“What on earth did you go there for,” said the Major, “if you wanted to get to Doyle’s farm?”
“When we’d passed the bog,” said Gallagher, “we took a twist round, like as we might be trying to cut across to the Dunbeg Road.”
“You seem to have gone pretty well all around the town,” said Dr. O’Grady. “I suppose you enjoyed driving about in a large motor. Was that it?”
“It was not,” said Gallagher, “but I was in dread to take him to Doyle’s farm not knowing what questions he might be asking about the General when we got there. I’d be glad now, doctor, if you’d tell me who the General was, for it’s troublesome not knowing.”
“There isn’t time,” said Dr. O’Grady, “to go into long explanations simply to satisfy your morbid curiosity. Go on with your story. What happened when you did get to the place? I suppose you got there in the end?”
“We did of course,” said Gallagher, “and I showed him the ruin of the little houseen, the same as you told me to. ‘And was it there,’ says he, ‘that the great General, the immortal founder of the liberties of Bolivia, first saw the light?’ ‘It was,’ says I. So he took a leap out of the motor-car and stood in front of the old house with his hat in his hand. So I told him about the way the landlords had treated the people of this country in times past, and the way we are meaning to serve them out as soon as we have Home Rule, which is as good as got, only for the blackguards of Orangemen up in the North. I told him——”
“I’m sure you did,” said Dr. O’Grady, “but you needn’t go over all that to us, particularly as the Major hates that kind of talk.”
“Nobody,” said Gallagher, “would want to say a word that was displeasing to the Major, who is well liked in this locality and always was. If only the rest of the landlords was like him, instead of——”
“Go on about the American,” said Dr. O’Grady, “did he throw stones at you while you were making that speech about Home Rule?”
“He did not,” said Gallagher, “but he stood there looking at the houseen with the tears rolling down the cheeks of him——”
“What?” said Dr. O’Grady, “do you mean to tell me he cried?”
“It was like as if he was going to,” said Gallagher, “and ‘the patriot statesman,’ says he, ‘the mighty warrior,’ says he, and more to that, the same as if he might be making a speech about the land and the league boys cheering him.”