ 
 ment.' 
 
 ' Thank you/ said O'Neill. ' I think I'll wish you 
 good-bye now. If Father Fahy asks you again what 
 I'm going to do, you'll be able to say, with perfect 
 truthfulness, that you haven't the slightest idea.' 
 
 Father Fahy was no more inclined than O'Neill to 
 regard his defeat as final and decisive. He was well 
 aware that at various moments in recent Irish history 
 
 10
 
 146 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 his Order had been extremely unpopular. As a young 
 man he had seen a too energetic parish priest dragged 
 by his heels down the street of a Connaught town. 
 He himself had once had blood drawn from his nose 
 by the fist of a Poor Law Guardian, the matter in 
 dispute being nothing more important than the 
 election of a dispensary doctor. On every occasion, 
 however, on which it had arisen the anti-clerical 
 feeling had rapidly subsided'; and experience con- 
 firmed his conviction that there was no power in 
 Ireland able to seriously threaten that of the 
 Church. 
 
 Still, the present crisis demanded prompt action. 
 He washed his face, brushed the dust off his coat, 
 took his hat, and started by the next train to consult 
 his Bishop. 
 
 As he told his story, the old ecclesiastic sat in 
 silence. His forehead gathered into deeper and 
 deeper wrinkles while he listened. His thick grizzled 
 eyebrows came almost to meet each other across his 
 forehead, and hung heavily over his eyes. His great 
 shapeless lower lip pushed itself further and further 
 out, until the few jagged teeth which still remained 
 behind it became visible. 
 
 ' You are too hot-headed, Father Fahy,' he said, 
 when the story ended. ' I sent you to Clogher 
 because I thought there was a reasonable prospect of 
 your keeping quiet there. Now you have got into 
 a fresh row. Do you want to be banished to one of 
 the islands ?'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 147 
 
 'I could not help myself,' said Father Fahy. 
 'The whole thing was sprung on me suddenly. I 
 made sure I should carry the people with me as 
 usual.' 
 
 'Is John O'Neill generally present at your meet- 
 ings ?' 
 
 ' I never saw him at one before.' 
 
 ' Don't you think you ought to have been cautious 
 when you did see him ? Besides, you ought to have 
 realized that the scheme you have described to me 
 couldn't possibly have been the work of a man like 
 Mr. Godfrey. It was surely obvious that you ought 
 to have waited until you knew what influences were 
 at work.' 
 
 ' But,' said the priest, ' if I had done nothing, the 
 scheme would have been accepted by the League, and 
 then my poor people would have lost the chance of 
 getting a bit of land they could live on. You know, 
 my lord, the well-off men and the shopkeepers would 
 have snatched it all up. And my poor people oh, 
 if you could see them ! But, sure, you know as well 
 as I do how very poor they are, and the way the boys 
 and girls are going off, the very best of them. And 
 who is to blame them ? Look at the life they lead at 
 home here on the bogs and in the cabins.' 
 
 The Bishop's face softened. 
 
 ' I'm not blaming you,' he said, ' for opposing the 
 scheme. A priest's first duty is to the poorest of his 
 flock, and I'll say this for you, you have always had 
 a heart for the poor. But you are far too hot-headed. 
 
 102
 
 148 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 There are more ways of wrecking a thing you don't 
 like than flying straight in the face 'of it. Tell me, 
 what sort of man is this Sir Gerald Geoghegan ? He 
 doesn't seem to be the common type of Protestant 
 Tory. Most of them would see their estates, their 
 tenants, and themselves, go to perdition before they 
 would take advice from John O'Neill.' 
 
 'I don't know much about him,' said the priest. 
 
 ' Don't you think you ought to ?' 
 
 ' It is very hard to find out anything,' said Father 
 Fahy. ' His servants are nearly all Protestants.' 
 
 ' I didn't ask you to come here with a letter from 
 a kitchen-maid in your pocket. I don't inquire about 
 the sources of your information, but I expect you to 
 know the people in your parish. Now, I'll tell you 
 something about this Sir Gerald Geoghegan. He is 
 the son of Gerald Geoghegan the Young Ireland 
 leader, the man who headed the rebellion in '48. He 
 may turn out to be the most dangerous kind of man 
 in Ireland to-day. Of course, I know nothing about 
 him personally. He may be a fool or a coward ; but 
 if he is the kind of man his father was, and if he 
 makes friends with John O'Neill, it may be a serious 
 matter.' 
 
 ' I shall try and find out about him.' 
 
 ' There is another matter,' said the Bishop : ' I 
 want to know how O'Neill stands with his followers.' 
 
 'I tried to find that out. They seem to be very 
 loyal to him. I don't know why, for he bullies them 
 and treats them like dogs.'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 149 
 
 * O'Neill is a great man,' said the Bishop. ' He is 
 a man that the Church will have to reckon with some 
 time, and I think the day is getting very near. Did 
 you succeed in getting any information as to how he 
 is going to act in this agitation about the immigration 
 of the foreign Religious Orders ? Will he support the 
 Government if we ask him to ? Or will he make 
 use of this ridiculous " No Popery " cry that England 
 seems likely to go mad over ?' 
 
 ' No one seems to know what line he will take,' said 
 the priest. 
 
 The Bishop frowned heavily. 
 
 'It would be better/ he said, 'if we knew. We 
 may have to fight him over this very question. Now 
 I dare say you ought to be going, if you want to catch 
 your train. I'll just give you my advice before you 
 leave. You had better lie up for a week and nurse 
 that cut on your face. It looks painful, and if the 
 people think they have really hurt you, they will be 
 sorry all the sooner for to-day's proceedings. Watch 
 John O'Neill and watch this new landlord. I must 
 know what kind of man he is, and whether he is going 
 to join O'Neill's political party. You can manipulate 
 the League a little quietly, you know. Pass a few 
 resolutions about landlords in general, but leave Sir 
 Gerald and his plan alone for the present. If O'Neill 
 and Sir Gerald make friends, you may be able to 
 suggest that O'Neill is going over to the landlord. 
 They won't believe you at first, but there will be no 
 harm done by the suggestion. I think that's all.'
 
 150 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 Father Fahy knelt for the Bishop's blessing. When 
 he rose, he said : 
 
 ' But shall I be able to get that land for my poor 
 people ?' 
 
 'We shall see about that,' said the Bishop 
 ' There is a good deal to happen before that business 
 is settled.'
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 SIR GERALD had been fairly warned of the conse- 
 quences of any association with John O'Neill. Lord 
 Clonfert's tone when the Nationalist leader was 
 mentioned, O'Hara's occasional hints, and O'Neill's 
 own blunt statement ought to have prepared him for 
 what would happen. Yet the reception of the story 
 of Mr. Godfrey's resignation came on him as a 
 surprise. 
 
 He found himself suddenly hi the position of a 
 stranger of very doubtful reputation among the 
 people he had begun to make friends with. The 
 smaller local gentry, who had welcomed him at first 
 as at least a social acquisition, became shy of him. 
 He detected a difference even in the manner of the 
 bank-manager, though the desire not to offend a 
 wealthy customer kept his feelings within certain 
 bounds. 
 
 There was a double reason for the strong hostility 
 of the upper classes. Mr. Godfrey was well known 
 and personally liked by everyone. He was an old 
 and valued friend of many. His dismissal for no one 
 spoke of it as a resignation was resented as an act of 
 
 161
 
 152 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 high-handed injustice. Behind this personal feeling 
 lay the impenetrable mass of prejudice against national 
 sentiment of any kind, which is as strong as religious 
 faith in a certain class of Irish people. Indeed, it is 
 in reality stronger. Sir Gerald would have been easily 
 excused if he had appeared publicly in a state of 
 intoxication. He would have been forgiven ultimately 
 for a series of immoralities. Even an accusation of 
 dishonesty would not have excluded him from what 
 is called society. Such sins are forgiven every day 
 to men who are true to the traditions of their class. 
 The one unforgivable person is the political renegade, 
 the gentleman who has friendly dealings with the 
 Nationalists. The strength of the prejudice has 
 something noble in it. It is the protest of a class 
 which is being driven against the wall, against what 
 appears to be base desertion to the ranks of a con- 
 quering majority. 
 
 Sir Gerald was at first simply bewildered by the 
 change in his social position. He tried, as long as 
 O'Hara was with him, to laugh at the snubs he 
 received. As soon as the editor left him he began 
 t-o feel his loneliness acutely. Even his own servants 
 appeared to perform their duties with a certain air 
 of protest. His visits to Clonfert Castle were most 
 unsatisfactory. His position as Hester's future 
 husband had been distinctly and gladly recognised 
 before the trouble with Mr. Godfrey, but the moment 
 that story became public property he found a change 
 in his reception. Lord Clonfert was obviously nervous
 
 THE SEETHING POT 153 
 
 and uncomfortable in his company. He talked in- 
 cessantly on uninteresting topics, and fenced off Sir 
 Gerald's half-hearted attempts to bring things to 
 some kind of explanation. Lady Clonfert was frigidly 
 polite, but extremely distant in her manner. She 
 ignored Sir Gerald's attempts to get back on to the 
 old footing of familiarity. She decisively refused an 
 invitation to inspect some improvements in Clogher 
 House. When he asked to see Hester, he was told 
 that she had left home in order to pay a long-promised 
 visit to an aunt in England. Sir Gerald was perfectly 
 well aware that no such visit had been in contempla- 
 tion, and resented what seemed like hustling the girl 
 out of his reach. He gave up any direct attempt 
 to arrive at an understanding of his position, and 
 ceased to visit Clonfert Castle. He devised a plan 
 of using Canon Johnston as an intermediary, and 
 called on the clergyman for the purpose of opening 
 negotiations. The attempt was a complete failure. 
 The Canon was so obviously ill at ease during the 
 visit that Sir Gerald was glad to get out of the 
 rectory. 
 
 After awhile his first bewilderment gave way to a 
 feeling of annoyance. His total inability to explain 
 his position to anyone irritated him. He began to 
 think that, since he was condemned unheard, he 
 might as well do something to justify his sentence. 
 He called again upon John O'Neill, and asked his 
 advice about the appointment of a successor to 
 Mr. Godfrey. A series of consultations followed.
 
 154 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 Sir Gerald was agreeably surprised at the readiness 
 with which O'Neill threw himself into the task of 
 finding the right kind of man. 
 
 1 You see,' said O'Neill, ' the position is almost 
 unprecedented. You want your estate managed in 
 the interests of two parties who for a long time past 
 have regarded each other as natural enemies. You 
 want to secure your own rights, and at the same time 
 to help your tenants to live. Now, it seems to me 
 perfectly hopeless to get a trained land-agent. The 
 traditions of his profession would be too strong for 
 him. He could not possibly do anything but oppose 
 you. In the same way, any political friend of mine, 
 however good a business man he might be, would be 
 equally hopeless. I could only recommend a man 
 who has been fighting against your class for years, 
 and is fully convinced that the sooner landlordism is 
 done with the better for Ireland. You wouldn't trust 
 such a man, and I don't blame you. He would not 
 be trustworthy.' 
 
 In the end the services of a Mr. McNeece were 
 secured. He was a young man, an Ulster Scot, a 
 junior partner in a firm of chartered accountants. 
 There were certain drawbacks to his appointment. 
 He knew absolutely nothing about land. It became 
 necessary at once to employ a land-surveyor for the 
 division of the grazing-lands. At the same time there 
 were some definite advantages about Mr. McNeece. 
 He approached his new work with a perfectly open 
 mind. He was fettered with no prejudices against
 
 THE SEETHING POT 155 
 
 methods which had acquired a certain political colour- 
 ing. He neither distrusted one man because he was 
 a Nationalist, nor had confidence in another because 
 he had been loyal through the ' bad times.' He had 
 no idea of regarding himself as a kind of satrap 
 dealing out, so far as possible, rewards and punish- 
 ments. For him the estate was a business concern, 
 and he the financial manager. 
 
 Unfortunately for Sir Gerald, he was quite hopeless 
 as a companion. His keen Northern accent acted like 
 an acid, withering the incipient shoots of conversation. 
 He had no interests in common with his employer, 
 nor did he conceive himself to have any personal 
 relationship with Sir Gerald. Even his politics were 
 too hopelessly remote to admit of discussion. He 
 might have been at home among English Radicals of 
 the Nonconformist type. In Connaught his theories 
 were as absurd as if they had reference to a society 
 in some other planet. Sir Gerald received a succession 
 of mild shocks as he discovered that his agent was 
 a fanatical teetotaler, an anti-vaccinationist, and the 
 secretary of an anti-tobacco league. After that he 
 gave up trying to make a friend of him. It was 
 clearly impossible to ask a man to dinner who scowled 
 at a claret-jug, and lectured on heart disease when a 
 cigarette was offered him. In the office McNeece was 
 delightful. He grasped the principle of O'Neill's 
 scheme at once, and set to work vigorously on the 
 details. 
 
 It was quite natural that the consultations with
 
 156 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 O'Neill which preceded Mr. McNeece's arrival should 
 continue, as points in the carrying out of the scheme 
 required discussion. Sir Gerald got into the habit 
 of going to see O'Neill two or three times every week. 
 After awhile he was introduced to Mrs. O'Neill, and 
 his visits gradually ceased to have even the excuse 
 of business. He found it pleasanter, as the autumn 
 evenings shortened, to sit chatting over a cup of tea 
 in the O'Neills' drawing-room than to yawn himself 
 weary in the great library of Clogher House. O'Neill's 
 strength of character and directness of purpose began 
 to exercise a fascination on the young man. At first 
 it seemed to him that Mrs. O'Neill was a mere cipher 
 in the household, a sweet and gentle shadow of her 
 husband. Gradually he discovered in her, too, a 
 reserve of strength less obtrusive than her husband's, 
 less boisterous in its expression, but at times easily 
 seen. O'Neill himself treated her opinions with 
 deference when she expressed them. More than 
 once he apologized, in obedience to her looks rather 
 than her words, for some peculiarly outrageous 
 paradox. 
 
 Sir Gerald passed through three stages in becoming 
 her friend. At first he ignored her. Next he rather 
 feared her as someone whose mental habits were 
 strange to him. Finally he reverenced her, as one 
 whom it was wise to lean upon and trust. After 
 awhile he came to be uncertain whether he was more 
 attracted by O'Neill's militant boldness and force, or 
 his wife's sympathy and quiet strength.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 157 
 
 At first O'Neill avoided politics in the long talks 
 that the three had together. It was not possible for 
 him to do so for very long ; for politics, or rather 
 Irish politics, were the only subject which really 
 interested him. His life centred in the struggle which 
 the Irish were making in the House of Commons. 
 His mind was continually at work on the possibilities 
 of bullying or cajoling one or other of the English 
 parties. Everything was subordinated to the desire 
 of obtaining a practically independent Irish Parlia- 
 ment. The Land Question, which seemed to bulk so 
 large in Irish life, he regarded as of only second-rate 
 importance. He used it as a means of keeping up 
 the enthusiasm of the mass of the Irish voters. It 
 proved, too, a good way of weakening, and finally 
 destroying, the landlord class, whom he regarded as 
 irredeemably loyal to the English connection. Imperial 
 politics only interested him in so far as they afforded 
 occasional opportunities for embarrassing the Govern- 
 ment which happened to be in power. For the rights 
 or wrongs of the petty wars which flared up at 
 intervals along the borders of the Empire he cared 
 absolutely nothing. He assumed as a working 
 hypothesis that England was invariably in the 
 wrong. He expressed a deep contempt for that whole 
 region of domestic politics in which philanthropy 
 and socialistic speculation try to find legislative 
 expression. The working man he described as a 
 'fatted fraud.' The whole machinery of national 
 education, from board schools to free libraries,
 
 158 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 was 'an attempt to teach pigs to talk instead of 
 grunt' 
 
 He believed that a really united Ireland would 
 be able to force any measure of independence from 
 England. 
 
 ' I have almost got what I want,' he said one day. 
 ' The landlord party in a few years will be impotent 
 outside the House of Lords, and unpopular there. 
 The Protestant farmers in the North are coming round 
 to us. Their members are either afraid to move or 
 very insecure in their seats. The success of the land 
 movement is making itself felt. The Ulster Protestant 
 makes a lot of noise with drums, and calls it loyalty, 
 but he is really just as anxious as anybody else to get 
 his rent reduced.' 
 
 The view which he got of O'Neill's political 
 schemes was intensely interesting and exciting to 
 Sir Gerald. 
 
 ' Ah !' he said once, * it must be a grand thing 
 to be playing a great game like that, with Irish 
 independence as the prize. I wish I was in it with 
 you.' 
 
 ' Do you ?' said O'Neill, looking at him curiously. 
 'Don't be too sure. There is another side to the 
 picture, a behind-the-scenes view of the play that you 
 have not seen yet. I have Ireland at my back to-day, 
 but I can't keep it. There is a power in Ireland 
 greater than mine. In the end the Roman Church 
 will beat me. I may hold out long enough to snatch 
 a Parliament for Ireland out of the fire, but if I don't
 
 THE SEETHING POT 159 
 
 do it at once I shan't do it at all They can beat me 
 in the end.' 
 
 ' I don't love the priests,' said Sir Gerald ; ' I was 
 not brought up to love them. It was the priests who 
 betrayed my father. But for them, he might have 
 made a fight for it.' 
 
 ' I think,' said O'Neill, ' that they mean to wreck 
 me now if they can. You see, things are very critical. 
 The Government can hardly weather this storm about 
 the foreign Religious Orders without the help of my 
 eighty votes. They have bought the priests already, 
 and they are prepared to bid a little extra to make 
 sure of me. The priest's price is cash down, grants 
 for colleges, schools, universities, and so forth. The 
 Government are pledged to pay it. They will offer 
 me another Land Act, but it won't do. My price is an 
 Irish Parliament. If the Government won't promise 
 it and I don't see how they can the Opposition will. 
 My game is to wreck the Government.' 
 
 'Are you sure of your men?' asked Mrs. O'Neill. 
 
 'I'm as sure as I can be of a set of men half of 
 whom still believe that a priest can send them to hell 
 if he likes. The real tug will come at the General 
 Election. The best of my men may be beaten at 
 the poll if the priests throw themselves into the 
 struggle.' 
 
 ' And then ? ' asked Sir Gerald. 
 
 ' Then ! Oh, then there will be no Irish Party 
 strong enough to do anything. We shall have another 
 half -century of concessions to what are supposed to be
 
 160 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 Irish demands, and at the end of that time you will 
 have a spectacle unique in Europe a country which 
 exists solely for the purpose of supporting and enrich- 
 ing a Church.' 
 
 ' And all that is to happen,' said Mrs. O'Neill, 
 smiling, 'just because you are left out in the cold. 
 No wonder people call you arrogant ! Do you think 
 you are the only man in the world who can help 
 Ireland?' 
 
 ' I know I am. You see,' he went on, turning to 
 Sir Gerald, ' the kind of thing a man is driven into 
 saying when his wife takes to sneering at him. By 
 the way, Sir Gerald, I never congratulated you on 
 your engagement. I hear Miss Carew is charming. 
 When is the wedding to be?' 
 
 ' I don't know,' said Sir Gerald, and something in 
 his tone caught Mrs. O'Neill's attention. 
 
 ' I hope,' she said, ' that nothing has gone wrong. 
 Perhaps I ought not to speak about it.' 
 
 ' I don't mind telling you in the least. The fact 
 is, I don't know where I stand. It was all right 
 until that business of Godfrey's resignation, but ever 
 since then they have been as cold as ice to me 
 Lord and Lady Clonfert, I mean : Hester herself is 
 away.' 
 
 ' Have you written to her or heard from her ? ' asked 
 Mrs. O'Neill. 
 
 ' No. I don't know where she is, and in any case I 
 should not like to write in the face of her mother's 
 evident opposition.'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 161 
 
 ' What nonsense !' said O'Neill. ' Find out at once 
 where she is, and write to her, or, better still, go to 
 her.' 
 
 ' I am not sure that I should be justified in forcing 
 her in that sort of way.' 
 
 ' Justified !' said O'Neill. ' Man alive ! what d 
 you mean ? Of course you are justified in getting her 
 if she will go with you.' 
 
 ' I have a feeling,' said Sir Gerald, ' that it woul<l 
 not be honourable to chase her behind her mother's 
 back.' 
 
 ' I don't in the least agree with you,' said O'NeilL 
 ' What do you suppose is honour ? It is the reflex 
 action of the prejudices of our birth and education. 
 Look here : I cross my legs and hit my knee so. Mj 
 foot jumps. That's because I am a tissue of nerves 
 inside, which react to a certain stimulus quite apart 
 from my will. You'ld call me a fool if I made a fetish 
 of my foot. and let my actions be guided by its jumping 
 more or less. A man's mind is just like his body. It 
 is woven through with prejudices. They come to us 
 by inheritance and education. Something excites one 
 of them, and there comes a jump, like the jump of my 
 foot. You call it a feeling of honour, and refrain 
 from doing something you want to do because of it 
 I call a man a superstitious fool who lets himself ba 
 hampered in any such way.' 
 
 'Now,' said his wife, 'you are talking nonsense, 
 and wicked nonsense, too.' 
 
 'Well,' said O'Neill, 'do you talk righteous nonsense; 
 
 11
 
 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 but don't, for goodness' sake, begin to talk conventional 
 sense. You must remember that you are a woman 
 who has lost the right of talking sense on this subject. 
 Do you know, Sir Gerald, that my wife is a woman of 
 fortune, and that I have been living on her ever since 
 we were married ? She picked me up, I may say, out 
 of the gutter. If she talks what is called sense to me 
 now about marriage, I'll be forced to think that she 
 is sorry for marrying me.' 
 
 Mrs. O'Neill ignored this speech altogether. 
 
 ' I don't understand,' she said, ' what you men mean 
 by honour in these things. I should call it most 
 dishonourable to leave an unfortunate girl in a state 
 of uncertainty about your feelings because you are 
 afraid of what her father will say about you.' 
 
 ' But what can I do ? She has gone away, and I 
 don't know where she is.' 
 
 ' I suppose,' said Mrs. O'Neill, ' she won't stay away 
 for ever. As soon as ever she comes home you ought 
 to see her. You must not let your whole life, and, what 
 is worse, her life, be soured for the sake of drawing- 
 room manners.' 
 
 ' Quite so/ said O'Neill. ' You say the mother is 
 cold to you. See whether the girl is. If she isn't, it 
 does not seem to me to matter if the old woman hangs 
 icicles round your neck.' 
 
 ' Remember,' said Mrs. O'Neill, ' your first duty is 
 to Miss Carew. It's wicked to let your sense of honour 
 become an excuse for torturing her.' 
 
 'That's just what I said, only better expressed,'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 163 
 
 said O'Neill ; ' but when I said it you called it wicked 
 nonsense.' 
 
 ' It's quite different. You advised him to do what 
 you both thought was dishonourable. I advise him 
 to do what we all three know to be right 1 
 
 11!
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SIR GERALD made up his mind to follow Mrs. O'Neill's 
 advice. Fortune favoured him, for he met Hester 
 Carew outside his own demesne gate on the very 
 day of her return home. She was driving her own 
 pony out from the station. She flushed when she 
 saw him, and it seemed as if she meant to drive 
 past. Sir Gerald held up his hand and stopped 
 her. 
 
 ' Hester,' he said, ' I want to speak to you.' 
 
 She got out of the trap and stood beside him. 
 
 ' Wait where you are,' he said to the groom, who 
 had gone to the pony's head. ' Miss Carew will be 
 back in a few minutes.' 
 
 He took her hand, and led her, without speaking, 
 through the gates and along the drive under the 
 lime-trees. 
 
 I want to ask you," he said at last, ' if you will be 
 my wife.' 
 
 ' How can you ask such a thing ?' she said. ' Did 
 I not answer you once before ?' 
 
 A great feeling of relief came over him. He no 
 longer had any real doubt that she meant to be true 
 
 164
 
 THE SEETHING POT 165 
 
 to him. Yet, because his experience had left him 
 somewhat bitter, he went on : 
 
 ' It was different then. Then I was a gentleman. 
 Do you know what I am now ? I am a friend of 
 John O'Neill's. I believe in him and in his politics. 
 I'm not fit now to associate with respectable people.' 
 
 ' I told you once,' she said, ' that I loved you. Do 
 you think it makes any matter to me who your 
 friends are ? Besides, I told you that I loved Ireland, 
 Do you think that I would give you up because you 
 are going to work for her ? Oh, Gerald, if it were 
 possible, I would love you all the more for that !' 
 
 For some time they wandered on, still hand in 
 hand. They left the road without noticing what they 
 did, and now their feet brushed through the tattered 
 leaves that covered the ground. 
 
 ' But your father and mother, Hester ?' 
 
 ' Yes,' she said, ' they will be angry.' 
 
 ' They are angry already,' he said, ' and they don't 
 know half my wickedness.' He could afford to smile 
 now at the recollection of his last reception at 
 Clonfert Castle. ' They only know about Mr. God- 
 frey's resignation. What will they think when they 
 hear that I have gone over to the enemy alto- 
 gether ?' 
 
 ' It will be most unpleasant,' said Hester ' in fact, 
 it will be terrible. You see, mother always said you 
 must be shown your mistake. She said that if we 
 were firm you would come to understand how badly 
 you had behaved. Nothing more was to be said
 
 166 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 about our engagement until you had shown that you 
 were sorry.' 
 
 ' I see. I was to be suitably punished until I 
 turned into a repentant prodigal son. Then she 
 would have got out the best robe and put it on me, 
 and prepared a fatted wedding-cake. Unfortunately, 
 the parable does not work out hi my case. My 
 deadliest offence is that I am arising and going back 
 to my father. It is " father," you know, and not 
 " prospective mother-in-law," in the original. 1 
 
 'I don't know what on earth will happen,' said 
 Hester, ' but I don't care. I know what I mean to 
 do, whatever they say. But oh, Gerald, why did you 
 leave me so long without a word from you ? I 
 thought no, I never thought you did not love me ; 
 but I thought you were afraid.' 
 
 'So I was, just afraid,' said Sir Gerald. 'Now 
 you know the worst of it. I was frightened of a silly 
 shadow, but I know better now.' 
 
 Again they walked on together in silence. Sud- 
 denly Sir Gerald stopped, ler go her hand, and faced 
 her. 
 
 ' Hester, we have got to do something. We 
 have got to make things clear to your father and 
 mother.' 
 
 ' Yes,' she said doubtfully, ' I suppose we must. I 
 rather dread it, though. You know even father feels 
 strongly about John O'Neill Still, we might talk 
 him over after awhile. But mother ' 
 
 Her pause was eloquent.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 167 
 
 ' There's no use funking,' said he. ' It's better to 
 go at it straight while our courage is hot.' 
 
 ' But mine isn't the least hot. It is very cold 
 indeed, what there is of it, and there's not much.' 
 
 ' I propose that you drive me out with you now, 1 
 said he. 
 
 ' Oh, Gerald, must we ? Couldn't you write a letter 
 or something ?' 
 
 ' That would only make things worse. Far better 
 have it out face to face. I shall ask to see Lord 
 Clonfert on business, and go into the library.' 
 
 ' How nice ! And I suppose I shall be settling it 
 with mother in the meantime. Now, suppose I ask 
 to see Lord Clonfert on business, and you go up to 
 the drawing-room and explain things to mother till 
 I have finished. How would that do ?' 
 
 'I'll tell you what we'll do,' said Sir Gerald, 
 ' You drive me up to the turn to the stables. I'll go 
 straight to the house. You can watch them groom 
 the pony, and come up when it is all over/ 
 
 ' I don't see,' said Hester, ' why I should not drive 
 straight home now. You can get out one of your own 
 horses and follow me. That will give me time to get 
 out of the way before you arrive. I shall not say 
 anything beforehand to spoil your fun.' 
 
 ' But, Hester, I haven't seen you for so long, and 
 I should like the drive with you. Nothing but having 
 you beside me will keep my courage up to boiling- 
 point.' 
 
 ' Now don't get silly ! This is serious business.'
 
 168 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 In the end he got his way, and drove beside her in 
 the pony-trap. 
 
 Lord Clonfert was at home, and greeted Sir Gerald 
 in the library fussily and nervously. 
 
 ' I am delighted to see you,' he said as he shook 
 hands; 'but don't let us stay here. The fire is 
 wretched, and you must he cold after your drive. 
 There's quite a nip of autumn in the air, isn't there ? 
 Lady Clonfert is sure to have a good fire in the 
 drawing-room. She is expecting Hester home to-day. 
 Come up there.' 
 
 By this time he had made his way back to the door, 
 and stood holding it open for Sir Gerald. 
 
 ' But I want to talk to you, and not Lady Clonfert. 
 It is about Hester that I want to speak.' 
 
 4 Oh, well,' said Lord Clonfert, ' that's all the more 
 feason for joining Lady Clonfert. Isn't it ? She's 
 Hester's mother, you know.' 
 
 Sir Gerald resigned himself to the inevitable. 
 
 They found Lady Clonfert sitting beside the promised 
 fire with a book on her lap. She was evidently surprised, 
 and not very well pleased, at seeing Sir Gerald. Lord 
 Clonfert performed a sort of ceremony of introduction : 
 
 ' This is Sir Gerald. He wants to speak to us 
 about Hester. I brought him up here. It seemed 
 to me that he ought to see you as well as me.' 
 
 Lady Clonfert bowed coldly and severely. Sir 
 Gerald braced himself for the effort of making a 
 plunge into his subject. The interview promised to 
 be decidedly unpleasant. Apparently Lord Clonfert
 
 THE SEETHING POT 169 
 
 felt this, too, for he made a desperate effort to 
 escape. 
 
 ' I have just mentioned to Sir Gerald that we are 
 expecting Hester home this afternoon. Perhaps I 
 had better go and look out for her. It might be 
 unpleasant I mean awkward if she was to walk in 
 suddenly. You see, Sir Gerald wants to talk about 
 her.' 
 
 ' I don't see the least necessity for you to go,' said 
 Lady Clonfert. ' I shall tell Phillips to inform her 
 that we are engaged.' 
 
 She rang the bell as she spoke. There was an 
 interval of almost unbroken silence before the arrival 
 of the butler. Lord Clonfert made a gallant attempt 
 at conversation, expressing wonder that Hester was 
 so late. Neither of the others responded to him. 
 Sir Gerald could not, because he knew exactly what 
 had happened to Hester. Lady Clonfert would not, 
 because she meant to make things as difficult for Sir 
 Gerald as she could. At length the butler received 
 his message for Hester, and retired. Sir Gerald felt 
 that the moment for the struggle had arrived. He 
 plunged at once into the middle of the business, and 
 made straight for his main point. 
 
 ' I want to explain myself,' he said, ' and make my 
 position perfectly clear. When I was staying with 
 you a few weeks ago, I had no strong political opinions 
 of any kind. Since then I have come to see things 
 clearly. I have decided to attach myself to Mr. John 
 O'Keill, and to become a member of his party. I
 
 170 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 want to know whether you are still prepared to accept 
 me as a husband for your daughter.' 
 
 ' My dear Sir Gerald,' said Lord Clonfert, 'you are 
 surely exaggerating. It's very natural that you should 
 wish to guard against any possibility of misunder- 
 standing ; it is most creditable to you. But you can't 
 really mean that you intend to turn Nationalist.' 
 
 ' This,' said Lady Clonfert, ' is very much what I 
 expected to hear.' 
 
 ' Nonsense !' said Lord Clonfert. ' I mean to say, 
 we didn't expect to hear anything of the sort. Of 
 course, we knew that you had consulted that scoundrel 
 that is to say, had asked John O'Neill's advice 
 about something connected with the estate and that 
 Mr. Godfrey had resigned the agency. I'm bound to 
 say I don't see how he could have done anything else. 
 
 But we never thought Surely you don't mean 
 
 to say you're going to be a Nationalist M.P. ?' 
 
 ' If I'm wanted,' said Sir Gerald, ' and if any 
 constituency elects me, I shall certainly go into 
 Parliament. 1 
 
 ' We cannot,' said Lady Clonfert, ' allow our 
 daughter to form such a connection.' 
 
 'No,' said Lord Clonfert, 'we really can't. You 
 must see yourself that the thing is impossible. I'm 
 exceedingly sorry, Sir Gerald. I like you personally, 
 and in many ways the marriage is just what I would 
 desire. Surely you can't intend to go on with this 
 political' he meant to say 'fad,' but at the last 
 moment feebly substituted ' idea.'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 171 
 
 ' I am very sorry, too,' said Sir Gerald. ' I hate to 
 give you pain, but I cannot alter my convictions. 
 You know, Lord Clonfert ' he saw the uselessness of 
 making this appeal to Lady Clonfert ' that a man 
 must do in these things as his conscience bids 
 him.' 
 
 It was Lady Clonfert who answered him. 
 
 ' No man's conscience can lead him to associate 
 with thieves and murderers.' 
 
 Sir Gerald choked down with difficulty the anger 
 which her unreasonable and insulting answer roused 
 in him. It was some time before he trusted himself 
 to speak again. 
 
 'Have you considered,' he said at last, 'the effect 
 of your decision on Hester ? I hope it is not 
 vanity in me to say so, but I believe she really 
 loves me.' 
 
 ' Hester,' said Lady Clonfert, ' will live to thank 
 me for saving her from the degradation you propose 
 for her.' 
 
 'I shall make one more appeal to you, Lady 
 Clonfert,' said Sir Gerald. ' Are you prepared to put 
 Hester, and yourself too, in an utterly false position 
 before the world by refusing your consent ? For I 
 warn you fairly: if we can't get your consent, we 
 shall marry without it.' 
 
 ' I think,' said Lady Clonfert, ' that Hester will act 
 in accordance with my wishes.' 
 
 ' You are wrong. I saw Hester to-day, and talked 
 the matter over with her.'
 
 172 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 ' I shall see Hester this evening,' said Lady 
 Clonfert, ' and I am certain that she will obey me.' 
 
 'Lady Clonfert, be wise. Don't drive us to do 
 what both we and you must always regret. You 
 know that we must get our own way in the end.' 
 
 Lady Clonfert deliberately turned her back on 
 him. 
 
 ' Come,' said Lord Clonfert, ' there is no use talk- 
 ing in this kind of way. Say good-bye to Lady 
 Clonfert. I'll see you down to the door myself.' 
 
 As they passed the library the old man opened the 
 door with a hand that trembled visibly. 
 
 ' Come in here,' he said. ' Now sit down and let 
 us talk reasonably. There's no use your defying 
 Lady Clonfert. You'll never get the better of her in 
 that way. And you ought to feel for her you ought 
 indeed. Hester is her only daughter, and after all, 
 you know, the thing is a disgrace. I don't want to 
 say anything to hurt your feelings, but you don't 
 know these Nationalists as well as I do. Of course, I 
 know how young men feel about patriotism, and all 
 that sort of thing, especially when they haven't lived 
 in the country. I know Hester has ideas of that sort, 
 too. I used to have them myself when I was at 
 Oxford. I wrote a poem about Ireland one time, and 
 an article which one of the Dublin papers published, 
 about the " fiery Celtic temperament " and the " cold 
 and calculating Saxon." I pitched it very strong. 
 It relieved my feelings at the time. There's no 
 earthly harm in that sort of thing.'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 173 
 
 He looked at Sir Gerald with a sort of wistful hope- 
 fulness. He believed that if only Sir Gerald's en- 
 thusiasm could be directed into a harmless channel, 
 the trouble that lay before them might be averted, 
 after all. 
 
 ' Or look here,' he said : ' there's what they call the 
 Gaelic revival. I don't know much about it myself, 
 but I believe they do plays and things in Dublin. 
 It's tremendously patriotic. They are reviving the 
 Irish language and the ancient national costume. 
 They translate the old poetry about Finn and those 
 people. Suppose you ask down Dennis Browne. 
 He's in the thick of it, I believe. You could have 
 a play all in Irish, or what they call a Fe'is, at 
 Clogher House. You might send an invitation to 
 Mr. O'Neill. I think Lady Clonfert would rather 
 like it. She could have photographs taken, and 
 pictures of the performance in the illustrated papers 
 afterwards. The whole town would come, and we 
 would all wear green poplin ties and woolly suits of 
 clothes.' 
 
 Sir Gerald smiled faintly, in spite of himself. 
 
 ' I'm afraid it is no use. You see, I met Dennis 
 Browne once, and well, he's a bit above my 
 head.' 
 
 ' Couldn't we get up lectures in the town-hall on 
 Irish history ? You could work up Patrick Sarsfield 
 and Owen Hoe O'Neill, pitch into Oliver Cromwell, 
 and do the perfidy of England over the treaty of 
 Limerick thoroughly. I Id go and take the chair, if
 
 174 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 you liked, or we might get Father Fahy. It would 
 be most useful. There's nothing Irish people are 
 so ignorant about as the history of their own 
 country. 1 
 
 ' It's no use,' said Sir Gerald. ' You know yourself 
 that that kind of thing is only talk. You wouldn't 
 want me to do it if you thought there was any reality 
 in if 
 
 Lord Clonfert pondered for a minute or two. Then 
 he said : 
 
 ' You know Pat O'Dowd, don't you ? the publican 
 down at the harbour. Anyhow, you know who he 
 is. He's a most interesting man. He was one of 
 the Fenian leaders. The police have been watching 
 him ever since, more or less. They say he has some 
 sort of secret society about him still a few of the old 
 physical force party, and some young men, too. I 
 don't want to know anything about that myself, of 
 course ; but I can quite understand that it might be 
 most interesting to you. I can tell you what it is : it 
 you really want to hear home truths about the 
 Parliamentary party, it's to men like Pat O'Dowd you 
 ought to go.' 
 
 ' Lord Clonfert,' said Sir Gerald, ' is there any use 
 in talking to me in this way ? Won't you see that 
 my mind is made up ?' 
 
 The old man gave a sort of groan. 
 
 ' Well,' said Sir Gerald, ' at least you'll do the best 
 you can for Hester. Don't let things be made harder 
 for her than they need be.'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 175 
 
 ' Then, you really will join those blackguards ?' 
 
 * I must,' said Sir Gerald. 
 
 ' And you'll drag my daughter down into the mud 
 with you ? May God forgive you, for I think you'll 
 break my heart!'
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 IT gradually became clear, even to Lady Clonfert, that 
 she had no power to stop her daughter's marriage. 
 After two or three very painful interviews with Hester, 
 she gave up the attempt, and adopted a policy of 
 silent protest. She never alluded to the subject at 
 all, and talked to her daughter as if no such person 
 as Sir Gerald existed and no marriage of any kind 
 was in contemplation. Hester felt that the ceremony 
 had better be got over as soon as possible. She 
 persuaded her father to promise to be present, and 
 fixed a day not more than a month after her return 
 home. Even her hurried efforts to obtain something 
 like a lady's proper outfit of clothes for the occasion 
 failed to awaken any sign of interest in Lady Clonfert. 
 She ignored the bulky parcels which came and went 
 continually, and took no notice of Hester's departure 
 or return when she went up to Dublin to visit certain 
 dressmakers. 
 
 On a misty morning early in October the marriage 
 took place in the gray church which stood just outside 
 the wall of Lord Clonfert's demesne. Of the little 
 party who were present, Hester was by far the most 
 
 176
 
 THE SEETHING POT 177 
 
 self-possessed. The old clergyman who had baptized 
 her and taught her her Catechism was tremulous, and 
 almost tearful. He had lived for years in awe of 
 Lady Clonfert, and it was a terrifying experience to 
 find himself acting in direct opposition to her wishes. 
 He distrusted Sir Gerald, whom he hardly knew ; and 
 his real affection for Hester left him undecided as to 
 whether he was doing her good or evil in marrying 
 her to the man she had chosen. 
 
 Sir Gerald was nervous and irritable. Even the 
 presence of Lord Clonfert did not save him from 
 feeling that he had placed Hester in a false position. 
 It seemed to him entirely wrong that she should have 
 to steal through her wedding as if it were something 
 to be ashamed of. Lord Clonfert tried to be cheerful, 
 and even attempted a joke with Sir Gerald when they 
 met in the porch. It was a lamentable failure, and 
 before the service was over he had relapsed into a 
 condition of visible misery. The only other person 
 present was Mr. McNeece, who was fidgety and 
 obtrusive. His attention was divided between the 
 extreme discomfort of a new frock-coat, imported 
 from Belfast for the occasion, and a desire to behave 
 properly as his patron's best man. 
 
 After the ceremony the whole party went to Clon- 
 fert Castle for luncheon. The meal was far from 
 being a festive one. Lady Clonfert's assumption of 
 not knowing what had happened in the morning 
 rendered conversation almost impossible. It was a 
 relief to everyone when Mr. McNeece plucked up his 
 
 12
 
 178 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 courage and gave a short lecture on the wickedness 
 of vaccination. Even Lady Clonfert was grateful to 
 him, and received his disquisition hi a way which led 
 him to speak of her afterwards as a most intelligent 
 woman. 
 
 Sir Gerald and his bride departed nearly an hour 
 sooner than was necessary to catch their train. They 
 agreed to spend at least three months abroad, for a 
 long absence from Clogher seemed to offer the best 
 chance of effecting even a show of reconciliation with 
 Lady Clonfert. 
 
 In the meanwhile local politics in Clogher were 
 developing confusedly. Father Fahy was very well 
 inclined to carry out his Bishop's advice. His defeat 
 at the hands of John O'Neill rankled in his mind, and 
 since revenge on the Parliamentary leader seemed for 
 the present beyond his power, he determined to annoy 
 Sir Gerald. No feeling of personal dignity ever inter- 
 fered with Father Fahy's actions. Indeed, no Roman 
 priest ought to have any sense of personal dignity. 
 The dignity of his office he will maintain when it suits 
 him, but he must achieve the end he has in view, 
 even at the cost of humiliation for himself and his 
 office. Father Fahy was so well trained in the 
 traditions of his order that he had no hesitation in 
 retaining his position as vice-president of the League 
 whose members had knocked him down and trampled 
 on him. It was not long before he regained his old 
 power. An Irishman will occasionally bully and 
 abuse his priest, but he is always repentant after-
 
 THE SEETHING POT 179 
 
 wards. The enemies of the Roman Church in Ireland 
 have frequently congratulated themselves on the signs 
 of a popular rebellion against priestly authority. 
 Hitherto their rejoicings have proved to be premature. 
 The very men who are most violently anxious to 
 break loose from clerical bondage turn out, when the 
 first frenzy of rebellion is past, quite as eager to re- 
 fasten their own fetters. 
 
 The first object of Father Fahy's attack was the 
 new agent. Mr. McNeece was before all things a 
 business man. He had no idea at all of paying over 
 money from the estate without understanding very 
 clearly where the money went. He incurred the 
 wrath of an influential local contractor by refusing 
 to pay his account until certain items in it were 
 explained. The explanation resulted in the deduction 
 of certain shillings here and there, and a total loss to 
 the contractor of something over a pound. This was 
 bad enough, and the contractor did not fail to lay a 
 highly- coloured account of the transaction before his 
 fellow-Leaguers. 
 
 Things became much worse when Mr. McNeece 
 declined to pay over the customary half-yearly sub- 
 scription to Father Fahy's local charities without 
 being told what the charities were. The priest in- 
 formed him that it was altogether impossible to 
 render accounts of money given to the Church. 
 Mr. McNeece was astonished, but firm in his de- 
 mands. He pointed out that it was impossible for 
 him to hand over a considerable sum of money to 
 
 122
 
 180 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 anyone, priest or layman, without being told what it 
 was to be spent on. He disclaimed any wish on his 
 wn part or Sir Gerald's to control the expenditure. 
 An account of some sort, however, he must and 
 would have. 
 
 Father Fahy was in a difficult position. The 
 financial arrangements of the Church of Rome in 
 Ireland had recently been subjected to some severe 
 criticism, and Father Fahy was unwilling to put a 
 weapon into the hand of the enemy by openly 
 refusing to put his name to the foot of a balance- 
 sheet. At the same time it was a matter of actual 
 principle with him, as it is with every other Irish 
 priest, not to render accounts of any sort. Under 
 the circumstances, the obvious thing to do was to 
 draw a red herring across the scent by denouncing 
 Mr. McNeece. 
 
 At the next meeting of the League the injured con- 
 tractor brought forward a resolution protesting against 
 the appointment of an Orangeman as agent on the 
 estate. Father Fahy, who was chairman on the 
 occasion, advised the meeting to pass the resolution 
 unanimously. 
 
 ' The Catholics of Clogher,' he said, ' are willing, 
 and even anxious, to live at peace with their Pro- 
 testant neighbours ; but we are not prepared to allow 
 sur faith to be insulted and our convictions outraged 
 by a total stranger, a member of an organization 
 Towed to the extermination of Catholicism.' 
 
 Mr. McNeece, as a rigid Presbyterian, detested
 
 THE SEETHING POT 181 
 
 Orangemen almost as cordially as Father Fahy him- 
 self. Indeed, he did so with much better reason. 
 Father Fahy had never been in the North, and wouM 
 probably not have recognised the tune of ' The Pro- 
 testant Boys ' if it had been played under his window. 
 Mr. McNeece had had his one and only political 
 speech spoiled by the braying of an Orange band out- 
 side the hall in which he was engaged in describing 
 to the Presbyterian Association the slight which the 
 Viceregal Court put upon the Moderator of their 
 Assembly. He was, naturally, extremely angry when 
 he read in the local paper an account of Father 
 Fahy's speech. He wrote to the editor at once, 
 denying that he was a member of the obnoxious 
 organization. 
 
 Father Fahy summoned a special meeting of the 
 League, at which Mr. McNeece's letter was considered. 
 Two resolutions were passed. The first congratulated 
 Mr. McNeece on having resigned the offices he held w 
 the Orange Society, at the suggestion of the League,. 
 The second declared that his action in no way 
 exonerated Sir Gerald from the blame of having 
 appointed him. 
 
 Mr. McNeece, in private, used some strong lan- 
 guage when he realized the interpretation which had 
 been put upon his letter. He replied again, stating 
 emphatically that he had never in his life been a$ 
 Orangeman, and requesting an apology from the 
 secretary of the League. 
 
 Father Fahy and the contractor were greatly
 
 182 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 pleased. They found themselves in a fair way to 
 make the agent odious and ridiculous. The other 
 members of the League were agreeably excited. At 
 the next meeting no resolution was passed, but The 
 Connaught News published a leading article on the 
 subject. 
 
 ' We cannot,' so the article concluded, ' feel any- 
 thing but contempt for a man who is ashamed of his 
 principles and convictions. That any man should be 
 an Orangeman seems to us deplorable ; but for the 
 honest and fearless Orangeman we have a certain 
 respect He is a foeman worthy of our steel. We 
 cannot but despise the man who shouts for King 
 William among the rowdies of Ulster, and denies 
 having done so when he finds himself in a minority 
 in Connaught.' 
 
 This was very well; but Father Fahy was dis- 
 appointed at the effect of the resolutions on Sir 
 Gerald. The people generally were still inclined to 
 speak well of their new landlord, and it seemed im- 
 possible to draw him into the controversy. 
 
 The fact was that Sir Gerald was all the while so 
 occupied with his approaching marriage that he had 
 no attention to spare for Father Fahy. He felt, too, 
 that his alliance with John O'Neill placed him beyond 
 the reach of the League's pleasantries. It was un- 
 fortunate, from the priest's point of view, that the 
 striping of the grazing-land was going on rapidly 
 and satisfactorily. 
 
 A rough map of the new farms was hanging in the
 
 THE SEETHING POT 183 
 
 estate office shortly after Sir Gerald's marriage, and, in 
 spite of all that had been said about Mr. McNeece, the 
 people went to consult him quite openly on market- 
 days. The rumour that Sir Gerald had offered his 
 services to John O'Neill as a member of the Parlia- 
 mentary Party still further disquieted Father Fahy. 
 At first it seemed to him quite incredible, but it 
 reached him from so many different sources that he 
 was forced to believe it. He decided to have another 
 interview with his Bishop. He had really nothing 
 very definite to say when he arrived at the Bishop's 
 house. He stammered in his tale, and got confused. 
 It seemed, however, that the Bishop understood him 
 at last. 
 
 ' You seem to think,' he said, ' that the people are 
 likely to accept the guidance of John O'Neill and Sir 
 Gerald Geoghegan in preference to yours.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said the priest, ' that is what it comes to.' 
 
 ' I'm sorry to hear it,' said the Bishop. ' You see, 
 the Bishops feel pretty confident now that John O'Neill 
 intends to vote against the Government on the question 
 of the Keligious Orders. The Church is pledged to 
 support the Government and to secure the Irish votes. 
 If John O'Neill carries the party with him, he will 
 inflict a severe blow on our prestige. If after the 
 General Election he comes in again at the head of 
 the Irish Party, there will be no doubt about his 
 position. He will be the leader of an anti-clerical 
 party.' 
 
 ' I suppose so,' said the priest. ' There are a great
 
 184 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 many of our own people who would gladly join such a 
 party if they got a good lead.' 
 
 ' If such a thing should occur,' said the Bishop, 
 ' it would be a bad day for us. Anti-clerical political 
 parties all begin in the same way. They profess to 
 be sincerely religious, and to desire nothing but a 
 reasonable limitation of priestly power. They all end 
 in the same thing a wave of infidelity, and subsequent 
 immorality.' 
 
 ' I have always thought that Protestants as polit- 
 ical leaders were most undesirable and dangerous. 
 They are sure to be jealous of our power over the 
 people.' 
 
 ' May God forgive us if we think too much about 
 our power ! We are not fighting for it ; we are fighting 
 for the faith and souls of our people.' 
 
 The solemnity of the old man's tone touched the 
 priest. 
 
 ' What can I do ?' he asked. ' I am willing to be 
 a martyr for the holy faith, but how can I keep my 
 people from slipping away from me to follow blind 
 guides ?' 
 
 ' Pray, my son pray. What are you a priest for 
 except to pray ? Every time you offer the adorable 
 Sacrifice pray for the souls of your people and the 
 faith of Ireland. Weary yourself, body, soul, and 
 spirit. What does your weariness matter if your 
 prayer is heard ?' 
 
 The priest rose from his chair and knelt before the 
 Bishop.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 185 
 
 ' Give me your blessing,' he said, ' that I may 
 pray.' 
 
 The hands were laid on his head, and the familiar 
 Latin fell upon his ears. He knelt quite still long 
 after the Bishop ceased to speak. There stole over 
 him a profound peace, and with it a sense of strength. 
 The world seemed to be very far away from him. 
 He was among the realities of eternity. Words and 
 phrases which had long ceased to be anything but 
 formal to him crowded back into his mind charged 
 with the meanings they had once had for him. He 
 was uplifted from himself, as he had been on the 
 day when he had said his first Mass. At length he 
 rose. 
 
 'I have been,' he said slowly, 'with God, and with 
 the Mother of God, and with the blessed Saints.' 
 He crossed himself, and added : ' Oh, Holy Mary, 
 pray for me. 1 
 
 The Bishop looked at him, saw the strange light in 
 his eyes, and knew that he spoke sincerely. Very 
 slowly, with his eyes still fixed on the priest, the old 
 man rose from his seat. His hands trembled as he 
 grasped the arms of the chair to raise himself. He 
 seemed suddenly to have grown very old indeed. 
 
 ' My son,' he said, ' I knelt to you for your first 
 benediction on the day I made you priest. You 
 remember that, do you not ? It is a beautiful 
 custom, that of kneeling to the mewly ordained, 
 while the Spirit the Bishop's hands have given dwells 
 in a soul as yet free from all sin. I see that tha
 
 186 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 Spirit rests in you in the same way again now. 
 Therefore now, as then, I kneel to you for your 
 blessing.' 
 
 The younger man turned away. 
 
 ' I cannot. I dare not. I am but a sinner.' 
 
 ' But you must,' said the Bishop. ' Will you 
 deprive my soul of grace ?' 
 
 Men have denounced the Irish priests for tyranny 
 and greed and lust of power. Every one of these 
 charges has been, and is to-day, miserably true. Yet, 
 behind the money-getting and the scheming there 
 is something else. It is very strange that the man 
 who could take the bribe which Mr. Godfrey offered 
 him, who could play fast and loose with truth and 
 justice to render Mr. McNeece odious, was capable of 
 high and pure religious emotion. Perhaps there 
 is some strange twist in the Celtic nature which 
 renders such contradictions possible. Perhaps there 
 is a Divine power in the priestly office and the duty of 
 prayer and sacrifice laid upon the priest which keeps 
 the man, in spite of himself, within reach of the 
 kingdom of heaven. 
 
 The great world which is neither Celtic nor 
 Catholic can only wonder at what it sees. For, 
 however to be explained, the facts are plain enough. 
 The Irish priests have schemed and lied, have 
 blustered and bullied, have levied taxes beyond belief 
 upon the poorest of the poor ; but they have taught 
 the people a religion which penetrates their lives, 
 and which, in its essential features, is not far from
 
 THE SEETHING POT 187 
 
 the Spirit of Christ. Such religion is not to be 
 taught by words. The man who imparts it must 
 first understand it and possess it in his own soul. 
 This is the most wonderful puzzle in Irish life. 
 Some who try to understand Ireland see the priests 
 and what they do. Then they curse Ireland and 
 despair of her, or hope only that her people will 
 some day cease to be Catholics. Others see the 
 people, and love them for their goodness. They 
 shut their eyes to all the evils of the pervading 
 priestcraft. None of them see Ireland whole or 
 understand her. It remains for someone, a prophet, 
 to see the good and the evil, to know where each 
 comes from and to divide them the one from the 
 other.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 WHEN Sir Gerald and Lady Geoghegan returned 
 from their long honeymoon shortly after Christmas, 
 life at once became extremely interesting to them. 
 Someone it is always difficult to trace a great 
 movement to its source had started a famine in 
 the West of Ireland. English philanthropists, and 
 afterwards the English press, took the matter up 
 warmly. Funds were started for the relief of the 
 starving peasantry, and well-to-do people, especially 
 in Lancashire, subscribed largely. As a matter of 
 fact, the peasants in certain parts of Connaught are 
 always so poor as to be on the verge of actual 
 hunger. Some winters things are a little worse than 
 usual. Then, if circumstances are otherwise favour- 
 able, there is a sensation, and relief on a large scale 
 is attempted by the charitable. 
 
 Sir Gerald found himself a member of the local 
 committee for the distribution of Indian meal and 
 potatoes. He also discovered, to his surprise, that 
 he was an object of considerable interest to the 
 representatives of various newspapers and to inquisi- 
 tive philanthropists on tour. He owed his fame 
 
 188
 
 THE SEETHING POT 189 
 
 to the discovery, by an intelligent reporter, of the 
 plan for dealing with the grazing-lands on his estate. 
 He was posed before the public of Manchester and 
 Liverpool as an enlightened landlord. 
 
 Both positions had their disadvantages. It is dis- 
 agreeable, on returning from a walk or a drive, to find 
 your door besieged by beggars. Sir Gerald's first 
 experience of this part of the work laid upon members 
 of relief committees bewildered him. There were 
 about fifty people, mostly women, congregated on 
 the gravel in front of his doorstep. Hester was 
 ministering tea and bread to them, assisted by 
 Jameson, who evidently disliked the task. At Sir 
 Gerald's approach the whole crowd hastened to 
 surround him. 
 
 ' Your honour will get me a stone of potatoes from 
 the committee,' clamoured an old crone, clinging to 
 his coat-sleeve. ' I'm the widow Macanally.' 
 
 ' Will you not let the gentleman be !' said another. 
 ' Bad luck to you with your pushing and crowding !' 
 
 ' Your honour, I'm Antony Henaghan Tom,' cried 
 an old man. ' There's never a one has the need of 
 the relief like myself.' 
 
 ' Is it you needing the relief?' said a young woman 
 with a baby in her arms. ' Don't be listening to him, 
 your honour. Sure, haven't I the long weak family, 
 and every one of them a colleen and no good at all 
 to earn, and myself with never a thing to put on me 
 but an old shawl and a petticoat, saving your honour's 
 presence ?'
 
 190 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 ' Musha, and it's true for her, the creature !' said a 
 chorus of sympathizers. 
 
 ' I'm the widow Geraghty,' broke in another. ' And 
 it's hardly ever I got this far itself with the hunger 
 that is on me. I'ld be bet up this minute only for 
 the sup of tea her ladyship gave me. The blessing 
 of God and the Holy Virgin be on her for that 
 same.' 
 
 4 My cow died on me ere yesterday,' said another. 
 'The childer is starved for the want of a drop of 
 milk' 
 
 'The rain is coming in through the roof of my 
 little houseen, your honour, and my bed's destroyed 
 on me.' 
 
 'I'm a lone orphan woman that's after burying 
 my husband and six as fine boys as ever you seen. 
 Don't heed her talking. Hasn't she a boy to work 
 for her ?' 
 
 'And if I have itself, it's a bad head he is to 
 me.' 
 
 ' Faith, and that's true,' put in another. ' He's a 
 foolish poor man, and every penny he gets goes on 
 the drink.' 
 
 Sir Gerald struggled through the crowd to 
 Hester. 
 
 ' What are we to do ?' he asked. 
 
 ' I don't know,' she said ; ' I have no more bread 
 in the house.' 
 
 'I beg your pardon, Sir Gerald,' said Jameson 
 respectfully, ' but don't be giving money to them.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 191 
 
 The half of them is just impostors, and the rest is not 
 in want of much.' 
 
 ' Listen to me,' said Sir Gerald, loud enough to be 
 heard above the clamour. ' I have no relief to give 
 you here. I'll make a list of your names and where 
 you live, and bring it before the committee at the 
 next meeting.' 
 
 There was a chorus of gratitude : 
 
 ' The blessing of God on your honour .' ' That you 
 may be alive and well this day twenty years !' 'Long 
 life to yourself and her ladyship !' 'Miss Hester, God 
 bless her ! was always a good one for the poor !' ' Sure, 
 he's a grand man entirely you've got, Miss Hester, 
 glory be to God !' 
 
 Making a list of names sounds an easy thing, but 
 Sir Gerald found that in this case there were certain 
 difficulties. 
 
 ' My name is Bridget Deveren, your honour, but 
 my husband's name was MailKa.' 
 
 ' Put her down as Mrs. O'Malley,' said Hester. 
 
 ' But she says her name is Deveren.' 
 
 ' And so it is,' said the woman. ' But, sure, her 
 ladyship knows best, and its Mrs. Maillia that they'ld 
 call me at the committee.' 
 
 ' James Heraty Pat !' repeated Sir Gerald after an 
 old man. ' Do you mean James Patrick Heraty ?' 
 
 ' I do not, your honour. Sure, Jamsey Pat 
 Heraty is my brother's son, and not myself at 
 all.' 
 
 1 Is Pat your surname, then ?'
 
 192 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 Again Hester rescued him. 
 
 ' Put down just what he says, Gerald ; I'll explain 
 it to you afterwards.' 
 
 While he was completing his list, Sir Gerald ob- 
 served, with surprise and some annoyance, a young 
 man who was walking round the group and taking 
 photographs with a hand camera from different points 
 of view. As soon as the last name was taken down, 
 he approached the stranger, intending to express his 
 feelings plainly. 
 
 'Are you aware, sir, that these are private 
 grounds ?' 
 
 The stranger blandly presented his card. 
 
 ' I presume,' he said, ' that I am addressing Sir 
 Gerald Geoghegan. I came into your grounds with 
 the intention of calling upon you. My name, as you 
 will see, is Dixon Septimus Dixon, spelled with an 
 x. I represent The Morning Observer. I am making 
 a tour of Connaught, and am doing a series of articles 
 on the famine- stricken peasantry.' 
 
 ' I have the strongest objection to being photo- 
 graphed,' said Sir Gerald. 
 
 ' The photographs are not intended for publication,' 
 said Mr. Dixon, regarding Sir Gerald with an engaging 
 .sniile. ' May I ask you a few questions ? It would 
 deeply interest our readers to have before them a 
 landlord's view of the situation. Especially, if you 
 will allow me to say so, that of a landlord who 
 has shown a sincere interest in the welfare of his 
 people.'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 193 
 
 ' I suppose,' said Sir Gerald ungraciously, ' that yoe 
 had better come into the house.' 
 
 Mr. Dixon followed his victim into the library. He 
 produced a note-book, and propounded a long series 
 of questions. He wanted to know the exact price of 
 potatoes in the market, the hygienic value of homa- 
 made flannel as an article of clothing, the facilities 
 which existed for the transport of mackerel to London, 
 the possible earnings of a woman who spent her days 
 in knitting socks. Four times Sir Gerald was obliged 
 to confess his inability to satisfy this craving for 
 detailed information. On each occasion Mr. DIXOE 
 made a note. Sir Gerald felt that he was losing hia 
 reputation, and was not likely, after all, to figure 
 in The Morning Observer as an enlightened land- 
 lord. 
 
 ' I understand/ said Mr. Dixon, ' that you have 
 devised an entirely new scheme for the manage- 
 ment of your estate. May I ask for a few 
 details ?' 
 
 Sir Gerald denied that he was a reformer on a 
 large scale, but gave an outline of O'Neill's scheme 
 for dealing with the grazing-lands. Mr. Dixon seemed 
 disappointed. 
 
 ' Your agent, Mr. McNeece,' he laid, ' told me aB 
 that this morning. Is there nothing further ?' 
 
 ' What on earth did you expect ?' asked Sir Gerald 
 ' Did you think I had started a communistic brother- 
 hood ?' 
 
 Well, not exactly that. I thought Bufc 
 
 13
 
 194 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 never mind. Perhaps you will favour me with 
 your private views on the land question in general* 
 and the value of the Roman Catholic priesthood as a 
 social force.' 
 
 ' Really,' said Sir Gerald, who was beginning to be 
 amused, ' if I am to give you a precis of all my views 
 on everything Irish, you are likely to spend a week 
 in listening to me.' 
 
 Mr. Dixon made another note. 
 
 ' One more question I should like to ask,' he said, 
 'and I need scarcely say that I shall treat your 
 answer as confidential. In fact ' he closed the note- 
 book as he spoke, and restored it to his breast-pocket 
 ' I ask this question entirely for my own satisfaction. 
 Is there any famine at all ? This is a point on which 
 I find the greatest difficulty in obtaining reliable 
 information.' 
 
 Almost every day for a week or two someone called 
 to interview him on the subject of the famine or his 
 own new farms. He learned to get rid of newspaper 
 men comparatively easily. They all asked the same 
 questions, and Canon Johnston taught him the plan 
 of keeping a series of answers jotted down and 
 ready for use. It was only occasionally that one of 
 Ihem broke fresh ground and asked some startlingly 
 idiotic question, which necessitated an unprepared 
 answer. 
 
 A much more difficult class to deal with were the 
 gentlemen who had plans for the commercial regenera- 
 tion of Ireland. There was a man who tried hard to
 
 THE SEETHING POT 195 
 
 convince everyone he met that a few thousand pounds 
 invested in knitting-machines would enable everyone 
 to live in plenty. The machines were to be distributed 
 among the cottagers, and an instructress was to be 
 hired to explain their use. It turned out afterwards 
 that this man was an agent for an English firm who 
 manufactured knitting-machines, and that he also 
 acted privately as a middle-man in the stocking trade. 
 Another gentleman came armed with large lumps of 
 charcoal, which he had made, so he assured Sir 
 Gerald, from turf by a patent process. All he re- 
 quired was a lease, on easy terms, of a few hundred 
 acres of bog, and sufficient capital to buy the neces- 
 sary plant. He talked convincingly of certain by- 
 products, of which he produced specimens in bottles. 
 These alone were to pay the whole cost of working, 
 and the fortunate shareholders would gather in the 
 enormous profits of the sale of charcoal. Another had 
 a delightful scheme for making tooth-powder, toilet- 
 powder, and a drug which would supersede iodofbrm, 
 out of turf ashes. Every cottage fire, as he very truly 
 pointed out, produces annually an enormous quantity 
 of turf ash. At present it goes entirely to waste, and 
 might be obtained at little more than the cost of col- 
 lection. Properly treated and retailed after suitable 
 advertisement, it would realize a handsome sum. 
 Turf ashes this gentleman had experimented, and 
 therefore knew possess valuable antiseptic pro- 
 perties. 
 
 The philanthropists were even worse than the 
 
 182
 
 196 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 speculators. They appeared upon the scene in con- 
 siderable numbers, and, being usually men of a 
 certain social position and of quite unimpeachable 
 motives, had to be treated with some forbearance, 
 so far as forbearance was humanly possible. Three 
 members of this class called on Sir Gerald one evening 
 after dinner. They introduced each other. One was 
 a retired military man a Colonel. Another was a 
 Professor it did not appear of what art or science. 
 The third was a lady of uncertain age. She did not 
 
 / o 
 
 seem to be either the wife or the daughter, but may 
 have been the niece, of one of the gentlemen. All 
 three came from Manchester. They had primed 
 themselves beforehand with what seemed to be 
 scraps from the perorations of speeches delivered to 
 a charitable English public. They came ostensibly 
 for information, but were so intent upon discharging 
 their platitudes at Sir Gerald that they forgot to allow 
 him to speak. 
 
 Father Fahy had taken them during the afternoon 
 to visit a cabin on the shores of the bay. Sir Gerald 
 knew the house well. It was one which was regu- 
 larly used to produce the necessary impression on 
 English visitors. Its owner, an obliging man with a 
 sense of humour, entered into the spirit of the exhibi- 
 tions. He was always to be found seated on a low 
 stool before the smouldering ashes of a turf fire. His 
 clothes were picturesquely ragged. His trousers hung 
 in a kind of fringe over his bare feet. If he got 
 reasonable notice of a proposed visit, he borrowed
 
 THE SEETHING POT 197 
 
 an impressive number of half-clad children from his 
 neighbours. The Colonel made a sketch of the scene. 
 The lady had expended a whole spool of Kodak films 
 In obtaining photographs. All three were loud in 
 their appreciation of what they had been shown. 
 
 On the whole, Sir Gerald enjoyed his experience of 
 a famine greatly. Old Lord Clonfert was a constant 
 visitor at Clogher House, and was prepared to enjoy 
 to the full the fuss that was being made. It was, he 
 explained, the eighth famine which he recollected, 
 and every one of them had added to the gaiety of life. 
 He was thankful that Lady Clonfert was paying a 
 visit to her brother in England. 
 
 ' You know, Hester,' he said, 'your dear mother is a 
 little inclined to take these things too seriously. Of 
 course, being English, she must not be blamed for 
 that. She would certainly want to be up and doing, 
 and it is so much nicer to sit still and watch other 
 people.' 
 
 Sir Gerald and Hester were also glad that Lady 
 Clonfert was away from home. She could not have 
 been expected to ignore the circumstances of their 
 marriage. Her sense of dramatic fitness would have 
 demanded a full-dress reconciliation. Neither of 
 them liked the prospect, and there was still the 
 friendship with O'Neill in the background, unre- 
 nounced. Lord Clonfert asked no questions, and, so 
 long as he was not called on to meet the Nationalist 
 leader face to face, could be relied on to avoid the 
 difficult subject. Hester herself rapidly made friends
 
 198 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 with Mrs. O'Neill, and entered into most of her 
 schemes of charity. For O'Neill himself she de- 
 veloped a kind of timid hero-worship. His caustic 
 contempt for the charitable endeavours of the English 
 philanthropists never seemed to include the quiet 
 almsgiving of his wife. He never did more than 
 protest laughingly against their extravagance. Some- 
 times he drove them on their more distant expeditions, 
 for they were not content to relieve only the poverty 
 which clamoured at their doors.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 ONE day Sir Gerald met Dennis Browne in the street 
 of Clogher. He did not at first recognise the poet, 
 who had arrayed himself in a violently-coloured tweed 
 suit and a pair of very shiny yellow leggings. 
 
 ' I don't wonder at your not knowing me,' said 
 Browne, glancing at his own clothes. ' I assure you 
 they are most uncomfortable. I thought I ought to 
 wear something of the sort. It seemed to be expected 
 of me when I thought of coming down here. Do you 
 think it would matter if I didn't do it any more ? I 
 should like so much to return to the garb of civilized 
 mankind.' 
 
 ' What on earth brings you down here V asked Sir 
 Gerald. 
 
 ' Didn't I tell you ?' said Browne. ' I have a little 
 property down here, and a quite dilapidated house. 
 They told me my people were the most famine- 
 stricken of all. I came down at once. I had never 
 seen a famine.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Sir Gerald, smiling, ' what do you 
 think of it ?' 
 
 1 Oh,' said Browne, ' I find it charming. The feet 
 
 199
 
 200 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 and legs of the younger women are delightful. I 
 regard it as a special dispensation of Providence that 
 they are too poor to buy shoes and stockings. I met 
 a girl to-day fit to be a model. She was striding 
 across a beautiful brown bog with a basket of turf on 
 her kack. Her figure had all the freedom of a boy's. 
 It would be a sacrilege to put a pair of corsets on her. 
 They tell me, though, that even the peasant girls 
 wear them on Sundays, also boots and stockings and 
 long skirts. I have not been here yet for a Sunday. 
 If I am I shall stay indoors. I could not bear it. I 
 imagine that they could only buy the cheapest makes. 
 Some of the steels would be certain to have broken, 
 and I should see them sticking up in little lumps 
 ander their shoulder-blades.' 
 
 ' But what about the famine ?' asked Sir Gerald. 
 * Have you formed any opinions about it ? We talk 
 ef nothing else down here, you know.' 
 
 ' I don't wonder. I am suffering from it myself 
 acutely. I brought down a quantity of tinned 
 provisions with me from the Stores, but I never 
 realized before how very bad such things are at 
 the best. Of course, there is a housekeeper who says 
 she cooks, but I have not ventured to try her. I 
 looked into the kitchen. She appeared to possess 
 a frying-pan and a strange utensil which she called a 
 " pot-oven." No, I couldn't venture. It might have 
 been worse than the tinned pates.' 
 
 ' I don't wonder that you have definite views about 
 the famine. Would you like me to give you a relief
 
 THE SEETHING POT 201 
 
 ticket ? You could exchange it for a stone of Indian 
 meal, and make porridge.' 
 
 1 I'm not a professional mendicant, but I confess 
 that I should be grateful for a dinner. I hear you 
 are married. Do you think Lady Geoghegan would 
 give me food ?' 
 
 ' Of course. We shall be delighted to see you. 
 Come over and stop with us as long as you remain in 
 the West.' 
 
 'Thank you. This is hospitality worthy of the 
 unsophisticated savage. I had heard of such among 
 very primitive peoples, but never hoped to meet it. I 
 am sure Lady Geoghegan will be charming. Will 
 she mind if I relapse into my natural trousers again 
 in the morning ? I won't stay with you beyond 
 luncheon-time to-morrow. I have sent for my 
 cook from Dublin, and told her to bring the necessary 
 implements of her craft in a packing-case.' 
 
 ' By the way,' said Sir Gerald, struck by a sudden 
 recollection, ' perhaps you had better not come until 
 to-morrow. We are expecting O'Neill and his wife to 
 dine with us to-night.' 
 
 ' Does he dislike me greatly ?' asked Browne. 
 ' Could I not overcome his prejudice if I exerted 
 myself and became really charming ?' 
 
 'Oh, I don't think he is likely to mind,' said 
 Sir Gerald. ' What I was thinking of was that 
 perhaps you might object to meeting him. I find 
 that very many people do. He is the leader of the 
 Nationalist Party, you know.'
 
 202 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 1 There is no one in the world whom I object to 
 meet. I am sure I shall enjoy Mr. O'Neill Will he 
 make a speech ? I haven't heard a political speech 
 for years.' 
 
 Early in the afternoon John O'Neill arrived at 
 Clogher House, bringing with him a stranger. This 
 was Sir John Harrison, an Englishman, who was just 
 then enjoying a well-earned fame and a recently 
 bestowed K.C.B. He had attracted public notice by 
 doing something to the river Nile which rendered its 
 waters more available for irrigation than they were 
 meant to be by Nature. He had further distin- 
 guished himself by persuading certain tribes who 
 lived inland from the Gold Coast to accept the 
 advantages of a British protectorate. On his return 
 home from this latter exploit he had written a book, 
 and illustrated it with beautiful pictures of savages. 
 The work cost two guineas, and achieved an immense 
 success. 
 
 ' I consider myself fortunate,' he said, ' in having 
 this opportunity of discussing the Irish problem 
 with three men who must be regarded as representa- 
 tive Irishmen.' 
 
 Sir Gerald murmured a suitable civility. 
 
 * I have been deeply impressed,' began Sir John, 
 ' during my stay in Ireland with two facts first, the 
 immense interest people take in religion ; and, 
 secondly, the commercial stagnation. I'm sure, 
 Mr. O'Neill, that these facts have struck a careful 
 observer like you.'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 203 
 
 ' I'm not much of an observer/ said O'Neill, ' but 
 what you mention has more or less forced itself on 
 my attention.' 
 
 ' You haven't mentioned the stones,' said Browne, 
 ' the gray stones that lie on the fields all over Con- 
 naught. I am convinced that they have a signifi- 
 cance.' 
 
 Sir John seemed a little puzzled. 
 
 ' There certainly are stones,' he said ; ' I don't 
 think I ever saw so many stones anywhere. But 
 I don't quite see what you mean by their signifi- 
 cance.' 
 
 'When the Creator,' said Browne, 'was riddling 
 out the earth over Europe, He used to empty the 
 sieve on to Connaught.' 
 
 He spoke as if he were uttering a profound truth 
 whose bearing on the subject in hand would be 
 immediately obvious. O'Neill chuckled softly. Sir 
 John paused and considered the remark. Apparently 
 he came to the conclusion that it was beyond him, 
 for he went on : 
 
 ' Now, it seems to me that what Ireland wants 
 is less religion and more trade. For instance, 
 instead of commemorating St. Patrick, you ought 
 to have a public holiday in honour of the Guinness 
 family.' 
 
 ' Should we be obliged to drink stout that day ?* 
 asked Browne. ' One ought to work out the details 
 of a reform of the kind beforehand. Stout is very 
 severe on the liver.'
 
 204 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 'Have you made your suggestion to any of the 
 clergy ?' asked O'Neill. 
 
 ' Oh yes ; I called on both Father Fahy and Canon 
 Johnston this morning.' 
 
 ' How did they take it ?' asked Sir Gerald with 
 interest. 
 
 ' I was disappointed,' admitted Sir John. ' But 
 you know, gentlemen, what the theological temper 
 is like. There is a great deal of prejudice in every 
 ecclesiastic. If I were to differentiate between them, 
 I should say that Father Fahy was the more un- 
 willing to give up St. Patrick and Canon Johnston 
 had the stronger objection to the substitution of 
 Guinness.' 
 
 ' Perhaps you didn't know that the Canon 13 
 a strong advocate of total abstinence,' said Sir 
 Gerald. 
 
 ' Dear me ! Now, perhaps if I had said Harland 
 and Wolff instead of Guinness it would have been 
 all right.' 
 
 'Try him,' said O'Neill. 'There's nothing like 
 trying.' 
 
 Dennis Browne seemed to have lost interest in 
 the conversation since the significance of his stones 
 was ignored. He stood by the window fingering a 
 cigarette. 
 
 ' It is a great pleasure,' went on Sir John, ' to talk 
 to men like you, who are free from religious pre- 
 judice. If only all Ireland could be hypnotized for 
 a fortnight, and every religious impression removed
 
 THE SEETHING POT 205 
 
 from the minds of the people, she might at once 
 become a prosperous and contented portion of the 
 United Kingdom.' 
 
 ' Have you any other suggestions to make ?' asked 
 O'Neill a little grimly. 
 
 'It has occurred to me,' said Sir John, 'that Achill 
 Island might be turned into a kind of immense zoo- 
 logical gardens. Wild animals could be imported 
 not, of course, the larger carnivora and allowed to 
 roam at large among its mountain slopes. I cannot 
 suppose that the inhabitants would object, if they 
 were compensated for the damage done to their 
 property. I know no place more suitable for an 
 imitation of the ancient Eastern paradeisos.' 
 
 ' I have heard,' said Browne from the window, 
 ' that the climate is particularly suited to wild asses.' 
 
 ' Really,' said Sir John. ' Now, I have seen the 
 wild ass ' 
 
 Sir Gerald was moved by an impulse of pity to 
 interpose. 
 
 ' Would the Kings of England hunt in your new 
 paradise, Sir John, after the fashion of the Persian 
 monarchs ?' 
 
 John O'Neill's temper was apparently beginning to 
 give way. He closed the discussion of the prospects 
 of Achill with an abrupt, ' Anything else ?' 
 
 'I should think,' went on Sir John, unabashed, 
 ' that a tunnel under St. George's Channel would be 
 of immense service to Ireland. Regular land com- 
 munication with England would wean your people
 
 206 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 from their insularity. I am convinced that, if once 
 Irishmen could be taught to regard themselves as 
 English in the same sense as, for instance, a Lanca- 
 shire man is English, a great change would take place 
 in the relations of the two countries.' 
 
 ' That seems probable enough,' said Sir Gerald. 
 
 'It is very gratifying to hear you say so,' replied 
 Sir John. ' Now, Mr. O'Neill, tell me candidly what 
 you think of my views. They are, of course, neces- 
 sarily somewhat crude, but what do you think of 
 them ?' 
 
 ' I should not like to say all that I think. It might 
 be awkward for you if I did. But I will say this : Of 
 all the intelligent foreigners ' 
 
 ' Don't say foreigners/ pleaded Sir John. 
 
 ' Well, of all the intelligent Englishmen that I have 
 ever heard speak about Ireland, you are quite the 
 most intelligently English.' 
 
 Sir John pondered this saying. It seemed to strike 
 him as enigmatic and not wholly satisfactory. He 
 shortly afterwards took his leave. 
 
 ' Did you ever,' said O'Neill when he was gone, 
 ' listen to such an utterly damned idiot ?' 
 
 'Your language,' said Browne softly from the 
 window, ' would certainly outrage my cook. I am so 
 glad she is not here. She has called hi a policeman 
 for less than that. On the whole, though, you 
 express my feeling. He lit a cigarette, and quoted : 
 
 * " A fool, a fool, I met a fool in the forest ; 
 As I do live by bread, I am a fool." '
 
 THE SEETHING POT 207 
 
 ' I should like,' said Sir Gerald, ' to have heard the 
 interview with the priest and the parson.' 
 
 At dinner that evening Browne devoted himself to 
 the task of entertaining Lady Geoghegan. He chose 
 in the first instance to talk about cookery. It was 
 a subject in which he was himself deeply interested, 
 and it seemed likely to be within the range of a 
 woman's understanding. He described at some length 
 a method of cooking the fins of dogfish and serving 
 them with a kind of black sauce. He related some 
 anecdotes of a chef with whom he had been intimate 
 in Paris. John O'Neill, who sat on the other side of 
 his hostess, became gradually disgusted with Browne's 
 serious earnestness about food. He made an effort to 
 divert the conversation. 
 
 ' Sir Gerald tells me,' he said, when Browne came 
 to a pause, ' that he bought some pictures when he 
 was abroad. I haven't seen them yet. I suppose 
 you have hardly had time to unpack them ? ' 
 
 'I must show them to you,' said Hester. 'They 
 are all stacked in the gallery. Perhaps you would 
 like to see them to-morrow. Do you care for pictures, 
 Mr. Browne ?' 
 
 ' I am probably the only real judge of art at present in 
 the British Isles,' said Browne. ' I wish Sir Gerald had 
 consulted me before buying anything. The mistakes 
 which really intelligent and well-intentioned people 
 make in these matters astonish me. There is a print 
 hanging in my bedroom here, Lady Geoghegan, 
 which I was obliged to veil with my bath-towel. I
 
 208 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 don't blame you for its being there. I don't blame 
 Sir Gerald, either. It probably represents the taste 
 of his uncle. It shows Britannia, a plump lady, in a 
 low-necked dress, giving a Bible to a kneeling Indian. 
 A gentleman in a white waistcoat, representing the 
 respectable English middle class, stands behind her. 
 His face betrays the satisfaction of a righteous man 
 who sees a good deed done. Just picture the scene 
 to yourself, Mr. O'Neill : A stout, middle-aged woman 
 in a low-necked dress presents a copy of the Sacred 
 Scriptures, Authorized Version, to the representatives 
 of the ancient wisdom of the East.' 
 
 * You shall have another bath-towel,' said Hester, 
 laughing. ' I'm glad you mentioned it.' 
 
 'No fat woman,' said Browne, 'ought ever to 
 wear a low-necked dress. There ought to be some 
 law against it. The thing is disgusting and indecent/ 
 
 ' Hence, I suppose, the bath-towel,' said O'Neill. 
 
 Browne apparently wearied of his efforts to amuse 
 Lady Geoghegan, and set himself to obtain amuse- 
 ment at her expense. Taking the objectionable low- 
 necked dress as a starting-point, he entered upon a 
 disquisition about women's clothes. He displayed a 
 knowledge of the subject which at first surprised, and 
 then rather disgusted, Lady Geoghegan. He by no 
 means confined his remarks to such parts of a lady's 
 attire as are meant to be visible to the public eye. 
 He watched the growing discomfort of his hostess 
 with evident pleasure. O'Neill fumed impotently. It 
 was perfectly impossible to stop the man, nor was it
 
 THE SEETHING POT 209 
 
 easy to say at what exact point he became objection- 
 able. He passed by an easy transition from the frills 
 of a fashionable lady's petticoats to the purple flannel 
 of the Mayo peasant girls. His description of the 
 charm of their costume involved him in an apprecia- 
 tion of the girl whom he had seen carrying turf. He 
 began with her feet, gave his impressions of her 
 ankles, and was proceeding to illustrate with a dessert- 
 knife on the table-cloth the curve of the calf of 
 her leg, when Lady Geoghegan seized a chance of 
 withdrawing. 
 
 ' I hope,' said Browne, with a satisfied smile, ' that 
 I have not outraged Lady Geoghegan's sense of 
 propriety.' 
 
 O'Neill looked him up and down slowly. 
 
 1 You've made,' he said deliberately, ' the most 
 disgusting attempt I've ever come across at a most 
 objectionable form of cleverness.' 
 
 Sir Gerald interposed hurriedly. He felt angry 
 with O'Xeill. He had not heard the provocation, and 
 the remark struck him as an unmannerly attack upon 
 a fellow-guest. 
 
 ' I was reading the other day, Mr. Browne, an 
 article of yours upon a portrait of a young girl in the 
 Dresden Gallery. Tell me, why do you say that the 
 whole interest of the picture centres in the light which 
 falls upon the child's shoes ?' 
 
 Browne seemed quite unmoved by O'Neill's attack 
 upon him. He replied : 
 
 ' It seems to me that the attention of the critic 
 
 14
 
 210 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 must inevitably be drawn to that ray of light and its 
 exquisite reflection from the satin shoe. The play of 
 light upon a fabric like satin has been very imperfectly 
 appreciated even by the greatest artists. Where it is 
 dealt with truly, the eye is caught and held by it. In 
 the case you mention I found it impossible to feel 
 anything except the splendid technique in the handling 
 of the child's shoes.' 
 
 ' I should have imagined, from your conversation,' 
 said O'Neill, 'that your attention would have been 
 fixed on the frills of her drawers. But perhaps 
 these weren't visible. I haven't seen the picture 
 myself.' 
 
 Browne flushed slightly; otherwise he seemed to 
 resent O'Neill's insult far less than Sir Gerald did. 
 It was he who broke the awkward silence by sug- 
 gesting that they might carry their coffee into the 
 drawing-room and ask Lady Geoghegan to sing to 
 them. 
 
 Hester complained to her husband afterwards about 
 Dennis Browne's conversation. 
 
 'He is the most objectionable man I ever met/ 
 she said. 'He took a delight in tormenting me at 
 dinner.' 
 
 ' What did he say ?' said Sir Gerald. 
 
 'It wasn't anything he said. It was what I was 
 always afraid he was just going to say. Indeed, 
 it wasn't quite that, either. It was because I felt 
 that I ought not to be thinking of what he was 
 going to say. Remember, Gerald, if he is to stay
 
 THE SEETHING POT 211 
 
 here, I simply won't stop in the room alone with 
 him.' 
 
 ' I wish I'd heard him. Of course, I was talking to 
 Mrs. O'Neill all through dinner.' 
 
 ' I wish you had ; but I dare say you wouldn't have 
 understood how bad it was for me, even if you had 
 heard it.' 
 
 ' O'Neill seemed to understand.' 
 
 ' Did he ?' said Hester, flushing. ' What did he 
 say?' 
 
 'He snubbed Browne after you and Mrs. O'Neill 
 had gone. He was what I should call savagely rude. 
 He couldn't have been worse if Browne had been the 
 Chief Secretary for Ireland.' 
 
 'I'm glad,' said Hester. 'I hope he'll do it 
 again.' 
 
 ' I'm bound to say Browne didn't seem to mind. I 
 should have shied a decanter at a man who talked 
 that way to me.' 
 
 142
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE sensation which the famine created began to 
 subside, and visitors from England became rarer. 
 Those who were not really poor ceased to clamour 
 for doles of Indian corn. Sir Gerald began to think 
 over the meaning of what he had seen of the real 
 condition of the people. Most of the members of 
 the relief committee had got tired of their work, and 
 he sometimes found himself alone with Father Fahy 
 at the meetings in the court-house. 
 
 He was surprised to discover how entirely honest 
 the priest was hi the work of distribution. Other 
 members of the committee, shop-keepers or elected 
 members of local boards, had pressed the claims of 
 their customers or constituents. For Father Fahy 
 poverty, and only poverty, constituted a claim for 
 relief. Sir Gerald began to feel drawn to the man. 
 There was no mistaking his genuine sympathy with 
 the almost hopeless poverty of a section of his 
 parishioners. They had many long talks together, 
 and Sir Gerald came to see that, whatever unreality 
 there might be about the periodical cries of famine, 
 
 212
 
 THE SEETHING POT 213 
 
 the normal poverty of the people was appalling, and 
 quite indisputable. 
 
 It came on him as a revelation that there were 
 families on his estate who could afford to buy no food 
 except Indian meal for a portion of every year. He 
 was horrified at the thought that these people paid 
 him rent. He spoke to Hester about his feelings, 
 but these things appealed less strongly to her 
 imagination than to his. She was sorry for the 
 people, and ready to help them if she could ; but she 
 had grown up with such facts before her eyes. He 
 consulted John O'Neill, and received in return a 
 lecture on the economic problems which lay before aa 
 Irish Parliament, when such a thing existed. For 
 the present, poverty must be regarded as one of the 
 deplorable results of English government, and inevitr 
 able until that great cause of all evil ceased to exist 
 The priest alone seemed able to enter into Sir Gerald's 
 feelings. Unfortunately, Father Fahy's suggestions 
 threw him back on his grazing-lands and the new 
 farms the problem which he thought O'Neill had 
 comfortably solved for him. 
 
 ' What the people want,' the priest said to him 
 again and again, ' is more land. They are willing 
 and able to support themselves, but they must have 
 land.' 
 
 Sir Gerald knew very well that the plan for di*. 
 tributing his land was carefully calculated to exclude 
 the very people to whom the acquisition of more land 
 was the first necessity of all. It is likely that he
 
 214 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 would have yielded to Father Fahy, and attempted 
 to settle the very poorest of his tenants on the new 
 farms, if a rapid development of the political situation 
 had not broken for a time his friendship with the 
 priest. Indeed, the general slackening of interest in 
 the famine, no doubt hi any case inevitable, was 
 hastened by the ripening of what promised to be an 
 exciting crisis. 
 
 It is curious to notice how events which take place 
 in very distant places, and as the result of purely 
 local conditions, often affect the history of peoples 
 who have nothing whatever to do with them, and 
 make or spoil the lives of individuals in no way 
 connected with any country except their own. 
 
 That a Continental Government should enforce 
 certain oppressive laws against the members of Re- 
 ligious Orders would seem a thing sufficiently remote 
 from Irish politics. Yet, through the working of 
 complicated connecting causes, the attack upon the 
 French monks and nuns changed the course of Irish 
 agitation, closed the career of a great Irish leader^ 
 and altered the life, among others, of an obscure 
 Irish country gentleman. 
 
 Acute minds among the clergy and the politicians 
 had long foreseen that a struggle between O'Neill and 
 the Church was inevitable. It had become apparent, 
 as we have seen, that the contest was imminent, and 
 that its immediate occasion was likely to be found in 
 the English policy about the foreign Orders. The 
 monks, when the laws of their own country became
 
 THE SEETHING POT 215 
 
 intolerable, fled to. England. This in itself would 
 have been unimportant, and hardly interesting, but 
 the English Nonconformist ministers seized upon it 
 as an opportunity for the half-political, half-religious 
 oratory in which they rejoice. The almost blameless 
 administration of a popular Government had long 
 condemned these men to an impotent silence, and 
 they joyfully broke out into a cry that England was 
 being made Catholic without knowing it. Their con- 
 gregations, previously blasd and apathetic, were 
 galvanized into vitality. Public meetings were got 
 up during the summer, and the Government was 
 called upon to enforce certain obsolete laws against 
 the Jesuits and others. The newspapers devoted 
 leading articles to the subject. Irresponsible members 
 of the Opposition, hoping for the best, took up the 
 cry. During the early part of the autumn there was 
 a by-election in Mickleham, a town with a strong 
 Nonconformist electorate. Some enthusiast started 
 the idea of registering the names of Protestants who 
 were prepared to suffer imprisonment rather than 
 allow the Jesuits to overrun England. He called his 
 register the ' Golden Hero Roll.' The title sounded 
 well, and, as it was quite impossible for anyone to 
 be imprisoned whatever came of the controversy, 
 Protestants sent in their names by thousands. The 
 leaders of the Opposition began to think that some- 
 thing might be made of the agitation, and flung 
 themselves into the struggle. Nonconformist ministers 
 of inferior calibre succeeded in making the general
 
 216 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 confusion worse by mixing up the English Ritualists 
 with the Jesuits. The electors of Mickleham were 
 bewildered, but enthusiastic. They returned a ' Golden 
 Hero ' by .an immense majority. 
 
 The Nonconformists were jubilant, and the agitation 
 gathered force. Certain supporters of the Government 
 who sat for particularly Protestant constituencies were 
 threatened. The ' Golden Hero Roll ' was flourished 
 in their faces. They finally agreed to support the 
 Opposition in compelling the Government to deal with 
 by this time no one knew exactly whether it was the 
 Jesuits, the Ritualists, or the Pope himself, who was to 
 be dealt with. One thing only was quite clear : the 
 British Lion was roused, and roared exceedingly. 
 Certainly he meant to eat someone, and the Govern- 
 ment began to feel that they were likely to be the 
 victims. Cabinet Ministers returning from their 
 holidays met each other with anxious faces. In Sep- 
 tember it would have been possible to talk sense and 
 be listened to. In November something might still 
 have been done. By the end of December it was 
 quite impossible to reason with anybody. No one 
 knew better than the Prime Minister how quickly the 
 agitation would subside, if only the next session could 
 be tided over. He looked round for help. It occurred 
 to him that Ireland was Roman Catholic. Clearly, it 
 was Ireland's duty to support the Government in the 
 emergency. 
 
 There was an awkwardness about approaching the 
 Irish Party. The Government had allowed itself to
 
 THE SEETHING POT 217 
 
 be cajoled by certain great Anglo-Irish lords into 
 suspending the ordinary criminal law, and imprisoning 
 ten Irish members of Parliament under the provisions 
 of an arbitrary Crimes Act. The Right Honourable 
 Mr. Chesney represented to the Cabinet the extreme 
 difficulty of negotiating with John O'Neill while his 
 followers were dribbling back to him one by one from 
 their various prisons. The Cabinet recognised the 
 difficulty the more readily as they were aware that 
 John O'Neill was not likely to be bought with anything 
 short of a Home Rule -Bill, and the Anglo-Irish lords 
 would not hear of such a thing. 
 
 It remained possible to negotiate with the Roman 
 Catholic Bishops. They and their priests were always 
 supposed to possess unlimited power in Ireland. This 
 was their opportunity for using it to good purpose. 
 The Bishops, on their side, owned to wanting some- 
 thing from the Government. The Prime Minister was 
 in a yielding mood. He was prepared to concede 
 anything so long as he was not obliged to proclaim 
 from the house-tops that he was supporting Roman 
 Catholicism. The Bishops hinted at a University, 
 Mr. Chesney demurred. 
 
 ' At some future time,' he said, ' I shall be de- 
 lighted to press your most reasonable demand; but 
 at present you really must consider the very excited 
 state of English public opinion.' 
 
 There was, however, a question about the payment 
 for children in industrial schools. There was the 
 possibility of securing a Government subsidy for a
 
 218 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 great teaching Order. There were grants in contem- 
 plation for technical education which might be guided 
 into the treasury of the Church. Mr. Chesney hinted 
 at pleasant things. The Bishops appeared to be 
 satisfied. The Government felt easier, for with the 
 help of a solid phalanx of Irish votes they could afford 
 to laugh at the Opposition, ' Golden Heroes ' and all. 
 There was only one point still doubtful. Would John 
 O'Neill be guided by the Bishops ? Nobody knew, 
 and nobody seemed able to find out. If the worst 
 came to the worst, could John O'Neill's followers be 
 detached, and induced to support the Government ? 
 Nobody knew this, either, but the Bishops determined 
 to try. 
 
 It was at this stage of the drama that Sir Gerald 
 returned home and picked up the thread of events. 
 There was a pause while philanthropists ran riot in 
 the Press over the famine. It seemed at first as if the 
 agitation against the Government was going to fizzle 
 out. O'Neill knew better. He looked anxious and 
 worried, in spite of his enjoyment of Sir John Harri- 
 son's conversation. He talked freely to Sir Gerald 
 about the prospects of the future, but was quite 
 determined to keep his intentions secret from the 
 public up to the last possible moment. 
 
 ' It's for them to make the game,' he said. ' I 
 shall wait for their next move, and see what it is 
 like.' 
 
 He had not long to wait. One morning Sir Gerald 
 found him reading an appeal published by an eminent
 
 THE SEETHING POT 219 
 
 English Cardinal soliciting the help of the Irish 
 members against the forces of Protestantism and 
 atheism. 
 
 ' He's very sweet to us now,' said O'Neill. ' Yon'ld 
 hardly believe that two years ago that very man was 
 intriguing at the Vatican to secure a condemnation of 
 the League. The English Roman Catholics are the 
 worst enemies Ireland has.' 
 
 ' Will you publish any reply ?' asked Sir Gerald. 
 
 ' No,' said O'Neill. ' I shall hold a meeting of my 
 party in Dublin before the opening of Parliament. 
 We shall decide then what our tactics are to be, or, 
 rather, I shall tell the men how they are to vote. He 
 can find out by watching us afterwards what my 
 answer is to his appeal.' 
 
 In the course of the next few weeks one after 
 another of the Irish Bishops published his views on 
 the situation. They were absolutely unanimous: 
 the Irish members must support the Government. 
 It was a Church question, and Ireland was a Catholic 
 nation. There was even a striking similarity in the 
 wording of the pronouncements. O'Neill made no 
 public reply. In private he railed against the 
 Bishops' assumption of a right to control his actions. 
 
 1 These priests,' he said, ' are so puffed up with 
 English flattery and bloated with English money that 
 they are beginning to think they own Ireland. I am 
 perfectly willing to admit that they helped us in the 
 past up to a certain point. Latterly they have been 
 got at and bribed. After all, too, the Church is
 
 220 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 essentially on the side of conservatism, and I suppose 
 we are more or less revolutionaries.' 
 
 Excitement in Ireland rose to fever heat. The 
 newspapers almost daily demanded from O'Neill a 
 declaration of his policy. Among pious Roman 
 Catholics there were mutterings, which made them- 
 selves audible in letters to the Press, generally 
 anonymous. The fitness of having a Protestant 
 leader of an Irish Party was freely canvassed. In the 
 North the Orangemen were joyful, but perplexed. 
 There seemed every prospect of a stand-up fight 
 between O'Neill and the priests. This would be a 
 glorious and quite unhoped-for event. Their joy was 
 only marred by a doubt as to which side ought to 
 command their sympathy. O'Neill was a bitter 
 enemy of their beloved union with England. On the 
 other hand, the priests were priests. One morning a 
 leading clerical paper declared that O'Neill had made 
 up his mind to vote against the Government. It pro- 
 fessed to have the news on quite unimpeachable 
 authority. There followed a long article calling upon 
 all Catholic Nationalists to desert their leader and 
 rally round the Church. O'Neill, the writer said, 
 owed his position to the extreme left wing of the 
 Irish Party. He was the hero of the Fenian party, of 
 the physical force men, of the perpetrators of outrages. 
 Unless the country was to be plunged back again into 
 the chaos of crime from which she had so recently 
 emerged, O'Neill's power must be broken, and broken 
 decisively.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 John O'Neill himself received the article with a 
 sneer. 
 
 ' The worst of fighting against priests,' he said, ' is 
 that they are absolutely devoid of any sense of honour. 
 I never met an ecclesiastic yet who hesitated about 
 hitting below the belt if he thought he would gain 
 by it.' 
 
 Sir Gerald was anxious about the effect of the 
 article on the country. 
 
 ' I'm afraid,' he said, ' that it is likely to do you 
 serious injury.' 
 
 In the evening of the day on which it appeared, the 
 O'Neills dined at Clogher House. The effect of the 
 article formed almost the only subject of conversation. 
 O'Neill, in spite of his efforts to carry the matter 
 bravely, was evidently despondent at the turn things 
 were taking. 
 
 ' I always told you,' he said, ' that the priests would 
 fight me and beat me in the end. I didn't think the 
 crisis would have come so soon.' 
 
 ' Are you sure,' asked Sir Gerald, ' that they will 
 beat you now ?' 
 
 ' I am not certain,' said O'Neill ; ' I can't be until 
 after the meeting of the party next week. I told you 
 the meeting was to be next week, didn't I ? We shall 
 see then; but I am very doubtful if my men will 
 follow me.' 
 
 ' I am very doubtful,' said Mrs. O'Neill, ' whether it 
 is wise to make the fight now. You seem to me to be 
 giving them a great advantage over you. They are in
 
 222 
 
 the right at present. The whole English agitation is 
 an absurdity, and, of course, the Government ought 
 to be supported. I mean to say, if I was English I 
 should certainly support it. Wouldn't it be better to 
 wait until you have got the priests in the wrong, and 
 then fight them ?' 
 
 ' It's not a question of right or wrong at all,' said 
 O'Neill ; ' it's a matter of politics.' 
 
 ' Surely,' said Hester, ' even in politics ' She 
 
 hesitated. It was not often that she joined in the 
 discussions which she heard, and now what she 
 meant to say seemed to be too bold. 
 
 ' I know what you mean,' said Mrs. O'Neill. ' It 
 would be all very simple if one had only to find out 
 which side was in the right on any question, and 
 then vote with it. But so many other things 
 come in.' 
 
 ' But,' said Hester, ' ought you ever to join the side 
 which you know is wrong ?' 
 
 ' You've got,' said O'Neill, ' to join the side, as you 
 call it, which is likely to give Ireland her indepen- 
 dence. Right and wrong have simply nothing to do 
 with the matter.' 
 
 ' Except this,' said Sir Gerald ' and I think this is 
 what Mrs. O'Neill meant a while ago that there's a 
 certain advantage in being in the right. You are less 
 likely to be beaten when you have right on your side. 
 I agree with Mrs. O'Neill in thinking it a mistake to 
 fight the priests on this particular question.' 
 
 ' Well, you're mistaken,' said O'Neill, ' both of you.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 223 
 
 You think I am forcing on the fight : I'm not. I 
 must fight, or else surrender on terms that will leave 
 me the obedient servant of the Church for the rest of 
 my career. Besides, I owe this Government some- 
 thing. What did they want to shut up my men in 
 prison for ? They were not hurting anyone.' 
 
 ' If that's all that's in your mind,' said Mrs. O'Neill 
 quietly, 'you had better give in at once. There's 
 nothing to be got for Ireland by gratifying your 
 desire for revenge on one particular English party.' 
 
 ' But that's not all. I have a chance now of 
 snatching the great prize, a chance I may never get 
 again. If I can beat this Government, and the 
 Opposition win at the General Election, they will 
 have to give me what I want. I am not fighting the 
 Government, or the priests, or anyone else, for a 
 small thing. I'm fighting for the freedom of Ireland ; 
 and I have it in the hollow of my hand, if I win just 
 this one battle.' 
 
 ' But,' said Sir Gerald, ' what would be the good of 
 an independent Ireland if the priests are to rule it ? 
 You said yourself that they would beat you in the 
 end. I think that I would rather be governed by 
 England than Home.' 
 
 ' That,' said O'Neill, ' is the! miserable mistake 
 which has made Unionists of nine-tenths of the 
 Protestants of Ireland. They are afraid national 
 independence would mean priestly rule. There never 
 was a stupider blunder. The priests might rule an 
 independent Ireland for five years. They would
 
 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 never guide so much as a County Council after that. 
 What gives the priests their power to-day is the 
 unnatural alliance they made fifty years ago with the 
 forces that are working for freedom and nationality. 
 The confederacy is already breaking up, and can't 
 survive the first independent Irish Parliament. The 
 Church must fall back into its proper place as a great 
 anti-national and tyrannical power.' 
 
 ' If you're right,' said Sir Gerald, ' things are rather 
 topsy-turvy at present.' 
 
 ' They are,' said O'Neill. ' I doubt if the world has 
 ever seen a similar situation. Protestants, in spite of 
 their Protestantism, are bent on maintaining an un- 
 constitutional and arbitrary power. Catholics, in the 
 face of every tradition of Catholicism, are making a 
 revolution. The thing is such an obvious absurdity 
 that any man with common-sense ought to be able to 
 see that it can't last.' 
 
 ' When things disentangle themselves,' said Hester, 
 ' perhaps it will be easier to do simply what is right 
 in politics. It seems to me as if it ought somehow to 
 be possible.' 
 
 ' My dear lady,' said John O'Neill, ' if I win this 
 battle, then ten years hence, when your husband is 
 governing Ireland, you may talk to him about right 
 and wrong, and if he listens to you this will be a 
 happy country. If I'm beaten, then perhaps when 
 you are an old, old woman you can preach it to your 
 grandson ; for if we miss this chance neither we nor 
 our children will see Ireland free. In any case,
 
 THE SEETHING POT 225 
 
 there's no use talking about right and wrong to 
 me. My position is that of the primitive savage. A 
 refined morality would be my destruction.' 
 
 After the O'Neills left them, Sir Gerald and Hester 
 sat and talked together. 
 
 ' I wonder, Gerald,' she said, ' whether, after all, 
 Mr. O'Neill's way of working is the best one. Doesn't 
 it seem to you sometimes not to be very noble ?' 
 
 'I know what you mean,' said Sir Gerald. 'It's 
 what your father and Mr. Godfrey said to me. He is 
 an unscrupulous man. But I don't think that the 
 men who do great things in the world can keep their 
 hands clean.' 
 
 ' It wasn't the way your father worked. He kept 
 his hands clean, as you call it. Not even his enemies 
 could ever say of him that he did one base or crooked 
 thing.' 
 
 ' That is true ; but, then, you must remember that 
 he failed.' 
 
 ' Do you think that Mr. O'Neill will succeed ?' 
 
 * No,' said Sir Gerald, ' I don't. He has a wonderful 
 strength and influence, but I'm afraid that this time 
 he will be beaten.' 
 
 ' If he is,' said Hester, ' I think it will break his 
 heart.' 
 
 15
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 JOHN O'NEILL by no means underrated the power of 
 the Church or the influence of the respectable and 
 timid section of the Nationalist Party. Yet he retained 
 a hope that whatever the ultimate issue of the struggle 
 might be, he would succeed in dictating their im- 
 mediate policy to the present members of his party. 
 Experience confirmed him in his belief that his own 
 power was supreme. Individuals had sometimes 
 kicked against his orders. Sometimes one malcontent 
 or another had resigned his seat in Parliament as a 
 protest against O'Neill's dictatorship. Such revolts 
 had always proved impotent. The rebels had either 
 come back to their allegiance or had disappeared 
 completely from Irish political life. Once or twice 
 there had been something like an organized attempt 
 to break his power, but he had never had any real 
 cause for anxiety. The party contained men of con- 
 siderable ability, brilliant speakers, good organizers, 
 and bold speculators, but it contained no one who was 
 the equal of John O'Neill in strength of will and 
 tenacity of purpose. Even with a popular audience, 
 his singular capacity for narrowing a controversy to 
 
 226
 
 THE SEETHING POT 227 
 
 its really essential point, and keeping attention fixed 
 on that, prevailed over great oratorical displays. No 
 one in his party possessed as O'Neill did the inex- 
 plicable power of ruling others. The secret of this 
 power is a mystery, which we only push further 
 back when we speak of it as the result of a great 
 personality. 
 
 It was upon his own determination, his own clear- 
 headedness, and, above all, on this personality, that 
 O'Neill relied for victory in the battle that lay before 
 him. He failed to realize that the men whom he had 
 whipped to heel so often in the past could ever 
 succeed in breaking free from his control. It was not 
 until the very morning before the meeting of the 
 party hi Dublin that his self-confidence was really 
 shaken. Michael McCarty called on him while he 
 was busy over some notes of his next day's speech. 
 At all times O'Neill was impatient of interruption. 
 Coming from a man like McCarty, and at a moment 
 of strain and anxiety, it was to him simply in- 
 tolerable. He looked up from his writing with a 
 frown. 
 
 ' Unless you have something very important to tell 
 me,' he said, ' I wish you would go away. I am un- 
 commonly busy.' 
 
 At no previous time would McCarty have ventured 
 to stand his ground after such a reception. On this 
 occasion lie seemed to have discovered somewhere 
 in the recesses of his soul a small power of self- 
 assertion. 
 
 152
 
 228 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 ' What I want to say is important,' he answered. 
 
 Apparently O'Neill did not believe him, for he 
 pushed back his writing with an impatient sigh. 
 His manner was that of a man who, like St. Paul's 
 friends at Corinth, ' suffers fools,' but is determined 
 not to do so with any appearance of gladness. 
 
 ' Go on,' he said ; ' but for goodness' sake be as 
 quick as you can.' 
 
 McCarty's new-found courage seemed to be failing 
 him. He began in a tone of apology : 
 
 'I've been a member of your party now for more 
 than ten years. I can never tell you how thankful I 
 am to you for taking me up and putting me into 
 Parliament.' 
 
 'You can skip all that,' said O'Neill. 'I've no 
 doubt your feelings are most creditable, but I don't 
 want to be told about them now.' 
 
 ' I hope,' said McCarty, ' that I've been of some use 
 to you. I never went against anything you said, or 
 disobeyed any order you gave.' 
 
 O'Neill fiddled impatiently with his pen, and drew 
 his papers to him as if he meant to resume his 
 writing. 
 
 ' If you want your allowance increased,' he said, ' it 
 can't be done. The funds won't run to it. 1 
 
 ' It's nothing of that sort at all,' said McCarty. 
 ' Of course, I couldn't have gone to Parliament with- 
 out the allowance. I am a poor man ; but I'm 
 satisfied with what I get. I can do well enough.' 
 
 He paused, and stood before O'Neill twisting his
 
 THE SEETHING POT 229 
 
 fingers together and shifting his weight from one 
 foot to the other. He was like a schoolboy in search 
 of an excuse to save him from an apparently inevitable 
 caning. At last he made a plunge. 
 
 ' I'm a Catholic,' he said, and then stopped again. 
 
 ' Bless my soul ! Get on,' said O'Neill. ' I know 
 well enough you're a Catholic. You are not thinking 
 of turning Protestant, are you, or becoming a Buddhist 
 or anything eccentric ? For goodness' sake, don't con- 
 sult me about your soul. Go to a priest or a mahatma, 
 or someone of that sort.' 
 
 McCarty suddenly lost his temper. Like most 
 weak men, he found in passion courage to say things 
 which in cooler moments would have been not only 
 impossible to utter, but almost unthinkable. 
 
 ' Curse you and damn you ! You treat us as if we 
 were your slaves or your dogs! You bully us and 
 insult us ! You you tyrant !' 
 
 He clenched his fists and took a step forward, as if 
 he meant to strike O'Neill. His face glowed and his 
 nostrils dilated. On his temples a pulse throbbed so 
 violently that the skin rose and fell in visible waves 
 above it. O'Neill watched him curiously. He leant 
 back in his chair, and a smile, half of amusement, 
 half of contempt, crept out from the corners of his 
 mouth. 
 
 ' Hadn't you better keep that sort of thing for the 
 House of Commons ?' he said. ' You could get your- 
 self quite gloriously suspended for less than that. 
 Just think " Here the honourable member became
 
 230 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 quite inaudible, and remained shaking his fist at the 
 Prime Minister until removed by the Serjeant-at-Anns 
 and four policemen." It's rather a pity to waste 
 a scene of this kind on an audience of one, with no 
 reporters present.' 
 
 In reality the scene was full of pathos. A man of 
 the world, cool, cynical, and indifferent, lay back in 
 his chair and sneered. A peasant, passionate like 
 a child, humiliated and goaded beyond endurance, 
 furiously conscious of his own impotence, gasped in a 
 fruitless search for words, and shook his fists in the 
 air. Some feeling of pity seemed at last to touch 
 O'Neill. He sat up, and said almost kindly : 
 
 ' Go on, man. I don't want to insult you. Only 
 do let us get to whatever it is you want to say.' 
 
 McCarty's passion vanished suddenly as suddenly 
 as it had arisen. 
 
 ' Mr. O'Neill, forgive me for what I said. I didn't 
 mean it.' 
 
 ' I'll forgive you for any blessed thing you like,' 
 said O'Neill, ' if only you will get to the point.' 
 
 McCarty's voice became gentle and pleading. 
 
 ' Don't tell us to vote against the Government.' 
 
 O'Neill stared at him without speaking. 
 
 ' I can't do it,' McCarty went on, ' and there's more 
 than me that can't. It will break up the party if you 
 try to force us. Indeed it will ; and there's some that 
 will be glad enough to see it broken up.' 
 
 ' I dare say there are/ said O'Neill ; ' but surely 
 you are not fools enough to listen to them ?'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 'No, no,' said McCarty. 'The most of us would 
 rather follow you, but we can't.' 
 
 'I see. You've been got at by your priests. I 
 don't suppose that it is much use arguing with you, 
 but just remember this : the Government you want to 
 support put you in prison a few months ago. Its 
 followers have hooted us out of the House of Commons. 
 Its officers have refused us the right of addressing 
 our constituents. You said a minute ago that I 
 bullied you. Did I ever bully and insult you as this 
 Government has done ?' 
 
 ' I know I know all that,' said McCarty. ' I'ld 
 vote against them in anything but this. You don't 
 understand, Mr. O'Neill. You're a Protestant, and of 
 course we don't expect you to understand. We must 
 support the Government.' 
 
 ' How many of you are going to desert me ?' 
 
 ' I don't know,' said McCarty, ' but I think most of 
 the members. It is all settled. Everybody knows 
 about it except you. Won't you think about it, sir ? 
 Don't ask us to vote against the Church. We'll all 
 stand by you in anything else you like, if you will go 
 our way this time.' 
 
 ' I won't go your way,' said O'Neill. ' Let your 
 mind be quite clear about that. I'm not going to be 
 tied to the apron-strings of your Bishops. If you like 
 to sell me, you can. I hope you'll get a better price 
 out of your priests than your own miserable souls.' 
 
 McCarty completely broke down. 
 
 ' Oh !' he moaned. ' Oh ! I would have followed
 
 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 you. I would have gone to the world's end for you. 
 Oh, holy Mary ! but I loved you, and now you're 
 saying that I have sold you.' 
 
 ' You have sold me,' said O'Neill ; * but that is 
 nothing. You must understand what you have done. 
 You have sold Ireland. If your priest promised you 
 heaven for doing it, I think that the recollection 
 of your bargain will make heaven itself as bitter to 
 your soul as hell. Now go.' 
 
 McCarty went out cowed and trembling. The wet 
 west wind buffeted him as he closed the door behind 
 him. He walked back towards Clogher soaked and 
 miserable. It is not possible to think that it was his 
 religion which had forced him to desert his leader. 
 Men who act religiously find a joy and a strength 
 even when their way is hard. McCarty only moaned 
 over to himself: ' I couldn't do other I couldn't do 
 other.' It is not possible, either, to call the motive 
 power which drove him superstition. He had not 
 acted out of fear of hell or hope of heaven. Simply 
 an instinct of obedience, his heritage from generations 
 of Roman Catholic peasant fathers, strengthened by a 
 Catholic education in a Catholic atmosphere, had left 
 it impossible for him to set his own will against the 
 voice of his Church. Perhaps such obedience is the 
 highest of all virtues, because it does not bring with it 
 even the reward of spiritual exaltation. 
 
 The mere fact of knowing that he was going to be 
 beaten never prevented John O'Neill from fighting his 
 best. For ten years he had been fighting battles IB
 
 THE SEETHING POT 233 
 
 the House of Commons. In every battle his defeat 
 was a foregone conclusion. He and his followers had 
 been laughed at by the British public. The cartoon- 
 ists of the papers which Englishmen imagine to be 
 comic had worked his features into various impossible 
 contortions. Gradually the laughter had given way 
 to irritation. The sympathetic artists conceived a 
 being which might have passed for one of Swift's 
 Yahoos, endowed it with O'Neill's face, and, to pre- 
 vent misunderstanding, labelled it ' The Irish Party.' 
 The irritation was succeeded by a deep and serious 
 hatred. John O'Neill and his followers were cursed 
 freely and frequently by both the great English parties. 
 Special rules were made for defeating their tactics in 
 Parliament. Special laws were passed which enabled 
 official people to put them in prison for making 
 speeches in Ireland. Every man's hand was against 
 them, and their hands were against everything 
 English. Never once had O'Neill's heart failed him. 
 Neither ridicule, invective, nor force turned him from 
 the way he chose to go. Now, even the certainty that 
 the majority of his own followers was against him did 
 not cow him. He went up to Dublin determined to 
 fight his own battle to the last. 
 
 The meeting was a private one. Neither reporters 
 nor the general public were allowed to be present. 
 But the members of the party formed by themselves 
 a respectable audience. O'Neill took the chair, and 
 opened the proceedings with a short and lucid sketch 
 of the political situation. The Government, he said,
 
 234, THE SEETHING POT 
 
 was doomed unless it received the support of the 
 Irish members. The Opposition had already ap- 
 proached him with an offer of a separate legislative 
 assembly for Ireland. The details of the scheme 
 were as yet unsettled, but he had no doubt that if the 
 Opposition came into office a Bill would be passed 
 which would go some way towards satisfying the 
 Irish people. Under the circumstances, the policy 
 of the Irish Party was perfectly clear. They must 
 secure the defeat of the Government by as large a 
 majority as possible. 
 
 A leading member of the party, Daniel O'Rourke, 
 followed O'Neill. O'Rourke had the reputation of 
 being the most brilliant orator of the party. It was 
 clear that on the present occasion he meant to make 
 full use of his powers. His speech was in every way 
 a marked contrast to his chiefs. His resonant tones 
 followed O'Neill's like organ music after the jangling 
 of a cracked bell. He elevated, or said he elevated, 
 the question of their policy from the low level of 
 expediency to the bracing tableland of principle. 
 Ireland was a Catholic country. She returned mem- 
 bers to Parliament pledged to the defence and advance- 
 ment of everything Irish, but bound, also, to support 
 the Church. He denied that the two claims could 
 ever come into conflict. The cause of the Church 
 was the cause of Ireland. He closed his speech with 
 a highly poetical appeal to his hearers to reject 
 O'Neill's advice and throw the weight of their votes 
 on to the side of religion and Catholicism.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 235 
 
 Long before he had finished speaking, it became 
 evident that the sympathy of the majority was with 
 what he said. One after another the leading members 
 of the party stood up and declared their intention of 
 siding with O'Rourke. No single voice was raised on 
 O'Neill's behalf. More than two hours had been 
 spent in oratory, when O'Neill rose again. 
 
 'Let me remind you, gentlemen,' he said, 'that 
 you are only the representatives of the Irish people. 
 On a question of such importance, it is only right 
 that we should take the opinion of the people them- 
 selves. I propose that the whole matter be laid 
 before a mass meeting of the Dublin Nationalists to- 
 morrow night.' 
 
 It was an astute suggestion. The Dublin populace 
 are notoriously impatient of clerical control. It was 
 certain that a meeting such as he proposed would 
 support O'Neill against an alliance of the priests and 
 the English Government. O'Rourke and his friends 
 held a hurried consultation in whispers. To accept 
 O'Neill's proposal meant being hooted from the plat- 
 form ; to reject it would be interpreted as an admission 
 that the country generally was against them. O'Neill 
 looked round the room while he waited for O'Rourke's 
 answer. He noticed a little group of young men who 
 had drawn together apart from the rest of the meeting. 
 They were listening to one of their number, who spoke 
 eagerly in low tones. O'Neill recognised him at once, 
 His name was Patrick O'Dwyer. He was the repre- 
 sentative of a small town which was well known to be
 
 236 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 a centre of revolutionary ideas, and even of plots for 
 open rebellion. O'Dwyer himself was more than 
 suspected of being a member of a great secret 
 society. For the first time since he entered the 
 room, O'Neill felt a gleam of hope. He saw that 
 he was not to be left to fight his battle entirely 
 alone. 
 
 The whispered consultation between O'Rourke and 
 his friends came to an end. 
 
 ' I think, sir,' he said, ' that your proposal of an 
 appeal to the people is entirely reasonable. It is one 
 which I should be very sorry to oppose. But why 
 should we confine the appeal to the people of Dublin ? 
 Would it not be better to organize a series of meetings 
 throughout the country, and let each member lay the 
 matter before his own constituents ?' 
 
 The meaning of the proposal was plain enough. 
 O'Neill and O'Rourke both knew that, though the 
 question might be freely discussed in Dublin, the 
 country voters would simply follow their priests. 
 
 ' Mr. O'Rourke's proposal,' said O'Neill, ' although no 
 doubt in itself good, is, unfortunately, not at present 
 practicable. Parliament reassembles the day after 
 to-morrow. We might hold a meeting to-morrow 
 night in Dublin. It is not possible to hold a series 
 of meetings in the country.' 
 
 For the first time O'Neill's remarks were greeted 
 with applause. O'Rourke looked round him angrily. 
 He was met with a fixed stare by O'Dwyer, who led 
 the cheers of his little circle of friends. O'Rourke
 
 THE SEETHING POT 237 
 
 rose to his feet again. His manner had lost its first 
 note of triumph. His oratory was no longer flam- 
 boyant. He spoke suavely, like a shopman who 
 urges the purchase of desirable goods on a willing 
 customer. 
 
 'You will no doubt, sir,' he said, addressing O'Neill, 
 ' have read an article which appeared recently in one 
 of our leading daily papers, in which it was stated 
 that you depended for your position of leader on the 
 extreme left wing of our party that you were, in fact, 
 the representative of the secret societies which unfor- 
 tunately exist among our people. I regard such a 
 suggestion as entirely unfounded. For my own part, 
 I should require no denial of the charge from you. 
 For the sake of the general public, however, both here 
 and across the Channel, I ask you to make a public 
 disavowal of any sympathy with the revolutionary 
 section of our party. We shall be perfectly willing 
 to meet the mass of the Dublin Nationalists to- 
 morrow ' he turned from O'Neill, and looked at 
 O'Dwyer and his friends 'if we may announce to 
 them that our leader condemns all secret societies, 
 and will accept no help from men whom I can only 
 call desperately and criminally foolish.' 
 
 O'Dwyer sprang to his feet. His face was blazing 
 with excitement. 
 
 ' I protest,' he said, ' against Mr. O'Rourke's 
 language and against his sentiments. I am a member 
 of Parliament ; but not because I have any faith in 
 constitutional agitation, for I believe, in my heart,
 
 238 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 that it is as useless to-day as it has always been. I 
 claim to speak for men in Ireland who are tired of 
 talk, sick to death of windbags like O'Rourke and the 
 cowards who are willing to lick the boots of English 
 statesmen at the bidding of the priests. We have 
 gone to Westminster because we believe in John 
 O'Neill, and are willing to give his policy a chance. 
 We believe that he is a true man, and we are ready 
 to go with him, for a while, even into the foreign 
 Parliament which we hate and despise. You may 
 denounce us, gentlemen, if you like, but we believe 
 that Ireland's ultimate appeal against tyranny must 
 be to the sword. You may denounce us if you like. 
 We care nothing for you or the likes of you ; but if 
 you refuse to follow O'Neill, we refuse to follow you. 
 You will have us to reckon with and to fight.' 
 
 O'Rourke rose again. 
 
 ' I refrain,' he said, ' from commenting on the 
 outrageous vanity and egoism of the speech of this 
 quite unknown member of our party. It seems to 
 have been conceived in the vein of the bombastic 
 heroes of the cabbage-garden rebellion of '48. I return 
 to the point, and ask our chairman whether he is 
 willing to give us a public assurance that he is not in 
 sympathy with Mr. O'Dwyer's secret societies and his 
 policy of crime.' 
 
 ' My own opinion,' said O'Neill, ' of what is called 
 the policy of physical force is obvious. I should not 
 be the leader of a Parliamentary party unless I believed 
 that what Ireland wants can be secured by constitu-
 
 THE SEETHING POT 289 
 
 tional means. Until I am convinced that this belief 
 is unfounded, I shall not commit myself to an approval 
 of the last and, as it seems to me, the hopeless appeal 
 to arms. At the same time, I am not prepared to 
 denounce those who think differently. I am not 
 prepared to condemn their societies for this reason 
 if no other, that I have no wish to help the English 
 in their task of governing Ireland. I am glad that 
 their way should be made hard for them by any 
 persons and by almost any means.' 
 
 ' Then,' shouted O'Rourke, ' we refuse to allow 
 your appeal to the Dublin mob. Publish our refusal 
 if you like. Make what capital you can out of it 
 Beat us at the polls if you can. But here we beat you. 
 The Irish Party will support the Government. We 
 shall be loyal to the Church.' 
 
 O'Neill looked round him slowly, as he rose once 
 more to his feet. His face was gray, and seemed 
 suddenly to have grown drawn and thin. His hands 
 were trembling. He steadied them by leaning heavily 
 on the table in front of him. Even his voice seemed 
 to have failed him, for his first words were barely 
 audible. 
 
 'You have decided to betray me. Will you not 
 think again before it is too late ? I do not ask you 
 for my own sake, but for Ireland's. You know that 
 you are betraying Ireland.' 
 
 It seemed as if he was going to break down alto- 
 gether. His eyes wandered in search of sympathetic 
 faces among his audience. They met O'Rourke's
 
 240 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 triumphant sneer. In a moment O'Neill's mouth 
 hardened. He stood upright, and his voice was clear 
 and strong again. 
 
 ' I ask and these are my last words to you I ask, 
 What are you going to get for your betrayal ? Your 
 priests are getting what priests always want, and 
 always get money. That is very well for them ; but 
 what are you getting ? You are ready to be traitors. 
 Do you want to be fools as well ? Will you sell your 
 country, and get nothing for it ? Even Judas Iscariot 
 got thirty pieces of silver for his betrayal. What are 
 you going to get ?' 
 
 The men whom he taunted could bear no more. 
 They sprang up before him, threatening him. It 
 seemed as if nothing could prevent their beating 
 him down, when his voice rang out clear above their 
 tumult : 
 
 ' You dogs ! Do you dare to yelp about my heels 
 and snarl at me? I am your master still. Stand 
 back from me !' 
 
 Savagely passionate as they were, they shrank back 
 from him, and he passed out.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE news of O'Neill's defeat at the meeting of his 
 party was received with joy by his political opponents. 
 Everyone regarded, or affected to regard, it as final. 
 In Ireland the landlord party believed that their most 
 dangerous enemy had been removed from the political 
 world. They congratulated themselves daily on the 
 fact that the fall of O'Neill meant the impotence of 
 Nationalism for at least a generation. The English 
 Government organs were jubilant. The defeat which 
 threatened their party was happily averted, and they 
 had every hope that the whole ' Golden Hero ' agita- 
 tion would have gone the way of other imbecile 
 enthusiasms before it would be necessary to face the 
 country at a General Election. Even the Noncon- 
 formists were relieved and felt happier. O'Neill 
 was not a pleasant ally, and latterly they had 
 begun to realize that he was likely to ask rather 
 too high a price for his help in defeating the Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 A curious feature of the general rejoicing was the 
 unanimity with which everyone recognised O'Neill's 
 virtues now that they were no longer afraid of him. 
 
 241 16
 
 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 Even the Irish landlords spoke with a certain respect 
 of his ability and strength. 
 
 Lord Clonfert met Sir Gerald the day after the 
 news of the defeat arrived in Clogher. He made a 
 decent effort to conceal his joy. 
 
 ' Well,' he said, ' so O'Neill is beaten. Of course I 
 hate his politics : I always did. But, after all, the 
 man has some of the instincts of a gentleman in him. 
 He used to treat those fellows of his properly. He 
 used to whip them to heel and keep them there. 
 But, after all, what could he expect ? If a man 
 associates all his life with the lowest sweeps in the 
 country, he can't expect them to stand by him at a 
 pinch. He might have known that scum like O'Rourke 
 and the rest of them would turn on him the first 
 chance they got.' 
 
 ' It was a shameful business/ said Sir Gerald. 
 ' It makes me angry to think of it. I dare say you 
 can understand that there was a great deal about 
 O'Neill and his ways of working that I didn't like. 
 I know more of him now than I did at first, and I 
 doubt if ever I should have cared to be a member of 
 his party. If things had gone right with him, I 
 should have kept out of politics. Now, if I am any 
 use, I shall stand by him.' 
 
 ' I don't blame you for that,' said Lord Clonfert. 
 ' I should do the same in your position. Besides, I'd 
 rather O'Neill had a following in the House of Com- 
 mons. The nearer the two parties of Nationalists 
 come to balancing each other, the more chance there
 
 THE SEETHING POT 243 
 
 will be of peace and quietness for decent people. I 
 suppose O'Neill will fight it out now, won't he ? He's 
 not the man to sit down under the decision of that 
 meeting in Dublin.' 
 
 ' I suppose he will,' said Sir Gerald. ' But things 
 look rather hopeless at present.' 
 
 Public opinion in Clogher itself was in the main 
 sympathetic with O'Neill. Father Fahy felt obliged 
 to refrain from triumphing openly. He succeeded 
 without much difficulty in preventing the League 
 from expressing any opinion about the new national 
 policy. Most of the members were anxious to avoid 
 committing themselves until they were certain, in the 
 first place, that there were to be two sides, and, if so, 
 which side was going to be the stronger. Father 
 Fahy cherished a hope that O'Neill might be con- 
 tented to drop quietly out of politics altogether. 
 He could then have afforded to be generous, and 
 would have joined in a hero-worship of the lost 
 leader. 
 
 O'Neill returned to Clogher very shortly after the 
 Dublin meeting. Almost the first thing he did was to 
 call on Sir Gerald and Lady Geoghegan. They were 
 shocked to see the change which his few days' absence 
 had made in him. He looked haggard and worn, 
 like a man who has just emerged from a severe 
 illness. 
 
 ' We are glad to see you back again,' said Sir 
 Gerald. 
 
 He felt a difficulty about offering direct sympathy or 
 
 162
 
 244 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 alluding to the defeat in Dublin. O'Neill himself had 
 no shrinking from the subject. 
 
 ' They went back on me,' he said. ' You heard 
 that, of course. The newspapers have been full 
 of my affairs. They make a mistake, though, 
 in thinking that they have done with me alto- 
 gether.' 
 
 ' We were very sorry to hear it,' said Lady 
 Geoghegan. ' I would like you to know that no one, 
 except your wife of course, feels for you as much as 
 we do.' 
 
 ' Thank you,' said O'Neill. ' It is good to hear 
 things like that, especially from people like you. But 
 I don't want either sympathy or pity. I didn't come 
 here to lament over my fallen fortunes. I am going 
 to fight it out with O'Rourke and the priests. I came 
 to talk to you about my next move. Please don't go 
 away, Lady Geoghegan. I would like you to hear 
 what I have got to say.' 
 
 O'Neill told them the story of McCarty's visit to 
 him before the meeting. 
 
 ' I disliked him,' he added, ' for the evident state of 
 funk he was in. I disliked him still more for the 
 hysterical kind of way he spoke. I thought he was a 
 hypocrite when he said he was sorry to oppose me. 
 It turned out afterwards I was wrong.' 
 
 'I don't think much,' said Hester, 'of expressions 
 of sorrow coming from a man who means to do you 
 an injury.' 
 
 She was flushed and a little excited. O'Neill's
 
 THE SEETHING POT 245 
 
 appearance and the recollection of what he had been 
 through moved her. 
 
 ' Well, nor do I,' said O'Neill. ' But the human 
 mind is a queer thing, and McCarty's is a particularly 
 queer specimen. I don't in the least profess to under- 
 stand him, and I don't want to; but his peculiar 
 conscience led him to do an interesting and important 
 thing.' 
 
 ' Did he come back to his allegiance ?' asked Sir 
 Gerald. ' I could understand his doing that, after he 
 had seen what happened at the meeting.' 
 
 'Not quite,' said O'Neill. 'But he called at my 
 hotel the evening after the meeting. At first I thought 
 he wanted to snivel, and tried to turn him out. It 
 appeared that what he really wanted was to let me 
 know that he meant to resign his seat in Parliament. 
 He said he couldn't follow me, but that he wouldn't 
 fight against me either.' 
 
 'Poor man!' said Lady Geoghegan. 'He must 
 have gone through a good deal.' 
 
 ' I don't see why he is to be pitied,' said O'Neill. 
 ' Things were simple enough for him. Either I was 
 right, in which case he ought to have stood by me, 
 or his priests were right, and then he ought to have 
 done his best to trample on me. What he has done 
 is to try and make an impossible kind of compromise. 
 Any way, as I said before, McCarty and his conscience 
 don't matter. He is contemptible, and he is done 
 with. The question is, Who is going to take his 
 place ?'
 
 246 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 O'Neill looked at Sir Gerald and then at Lady 
 Geoghegan. Both of them guessed what was coming 
 next, and were affected, but very differently. Lady 
 Geoghegan felt a sudden hot thrill of intense excite- 
 ment. She flushed deeply, and her eyes sparkled. 
 Sir Gerald grew slowly numb. His face lost all 
 expression. He sat looking vacantly at John O'Neill. 
 He saw clearly before him the prospect of a choice 
 that he dreaded. He realized that he must either 
 plunge himself into a contest where he had small 
 sympathy with either side, or be false to a friend, and 
 that in the moment of his greatest need. 
 
 ' Of course I shall fight for the seat,' said O'Neill. 
 * If I can get the proper man as my nominee, I stand 
 a chance of beating O'Rourke and the priests. With 
 an ordinary candidate I should have no hope in a 
 constituency like this. I must have a local man, 
 and a man who won't be afraid of the priests. I 
 should like a man whose position will command 
 respect, who will be above the reproach of having 
 been hired.' 
 
 Lady Geoghegan turned to him eagerly : 
 
 ' It is Gerald that you want. Oh, how splendid ! 
 We will work for you, and we shall win. I know we 
 must win.' 
 
 John O'Neill looked at Sir Gerald. It would have 
 been better if the outburst had come from him, 
 but he sat there, curiously impassive, without 
 speaking. 
 
 ' It is you that I want,' said O'Neill. ' If I quoted
 
 THE SEETHING POT 247 
 
 Scripture like your friend O'Hara, I should say, " Thou 
 art the man !" ' 
 
 There was a short silence. Hester looked in wonder 
 at her husband. At last he spoke : 
 
 ' I shall do what you want. I don't expect that we 
 shall win. It is not clear to me that there will be much 
 gained even if we do. Will one more follower be any 
 use to you ?' 
 
 ' No/ said O'Neill. ' One more would be no use to 
 me, but a Victory here and now would be everything. 
 The Irish voters are very highly organized, more so 
 than any in the kingdom. Little or nothing is left to 
 the individual. We may reckon that they will all go 
 one way. It is always so when organization is strong. 
 If we win here, we shall give the rest of Ireland the 
 lead it wants. We shall stand a good chance of carry- 
 ing the League with us everywhere.' 
 
 'I do not think that we have any chance of 
 winning,' said Sir Gerald. ' I am a very poor fighter. 
 I think you would do better if you chose some other 
 man.' 
 
 ' How can you talk in such a way, Gerald ?' said 
 Hester. ' What chance have we of winning if you go 
 into the fight expecting to be beaten ?' 
 
 ' There is no other man,' said O'Neill, ' who 
 would have the slightest chance. It is you or 
 nobody.' 
 
 ' What are we to do ?' said Hester. ' When shall 
 we begin ?' 
 
 ' We shall begin at once,' said O'Neill. ' We have
 
 248 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 this advantage over O'Rourke : that I don't think he 
 knows yet about McCarty's resignation. We can have 
 a meeting in Clogher on Sunday week. I shall get 
 down O'Dwyer to speak. I can certainly count on 
 him to support me. Of course he is rather an 
 extreme man. He may say outrageous things. But 
 I like him. He's one of the very few of the whole set 
 whom 1 respect. He never took a penny of allowance 
 from our funds. I found out one time that he was 
 living in London in an attic on one meal a day, and 
 never missed a division in the House when I wanted 
 him. It was as much as I could do to get him to dine 
 with me twice a week while the session lasted. I 
 think he will do all he can for you, Sir Gerald. He 
 almost worships the memory of your father. He has 
 him in a frame over his bed along with Emmet and 
 Wolfe Tone.' 
 
 'Shall we have him stop with us?' said Lady 
 Geoghegan. * I should so much like to make friends 
 with him.' 
 
 ' You had better let him come to us,' said O'Neill. 
 ' He will be more comfortable, really. Your servants 
 would make him miserable. I don't suppose he's 
 ever had a dress-coat in his life.' 
 
 ' What about the newspapers ?' said Sir Gerald. 
 
 'Ah! There you touch our weak point,' said 
 O'Neill. ' There are just two honest National papers 
 in Ireland. One is your friend O'Hara's Critic, which 
 really doesn't count in a business like this ; the other is 
 The Croppy, and it's not much of a rag, although it is
 
 THE SEETHING POT 249 
 
 sound. It's a penny weekly, and has no great 
 circulation. The rest of them, dailies and weeklies, 
 are more or less owned or run by the priests. I'm 
 leaving the anti-Irish papers out of the count. I'll 
 coerce The Connaught News man into, at all events, 
 holding his tongue. I'll get The Croppy to do us 
 some good strong articles, and we'll circulate it free 
 for the next six weeks. That's about all we can do. 
 The rest of the papers will abuse us up and down, 
 and, of course, they'll have the best of it there. One 
 comfort is, that twenty per cent, of the electors 
 can't read, so a good deal of that work will be 
 wasted.' 
 
 In the centre of the fair-green in Clogher there 
 stands a recently-erected statue. As a work of art it 
 met with the unqualified contempt of Dennis Browne. 
 As an expression of popular sentiment it was remark- 
 able. It represented Humbert, the French General 
 who attempted the desperate task of rescuing Ireland 
 from English rule. One brief flicker of success had 
 rested on his arms, and only one. Yet he has become 
 something of a popular hero, and his poor little 
 victory at Castlebar has been bragged of and sung 
 about as if it were a counterpoise to Aughrim and the 
 ferocious suppression of the rebellion in Wexford. It 
 seemed significant to Sir Gerald that the platform 
 from which he was to address his first audience 
 was erected beneath this statue. The shadow of 
 General Humbert would fall upon him while he 
 spoke.
 
 250 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 It came home to him that he was engaged to work 
 with men who hated not only England and her 
 Parliament, but the Empire and the King. He 
 accepted his position helplessly. There was no one 
 to whom he could explain himself from whom he 
 could look for sympathy or comfort. Hester was 
 excited and enthusiastic. He knew that she would 
 neither listen nor attempt to understand. Lord 
 Clonfert would, indeed could, only answer his com- 
 plaints with a reminder that he had been warned 
 beforehand, and was reaping what he had sowed. 
 He thought of O'Hara, and wished for his presence at 
 Clogher. It occurred to him that he might write to 
 the editor. It was a mere chance whether he got an 
 answer at all, and hi all probability the answer, if he 
 did get it, would be delayed beyond the period of 
 possible usefulness. Yet even to express himself 
 would be a relief to him, and he decided to write. 
 
 Clogher was animated, and even gay, on the day of 
 Sir Gerald's meeting. The country people remained 
 in town after Mass. Others who worshipped at 
 outlying chapels streamed in along the roads all 
 through the forenoon. The band of the Temperance 
 Sodality, against the will of Father Fahy, paraded 
 the streets and played the inevitable ' God save 
 Ireland.' The police watched helplessly while 
 publicans drove a roaring trade with bond fide 
 travellers. 
 
 As the hour of the meeting drew near, the crowds 
 gravitated towards the fair-green. ' The boys ' were
 
 THE SEETHING POT 251 
 
 evidently in high good - humour. They cheered 
 tumultuously when Sheid Amoch, with a few other 
 local politicians, ascended the platform. O'Dwyer 
 was the first of the chief personages to put in an 
 appearance. His reception was more doubtful. He 
 had long been a marked man as one who was ' agin' 
 the clergy,' and the country people had not yet 
 realized that it was from his platform that O'Neill 
 was going to appeal to them. 
 
 Shortly after one o'clock Sir Gerald's carriage drew 
 up on the outskirts of the crowd. O'Neill was with 
 him. Lady Geoghegan had insisted on being present, 
 and Mrs. O'Neill, who rarely attended such meetings, 
 had come to keep her in countenance. There was no 
 mistake about the warmth of their reception. The 
 shouting completely drowned the band's best efforts 
 at a welcoming bray. 
 
 O'Neill looked quickly round him as he mounted 
 the platform. 
 
 ' We've done very well/ he said to Sir Gerald. 
 ' We've got a good crowd. There are reporters here 
 from the Dublin papers, and we ought to be flattered 
 at the number of police they have drafted into the 
 town to keep us in order.' He touched O'Dwyer on 
 the shoulder. ' You see those two men just below 
 the platform, on the left. I know them. They are 
 shorthand writers from the Castle. They mean to 
 report us to Chesney. Be careful what you 
 say.' 
 
 O'Dwyer nodded, but it was plain to O'Neill that he
 
 252 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 paid little heed to the warning. The excitement of 
 the crowds and the cheering had mounted to his brain, 
 and even then he was in no condition to measure his 
 words. 
 
 O'Neill was the first to speak. The moment he rose 
 the people pressed round the platform to hear him. 
 The silence was so complete that the whimpering of 
 a puppy in the outskirts of the crowd was plainly 
 audible. The usual relative positions of speaker and 
 audience were reversed. It did not appear that 
 O'Neill was extremely anxious to be heard or that the 
 people were paying him a compliment by listening. 
 On the contrary, the audience set themselves to hear, 
 as if each word were life or death to them, while 
 O'Neill seemed wholly indifferent about the fate of 
 what he said. He made no appeal to emotion or 
 passion, and it was noticeable that he was hardly ever 
 interrupted with cheers. He flung his sentences out 
 from him at the crowd as if they were missile weapons 
 meant to penetrate the mind. In his whole speech 
 he insisted upon only one point. He presented it, or 
 thrust it forward, time after time, incisively, irresistibly. 
 ' O'Rourke and his friends have made an alliance with 
 one of the English parties, therefore they have lost 
 the confidence of the Irish people.' That was all that 
 O'Neill said, but he said it in many ways. He enforced 
 the necessary sequence of his ' therefore ' with instances 
 from history, bygone and contemporary. Alliance 
 with England always had meant loss for Ireland. It 
 always would. Again and again he stated his facts,
 
 THE SEETHING POT 253 
 
 and drew his inference in language so nakedly simple 
 that Sir Gerald came to long for some single adjective 
 to break the dead monotony of the demonstration ; but 
 there was none. He sat down after a final repetition 
 of his theme : ' O'Rourke has lost the confidence of 
 the Irish people.' 
 
 Sir Gerald came next. The crowd cheered him 
 madly. It was something for them to see a landlord, 
 one of the class whom they had learnt to regard as 
 their natural enemies, standing among their leaders, 
 about to appeal to them in the name of Ireland. The 
 very novelty of the thing secured a silence for the 
 opening of Sir Gerald's speech ; but he could not use 
 his opportunity. The sea of upturned faces frightened 
 him; the cheers bewildered him. His own voice, when 
 lie heard it, seemed strange and remote. His first 
 sentences failed altogether to reach any but those who 
 were nearest to him. Still, the people tried to hear 
 him, and their evident friendliness restored him some 
 measure of self-confidence. He told them of his own 
 early love for Ireland, of his desire to serve her, of the 
 perplexities which held him back, of the difficulties he 
 still saw before him. The crowd failed to follow or 
 understand him. One by one their faces were turned 
 from him, till his eyes no longer met other eyes fixed 
 expectantly on his. The pressure round the platform 
 got less, as men on the outskirts drew away and 
 began to talk to each other. Sir Gerald noticed, with 
 a feeling of despair, that the reporters had ceased to 
 scribble in their note-books. What he said was
 
 254 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 evidently unimportant. He struggled on to the end 
 of the speech he had prepared, and then sat down. 
 He glanced timidly at O'Neill. 
 
 ' I have failed,' he said. 
 
 'Yes,' he said, 'badly. Never mind. O'Dwyer 
 will pull them together, and, after all, speaking isn't 
 everything.' 
 
 ' O'Dwyer's task was a hard one, for he had to win 
 back the attention of a crowd which had grown tired 
 of being talked to, and was ill-inclined to listen to 
 anyone. At the very beginning of his speech he 
 plunged into excited rhetoric. He gesticulated wildly, 
 flinging his body forwards and jerking it back sud- 
 denly, reaching out with his hands to the people at 
 one moment, casting hands and arms together over 
 his head the next. He shamelessly shouted ancient 
 catchwords, roared out phrases battered with long 
 use. The whole seemed a very caricature of mob 
 oratory. Sir Gerald shrank back in his chair ashamed. 
 Soon he realized that behind the shouting and the 
 posturing there lay something real, that the man 
 actually meant what his bombast implied, that the 
 catchwords were as real to him as to the men who 
 used them first. The crowd, too, had begun to listen, 
 and to cheer occasionally. Quotations, tattered out 
 of the possibility of recognition by years of ignoble 
 use, caught again from O'Dwyer a power of moving 
 men. A wild burst of cheering greeted a version of 
 the thousand times repeated 'The West's awake.' 
 Sir Gerald seemed almost to see the muscles of men's
 
 THE SEETHING POT 255 
 
 limbs stiffen under them when O'Dwyer's voice rang 
 out with the prayer that Ireland might be 'A nation 
 once again.' The speaker had gripped his audience 
 and held them. O'Neill smiled, but anxiously. It 
 remained to be seen whether O'Dwyer could hold 
 himself. The Castle reporters were busy with their 
 note-books. 
 
 ' What claim has Sir Gerald Geoghegan on your 
 votes ? Does he claim them as your landlord ? As a 
 gentleman ? No, for the ancient tyrannies are broken. 
 The time for such claims is gone. Is it likely that 
 your great leader, John O'Neill, wants to sell you 
 again into captivity, now when you are standing on 
 the very borders of the promised land ? But what 
 claim has he on your votes ? Are you to support 
 him because he is rich, because he is able to give 
 great sums to the party treasury, can pay men to go 
 to Westminster and vote with him ? We leave such 
 appeals to O'Rourke, with his traitors and his priests, 
 the men who have sold themselves and Ireland for a 
 bribe. Sir Gerald Geoghegan is rich, but it is in 
 spite of his riches, not because of them, that we 
 ask you to support him. We want no rich men to 
 pay us for saving Ireland. What claim, then, has he 
 on your votes ?' 
 
 He paused ; then suddenly there poured from him 
 a torrent of impassioned words. He described the 
 career of Gerald Geoghegan, ' the rebel,' step by step 
 till he brought him to the court-house in Clonmel. 
 Cheer after cheer greeted the climax of the story
 
 256 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 Sir Gerald himself felt the excitement tingling through 
 his veins. He, too, rose and cheered. O'Dwyer lost 
 all self-control. He seized Sir Gerald by the arm and 
 dragged him forward. 
 
 ' We ask you to vote for him,' he cried, ' because he 
 is the son of such a man ; because he will not fear to 
 go the way his father went ; because we are sick of 
 politicians and priests who prate and cant of law and 
 wder ; because it is time to have done with those who 
 talk, and then sell their own souls and Ireland's liberty; 
 because henceforth we mean to fight England with the 
 only weapons that have ever conquered tyranny.'
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 O'NEILL and his wife sat late that evening discussing 
 the meeting and the speeches. 
 
 ' I am sorry that Sir Gerald failed,' said O'Neill 
 ' However, things might have been worse. O'Dwyer 
 did well afterwards. After all, speaking is a difficult 
 thing, and it was his first attempt. I dare say he 
 will do better at Ross on Tuesday that is to say, tf 
 there is a meeting at Ross.' 
 
 ' Why do you say " if " ?' asked his wife. ' I thought 
 the Ross meeting was settled.' 
 
 ' It is settled so far as we can settle it. But yott 
 must not forget that we have the Government to 
 reckon with. I've no doubt that O'Dwyer's speech, 
 will ruffle Chesney a bit when he reads it. I've knows 
 meetings proclaimed for less than what he said, 
 to-day.' 
 
 ' But surely they will not venture to stop you in a 
 case like this ! Why, it is practically a contest between 
 you and their own supporters. Public opinion would 
 never allow them.' 
 
 ' My dear Lucy, you appear to forget that you 
 are living in Ireland. What on earth has public 
 
 257 17
 
 258 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 opinion got to do with the actions of our Govern- 
 ment ? Besides, you know, O'Dwyer really did 
 pitch it pretty high to-day. He talked rank rebel- 
 lion.' 
 
 ' I know he did/ said Mrs. O'Neill. ' I don't think 
 Sir Gerald liked it. He was excited, of course, at the 
 tune. I was excited myself, and Lady Geoghegan was 
 beside herself. But he was uneasy afterwards. I 
 watched him while we were driving home. No man 
 would like to be committed to the sort of thing 
 O'Dwyer said to-day. Are you taking him with you 
 to Ross ?' 
 
 ' Of course I am. I fetched him down to make 
 speeches, and I'm not going to waste his time. Besides, 
 the Ross meeting will be an important one if they let 
 us hold it. Tuesday is a big fair day there, and we 
 shall get all the farmers/ 
 
 ' I should not wonder if Sir Gerald makes some 
 sort of protest,' said Mrs, O'Neill ; ' I don't think he 
 will stand another of O'Dwyer's speeches.' 
 
 ' In that case I hope they will proclaim the meeting. 
 I've known a good many sentimental Loyalists get 
 wicked when they found themselves being bullied by 
 the police. Sir Gerald won't be so peaceable when 
 he has been hustled off a platform and had his hat 
 blocked by the " hirelings of the oppressor," as 
 O'Dwyer calls them.' 
 
 The next morning brought the fulfilment of Mrs. 
 O'Neill's prophecy. Sir Gerald wrote protesting 
 against the line which O'Dwyer had takea He
 
 THE SEETHING POT 259 
 
 declined to allow himself to be identified with whatj 
 he described as sedition. 
 
 O'Neill showed the letter to his wife when she came 
 into his study. 
 
 ' You were right,' he said. ' Now, I wonder how 
 Lady Geoghegan feels about the matter,' 
 
 ' What are you going to do ?' asked his wife. 
 
 'Here's my answer.' 
 
 ' DEAR SIR GERALD ' (she read), 
 
 ' O'Dwyer is advertised to speak at Ross on 
 Tuesday, and of course must do so. I hope that 
 nothing will prevent your going there with us. I 
 have ordered a waggonette from the hotel to take us 
 over, and shall have a seat for you. It would be a 
 pity to keep your horses out all day. We start at 
 one o'clock sharp. We can discuss your difficulties 
 afterwards.' 
 
 ' Do you think that will do ?' asked Mr& O'Neill 
 ' I mean, with a man like Sir Gerald V 
 
 4 1 think it will. He's weak, Lucy ; you know that 
 as well as I do. He's no real good. He'll boggle and 
 shy at the first fence we put him at ; but I must have 
 him. He's the only candidate that will give me a 
 chance of winning this election, and it's sink or swim 
 with me here. If I lose this seat, I am likely to be 
 beaten altogether.' 
 
 O'Neill rested his elbow on the table as he spoke. 
 His hand stroked his forehead upwards rapidly and 
 
 172
 
 260 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 repeatedly, as if trying to smooth out the wrinkles 
 that gathered there. His eyes were half closed. 
 In spite of his vigorous words, he seemed like a man 
 who was weary and despondent. 
 
 ' I wish,' he said, ' you would go over there this 
 afternoon and see Lady Geoghegan. I hate asking 
 you to do things of this kind for me. But you might 
 get a chance of talking the matter over with her, and 
 getting her to persuade her husband to go with us 
 on Tuesday. You will know the best way to go 
 about a job of the kind. After all, it's not a very 
 fine thing for him to desert me now, just when the 
 hounds have so nearly pulled me down. Will you 
 go, Lucy ?' 
 
 ' Of course I will.' 
 
 She stooped and kissed him before she left. He 
 looked up at her with a queer dumb gratitude in his 
 eyes. 
 
 Her task was a very easy one. Perhaps Hester was 
 really braver than her husband, or perhaps she only 
 half appreciated the meaning of what O'Dwyer had 
 said. Certainly she was far more excited than 
 frightened, and readily promised to do all in her 
 power to persuade Sir Gerald to go on. 
 
 Tuesday dawned stormy and wet. As the day 
 went on the wind died down, leaving a heavy blanket 
 of clouds to empty themselves in a dreary persistent 
 downpour. Sir Gerald found O'Neill depressed and 
 silent. He coughed incessantly, and resented his 
 wife's attempts to wrap him up against the weather.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 261 
 
 He had got no hint of any intention on the part of 
 the Government to stop his meeting. 
 
 O'Dwyer was excited and nervous. He fidgeted 
 about, buttoning and unbuttoning his great frieze 
 coat, a garment whose original gray had long ago 
 been changed by frequent soakings into a sickly 
 green. The two emaciated horses dripped forlornly 
 with down-hanging heads. Six long miles of shelter- 
 less road separated them from Ross. O'Neill huddled 
 in a corner, silent except for his coughing. O'Dwyer, 
 after some efforts at conversation with Sir Gerald, 
 relapsed into half -audible recitations of specially 
 effective portions of his speech. The waggonette 
 splashed and bumped along among the pools and 
 loose stones. About a mile from Ross the driver 
 suddenly pulled up his horses and turned round 
 upon his box. 
 
 'Look there,' he said, pointing with his whip to a 
 hill about a hundred yards ahead of them. O'Neill 
 stood up and gazed through the rain. 
 
 'The police!' he said. He seemed suddenly to 
 have recovered his strength and buoyancy. ' Go on,' 
 he said to the driver. ' Lay your whip on the horses, 
 and trot up in proper style.' 
 
 O'Dwyer had already stripped off his frieze coat. 
 He looked like a man preparing for a physical 
 encounter. Sir Gerald expected to see him roll up 
 his sleeves. 
 
 ' By the Lord !' he ejaculated, ' we'll let them have 
 it. This is the grossest tyranny.'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 I What is it ?' asked Sir Gerald. 
 
 'The police,' said O'Neill. 'They mean to stop 
 us.' 
 
 ' What right have they to interfere with us ?' 
 
 ' Right !' said O'Dwyer ; and Sir Gerald was sur- 
 prised at the extreme bitterness with which he spoke. 
 ' Are you an Irishman, and ask by what right the 
 police act? You'll learn a lesson to-day that will 
 remain with you for the rest of your life. Right ! 
 There's no such thing as right in the government 
 of Ireland. There's force, and there's trickery, and 
 there's bribery, but no one ever heard of such a thing 
 as right.' 
 
 The driver pulled up with a jerk opposite a line of 
 police drawn across the road. The men stood motion- 
 less, with their carbines in their hands. The rain 
 dripped from their helmets and gray capes. Their 
 faces shone through the wet wholly unemotional. 
 They bore no expression of hatred, anger, or contempt. 
 One might imagine the best of the Roman infantry 
 standing with the same look of confident indifference 
 between contending factions of a conquered barbarian 
 people. O'Neill stepped from the waggonette. 
 
 ' Who is in command of this force ?' he asked. 
 
 A gray-haired officer stepped forward. He held 
 his sword in his left hand to prevent it dragging in 
 the mud. When he stood still his spurs struck each 
 other with a jangle. 
 
 I 1 am sorry to say, Mr. O'Neill, that I cannot allow 
 you to proceed.'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 263 
 
 ' May I ask,' said O'Neill, ' by what authority you 
 propose to prevent two members of Parliament from 
 addressing the electors of the county ?' 
 
 ' I am sorry to say, Mr. O'Neill,' repeated the 
 officer, ' that I cannot allow you to proceed.' 
 
 ' Am I to understand that if I attempt to drive on 
 you will use force to stop me ?' 
 
 Again came the formula, an irritating reitera- 
 tion : 
 
 ' I am sorry to say, Mr O'Neill, that I cannot allow 
 you to proceed.' 
 
 O'Dwyer sprang forward. 
 
 ' I denounce this interference as an utterly illegal 
 act of high-handed tyranny. I shall appeal to what- 
 ever shadow of law there may be left in Ireland. I 
 shall appeal to the House of Commons. I shall not 
 yield except to actual violence.' 
 
 The police stood absolutely impassive. The officer 
 smiled slightly, and checked himself into gravity 
 again. 
 
 'Do your orders bid you stop anyone else except 
 me ?' asked O'Neill ' Mr. O'Dwyer, for instance ?' 
 
 ' I am sorry to say, Mr. O'Neill, that I cannot allow 
 either you or Mr. O'Dwyer to proceed.' 
 
 ' Can Sir Gerald Geoghegan pass ?' demanded 
 O'Neill. 
 
 The officer paused before replying. He stepped 
 behind his men and beckoned. A heavily-cloaked 
 resident magistrate emerged from the shelter of a 
 roadside cattle-shed and opened his umbrella. A
 
 264 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 short consultation followed, and an examination of 
 acme papers. The officer returned to O'Neill. 
 
 'I shall allow Sir Gerald Geoghegan to pass,' he 
 *aid, 'if he gives me his word to make no political 
 speech hi Ross.' 
 
 O'Dwyer laughed harshly. 
 
 ' Will your honour give me lave to go to the fair ?' 
 he said. 'Sure, it's a poor orphan boy I am, that 
 wants to be buying a couple of bonhams or a calf, 
 aaaybe. Anybody will tell your honour that I'm as 
 dacent and quiet a boy as any in the country, that 
 wouldn't say a word agin the Government for all you 
 eould give me.' 
 
 ' Of course,' said Sir Gerald, ' I shall give no such 
 promise.' 
 
 ' I demand,' said O'Neill, ' to see the warrant or 
 written authority by which you prevent us from going 
 an with our perfectly lawful business.' 
 
 The officer returned to the shelter of his formula. 
 
 ' I am sorry to say, Mr. O'Neill, that I cannot allow 
 you to proceed.' 
 
 'I didn't ask you to allow me to proceed,' said 
 'Neill. ' I asked you to show me your authority 
 for stopping me.' 
 
 The officer stood rigid. He seemed like some 
 automaton wound up to utter certain words beyond 
 which his machinery would not carry him. 
 
 ' I am sorry to say, Mr. O'Neill, that I ' 
 
 Sir Gerald's temper suddenly gave way. He felt 
 fctiat the phrase had become utterly intolerable. His
 
 THE SEETHING POT 265 
 
 nerves cried out against being smitten again with the 
 identical words uttered in the identical tone. 
 
 ' Damn it ! ' he said. ' Don't say that infernal thing 
 again ! ' 
 
 O'Neill looked at him with a curious smile. 
 
 ' Good,' he said ; ' you have found your temper.' 
 
 Sir Gerald was puzzled. The moment he had 
 uttered the words he was sorry for them. It did 
 not seem to him at all a good thing to have cursed 
 a policeman for doing his duty. He had lost his 
 temper. Why did O'Neill use that odd phrase saying 
 that he had found it ? 
 
 A sergeant stepped from the ranks and spoke to 
 the officer, who turned his head quickly towards the 
 field on the left of the road. Everyone's eyes fol- 
 lowed his. O'Dwyer had jumped the ditch which 
 divided the field from the road, and was running 
 across the grass towards Ross. The officer gave a 
 brief order. Two men dropped their carbines, threw 
 off their capes, and started in pursuit. The chase 
 did not last long. O'Dwyer had only a short start, 
 and ran badly. When the police overtook him, there 
 was a struggle, but in a few minutes they were 
 dragging him back. His clothes were torn and muddy 
 when they laid him on the ground at O'Neill's feet. 
 As they resumed their places in the ranks they 
 glanced at the officer for approval. Their expres- 
 sion reminded Sir Gerald of the look on a retriever's 
 face when he has successfully brought back the bird 
 he was sent for.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 Two men appeared dimly through the rain driving 
 cattle from the fair at Ross. They stopped and 
 spoke together when they saw the police drawn up 
 across the road. The bullocks wandered slowly on, 
 and only stopped to sniff suspiciously when they 
 arrived within a few feet of the armed men. After a 
 while their drovers followed them. O'Neill climbed 
 on to the box of the waggonette and shouted to them 
 over the heads of the police. 
 
 ' Are you coming from the fair at Ross ?' 
 
 The men recognised him at once. 
 
 ' We are, your honour, sir. We're driving Mr. 
 Maillia's bullocks back to rail them for the buyer in 
 Clogher.' 
 
 'Go back to Ross, one of you,' shouted O'Neill, 
 ' and tell the boys that there'll be no meeting there 
 to-day, because the police have stopped me on the 
 road. Tell them to come along, a few hundred of 
 them, and I'll say what I want to say to them here on 
 the road.' 
 
 The police-officer stepped forward. 
 
 'Mr. O'Neill,' he said, looking up, 'I shall allow no 
 political speech-making here.' 
 
 1 Tell them,' shouted O'Neill to the drovers, ' that, if 
 there should happen to be a couple of cross cows or a 
 kicking horse in the fair, to bring them along. The 
 police will like to move about a bit after standing 
 still so long in the rain.' 
 
 The officer turned from O'Neill and went through 
 his men to the drovers. At first he seemed to be
 
 THE SEETHING POT 267 
 
 reasoning with them, finally to be threatening one of 
 them. O'Neill watched him keenly, and at last 
 shouted again : 
 
 ' Do as I bid you, boys ; never mind the police. It 
 will be a bad day for you when the League hears of 
 your disobeying me.' 
 
 One of the two men answered him : 
 
 ' Don't you be threatening me, Mr. O'Neill. I'm a 
 Protestant and an independent man. I don't care a 
 damn for you or your League ! But I don't care a 
 damn for the police, either ! I'm for fair-play, if it 
 was the devil asked for it, and I'll see that the boys 
 get your message. It could be, though, that they 
 won't come next or nigh you when they do. Father 
 Fahy and his two curates and the parish priest of 
 Ross and more of the same gentry has been to and 
 fro among them since the morning. You'll know 
 yourself what they're there for better nor me.' 
 
 He turned and trudged back towards Ross through 
 the rain. O'Neill climbed slowly down from the box, 
 while the police opened their ranks to let Mr. Maillia's 
 bullocks through. He shivered and coughed. Sir 
 Gerald tried to persuade him to seek such shelter as 
 the waggonette might afford, representing that they 
 might wrap themselves in rugs and keep tolerably 
 dry during the wait that lay before them. O'Neill 
 refused to do anything but pace up and down in front 
 of the police. 
 
 ' Let me alone,' he said. ' I can't be any wetter 
 than I am, and I couldn't endure to sit still.'
 
 268 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 The police-officer approached Sir Gerald. 
 
 ' I wish,' he said, 'you would persuade Mr. O'Neill 
 to go home. This exposure is enough to kill 
 him.' 
 
 1 Who the devil asked you to interfere ? ' said Sir 
 Gerald. ' I suppose your orders from Dublin Castle 
 don't extend to putting him to bed with a hot drink, 
 do they?' 
 
 ' I beg your pardon,' said the officer. ' I had no 
 right to offer advice. But I only did so in Mr. 
 O'Neill's interest.' 
 
 He spoke like a gentleman. Sir Gerald was once 
 more keenly conscious of the bad taste of losing his 
 temper and swearing. 
 
 'I ought to beg your pardon,' he said, 'for speaking 
 in a quite unjustifiable manner. I am sure you meant 
 kindly.' 
 
 ' I hope,' said the officer, ' that you have too much 
 sense of justice to blame me personally for what has 
 occurred to-day. I can only obey my orders.' 
 
 ' I understand,' said Sir Gerald. 
 
 ' I wish,' said the officer, ' you would take my 
 advice and go home. There is nothing to be gained 
 by staying here. You heard what that fellow said 
 about the priests. They won't let you hold your 
 meeting. I've known Ireland, south and west, for 
 forty years, and I tell you it's no use your fighting 
 the priests. Everyone that ever tried got beaten and 
 went under. The game is not good enough. Besides 
 you won't mind my saying this ; I'm old enough to
 
 THE SEETHING POT 269 
 
 be your father it's not a very dignified position for 
 one of the first gentlemen in the county to be 
 disputing with a lot of bobbies on the public road. 
 Come now, is it ?' 
 
 He smiled as he asked the question. 
 
 Every word that the officer said struck Sir Gerald 
 as true. He felt the painful indignity of his position. 
 He was convinced that it was hopeless to fight the 
 priests. The battle would be a vile one in any case. 
 There opened up before his mind a prospect of 
 appeals to the worst passions of the mob, of detest- 
 able tactics, of utterly sordid details. Besides, he 
 was not sure if he wanted to beat the priests. He 
 knew by heart all that could be said about their 
 tyranny and greed, their craft and narrow dogmatism. 
 But he remembered also Father Fahy's care for the 
 poor people out on the mountains and bogs. It did 
 not seem to him either possible or right to set these 
 people free from their priests. Surely, life would be 
 better spent in taking care of them and trying to lift 
 them out of the quagmire of their poverty. 
 
 He was depressed and sickened by the experiences 
 of the last few days. He no longer saw any heroism 
 in the struggle before him, and wished heartily that 
 he could have done with the whole thing. There 
 rose up in his mind a vision of what his life might 
 be. He saw a long vista of peaceful days, with 
 Hester by his side, with children, perhaps, growing 
 up around his knees. He thought of the ordered 
 routine, the deference, the honour and affection
 
 270 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 which might surround him; of pleasant intercourse 
 with men whose ways and thoughts would not jar 
 on him, and with ladies who were gracious and 
 benign. 
 
 His heart rebelled at the magnitude of the sacrifice 
 he was called upon to make. After all, why should 
 he do it ? Who was he, that he should try to set the 
 crooked straight? Was he sure that he was even 
 attempting that ? Sure that he was not engaged in 
 making the crooked crookeder? His mind worked 
 hopelessly back to its starting-point 
 
 He stood beside the waggonette and looked at 
 O'Dwyer, crouched, dripping, and muddy at his feet. 
 Beyond was the motionless line of police. Up and 
 down in front of them O'Neill still paced, his hands 
 clenched, his eyes turning now and again, almost 
 hopelessly expectant, towards the long stretch of road 
 that led to Ross. Sir Gerald knew that no such 
 thoughts as filled his own mind were possible for 
 either of the other two. O'Dwyer would fight passion- 
 ately and madly against the priests, against England, 
 against anyone who threatened his dream of an inde- 
 pendent Ireland. And O'Neill it was impossible 
 even to imagine his ever yielding. Sir Gerald sighed. 
 He knew that he could not desert them now, that he 
 must be dragged on, an unwilling recruit, upon a 
 desperate enterprise, uncertain even of the justice of 
 the cause for which he fought. 
 
 A solitary figure appeared upon the road which led 
 from Ross. O'Neill stopped his pacing to and fro and
 
 THE SEETHING POT 271 
 
 stood watching. O'Dwyer got up and stood beside 
 him. In a few minutes it became possible to recognise 
 Michael McCarty. The police-officer went to meet 
 him, and the magistrate once more left the shelter 
 of his shed. There was a short conversation between 
 the three, and then McCarty passed through the 
 police and approached O'Neill. He stood, a very 
 pitiful figure, with his hat in his hands and his head 
 bowed. The rain ran down his face and dripped from 
 his drenched clothes. At first he seemed unable to 
 speak. 
 
 ' Well,' aaid O'Neill at last, ' I suppose they won't 
 come to meet me from Boss.' 
 
 ' They will not,' said McCarty almost inaudibly. 
 
 It was all he said, and, indeed, there was no need 
 for any more. Sir Gerald understood and pitied him. 
 O'Neill also understood. He looked at McCarty, and Sir 
 Gerald had never seen or imagined an expression of 
 such intense contempt as his face wore. 
 
 ' You are cowards,' he said very slowly ' a nation 
 of cowards. I am ashamed to call myself an Irishman. 
 Go away from me.' 
 
 McCarty shrank as if the lash of a whip had cut 
 him. He turned a pitiful face to O'Dwyer, and then 
 to Sir Gerald, as if he appealed for shelter from the 
 storm that withered him. Then he turned and 
 walked slowly back towards Ross- 
 
 ' Come home,' said O'Neill hoarsely. 'There is no 
 good to be got by stopping here.' 
 
 They drove back to Clogher in silence. It was only
 
 272 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 when Sir Gerald was getting out of the waggonette at 
 his own gate that O'Neill spoke : 
 
 ' Don't think that we are beatea We shall make 
 a good fight yet against the allied forces of the priests 
 and the English. The Government and the Church 
 are in league against us. I have no doubt that 
 to-day's business was arranged between them. Come 
 and see me to-morrow.'
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 SIR GERALD was tired and irritable when Hester met 
 him in the hall. 
 
 ' Gerald,' she said, ' you're very late. Do be quick 
 about dressing. Mr. Browne is here, and I don't want 
 to go in to see him till you are ready.' 
 
 'Good Lord !' said Sir Gerald, ' I completely forgot 
 that I had asked him to dinner and to sleep here 
 to-night. I wish to God it was any other day he had 
 come !' I'm so wretchedly tired and disgusted.' 
 
 ' Poor Gerald ! how horrid of me not to have asked 
 you how you got on ! What happened ? I hope 
 Mr. O'Dwyer didn't say anything you didn't like. 
 How did your speech go off?' 
 
 'There was neither meeting nor speeches. The 
 police stopped us.' 
 
 ' The police ! Oh !' 
 
 Hester's voice betrayed the fact that she was really 
 shocked. There is something about any contact with 
 the police which brings with it a feeling of disgrace. 
 The stigma of having been once arrested for drunken- 
 ness and disorderly conduct would cling to a respect- 
 
 273 18
 
 274 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 able citizen even though his innocence of the charge 
 were afterwards made clear as the noon-day. 
 
 Sir Gerald was not inclined to spare her feelings. 
 
 'Yes, I have been in conflict with the police. I 
 brawled with a constable on the public road. I cursed 
 him in the most abominable manner. He ought, I 
 suppose, to have arrested me and locked me up. That 
 was pleasant, wasn't it ? The policeman behaved 
 like a gentleman. I have probably earned a reputa- 
 tion as a rowdy. I am inclined to think, Hester/ 
 he added bitterly, ' that your mother was right 
 when she tried to prevent you marrying an Irish 
 Nationalist.' 
 
 ' Gerald dear,' she said, ' I'm so sorry. It was all 
 my fault for persuading you to go to the horrid meet- 
 ing. But you must come up and dress quickly. 
 Mr. Browne is waiting all this time.' 
 
 Dry clothes and a clean shirt restored Sir Gerald's 
 self-respect to some extent, and he faced Dennis 
 Browne in the drawing-room with a fair imitation of 
 a smile of welcome. 
 
 ' I'm afraid,' said the poet, ' that I am rather 
 intruding on you this evening. I can quite under- 
 stand that you are very busy.' 
 
 'You are very welcome,' said Sir Gerald. 'I'm 
 sorry for being late and leaving you so long alone. I 
 have only just got home.' 
 
 'Electioneering, of course,' said Browne. 'It must 
 be a fascinating occupation. You must relate your 
 experiences.'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 275 
 
 Sir Gerald shrank from giving an account of the 
 afternoon's proceedings to Dennis Browne. 
 
 ' I wonder,' he said, ' what has happened to dinner. 
 I'm nearly starved. I think I shall ring the bell and 
 try to hurry things up a little.' 
 
 After dinner Dennis Browne made himself comfort- 
 able in a large arm-chair before the library fire, with 
 a pile of cigarettes beside him. 
 
 ' Now,' he said, ' let's hear all about how you have 
 been getting on. I'm sure Lady Geoghegan is even 
 more interested than I am.' 
 
 ' I don't think,' said Sir Gerald, ' that there is really 
 anything to tell that would interest you.' 
 
 ' On the contrary,' said Browne, ' there's hardly 
 anything to tell that wouldn't. I assure you there is 
 nothing more exciting to a good Catholic like me than 
 to watch someone else having a go at the priests. 
 I need scarcely tell you that my sympathies are 
 entirely on your side.' 
 
 ' In that case I'm afraid the result will disappoint 
 3 T ou. We are going to be beaten.' 
 
 ' Really ! Do you know, I'm not surprised. I was 
 sure you would be ; but the struggle will be just as 
 interesting to me.' 
 
 Sir Gerald remained silent. He felt that it would 
 be really impossible for him to tell his story to this 
 amused and cynical listener. Dennis Browne seemed 
 in no way put out. 
 
 ' As a Catholic I respect and honour the priests,' 
 he said; ' they fulfil a really useful function in society. 
 
 182
 
 376 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 To me personally they are quite indispensable. I 
 can't imagine how you Protestants get on without a 
 priesthood.' 
 
 He paused, and lit a fresh cigarette. As neither 
 Sir Gerald nor Hester spoke, he went on medi- 
 fcatively : 
 
 ' The business of a priest is to deal with penitents. 
 His success depends partly on his skill in appreciating 
 the nature of the individual, and partly on his capacity 
 for stage-management. I know of no mors agreeable 
 emotion than repentance. Confession to a priest, 
 who is capable of understanding and suggesting, is a 
 species of spiritual massage. The ceremonies of Ash 
 Wednesday and Good Friday in a Catholic country 
 affect me with an even keener delight than that of the 
 preliminary sin. Of course there must be real sin 
 beforehand ; otherwise one would not wish for abso- 
 lution, and the whole thing would become a bore. I 
 have often felt the want of some new sin, something 
 t-eally monstrous. I can imagine that the ensuing 
 repentance would be very exquisite.' 
 
 He paused again, gazing mournfully into the fire. 
 Hester glanced a mute appeal to her husband, but 
 before Sir Gerald had hit upon a way of changing the 
 subject, Browne began again: 
 
 ' The Irish priests, from the point of view of an 
 educated Catholic, are a failure. In the first place, 
 they have not the remotest idea of how to manage 
 ceremonies. I assure you that Ash Wednesday in 
 Dublin would hardly stir the pulse of the most
 
 THE SEETHING POT 27T 
 
 emotional girl. Then, in this country the priests 
 make the absurd mistake of preventing the people 
 from sinning. Now, I put it to you, Lady Geoghegan, 
 as an impartial outsider, how can a man repent 
 properly if he has not been allowed to sin ?' 
 
 'I'm not what you call a Catholic,' said Hester, 
 'so I am afraid that I can't understand what you 
 mean by sinning and repenting.' 
 
 ' My dear lady,' said Dennis Browne, ' you are very 
 severe on us poor Catholics. Are we the only people 
 who occasionally sin ? Surely you yourself but per- 
 haps not. Believe me, you miss a great deal, you 
 really do ! What is there worth getting in life except 
 emotion ? If you neither sin nor repent, you lose 
 two of the major emotions.' 
 
 ' I think,' said Hester, addressing her husband and 
 ignoring Browne, 'that I shall go to the drawing- 
 room. Your smoke is becoming rather too muck 
 for me.' 
 
 'Now,' said Browne, after she had left, 'I have 
 been so unfortunate as to offend Lady Geoghegan i 
 second time. I am exceedingly sorry.' 
 
 He did not look as if he were sorry. On the con- 
 trary, he seemed to be in full enjoyment of one of 
 life's minor emotions. 
 
 ' Really, you know,' he went on, ' there is a great 
 deal of truth in what I say. The Irish priests hav 
 quite stepped out of their proper province in i~ 
 sisting upon an impossible standard of national 
 morality. 1
 
 278 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 'I don't at all agree with you. I regard the 
 morality of the Irish people as their great and 
 peculiar glory.' 
 
 'Indeed!' said Browne. 'But then excuse my 
 asking a blunt question why are you and O'Neill 
 fighting the priests ?' 
 
 ' Because ' said Sir Gerald, and then stopped. 
 
 Browne looked at him, mildly interrogatory. A 
 phrase of O'Dwyer's occurred to his mind : ' We are 
 fighting for liberty of thought and action.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Browne. ' That is what I think Ireland 
 wants liberty from an absurd moral tyranny, liberty 
 to take life's joys when opportunity offers them, 
 just like the inhabitants of any other Catholic 
 country.' 
 
 ' The sort of liberty you mean,' said Sir Gerald, ' is 
 utterly detestable.' 
 
 ' But, my dear sir, all liberty involves the removal 
 of moral restraint. It must do that, and it seems tb 
 me altogether desirable that it should. That is why 
 my sympathies are with you and O'Neill in the fight 
 you are making.' 
 
 'I don't think,' said Sir Gerald, 'that you quite 
 understand my position.' 
 
 ' I think I do, entirely. Pardon my saying so, but 
 I fear you hardly understand it yourself. You want 
 to break the political power of the priests, but to leave 
 their moral power intact. To me that does not seem 
 to be a desirable thing, even if it were possible. And 
 is it possible? After all, who cares about political
 
 THE SEETHING POT 279 
 
 power ? A mere handful of men. For most of us, 
 life is the same thing whoever makes the laws or 
 spends the taxes. What really matters is morality. 
 People who are condemned to a drab-coloured puri- 
 tanism can't be happy. Can they ?' 
 
 Sir Gerald gazed at him in sheer amazement. 
 
 ' You and O'Neill,' Browne went on, * appear to me 
 to be acting very foolishly when you rush at the 
 political power of the priests with your heads down, 
 as if you could butt it and batter it to the ground. 
 Why don't you try to gradually undermine their moral 
 power ?' 
 
 Sir Gerald could hit on nothing more effective to 
 say than a feeble ' Why don't you ?' 
 
 'I do," said Browne. ' You will probably call me 
 diabolical. I don't attempt to defend myself. I do try 
 to show people the delightfulness of moral freedom. 
 I have no doubt that I shall ultimately succeed in 
 undermining the power of the priests. I am just as 
 sure of it as I am that you will fail. Once I can get 
 the people to see the pleasures of moral freedom, they 
 will begin to long for it, and then the power of the 
 priests will be gone. Just at present I am writing a 
 new play to illustrate the joy of living. Afterwards 
 shall turn it into a novel. It is really this which keeps 
 me here in the West. I am in search of local colour 
 and incident.' 
 
 Dennis Browne's talk and there was much more of 
 it greatly affected Sir Gerald. His day's work with 
 O'Neill had outraged his sense of dignity and offended
 
 280 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 his feelings as a gentleman. Browne's cynical im- 
 morality moved him more deeply still. He saw 
 himself now as an ally in a crusade against righteous- 
 ness. He had not understood before, as he thought 
 he did now, that the wonderful power of the Church 
 in Ireland was really necessary if the distinctive 
 purity of the Irish was to be preserved. It seemed 
 to him inconceivably horrible that he should be taking 
 part, even the smallest part, in shattering the dam 
 which kept out the tide of immorality. The debate 
 of the afternoon renewed itself in his mind, but now 
 the side which had seemed the selfish one was rein- 
 forced with considerations of religion and purity. The 
 issue no longer remained doubtful. At whatever cost 
 to his sense of loyalty and friendship, he must 
 definitely break with O'Neill and withdraw from the 
 political contest. 
 
 He shrank from telling Hester his decision, for he 
 feared that her enthusiasm for O'Neill would lead her 
 to oppose it. He found her waiting for him beside 
 her bedroom fire. 
 
 ' Now that I've got you alone at last,' she said, 'I 
 want you to tell me all about what happened this 
 afternoon. You don't really mean that you had a 
 row with the police ?' 
 
 'I had indeed,' he said, 'just as I told you. I 
 behaved very badly.' 
 
 ' Gerald dear, did they how can I say it ? did 
 they touch you ?' 
 
 ' If you mean, did they hustle me about by the
 
 THE SEETHING POT 281 
 
 collar of the coat, they did not. They dragged 
 O'Dwyer about a bit, and I dare say I deserved the 
 same treatment ; but the officer was a gentleman, and 
 let me off.' 
 
 ' Who was he ?' 
 
 ' I don't know his name. He was a tall, well-set-up 
 man, with a gray moustache and rather a nice face. 
 I dare say if one didn't happen to be a corner boy he 
 would be a pleasant man to know.' 
 
 ' I expect that was Mr. Lowry, the county in- 
 spector. He dined with us one night at home, I 
 remember. Father likes him greatly. I wish he 
 hadn't happened to be there. I can't bear to think of 
 his having seen you.' 
 
 ' I wish I hadn't been there,' said Sir Gerald 
 gloomily. 
 
 ' Indeed I wish you hadn't. It's too humiliating. 
 Gerald, promise that you will never let it happen 
 again.' 
 
 'My dear girl, it was you who persuaded me 
 to go/ 
 
 ' I know I know. I wish I hadn't.' 
 
 ' Hester, you have made it easier for me to tell you 
 that I have made up my mind to give up standing for 
 this seat in Parliament, and to leave O'Neill's party 
 altogether.' 
 
 ' Oh, Gerald !' 
 
 Her tone was half of protest, half, he fancied, of 
 relief. 
 
 ' It's not only that I dislike rows with the police,'
 
 282 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 he went on, ' though I don't think they are suitable 
 for a man in my position.' 
 
 ' They are not,' said Hester with conviction. 
 
 ' It's not only that. I've come to think that the 
 Irish peasants are best left to the guidance of their 
 priests. I see nothing but trouble and evil if they 
 ever break free from it. I can't be one of those who 
 try to emancipate them.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Hester doubtfully ' yes.' 
 
 ' Dennis Browne helped me to see what emancipa- 
 tion really means. He thinks ' 
 
 ' I can guess what he thinks, and I don't want to 
 hear.' 
 
 ' Well, I don't want to put my hand to that sort of 
 work.' 
 
 ' No, of course not. But, oh, Gerald isn't it a 
 dreadful thing to have to desert poor Mr. O'Neill 
 now ? It may be right I'm sure it is but how will 
 you bear to do it ?' 
 
 Sir Gerald's forehead wrinkled hopelessly. His 
 face was that of a man who is suffering acute 
 physical pain. 
 
 ' I have thought of that, Hester. You will believe 
 me when I say that I hate myself , for doing 
 it.' 
 
 ' And Ireland ?' she asked. ' Is there anyone else 
 except Mr. O'Neill who really cares for Ireland ?' 
 
 Sir Gerald pushed his fingers through his hair 
 with a gesture of positive despair. 
 
 ' Hester dear, I can see no good to come for
 
 THE SEETHING POT 283 
 
 Ireland any way. I cannot think of Ireland or work 
 for Ireland. Hester, you may call me a coward, and 
 I dare say I deserve it. I am giving the whole thing 
 up. Ireland must go her own way, and work out her 
 own salvation or damnation. I can't help her. I 
 shall be one who looks on.' 
 
 'Gerald,' she said, 'have you forgotten your 
 father ?' 
 
 He looked at her for a moment, as if she had 
 struck him. There was astonishment at first, and 
 then pain with it, in his face. Then there was pain 
 only, and he turned to leave her. In a moment 
 she had left her chair and run to him. Her arms 
 were round him and held him fast. 
 
 ' I ought never to have said it,' she cried. ' It was 
 cruel, and cowardly, and base. I have disgraced 
 myself, and if you hate me for it you will do right.' 
 She burst into sobs as she clung to him. Oh, I 
 ought to have helped you, and I have made it harder. 
 Can you ever forgive me ?' 
 
 ' There is nothing to forgive,' he said. ' You have 
 only told me what I knew before that I am weak 
 and cowardly.' 
 
 ' No, no !' she sobbed. ' You are brave. I believe 
 that you are doing the hardest thing, the noblest 
 thing.' 
 
 His hand stole softly over her hair. He stroked it 
 very tenderly as she stood clinging to him with her 
 face buried. At last he said slowly : 
 
 ' Do you remember these lines, dearest ?
 
 284 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 ' " We are here as on a darkling plain 
 
 Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, 
 Where ignorant armies clash by night." 
 
 She looked up in his face, and there was a gleam in 
 her moist eyes. 
 
 ' Yes,' she said, ' and I remember the beginning of 
 the passage, too : 
 
 1 "Ah, love, let us be true 
 To one another 1" '
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 AFTER breakfast next morning, when Sir Gerald 
 expressed his intention of calling on John O'Neill, 
 Dennis Browne at once offered to accompany him. 
 
 ' It is a longish walk,' said Sir Gerald, anxious to 
 avoid the embarrassment of Browne's presence at the 
 interview he looked forward to. ' I hardly think you 
 will care for it. 1 
 
 'I would walk miles and miles for the sake of 
 another interview with Mr. O'Neill,' Browne declared. 
 *I met him once, you know, at dinner here. He 
 evidently took a dislike to me at first sight, or perhaps 
 he was prejudiced against my reputation. He treated 
 me with the frankest rudeness and contempt. He 
 really made me quite angry, a sensation I had not 
 enjoyed for years. I should so much like to get it 
 renewed. I'm sure it must be very good for a man to 
 feel angry. I have no actual medical authority for 
 saying so, but I imagine that anger promotes the 
 activity of the liver. I know that the morning after 
 Mr. O'Neill irritated me I felt quite unusually cheerful 
 and light-hearted. Do you think he will treat me 
 with contempt to-day ?' 
 
 285
 
 286 THE SEETHING TOT 
 
 'As you appear to like it, I hope he will,' said 
 Sir Gerald. Browne smiled with evident satisfac- 
 tion. ' But do you think it is fair to go to a 
 man's house with the deliberate intention of bait- 
 ing him ?' 
 
 'Last time,' said Browne, 'I thought he was baiting 
 me. I think it is rather nice of me to go to see him. 
 It's quite early Christian of me. Isn't it, Lady 
 Geoghegan ? I am offering the other cheek to the 
 smiter.' 
 
 They found O'Dwyer in O'Neill's study when they 
 entered it. He was standing before the fire, leaning 
 one elbow on the chimney-piece and biting his finger- 
 nails. In his other hand was a pipe which had been 
 lit, but allowed to go out almost immediately. Sir 
 Gerald introduced Dennis Browne to him, but 
 O'Dwyer was evidently unaware of the poet's repu- 
 tation, for he merely nodded to him without 
 speaking. 
 
 I am delighted,' said Browne, 'to make your 
 acquaintance. I have often heard of you. You are 
 a passionate and reckless lover of the Dark Rosaleen. 
 I envy and respect you for it. I myself am not 
 insensible to her charms ; but I am, I regret to say, 
 constitutionally timid.' He sighed as he spoke. 
 ' You, as I understand from Sir Gerald Geoghegan, 
 contemplate achieving the consummation of your 
 passion without the blessing of the Church. I envy 
 you. I can imagine no more rapturous situation. 
 But will the lady consent ?'
 
 THE SEETHING POT 287 
 
 O'Dwyer stared at him, and then turned to Sir 
 Gerald. 
 
 'Do you happen to know what your friend is 
 talking about ?' 
 
 ' I beg your pardon,' said Browne, with an expres- 
 sion of benign patience. ' I ought to have made my 
 meaning plainer. The Dark Rosaleen, sometimes 
 called Kathaleen ny-Houlahan, is a poetic personi- 
 fication of Ireland. I should not like you to 
 think, Mr. O'Dwyer, that I for a moment suspected 
 you ' 
 
 ' Can I speak to you alone for a few minutes ?' said 
 O'Dwyer to Sir Gerald. 'I have something rather 
 important to say to you.' 
 
 'Pray don't allow me to be in the way,' said 
 Browne. ' I shall step outside and look at the view. 
 Not that I admire this West of Ireland scenery in the 
 least. The contrasts are so blatantly obvious. The 
 sea is quite flat, and the mountains stick up so into 
 the sky. I hate things that stick up in a dogmatic 
 way. These mountains give me the impression of 
 doing it on purpose to annoy. Now, I like a brook 
 and trees. There is a nice droopy kind of tree I 
 forget its name which looks depressed, as if the 
 constant cheerfulness of the brook rather bored it.' 
 
 He opened the window as he spoke, and retired 
 gracefully on to the lawn. 
 
 ' Who is he ?' asked O'Dwyer. 
 
 'He's a poet and a dramatist. At present he is 
 writing a play which is afterwards to be a novel. His
 
 288 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 name is Dennis Browne. You must have heard of 
 him.' 
 
 'Yes, I have heard of him. I did not connect 
 his name with his work when you introduced him. 
 I wonder whether he has got through life so far 
 without being horsewhipped. I should be su prised 
 to hear he has. But he does not matter. O'Neill 
 is ill.' 
 
 His tone startled Sir Gerald. 
 
 ' Is it serious ?' he asked. 
 
 ' It is,' said O'Dwyer ' very serious indeed. He 
 came home last night shivering and feverish. Mrs. 
 O'Neill got alarmed, and sent for a doctor early this 
 morning. It turns out to be a bad attack of pneumonia 
 with various complications. They have telegraphed 
 to Dublin for another doctor.' 
 
 ' My God !' said Sir Gerald. ' Poor Mrs. O'Neill !' 
 
 ' She is a wonderful woman,' said O'Dwyer. ' I saw 
 her when I came up here this morning. It was just 
 after the doctor left. I knew from what she said that 
 he had given her very little hope, but she took it 
 without a sign of breaking down. She asked me to 
 see you and arrange things.' 
 
 'Come back and lunch with me. We can talk 
 things over afterwards that is, if you think you can 
 stand Browne for an hour or two. He is sure to 
 leave in the afternoon.' 
 
 'Oh, I can stand Dennis Browne all right,' said 
 O'Dwyer. ' The question is, whether Browne will be 
 able to stand me. I'm not in the mood for tolerating
 
 THE SEETHING POT 289 
 
 idiots. Perhaps I'd better not accept your invitation 
 I might make myself unpleasant.' 
 
 ' If you make yourself unpleasant enough to turn 
 Browne out of the house before luncheon, I shall not 
 break my heart. But I don't believe anyone, 
 except O'Neill, could shake the man's infernal self- 
 conceit.' 
 
 They joined Browne on the lawn. 
 
 1 1 have been obliged,' he said, ' to turn my back 
 on the view. It became quite intolerable. The sea 
 to-day is not only quite flat, but muddy. I am not 
 a connoisseur in oceans, but I own I should have 
 expected the Atlantic to be green or blue or the 
 Homeric purple. I am greatly disappointed in it. 
 Are we going straight home again ? I have not seen 
 the great Mr. O'Neill. Am I not to have the pleasure 
 of meeting him ?' 
 
 ' Mr. O'Neill is ill,' said Sir Gterald ' seriously ill. 
 We are very anxious about him.' 
 
 ' Really, I am greatly distressed,' said Browne. 
 'And you say he is seriously ill. I can't imagine 
 anything more unfortunate, more entirely inartistic, 
 than his death just at present.' 
 
 Neither Sir Gerald nor O'Dwyer had formally 
 admitted the possibility of O'Neill's death, even in 
 their own minds. Browne's reference to it, and still 
 more the way in which he made it, jarred on them. 
 O'Dwyer stood still and ejaculated, 'Damn !' Browne 
 looked at him with an expression of innocent 
 wonder. 
 
 19
 
 290 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 'Of course,' he said, 'no one would think of 
 blaming O'Neill, especially if this illness should 
 
 end Sir Gerald said it was serious, you know. 
 
 I'm sure he will feel just as annoyed as we do. The 
 whole thing has been badly managed ; I mean, of 
 course, by Providence or Fate, or whatever you like 
 to call the power that arranges these matters. There 
 has been a complete disregard of the dramatic re- 
 quirements of the situation. We had got to such an 
 interesting crisis. You gentlemen were fighting for 
 Ireland against the Church. I think you would have 
 been beaten; but there were splendid possibilities 
 about the final scene. Now, in the very middle of 
 the action the principal person steps off the stage, 
 and very likely won't return at all.' 
 
 Sir Gerald gripped O'Dwyer's arm. 
 
 ' Let me speak to him,' he whispered. ' Mr. Browne,' 
 he said aloud, ' Mr. O'Dwyer and I feel great anxiety 
 about our friend. To us Mr. O'Neill's illness is a 
 personal sorrow. I am afraid we shall be very bad 
 company for you. We shall not be able to appreciate 
 your conversation as it deserves. Perhaps you would 
 like me to order the trap to take you home at once.' 
 
 ' The very thing I was going to suggest myself. I 
 am afraid I am not sympathetic ; but the fact is, that 
 I never could see the force of that aphorism of King 
 Solomon's about a house of mourning being better 
 than a house of mirth. My experience is that, on 
 these melancholy occasions, meals are apt to be 
 neglected. The cook gets into the way of thinking
 
 THE SEETHING POT 291 
 
 that any old scraps will do, and nobody rebukes her. 
 Yes, if you and Mr. O'Dwyer really mean to mourn, 
 I think I shall go at once.' 
 
 The Dublin doctor arrived in Clogher at one 
 o'clock. He saw his patient, consulted with his 
 colleague, and left again at two. In his opinion, there 
 was no hope of recovery for John O'Neill. It was 
 with his verdict before them that Sir Gerald and 
 O'Dwyer discussed the future. 
 
 ' He was a very great man/ said Sir Gerald. 
 
 I Yes,' said O'Dwyer, ' one of the greatest Irishmen. 
 He might have been the very greatest, but he made 
 one mistake a mistake so important that it spoiled 
 his work/ 
 
 ' I am surprised to hear you own that he was mis- 
 taken at all. I thought that you v^ere a whole-hearted 
 follower of his.' 
 
 'His position was in reality an impossible one. 
 Nothing made it seem reasonable except the wonderful 
 force of his own will. He stood half-way between 
 Isaac Butt and Wolfe Tone, between a conservative 
 loyalty to ancient ideals on the one hand, and re- 
 publicanism on the other. I have often wondered 
 which he really wanted the Irish Constitution of 
 1782, or a Declaration of Independence, like that of 
 the United States.' 
 
 I 1 think you have described his attitude rightly ; 
 but are you sure it was a mistake? Such a com- 
 promise has its value at least, for a time. For 
 instance ' He paused. 
 
 192
 
 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 ' For instance ' it was O'Dwyer who completed his 
 sentence ' it enabled him to draw you into his party 
 from one side, and me from the other. You need not 
 have hesitated to say so. I am not afraid of any name 
 you can give me. I am a rebel in all but opportunity.' 
 
 ' That is what I meant. Surely it was something to 
 have drawn us together. I consider that we are types.' 
 
 ' That is no doubt trua But have you considered 
 what was to happen afterwards? Such an alliance 
 could not last for very long. What, for instance, is 
 to happen now ? I do not think that you and I can 
 go on fighting this election together.' 
 
 ' No,' said Sir Gerald. ' I went down to O'Neill's 
 house to-day to tell him that I must withdraw.' 
 
 ' I am glad he never heard it. It would have hurt 
 him, for he liked you.' 
 
 There was a long pause. O'Dwyer smoked steadily, 
 with his eyes fixed on the fire. Sir Gerald drew his 
 chair closer to Hester, who sat near him, and watched 
 her face. The rain beat heavily against the windows. 
 A gathering storm moaned in the wide chimney. 
 The room grew slowly darker. At last Sir Gerald 
 spoke again. 
 
 ' What do yon mean to do ?' he said. 
 
 1 1 ?' said O'Dwyer. ' I shall resign my seat in 
 Parliament, of course. Nothing took me there but 
 O'Neill, and now there is nothing to keep me there.' 
 
 ' And then,' asked Hester, ' what will you do ?' 
 
 He thought he saw a great pity for him in her face 
 when she spoke. It touched him.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 293 
 
 ' It is very kind of you to be interested in me*/ he 
 said. 'I shall go the States. I have some ex- 
 perience as a journalist. I have no doubt that I shall 
 be able to earn enough to keep me.' 
 
 ' That is not what I meant,' said Hester. ' I do 
 not think you will be content just to live. What will 
 you do ?' 
 
 ' There is very little that I can do. I shall try to 
 organize our people there and keep the Irish spirit 
 alive in them. I shall teach them, if they will 
 listen to me, to hate England and everything 
 English.' 
 
 Hester shivered. This confession of faith in a 
 gospel of hatred came so simply from his lips that it 
 seemed terrible, much more terrible than any flight 
 of rhetoric. 
 
 'Chiefly, of course,' said O'Dwyer, 'my work will 
 be to wait and watch.' 
 
 ' To wait for what ?' asked Sir Gerald. 
 
 ' For our opportunity. No empire which the world 
 has ever seen has had in it the element of perma- 
 nence. Least of all does it seem possible for the 
 British Empire to last. Some day a shot will strike 
 the hulk between the wind and water. That will be 
 our opportunity. The final catastrophe will coma 
 with incredible swiftness, because there will be a 
 people here at England's very doors who hate her. 
 These enemies of hers will also be across the sea 
 under other flags and under her own flag. They 
 will be even in the streets of her own great towns.
 
 294 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 It will not matter that they do not know each other, 
 for there will be one desire in all their hearts. For 
 myself, I have only one prayer that I may live long 
 enough to see the day.' 
 
 ' I cannot hope for such a time,' said Sir Gerald. 
 'I think I am sure that I love Ireland, too. I 
 rather wish to think of her as taking her part in 
 guiding the great Empire which, after all, she has 
 had her share in building up.' 
 
 ' Have you not read history ? How is such a hope 
 possible after the story of the last seven hundred 
 years ? England has worked for our extinction. 
 The instinct which led her to destroy us utterly was a 
 true one. Ifc is impossible that her people and ours 
 can be knit together. One or other must disappear, 
 and so far, in spite of fire, and sword, and exile, we 
 are alive and strong. Our race persists.' 
 
 Sir Gerald realized the force and truth of what 
 was said, and had no answer to make. It was 
 O'Dwyer who broke the silence again. 
 
 ' This is gloomy talking,' he said. ' Let us turn to 
 something brighter. Let us talk about your future. 
 I believe you when you say that you love Ireland, too. 
 What will you do for her ?' 
 
 ' I do not think,' said Sir Gerald, ' that we shall 
 escape the gloom by talking of what I shall do.' 
 
 O'Dwyer looked slowly round. He seemed to be 
 trying to appreciate the value of the comfort and 
 luxury which surrounded him. His eyes rested 
 finally on Hester.
 
 THE SEETHING POT 295 
 
 ' Yet I think,' he said, ' that your life ought to be a 
 nappy one.' 
 
 'I am going to say what will sound to you like 
 nonsense,' said Sir Gerald. ' The misery of my life 
 lies in this that it will be happy. I shall live here. 
 I shall be loved, and warmed, and fed. I shall grow 
 slowly older, and hi the end I shall die peaceably. I 
 shall be quite happy, but I shall do nothing. In 
 the end I suppose I shall come to not even love 
 Ireland.' 
 
 Hester took his hand in hers, and held it tightly 
 while he spoke. 
 
 ' I can understand,' said O'Dwyer, ' that, after all, 
 I need not envy you.' 
 
 Two days afterwards John O'Neill died.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 DESMOND O'HARA had a playful habit, not always 
 appreciated by his friends, of answering his private 
 letters in the columns of his paper. In this way he 
 added a personal interest to The Oritic, and knit his 
 circle of readers into a kind of large house-party. 
 He frequently accepted invitations, for instance, in 
 this public way, and it was amusing to read that he 
 intended to spend a week with Mrs. R in Donegal, 
 or three days with 'dear F.' in Wicklow, with the 
 proviso that he was not to be taken out for picnics on 
 wet days. 
 
 V 
 
 Thus, it happened that it was in the columns of 
 The Critic that Sir Gerald found the answer to the 
 appeal for advice which he had sent the day before 
 the disastrous fiasco on the road to Ross. 
 
 ' Dear G. G.,' he read, ' I can sympathize with you 
 in your present position. I am on the whole inclined 
 to think, as you evidently do, that at present politics 
 are no game for a gentleman to play. Do you ever 
 read the prophet Jeremiah ? Probably not. I read 
 a few chapters last night, and came across a verse 
 which seemed to me to apply to the present condition 
 
 296
 
 THE SEETHING POT 297 
 
 of Ireland. " I see a seething pot, and the face of it 
 is towards the north." I remember, dear G. G., that, 
 when I was staying with you in your beautiful West, 
 we one day took shelter from a shower in a peasant's 
 cabin. Although it was summer, there was a great 
 fire of turf piled up into the wide chimney. A pot, a 
 real iron caldron, the like of which one does not see 
 in the degenerate kitchens of civilization, hung over 
 the fire from an iron hook. It boiled " seethed," 
 Jeremiah would have said violently. Now and then 
 it overflowed, and some of its contents fell hissing 
 into the fire. I remember that the smell of it did not 
 strike us as savoury. I understand that it is the 
 least pleasant portion of the contents the scum, m 
 fact which boils over the edge of these pots on to the 
 feet of the unwary. The recollection of that pot 
 helped me to understand the vision of the prophet, 
 and gave me an illustration of Ireland and her 
 politics. For we are a seething pot we, the Irish 
 people. 
 
 ' Just now it is the scum which is coming malodor- 
 ously to the surface, and perhaps scalding your hands 
 and feet. Yet within the pot there is good stuff. It may 
 be dinner " for the childer," to make them grow into 
 men and women ; it may be food for the men to make 
 them strong ; it may be fattening for the less honour- 
 able beasts of the field. It is, at all events, the raw 
 material of life. Far better it is to be sitting beside a 
 seething pot than a stagnant pool. Dear G. G., let 
 us keep the pot seething if we can. Let us do our
 
 298 THE SEETHING POT 
 
 little part in this dear Ireland of ours to stir men 
 into the activities of thought and ambition. If we 
 get our toes burnt and our fingers grimy, let us 
 put up with it bravely. If there is a nasty smell, 
 we shall remember that there is good food in the 
 caldron. 
 
 ' Do you remember the first time we met each 
 other, nearly a year ago now ? I fancy that it was I 
 who first showed you how the Irish pot was seething. 
 I think that you regarded some of the things I said to 
 you as very foolish. No, dear G. G., you did not say 
 so. You were too polite for that. I only guessed 
 that you thought so. Among these foolish things 
 there were two especially. I said that Ireland wanted 
 her gentlemen, and that Ireland wanted a King. Do 
 you still think me foolish ? Perhaps I am. But I am 
 surer than ever now that it is only a King, a King 
 with an aristocracy to help him, who can deal with our 
 seething pot. Only he must really be a King, and he 
 must be brave enough to take off the spectacles which 
 official people put upon the eyes of Kings, and look 
 straight at us with the good clear eyes that God has 
 given him. And he must surely be the King of 
 Ireland, not a foreigner looking curiously at a strange 
 people. Shall we ever find such a King ? Sometimes 
 I am not very hopeful, and the pot seethes very 
 confusedly. Yet I think, dear G. G., that we ought 
 to hope. 
 
 ' You will not be angry with me for my parable of 
 the seething pot. It is not mine, you know, but the
 
 THE SEETHING POT 299 
 
 prophet's. I have only fitted it to Ireland our dear 
 
 Ireland, which we love best of all things, in spite 
 
 Would we love Ireland BO well as we do if we had 
 not got to love her in spite of her breaking our 
 hearts ?' 
 
 THE END 
 
 HI UNO AND SONS, *TD., PRINTERS, GUILDFOR*
 
 A 000286512 9