they were crossing the irish sea. it was night, blowing a moderate gale, but the moon, aloft on the port bow with a wind, was chock full of such astounding brightness that the turmoil of the dark waves was easy and beautiful to see. the boat was crowded with soldiers on leave; the few civilian passengers—mechanics, labourers, and a miner going to his home in wexford, who had got drunk at the harbour inn before coming aboard—were congregated in the angles on the lee-side of the saloon bunks and trying to sleep amid the chill seething, roaring, and thudding. the miner, young, powerful, and very much at his ease, sprawled among them intoxicated. he sang, and continued to sing at intervals, a song about “the hat that my father wore,” swaying, with large dreamy gestures, to and fro, round and about, up and down upon the unfortunate men sitting to right and left of him. close at hand sat another young man, but smaller, who carried a big brass trumpet.
“throw him in the sea, why not, now!” the trumpeter shouted to the drunken man’s weary supporters. “begad i would do it if he put his pig’s face on e’er[142] a shoulder of me!” he was a small, emphatic young man: “give him a crack now, and lay on him, or by the tears of god we’ll get no repose at all!”
his advice was tendered as constantly and as insistently as the miner’s song about his parent’s headgear, and he would encourage these incitements to vicarious violence by putting the brass trumpet to his lips and blowing some bitter and not very accurate staves. so bitter and so inaccurate that at length even the drunken miner paused in his song and directed the trumpeter to “shut up.” the little man sprang to his feet in fury, and approaching the other he poured a succession of trumpet calls close into his face. this threw the miner into a deep sleep, a result so unexpected that the enraged trumpeter slung his instrument under his arm and pranced belligerently upon the deck.
“come out o’ that, ye drunken matchbox, and by the queen of heaven i’ll teach ye! come now!”
the miner momentarily raised himself and recommenced his song: “’tis the hat that me father wore!” at this the trumpeter fetched him a mighty slap across the face.
“ah, go away,” groaned the miner, “or i’ll be sick on ye.”
“try it, ye rotten gossoon! ye filthy matchbox! where’s yer kharkee?”
the miner could display no khaki; indeed, he was sleeping deeply again.
“i’m a man o’ me principles, ye rotten matchbox!” yelled the trumpeter. “in the munsters i was ... seven years ... where’s your kharkee?”
[143]
he seized the miner by the collar and shook that part of the steamer into a new commotion until he was collared by the sailors and kicked up on to the foredeck.
nothing up there, not even his futile trumpeting, could disturb the chill rejoicing beauty of the night. the wind increased, but the moonlight was bland and reassuring. often the cope of some tall wave would plunge dully over the bows, filling the deck with water that floundered foaming with the ship’s movement or dribbled back through the scuppers into the sea. yet there was no menace in the dark wandering water; each wave tossed back from its neck a wreath of foam that slewed like milk across the breast of its follower.
the trumpeter sat upon a heap of ropes beside a big soldier.
“the rotten matchbox, did ye ever see the like o’ that? i’ll kill him against the first thing we step ashore, like ye would a flea!”
“be aisy,” said the soldier; “why are ye making trouble at all? have ye hurt your little finger?”
“trouble, is it? what way would i be making trouble in this world?” exclaimed the trumpeter. “isn’t it the world itself as puts trouble on ye, so it is, like a wild cat sitting under a tub of unction! o, very pleasant it is, o ay! no, no, my little sojee, that is not it at all. you can’t let the flaming world rush beyant ye like that....”
“well, it’s a quiet life i’m seeking,” interjected the soldier, wrapping his great coat comfortingly across his breast, “and by this and by that, a quiet night too.”
[144]
“is that so? quiet, is it? but i say, my little sojee, you’ll not get it at all and the whole flaming world whickering at ye like a mad cracker itself. would ye sleep on that wid yer quiet life and all? it’s to tame life you’d be doing, like it was a tiger. and it’s no drunken boozer can tame me as was with the munsters in the east ... for seven holy years.”
“ah, go off wid you, you’ve hurt your little finger.”
“me little finger, is it?” cried the trumpeter, holding his thin hands up for inspection in the moonlight, “i have not then.”
“you surprise me,” the soldier said, gazing at him with sleepy amused tolerance. “did you never hear of tobin the smith and mary of cappoquin?”
“i did not then,” snapped the other. “who was they?”
“he was a roaring, fatal feller, a holy terror, a giant. he lived in the mountains but he went over the country killing things—a tiger or two at an odd time, i’m thinking—and destroying the neat condition of the world. and he had a nasty little bit of a bugle....”
“was it the like o’ that?” demanded the other, holding out the trumpet and tapping it with his fingers.
“‘a bugle,’ i said,” replied the soldier sternly, “and every time he puffed in its tubes the noise of it was so severe the hens in the town fell dead....”
“the hens!”
“yes, and the ducks on the ponds were overcome with emotion and sank to the bottom. one day he was in his forge driving a few nails into the shoe of[145] an ass when he hit his little finger such a blow, a terrible blow, that it bled for a day. then he seared the wound with his searing iron, but it was no better, and it bled for a night. i will go—says he—to the physician of cappoquin and be sewn up with some golden wire. so he drove into cappoquin, but when he was in it the physician was gone to a christening; there was only his daughter mary left to attend to him, a bright good girl entirely, and when she saw the finger she said to tobin: ‘i declare on my soul if i don’t chop it off it’s not long till you have your death.’ ‘chop it off, then,’ says tobin, and she did so. he came back the next day and this is how it was; the physician was gone to a wake. ‘what’s your need?’ asked mary. he showed her his hand and it dripping with blood. ‘i declare to my god,’ said mary, ‘if i don’t chop it off it’s short till you have your death.’ ‘chop it off,’ says tobin, and she struck off the hand. the day after that he drove in again, but the physician was gone to an inquest about a little matter concerning some remains that had been found. ‘what is it today, tobin?’ and he showed her his arm bleeding in great drops. ‘i declare by the saints,’ says she, ‘that unless i chop it off you’ll die in five minutes.’ ‘chop it off,’ says tobin, and she struck off his arm. the next day he was back again with the stump of his arm worse than before. ‘oh, i see what it is,’ said mary, and going behind him she struck off his head with one blow of her father’s sharp knife and gave it to the cat.”
“that is a neat tale,” said the trumpeter. “did you[146] hear the story of the dirty soldier and the drummer?”
“no—” the soldier hesitated reflectively. “no, i never heard it.”
“well, this is how it was....”
but just then the steamer began to approach the harbour, and in the hurry and scurry of preparations to land the two friends were separated and the tale was never told.
at the disembarkation passengers and soldiers crowded on the pier awaiting the boat train. the harbour was full of lights; the moon was still high in the heavens, but her glory faded as the sun began to rise. the thick densities of the night sky quivered into frail blues, violet and silver were mingled in the sea, the buildings on the wharf looked strange; icily, bitterly grey. the trumpeter ran about in the bleak air seeking the “rotten matchbox,” but he could not find him. he comforted himself by executing some castigating blares upon his instrument. the hollow wharves and the pier staging echoed with acrid sound that pleased his simple heart. he blew and blew and blew until he was surrounded by people watching him strain his determined eyes and inflate his pale cheeks—all of them secretly hoping that the ones might fall out or the others might crack. suddenly he caught sight of the now-sobered miner, quite close to him, almost touching him! the call he was blowing faded with a stupid squeak. the world began to flame again ... when an officer burst into the circle, demanding to know who he was, where from, and what in all the realm of blasphemous[147] things he meant by tootling in that infernal manner on that infernal thing.
the trumpeter drew himself proudly to attention and saluted.
“discharged i am, sir, it’s with the munsters i was, seven years, sir, with the munsters, in the east.”
“you disgrace the army! if i hear another tootle on that thing, i ... i’ll have you clapped in irons—i will! and ... and transported ... damn me if i don’t! you understand?”
the trumpeter meekly saluted as the captain swaggered away. at that moment the miner laid his hand upon his arm.
“what, my little man,” said he, “have you lost your teeth? give it me now!”
and putting the trumpet to his own lips he blew a brilliant and mocking reveille, whose echoes hurtled far over the harbour and into the neighbouring hills.
“god save us!” cried the trumpeter with a furtive eye on the captain at the end of the platform, who did not appear to have heard that miraculous salvo, “it’s a great grand breath you’ve got, sir.”
