THE MAN THAT STOPPED

I

‘The queerest thing I ever saw,’ began the old man in his meditative
way.

‘Yes?’ I said eagerly.

‘The queerest thing anyone ever saw,’ he continued, correcting himself
with great firmness, ‘occurred in this town when I was a boy.’

‘And that was?

‘The man that stopped.’

‘Stopped!’

‘Stopped.’

‘What do you mean by stopped?”

‘I mean stopped and nothing else. Now you’re a clever young man; you
write stories; and still you never thought of writing a story about a
man that stopped. ... I’m not blaming you. Far from it. How could you,
and you never having seen the like? But it just shows you.

‘John Cronin, the heavens be his bed, was an old bachelor; a tall,
thin, melancholy man with a long miserable face and a grey
moustache. He always looked untidy as though someone was after
throwing the clothes on him from the back-door. He had only one way of
amusing himself and that was going for long walks, always alone. I
never saw him as much as cross the road to look for company or pass
the time of day. He was some sort of fancy gardener, and I suppose he
made money by that, but if he did he never had any great signs of
it. A decent navy-blue suit and a boxer’s cap with a shiny peak was
his get-up year in, year out. He was fond of the country and fond of
flowers, and you hardly ever saw him without a posy in his buttonhole.

‘He was a great chapel man. Every morning out to Mass and every Sunday
to the altar as regular as clock-work. You’d say he was a thoughtful
fellow, because that long melancholy face of his was always tied up in
a black knot, but he never had much to say except on one thing. That
was women, and blowing off about them, and all the harm they did the
world from the first day man was made, he’d talk you sober.

‘Now every night of the week, wet or fine, hail, rain or snow, John
Cronin took his walk, up Fair Hill or round the Lough or down the
river to Rochestown. No one ever noticed anything strange about him
till a certain night when one man and two men and three men came in
with the same story, that they were after seeing him standing at a
street corner as if he was waiting for somebody.

‘Well, we made great sport of it. Naturally we all took it that if
John Cronin was waiting he was waiting for a woman, and it was a
powerful story, an old woman-hater like himself to be caught in the
latter end. One of the crowd began to take him off making a speech
about women in his growling, sober-and-easy voice, and we laughed
ourselves sick. But the laugh was at the other side of our face before
the night was out. Soon after midnight and I with the deck in my
hands, Mrs Crowley that owned the lodging-house near Peter and Paul’s
Chapel walked in with a face on her like a pail of sour milk.

‘“Excuse me, men, and not wishing to interrupt ye,” says she politely,
“but did e’er a one of ye by chance see my Mr Cronin?”

‘“Yerra,” says I, “didn’t he come in yet, the ould rip?”

“He did not,” says she, “him that was never five minutes late the
whole long days of his life.”

‘“A woman it is,” says I to the men.

‘“_Mo leir! mo leir_, what woman?” says she, “or is it mad ye’re
going? Is it John Cronin go with a woman, him that I sent up me two
beautiful educated daughters to every day for three years and in the
heel of the hunt he wouldn’t know which end of them was up, not to
mind which of them ’twas?”

‘“Well,” says I, “there’s three men here at this very minute that saw
him waiting for someone at the corner of the South Main Street and if
’twasn’t a woman would you mind telling us who it was?”

‘At those words she began to clap her hands and bawl like one
demented.

‘“He’s gone! He’s gone!” says she. “The best lodger a woman ever had
and his twelve shillings a week as certain as the grace of God!”

“By main persuasion we got her to go back to the house and sit up a
bit longer for him, but we got no more fun out of the cards that
night. “As sure as God ’tis a drag,” says one of them to me.  About
one o’clock Mrs Crowley came back, and without as much as By your
leave, gentlemen, down she dropped in the middle of the floor in a
dead mag. We knew then he was lost, so myself and another man called
Charlie Coveney went off to give word to the police. It was a quiet
night with a full moon shining. “’Twas just at this very spot he was
seen last,” those were the words Charlie was saying to me as we
rounded the corner into the South Main Street when all at once he
stopped and clapped his hands to his forehead.

‘“Sweet God alive!” says he. “Look and tell me who is it!”

‘“’Tis never Long John,” says I in a whisper.

‘“If ’tisnt, ’tis his spit,” says he.

‘And there, beyond a shadow of doubt was John Cronin, standing at the
street corner where the three men were after seeing him more than four
hours before and looking for all the world as if he didn’t stir a step
in the meantime. There was a bobby in front of him with his notebook
out.

‘“What’s wrong, constable?” says I, running up and putting my hand on
Long John’s shoulder.

‘“Are you a friend of this man?” says the bobby.

‘“I am,” says I, a bit nervous, “but no enemy of the law.”

‘“The law ’twill be then,” says he, “if you don’t shift him off out of
this in double-quick time.”

‘“The law, constable?” says I. “Erra, what for?”

‘“For being drunk on the public street,” says the bobby.

‘“Constable,” says I, “you’re a clever young man no doubt, seeing
you’re where you are, and by the way you talk I can tell you’re a
well-read man besides, but will you kindly tell me where you saw or
read of a drunken man that kept his two feet like that?”

‘“I’m passing no compliments to you,” says the bobby sourly, “but will
you tell me where you saw a sober man with two eyes like that in his
head?”

‘So, begob, I looked closer at my hero and noticed his two eyes
standing and his face, as pale as death, all tied up in an elegant
knot.

‘’Tis queer, I’ll grant you, constable,” says I.

‘“Queer?” says he. “Queer, did you say?  ’Tis drink, or if ’tisn’t
’tis as close as makes no difference, and drink ’twill be if you don’t
get him out of this.”

‘“’Tis not drink,” says Charlie. “That man never hurt the feelings of
a bottle of stout in all his born days. I know what it is. ’Tis
sleep-walking !”

‘“Merciful Hour!” says the bobby, drawing back his fist to give
Charlie a clout. “Is that what you call walking? Is it, you unlettered
yob? ... Come on now, the pair of ye! I’ll be back this way in a
couple of minutes, and if that hump of misery is there still I’ll put
the whole bleddy lot of ye in the lock-up, for ’tis my firm conviction
ye’re a Fenian conspiracy.”

‘Well, now, getting Long John home was a hard job. I took home men
that were quarter drunk and half drunk and drunk to God and the world,
but I never took home a heavier load. There was no more life in him
than a post, and when we grabbed him he fell back into our arms with
his two hands stiff by his sides like something you’d see in the
waxworks and the same idioty look on his face. At first we couldn’t
even bend his legs and they dragged along after him as stiff as
pokers. His hands were the same, flapping dead on our shoulders.

‘“Merciful Jesus!’ says Charlie to me, “‘he’s as cold as an altar
stone!”

‘“What is it at all?” says I. “Do you think he’s dead?”

‘“In the name of God,” says Charlie, “how would he be dead and he
standing up against the corner as large as life?”

‘“Don’t ask me,” says I, “but if he’s dead God help the two of us at
the Coroner’s inquest!”

‘Well, he wasn’t dead, but we didn’t know that till we had him nearly
home, and then the life began to come into him again, and such bawling
and screeching he had with the pains shooting through every bit of
him. He wanted us to let him down there and then to die, and not be
lugging him in his last agony through the streets of the city. But we
never gave him a minute’s rest till we got him up to my place and put
him sitting before the fire to thaw.

“Then we put him the question, and this was the story he told, and a
very queer story it was you’ll agree.

‘It seems he was going for his usual constitutional without having his
mind made up for certain where exactly he wanted to go. He stopped at
the corner of the South Main Street to decide whether ’twould be round
the Lough or up Fair Hill, or maybe out the Lee Road for a bit of a
change; and then, he said, something came over him and damn the bit of
him could decide. The very thought of Fair Hill or the Lough or the
Lee Road was enough to sicken him; he knew every inch of the way
inside out, and there was nothing good in any of them. “So, begod,”
says he to himself, “if that’s the way I might as well go back to the
ould doss_and sleep off me deliberations!” but no sooner did the
thought come to his mind than he was worse than ever. “Hell’s bells!”
says he (for being a religious man he never used bad words), “that’s
as bad as the rest.” As sick as he was of all his old walks he was
sicker still of Norry-Dance-Naked and her two educated daughters. Now,
that was a serious predicament, and the more John Cronin thought over
it, the hazier he got; he remembered vaguely the darkness coming on,
and the lamps being lighted, and seeing the moon rising, and after
that he remembered nothing more till he woke up in the horrors of hell
with the life coming back into him as myself and Charlie dragged him
home.

‘Naturally, he was shaken. A misfortune like that might shake
anybody. It was two days before he’d face out again, and he knowing
the queer story was after going the rounds.  After that everything
went well for a while.  Then one night he stopped again at the foot of
the Mardyke on his way back from a walk in the Lee Fields. At two
o’clock in the morning Mrs Crowley called for me. I went to the police
barracks, but they had no account of him there, so off with me to the
Bridewell. The sergeant in charge brought me in. He threw back a slide
and asked me to look. There was a jet of gas lighting and under it on
top of a pallet, and looking like a ghost, was Cronin.  He was leaning
forward with his two hands behind his ears.

‘“Is it for drunk ye took~him, sergeant?”  says I.

‘“Drunk?” says he in an old woman’s voice.  “He’s no more drunk than I
am.”

‘’Twas then I noticed the keys knocking together in his hands and saw
he was half crazy with fright.

‘“What do you think is it?” says I. “Would I take him to a doctor?”

‘“Take him to anyone at all you like,” says he, “so long as I’m shut
of him. And I’m in dread ’tis little good a doctor will do him. ’Tis
my firm conviction the man is bewitched.”

‘Next morning Long John and myself went to a priest and the priest
took down a book and said a long Latin prayer over him; and to a
doctor, and the doctor made him strip and sounded every inch of his
skinny get-up. Then he got to slapping his knees, and ’tis my firm
conviction that in the latter end he thought we were joking him.

‘“Next time you’re inclined to stop,” says he, “take my advice and go
on. Go on even if you have to go into the river. That’ll cure or kill
you in my belief.”

‘It struck us that this was very good advice, and in one way it
was. But as John Cronin explained to me after he stopped the third
time, the effect of it wore off after a while. Even though he mightn’t
be worried when he got to a corner he’d be worried before ever he
reached it, wondering whether he’d be lucky and get past. The thought
of that played so much on him that he got into walking slower and
slower, barely dragging the legs after him, so as to put off the bad
moment, until at last you’d hardly say he was walking at all. One day
he stopped dead half-way along King Street.

‘He only stopped there about an hour all told, for the story was going
the rounds and there was a big crowd around him when the bobbies came
to haul him off. After that he stopped anywhere and everywhere,
without rhyme or reason, like my daughter-in-law’s alarm clock, and
the wonder grew till there wasn’t a soul but knew of it. That was how
he lost his first job (poor man, he lost them all after).  Up in one
of the big houses in Montenotte it was, and he never got past Saint
Luke’s Cross.

‘It got into the paper, all about the strange man that stopped, and
advising people to call a policeman if they saw him at it. Then there
was another notice from the police not to do anything of the sort,
because it appeared that a young fellow couldn’t be five minutes
waiting for his doll without someone reporting him, and it led to a
lot of crossness. Sometimes it was the young fellows beat the bobbies,
and sometimes it was the bobbies beat the young fellows, but whichever
it was, it was always poor John that got blamed, and in next to no
time there was the devil’s own ill-feeling grew up concerning him.

‘One day the inspector of the police got so tearing mad he took his
courage in his hands and hauled John up before the bench.

‘“I’m asking your worships for a direction,” says he. “Ye’re sitting
up there on yeer behinds for weeks, listening to cases of assault and
battery, and abuse, and defamation of character, and my district is
getting a bad name all on account of this one man that’s getting off
scot-free, and as true as the Lord God is above me,” says he, thumping
his chest, “damn the bit of an ould charge can I rake up against him,
the law being the misfortunate, ould addled gligeen it is, what with
_Habeas Corpus_ and _Nulla Bona_, _Ne Temere_ and _Noli me Tangere_,
and all the rest of the bleddy ould nonsense,” says he, getting hotter
and hotter till he was lepping the height of the table off the floor,
“and be the living Jasus,” says he, “if ye don’t go and do something
about it quick we’ll have the end of the world on top of us before we
know where we are.”’


‘Did he say all that?’ I interrupted.  ‘He did then,’ replied the old
man emphatically, ‘every bleddy word of it!’

‘But if the law wouldn’t handle John Cronin there was a party that
would, and that party was all for chucking him into the river and
putting a stop to his stopping. At a special meeting of the
Corporation one man denounced him as an English spy that was trying to
give the country a bad name; pretending the people here had no place
to go, and our own small city as he said with half a dozen sodalities
and an Opera House, not to mention public-houses past human
reckoning. Then the Nationalists got their knife in him and said he
was trying to distract attention from the legitimate grievances of the
people—English tyranny and the Sunday Closing.

‘And about the same time everything began to go wrong. First there was
a dry spell and diphtheria and then a wet spell and influenza, and
children went down with whooping-cough and scarlatina, and Long John
was blamed for it all.

‘And then, of all things that could happen, one night the Lee
overflowed. The people were sailing through the main streets in boats,
and when they couldn’t get boats they went in baths and dustbins. The
same morning the paper was after coming out with the story that a
woman in Midleton and a man in Bantry were-both took with the
stopping. Picture now the plight of Cronin when he was caught that
night and he stopped dead in a foot and a half of water!

‘There was—and let me impress it on you—a general commotion. There
were stones flying and whistles blowing and policemen rushing out with
carbines in their hands.

‘And then—who should appear but the Proud Woman!’


II

‘The Proud Woman! That was her title.

‘Julia Cantillon was a girl you wouldn’t believe the like of existed
in the whole wide world.  The De Cantillons were a good family, but
proud and headstrong as well, and ’tis likely that the same pride
brought them down. Julia took after them. She was a handsome girl and
a good worker, but no man born could ever put up with her. She was the
most obstinate, pigheaded, contrairy child, maid and woman ever seen
in this city. And the way of her obstinacy was this: whatever she was
told to do she wouldn’t do, and whatever she was told not to do she
would do, and without a word of a lie she’d tear iron to do it. If she
saw a notice in the park not to walk on the grass she’d walk on it, if
’twas to warn her against picking flowers she’d pick them. Her father
was a very religious man and leathered blood and sparks out of her,
but he might as well have been leathering a wall.  Nothing ever took a
stir out of her. She was got apast her first communion, but confirmed
she never was, because when the priest asked her would she be a strong
and perfect Christian, she said in a very quiet voice ‘‘I will not,”
and she stuck to it.

‘Before she was eighteen she was a public scandal. In those days there
used to be a lot of English sailors in Cork, and after hearing a
sermon about them at the sodality, Julia’s father told her to stop at
home of nights. That, to Julia, was as good as an invitation to do the
other thing. Then he warned her flat against the sailors, and the same
evening Julia walked up the lane past his very door with a sailor on
her arm.

‘Her father reared. Divil such a crowd was ever seen separating one
couple as there was between himself and Julia. Not before he dragged
one of the ear-rings out of her ear though, and a bit of the ear along
with it.

‘“Thereyouare!”’ says he, “you night-walking vagabond! Next thing is
you’ll be bringing me home what I won’t shock the neighbours’ ears by
mentioning, and as the Lord is over me,” says he, raising his arm,
“the day you do will be your last on God’s blessed earth!”

‘Julia drew herself up, and a fine tall masterful girl she was, and
every bit of her the colour of the table, bar the one ear and that
bleeding, and she shaking with turmoil and her eyes on fire.

‘“I call on the neighbours to witness,” says she in the quiet, ringing
sort of voice she had when she was roused, “that and drawing the razor
across my throat were the two things ever farthest from my mind, but,”
says she in a whisper, giving the table one quick bang, “I’ll allow no
man in the world to quell my spirit.”

‘And, signs on, she didn’t. She brought home what her old fellow
wouldn’t shock the neighbours’ ears by mentioning, and when the
English sailor boy (who by all accounts was mad on her) wanted her to
marry him she wouldn’t, just to spite her father. So she was thrown,
body and bones, into the public street. Though, indeed, bar the one
little mistake, no one could ever say she was anything but a right
good girl.  She took a little room, and furnished it, and made her
living by doing chares. She was a fine worker, but man dear, her
contrariness was a caution. Nothing would do her but right go wrong,
all the married women were damned and every child that had a lawful
father was a fool or next door to it.

‘She lived like that, all alone but for the child, and as happy as a
lark. Her only amusement was playing the concertina, and she wouldn’t
have been bothered with that either, only someone said "twas no
instrument for a woman. She was never what you’d call a good hand at
it, because she hardly knew one note from another, but if you told her
so she’d contradict you flat.


‘Julia was the lady who arrived that night and found John Cronin
standing like a tailor’s dummy in a foot and a half of water without
as much as a glimmer of a notion of the crowds that were fighting one
another to get at him.  One dive she made into the middle of them and
scattered them. They were ail frightened of her, because she was such
a strange girl.

‘“Away with ye!” says she. “Bad luck to ye, what do ye think ye’re
doing? Get off with ye!”

‘“Kill him!’ says someone. “Hold his head in the water!”

‘“Ye’ll do nothing of the sort,” says Julia.  “What did he ever do to
ye?”

‘“He’s stopped,” says a dirty-visaged lump of a market-woman.

‘“And why the blazes wouldn’t he be stopped?” says Julia. “’Tis a
thing I often thought of doing myself.”

‘“’Tis he drownded the town.”

‘“And ’tisn’t the town either,” says a man.  “Look at the face of
him. ”Tis no town he’s trying to destroy.”

‘“And what?” asks Julia.

‘“Sun, moon and stars,” says he. “A fellow like that would stop them
up like a bolt in an engine.”

‘“Oh, God!” says someone, beginning to clap his hands and
bawl. “Where’s the moon!”

‘“Moon my eye!” says Julia. “’Tis going round long enough.”

‘So, begod, they turned on her too, but she managed to hold them off
till a couple of bobbies came. The bobbies grabbed John and started
frog marching him to the barracks.

‘“Move on you too!”’ says one of them to her.

‘“I will not,” says she promptly.

‘“Then, begod, you’ll folly your friend.”

‘“Folly him I will,” says she. “You can take me in charge now.”

‘Let me remark that this was the first natural mannerly word she was
ever known to pass to a man

‘Next morning the two of them were hauled up. ’Twas a different story
now from what it was before. There were the papers out reporting
thousands of pounds worth of damage, half a dozen people hurt and
scores of cases of the stopping.

‘“There’s no doubt in my mind,” says the Bench, “that if steps aren’t
taken in a hurry there’ll be untold mischief done. I don’t know what
to make of you, Cronin. Some say you’re an English spy, but you have
an honest Irish face. Some say you’re a lunatic, but you don’t look
like a lunatic to me. Some say you’re Antichrist.  Are you, do you
think?”

‘“ don’t know, sir,” says John.

‘“I have my own opinion about that,” says he. “Tell me, Cronin, do you
believe in God?”

‘“I don’t know,” says John. “One time I thought I knew everything but
now I’m all upset.”

‘“Because,” says the Bench, “we hear the divil of a lot about people
who don’t, but in my humble opinion ’tis all moonshine. You’re the
first man I met that behaved as if he didn’t.”

‘“He’s not the only one,” says Julia.

‘“Will you be quiet, woman?” says the magistrate.

‘“I won’t,” says she.

‘“You’re a violent, contradictory woman,” says he, “and I don’t know
how you escaped being lodged in the body of the gaol before this.”

‘Well, my dear, Julia mounted up like a fighting cock and thumped her
two hands on the box like one demented.

‘“You’re a liar, mister!’ says she. “You’re a liar and no gentleman! I
never contradict anyone and never did. There’s nothing makes me madder
than people saying I contradict them.  Anything else they like to say
they’re welcome to say. I’d forgive anyone saying I was a liar or a
thief or a drunkard or a loose-living woman, but to say that I do
something I never even have the temptation to do is badness; black,
bitter badness of heart.”

‘“John Cronin,” says the magistrate, ignoring her, ‘what am I going to
do with you? If I leave you go, they’ll eat you, so for your own
protection more than anything else I’m going to give you three months
and be hanged to the law.”

‘“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” says Julia.

‘“Shut your mouth!” says the magistrate, getting as mad as hell.

‘“I will not. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll take that man home
with me and look after him, and I’ll take my bible oath he’ll never
stop again.”

‘“The magistrate looked at her as if he was between two minds. Then he
smiled, and all at once the people in court began to see the joke.

‘“Will you go home with her, John?” says the magistrate.

‘“If ’tis all the same to you, your worship,” says John, “I’d liefer
go to gaol.”

‘“Never mind him!” shouts Julia. “He’s put out’ by the bad reputation
you gave me, a reputation I never earned. Damn the bit of sense ye
have, either of ye! Leave him come home with me for a week till he see
I’m the quietest-mannered woman the Almighty God gave tongue to.”

‘“Will you try her?” says the magistrate, and ’twas clear he was
impressed.

‘“I will, your worship, I will,” says John.


‘Out with the pair of them and the crowds of Cork looking on. And,
whatever happened, no one said “boo” to them all the way back to
John’s lodging, whether it was that he looked such a terrible
toppled-down mountain of a man in the light of day or Julia such a
fine masterful woman with the fire of fighting in her eyes.

‘When they came to the house they found the door locked and the blinds
drawn, and on the roadway outside were the ashes of a fire and three
holy pictures no one had the courage to burn.  John gave a great sigh
and sat on the kerb with his head between his hands. Julia sat beside
him.

‘“You’re not going to stop on me, John?”  says she very sweetly.

‘“I don’t know,” says he.

‘“Say ‘bad luck and end to them!’” says she.

‘“To who, girl?” says he.

‘“To the bodachs inside, of course,” says Julia.

‘“Why would I say that?” says John.

‘“’Tis what I always say myself,” says she.

‘“I won’t wish anyone a bad end,” says John.

‘“Not even the bad luck, John?” says she, coaxing him.

‘“Not even that,” says he.

‘“John,” says she, laying her hand on his shoulder.

‘“Well, girl?’ says he.

‘“If you stopped on me now, my pride would be gone for ever,” says
she.

‘“Would it?” says John.

‘“’Twould,” says she. “And damn the bit else I have in the wide
world.”

‘“Haven’t you your child?” asks John.

‘“A child,” says she, “‘is a gift or a loss, but no shame coming or
going. I never see a crowd but I want to tear the lightning from the
sky and fling it at them. You won’t fail me, John?”

‘She took him by the arm and off they went to the little attic room
she had. After that she made him go to bed, and whether ’twas the
excitement or something else, he slept and went on sleeping till she
waked him next morning to give him his breakfast.

‘After that the two of them went off arm-in- arm together. They
travelled from house to house where John used to work, and whenever
the door was opened for them Julia said in her fine ringing voice:

‘“Here’s the fancy gardener, the man that stopped, and now he’s not
going to stop any more.”

‘That day they got one of the jobs back, and Julia promised him that
in a few weeks he’d have them all. Signs on it, he had. In a month he
was working in places he never worked in before and wherever he went
Julia took him and brought him back. But the best of it was, not that
he didn’t stop (for Julia kept her promise and John Cronin never
stopped again) but that he was putting up a fine colour and plenty of
flesh. He got a house and he wasn’t in it a week before he asked her
to marry him.  He was very put out about that, he being old enough to
be her father, but what could he do and he not able to live without
her? Anyway she didn’t mind. She was glad enough to get him.

‘They married, and, no lie on it, they were the happiest couple ever
seen in this city. Up to the day of his death they could be heard
coorting and kissing for miles off. Every fellow in the Marsh was
cutting his throat about losing a match like Julia, for to crown her
glory she turned out a right good manager.  When he died they were
worth two shops and three or four houses. Whenever you congratulated
her over the counter she had a way of throwing out her hands and
smiling that was as good as saying “I told you so.

‘“’Twas pride that done it,” she used to say “What use is anyone
without a bit of ‘pride? ...  I’ll let you into a great secret now,”
she’d say, leaning across the counter and whispering, “a secret that
might be the making of you. There’s s only one prayer you should ever
pray over a child, only one, mind you! ‘God make this little child
independent!’”’

‘’Tis a remarkable prayer,’ said I.

‘’Tis so, a remarkable prayer. But the astounding thing is—’ at this
point the old man gathered himself into a knot. ‘The astounding thing
is that to the day of his death she never by as much as one syllable
contradicted John Cronin.’

‘She must have been a very unusual wife, then,’ said I.

‘She was a divil out of hell,’ said the old man with the simplicity of
utter resignation. ‘Women are a black bitter pool of iniquity and
deceit that no man knows the bottom of. Look at my daughter-in-law!’