Lady Bountiful. George A. Birmingham
drove over to Dunbeg and applied for out-of-work pay at the Labour Exchange. After due inquiries and the signing of some papers by Lady Cor-less, their claims were admitted. Four farm labourers, two gardeners, and a groom, all cousins of Lady Corless, were dismissed in the course of the following week. Seven young men from the village, all of them related to Lady Corless, were formally engaged. The insurance cards of the dismissed men were properly stamped. They were indubitably out of work. They received unemployment pay.
After that, the dismissal of servants, indoor and out, became a regular feature of life at Castle Affey. On Monday morning, Lady Corless went down to the village and dismissed everyone whom she had engaged the week before. Her expenditure in insurance stamps was considerable, for she thought it desirable to stamp all cards for at least a month back. Otherwise her philanthropy did not cost her much and she had very little trouble. The original staff went on doing the work at Castle Affey. After three months every man and woman in the village had passed in and out of Sir Tony’s service, and everyone was drawing unemployment pay.
The village became extremely prosperous. New hats, blouses, and entire costumes of the most fashionable kind were to be seen in the streets every Sunday. Large sums of money were lost and won at coursing matches. Nearly everyone had a bicycle, and old Malone bought, second hand, a rather dilapidated motor-car. Work of almost every kind ceased entirely, except in the big house, and nobody got out of bed before ten o’clock. In mere gratitude, rents of houses were paid to Sir Tony which had not been paid for many years before.
Lady Corless finally dismissed herself. She did not, of course, resign the position of Lady Corless. It is doubtful whether she could have got twenty-five shillings a week if she had. The Government does not seem to have contemplated the case of unemployed wives. What she did was to dismiss Bridie Malone, cook at Castle Affey before her marriage. She had been married, and therefore, technically speaking, unemployed for nearly two years, but that did not seem to matter. She secured the twenty-five shillings a week and only just failed to get another five shillings which she claimed on the ground that her husband was very old and entirely dependent on her. She felt the rejection of this claim to be an injustice.
Captain Corless, after a long period of pleasant leisure, found himself suddenly called on to write a report on the working of the Unemployment-Pay Scheme in Ireland. With a view to doing his work thoroughly he hired a motorcar and made a tour of some of the more picturesque parts of the country. He so arranged his journeys that he was able to stop each night at a place where there was a fairly good hotel. He made careful inquiries everywhere, and noted facts for the enlightenment of the Treasury, for whose benefit his report was to be drawn up. He also made notes, in a private book, of some of the more amusing and unexpected ways in which the scheme worked. He found himself, in the course of his tour, close to Castle Affey, and, being a dutiful son, called on his father.
He found old Sir Tony in a particularly good humour. He also found matter enough to fill his private note-book.
“No telling tales, Tony, now,” said the old man. “No reports about Castle Affey to the Government. Do you hear me now? Unless you give me your word of honour not to breathe what I’m going to tell you to anybody except your friends, I won’t say a word.”
“I promise, of course,” said Captain Corless.
“Your step-mother’s a wonderful woman,” said Sir Tony, “a regular lady bountiful, by Jove! You wouldn’t believe how rich everybody round here is now, and all through her. I give you my word, Tony, if the whisky was to be got—which, of course, it isn’t now-a-days—there isn’t a man in the place need go to bed sober from one week’s end to another. They could all afford it. And it’s your step-mother who put the money into their pockets. Nobody else would have thought of it. Look here, you’ve heard of this unemployment-pay business, I suppose?”
“I’m conducting an inquiry about it at the present moment.”
“Then I won’t say another word,” said Sir Tony. “But it’s a pity. You’d have enjoyed the story.”
“I needn’t put everything I’m told into my report,” said Captain Corless. “A good deal of what I hear isn’t true.”
“Well, then, you can just consider my story to be an invention,” said Sir Tony.
Captain Corless listened to the story. When it was finished he shook hands with his father.
“Dad,” he said, “I apologise to you. I said—There’s no harm in telling you now that I said you were an old fool when you married the blacksmith’s daughter. I see now that I was wrong. You married the only woman in Ireland who understands how to make the most of the new law. Why, everybody else in your position is cursing this scheme as the ruin of the country, and Lady Corless is the only one who’s tumbled to the idea of using it to make the people happy and contented. She’s a great woman.”
“But don’t tell on us, Tony,” said the old man. “Honour bright, now, don’t tell!”
“My dear Dad, of course not. Anyway, they wouldn’t believe me if I did.”
II. THE STRIKE BREAKER
The train was an hour-and-a-quarter late at Finnabeg. Sir James McClaren, alone in a first-class smoking compartment, was not surprised. He had never travelled in Ireland before, but he held a belief that time is very little accounted of west of the Shannon. He looked out of the window at the rain-swept platform. It seemed to him that every passenger except himself was leaving the train at Finnabeg. This did not surprise him much. There was only one more station, Dunadea, the terminus of the branch line on which Sir James was travelling. It lay fifteen miles further on, across a desolate stretch of bog. It was not to be supposed that many people wanted to go to Dunadea.
Sir James looking out of his window, noticed that the passengers who alighted did not leave the station. They stood in groups on the platform and talked to each other. They took no notice of the rain, though it was very heavy.
Now and then one or two of them came to Sir James’ carriage and peered in through the window. They seemed interested in him. A tall young priest stared at him for a long time. Two commercial travellers joined the priest and looked at Sir James. A number of women took the place of the priest and the commercial travellers when they went away. Finally, the guard, the engine driver, and the station master came and looked in through the window. They withdrew together and sat on a barrow at the far end of the platform. They lit their pipes and consulted together. The priest joined them and offered advice. Sir James became a little impatient.
Half an hour passed. The engine driver, the station master, and the guard knocked the ashes out of their pipes and walked over to Sir James’ compartment. The guard opened the door.
“Is it Dunadea you’re for, your honour?” he said.
“Yes,” said Sir James. “When are you going on?”
The guard turned to the engine driver.
“It’s what I’m after telling you,” he said, “it’s Dunadea the gentleman’s for.”
“It might be better for him,” said the engine driver, “if he was to content himself with Finnabeg for this day at any rate.”
“Do you hear that, your honour?” said the guard. “Michael here, says it would be better for you to stay in Finnabeg.”
“There’s a grand hotel, so there is,” said the station master, “the same that’s kept by Mrs. Mulcahy, and devil the better you’ll find between this and Dublin.”
Sir James looked from one man to the other in astonishment. Nowadays the public is accustomed to large demands from railway workers, demands for higher wages and shorter hours. But Sir James had never before heard of an engine driver who tried to induce a passenger to get out of