Chapter I

Now that he had found Eleanor again, he was able to settle down to work. It was necessary, he told himself, that he should have some substantial achievements behind him before she and he were married, particularly as he had lost his employment on the _Daily Sensation_. The money he possessed would not last for ever and he could hardly hope to sponge on his Uncle William ... even if he were inclined to do so ... for the rest of his life. He must earn money by his own work and earn it quickly. In one way, it was a good thing that he had lost his work on the newspaper ... for he would have all the more time to write his tragedy. The sketch for the Creams had been hurriedly finished and posted to them at a music-hall in Scotland where they were playing, so Cream wrote in acknowledging the MS., to "enormous business. Dolly fetching 'em every time!..." Two pounds per week, John told himself, would pay for the rent and some of the food until he was able to earn large sums of money by his serious plays. The tragedy would establish him. It would not make a fortune for him, for tragedians did not make fortunes, but it would make his name known, and Hinde had assured him that a man with a known name could easily earn a reasonable livelihood as an occasional contributor to the newspapers. It was Hinde who had proposed the subject of the tragedy to him. For years he had dallied with the notion of writing it himself, he said, but now he knew that he would never write anything but newspaper stuff!...

"Do you know anything about St. Patrick?" he said to John.

"A wee bit. Not much."

"Well, you know he was a slave before he was a saint?" John nodded his head. "A man called Milchu," Hinde continued, "was his master. An Ulsterman. He was the chieftain of a clan that spread over Down and Antrim. Our country. He had Patrick for six years, and then he lost him. Patrick escaped. He returned to Ireland as a missionary and sent word to Milchu that he had come to convert him to Christianity, and Milchu sent word back that he'd see him damned first. Milchu wasn't going to be converted by his slave. No fear. And he destroyed himself ... set fire to his belongings and perished in his own flames rather than have it said that an Ulster chieftain was converted by his own slave. That's a great theme for a tragedy. I suppose you're a Christian, Mac?"

"I am. I'm a Presbyterian!"

"Oh, well, you won't see the tragedy of it as well as I see it. Think of a slave trying to convert a free man to a slave religion. There's a tragedy for you!..."

"I don't understand you," said John.

"No? Well, it doesn't matter. There's a theme for you to write about. A free man killing himself rather than be conquered by a slave! Of course, the real tragedy is that St. Patrick converted the rest of Ireland to Christianity! ... Milchu escaped: the others surrendered. It wasn't the English that beat the Irish, Mac. They were beaten before ever the English put their feet on Irish ground. St. Patrick beat them. The slave made slaves of them!..."

"Is that what you call Christians?" John indignantly demanded. "Slaves?"

Hinde shrugged his shoulders. "The Irish people are the most Christian people on earth," he said. "That's all!..."

They put the subject away from them, because they felt that if they did not do so, there must be antagonism between them. But John determined that he would write a play about St. Patrick and the Pagan Milchu. Hinde lent him his ticket for the London Library, and he spent his mornings reading biographies of the saint: Todd and Whitley, Stokes and Zimmer and Professor J. B. Bury; and accounts of the ancient Irish church. Slowly there came into his mind a picture of the saint that was not very like the picture he had known before and was very different from Hinde's conception of the relationship between Milchu and St. Patrick. To him, the wonderful thing was that the slave had triumphed over his owner. Milchu, in his conception, had not been sufficiently manly to stand before Patrick and contend with him, and to own himself the inferior of the two. He had run away from St. Patrick! With that conception of the two men in his mind, he began to write his play.

"You're wrong" said Hinde. "Milchu was a gentleman and Patrick was a slave!..."

"The son of a magistrate!" John indignantly interrupted.

"A lawyer's son!" Hinde sneered. "And Milchu, being a gentleman, would not be governed by a slave. Think of an Irish gentleman being governed by an Irish peasant!" There was a wry look on his face, "And a little common Irish priest to govern a little common Irish peasant!... They won't get gentlemen to live in a land like that!"

"I'm a peasant," said John. "There's not much difference between a shopkeeper and a peasant!..."

"I'm talking of minds," said Hinde, "not of positions. I believe in making peasants comfortable and secure, but I believe also in keeping them in their place. I'm one of the world's Milchus, Mac. I'd rather set fire to myself than submit to my inferiors!"

John sat in his chair in silence for a few moments, trying to understand Hinde's argument. "Then why do you write for papers like the _Daily Sensation_?" he asked at last.

Hinde winced. "I suppose because I'm not enough of a Milchu," he replied.