by Bram Stoker
Truly, Jerry O’Sullivan had a sweet wife and a happy home. Prosperity seemed to be his lot in life.
CHAPTER 2
TO AND FRO
When all was made comfortable for the after sitting, the conversation grew lively. The position of persons at table tends to further cliquism, and to narrow conversation to a number of dialogues, and so the change was appreciated.
The most didactic person of the company was Mr Parnell, who was also the greatest philosopher; and the idea of general conversation seemed to have struck him. He began to comment on the change in the style of conversation.
‘Look what a community of feeling does for us. Half an hour ago, when we were doing justice to Mrs O’Sullivan’s good things, all our ideas were scattered. There was, perhaps, enough of pleasant news amongst us to make some of us happy, and others of us rich, if we knew how to apply our information; but still no one got full benefit, or the opportunity of full benefit, from it.’
Here Price whispered something in Jane’s ear, which made her blush and laugh, and tell him to ‘go along.’
Parnell smiled and said gently -
‘Well, perhaps, Tom, some of the thoughts wouldn’t interest the whole of us.’
Tom grinned bashfully, and Parnell reverted to his theme. He was a great man at meetings, and liked to talk, for he knew that he talked well.
‘Have any of you ever looked how some rivers end?’
‘What end?’ asked Mr Muldoon, and winked at Miss M’Anaspie.
‘The sea end. Look at the history of a river. It begins by a lot of little streams meeting together, and is but small at first. Then it grows wider and deeper, till big ships mayhap can sail in it, and then it goes down to the sea.’
‘Poor thing,’ said Mr Muldoon, again winking at Margaret.
‘Ay, but how does it reach the sea? It should go, we would fancy, by a broad open mouth that would send the ships out boldly on every side and gather them in from every point. But some do not do so - the water is drawn off through a hundred little channels, where the mud lies in shoals and the sedges grow, and where no craft can pass. The river of thought should be an open river — be its craft few or many — if it is to benefit mankind.’
Miss M’Anaspie who had, whilst he was speaking, been whispering to Mr Muldoon, said, with a pertness bordering on snappishness:
‘Then, I suppose, you would never let a person talk except in company. For my part, I think two is better company than a lot.’
‘Not at all, my dear. The river of thought can flow between two as well as amongst fifty; all I say is that all should benefit.’
Here Mr Muldoon struck in. He had all along felt it as a slight to himself that Parnell should have taken the conversational ball into his own hands. He was himself extremely dogmatic, and no more understood the difference between didacticism and dogmatism than he comprehended the meaning of that baphometic fire-baptism which set the critics of Mr Carlyle’s younger days a-thinking.
‘For my part,’ said he, ‘I consider it an impertinence for any man to think that what he says must be interesting to every one in a room.’
This was felt by all to be a home thrust at Parnell, and no one spoke. Parnell would have answered, not in anger, but in good-humoured argument, only for an imploring look on Katey’s face, which seemed to say as plainly as words -
‘Do not answer. He will be angry, and there will only be a quarrel.’
And so the subject dropped.
The men mixed punch, all except Mr Muldoon, who took his whisky cold, and Parnell, who took none. The former looked at the latter with a sort of semi-sneer, and said -
‘Do you mean to say you don’t take either punch or grog?’
‘Well,’ said Parnell, ‘I didn’t mean to say it, but now that you ask me I do say it. I never touch any kind of spirit, and, please God, I never will.’
‘Don’t you think,’ said Muldoon, ‘that that is setting yourself above the rest of us a good deal. We’re not too good for our liquor, but you are. That’s about the long and the short of it.’
‘No, no, my friend, I say nothing of the kind. Any man is too good for liquor.’
Jerry thought the conversation was getting entirely too argumentative, so he cut in -
‘But a little liquor needn’t be bad for a chap if he doesn’t take too much?’
‘Ay, there it is,’ said Parnell, ‘if he doesn’t take too much. But he does take too much, and the end is that it works his ruin, body and soul.’
‘Whose?’
It was Miss M’Anaspie who asked the question, and it fell like a bombshell.
Parnell, however, was equal to the emergency.
‘Whose?’ he repeated. ‘Whose? Everyone’s who begins and doesn’t know where he may leave off.’
Miss M’Anaspie felt that she was answered, and looked appealingly at Mr Muldoon, who at once came to the rescue.
‘Everyone is a big word. Do you mean to tell me that every man that drinks a pint of beer or a glass of whisky, goes straight to the devil?’
‘No, no; indeed I do not. God forbid that I should say any such thing. But look how many men that mean only to take one glass, are persuaded to take two, and then the wits begin to go, and they take three or four, and five, ay, and more, sometimes. Why, men and women’ - he rose from his chair as he spoke, with his face all aglow, with earnestness and belief in his words, ‘look around you and see the misery that everywhere throngs the streets. See the pale, drunken, wasted-looking men, with sunken eyes, and slouching gait. Men that were once as strong and hard-working, and upright as any here, ay, and could look you in the face as boldly as any here. Look at them now! Afraid to meet your eyes, trembling at every sound; mad with passion one moment and with despair the next.’
The tide of his thought was pouring forth with such energy that no one spoke; even Mr Muldoon was afraid at the time to interrupt him. He went on:
‘And the women, too, God help us all. Look at them and see what part drink plays in their wretched lives. Listen to the laughter and the cries that wake the echoes in the streets at night. You that have wives, and mothers and,’ (this with a glance at Tom and Pat) ‘sweethearts, can you hear such laughter and cries and not shudder? If you can, then when next you hear it think of what it would be for you to hear some voice that you love raised like that.’
Mr Muldoon could not stand it any longer and spoke out:
‘But come now, I can’t see how all the misery and wretchedness of the world is to be laid on a simple glass of beer.’
‘Hear, hear,’ said Miss M’Anaspie.
Parnell’s reply was allegorical. ‘Do you see how the oak springs from the acorn - the bird from the egg? I tell you that if there were no spirits there would be less sin, and shame, and sorrow than there is.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Muldoon. ‘It would be a beautiful world entirely, and everybody would have everything, and nobody would want nothing, and we’d all be grand fellows. Eh, Miss Margaret, what do you think?’
‘Hear, hear,’ said Miss M’Anaspie, more timidly than before, however, at the same time looking over at Mrs O’Sullivan, who was looking not too well pleased at her.
‘Ah, sir,’ said Parnell, sadly, ‘God knows that we, men and women, are not what we ought to be, and sin will be in the world, I suppose, till the time that is told. But this I say, that drink is the greatest enemy that man has on earth.’
‘Why, you’re quite an enthusiast,’ said Mr Muldoon; ‘one would think you were inspired.’
‘I would I were inspired. I wish my voice was of gold, and that I could make men hear me all over the world, and that I could make the stars ring again with cries against the madness that men bring upon themselves.’
‘Upon my life,’ said Mr Muldoon, ‘you should be on the stage. You have missed your vocation. By the way, what is your vocation?’
‘I am a hatter.’
Miss M’Anaspie blurted out suddenly, ‘Mad as a hatter,’ and then suddenly got
red in the face, and shut up completely as she saw her employer’s eye fixed on her with a glare almost baleful in its intensity.
Mr Muldoon laughed loudly, and slapped his fat knees as he ejaculated - ‘Brayvo, brayvo. One for his nob - mad as a hatter. That accounts for the enthusiasm.’ Then, seeing a look of such genuine pain on Katey’s face that even his obtuseness could not hide from him how deeply he was hurting her, added - ‘Of course, Mr Parnell, I am only joking; but still it is not bad - mad as a hatter. Ha, ha!’
No one said anything more, and no one laughed; and so the matter was dropped.
Jerry felt that a gloom had fallen on the assemblage, and tried to lift it by starting a new topic.
‘Do you know,’ said he, ‘I had a letter from John Sebright the other day, and he tells me if you want to make money England’s the place.’
‘Indeed,’ said his mother, satirically.
Going to England was an old ‘fad’ of Jerry’s, and one which had caused his mother many an anxious hour of thought, and many a sleepless night.
‘Yes,’ answered Jerry, ‘he says there is more work there than here, and better paid; and that a man has ten chances for gettin’ on for one he has here.’
‘The one chance often wins when the ten fail,’ said Parnell.
‘And it’s worse losing ten pounds than one,’ added Margaret.
‘And some girls’ tongues are as long as ten,’ said Mrs O’Sullivan, who could not bear anything which tended to make light of her wishes with regard to Jerry, and so determined to put a stop to Miss M’Anaspie’s volubility.
Mr Muldoon, however, came to the rescue.
‘And some girls who have been for ten years in misery and discomfort find sometimes that one year brings them all they want.’
Miss M’Anaspie put her handkerchief before her face, and again dead silence fell on the assembly. Parnell broke it.
‘Jerry, put the idea out of your head. You know that you couldn’t go now even if you wanted, and there is no use sighing for what can’t be.’
‘I don’t know that,’ said Jerry argumentatively. ‘I could go now with Katey and the young ones, just as well as if I was a boy still; ay, and better, for she would keep me out of harm.’
Parnell said with great feeling, ‘That’s right, Jerry; stick up for the wife and stick to her too, for she’s worth it. Do you but keep to your wife, and the home that she will always make for you, as long as you let her, and you may go when and where you will, and your hands will find work.’
Katey began to cry. She was still a little delicate, and anything which touched her feelings upset her very much. There was an immediate rush of all the women in the room to comfort her.
Jerry offered her some of his punch, but she put the glass aside, saying -
‘No, no, dear, I never take it.’
‘Come, come,’ said Mr Muldoon, ‘Mrs Katey, this will never do, you must take it. It is good for you.’
‘No, it is good for no one.’
‘Come now, Mr Parnell,’ said Mr Muldoon, ‘don’t you know a sup of liquor would do her good? Tell her so.’
‘No, no,’ said Katey, ‘I know myself.’
Parnell spoke -
‘I cannot say, but it is good as a medicine, and as a medicine one may take it without harm.’
‘Capital thing to be sick sometimes,’ said Muldoon, winking at Tom and Pat, and laughing at his own joke.
Parnell did not like to let a point go unquestioned on a subject on which he felt deeply, so he answered -
‘When you are sick, your wish is to be well again, and the medicine that seems nice to you when well, is only in sickness but medicine after all.’
Once more Mr Muldoon began to get angry, and said, with a determination to fight the argument - a I’outrance-
‘Why, man, you would make the world a hell with all your self-denials. Do you think life would be worth having if every enjoyment of it, great and little, was to be suppressed. The world is bad enough, goodness knows, already, without making a regular hell of it.’
‘Hell is a big word.’
‘It is a big word, and I mean it to be a big word.’
‘Ah, it is like enough to hell already,’ said Parnell sadly.
‘On account of all the bad spirits,’ added Miss M’Anaspie.
‘Laugh, my child. Laugh whilst you may. Heaven grant that the day may never come when you cannot laugh at such thoughts. Ay, truly, the world is hard enough as it is. Bad enough, and the devil is abroad enough, and too much.’
‘Oh, he’s on earth is he?’
‘Yes, Mr Muldoon, he is, to and fro, he walks always.’
Whilst he was speaking he was drawing in his note-book.
Miss M’Anaspie got curious to know what he was doing, and asked him.
In reply he handed her the book.
She took it eagerly, and then passed it on to all the others in turn.
He had drawn an allegorical picture under which he had written - ‘To and Fro.’
The picture represented a road through a moor to a village, seen lying some distance away, the spire of its church shadowed by a passing cloud. The moor was bleak, with, in the foreground, a clump of blasted trees, and in the distance a ruined house. On the road two travellers were journeying, both seated on the same horse - a sorry nag. One of them was booted and spurred, and wore a short cloak, a slouched hat, under which the lineaments showed ghastly, for the face was but that of a skull. The other, who rode pick-a-back, was clad as the German romances love to clothe their demon when he walks the earth, with trunk hose and pointed shoes, a long floating cloak, and peaked cap with cock’s feathers. On his arm he bore a basket full of bottles, and as he clutched his grisly companion he laughed with glee, bending his head as men do when their enjoyment is in perspective rather than an actuality.
From beneath a stone a viper had raised itself, and seemed to salute the travellers with its forked tongue.
When the picture came into Mrs O’Sullivan’s hands, she fixed her spectacles and held it up a little to let the most light possible fall on it. Then she spoke —
‘God bless us and save us, but that’s an awful thing. Where did you see that, Mr Parnell?’
‘I never saw it, ma’am, except in my mind, and I see it there often enough. You, young men, mind the lesson of that picture, for it is truth. Death and the devil go together, and so sure as the devil grips hold of you, death is not far off, you may be sure, in some form or other, waiting, waiting, waiting.’
Mr Muldoon saw that the subject of drinking was coming in again, and said maliciously -
‘And this is all from a glass of beer.’
‘Ay, if you will,’ said Parnell. ‘That’s how it begins - that which is the curse of Ireland in our own time; and which, so surely as Irishmen will not use the wit and strength that God has given them, will drag her from her throne.’
Jerry got into the conversation:
‘One thing John Sebright tells me, that there is less drunkenness in England than here.’
‘Don’t you believe him,’ said Parnell. ‘That man means mischief to you. He wants to entice you to England, and then live on you when he gets you there. For Heaven’s sake put that idea of going away out of your head. You’re very well here as you are; and let well alone.’
Jerry’s mother spoke also. ‘John Sebright is a nice chap to quote sobriety as a virtue. Do you remember how often I gave you money to pay his fines to keep him out of prison after his drunken freaks, for the sake of his poor dead and gone mother. Why, that chap could no more tell truth than he could work, and that’s saying a good deal.’
‘Well, drink or no drink, mother, England’s a grand place, anyhow, and there’s lots of money going there.’
Parnell rose up from his chair and said severely - ‘Jerry O’Sullivan, do you know what you are talking about? True, that England is rich, but is money all that a man is to seek after? If the good men leave poor Ireland to make a little more money for
themselves, what is to become of her? Is it not as if she was sold for money; and if you look at the real difference of wages — the wages that good sober men that can work, get here and there, a poor price she would be sold for after all.’
‘I don’t like that way of putting it,’ said Jerry, rather testily. ‘In fact I have almost made up my mind to go, and I don’t think I’m selling my country at all at all, and I wish you wouldn’t say such things.’
Parnell said nothing for a few moments. Then he tore the picture out of his note-book and handed it to him saying -
‘Jerry, old boy, if you ever do go, keep that in your purse, and if ever you go to pay for liquor for yourself or others, just think what it means.’
When the party rose up to go they found that Katey had been crying quietly, and her eyes were red and swollen.
Jerry O’Sullivan’s home was happy, and his poor, good little wife feared a change.
CHAPTER 3
AN OPENING
Jerry O’Sullivan’s desire to go to England was no mere transient wish. As has been told, he had had for years a strong desire to try his fortune in a country other than his own; and although the desire had since his marriage fallen into so sound a sleep that it resembled death, still it was not dead but sleeping.
Deep in the minds of most energetic persons lies some strong desire, some strong ambition, or some resolute hope, which unconsciously moulds, or, at least, influences their every act. No matter what their circumstances in life may be, or how much they may yield to those circumstances for a time, the one idea remains ever the same. This is, in fact, one of the secrets of how individual force of character comes out at times. The great idea, whatever it may be, sits enthroned in the mind, and round it gather subordinate wishes and resolves, as the feudal nobles round the King, and so goes on the chain down the whole gamut of man’s nature from the taming or suppression of his wildest passions down to the commonplace routine of his daily life.
And yet we wonder at times to see, when occasion offers, with what astonishing rapidity certain individuals assert themselves, and how, when a strange circumstance arises, some new individual arises along with it, as though the man and the hour were predestined for each other.
