At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [131]
Of all things unexpected, the canon returned, restored to health and vigor after his months in the West. He immediately set about overturning the curate’s work. The Irish classes removed from the parish hall, the Volunteers no longer paraded after Mass, the plot in the Castlepark fields that had been marked for Gaelic games was turned over to allotments instead. Once more prayers were said for the King and votive Masses offered against the Turks. Almighty and everlasting God, in Whose hand is all power and the right of all sovereignty, look to the help of Thy Christian people: that the heathen who trust in their own fierceness may be crushed by the power of Thy hand. It was the same Mass Father Taylor would sometimes give, save the heathen then had been the English.
A while previous Jim’s father had been promoted to the sixpenny-door at Mass. In the purge of the curate’s appointments he was promptly demoted to the tuppenny-door again. Jim could see the dilemma it was for his father, as he brushed his mustache this way and that, trying to work out what course should he take. If he distanced himself from the curate might he get the sixpenny-door back? Or was it only the curate’s patronage got him any door at all?
The flute band continued but the number of college boys dwindled. A new class joined, with whom Jim felt easier, whose fathers were known for their nationalism. The great debate was military compulsion, whether the British would introduce it to Ireland. Depending on that debate, so the fortunes of the band fluctuated. One week half a dozen boys would parade, another—if the papers had reported a particularly ominous speech—four times that number might show. But they were scarce a band at all now. They learnt no new music. Mr. MacMurrough rarely came to the summerhouse. Jim met him down the Forty Foot and they would often chat a while. It was kind of him not to mention the odd way Jim bathed. He was a fine swimmer too. Jim liked to watch him dive.
In Glasthule when the band marched Jim felt the hurry of their feet, the way they were a little ashamed to be caught out of doors. Glasthule had dreamt a season, had dreamt an Irish nation. Now the cold light of day curled its lip at their foolery.
He recalled an evening in the unimaginable summer gone by when he went with Doyler to a hurling match at Blackrock. He heard them long before he saw them, a tinkling jingling frolicking chime, under the gruff calls of the hurlers and the quick cracks of their sticks. Then out of the haze on the far rise came the Lancers, jog-trotting along, a perfect line of rigid men that only the seat between man and mount seemed to move at all. The sun came out in curiosity of their metal and a breeze rose to flutter their flags.
Down they came. The spectators at the far end separated and one stumbled backward in the ditch. The game slowed in confusion till a player hopping with the ball, hopped slower and slower, and the ball rolled along on its own. Breast-high to the horses the hurlers stood. The eyes of the Lancers kept dead ahead. When they had traversed the field, they wheeled in perfect formation, with no word of command, traversed the opposite way. One or two of the horses made convenience of the slow measure to do their business on the grass. The last Lancer, with a deft lean from his saddle, swept up the ball and kept it. Then the jigging and jingling and fluttering pennants returned to the haze, faded on high, were gone.
Jim turned to Doyler, whose eyes shone with the brightness of tears. Had he said the word then, Jim would have followed. Aye, to be kicked and trampled and cursed and crippled, he would have followed his friend then. All the King’s horse, nor