CHAPTER I. ON CERTAIN ABSTRACTIONS.

I WAS talking about woman in the abstract,” said Harold.

The other, whose name was Edmund—his worst enemies had never abbreviated it—smiled, lifted his eyes unto the hills as if in search of something, frowned as if he failed to find it, smiled a cat’s-paw of a smile—a momentary crinkle in the region of the eyes—twice his lips parted as if he were about to speak; then he gave a laugh—the laugh of a man who finds that for which he has been searching.

“Woman in the abstract?” said he. “Woman in the abstract? My dear Harold, there is no such thing as woman in the abstract. When you talk about Woman enthusiastically, you are talking about the woman you love; when you talk about Woman cynically, you are talking about the woman who won’t love you.”

“Maybe your honours never heard tell of Larry O’Leary?” said the Third—for there was a Third, and his name was Brian; his duty was to row the boat, and this duty he interpreted by making now and again an elaborate pretence of rowing, which deceived no one.

“That sounds well,” said Harold; “but do you want it to be applied? Do you want a test case of the operation of your epigram—if it is an epigram?”

“A test case?”

“Yes; I have heard you talk cynically about woman upon occasions. Does that mean that you have been unloved by many?”

Again the man called Edmund looked inquiringly up the purple slope of the hill.

“You’re a wonderful clever gentleman,” said Brian, as if communing with himself, “a wonderful gentleman entirely! Isn’t he after casting his eyes at the very spot where old Larry kept his still?”

“No,” said Edmund; “I have never spoken cynically of women. To do so would be to speak against my convictions. I have great hope of Woman.”

“Yes; our mothers and sisters are women,” said Harold. “That makes us hopeful of women. Now we are back in the wholesome regions of the abstract once more, so that we have talked in a circle and are precisely where we started, only that I have heard for the first time that you are hopeful of Woman.”

“That’s enough for one day,” said Edmund.

“Quite,” said Harold.

“You must know that in the old days the Excise police looked after the potheen—the Royal Irish does it now,” said the Third. “Well, as I say, in the old days there was a reward of five pounds given by the Excisemen for the discovery of a private still. Now Larry had been a regular hero at transforming the innocent smiling pratie into the drink that’s the curse of the country, God bless it! But he was too wary a lad for the police, and he rolled keg after keg down the side of Slieve Gorm. At last the worm of his still got worn out—they do wear out after a dozen years or so of stiff work—and people noticed that Larry was wearing out too, just through thinking of where he’d get the three pound ten to buy the new machinery. They tried to cheer him up, and the decent boys was so anxious to give him heart that there wasn’t such a thing as a sober man to be found in all the country side. But though the brave fellows did what they could for him, it was no use. He never got within three pound five of the three pound ten that he needed. But just as things was at their worst, they mended. Larry was his old self again, and the word went round that the boys might get sober by degrees.

“Now what did our friend Larry do, if you please, but take his old worn-out still and hide it among the heather of the hill fornenst us—Slieve Glas is its name—and then he goes the same night to the Excise officer, in the queer secret way.

“‘I’m in a bad way for money, or it’s not me that would be after turning informer,’ says he, when he had told the officer that he knew where the still was concealed.

“‘That’s the worst of you all,’ says the officer. ‘You’ll not inform on principle, but only because you’re in need of money.’

“‘More’s the pity, sir,’ says Larry.

“‘Where’s the still?’ says the officer.

“‘If I bring you to it,’ says Larry, ‘it must be kept a dead secret, for the owner is the best friend I have in the world.’

“‘You’re a nice chap to inform on your best friend,’ says the officer.

“‘I’ll never be able to look at him straight in the face after, and that’s the truth,’ says Larry.

“Well, your honours, didn’t Larry lead the officer and a couple of the Excisemen up the hill in the dark of the early morning, and sure enough they came upon the old still, hid among the heather. It was captured, and Larry got the five pound reward, and was able to buy a brand-new still with the money, besides having thirty shillings to the good in his pocket. After that, was it any wonder that he became one of the greatest informers in the country? By the Powers, he made a neat thing out of the business of leading the officers to his own stills and pocketing the reward. He was thirty shillings to the good every time. Ah, Larry was a boy!”

“So I judge,” said the man called Edmund, with an unaffected laugh—he had studied the art of being unaffected. “But you see, it was not of the Man but of the Woman we were talking.”

“That’s why I thought that the change would be good for your honours,” remarked Brian. “When gentlemen that I’ve out in this boat with me, begin to talk together in a way that has got no sense in it at all, I know that they’re talking about a woman, and I tell them the story of Larry O’Leary.”

Neither the man called Edmund, nor the man called Harold, talked any more that day upon Woman as a topic.