G K Chesterton

The Man Who Knew Too Much G K Chesterton

This tale begins among a tangle of tales round a name that is at once recent and legendary. Thename is that of Michael O'Neill, popularly called Prince Michael, partly because he claimed descentfrom ancient Fenian princes, and partly because he was credited with a plan to make himself princepresident of Ireland, as the last Napoleon did of France. He was undoubtedly a gentleman ofhonorable pedigree and of many accomplishments, but two of his accomplishments emerged fromall the rest. He had a talent for appearing when he was not wanted and a talent for disappearingwhen he was wanted, especially when he was wanted by the police. It may be added that hisdisappearances were more dangerous than his appearances. In the latter he seldom went beyond thesensational-pasting up seditious placards, tearing down official placards, making flamboyantspeeches, or unfurling forbidden flags. But in order to effect the former he would sometimes fightfor his freedom with startling energy, from which men were sometimes lucky to escape with abroken head instead of a broken neck. His most famous feats of escape, however, were due todexterity and not to violence. On a cloudless summer morning he had come down a country roadwhite with dust, and, pausing outside a farmhouse, had told the farmer's daughter, with elegantindifference, that the local police were in pursuit of him. The girl's name was Bridget Royce, asomber and even sullen type of beauty, and she looked at him darkly, as if in doubt, and said, "Doyou want me to hide you?" Upon which he only laughed, leaped lightly over the stone wall, andstrode toward the farm, merely throwing over his shoulder the remark, "Thank you, I have generallybeen quite capable of hiding myself." In which proceeding he acted with a tragic ignorance of thenature of women; and there fell on his path in that sunshine a shadow of doom.