The

cat escaped once more and Mahony began to throw stones at the

wall she had escaladed. Desisting from this, he began to wander

about the far end of the field, aimlessly.


After an interval the man spoke to me. He said that my friend was

a very rough boy and asked did he get whipped often at school. I

was going to reply indignantly that we were not National School

boys to be whipped, as he called it; but I remained silent. He began

to speak on the subject of chastising boys. His mind, as if

magnetised again by his speech, seemed to circle slowly round and

round its new centre. He said that when boys were that kind they

ought to be whipped and well whipped. When a boy was rough and

unruly there was nothing would do him any good but a good sound

whipping. A slap on the hand or a box on the ear was no good:

what he wanted was to get a nice warm whipping. I was surprised

at this sentiment and involuntarily glanced up at his face. As I did

so I met the gaze of a pair of bottle-green eyes peering at me from

under a twitching forehead. I turned my eyes away again.


The man continued his monologue. He seemed to have forgotten

his recent liberalism. He said that if ever he found a boy talking to

girls or having a girl for a sweetheart he would whip him and whip

him; and that would teach him not to be talking to girls. And if a

boy had a girl for a sweetheart and told lies about it then he would

give him such a whipping as no boy ever got in this world. He said

that there was nothing in this world he would like so well as that.

He described to me how he would whip such a boy as if he were

unfolding some elaborate mystery. He would love that, he said,

better than anything in this world; and his voice, as he led me

monotonously through the mystery, grew almost affectionate and

seemed to plead with me that I should understand him.


I waited till his monologue paused again. Then I stood up abruptly.

Lest I should betray my agitation I delayed a few moments

pretending to fix my shoe properly and then, saying that I was

obliged to go, I bade him good-day. I went up the slope calmly but

my heart was beating quickly with fear that he would seize me by

the ankles. When I reached the top of the slope I turned round and,

without looking at him, called loudly across the field:


"Murphy!"


My voice had an accent of forced bravery in it and I was ashamed

of my paltry stratagem. I had to call the name again before

Mahony saw me and hallooed in answer. How my heart beat as he

came running across the field to me! He ran as if to bring me aid.

And I was penitent; for in my heart I had always despised him a

little.


ARABY


NORTH RICHMOND STREET being blind, was a quiet street

except at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School set the boys

free. An uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end,

detached from its neighbours in a square ground The other houses

of the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one

another with brown imperturbable faces.


The former tenant of our house, a priest, had died in the back

drawing-room. Air, musty from having been long enclosed, hung

in all the rooms, and the waste room behind the kitchen was

littered with old useless papers. Among these I found a few

paper-covered books, the pages of which were curled and damp:

The Abbot, by Walter Scott, The Devout Communnicant and The

Memoirs of Vidocq. I liked the last best because its leaves were

yellow. The wild garden behind the house contained a central

apple-tree and a few straggling bushes under one of which I found

the late tenant's rusty bicycle-pump. He had been a very charitable

priest; in his will he had left all his money to institutions and the

furniture of his house to his sister.


When the short days of winter came dusk fell before we had well

eaten our dinners. When we met in the street the houses had grown

sombre. The space of sky above us was the colour of

ever-changing violet and towards it the lamps of the street lifted

their feeble lanterns.