Spanish Gold/Chapter 23

WO years later Major Kent took another cruise in the Spindrift, this time with a hired man to assist him in managing the boat. He anchored for an hour in the bay at Inishgowlan, and then, not feeling inclined to go ashore alone, sailed on to Inishmore. He found Father Mulcrone in the presbytery and invited him to spend the evening in the cabin of the Spindrift. There had been a change of government some months before, and Mr. Willoughby had left Ireland. The priest lamented his loss.

"The new man's not his equal," he said. "I don't say but what he means well. Only it's my belief that he'll never understand this country. I met him when he was round seeing the West. I told him the way the treasure was found on Inishgowlan, and what do you think he said to me?"

"I don't know," said the Major. "What was it?"

"He said, 'That's a good story, Father Mulcrone.' Now that was as much as to tell me to my face that the story wasn't one an honest man would take his oath to in a court of justice. There's unbelief for you! A fellow that starts off by thinking himself clever enough to know what's true and what isn't will do no good in Ireland. A simple-hearted, innocent kind of a man has a better chance."

"One like Higginbotham?" said the Major.

"I hear he's high up now, earning a good salary. He deserves it. How's Mr. Meldon getting along with his parish?"

"I was over there last summer," said the Major. "I was standing godfather to the baby. She had another godfather, too, which is unusual with a girl. It was Mr. Willoughby stood along with me."

"And what did they call her?"

"Cecily May was the name the mother chose."

"But what about the parish? I heard the men in it were a rough lot and disrespectful to their clergy."

"They're cured of that now. There was a man there, a sort of leader among the colliers, who set up to be an agnostic or something of that kind, and was for ever talking to the rest of them about the folly of believing what the clergy said."

"A fellow like that would turn the milk with his blasphemies. I've heard of such."

"Well, the Rev. J. J. used to go to that man's house two evenings in the week and argue with him. The rest of the people took to coming to listen until they had to move into the schoolroom to accommodate the congregation. By the time I got over there that agnostic was singing in the choir with a surplice on him."

"He was convinced in the end, then?"

"I'm not sure that he was convinced. I was talking to him one day and he told me, privately, that he wasn't any more persuaded than ever he was. He said he'd lost his taste for arguing. My own belief is that the man was cowed, and that if J. J. had wanted him to swear publicly to the truth of all the confessions of faith of all the Churches in Christendom he'd have done it for fear of having to argue any more. And he wasn't the only man in the place that changed his way of living. There was more than one that gave up beating his wife on account of the amount of talk he got from J. J. whenever he was caught at it. The very worst of them mended their language. You'd see a man looking round him and up and down the road before he'd venture on a simple 'damn.' I needn't tell you, Father Mulcrone, that the necessity for that sort of precaution takes all the pleasure out of a swear. And as for drink"

"What did he do about the drink? I've had my own trouble over that. Since ever the people of Inishgowlan got the gold out of the yacht I've been administering the temperance pledge to them in batches of half a dozen at a time, and often to the same lot twice in six months. I'd like to hear what Mr. Meldon did about the drink."

"I don't quite know how he did it," said the Major, "but I'm told that whenever a man in that parish feels that he must have a burst he goes off somewhere else and doesn't come back till there isn't a sign left on him of what he's been doing. And even so he's generally made to feel sorry for himself."

"I'd like to have a talk with Mr. Meldon about the way he manages."

"He's coming over to Dublin next Christmas," said the Major, "and I mean to get him down to spend a few days with me. If you'll come, too, I'll give you a room in my house with pleasure. J. J. is going to take out his M.A. degree. He thinks it's time for him to be wearing a blue silk hood in church. I had a letter from him just before I left home. He says he's going to make his old rabbit-skin hood into a cot quilt for Mary Kate."

"For Mary Kate, is it?"

"That's the baby. They christened her Cecily May to please the mother, but I never heard J. J. speak of her by any other name except Mary Kate."