The Foolish Lovers | Page 5

Uncle
Matthew was astray in the mind. It was a very great satisfaction to John

that just as Willie Logan uttered his taunt, Uncle William came round
McCracken's corner and heard it. Uncle William, a hasty, robust man,
had clouted Willie Logon's head for him and sent him home howling.
"Go home and learn your manners," he had shouted at the blubbering
boy. "Go home and learn your manners, you ill-bred brat, you!"
Uncle William had spoken very gravely and tenderly to John after that
affair, as they walked home together. "Never let anyone make little of
your Uncle Matthew!" he had said to his nephew. "He's a well-read
man, for all his queer talk, and many's a wise thing he says when you're
not expecting it. I never was much of a one for trusting to books
myself.... I couldn't give my mind to them somehow ... but I have a
great respect for books, all the same. It isn't every man can spare the
time for learning or has the inclination for it, but we can all pay respect
to them that has, whatever sort of an upbringing we've got!"
It was then that John MacDermott learned to love his Uncle William
almost as much as he loved his Uncle Matthew. He had always liked
Uncle William ... for he was his uncle, of course, and a kind man in
spite of his rough, quick ways and sharp words ... but Uncle Matthew
had commanded his love. There had been times when he almost
disliked Uncle William ... the times when Uncle William made fun of
Uncle Matthew's romantic talk. John would be sitting in front of the
kitchen fire, before the lamp was lit, listening while his Uncle Matthew
told him stories of high, romantical things, of adventures in aid of
beautiful women, and of life freely given for noble purposes, until he
was wrought up into an ecstasy of selflessness and longing ... and then
Uncle William would come into the kitchen from the shop, stumbling,
perhaps, in the dark, and swear because the lamp was not lit.
Once, after he had listened for a few moments to one of Uncle
Matthew's tales, he had laughed bitterly and said, "I declare to my good
God, but you'd be in a queer way, the whole pack of you, if I was to
quit the shop and run up and down the world looking for adventures
and women in distress. I tell you, the pair of you, it's a queer adventure
taking care of a shop and making it prosper and earning the keep of the
house. There's no lovely woman hiding behind the counter 'til the

young lord comes and delivers her, but by the Holy Smoke, there's a
terrible lot of hard work!"
It had seemed to John then, as he contemplated his Uncle Matthew's
doleful face and listened to his plaintive admission, "I know I'm no help
to you!" that his Uncle William was a cruel-hearted man, and in his
anger he could have struck him. But now, after the affair with Willie
Logan and the talk about Uncle Matthew, and remembering, too, that
Uncle William was always very gentle with Uncle Matthew, even
though his words were sometimes rough, he felt that his heart had
ample room inside it for this rough, bearded man who made so few
demands on the affection of his family, and deserved so much.
John knew that his Uncle William and his mother shared the common
belief that Uncle Matthew was "quare," but, although he had often
thought about the matter, he could not understand why people held this
opinion. It was true that Uncle Matthew had been dismissed from the
Ballyards National School, in which he had been an assistant teacher,
but when John considered the circumstances in which Uncle Matthew
had been dismissed, he felt satisfied that his uncle, so far from having
behaved foolishly, had behaved with great courage and chivalry. Uncle
Matthew, so the story went, had been in Belfast a few days after the
day on which Queen Victoria had died, and had stopped in Royal
Avenue for a few moments to read an advertisement which was
exhibited in the window of a haberdasher's shop. These are the words
which he read in the advertisement:
* * * * *
WE MOURN
OUR
DEPARTED QUEEN
* * * * *
MOURNING ORDERS PROMPTLY

EXECUTED
* * * * *
When he had read through the advertisement twice, Uncle Matthew
broke the haberdasher's window!
He was seized by a policeman, and in due time was brought before the
magistrates who, in addition to fining him and compelling him to pay
for the damage he had done, caused the Resident Magistrate to
admonish him not merely for breaking the