Collected Stories (57 page)

Twilight was also descending outside when the sergeant rose to go. He fastened his belt and tunic and carefully brushed his clothes. Then he put on his cap, tilted a little to side and back.

“Well, that was a great talk,” he said.

“'Tis a pleasure,” said Dan, “a real pleasure.”

“And I won't forget the bottle for you.”

“Heavy handling from God to you!”

“Good-bye now, Dan.”

“Good-bye, sergeant, and good luck.”

Dan didn't offer to accompany the sergeant beyond the door. He sat in his old place by the fire, took out his pipe once more, blew through it thoughtfully, and just as he leaned forward for a twig to kindle it, heard the steps returning. It was the sergeant. He put his head a little way over the half-door.

“Oh, Dan!” he called softly.

“Ay, sergeant?” replied Dan, looking round, but with one hand still reaching for the twig. He couldn't see the sergeant's face, only hear his voice.

“I suppose you're not thinking of paying that little fine, Dan?”

There was a brief silence. Dan pulled out the lighted twig, rose slowly and shambled towards the door, stuffing it down in the almost empty bowl of the pipe. He leaned over the half-door while the sergeant with hands in the pockets of his trousers gazed rather in the direction of the laneway, yet taking in a considerable portion of the sea line.

“The way it is with me, sergeant,” replied Dan unemotionally, “I am not.”

“I was thinking that, Dan; I was thinking you wouldn't.”

There was a long silence during which the voice of the thrush grew shriller and merrier. The sunken sun lit up rafts of purple cloud moored high above the wind.

“In a way,” said the sergeant, “that was what brought me.”

“I was just thinking so, sergeant, it only struck me and you going out the door.”

“If 'twas only the money, Dan, I'm sure there's many would be glad to oblige you.”

“I know that, sergeant. No, 'tisn't the money so much as giving that fellow the satisfaction of paying. Because he angered me, sergeant.”

The sergeant made no comment on this and another long silence ensued.

“They gave me the warrant,” the sergeant said at last, in a tone which dissociated him from all connection with such an unneighborly document.

“Did they so?” exclaimed Dan, as if he was shocked by the thoughtlessness of the authorities.

“So whenever 'twould be convenient for you—”

“Well, now you mention it,” said Dan, by way of throwing out a suggestion for debate, “I could go with you now.”

“Ah, sha, what do you want going at this hour for?” protested the sergeant with a wave of his hand, dismissing the notion as the tone required.

“Or I could go tomorrow,” added Dan, warming to the issue.

“Would it be suitable for you now?” asked the sergeant, scaling up his voice accordingly.

“But, as a matter of fact,” said the old man emphatically, “the day that would be most convenient to me would be Friday after dinner, because I have some messages to do in town, and I wouldn't have the journey for nothing.”

“Friday will do grand,” said the sergeant with relief that this delicate matter was now practically disposed of. “If it doesn't they can damn well wait. You could walk in there yourself when it suits you and tell them I sent you.”

“I'd rather have yourself there, sergeant, if it would be no inconvenience. As it is, I'd feel a bit shy.”

“Why then, you needn't feel shy at all. There's a man from my own parish there, a warder; one Whelan. Ask for him; I'll tell him you're coming, and I'll guarantee when he knows you're a friend of mine he'll make you as comfortable as if you were at home.”

“I'd like that fine,” Dan said with profound satisfaction. “I'd like to be with friends, sergeant.”

“You will be, never fear. Good-bye again now, Dan. I'll have to hurry.”

“Wait now, wait till I see you to the road.”

Together the two men strolled down the laneway while Dan explained how it was that he, a respectable old man, had had the grave misfortune to open the head of another old man in such a way as to require his removal to hospital, and why it was that he couldn't give the old man in question the satisfaction of paying in cash for an injury brought about through the victim's own unmannerly method of argument.

“You see, sergeant,” Dan said, looking at another little cottage up the hill, “the way it is, he's there now, and he's looking at us as sure as there's a glimmer of sight in his weak, wandering, watery eyes, and nothing would give him more gratification than for me to pay. But I'll punish him. I'll lie on bare boards for him. I'll suffer for him, sergeant, so that neither he nor any of his children after him will be able to raise their heads for the shame of it.”

On the following Friday he made ready his donkey and butt and set out. On his way he collected a number of neighbors who wished to bid him farewell. At the top of the hill he stopped to send them back. An old man, sitting in the sunlight, hastily made his way indoors, and a moment later the door of his cottage was quietly closed.

Having shaken all his friends by the hand, Dan lashed the old donkey, shouted: “Hup there!” and set out alone along the road to prison.

Eternal Triangle

R
EVOLUTIONS?
I never had any interest in them. A man in my position have to mind his job and not bother about what other people are doing. Besides, I never could see what good they did anybody, and I see more of that kind of thing than most people. A watchman have to be out at all hours in all kinds of weather. He have to keep his eyes open. All I ever seen out of things like that was the damage. And who pays for the damage? You and me and people like us, so that one set of jackeens can get in instead of another set of jackeens. What is it to me who's in or out? All I know is that I have to pay for the damage they do.

I remember well the first one I saw. It was a holiday, and when I turned up to the depot, I was told there was a tram after breaking down in town, and I was to go in and keep an eye on it. A lot of the staff was at the races, and it might be a couple of hours before they could get a breakdown gang. So I took my lunch and away with me into town. It was a nice spring day and I thought I might as well walk.

Mind you, I noticed nothing strange, only that the streets were a bit empty, but it struck me that a lot of people were away for the day. Then, all at once, just as I got to town, I noticed a handful of them Volunteer boys in the street. Some of them had green uniforms with slouch hats; more of them had nothing only belts and bandoliers. All of them had guns of one sort or another. I paid no attention. Seeing that it was a holiday, I thought they might be on some sort of manoeuvre. They were a crowd I never had anything to do with. As I say, I'm a man that minds his own business.

Suddenly, one of them raises his gun and halts me.

“Halt!” says he. “Where are you bound for, mate?”

“Just down here, to keep an eye on a tram,” I said, taking it in good parts.

“A tram?” says he. “That's the very thing we want for a barricade. Could you drive it?”

“Ah, is it to have the union after me?” says I.

“Ah, to hell with the union,” says a second fellow. “If you'll drive it we'll rig it up as an armored train.”

Now, I did not like the tone them fellows took. They were making too free altogether, and it struck me as peculiar that there wouldn't be a bobby there to send them about their business. I went on a couple of hundred yards, and what did I see only a second party. These fellows were wearing khaki, and I recognized them as cadets from the college. They were standing on the steps of the big hotel overlooking the tram, and the young fellow that was supposed to be their officer was very excited.

“That tram is in the direct line of fire,” he says. “It's not a safe place.”

“Ah, well,” I said, “in my job there's a lot of things aren't safe. I hope if anything happens me you'll put in a good word for me with the tramway company.”

Mind you, I was still not taking them seriously. I didn't know what I was after walking into. And the first thing I did was to go over the tram to see was there anything missing. The world is full of light-fingered people, and a thing like that, if you only left it for five minutes, you wouldn't know what would be gone. I was shocked when I seen the upstairs. The glass was all broken and the upholstery ripped.

Then the shooting began, and I had to lie on the floor, but after a while it eased off, and I sat up and ate my lunch and read the daily paper. There was no one around, because whenever anyone showed himself at the end of the road, there was a bang and he ran for his life. Coming on to dusk, I began to worry a bit about whether I was going to be relieved at all that day. I knew Danny Delea, the foreman, was a conscientious sort of man, and if he couldn't get a relief, he'd send me word what to do, but no one came, and I was beginning to get a bit hungry. I don't mind admitting that a couple of times I got up to go home. I didn't like sitting there with the darkness coming on, not knowing was I going to be relieved that night or the next week. But each time I sat down again. That is the sort I am. I knew the light-fingered gentry, and I knew that, firing or no firing, they were on the look-out and I wouldn't be out of that tram before one of them would be along to see what could he pick up. I would not give it to say to the rest of the men that I would leave a valuable thing like a tram.

Then, all at once, the firing got hot again, and when I looked out, what did I see in the dusk only a girl coming from behind the railings in the park and running this way and that in an aimless sort of way. She looked as if she was out of her mind with fright, and I could see the fright was more a danger to her than anything else. Mind, I had no wish for her company! I saw what she was, and they are a sort of woman I would never have much to do with. They are always trying to make friends with watchmen, because we are out at all hours. At the same time, I saw if I didn't do something quick, she'd be killed under my eyes, so I stood on the platform and shouted to her to come in. She was a woman I didn't know by sight; a woman of about thirty-five. Cummins her name was. The family was from Waterford. She was a good-looking piece too, considering. I made her lie on the floor to get out of the shooting, but she was nearly hysterical, lifting her head to look at me and lowering it not to see what was going on.

“But who in hell is it, mister?” she says. “God Almighty, I only came out for a bit of sugar for me tea, and look at the capers I'm after walking into! … Sacred Heart of Jesus, they're off again.… You'd think I was something at a fair, the way they were banging their bloody bullets all round me. Who is it at all?”

“It's the cadets in the hotel here, shooting at the other fellows beyond the park,” I said.

“But why don't someone send for the police? Damn soon them fellows would be along if it was only me talking to a fellow!”

“'Twould take a lot of police to stop this,” says I.

“But what are they shooting for, mister?” says she. “Is it for Ireland?”

“Ireland?” says I. “A fat lot Ireland have to hope for from little whipper-snappers like them.”

“Still and all,” says she, “if 'twas for Ireland, you wouldn't mind so much.”

And I declare to God but she had a tear in her eye. That is the kind of women they are. They'll steal the false teeth from a corpse, but let them lay eyes on a green flag or a child in his First Communion suit, and you'd think patriotism and religion were the only two things ever in their minds.

“That sort of blackguarding isn't going to do any good to Ireland or anyone else,” says I. “What I want to know is who is going to pay for the damage? Not them. They never did an honest day's work in their lives, most of them. We're going to pay for it, the way we always do.”

“I'd pay them every bloody penny I have in the world this minute if only they'd shut up and go away,” she says. “For God's sake, will you listen to them!”

Things were getting hotter again. What was after happening was that some of the Volunteer fellows were after crossing the park behind the shrubbery and were firing up at the hotel. They might as well be firing at the moon. The cadets were after knocking out every pane of glass and barricading the windows. One of the Volunteers jumped from a branch of a tree over the railings and ran across the road to the tram. He was an insignificant little article with a saucy air. You could tell by his accent he wasn't from Dublin. I took him to be from somewhere in the North. I didn't like him much. I never did like them Northerners anyway.

“What are ye doing here?” he says in surprise when he seen us lying on the floor.

“I'm the watchman,” says I, cutting him short.

“Begor, a watchman ought to be able to watch himself better than that,” he says, and without as much as “By your leave” he up with the rifle butt and knocked out every pane of glass in the side of the tram. It went to my heart to see it go. Any other time I'd have taken him and wrung his neck, but, you see, I was lying on the floor and couldn't get up to him with the firing. I pretended not to mind, but I looked at the glass and then I looked at him.

“And who,” I said, “is going to pay for that?”

“Och, Mick MacQuaid to be sure,” says he.

“Ah, the gentleman is right,” says the woman. “Only for him we might all be kilt.”

The way she about-faced and started to soft-solder that fellow got on my nerves. It is always the same with that sort of woman. They are people you can't trust.

“And what the hell is it to anyone whether you're killed or not?” I said. “No one asked you to stop. This is the tramway company's property, and if you don't like it you can leave it. You have no claim.”