There was no breakfast but a crust apiece. The McCarthy grandmother, on the stairs, gave Nora, starting for school, some fresh water-cresses. Just then Mrs. O'Kinsella happened to open the door. Poor Nora had yielded to temptation and filled her mouth, and pretended, holding her head down, to be much concerned about a bruise on her knee. She could not look in her mother's honest eyes, ignorant as these were of any blame in Nora. Mrs. O'Kinsella went wearily to her charing, and seven-year-old Winny set up housekeeping with Dan, the primroses and a teapot-shaped fish-bone for their only toys. Hughey had already gone, nor was he at his desk in the afternoon, when his teacher and Nora looked vainly for him; nor did he return to his lodgings until after sundown. When he came, he brought milk with him, earned by holding a gentleman's horse at the Rotunda; and with that and some boiled potatoes, there was a feast. Hughey's vocation, it would appear, had not yet declared itself. He had haunted Stephen's Green and its sumptuous purlieus in vain. He had not been asked to join partners with Messrs. Pim, nor to accept a Fellowship at Trinity. The next day's, the next month's history was no more heroic. There were so many of those bright, delicate-featured, ragged-shirted boys in Dublin, coming about on foggy mornings with propositions! The stout shop-keepers were sated with the spectacle of the unable and willing.
The days dragged. An affable policeman who had known Hughey's mother at home in New Ross, seeing him once gazing in a junk-shop door, finally presented him to the proprietor: "Toby, allow me t' inthroduce a good lad wants a dhrive at glory. Can ye tache um the Black Art, now? He can turrun his hand to most anythin', and his pomes, Oi hear, do be grand, for his age."
The junk-man, good-naturedly scanning Hughey, saw him burst into tears, and beat the air, though the giant of the law had passed on. That his chief and most secret sin should be mentioned aloud, to prejudice the world of commerce against him, was horrible. His mother had told on him! She must have found some lines on Winny's slate last Sunday, entitled Drumalough: a Lament for the Fall of the Three Kings, Written at Midnight. Worra, worra! Hughey was descended, on the paternal side, through a succession of ever-falling fortunes, from a good many more than three kings, and used to wonder where their crowns and sceptres were, not that he might pawn them, either. The O'Kinsellas were a powerful aboriginal sept in the old days, and lived in fortress castles, and playfully carried off cattle and ladies from their neighbors of the Pale. Malachi O'Kinsella's mother, a heroine of romance who ran away with a jockey lover, and never throve after, was of pure Norman blood, and most beautiful, with gray eyes, water-clear, like Hughey's own, and the same bronze-colored hair; and it was said she could play the harp that soft it would draw the hearing out of your head with ecstasy! Now the junk-man was fatherly, and presented Hughey, in default of a situation, with a consolatory coin; but foregoing events had been too trying for the boy's nerves: he dropped it, and fled, sobbing. He simply couldn't live where his po'try was going to rise up against him, and wail like a Banshee in the public ear. He charged, in his wrath and grief, across the crowded bridge, and down the line of quays east of it, straight into a fat, gray-headed, leather-aproned person directing a group of sailors unloading a boat.
This person, sent of Heaven, with miraculous suddenness, and with musical distinctness, exclaimed: "'Aven't I been a-wishin' of 'im, and directly 'e runs into me harms! Crawl into that barrel, sonny, and if you 'old it steady, I'll 'eave you tuppence." Hughey, foreordained likewise, crawled in. When he came out, Mr. J. Everard Hoggett looked him over, from his moribund hat to his slight patrician ankle. "I likes a boy wot's 'andy, and 'as little to sy, like you." He resumed critically, "'E don't appear to be from any of 'Er Marjesty's carstles, 'e don't. Perhaps 'e might like to 'ang about 'ere, and earn three bob a week?" Hughey hugged his twopenny piece, blushed, trembled, twisted his legs in the brown trousers too big for him, and replied in gulps: "O sir! Yes, sir." Whereby his annals begin.
This perfectly amazing luck befell towards the end of May. Mr. Hoggett, going home, beckoned him, took him into a little eating-house, sat him down, paid for a huge order, and departed. "There's a couple o' lion cubs hinside wot ought to be your westcot, needs 'am and heggs. Fill 'em full; and mind you come to-morrow at a quarter to ight. I'll 'ave no lyzy lubbers alongside o' me." With which fierce farewell, and disdaining thanks, Mr. Hoggett faded wholly away.
Hughey, half-dazed, sat at a table alone, sniffing celestial fragrances from the rear, with the joy in his breast jumping like a live creature in a box. To quiet it, while he waited, he took up a torn journal which was lying on the nearest chair. At first, what he read seemed to have no meaning, but when some moments had passed, still odorous only, and non-flavorous, Hughey's collected and intelligent eye had taken in the dramatic political crisis, the stocks, the African news, the prospects of Irish literature, and the latest London wife-beating. On the advertisement page, one especial paragraph in sensational print rooted his attention. This was it:—
"SERVANTS AND APPRENTICES, ATTENTION! Here is the best Chance of your lives. It will Never come again. Trade with us, and you lay the FOUNDATION of your FORTUNE! With every sixpenny worth of goods bought of us on any Saturday night, we give a COUPON on the Ninth anti-Sassenach Bank of Belfast. Fifty of these entitle the Bearer at the end of the year to a gift of TEN POUNDS IN GOLD!! Honesty the best Policy our motto. Best Material at Lowest Prices; come and see. Do not Neglect your own Good. McClutch & Gullim, Linen-drapers, No. 19— —— St."
Hughey, the innocent prospective capitalist, took a stubby pencil from the only sound pocket in his habiliments, and began to figure on the margin of the paper; for he had an inspiration. "Mother would be thundherin' rich!" was what flashed into his mind. Before he had done with his emergency arithmetic, ham and eggs, with all their shining train, were set before him. With them, he gallantly swallowed his conscience, for Hughey, like a nobler Roman before him, was resolving to be gloriously false, and, for piety's sake, to trade his soul. He foresaw vaguely that he would not be allowed, out of his royal wages of three shillings, to spend full half every Saturday night, at McClutch and Gullim's; yet to do it was the imperative thing now, and that he felt impelled to do it was his own super-private business, and his warrant. Therefore would he keep his secret close, and make what excuse he might. He could not even think of asking advice; how should any one else be able to realize how he must act towards his mother? The angels had given her into his hands; and he knew at last what was to be done for her. She should be rich and gay, and have a coach, perhaps, like a real lady; and Danny should have a goat, and a sash with stripes in it, like the little twin Finnegans; and the Misses Honora and Winifrid O'Kinsella should walk abroad with parasols! Proper manœuvring now would fetch twenty-five pounds sterling next summer. But he would hide away what he bought, and never tell until the beatific hour when his mother should have the money, and the linen, and the truth about them, all together!
Hughey went home in a series of hops and whirls, like a kitten's. He brought a flood of riotous sunshine in with him. It was supper-time; the children had each a ha'penny bun, and some tea. Mrs. O'Kinsella was lying down, with an ache between her lungs and her spine, after a long day's lifting and scrubbing. She felt the good news, before the child spoke. "O mother! 'tis the most illigant thing's happened: ye niver heard the loike." Hughey's pale comely little face was radiant.
"Phwhere is ut, and phwhat d'ye get, dear?" Then Hughey screwed up his courage, and told his only, his masterly lie: "North Wall, mother; and a shillin' and six every week." "A shillin' and six!" shrieked Nora. "O Hughey!" But the critic for whose opinion he cared was not quite so enraptured. She smiled, and praised him, but took it too tamely, her son thought. However, he reflected that she little knew the felicities in store.