General John Regan Part 31

Thady Gallagher rose slowly to his feet.

"With regard to what Mr. Doyle has just laid before the meeting," he said, "and speaking of the duty of supporting Irish manufacture, I'm of opinion that his words do him credit. I'm an out and out supporter of the Industrial Revival, and when I look round about me on the ruined mills that once were hives of industry, and the stream of emigration which is flowing from our sh.o.r.es year after year???"

"I don't think we need spend much time discussing the bouquet," said Dr.

O'Grady. "It'll have to be ordered from Dublin too."

"There's no flowers here to make a bouquet of," said Doyle, "unless, maybe, the Major??"

"I've a few Sweet-Williams," said the Major, "and a bed of mixed stocks.

If you think they'd be any use to you you're welcome to them."

"We might do worse," said Father McCormack.

"We'll have to do better," said Dr. O'Grady. "You can't offer a lady in the position of a Lord-Lieutenant's wife a bundle of ordinary stocks!

What we have to get is lilies and roses."

"It's only right that we should," said Father McCormack, "but I think the thanks of the meeting ought to be given to Major Kent for his generous offer."

"I second that," said Doyle. "The Major was always a good friend to anything that might be for the benefit of the town or the locality."

"The ordering of the bouquet," said Dr. O'Grady, "to be left to the same sub-committee which has charge of the address."

"And it to be sent to the hotel here," said Father McCormack, "on the morning of the ceremony, so as it will be fresh. Are you all agreed on that, gentlemen? What's the next business, doctor?"

"The next business is the statue."

"What's the date of the Lord-Lieutenant's visit?" said the Major.

"Thursday week," said Dr. O'Grady.

"That's ten days from to-day," said the Major. "We may just as well go home at once as sit here talking to each other. There's no time to get a statue."

"We'll do our business before we stir," said Dr. O'Grady.

"What's the use of saying things like that?" said the Major. "You know jolly well, O'Grady, that you can't get a statue in ten days. The thing's impossible. It takes a year at least to make a statue of any size. You can't go into a shop and buy a statue, as if it were a hat or an umbrella."

"There's a good deal in what the Major says," said Father McCormack.

"I'm inclined to agree with him. I remember well when they were putting up the monument to Parnell in Dublin it took them years before they had it finished."

"It's a good job for everybody concerned," said the Major, "that we're brought up short. We'd simply have made ourselves publicly ridiculous if we'd gone on with this business."

The Major, Dr. O'Grady, and Doyle, spoke when they did speak, in an easy conversational tone without rising from their chairs. But this was not Gallagher's idea of the proper way of conducting public business. He believed that important discussions ought to be carried on with dignity.

When he spoke he stood up and addressed the committee as if he were taking part in a political demonstration, using appropriate gestures to emphasize his words. The difficulty about the statue gave him a great opportunity.

"I stand here to-day," he said, "as the representative of the people of this locality, and what I'm going to say now I'd say if the police spies of Dublin Castle was standing round me taking down the words I utter."

Young Kerrigan had been obliged to stop practising "Rule, Britannia"

on the cornet in order to eat his dinner. When he had satisfied his appet.i.te and soothed his nerves with a pipe of tobacco he set to work at the tune again. The hour's rest had not helped him in any way. He made exactly the same mistake as he had been making all the morning. It happened that he took up his cornet again shortly before Gallagher began his speech in which he declared himself a representative of the people of the locality. The noise of the music floated through the open window of the committee room. It had a slightly exasperating effect on Gallagher, but he went on speaking.

"What I say is this," he said, "and it's what I always will say. If it is the unanimous wish of the people of this locality to erect a statue to the memory of the great patriot, who is gone, then a statue ought to be erected. If the Major is right?and he may be right?in saying that it takes a year to make a statue, then we'll take a year. We'll take ten years if necessary. Please G.o.d the most of us has years enough before us yet to spare that many for a good work."

Young Kerrigan continued to break down at the "never, never, never,"

part of the tune. Dr. O'Grady began to fidget nervously in his chair.

"Sit down, Thady," said Doyle. "Don't you know that if we postpone the statue we'll never get the Lord-Lieutenant to open it? Didn't he say in his letter that Thursday week was the only day he could come?"

"As for the so-called Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland," said Gallagher, waving his arm in the air, "we've done without him and the likes of him up to this, and we're well able to do without him for the future."

He brought his fist down with tremendous force as he spoke, striking the table with the pad of flesh underneath his little finger. Dr. O'Grady jumped up.

"Excuse me one moment, gentlemen," he said. "That young fool, Kerrigan, is getting the tune wrong every time, and if I don't stop him he'll never get it right at all."

He walked across to the window as he spoke and looked out. Then he turned round.

"Don't let me interfere with your speech, Thady," he said. "I'm listening all right, and I'm sure Father McCormack and the rest of the committee want to hear every word of it."

But Gallagher, in spite of this encouragement, did not seem inclined to go on. He sat down and scowled ferociously at Doyle. Dr. O'Grady put his head out of the window and shouted.

"Moriarty," he called, "Constable Moriarty, come over here for a minute and stop grinning."

Then he drew in his head and turned round.

"Major," he said, "you're a magistrate. I wish to goodness you'd give orders that Moriarty isn't to grin in that offensive way. It's a danger to the public peace."

"I shan't do anything of the sort," said the Major. "In the first place I can't. I've no authority over the police. They are Gregg's business.

In the second place??"

He stopped at this point because Dr. O'Grady was not listening to him. He had stretched his head and shoulders out of the window and was talking in a very loud tone to Moriarty.

"Run over," he said, "and tell young Kerrigan to come here to me for a minute. When you've done that go to bed or dig potatoes or do any other mortal thing except stand at the door of the barrack grinning."

"What tune's that young Kerrigan's after playing?" said Gallagher solemnly.

Father McCormack looked anxiously at Major Kent. The Major fixed his eyes on the stuffed fox in the gla.s.s case. It was Doyle who answered Gallagher.

"It's no tune at all the way he's playing it," he said. "Didn't you hear the doctor saying he had it wrong?"

"What tune would it be," said Gallagher, "if so be he had it right?"

"I told you before," said Doyle. "I told you till I'm tired telling you that I don't know the name of it. It's not a tune that ever I heard before."

"I'll find out what tune it is," said Gallagher savagely. "I'll drag it out of you if I have to drag the black liver of you along with it."

"Order, gentlemen, order," said Father McCormack. "That's no language to be using here."

"I was meaning no disrespect to you, Father," said Gallagher. "I'd be the last man in Ireland to raise my hand against the clergy."

"It's the doctor's liver you'll have to drag, Thady, if you drag any liver at all," said Doyle, "for he's the only one that knows what the tune is."