Chapter I

"Your ma's upstairs with the doctor and him," said Uncle William, closing the kitchen door behind him.

"Is he very bad?" John asked in an anxious voice.

"I'm afeard so," Uncle William replied.

John went towards the staircase, but his uncle called him back. "Better not go up yet awhile," he said. "The doctor'll be down soon, mebbe, and he'll tell you whether you can go up or not."

"Very well," John murmured, coming back into the kitchen and sitting down beside the fire.

"It come on all of a sudden just before bedtime," Uncle William went on, "He wasn't looking too grand all the morning, as you know, but we never thought much of it. He never was strong, and he hasn't the strength to fight against his disease. If he dies, I'll be the last of the three brothers. Death's a strange thing, John. Your da was the cleverest and the wisest of us all, and he was the first to go; and now your Uncle Matthew, that's wise in his way, and has a great amount of knowledge in his head, is going too ... the second of us ... and I'm left, the one that could be easiest spared. It's queer to take the best one first and leave the worst 'til the last. You'd near think God had a grudge against the world!... What were you doing in Belfast the day?"

"I went to the theatre."

"Aye. What did you see?"

"I saw _Romeo and Juliet_ in the middle of the day, and _Julius Caesar_ at night!" John answered. "Is my Uncle Matthew unconscious?"

"No. He has all his senses about him. He knows well he's dying. Did he never speak to you about that?"

John shook his head. "I couldn't bear it if he did. Does he mind, d'you think?"

"No, he does not. Why should he mind? It's us that's left behind that's to be pitied, not them that goes. I can't make out the people of these days, the way they pity the dead and dying, when it's the living's to be pitied. Did you like the plays, John?"

John roused himself to answer. "Aye," he said, "they were grand. What happened when he took bad?"

"We had just had our supper, and he started to go up the stairs, and all of a sudden he called out for your ma, and we both ran to him together, her and me, and the look on his face frightened me. I didn't stop to hear what was wrong. I went off to fetch Dr. Dobbs as quick as I could move. I never saw _Julius Caesar_ myself, but I mind well the time I saw _Romeo and Juliet_. It was an awful long time ago, when the oul' Theatre Royal ... not this one, but the one before it, that was burnt down ... and we saw _Romeo and Juliet_. That's a tremendous piece, John! It gripped a hold of my heart, I can tell you, and I came away from the theatre with the tears streaming down my face. I always was a soft one, anyway. That poor young boy and his lovely wee girl tormented and tortured by people that was older nor them, but hadn't half the sense! It grips you, that play!"

"Aye," said John.

"You'll hardly believe me, John, but the play was so real to me that when they talked about getting married, I said to myself I'd go and see the wedding. I did by my troth!"

"Eh?" said John abstractedly.

"I was talking about the play!..."

"Oh, aye, aye! Aye!"

"It sounds silly, I know," Uncle William continued, "but it's the God's own truth, as sure as I'm sitting here. And whenever I pass 'The Royal,' I always think of _Romeo and Juliet,_ and I see that poor boy and girl stretched dead, and them ought to have been happy together and having fine, strong childher!"

"I wonder how he is now. Do you think I should go up now?" John said.

"Wait 'til the doctor comes down. I have great faith in Dr. Dobbs. He never humbugs you, that man, but tells you plump and plain what's wrong with you!" He sat back in his chair, and for a while there was no sound in the kitchen, but the noise of the clock and the small drooping noise made by the dying fire. There was no sound from overhead.

Uncle William glanced at the clock. He got up and stopped the pendulum. "I can't bear the sound of it," he said to John as he sat down again. They remained in silence for a while longer, and then Uncle William got up and started the clock again. "Mebbe ... mebbe, it's better for it to be going." he said.

He searched for his pipe on the mantel-shelf and, when he had found it, lit it with a coal which he picked out of the fire with the tongs.

"Your Uncle Matthew was terribly upset by it," he said, reverting to the play. "It was a wild and wet night, we had to walk every inch, of the way, for there was no late trains in them days, John, and we were drenched to the skin. Your Uncle Matthew never said one word to me the whole road home. He just held his head high and stared straight in front of him, and when I looked at him, though the night was dark, I could see that his fists were clenched and his lips were moving, though he didn't speak. You never see no plays like that, these days, John. The last piece I saw in Belfast was a fearful foolish piece, with a lot of love and villainy in it. The girl was near drowned in real water, and then the villain tied her on to a circular saw, and if it hadn't been for the hero coming in the nick of time, she'd have been cut in two. No man would treat a woman that way, tying her on to a saw! I'm afeard some of these pieces nowadays are terribly foolish, John, so I never want to go now!"