by George Moore
God bless the day that gives me sight of you again, Sir Ulick! And an old faded hand grasped Ulick’s hand and he was drawn into a house that he knew full well, for in his boyhood it was his pleasure to come hither to work at the lathe. You see the thrush’s cage that you made with your own hands, and the boat with all her sails set that you left behind. But you’ll tell me now if this be the first sight you have had of Ballinrobe — what am I saying? When you came up from Cong you must have ridden through Ballinrobe. I did, Ulick answered, but it was dark night; so it was to-day that I saw for the first time Courancy in Ballinrobe. Courancy is the Normandy village in which my mother was born. The old faded hand went to a red beard that curled into grey knots. Well, you’ll be telling us all about your travels. It would take more than to-day and to-morrow to tell all about our travels, though they were only from castle to castle, spreading the knowledge of Irish music and the instrument for which it was written. I have made better harps since those days, Donogh answered. I have a young man with me, he continued, who can decorate and inlay with any man that ever lived on the top of this earth. And I have a great harper, Donogh; he is in the stables now with the horses, but he’ll be here anon. Is your honour talking to me of the great Tadhg ODorachy, your father’s harper, he who was taught by Finn Lorcan himself? The same, Ulick answered. Here he is. Thou hast heard all the great harpers; to-day thou shalt hear the greatest of all. A bad time it is, said Tadhg, to hear a harper and he after a ten-mile ride, one hand on his own bridle and the other tight on the leading-rein. On the leading-rein? Donogh interjected. We have a third horse, said Ulick, for I would buy a harp from thee, Donogh OBrien. The harp is safest on the harper’s back, Donogh answered. So Tadhg has already told me, Donogh! and he spoke so drily that Tadhg hoped Donogh would find words to carry the talk on. But Donogh waited for Tadhg to release him from his embarrassment.
’Tis the fine drying-room thou hast here, Tadhg said at last. For oak and willow wood, Donogh answered, that will be well seasoned and safe from warp when it comes under the saw and chisel. Yonder are the workers. And when he had thrown open the door of the workroom the apprentices showed in leather aprons and shirt sleeves turned up, some sawing wood laid across trestles, others seated at work-tables set between the windows. Some providence must have chosen your visit to Ballinrobe, Sir Ulick, for to-day I looked over for the last time the harps that I have made for the daughters of King OMelaghlin, three of the beautifullest women in Ireland and great harp-players all three. Dost know, Donogh, the names of the Princesses who will receive these harps? This one, said Donogh, is for Princess Muirgil and its brother is for Princess Liadin, and this one will be sent by King OMelaghlin to his youngest daughter, Princess Soracha, who was called by God in all the beauty of her youth away from her father’s court to live in a convent, where she is praying night and day that we may all be saved and meet in heaven. The apprentices held down their heads abashed, and Ulick said that the day was not far distant when France would be sending orders to Ballinrobe for more harps than Donogh OBrien would be able to finish, though he lived till the end of the century; and it seeming to him that the moment had come for a little speech, he enjoined the apprentices to remember always that they were working under the eyes of the greatest harp-maker ever known in Ireland. On coming to the end of his words he took the harp destined for the Princess Soracha from Donogh, and running his fingers over the strings he said: As beautiful to hear as it is to see, but the sight of this harp saddens me. Now why, your honour, is there sadness in the sight of my harp? Donogh asked, and Ulick answered: I came here to-day to buy the loveliest thing in Ireland, and I find the three loveliest things are for the daughters of King OMelaghlin. Don’t you begrudge these harps, said Donogh, for you shall have one equal to them — who knows, superior to them; for though the three harps seem to be my masterpieces to-day, I may not be satisfied with them to-morrow. I did not say I had no oak as good as the oak that went into the making of these harps, and the willow wood I shall put into the harp that I shall make for you, sir, has been seasoning in this warm room since the day you first saw it. I want all thy skill, Donogh, for my harp.
So he is thinking out, Tadhg muttered, a gift of a harp to some great Princess! Shall I send the harp when it is finished to Galway? asked Donogh, or to Castle Carra? Send it to Castle Carra, Ulick answered. So she is coming to Castle Carra! Tadhg said to himself, and he waited trembling, for only a moment seemed to separate him from the name of the Princess — a name that would have been spoken, so he thought, if Donogh had not engaged Sir Ulick’s attention on the oak wood which he would use for the upright pillar and the willow wood for the sounding-board, with four sounding-holes, all ornamented with silver bosses and fine carvings.
And to show the harp he had in mind, Donogh took a burnt stick and drew, inviting Ulick’s admiration (as the harp began to shape itself in his imagination) of the escutcheons of bears, carved and gilt, and of the brass tuning-pins which he proposed should be tipped with silver; of these there would be thirty instead of the usual twenty-eight. But I would like to show you, Sir Ulick, some other harps, and my foreman and apprentices will be duly honoured if you will follow me round the workroom and speak some words to them of their skill, should their skill meet with your approval. He led them to the different tables at which the apprentices worked, and Ulick was shown the carved patterns with which the harps were embellished. An ugly harp never comes out of this house, Donogh, but I fear that thou’lt fail to surpass the harps thou’rt making for King OMelaghlin’s daughters. The harp I shall make for you, your honour, will equal, as I have said, if it does not beat those I am sending to Lough Ennel to-morrow or the day after, and by the King’s own messenger. And now having seen all that I have to show you, let us get back to the front room, where you will find a table set with bread and meat and beer, poor fare, only fit for a craftsman, his aids and apprentices; but if your honour will partake of it — Bread and cheese are tasty in the mouth of a man who rose at seven, Donogh, and thy ale will be welcome, and to prove it, pass me that piggin and I’ll empty it without drawing breath; which he did. Now tell me, Donogh OBrien — the house in which my mother lived still stands? Faith, it does, and just as it was the day her ladyship left it for ever, and will stand, with nothing taken from it and nothing put into it, till everything crumbles into the dust out of which all things came and into which all things will go — the Earl’s own words to me on the day that he left Ballinrobe, where he spent the happiest years of his life, surely. Every door and shutter is locked and barred — but no doubt these very same words you have heard from himself before you left Galway. Yes, indeed, Ulick answered, and my father will ask me many questions when I return. So we’ll walk round the house and garden together, though of little avail it will be to me to see them, for being both in my imagination, reality will merely blot the remembrance. Not blot it, sir. Dim it, alter it, Ulick continued, rob me of something. But since my father wishes it, we will go thither after the meal.
And having eaten they set out together, leaving Tadhg saying to himself: If he does not care to see the old house he was brought up in, why does he go thither with Donogh? And why am I told to wait for him here? Because he would collogue with Donogh about things that he wants me to be in the dark about! And having guessed that this was so, Tadhg pondered as his fingers ran over the strings, pausing from time to time so that he might think better why Sir Ulick had gone to see the house with Donogh OBrien, leaving him behind — surely because he wished to find out from Donogh any news that might be going round about Bruce? Harpers come hither from the east and the west, from the north and the south; every harper in Ireland has been to Donogh’s workshop to buy a harp, or to get new strings, or to have a broken harp mended, so not a thing can fall out in lreland without Donogh knowing it. The visit to Ballinrobe is but a blind, for he knows well that he couldn’t get a harp from Donogh OBrien under three months; and we are travelling with a third horse to carry harps that are still in the wo
od! Tadhg recalled Donogh’s words: A harp is nowhere as safe as on the harper’s back. What I said myself! The mystery is in that third horse. And it’s a poor thing that after all these years Donogh OBrien should be trusted and myself treated like a newcomer. It is, faith! and to stay his tears his hands went again to the strings, this time bringing the apprentices out of the workroom. As if fearing to tread the earth they came, and the spell was not broken till Sir Ulick and Donogh came through the door talking of the shortest way to Dunmore. So we are going to Dunmore! he said to himself, and he watched a chart being made by Donogh; and his faith in being able to reach Dunmore that night by the aid of the chart deserting him suddenly, he said: We shall be lost in brake and forest, your honour, for what is more like one hill than another hill? or one bit of forest than another bit of forest? There’s a great sameness even in rivers, all green and slow at the edges, with a stickle in the middle. I’m thinking it would be as well to put a boy from Ballinrobe on the pack-horse. Donogh OBrien says we cannot miss the road, Ulick answered; and now let us away, for the day will be nigh ended by six.
We are going beyond Dunmore, said Tadhg to himself, for if we weren’t he’d have a boy up on the pack-horse. But ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies, as my mother used to say in the Galway kitchen when I asked her what she was putting in the pot. So he climbed into the saddle, and it didn’t take them more than five minutes to reach the open country. East by south, said Ulick; isn’t that what Donogh said? East by south he said, your honour, Tadhg answered; and the going seeming to them good they cantered and trotted for a few miles, and were able to keep the line, having the sun behind them. We’ll be all right whilst the sun is up, said Tadhg, and as Ulick did not answer he began to remember the vow he had made in the presence of the priest that he would have no hand, act, or part again in the deceiving of poor women — not that he pitied them, for they should be able to mind themselves; often enough it was the women started the game, casting their eyes about, looking everywhere except where they were going. But when he is called up before God on the last day it won’t help him much to argue that it was the women set him off. Every mother’s son of you, God will say, is ready enough for sin, ever since Eve brought the apple to Adam and the two of them ate it in the garden; and it’s small sign I see in any one of you, and small wish in any one of you, to keep each other away from the snares the Devil is always laying; rather you are ready to push each other into them. The God of the Day knows that and the rest of it. He will call up the Angel of the Book and it will be all read out, my own share as well as the master’s, for if I didn’t play the tunes I did the chords, and the bass is as much in the game as the treble is; for I put some fine accompaniments on the tunes the master wrote, and he who works the harmonies is as deep in it as the man that makes the melody. Didn’t the priest in Galway say as much when I went to confession? And Tadhg fell to thinking once more of his vow that he would never go out again woman-hunting with the master. Anything else he asks me to do I’ll do for him, but the man that makes a vow and breaks a vow is damned and done for. So now Dunmore or beyond Dunmore into Roscommon, it’s all one to me. My conscience is clean, and a man that hasn’t a clean conscience might as well be in hell, for then he’d know all that was coming, and the worst of it.
Of what art thou thinking, Tadhg? Never have I known thy tongue so quiet. Like an eel under a comfortable stone it has been for the last four miles, said Tadhg, and I’d be hard put to tell your honour what I was thinking. Just riding, taking no note of the country, said Ulick. Hasn’t your honour got the chart? and isn’t the chart better than my eyes in a country that I’ve never seen before? And will you cast your eye over it and tell me if our way is to the right of the hill yonder, or if by going over the hill we might escape that great bit of dark wood stretching up to the horizon. What does the chart say, your honour? Donogh told me that we had better keep a look out for that dark bit of forest and that we should keep to the right — or was it to the left? Ulick asked. I can’t tell, your honour, not being beside yourself at the time. And the talk dropped till Ulick said: I think we did well to keep to the left. Tadhg thought so, too, but he spoke in so aggrieved a tone that Ulick began to wonder what wrong his servant was brooding, and it was to soothe him that he said: Tadhg, when I returned with Donogh from my mother’s house I heard thy harp. An angel is playing, I said — I would not have you say that much, your honour, for no playing in the world could come up to an angel’s. How knowest thou? for no more than myself hast thou heard an angel play. I’ve heard tell, Tadhg answered, of an angel that came to wrestle with Jacob, but never of a man that heard an angel playing on the harp. And if he did, wouldn’t he be caught up on the music and lifted into heaven the way Elijah was? But if thou earnest across such a man? How could that be? for no one that was taken up to heaven on an angel’s music could come back again, even if he wanted to, which he wouldn’t. Thou speakest well, Tadhg. I try to tell the truth, and no more than the truth. But I would hear from thee why thou wouldst not have me compare thy harp-playing to an angel’s. Well, then, the angels play their harps before God, don’t they? and it isn’t likely that he’d have any but the best. None can outplay thee, Tadhg. Not in the county of Galway, your honour, but heaven’s another place. When thou’rt taken out of this life and given a place in heaven, a harp will be put into thy hands and thou’lt play before the Most High. I won’t be Tadhg ODorachy when I do, and if God should claim my playing to be behind an angel’s —
He will not, Tadhg, for didn’t I think of an angel when I came up the path? and if thy playing wasn’t like an angel’s playing why should I have thought of an angel? Never in France did thy fingers draw such music from the strings, and the faces of the apprentices when they left were as if they had been listening to strains from heaven. Well, I won’t be saying no to that, your honour, for they are Irish and love their country, and a man’s love of his country is close, I’m thinking, to his love of God. More than that, the melodies I played were not of yesterday or the day before that, but those that have come from long ago, shaping the souls of the men without their knowing what was happening any more than the tree knows the wind, or the flower knows the bee, or the fawn knows the dug, and they all taking what the Lord gives without a question or a word. Thou speakest so well, Tadhg, that I’d learn from thee why it is that being Irish as the woods about us and the fields that we walk in and the skies above us are Irish, thou hast ranged thyself with the Normans rather than with thine own chieftains.
Often, whilst watching my mother bending over the kneading-tray I’ve thought of Ireland shaping the races that came to conquer her and doing what she liked with them. First were the Firbolgs, and they were but bits of dough under Ireland’s knuckles; and the same with the Celts. No sooner were the Firbolgs out of Connaught and the islands beyond Connaught, than Ireland was kneading the Celt, and he taking the fresh shape as easily as the Firbolgs and the Da Danaans did before him. And now the Normans are being kneaded, and many are as kindly Irish as if they were of the seed of Ir and Ever. The Scots left us, there being not room enough for them here, and when our race leaves Ireland for Scotland they do not become less Irish for the crossing of twenty miles of salt water. The Irish spoken in Scotland is the same as our own, and the songs are our own songs, or so like them that none can tell an Irish from a scotch song, or the other way about. So it matters not at all to us what race is in Ireland; it’s Ireland matters and nothing else, for she is the great plasterer, joiner, carpenter, carver and mason. Now, I’ll put it to your honour: would I have been a better Irishman if I had followed Richard Bermingham to Athenry, or joined Felim who deserted your father when he went north to chase Bruce out of the country? It was at Connor that William de Burgo was made a prisoner, but he was ransomed by your father in time to take his share of the battle of Athenry — I don’t know if your father told you the full story of the battle, for Bruce is always before him, making ready for a pounce on Dublin; or did you talk about the gr
eat Celtic kingdom, Scotland, Ireland, Man, Wales and Cornwall? Well, it was a great dream and one that may come true before the story’s done, for it’s not certain that Sir John Bermingham will prove the better man of the two. My father said the great Celtic kingdom would be no dream at all, Tadhg, if the Irish weren’t divided amongst themselves. Maeve all but had it, Brian Kennedy of the Tribute had it, and King Robert said the same before he left Ireland. Now you are talking fair, your honour — if we weren’t divided we’d be the top of this earth, and to this no man can say nay; for we have more than any other people the two things that make for greatness. And what are those two things, Tadhg? Love of God and love of country. A man must love himself, Tadhg, if he’d be a man; a race is but a number of men. Now I know what is running in your honour’s head; the talk we used to be hearing in France; Nominalism, they called it, and Realism. I’m with the Church always myself, she being a better judge than I am of philosophies and such like. It is enough for me and my likes to have a good religion and a good country, and whoever has them two has enough to be thinking about without thinking of himself into the bargain; without them what better is he than a mouse or a cockroach that lives and dies and has his time behind the wainscot. And which does he get the best worth out of, Tadhg, his religion or his country? His country may be shook to a heap by a quake of the earth or eaten into empty caves by the sea, but his religion cannot be taken from him; like Connla’s apple, it never grows less. You know the story, your honour? No, faith, or have forgotten it. None forgets the story of Connla and the girl who came to him from the Shi and threw him an apple which he was to eat; and though he ate of the apple every day it remained the same apple as before; only he was changed; and at last he had to follow the maiden into the sea, for she was a sea-maiden and lived in Tir na nog; drowned he was in crossing the water.
