Short Fiction

Lieutenant was taking his place in state, in the box next ours, and such a storm of clapping, cheering, hooting, groaning, hissing, whacking of sticks on the front of the gallery, whistling, catcalls, and other sounds rose all at once, as made the music totally inaudible, and deafened the entire audience for a time. During the whole of this period, while we could see by the elbows and fiddlesticks of the orchestra that the national anthem was still being played, much to my chagrin, I saw Mrs. Molloy, in whom I felt an interest, reflected from her lovely daughter, and a responsibility though not quite so near as Mundy’s, behaving herself in a manner that, I confess, scandalised me a good deal; for, with her side and shoulder on the cushion of our box, she contrived to get her face round the partition of his Excellency’s, and indeed, I may say, pretty well into it. One of her objects had been to get a good look at that dignified personage. I could soon perceive that she was engaged in a violent altercation with someone in the viceregal box, in which her face was, I may say, established.

I thought I could distinguish in her powerful voice an allusion to the well-known privilege that cats enjoy, of looking at kings; but, except the constant and vehement nodding of her turban, I could see nothing of what was going on in the state box.

Tom Barnacle was in the pit, a little way out, and told me next day all he saw; and from that and Mrs. Molloy’s narrative, I can relate that when her face presented itself considerable surprise and even consternation appeared in the countenances of those members of the household that were stationed in the rear of “his Excellency,” who looked straight before him, as if unconscious of the appearance of the disk that had risen so unexpectedly on his horizon.

Mrs. Molloy nodded repeatedly to “his Excellency,” and smiled affably, assuring him that she was proud to see him there, and that Molloy himself and her daughter being in the next box she did not think it would be manners if someone of the family did not wish his Excellency health, wealth, long life, and prosperity, which she did with a cead mille failthe from the heart of a Connaught woman, and the boosom of Ireland.

His Excellency, she complained afterwards, did not appear to hear what she was saying⁠—“them ignorant blackguards were making such a noise”⁠—but as the speech exhibited no symptoms of drawing towards its close, one of the gentlemen, in Castle uniform, stepped forward, and said with very marked distinctness: “Unless you withdraw your face, a constable shall take you from the next box, and convey you to the watch-house.”

It was upon this that Mrs. Molloy, who had a “sperit” befitting her ancient lineage, had retorted in high and scornful terms upon the “gentleman-at-large,” who looked as if he would have liked to take by the throat that turbaned Turk; and it was not until she saw him, as she thought, make a sign to someone, in the rear of the box, that her prudence overcame her indignation, and, with a face of flame and many a sniff and snort, she resumed her original pose, and stared fiercely across at the side-scene opposite, and her gills palpitated for half an hour afterwards.

The frightful discord with which the representative of majesty was received, foreboded the political storm that was brewing.

Macbeth was the play, and my troubles, to return from great things to small, were not over yet, for when the witches came on, and the cauldron appeared, a chap calls out from the gallery: “The boiling-pot, Mr. Toole.”

I felt it the more that there was a dead silence in the house at the moment. And when the smoke began to come up, and the witches said:

“Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble.”

“Melting-day, Toole,” says another. And when Macbeth said:

“Out, out, brief candle.”

There was a roar of “Short sixes.”

I give you my sacred honour, I felt as if I was melting myself. I’d have liked to stand up that minute and tell the whole world I was a chandler. There’s nothing on earth so torturing as a mystery, with a lot of fellows, that know all about it, poking it under your nose every minute in the presence of a great assembly.

Between the acts, it was one succession of groans, and hisses, and political sentiments, and it was plain that the Lord Lieutenant and the government bigwigs were in ill odour with the gallery. It was just when Macbeth was on the point of murdering King Duncan, a chap among the gods called out, by way of a joke: “God Save the King,” and with that another calls for “Patrick’s Day,” and then the whole gallery round set up one roar for “Patrick’s Day,” and nothing could you hear but “Patrick’s Day⁠—Patrick’s Day,” in one thunder; you’d think the ceiling would come down. And out comes the manager, and stood bowing in front of the footlights, turning up his eyes to the gods, and Nosey waiting for a signal from him to strike up the tune they wanted. He made no sign; the clamour rose awfully; he smiled, he shrugged, he bowed very low, he expanded his white gloves imploringly, as he slowly looked from one side to the other of the gallery. All would not do; they would not give him a hearing. The manager went off, bowing and smiling regretfully, and he sent on Lady Macbeth to proceed, if she could; but the storm was rising steadily, and even that royal virago was forced to submit: Lady Macbeth curtseyed low, and in turn withdrew. Again the manager came forward. He gesticulated before the gentlemen in the gallery, conveying as well as he could that their demands were complied with; he stepped forward to the footlights, signed to Nosey, who rapped on his