The storm, and the preparations for
the wedding, raged on with almost equal violence,
within and without the walls of N, The Mall.
From the moment that daylight began on the fateful
Wednesday, the day before the wedding, and until it
ceased, Mrs. Mangan’s face recurred at the window
of the dining room, full of protest, primarily against
the arbiter of the weather, who had sent so supreme
a hindrance to all her preparations, secondarily,
against the shops of Cluhir, whose dilatoriness in
matters of the highest importance “had her,”
so she affirmed frequently, “that much distracted,
that it would be a comfort and a consolation to her
if she were stretched cold in her grave.”
At intervals during the feverish day,
beings would come rushing through the torrents, like
trout in a swirling brook, and would fling themselves
and their parcels in through the door that Mrs. Mangan
was generally ready to open for them. Frantic
messages from bridesmaids about their costumes, belated
wedding presents, all the surf and foam that is flung
up by the waves of a wedding, broke upon N.
The bride elect, pale and preoccupied, ("pale,”
that is to say, “for Tishy,” as one of
her compeers observed, “flushed for any one else!”)
wrote notes, and exhibited presents, and packed clothes,
and rode the tempest with a fortitude that was worthy
of the Big Doctor’s daughter. But even
Tishy began to fail as darkness drew in.
“I can’t stand this house
any more,” she said to her mother, “rain
or no rain, I’m going out! I didn’t
see Mrs. Whelply about Kathleen’s” wreath
that she wrote about
“You’ll be drowned,”
said Mrs. Mangan, doomfully; “and sure if Larry
comes over, what’ll I say to him?”
“He’ll not come!”
said Tishy, scornfully. “What a fool he
is, a day like this!”
“And they say the river’s
up in the houses down at the end of the town,”
went on Mrs. Mangan. “In the name of pity
why wouldn’t you be satisfied to stay at home
for this once, and you leaving me for good to-morrow!”
“Well, I’ll die if I stay
in this messed-up hole any longer!” said Tishy.
“I don’t care how wet I get
Presently the front door slammed behind
her; her mother said to herself that of all the headstrong
pieces ! And, further, that she trusted
in God Larry Coppinger would be able to make a hand
of her; she then, with the resignation that experience
teaches to defeated mothers, went to the kitchen,
and prepared a tray with tea, and carried it herself
up to the Doctor’s surgery.
“Francis, may I come in? I have tea for
you and meself.”
“Come in to be sure,”
replied Francis, hospitably. “I’ll
be glad of a cup. Wait and I’ll light the
gas.”
The Big Doctor was a faithful man,
and loved his wife. He treated her as a slave,
but it was thus that she not only expected, but preferred
to be treated, and the position of a favourite slave
may not be without its compensations. He established
her in the Patients’ chair, arranging it so
that the crude flare of the incandescent gas should
not be in her eyes, and then sat down in his own huge
chair, in comfortable proximity to her and the tea-tray.
“Well, Annie, me girl,”
he said. “You’re looking tired enough,
but there isn’t one will touch you in looks
to-morrow for all that! Your own daughter included!”
“Go on out of that, Francis,
with your nonsense!” replied Mrs. Mangan, with
a coquettish slap on the Doctor’s great round
knee, “you ought to be learning sense for yourself
by this time!”
“Maybe I’m not so wanting
in sense as you might think, Annie!” he answered,
his watchful, grey-blue eyes under the over-hanging,
musical brows, softening as he looked at her.
I think one way and another, I haven’t made
altogether such a bad fist of things!”
“Darling lovey!” cried
Mrs. Mangan, adoringly. “How would you think
I meant it!”
“Well, I didn’t either!”
said the Doctor, with a satisfied laugh, “but
I’m inclined to think that I’ve done better
than you’re aware of, or that you might give
me credit for either!”
“All I’m aware
of,” said Mrs. Mangan, sitting erect, with a
look of defiance, “is that there’s nothing
in this world, no, nor in Ireland neither, that you
couldn’t do if you chose to put your mind to
it! So now! You needn’t be talking
to me like that! Pretending I don’t
know you after all those years!”
“Well, listen to me now,”
said the Doctor, well pleased, ’Tell me what
d’ye think of this marriage of Tishy’s?”
“You know well what I think
of it, Francis, and what everybody thinks of it, too!
The smartest and the richest
“Well, that’s all right,”
interrupted the Doctor, “but for a woman like
yourself, that sets out to be fond of her children,
its surprising that you didn’t make a match
yet for your son!” He looked at her with indulgent
fondness, laughing at her, and she gazed back at him
with her heart in her eyes, and thought him the king
of men. “Well, what have you got to say
to that, Mrs. Mangan? It’s well for the
poor boy that his father isn’t so neglectful
of him!”
“What do you mean, Francis? What are you
talking of?”
“I’m talking of poor Barty,
my dear!” said the Doctor, enjoying himself
intensely, and watching his wife’s handsome face
with eyes that lost no shade of its quick-changing
expression. “You’ve a high opingen
of him, I know! Would you think Miss Christian
Talbot-Lowry was good enough for him?”
Mrs. Mangan’s mouth opened,
in sheer stupefaction. She opened and shut it
two or three times before speech came to her.
“Barty!” she panted; “Miss
Christian Lowry! Sweet and Blessed Mother of
God! Francis, you’re raving! Is it
my poor Barty! They’d never look at him!”
The Doctor watched her with triumph
in his face. “Don’t be too sure of
that! I might have an argument up my sleeve ”
he checked himself as a nervous knock was heard at
the door. “Who’s there? Come
in! Come in, can’t ye?”
A telegram, the orange envelope dark
with wet, was handed to him. He read it.
“No answer,” he said,
getting up quickly. “Well, bad manners to
the woman! Such a day to choose!”
“What is it, lovey? Don’t
tell me it’s a sick call! You couldn’t
possibly go annywhere this evening!”
cried Mrs. Mangan, italicising, in her indignation,
every second word, “and for goodness’
sake, go on and tell me what was the argument you said
you had?”
“My dear, I couldn’t go
into it properly now. I’ll tell you another
time. I’m bound to go, and as quick as I
can too! Run now, like a good girl, and tell
Barty or Mike to get the car ready in a hurry.
That wire was from Hannigan that lives below Riverstown.
He says his wife’ll die she’s
very bad, I’m afraid I’m booked
for the job this long time
Mrs. Mangan, loudly expostulating,
though wise in obedience from experience, flew from
the room with her message, and speedily returned to
find the Big Doctor still hurrying about the surgery,
making his preparations, and talking as he went.
“I mightn’t be back till
morning, but I’ll not miss the wedding, don’t
be afraid! I’ll come as soon as I can, I
promise you that!”
“Oh, Francis, love, I hate to
see you go out this awful night,” wailed Mrs.
Mangan, following him into the little hall, and dragging
his fur-lined coat off a peg, and holding it for him;
“and this scorf, my darling, put it on you before
you ketch your death. Will you take Mike with
you?”
“I will not. He’ll
be wanting here. Don’t delay me now.
Good-bye, girlie!” He kissed her. Then
he opened the door, and with a roar, the wind and
the rain hurled in, with a force that staggered him,
big as he was.
“Well, such a night!”
lamented Mrs. Mangan, for the twentieth time, clinging
to the door; “I wish to God the telegraph wires
were down before they could send for you! Oh,
will you take care of yourself now, Francis?”
“Of course I will! Go in
out of the wet ” he pushed himself
in under the low hood of the car, and glided into
the darkness.
A doctor is a dedicated man.
He accepts risks with a laugh, and toil with, perhaps,
a grumble, but he does not flinch. Obscure and
inglorious perils are his, and hardships that only
himself can gauge. Be sure that they are not
unrecorded. They shine, and their splendour is
hidden, like those lanterns that were hidden under
the coats of the lantern-bearers. But there is,
very surely, some screen, sensitive to its rays, on
which that light is thrown, that will some day show
us what we have been too self-centred to realise,
and will dazzle us with the devotion to which we are
now too much habituated to admire.