Short Fiction · Father Giles of Ballymoy (2/3)

I had not even yet seen the man very plainly, and even now, at this time, I hardly did so, though I went close up to him and put my hand upon his shoulder. The light was very imperfect, coming from one small farthing candle, which was nearly burnt out in the socket. And I, myself, was confused, ill at ease, and for the moment unobservant. I knew that the man was older than myself, but I had not recognised him as being old enough to demand or enjoy personal protection by reason of his age. He was tall, and big, and burly⁠—as he appeared to me then. Hitherto, till his shoes had been chucked away, he had maintained imperturbable good-humour. When he heard the shoes clattering downstairs, it seemed that he did not like it, and he began to talk fast and in an angry voice. I would not argue with him, and I did not understand him, but still keeping my hand on the collar of his coat, I insisted that he should not sleep there. Go away out of that chamber he should.

“But it’s my own,” he said, shouting the words a dozen times. “It’s my own room. It’s my own room.”

So this was Pat Kirwan himself⁠—drunk probably, or mad.

“It may be your own,” said I; “but you’ve let it to me for tonight, and you shan’t sleep here;” so saying I backed him towards the door, and in so doing I trod upon his unguarded toe.

“Bother you, thin, for a pigheaded Englishman!” said he. “You’ve kilt me entirely now. So take your hands off my neck, will ye, before you have me throttled outright?”

I was sorry to have trod on his toe, but I stuck to him all the same. I had him near the door now, and I was determined to put him out into the passage. His face was very round and very red, and I thought that he must be drunk; and since I had found out that it was Pat Kirwan the landlord, I was more angry with the man than ever.

“You shan’t sleep here, so you might as well go,” I said, as I backed him away towards the door. This had not been closed since the shoes had been thrown out, and with something of a struggle between the doorposts, I got him out. I remembered nothing whatever as to the suddenness of the stairs. I had been fast asleep since I came up them, and hardly even as yet knew exactly where I was. So, when I got him through the aperture of the door, I gave him a push, as was most natural, I think, for me to do. Down he went backwards⁠—down the stairs, all in a heap, and I could hear that in his fall he had stumbled against Mrs. Kirwan, who was coming up, doubtless to ascertain the cause of all the trouble above her head.

A hope crossed my mind that the wife might be of assistance to her husband in this time of his trouble. The man had fallen very heavily, I knew, and had fallen backwards. And I remembered then how steep the stairs were. Heaven and earth! Suppose that he were killed⁠—or even seriously injured in his own house. What, in such case as that, would my life be worth in that wild country? Then I began to regret that I had been so hot. It might be that I had murdered a man on my first entrance into Connaught!

For a moment or two I could not make up my mind what I would first do. I was aware that both the landlady and the servant were occupied with the body of the ejected occupier of my chamber, and I was aware also that I had nothing on but my nightshirt. I returned, therefore, within the door, but could not bring myself to shut myself in and return to bed without making some enquiry as to the man’s fate. I put my head out, therefore, and did make enquiry.

“I hope he is not much hurt by his fall,” I said.

“Ochone, ochone! murdher, murdher! Spake, Father Giles, dear, for the love of God!” Such and many such exclamations I heard from the women at the bottom of the stairs.

“I hope he is not much hurt,” I said again, putting my head out from the doorway; “but he shouldn’t have forced himself into my room.”

“His room, the omadhaun!⁠—the born idiot!” said the landlady.

“Faix, Ma’am, and Father Giles is a dead man,” said the girl, who was kneeling over the prostrate body in the passage below.

I heard her say Father Giles as plain as possible, and then I became aware that the man whom I had thrust out was not the landlord, but the priest of the parish! My heart became sick within me as I thought of the troubles around me. And I was sick also with fear lest the man who had fallen should be seriously hurt. But why⁠—why⁠—why had he forced his way into my room? How was it to be expected that I should have remembered that the stairs of the accursed house came flush up to the door of the chamber?

“He shall be hanged if there’s law in Ireland,” said a voice down below; and as far as I could see it might be that I should be hung. When I heard that last voice I began to think that I had in truth killed a man, and a cold sweat broke out all over me, and I stood for awhile shivering where I was. Then I remembered that it behoved me as a man to go down among my enemies below, and to see what had really happened, to learn whom I had hurt⁠—let the consequences to myself be what they might. So I quickly put on some of my clothes⁠—a pair of trousers, a loose coat, and a pair of slippers, and I descended the stairs. By this time they had taken the priest into the whisky-perfumed chamber below, and although the hour was late, there were already six or seven persons with him. Among them was the real Pat Kirwan himself, who had not been so particular about his costume as I had.

Father Giles⁠—for indeed it was Father Giles, the priest of the parish⁠—had been placed in an old armchair, and his head was resting against Mrs. Kirwan’s body. I could tell from the moans which he emitted that there was still, at any rate, hope of life.

Pat Kirwan, who did not quite understand what had happened, and who was still half asleep, and as I afterwards learned, half tipsy, was standing over him wagging his head. The girl was also standing by, with an old woman and two men who had made their way in through the kitchen.

“Have you sent for a doctor?” said I.

“Oh, you born blagghuard!” said the woman. “You thief of the world! That the like of you should ever have darkened my door!”

“You can’t repent it more than I do, Mrs. Kirwan; but hadn’t you better send for the doctor?”

“Faix, and for the police too, you may be shure of that, young man. To go and chuck him out of the room like that⁠—his own room too, and he a priest and an ould man⁠—he that had given up the half of it, though I axed him not to do so, for a sthranger as nobody knowed nothing about.”

The truth was coming out by degrees. Not only was the man I had put out Father Giles, but he was also the proper occupier of the room. At any rate somebody ought to have told me all this before they put me to sleep in the same bed with the priest.

I made my way round to the injured man, and put my hand upon his shoulder, thinking that perhaps I might be able to ascertain the extent of the injury. But the angry woman, together with the girl, drove me away, heaping on me terms of reproach, and threatening me with the gallows at Galway.

I was very anxious that a doctor should be brought as soon as possible; and as it seemed that nothing was being done, I offered to go and search for one. But I was given to understand that I should not be allowed to leave the house until the police had come. I had therefore to remain there for half-an-hour, or nearly so, till a sergeant, with two other policemen, really did come. During this time I was in a most wretched frame of mind. I knew no one at Ballymoy or in the neighbourhood. From the manner in which I was addressed, and also threatened by Mrs. Kirwan and by those who came in and out of the room, I was aware that I should encounter the most intense hostility. I had heard of Irish murders, and heard also of the love of the people for their priests, and I really began to doubt whether my life might not be in danger.

During this time, while I was thus waiting, Father Giles himself recovered his consciousness. He had been stunned by the fall, but his mind came back to him, though by no means all at once; and while I was left in the room with him he hardly seemed to remember all the events of the past hour.

I was able to discover from what was said that he had been for some days past, or, as it afterwards turned out, for the last month, the tenant of the room, and that when I arrived he had been drinking tea with Mrs. Kirwan. The only other public bedroom in the hotel was occupied, and he had with great kindness given the landlady permission to put the Saxon stranger into his chamber. All this came out by degrees, and I could see how the idea of my base and cruel ingratitude rankled in the heart of Mrs. Kirwan. It was in vain that I expostulated and explained, and submitted myself humbly to everything that was said around me.

“But, Ma’am,” I said, “if I had only been told that it was the reverend gentleman’s bed!”

“Bed, indeed! To hear the blagghuard talk you’d think it was axing Father Giles to sleep along with the likes of him we were. And there’s two beds in the room as dacent as any Christian iver stretched in.”

It was a new light to me. And yet I had known over night, before I undressed, that there were two bedsteads in the room! I had seen them, and had quite forgotten the fact in my confusion when I was woken. I had been very stupid, certainly. I felt that now. But I had truly believed that that big man was going to get into my little bed. It was terrible as I thought of it now. The good-natured priest, for the sake of accommodating a stranger, had consented to give up half of his room, and had been repaid for his kindness by being⁠—perhaps murdered! And yet, though just then I hated myself cordially, I could not quite bring myself to look at the matter as they looked at it. There were excuses to be made, if only I could get anyone to listen to them.

“He was using my brush⁠—my clothes-brush⁠—indeed he was,” I said. “Not but what he’d be welcome; but it made me think he was an intruder.”

“And wasn’t it too much honour for the likes of ye?” said one of the women, with infinite scorn in the tone of her voice.

“I did use the gentleman’s clothes-brush, certainly,” said the priest. They were the first collected words he had spoken, and I felt very grateful to him for them. It seemed to me that a man who could condescend to remember that he had used a clothes-brush could not really be hurt to death, even though he had been pushed down such very steep stairs as those belonging to Pat Kirwan’s hotel.

“And I’m sure you were very welcome, Sir,” said I. “It wasn’t that I minded the clothes-brush. It wasn’t, indeed; only I thought⁠—indeed, I did think that there was only one bed. And they had put me into the room, and had not said anything about anybody else. And what was I to think when I woke up in the middle of the night?”

“Faix, and you’ll have enough to think of in Galway gaol, for that’s where you’re going to,” said one of the bystanders.

I can hardly explain the bitterness that was displayed against me. No violence was absolutely shown to me, but I could not move without eliciting a manifest determination that I was not to be allowed to stir out of the room. Red angry eyes were glowering at me, and every word I spoke called down some expression of scorn and ill-will. I was beginning to feel glad that the police were coming, thinking that I needed protection. I was thoroughly ashamed of what I had done, and yet I could not discover that I had been very wrong at any particular moment. Let any man ask himself the question, what he would do, if he supposed that a stout old gentleman had entered his room at an inn and insisted on getting into his bed? It was not my fault that there had been no proper landing-place at the top of the stairs.

Two sub-constables had been in the room for some time before the sergeant came, and with the sergeant arrived also the doctor, and another priest⁠—Father Columb he was called⁠—who, as I afterwards learned, was curate or coadjutor to Father Giles. By this time there was quite a crowd in the house, although it was past one o’clock, and it seemed that all Ballymoy knew that its priest had been foully misused. It was manifest to me that there was something in the Roman Catholic religion which made the priests very dear to the people; for I doubt whether in any village in England, had such an accident happened to the rector, all the people would have roused themselves at midnight to wreak their vengeance on the assailant. For vengeance they were now beginning to clamour, and even before the sergeant of police had come, the two sub-constables were standing over me; and I felt that they were protecting me from the people in order that they might give me up⁠—to the gallows!

I did not like the Ballymoy doctor at all⁠—then, or even at a later period of my visit to that town. On his arrival he made his way up to the priest through the crowd, and would not satisfy their affection or my anxiety by declaring at once that there was no danger. Instead of doing so he insisted on the terrible nature of the outrage and the brutality shown by the assailant. And at every hard word he said, Mrs. Kirwan would urge him on.

“That’s thrue for you, doctor!” “ ’Deed, and you may say that, doctor; two as good beds as ever Christian stretched in!” “ ’Deed, and it was just Father Giles’s own room, as you may say, since the big storm fetched the roof off his riverence’s house below there.”

Thus gradually I was learning the whole history. The roof had been blown off Father Giles’s own house, and therefore he had gone to lodge at the inn! He had been willing to share his lodging with a stranger, and this had been his reward!

“I hope, doctor, that the gentleman is not much hurt,” said I, very meekly.

“Do you suppose a gentleman like that, Sir, can be thrown down a long flight of stairs without being hurt?” said the doctor, in an angry voice. “It is no thanks to you, Sir, that his neck has not been sacrificed.”

Then there arose a hum of indignation, and the two policemen standing over me bustled about a little, coming very close to me, as though they thought they should have something to do to protect me from being torn to pieces.

I bethought me that it was my special duty in such a crisis to show a spirit, if it were only for the honour of my Saxon blood among the Celts. So I spoke up again, as loud as I could well speak.

“No one in this room is more distressed at what has occurred than I am. I am most anxious to know, for the gentleman’s sake, whether he has been seriously hurt?”

“Very seriously hurt indeed,” said the doctor; “very seriously hurt. The vertebrae may have been injured for aught I know at present.”

“Arrah, blazes, man,” said a voice, which I learned afterwards had belonged to an officer of the revenue corps of men which was then stationed at Ballymoy, a gentleman with whom I became afterwards familiarly acquainted; Tom Macdermot was his name, Captain Tom Macdermot, and he came from the county of Leitrim⁠—“Arrah, blazes, man; do ye think a gentleman’s to fall sthrait headlong backwards down such a ladder as that, and not find it inconvanient? Only that he’s the priest, and has had his own luck, sorrow a neck belonging to him there would be this minute.”

“Be aisy, Tom,” said Father Giles himself; and I was delighted to hear him speak. Then there was a pause for a moment. “Tell the gentleman I aint so bad at all,” said the priest; and from that moment I felt an affection to him which never afterwards waned.