Priscilla's Spies
humour unless he is able to wash himself thoroughly. But the designer
of the steamers of this particular line did not properly appreciate the
fact. He provided a meagre supply of basins for the passengers, many of
whom, in consequence, land at Kingstown Pier in irritable moods, Frank
Mannix was one of them.
The elderly gentleman, who appeared less than ever a gentleman at five
o’clock in the morning, was another. Mannix retained, in spite of his
sleepiness and his sensation of grime, a slight amount of self-control.
He was moderately grateful to an obsequious sailor who relieved him of
his kit bag. He carried, as he had the night before, his own gun-case
and fishing-rod. The elderly gentleman, who carried nothing, had no
self-control whatever. He swore at the overburdened sailor who took his
things ashore for him. Mannix proceeded in his turn to cross the gangway
and was unceremoniously pushed from behind by the elderly gentleman. He
protested with frigid politeness.
“Don’t dawdle, boy, don’t dawdle,” said the elderly gentleman.
“Don’t hustle,” said Mannix. “This isn’t a football scrimmage.”
In order to say this effectively he stopped in the middle of the gangway
and turned round.
“Damn it all,” said the elderly gentleman, “go on and don’t try to be
insolent.”
Mannix was a prefect. He had, moreover, disposed of the captain of the
Uppingham eleven by a brilliant catch in the long field at a critical
moment of an important match. He had been praised in public by no less
a person than Mr. Dupré for his excellent influence on the tone of
Edmonstone House. He was not prepared to be sworn at and insulted by
a red-faced man with hairy hands at five o’clock in the morning. He
flushed hotly and replied, “Damn it all, sir, don’t be an infernal cad.”
The elderly gentleman pushed him again, this time with some violence.
Mannix stumbled, got his fishing-rod entangled in the rail of the
gangway, swung half round and then fell sideways on the pier. The
fishing-rod, plainly broken in pieces, remained in his hand. The
gun-case bumped along the pier and was picked up by a porter. Mannix was
extremely angry. A tall lady, apparently connected with the offensive
red-faced gentleman, observed in perfectly audible tones that schoolboys
ought not to be allowed to travel without some one in charge of them.
Mannix’s anger rose to boiling point at this addition of calculated
insult to deliberate injury. He struggled to his feet, intending
then and there to speak some plain truths to his assailant. He was
immediately aware of a pain in his ankle. A pain so sharp as to make
walking quite impossible. The sailor who carried his bag sympathised
with him and helped him into the train. He felt the injured ankle
carefully and came to the conclusion that it was sprained.
Between Kingstown and Dublin Mannix arranged plans for handing over his
assailant to the police. That seemed to him the most dignified form of
revenge open to him. He was fully determined to take it. Unfortunately
his train carried him, slowly indeed, but inexorably, to the station
from which another train, the one in which he was to travel westwards to
Rosnacree, took its departure. The elderly gentleman and the lady with
the insolent manner, whose destination was Dublin itself, had left
Kingstown in a different train. Mannix saw no more of them and so was
unable to get them handcuffed.
Two porters helped him along the platform at Broadstone Station and
settled him in a corner of the breakfast carriage of the westward going
mail. A very sympathetic attendant offered to find out whether there was
a doctor in the train. It turned out that there was not. The sympathetic
attendant, with the help of a young ticket-collector in a neat uniform
offered to do the best he could for his ankle. The cook joined them,
leaving a quantity of bacon hissing in his pan. He was a man of some
surgical knowledge.
“It’s hot water,” he said, “that’s best for the like of that.”
“It could be,” said the ticket-collector, “that it’s broke on him.”
“Cold water,” said Mannix firmly.
“With a sup of whiskey in it,” said the attendant
“If it’s broke,” said the ticket-collector, “and you go putting whiskey
and water on it it’s likely that the young gentleman will be lame for
life.”
“Maybe now,” said the cook derisively, “you’d be in favour of soda water
with the squeeze of a lemon in it.”
“I would not,” said the ticket-collector, “but a drop of sweet oil the
way the joint would be kept supple.”
“Get a jug of cold water,” said Mannix, “and something that will do for
a bandage.”
The attendant, with a glance at the cook, compromised the matter. He
brought a basin full of lukewarm water and a table napkin. The cook
wrapped the soaked napkin round the ankle. The ticket-collector tied it
in its place with a piece of string. The attendant coaxed the sock over
the bulky bandage. The new brown boot could by no means be persuaded to
go on. It was packed by the attendant in the kit bag.
“It’s my opinion,” said the ticket-collector, “that you’d get damages
out of the steamboat company if you was to process them.”
Mannix did not want to attack the steamboat company. He felt vindictive,
but his anger was all di-rected against the man who had injured him.
“There was a fellow I knew one time,” said the ticket-collector, “that
got £200 out of this company, and he wasn’t as bad as you nor near it.”
“I remember that well,” said the attendant “It was his elbow he
dislocated, and him getting out at the wrong side of the carriage.”
“He’d have got more,” said the ticket-collector. “He’d have got £500
instead of £200 if so be he’d have gone into the court, but that’s what
he couldn’t do, by reason of the fact that he happened to be travelling
without a ticket when the accident came on him.”
He gazed thoughtfully out of the window as he spoke.
“It might have been that,” said the attendant, “which was the cause of
his getting out at the wrong side of the carriage.”
“He tried it,” said the ticket-collector, still looking straight in
front of him, “because he hadn’t a ticket.”
No one spoke for a minute. The story of the fraudulent traveller who
secured £200 in damages was an affecting one. At length the cook broke
the silence.
“The young gentleman here,” he said, “has his ticket right enough
surely.”
“He may have,” said the ticket-collector.
“I have,” said Mannix, fumbling in his pocket “Here it is.”
“I’m obliged to you,” said the ticket-collector. “It was it I wanted to
see.”
“Then why didn’t you ask me for it?” said Mannix.
“He wouldn’t do the like,” said the attendant, “and you with maybe a
broken leg.”
“I would not,” said the ticket-collector. “It would be a queer thing for
me to be bothering you about a ticket, and me just after tying a bit of
cord round as nasty a leg as ever I seen.”
“But when you wanted to see the ticket--” said Mannix.
“I drew down the subject of tickets,” said the collector, “the way you’d
offer me a look at yours, if so be you had one, but as for asking you
for it and you in pain, it’s what I wouldn’t do.”
There are travellers, cantankerous people, who complain that Irish
railway officials are not civil. Perhaps English porters and guards may
excel them in the plausible lip service which anticipates a tip. But
in the Irishman there is a natural delicacy of feeling which expresses
itself in lofty kinds of courtesy. An Englishman, compelled by a sense
of duty to see the ticket of a passenger, would have asked for it with
callous bluntness. The Irishman, knowing that his victim was in pain,
approached the subject of tickets obliquely, hinting by means of an
anecdote of great interest, that people have from time to time been
known to defraud railway companies.
CHAPTER III
Rosnacree House, the home of Sir Lucius Lentaigne and his ancestors
since the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes brought the family to
Ireland in search of religious freedom, stands high on a wooded slope
above the southern shore of a great bay. From the dining-room windows,
so carefully have vistas been cut through the trees, there is a broad
prospect of sea and shore. For eight miles the bay stretches north to
the range of hills which bound it. For five or six miles westward its
waters are dotted over with islands. There are, the people say, three
hundred and sixty-five of them, so that a fisher-man with a taste for
exploration, could such a one be found, might land on a different
island every day for a whole year. Long promontories, some of them to be
reckoned with the three hundred and sixty-five islands when the tide
is high, run far out from the mainland. Narrow channels, winding
bewilderingly, eat their way for miles among the sea-saturate fields
of the eastward lying plain. The people, dwelling with pardonable pride
upon the peculiarities of their coast line, say that any one who walked
from the north to the south side of the bay, keeping resolutely along
the high-tide mark, would travel altogether 200 miles. He would reach
after his way-faring a spot which, measured on the map, would be just
eight miles distant from the point of his departure. Sir Lucius, who
loved his home, while he sometimes affects to despise it, says that
he believes this estimate of the extent of the sea’s meanderings to be
approximately correct, but adds that he has never yet met any one with
courage enough to attempt the walk. You do, in fact, come suddenly on
salt-water channels in the midst of fields at long distances from the
sea, and find cockles on stretches of mud where you might expect frog
spawn or black slugs. Therefore, it is quite likely that the high-tide
line would really, if it were stretched out straight, reach right across
Ireland and far out into St. George’s Channel.
In Rosnacree House, along with Sir Lucius, lives Juliet Lentaigne, his
maiden sister, elderly, intellectual, dominating, the competent mistress
of a sufficient staff of servants. She lived there in her girlhood. She
returned to live there after the death of Lady Lentaigne. Priscilla, Sir
Lucius’ only child, comes to Rosnacree House for such holidays as are
granted by a famous Dublin school. She was sent to the school at the age
of eleven because she rebelled against her aunt. Having reached the age
of fifteen she rebels more effectively, whenever the coming of holidays
affords opportunity.
Being a young woman of energy, determination and skill in rebellion,
she made an assault upon her Aunt Juliet’s authority on the very first
morning of her summer holidays. She began at breakfast time.
“Father,” she said, “I may go to meet Cousin Frank at the train, mayn’t
I?”
“Certainly,” said Sir Lucius.
It was right that some one should meet Frank Mannix on his arrival.
Sir Lucius did not want to do so himself. A youth of seventeen is a
troublesome guest, difficult to deal with. He is neither man enough
to associate on quite equal terms with grown men nor boy enough to be
turned loose to play according to his own devices. Sir Lucius did not
look forward to the task of entertaining his nephew. He was pleased that
Priscilla should take some part, even a small part, of the business off
his hands.
Priscilla glanced triumphantly at her aunt.
“There is no possible objection,” said Miss Lentaigne, “to your meeting
your cousin at the train, but if you are to do so you cannot spend the
morning in your boat.”
Priscilla thought she could.
“I’m only going as far as Delginish to bathe,” she said. “I’ll be back
in lots of time.”
“Be sure you are,” said Sir Lucius.
“After being out in the boat,” said Miss Lentaigne, “you will be both
dirty and untidy, certainly not fit to meet your cousin at the train.”
Priscilla, who had a good deal of experience of boats, knew that her