The Quality of Mercy - By Barry Unsworth Page 0,21
to your judgment,” he said, dropping his former garments on the counter. “I have some experience of commerce, an’ there is no doubt in me mind at all that you will make me an allowance for them.”
But the tailor, after the briefest of examinations, gave it as his emphatic opinion that the garments were of no value whatever. In fact, he barely touched them and seemed displeased to have them on his counter.
“That shirt an’ them trousers have been my coverin’ in good times an’ bad,” Sullivan said. “How can they have no value to them?”
For only answer the tailor pointed out that the clothes were threadbare, torn in places and stained, and moreover had been of mediocre quality even when new. The price of Sullivan’s purchases would remain unchanged at three shillings and ninepence.
“Very well, then, I will not bequeath them to you,” Sullivan said, picking up the garments and stowing them in his bag. “A man will niver prosper in this world who is lost to all sense of justice an’ decorum,” he said over his shoulder as a parting shot.
Immediately outside the shop he encountered the gap-toothed smile of a sandy-haired, thin fellow with no great air of prosperity. “I hear well that you are from Ireland,” this man said.
“I am so,” Sullivan said. “Though it is long years since I last set eyes on Galway.”
“Galway, is it? Isn’t that a happy chance now? ’Tis a Galway man I am meself.”
Often it is some slight cheating of our expectations that inclines us this way or that when dealing with our fellows. Sullivan knew he had a wealthy look about him. He was a purse-bearing man, which the other emphatically was not. In view of this, he had supposed that this fellow countryman of his, who smiled and spoke so friendly-like, would have it in mind to ask him for a small loan. He would have obliged, or so he thought afterward, highly suited as it would have been to the splendor of the morning and his new sense of himself. He would have given the man a penny or two, together with some good wishes for his subsequent career.
But no such request was made to him. “This meetin’ has done me a power of good,” the man said. “To see a fellow Irishman risin’ in the world, it gives us hope for a future better than what is offered in the present, through no fault of me own. I hope you will be crossin’ the water again soon, an’ seein’ them you hold dear.”
Sullivan, who had been left to his own devices at the age of fourteen and had not set foot in Ireland for more than twenty years, felt some prickle of tears at this reference to home and dear ones. And when the man did not attempt to beg from him, and seemed about to move away, he reached out and took his arm. “Well,” he said, “we can take a pot of ale together before we part, for the sake of the dear old days that are no more. You are of these parts, as I suppose, so you will know of a place.”
The man showed every appearance of pleasure at this suggestion. “Murphy,” he said, holding out his hand. “Patrick Murphy.”
Sullivan was about to say his name, but then recalled that he was on the run, a fact he had been overlooking all that morning. They might be posting handbills up … “Corrigan,” he said. “Michael Corrigan.”
If the other noticed this hesitation, he did not remark on it. “I know the very place,” he said. “You look like a man that might have music in him. There is some come into the town that sings an’ plays on the drums an’ hautboys. Everywhere they go there is crowds follerin’ after. I have heard them meself, an’ they are ravishin’ on the ears. They are performin’ in a tavern nearby this very place where we are standin’. It is the innkeeper pays them, because of the people they bring in.”
“Music, is it? You are lookin’ at a man who has lived by his music in days gone by. Me fortunes have changed for the better lately, but it is a power that never quits you.”
He followed his newfound companion through narrow streets until they reached a low-fronted hostelry from which the sounds of singing carried to them as they approached. The taproom was crowded, people were standing close together, there was no room for