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Mr. Cairnduff was in complete agreement with Mr. McCaughan. He, too, had the greatest respect for the MacDermotts ... no man could help having respect for them ... and he might add that he had the greatest possible respect for Matthew MacDermott himself ... a well-read and a kindly man, though a wee bit, just a wee bit unbalanced mebbe!...
McCaughan and Mr. Cairnduff and the Logans and the Square and the Lough, and could smell the sweet odours of the country, the smell of wet earth and the reek of turf fires and the cold smell of brackish water.... "Have your own way," he said to his mother, and she drew him to her and kissed him more tenderly than she had kissed him for many years.
McCaughan, who was manager of the Ballyards National School, went specially to the house of Mr. Cairnduff, the headmaster of the school, to consult him on the subject. He said that something would have to be done about the matter.
Cairnduff, to whom he had shown them, had said that, considering the age John was when he wrote them, they might have been a great deal worse. Mr. Cairnduff had given generous praise to a long poem on the election of a Nationalist for the city of Derry, beginning with this wail: Oh, Derry, Derry, what have you done? Sold your freedom to Home Rule's son!
The peace of Pump Court only served to make him more aware of the ache in his head. As he dipped his hand in the water of the fountain, he wished that he could go round a corner and meet Uncle William or Mr. Cairnduff or the minister or even Aggie Logan ... meet someone whom he knew!...
"Aye, but it's that wee bit that makes all the difference, Mr. Cairnduff!" said the minister, interrupting the schoolmaster. "It is," Mr. Cairnduff agreed. "You're right there, Mr. McCaughan. You are, indeed.
Major Cairnduff has it in his house, an' it's not half the size of this one.... Will I get you something?" "No, thank you, Hannah!" "A taste of some thin' to ate, mebbe, or a sup to drink?" "Nothing, thank you!" She went over to the fire. "Dear bless us," she said, "that's no sort of a fire at all. What come over you, to let it get that low!" "I didn't notice it, Hannah!"
John admitted to himself, though he would hardly have admitted it to anyone else, that his Uncle Matthew's behaviour had been very unusual. He could not, when invited to do so, imagine either Mr. McCaughan or Mr. Cairnduff breaking the windows of a haberdasher's shop because of an advertisement which showed, in the opinion of some reputable people, both feeling and enterprise.
My Uncle William will be glad of a copy, and so will Mr. Cairnduff and the minister!..." The Cottenham Repertory Theatre was a dingy, ill-built house in a back street in Cottenham. It had been a music-hall of a low class until the earnest playgoers of Cottenham, extremely anxious about the condition of the drama, formed themselves into a society to improve the theatre.
When she required advice, she asked for it. At Ballyards, he had seen his mother quickening into zestful life because of Eleanor's desire to be informed of things. One evening he had come home from a visit to Mr. Cairnduff to find Eleanor seated on the high stool in the "Counting House" of the shop while Uncle William explained the working of the business to her. "She's a great wee girl, that!"
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