Castle Richmond Part 28

"I'm d---- if I do," replied the father. "You're become uncommon fond of tea of late--that is, for other people. I don't see you take much of it yourself."

"A cup of tay is the thing to warm one afther such a journey as you've had; that's certain, Mr. Mollett," said f.a.n.n.y.

"Them's your ideas about warming, are they, my dear?" said the elderly gentleman. "Do you come and sit down on my knee here for a few minutes or so, and that'd warm me better than all the 'tay' in the world."

Aby showed by his face that he was immeasurably disgusted by the iniquitous coa.r.s.eness of this overture. Miss O'Dwyer, however, looking at the gentleman's age, and his state as regarded liquor, pa.s.sed it over as of no moment whatsoever. So that when, in the later part of the evening, Aby expressed to that young lady his deep disgust, she merely said, "Oh, bother; what matters an old man like that?"

And then, when they were at this pa.s.s, Mr. O'Dwyer came in. He did not interfere much with his daughter in the bar room, but he would occasionally take a dandy of punch there, and ask how things were going on in doors. He was a fat, thickset man, with a good-humoured face, a flattened nose, and a great apt.i.tude for stable occupations.

He was part owner of the Kanturk car, as has been before said, and was the proprietor of sundry other cars, open cars and covered cars, plying for hire in the streets of Cork.

"I hope the mare took your honour well down to Kanturk and back again," said he, addressing his elder customer with a chuck of his head intended for a bow.

"I don't know what you call well," said Mr. Mollett. "She hadn't a leg to stand upon for the last three hours."

"Not a leg to stand upon! Faix, then, and it's she'd have the four good legs if she travelled every inch of the way from Donagh-a-Dee to Ti-vora," to which distance Mr. O'Dwyer specially referred as being supposed to be the longest known in Ireland.

"She may be able to do that; but I'm blessed if she's fit to go to Kanturk and back."

"She's done the work, anyhow," said Mr. O'Dwyer, who evidently thought that this last argument was conclusive.

"And a precious time she's been about it. Why, my goodness, it would have been better for me to have walked it. As Sir Thomas said to me--"

"What! did you see Sir Thomas Fitzgerald?"

Hereupon Aby gave his father a nudge; but the father either did not appreciate the nudge, or did not choose to obey it.

"Yes; I did see him. Why shouldn't I?"

"Only they do say he's hard to get to speak to now-a-days. He's not over well, you know, these years back."

"Well or ill he'll see me, I take it, when I go that distance to ask him. There's no doubt about that; is there, Aby?"

"Can't say, I'm sure, not knowing the gentleman," said Aby.

"We holds land from Sir Thomas, we do; that is, me and my brother Mick, and a better landlord ain't nowhere," said Mr. O'Dwyer.

"Oh, you're one of the tenants, are you? The rents are paid pretty well, ain't they?"

"To the day," said Mr. O'Dwyer, proudly.

"What would you think now--" Mr. Mollett was continuing; but Aby interrupted him somewhat violently.

"Hold your confounded stupid tongue, will you, you old jolterhead;"

and on this occasion he put his hand on his father's shoulder and shook him.

"Who are you calling jolterhead? Who do you dare to speak to in that way? you impudent young cub you. Am I to ask your leave when I want to open my mouth?"

Aby had well known that his father in his present mood would not stand the manner in which the interruption was attempted. Nor did he wish to quarrel before the publican and his daughter. But anything was better than allowing his father to continue in the strain in which he was talking.

"You are talking of things which you don't hunderstand, and about people you don't know," said Aby. "You've had a drop too much on the road too, and you 'ad better go to bed."

Old Mollett turned round to strike at his son; but even in his present state he was somewhat quelled by Aby's eye. Aby was keenly alive to the necessity for prudence on his father's part, though he was by no means able to be prudent himself.

"Talking of things which I don't understand, am I?" said the old man.

"That's all you know about it. Give me another gla.s.s of that brandy toddy, my dear."

But Aby's look had quelled, or at any rate silenced him; and though he did advance another stage in tipsiness before they succeeded in getting him off to bed, he said no more about Sir Thomas Fitzgerald or his Castle Richmond secrets.

Nevertheless, he had said enough to cause suspicion. One would not have imagined, on looking at Mr. O'Dwyer, that he was a very crafty person, or one of whose finesse in affairs of the world it would be necessary to stand much in awe. He seemed to be thick, and stolid, and incapable of deep inquiry; but, nevertheless, he was as fond of his neighbours' affairs as another, and knew as much about the affairs of his neighbours at Kanturk as any man in the county Cork.

He himself was a Kanturk man, and his wife had been a Kanturk woman; no less a person, indeed, than the sister of Father Bernard M'Carthy, rest her soul;--for it was now at peace, let us all hope. She had been dead these ten years; but he did not the less keep up his connection with the old town, or with his brother-in-law the priest, or with the affairs of the persons there adjacent; especially, we may say, those of his landlord, Sir Thomas Fitzgerald, under whom he still held a small farm, in conjunction with his brother Mick, the publican at Kanturk.

"What's all that about Sir Thomas?" said he to his daughter in a low voice as soon as the Molletts had left the bar.

"Well, I don't just know," said f.a.n.n.y. She was a good daughter, and loved her father, whose indoor affairs she kept tight enough for him.

But she had hardly made up her mind as yet whether or no it would suit her to be Mrs. Abraham Mollett. Should such be her destiny, it might be as well for her not to talk about her husband's matters.

"Is it true that the old man did see Sir Thomas to-day?"

"You heard what pa.s.sed, father; but I suppose it is true."

"And the young 'un has been down to Kanturk two or three times. What can the like of them have to do with Sir Thomas?"

To this f.a.n.n.y could only say that she knew nothing about it, which in the main was true. Aby, indeed, had said that his father had gone down to collect money that was due to him; but then f.a.n.n.y did not believe all that Aby said.

"I don't like that young 'un at all," continued Mr. O'Dwyer. "He's a nasty, sneaking fellow, as cares for no one but his own belly. I'm not over fond of the old 'un neither."

"They is both free enough with their money, father," said the prudent daughter.

"Oh, they is welcome in the way of business, in course. But look here, Fan; don't you have nothing to say to that Aby; do you hear me?"

"Who? I? ha, ha, ha!"

"It's all very well laughing; but mind what I says, for I won't have it. He is a nasty, sneaking, good-for-nothing fellow, besides being a heretic. What'd your uncle Bernard say?"

"Oh! for the matter of that, if I took a liking to a fellow I shouldn't ask Uncle Bernard what he had to say. If he didn't like it, I suppose he might do the other thing."

"Well, I won't have it. Do you hear that?"

"Laws, father, what nonsense you do talk. Who's thinking about the man? He comes here for what he wants to ate and dhrink, and I suppose the house is free to him as another. If not we'd betther just shut up the front door." After which she tossed herself up and began to wipe her gla.s.ses in a rather dignified manner.

Mr. O'Dwyer sat smoking his pipe and chewing the cud of his reflections. "They ain't afther no good; I'm sure of that." In saying which, however, he referred to the doings of the Molletts down at Kanturk, rather than to any amatory proceedings which might have taken place between the young man and his daughter.

On the following morning Mr. Mollett senior awoke with a racking headache. My belief is, that when men pay this penalty for drinking, they are partly absolved from other penalties. The penalties on drink are various. I mean those which affect the body, exclusive of those which affect the mind. There are great red swollen noses, very disagreeable both to the wearer and his acquaintances; there are morning headaches, awful to be thought of; there are sick stomachs, by which means the offender escapes through a speedy purgatory; there are sallow cheeks, sunken eyes, and shaking shoulders; there are very big bellies, and no bellies at all; and there is delirium tremens.

For the most part a man escapes with one of these penalties. If he have a racking headache, his general health does not usually suffer so much as though he had endured no such immediate vengeance from violated nature. Young Aby when he drank had no headaches; but his eye was bloodshot, his cheek bloated, and his hand shook. His father, on the other hand, could not raise his head after a debauch; but when that was gone, all ill results of his imprudence seemed to have vanished.

At about noon on that day Aby was sitting by his father's bedside. Up to that time it had been quite impossible to induce him to speak a word. He could only groan, swallow soda-water with "hairs of the dog that bit him" in it, and lay with his head between his arms. But soon after noon Aby did induce him to say a word or two. The door of the room was closely shut, the little table was strewed with soda-water bottles and last drops of small goes of brandy. Aby himself had a cigar in his mouth, and on the floor near the bed-foot was a plate with a cold, greasy mutton chop, Aby having endeavoured in vain to induce his father to fortify exhausted nature by eating. The appearance of the room and the air within it would not have been pleasant to fastidious people. But then the Molletts were not fastidious.