Spanish Gold/Chapter 5

HE island of Inishgowlan is formed on a simple plan, common among islands off the west coast of Ireland. The western side consists of a series of bluffs, rising occasionally to the dignity of cliffs. At the base of these the Atlantic rollers break themselves, carving out narrow gullies wherever they find a suitably soft place. From these bluffs the island slopes gradually down to its eastern coast.

Meldon, after leaving Higginbotham, walked to the top of the western ridge, climbing a number of loose stone walls on his way. He made his way to the highest point of the island, and from it surveyed the whole coast line. Then he sat down and thought. He was working out a plan for discovering the treasure, which, as he believed, lay concealed somewhere. After smoking two pipes he went down again to the pier, embarked in the collapsible punt, and paddled off to the Spindrift. The Major was sound asleep in the little cabin. Meldon woke him.

"It's all right," he said. "I've put Higginbotham completely off the scent. We can go where we like and do what we like and he'll ask no questions. We're to dine with him to-night. I hope you won't mind. I promised to bring along your corned beef and some sardines. Higginbotham doesn't seem to have anything except a tinned tongue and a lobster. I don't know how you feel, but I fancy I could account for the whole tongue myself without spoiling my appetite for the lobster."

"You're quite right," said the Major. "But what about drink? Shall we bring some whisky?"

"It might be just as well. Higginbotham wasn't a teetotaller when I knew him in college, but he may be now—you never can tell what fads a man will take up. He told me he was learning Irish."

"We'll take the whisky, then," said the Major.

The beef, the sardines, and the bottle were stowed in the bow of the punt. The Major seated himself in the stern. Meldon took the paddles.

"By the way," said Meldon, when about half the journey was accomplished, "what is pliocene clay?"

"I don't know. How could I know a thing like that? I never heard of the stuff before. Is there any of it on the island?"

"According to Higginbotham the whole island consists of nothing else."

"Let it. It makes no odds to us what it consists of."

"It may make a great deal of odds to you, Major."

Meldon had stopped paddling and sat looking at his friend. A smile lurked under his moustache; his eyes twinkled. A feeling of uneasiness, a premonition of coming evil, a sudden suspicion, took possession of the Major's mind.

"J. J.," he said solemnly, "tell me the truth. What did you say to that Congested Districts friend of yours ? What did you tell him we were here for?"

"I told him that you were a mining expert and that you'd been sent by the Lord-Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary to make a geological survey of the island."

"Great Scott!"

The Major started so violently that the punt rocked from side to side. The water lipped in first over one gunwale, then over the other.

"Sit still," said Meldon. "This is no place to be giving way to strong emotion. Remember that you are floating about in a beastly umbrella turned upside down, a thing that might shut up under you at any moment. It may not matter to you whether you are drowned or not, but I want to see my little girl again before I die."

"But—but—gracious Heavens, J. J.—"

"He believed it all right in the end," said Meldon. "He seemed a bit surprised at first, but I put it to him in a convincing way and I think he believed me. That was how we got on the subject of pliocene clay."

"Turn round," said the Major sternly, "and row back to the Spindrift. I'll up anchor and leave this place to-night! I'm not going ashore to be made a fool of by your abominable inventions."

"It's all right. You won't be made a fool of. Higginbotham will respect you all the more for being an expert. He's just the sort of man who looks up to experts. And he won't bother you with questions. I told him you were a man of violent temper and couldn't bear being worried about your work."

Meldon began to paddle towards the pier. The Major sat limp in the stern of the punt. A sweat had broken out on his forehead.

"What else did you tell him? Let me have the whole of it."

"Oh, nothing else. I never say a word more than is necessary. There's no commoner mistake than overdoing one's disguise."

"That's all well enough, but why couldn't you have put the disguise, as you call it, on yourself instead of me? Why didn't you say that you were a mining expert?"

"He wouldn't have believed that. I simply couldn't have made him believe that I know anything about pliocene clay."

"Well, you might have told him something else about yourself, something he would have believed. I hate being dragged into these entanglements."

"There's no entanglement that I can see," said Meldon. "But I'm sorry now that I mentioned you at all. If I'd known the way you'd feel about it, I wouldn't. I'll tell you what it is, Major, I'll take the very first opportunity of telling him something about myself. I'll shift the whole business off your shoulders. Higginbotham will forget all about you. Come, now, I can't do more than that. I don't say it will be easy to get him to swallow a second story immediately on top of the first, but for your sake, Major, I'm willing to try."

The spirit of Higginbotham's hospitality was all that could be desired. His means of making his guests comfortable were limited. He had only two plates in his establishment. They were given to Meldon and Major Kent. Higginbotham himself ate off a saucer. The tongue was placed on the table in its tin, and morsels were dug out of it with a knife. There was no dish for the corned beef, so Meldon laid it on a drawing board with a newspaper underneath it. There was one tumbler, a cup, and a sugar-basin to drink out of. Higginbotham turned out not to be a teetotaller. He provided bottled stout for his guests. The lobster, when it came to the time for eating it, was torn in pieces by Meldon and then taken outside to have its shell broken with stones. Major Kent was accommodated with a hammock chair, from which he reached his food with great difficulty. Meldon had a wooden stool. Higginbotham sat on a corner of his bed, which he dragged into the middle of the room.

When the meal was over the three men went out of doors and smoked. The evening was beautifully fine. The breeze which blew earlier in the day had died away. The water of the bay was motionless. The Spindrift lay at her anchor, a double boat, every spar and rope, every detail of her hull, reflected beneath her. On the beach near the pier lay two canvas curraghs, turned upside down, their gunwales resting on little piles of stones. Some children played round them. On the pier stood a group of five or six men, who smoked, gazed at the Spindrift, and occasionally made a remark to each other. The hammock chair was brought out for Major Kent, and he lay back in it luxuriously. Meldon and Higginbotham sprawled on the grass. When the dew made it uncomfortably wet, Meldon fetched a blanket off Higginbotham's bed and spread it for himself. Higginbotham perched, stiffly, on a stone.

For a long time the conversation kept on perfectly safe topics. Higginbotham described the operations of the Congested Districts Board on Inishgowlan and elsewhere. He waxed enthusiastic over the social and material regeneration of the islanders; he spoke with pitying contempt of their original way of living. They grew, it appeared, wretched potato crops in fields so badly fenced that stray cattle wandered in and trampled the young plants at critical stages of their growth. The people lived in ill-lighted, ill-ventilated, and, according to modern ideas, wholly insanitary cabins. Their system of land tenure was extraordinarily complicated and inconvenient. The holdings were inextricably mixed up, so that hardly any one could walk through his own fields without trespassing on his neighbour's.

"You'll hardly believe me," said Higginbotham, "but sometimes a man holds a bit of land not much larger than a decent table-cloth, entirely surrounded by a field belonging to some one else."

This evil condition of things Higginbotham, at the bidding of his Board, had undertaken to remedy. He brought out from his hut a map of the island, and showed how he proposed to divide it into parallel strips. He explained that each strip was to be bounded by a fence six feet high; that good wooden gates were to be erected; that a house was to be built at the top of each strip—a house with a slated roof, three rooms, and a concrete floor in the kitchen. He displayed with great pride a picture, curiously wanting in perspective, of a whole row of singularly ugly houses perched along the western ridge of the island.

The Major yawned without an attempt to hide the fact that he was bored. He had no taste whatever for philanthropy, and hated what he called Government meddling. Higginbotham continued to display plans and elevations with unabated enthusiasm. He was, as Meldon had said, a young man who took a real interest in his work. His eyes, behind his spectacles, beamed with benignant satisfaction while he described the earthly paradise he meant to create. Suddenly his face clouded and the joy died out of it.

"But the whole thing is blocked," he said, "by the pig-headed stupidity of one old man."

"Tell the Major about him," said Meldon.

"They call him the king of the island," said Higginbotham, "but of course he's not really a king any more than I am myself."

"Not nearly so much," said Meldon. "From all you've told us I should say you are what's called a benevolent despot."

"He's simply a sort of head of the family," said Higginbotham. "They are all brothers and sisters and cousins on the island. His name is Thomas O'Flaherty Pat. At least, that's what the people call him. I don't see much sense myself in sticking in the Pat at the end."

"No more do I," said Meldon. "Thomas O'Flaherty ought to be name enough for any king."

"Of course, there are three other Thomas O'Flahertys on the island, and it might be difficult to distinguish them. There's Thomas O'Flaherty Tom, and Thomas"

The Major yawned more obviously than ever. He had spent a long day on the sea; he had eaten with a good appetite; he 'had smoked a satisfying quantity of tobacco. He was totally uninterested in the family of the O'Flahertys. Higginbotham became aware that he was boring his principal guest. Inspired, perhaps, by some malignant spirit, he changed the subject of the conversation to one more likely to hold the attention of Major Kent.

"I'm afraid you won't find Inishgowlan very interesting, Major, from your point of view."

"My point of view?"

"I mean as a scientific man."

The Major woke up and scowled at Meldon.

"The geological formation" said Higginbotham.

"Oh, that's all right," said Meldon, cheerfully. "As a matter of fact the Major's tremendously interested in pliocene clay. It has been a hobby of his from his childhood. You'd be surprised all there is to know about pliocene clay. The Major has quite a library of books on the subject, and he tells me that it isn't by any means fully investigated yet."

As he spoke he leaned forward from his blanket and pinched the calf of Higginbotham's leg severely.

"All right," said his victim, "I'll drop the subject if you like; but I was going to say"

"I took a walk before dinner," said Meldon, "and had a look at the island. I came to the conclusion that we couldn't find a better place for the school"

"What school?" said Higginbotham.

"The school I was telling you about this afternoon. But perhaps I forgot to mention it."

The scowl on the Major's face deepened. He realised that Meldon, in fulfilment of his promise, was going to shift the burden of the disguise to his own shoulders.

"I never heard anything about a school," said Higginbotham.

"I wonder you didn't. But I dare say the post is rather irregular here. The fact is that the Board—not your Board, you know, but the Board of National Education—has determined to build a school on the island and asked me to run across and look out for a site."

The Major with a struggle sat upright in his hammock chair. His mouth opened. He made an effort to speak.

"It's all right," said Meldon soothingly. "I know what you are going to say—official reticence, and that sort of thing. But it doesn't matter mentioning these things to Higginbotham. He's in the Government Service himself."

The Major opened his mouth again, but his thoughts failed to express themselves. Meldon felt the necessity of modifying his statement.

"Of course the Board didn't actually send me here specially for the purpose. They heard I was coming here with the Major, and just dropped me a line to say that I may keep my eyes open and let them know if there was a suitable site for a school."

Higginbotham stared in blank amazement. As an official he knew something of the ways of Irish Governments and was seldom astonished at their doings. He had swallowed, with some little misgiving, the story of Major Kent's mission. It was just possible that a Lord-Lieutenant and a Chief Secretary, in a moment of temporary insanity brought on by overwork and much anxiety, might have sent an expert to make a geological survey of Inishgowlan. It was quite incredible that the National Board of Education could, of its own free will, intend to build a school. Meldon was unpleasantly conscious of having aroused scepticism. He nerved himself to reduce Higginbotham to a condition of passive belief.

"The Board has heard of all you're doing here," he said, "and naturally wants to put a finishing touch to the work by providing for the education of the children. After all you've done in the way of improving the material conditions of life, the Commissioners feel that it would be a national disgrace if the rising generation is left in a condition of barbaric ignorance. You recollect what the hymn says:

That's how the Commissioners feel, and you can't blame them."

"But there are only nine children on the whole island," said Higginbotham.

"Still there are nine. Why should nine children go ignorant to their graves? It isn't the fault of the nine that there aren't more. Besides, there may be more. That's what the Board of Education feels—there may be more. The Commissioners are long-headed men, Higginbotham; not a cuter lot on any Board in Ireland. They look to the future. They see before them generations of Thomas O'Flahertys yet unborn, little toddlers coming out of those slated houses of yours with copy-books in their chubby fists, all of them filled with a desire for knowledge. I tell you what, it's an inspiring picture, say what you like."

"Where," said Higginbotham, overwhelmed by this vision of the future, "where do you propose to build the school?"

"There's a house," said Meldon, "if you can call it a house, at the end of a particularly abominable bohireen. The thatch, what there is of it, is tied on with straw ropes, and there's only one small window to it that I could see. It's just under the brow of the hill above the place we're sitting now. It's bang in the middle of the island, and it's just the place for a school."

"That's the very cabin we've been talking about," said Higginbotham. "That's Thomas O'Flaherty Pat's—the place he won't give up."

"Oh, I'll manage him," said Meldon. "Don't you worry. Give me a week and I'll talk the old boy round. And now I think the Major and I had better be getting back to our floating home. We've got to navigate the bay in a punt that's more like the half of the cover of a football than anything else, and I don't much fancy doing it in the dark."

The Major, remained obstinately silent while Meldon paddled him home. Nor did he make any reply to Meldon's remarks while undressing to go to bed. Half an hour later he put his head over the side of his bunk and said:

"I'm not going to stand this, J. J. It's all very fine. I don't deny that you're a fluent liar, but I'm not going to be made a fool of. I won't stand it. Either you tell Higginbotham to-morrow that you've been pulling his leg, or I leave the island. Do you hear me? Why, man, we might get into serious trouble if these stories of yours ever came out. Are you listening to me?"

"More or less," said Meldon sleepily. "Don't you worry. Leave it to me! I'll manage all right. Good- night, Major. Don't you get dreaming of pliocene clay."