XVIII
THE NIGHT THE POPE DIED

It comes back into my mind now, as an echo that is lost among the hills, that night in Ardmore in Ireland, that night when they heard the Pope was dead. I can hear the low, deep note of the sea, monotonous and even as the beating of a heavy drum when the waves rolled up the boat cove, or leapt upon the rocks that crouch to meet the sea beneath the Holy Well. I can see the clouds, great banks of grey, as though a furnace were smouldering below the horizon, I can see them hanging in sullen wet masses, hanging low over the white crests that were breaking away by Helvic Head. I can see the dank, dark coils of seaweed lying, like the hair of women that are drowned, along the dim curved line of the strand. And around the first head, where the bay spreads wide into the great Atlantic, the sound of a rushing wind, muted by the hills, dimly reaches my ears.

It seems fitting that when any great catastrophe falls upon the trembling little people of this world there should be sounded an ominous note—a discord struck upon that great orchestra of the elements. It is the only true accompaniment to the sorrows of mankind, when the thunder bursts, the lightning rends the raiment of the sky and the winds play wildly on their shrillest instruments.

There was no thunder, no lightning that night, but all across the bay and round the headlands you might have felt the despairing sense of foreboding, the heavy hour before a storm, when the very ground seems angry beneath your feet.

Such was the night in Ardmore when they heard the Pope was dead.

In one moment the whole Roman Catholic world had been robbed of its father; the great Church of Christ was without its head on earth. From that moment and for the anxious days to come they were as orphans, knowing not where to turn. The Pope was dead. But there was none to cry in the market-place, there was none to stand upon the chapel steps and shout, “Long live the Pope!”

The Pope was dead. There was no Pope.

You must have seen the silent, questioning faces to have known what such a loss could mean. Around the counters in the public-houses the fishermen sat, afraid to drink. The women crept into their cottages and shut the doors. Presently little flickers of light glowed from each window—candle flames trembling as the draughts of wind caught their feeble glow.

It was as though the spirit of that old aristocrat, with his death-like head and piercing eyes, were making its way to Heaven through the little street of Ardmore, and these few feeble glimmers were set out, tiny beacons, to point his road.

For an hour they were burning before there came from the village courthouse the sounds of instruments being blown, all those weird, unearthly noises which tell you that a village band is about to play.

In ten minutes they were ready—the public-houses were empty. In ten minutes they were putting their instruments to their lips; their cheeks were swelling with the first ready breath to start. A little crowd of boys and girls were surrounding them ready to march by their sides; and then, with a one—two—three, they began. The little solemn, serious crowd strode forth.

Up by the post-office they went, round by the Protestant Church, along down Coffee Lane to where stands the seawall hung with its festoons of red-brown nets. Then through the main street they marched and round again the same route as before.

And ever as they marched, like the band of an army playing the death march at the funeral of their chief, they played the same grim tune—the grimmest tune at such a time I think I have ever heard—“Good-bye, Dolly, I must leave you.” It was the only tune they knew.

After the second round of their journey, the playing ceased while the players gained their breath. In silence then, they tramped over the same ground, the little crowd, eager for the music again, still following at their heels.

When they reached the top of Coffee Lane once more, where the road runs up to meet the Holy Well and wanders from there in a thin straggling path around the wild cliff-heads, there came an elderly woman and a child out of the darkness.

Seven miles they had walked around that dangerous path from the little fishing hamlet of Whiting Bay—seven miles over a way where a goat must choose its steps, where at moments the sheer cliff rushes down four hundred feet to meet the sea—seven miles in that chill darkness with never a lantern’s light to guide their feet—seven miles with hearts throbbing, hope rising and falling, whispering a word to each other now and then, always straining on—seven miles just to learn the truth.

As they came out of the shadows, the woman stopped. The clarionet-player was wetting his lips, fitting his fingers with infinite care upon the notes of his instrument. She caught his arm before he could raise it to his mouth.

“What is ut?” she asked.

“Shure, the Pope’s dead,” he whispered back.

And then, with its one—two—three once more, the band struck up again. The woman and the child stood there silently under a cottage window, the light of the burning candle within making pin-points in their eyes, while in their ears echoed and re-echoed the words, “The Pope is dead,” mingling with the refrain, “Good-bye, Dolly, I must leave you.”