“It might be,” he said, “about the hay you’re just after buying.”
“If he wants it,” said Gallaher, “he can have it, and I’ll deliver it to him at his own home at half the price I paid for it.”
The District Inspector, smiling and tapping his gaiters with a riding switch, explained in a few words that he did not want the hay and did not intend to pay for it.
“I’m taking over the contents of that loft,” he said, “in the name of the Government under the provisions of D.O.R.A.”
“I don’t know,” said Gallaher, “that you’ve any right to be taking over what I’ve bought in that kind of way, and what’s more you’ll not be able to do it without you show me a proper order in writing, signed by a magistrate.”
“If I were you,” said the D.I., “I wouldn’t insist on any kind of legal trial about that hay. At present there’s no evidence against you, Mr. Gallaher, except that you paid a perfectly absurd price for some hay that you didn’t want, and I’m not inclined to press the matter now. I’ve got what I wanted; but if you insist on dragging the matter into Court——”
“I do not,” said Gallaher.
At ten o’clock that evening Dan Gallaher and James McNiece sat together in the private room behind the bar of Sam Twining’s public-house. The house was neutral ground used by Orangemen and Nationalists alike, a convenient arrangement, indeed a necessary arrangement, for there was no other public-house nearer than Curraghfin.
“Dan,” said James McNiece, “I’m an Orangeman and a Protestant and a loyalist, and what I’ve always said about Home Rule and always will say is this:—We’ll not have it and to Hell with the rebels. But I’m telling you now I’d rather you had them, papist and rebel and all as you are, than see them swept off that way by the police. And what’s more, I’m not the only one says that. The Colonel was talking to me after he heard what happened, and what he said was this—‘The Government of this country,’ said he, meaning the police, ‘is a disgrace to civilization.’”
“Give me your hand, James McNiece,” said Gallaher. “Let me shake your hand to show there’s no ill feeling about the way I bid against you at the sale to-day.”