THE NEW TEACHER Everyone was sorry after Sam Higgins, the head master. Sam was a right good skin; one of the decentest men in Ireland but too honest. He was a small fat man with a round, rosy, good-natured, innocent face, a high bald brow and specs. He wore a bowler hat and a stiff collar the hottest day God sent, for no matter how sociable he might be he never entirely forgot his dignity. He lived with his sister Delia in a house by the station and suffered a lot from nerves and dyspepsia. When it was the nerves were bad he went on a skite. The skite, of course, was good for the nerves but bad for the dyspepsia, and after it he’d be for months on a diet and doing walks in the country. The walks, on the other hand, were good for the dyspepsia but played hell with the nerves, and Sam tried to take the harm out of them by dropping into Johnny Desmond’s on his way home for a pint. Johnny had a sort of respect for him as an educated man, which Johnny wasn’t, and a sort of contempt for him as a man that for all his education couldn’t keep his mind to himself—an art Johnny was past-master of. One day they happened to be discussing the Delea case. Father Ring had landed another big fish. This time it was old Jeremiah Delea that he had induced to leave every penny of his money to the Church and nothing to his own wife and family. There was to be law about it, so Johnny had heard, and Sam, of course, was delighted, for he hated the very sound of Ring’s name. “Fifteen thousand, I hear?” he said with a chuckle. “So I believe,” said Johnny with a scowl. “A man that couldn’t write his name for you! Now, what do you say to the education ?” “Oh, begor, what I always said,” said Sam with his usual straightforwardness, “that ’tis nothing but a hindrance in this world.” “If he might have held on to the wireless shares,” said Johnny, “he’d be worth another five thousand. I suppose that’s where the education comes in.” “Extraordinary man,” said Sam, nodding his fat head, “extraordinary blooming man, making a will like that.” “Fe was,” Johnny agreed a bit doubtfully. “Of course, he was always very religious.” “He was,” said Sam drily, “particularly with Children of Mary.” “That so?” said Johnny, as if he had never heard of a Child of Mary before. “And underclothes,” added Sam. “They were the poor man’s great hobbies.” That was Sam all out, too outspoken, too independent, and Johnny went to the shop door and looked after him, slouching up the Main Street with his fat little sailor’s roll and his bowler hat perched on one side of his head, and wondered to himself that an educated man wouldn't have more sense. When Sam got home, Delia and Mrs. MacCann were sitting on deck-chairs in the back garden, enjoying the sun. Nancy was a teacher in the girls’ school and in Sam’s eyes she was an angel in human form, though he hadn’t yet got round to the point of telling her so, because she wasn’t long a widow. She was small and gay with a long pale face and a slangy, go-as-you-please air. “How’re ye, Nancy?” cried Sam heartily, holding out his fat paw. “Grand, Sam,” she cried, as she sat upright, blushing and sparkling with pleasure. “And how’s the body?” “Fine,” said Sam, throwing off his coat and squatting down to give the lawn-mower a drop of oil. “I heard as pleasant a bit of news today as I heard this long time.” “What’s that, Sam?” asked Delia in her high-pitched, fluting voice. “Chrissie Delea that’s going to law with Ring about the legacy,” said Sam. “Ah, you're not serious, Sam?” cried Nancy. “Oh, begor I am,” growled Sam. “She has Canty the solicitor in Asragh on it. Now Ring’ll be having Sister Mary Milkmaid and the rest making novenas to soften Chrissie’s hard heart. By God, I tell you ’twill take more than novenas to do that.” “But, Sam,” said Nancy with her pretty little face all puckered up, “will she ever get it? Anyone that got money out of a priest ought to have a statue put up to her.” “Oh, begob, she'll get it all right,” said Sam. “And what’s more, she'll get rid of Ring. The bishop’ll never let it go to court after all the other scandals. Sure, old Miah was off his rocker years before he made that will. Didn’t I see him myself stopping little girls on their way from school and trying to look up their clothes?” Delia blushed but Nancy guffawed, as she had a right to do, being a married woman. “Arrah, Sam,” she said with a toss of her saucy little head, “we'll have rare gas with a new priest and a new teacher.” “A new what?” asked Sam, stopping dead in his lawn- mowing. “Didn’t Ormond tell you he’s getting the shift to Dublin?” she asked in surprise. “No,” Sam said gravely, shaking his head, “he did not, Nancy.” “But surely to God, Sam,” she said with a troubled look, “Ormond would never keep it from you?” “No,” said Sam stubbornly, shaking his head. “Ormond knows nothing of it, I'll take my oath. Where did you hear it?” “From Plain Jane.” (She meant Miss Daly.) “Ay,” said Sam darkly. “And she got it from Ring. And Ring was up in Dublin for the last two days. Now we know what he was up for. You didn’t hear who’s coming in Ormond’s place?” “I didn’t pay any attention, Sam,” said Nancy excitedly, “but you’re right. She said he was from Kerry.” “Oh, a relation of Ring’s for a fortune!” said Sam dolefully, wiping his sweaty brow. And a relation it was. He arrived in a broken-down two-seater he seemed to think rather highly of. He was tall and thin with a high, bumpy forehead, high cheek-bones and dirty colouring. He held himself very stiffly, obviously conscious of his figure. He wore a cheap city suit with stripes, and Sam counted two fountain-pens (one for red ink) and a battery of coloured pencils in his breast pocket. He had a little red diary cocking out of the top pocket of his waistcoat, and while Sam was talking he made notes—a really businesslike young man. Then he stuck the pencil behind his ear and his thumbs in the armholes of his vest and looked at Sam and giggled. Giggled was the only way Sam could describe it. It was almost as if he found Sam funny. Within five minutes he was giving him tips about the way they did things in Kerry. Sam, with his hands in his pockets and wearing his most innocent air, looked up at him with one eye cocked. His tone got drier and drier. “You seem to get on very well with your class,” he said after he had watched Carmody at work. “Oh, I make a point of it,” said Carmody in a shocked tone. “Treat them as man to man like?” said Sam, luring him gently on with his insinuating air. “That’s the modern method, of course,” said Carmody. “That so?” said Sam drily, and at the same moment he made a face. It was the first twinge of his nervous dyspepsia. Himself and Nancy always had their lunch, sitting on the low wall between the two schools. They were there for about ten minutes when Carmody came out. He stood and sunned himself on the steps, sticking out his chest and taking in deep gulps of what a Kerryman would call the ozone. “Arrah, Sam,” said Nancy, interpreting the pose, “isn’t he a grand figure of a man?” As if he had heard her, Carmody came across to them with a quizzical air. “That's a fine view you have,” he said jocularly. “You won't be long getting tired of it,” replied Sam drily. “T believe it is a quiet sort of place,” said Carmody, unaware of any lack of warmth. “It must be simply shocking after Kerry,” said Sam, giving Nancy a nudge. “Were you ever in Kerry, Mrs. Mac?” “Never,” said Nancy, joining in the sport. “I believe ’tis grand.” “Marvellous,” said Sam mournfully. “You’d wonder where the people got all the brains from till you saw the scenery.” “Tell me,” said Carmody, swallowing it all on his own account and full of concern for the benighted natives, “what do you do with yourselves?” The impudence of that was too much even for Sam. He gaped at Carmody to see if he was in earnest and then pointed towards the town. “See the bridge?” he asked in a dull voice. “T do,” said Carmody with his head cocked. “See the abbey tower beyond it?” asked Sam with his lower lip hanging. “I do, I do,” replied Carmody efficiently. “When we get tired of life we throw ourselves off that,” said Sam. “But, damn it, man,” said Carmody testily, “I’m serious.” “Oh, begor,” said Sam, indignantly, “so’m I. ’Tis no’ joke throwing yourself off that.” “I believe you have some sort of dramatic society,” said Carmody, turning to Nancy with his head in his chest as though he were refraining by sheer will-power from telling Sam what he thought of him. “We have,” said Nancy. “Why? Do you act?” “A certain amount,” said Carmody. “Of course in Kerry we go in for the intellectual drama more.” “Intellectual ?” murmured Sam blissfully. “I know one little dramatic society that have a shock in store for them.” “They need it,” snapped Carmody. “They do,” said Sam blithely, skipping off the wall and looking up at Carmody with his lower lip hanging and the sunlight dazzling on his spectacles. “And when you're finished with them the town needs a bit of attention. You might notice ’tis on the down grade. And then, you can have the whole blooming country to practise on. It often struck me it needed a bombshell to wake it up. Maybe you’re the bombshell ?” It wasn’t often that Sam, who was a bit tongue-tied, made a speech as long as that. It should have shut anybody up, but Carmody only stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, thrust out his chest and giggled. . “But of course I’m a bombshell,” he said with a look at Nancy. A couple of days after, Sam dropped into Johnny’s for his drink. “Mrs. Mac and the new teacher are gone off for a spin,” said Johnny, watching him closely. “Giving her a lift home,” said Sam vacantly. “He does it every day. I hope she’s insured.” “No,” said Johnny, opening a bottle of sweets and cramming a handful into his mouth; “out Bauravullen way they went. Have a couple of these, Mr. Higgins?” “No, thanks, Johnny,” said Sam sourly, looking out the door so that Johnny wouldn’t see the way it had hit him. “Widows are the divil,” said Johnny, going to the door and looking out as he crunched boiled sweets. “Anything at all so long as ’tis in trousers, I suppose they can’t help it.” “You seem to know a lot about widows,” said Sam. “My own father died when I was only a boy,” said Johnny discreetly. “Clever chap, that young Carmody,” he added with his eyes on the floor. “A human bombshell,” said Sam with heavy irony. “So I believe, so I believe,” said Johnny. “A pity he’s so quarrelsome in drink. Himself and Donovan of the Exchange were at it here last night. Father Ring is hop1ng he'll settle down. I dunno will he?” “God forbid!” said Sam. He went home but he could neither read nor rest. It was too cold for the garden, too hot for the room, so he put on his hat and went for a walk. The walk took him past Nancy’s bungalow. There was no sign of life in it, and Sam didn’t know whether that was a good or bad sign. He dropped into Johnny’s expecting to find the Bombshell, but there were only a couple of fellows from the County Council there and Sam had four drinks, which was more than was good for him. When he came out the moon was shining. He went past Nancy’s bungalow again, and there, sure enough, was the two-seater and a light in the sitting-room window. For two days after that he never showed his nose in the playground at lunch-time, but sat inside, by the way he was correcting exercises. When he looked out he saw Carmody leaning on the wall, giggling. The afternoon of the third day Nancy called and Delia answered the door. “Oh, my,” cried Delia in her laughing, piping voice, “such a stranger as you’re becoming!” “You'd never guess what I was doing,” said Nancy. “I believe you were motoring,” said Delia with a laugh. “Arrah, you can’t do anything in this old town,” said Nancy, hunching her shoulders. “Where the blazes is Sam? ’Tis ages since I saw him.” “He’s in the workshop,” said Delia. “Will I call him for you?” “Come on till have a talk to yourself first,” said Nancy gaily, grabbing her by the arm. “And how’s your friend Mr. Carmody?” piped Delia as they went into the sitting-room, which faced out on the garden. “Well, for God’s sake, Dee,” said Nancy, “don’t go motoring with him! Whoever gave him that car was no friend.” “I’m not in much danger of being asked, dear, am I?” Delia cried laughingly. “You don’t think he’d be interested in me? Does he still think Kerry is such a wonderful place?” she added with gentle malice. “I dare say not.” “Arrah, he'll settle down,” said Nancy with a shrug. “Sure, a poor gom that was brought up in the wilds, what more could you expect?” “I dare say,” Delia said wonderingly. “He has every inducement.” Just then Sam came up the garden and in the back door without noticing who was there. He stood at the door, wiping his boots, his hat down over his eyes and laughing in an embarrassed way. “Oh, hallo,” he drawled. “How’re ye?” “Grand, Sam,” said Nancy, sitting up straight and flashing him a ravishing look. “I didn’t see you these last few days.” “No,” said Sam. “Working too hard. Or as hard as I’m let with people pinching my tools. Did you take the quarter-inch chisel, Delia?” “Is that a big chisel, Sam?” she asked innocently. “No,” he drawled with his head in the air and his lip hanging. “Don’t you know what a quarter of an inch is yet?” “I think it might be on top of the press, Sam,” she said guiltily. “Why the hell women will never put things back where they find them,” he grunted, getting a chair and pawing about on top of the press till he felt the chisel. Then he held it up to the light and closed one eye. “Holy God,” he moaned, “were you using it as a screw- driver or what?” “I thought it was a screw-driver, Sam,” said Delia with a nervous laugh. “You need one badly,” he said feelingly. “You always had one loose.” He went out again in disgust. There was silence for a moment and Delia laughed again, even more nervously. “He seems very busy,” said Nancy in a hurt tone. “Oh, he’s always pulling the house to pieces,” said Delia. “Has he anything on his mind?” Nancy asked frankly. “No, dear,” said Delia. “Only I suppose his digestion. That’s always on his mind.” “I suppose so,” said Nancy with a shrug, but Delia saw she was deeply offended. “You're not going so soon, Nancy?” she asked as Nancy began to collect her things. “I promised Nellie the afternoon off,” said Nancy in a huffy tone. “Oh, dear,” sighed Delia. “Sam will be so disap-_ pointed.” “Ah, I suppose I’ll be seeing him soon again,” said Nancy. “So long, Delia.” “Good-bye, dear,” said Delia sweetly, and when she shut the door behind Nancy she began to cry. In a small | town the end of a friendship has something awful about it, and Delia had had notions of something better than friendship. Whenever Nancy came to the house Sam was more cheerful and Delia was more cheerful. She brought youth and gaiety into their lives. She had a good long cry to herself before Sam came in from the back. He didn’t say a word about Nancy but went into the front room and took down a book. After a while Delia washed her eyes and went in. It was almost dark in there, and when she opened the door he started—a bad sign. . “You wouldn’t like to come for a little walk with me, dear?” she asked in a voice that almost went off into a squeak. “No, Dee,” he said without looking round, “I wouldn’t be able for it.” “Im sure a little drink in Johnny’s would do you good, dear,” she went on. “No, Dee,” he said dully, wiping his bald brow, “I couldn’t be bothered with him.” “Then wouldn’t you run up to town and see a doctor, Sam?” “No good,” said Sam. “But it must be something, Sam,” she persisted, almost wishing he’d say it and be done with it and let her comfort him; the two of them there, growing old, in a lonesome, unfriendly place. “Ah, ’tis that cheapjack in school,” said Sam. “Twenty years I’m in that place and I was never laughed at to my face before. He’s turning the boys against me now.” “I think you only fancy that, dear,” she said timidly. “Oh, no, Dee,” said Sam, shaking his head, infallible even in despair, “I do not. That fellow was put there with a purpose. Ring knew what he was doing. His plans are well laid. I spoke too soon—’tisn’t a new priest you'll be having here at all but a new headmaster.” School was a real torture to him. Carmody half suspected he was jealous and played on him. He sent out kids to the girls’ school with notes, and stood out before the class, reading the replies with a complacent grin on his face. Sam went about as if he was doped. He couldn’t find things he had just left out of his hand; he even forgot the boys’ names, and sometimes he sat at a desk at the bottom of the class and rubbed his eyes and brow in a sort of stupor. He only came to life when Carmody and himself wrangled. There was a window Sam liked open, and when he opened it, Carmody sent a boy to close it. Then Higgins called the boy over and asked him who gave him permission to shut a window at the other side of the room. Then Carmody came up as stiff as a ramrod and said he wasn’t going to work with a draught on the back of his neck, and Sam told him that a better man than him worked there for ten years and never complained of a draught. All through November he ate his lunch at the school fire. When he got up he could see Nancy and Carmody sitting on the playground wall, and Nancy putting up her hand to smooth back her hair and breaking suddenly into a laugh. Somehow he always felt the laugh was at him. One day he came out ringing the bell, and Carmody, who was sitting on the wall, jumped off with such an affectation of agility that the diary jumped from his waistcoat pocket. He was so occupied with Nancy that he didn’t notice it. Sam went down the playground ringing his bell, his eyes on the ground so that he shouldn’t see Nancy, and he didn’t notice it either. He saw a bit of paper that somebody’s lunch had been wrapped in and picked it up and crumpled it into a little ball. He noticed the diary in the same way and picked it up and began to read it without noticing what he was doing. Then he recognised the handwriting and looked round. Carmody was gone in. He couldn’t help himself; he had to read a bit more, and when he turned the pages and saw how much of it there was he put it in his pocket. During the first lesson he opened it on his desk and read it through with his head in his hands. Now, Carmody was a conceited young man who thought everything about himself was of such imporance that he had to write it down. Things Sam would almost be ashamed to think about himself he wrote down. Besides, Sam had lived a sheltered sort of life. Whenever he thought about Nancy he thought of her as an angelic little creature whose happy life had been wrecked and who spent the greater part of her spare time thinking about her dead husband. It was clear from the diary that that wasn’t the way she spent her time at all, but that like any other bad, flighty, sensual girl, she let herself be made love to in a motor car by a cheapjack like Carmody, who on his own admission began with no respect at all for her. “Anything at all so long as ’twas in trousers,” as Johnny said. Johnny was right. Johnny knew what she was like. That was all Sam needed to make him hate her as much as he hated Carmody. He joined his hands and closed his eyes. Then he looked at the clock. He went to the black- board to get ready for the dictation lesson. He wiped out the sums on it and wrote in a neat workmanlike hand the heading for dictation. It was “The Diary of a Cheapjack.” Then as the boys settled themselves down he began to read. “October 21st,” he dictated in a dull voice, turning his eyes to the ceiling as if he was watching a bluebottle. “Kissed her for the first time.” There was a shocked silence and some fellow giggled. “It’s all right,” said Sam blandly, pointing to the black-board. “I told you this fellow was only a cheapjack, one of those lads you see at the fair, selling imitation jewellery. You'll see it all in a minute.” And on he went again in his monotonous voice, with one hand holding the book and the other in his trousers pocket. It was all he ever thought of Carmody only worse. Carmody told how he had made love to Nancy just to keep his hand in, and how love came to him at last one evening up Bauravullen, as the sun was setting behind the pines and the pair of them looked down at the river in the valley below them. The fellows began to titter. Sam raised his brows and looked at them with a wondering smile as if he didn’t know what they were laughing at. He was beginning enjoy it himself. He began to parody it in the style of bad romantic actor, waving one arm, throwing back his head and cooing out the syrupy sentences. “And for a widow,” he read, looking down the classroom at Carmody, “a woman that went through it all before.” Carmody heard him and then recognised the diary. He came up the room in three or four swift strides and snatched the book from Sam. Sam let it go with him and then just gaped. “Hi, young man,” he said amiably, “what are you doing with that?” “What are you doing with it?” asked Carmody in a terrible voice. “Oh, that’s our piece for dictation,” said Sam with his lip hanging, and he turned and looked at the blackboard. “I’m calling it ‘The Diary of a Cheapjack.’ I think it’s a good title.” “You stole my diary,” hissed Carmody. “Your diary?” drawled Sam incredulously. “You're not serious?” “You knew well it was mine,” shouted Carmody, beside himself with rage. “You knew my writing and you saw my name.” “Oh, begor, I did not,” Sam said equably and solidly, shaking his head with an expression of utter innocence. “If anyone told me that thing was written by an educated man I’d have told him straight to his face that he was a liar.” Then Carmody did the only thing he could do. He gave him a punch in the jaw. Sam staggered, righted himself and made a step towards him. They closed. The boys left their places, shouting, and one or two ran out of the school. In a few moments the two classes had formed a ring about them, shouting and cheering. Sam was small and gripped his man low. Carmody punched him viciously about the head, but Sam pulled him this way and that till he could scarcely keep his feet. At last Sam gave a great heave and Carmody went flying. His head cracked off the iron base of a desk. At the same moment Nancy and the other teacher came in. “Sam!” she cried incredulously. “Con! What’s the matter?” “Get out of my way,” shouted Carmody, skipping about her on his toes. “Get out of my way till I kill him.” “Come on, you cheapjack,” drawled Sam in a low, scornful voice. His head was down, his hands were hanging, and he was looking at Carmody over his spectacles “Come on and I'll give you more of it.” “Oh, Mr. Higgins, Mr. Higgins,” cried Miss Daly, “is it mad ye are, the pair of ye?” They came to their senses at that. She rang the bell and cleared the school. Higgins turned away and began fumbling blindly with the lid of a chalk-box, and Carmody, lifting his foot on a desk, began to dust himself. Then himself and the two women went out into the play-ground and Sam heard them talking in loud excited voices. He smiled, took off his specs and wiped them, picked up his books, his bowler hat and his coat and locked the school door behind him. The three other teachers drew away as he came out and he went past them without looking. He left the keys at the presbytery and told the housekeeper he’d write. Next morning he went away by an early train and never came back. We were all sorry for him. Poor Sam! As decent a man as ever lived but too honest, too honest!