THE O'FARRELLY FEUD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 May 1940, Page 10

THE O'FARRELLY FEUD

COPYRIGHT. PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

By

GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM.

Author of “General John Regan,” “Up the Rebels,” etc., etc.

CHAPTER VII

“Begging your ladyship's pardon—” The speaker was Quinn the butler.

le ladyship to whom the apology was

addressed was Lady Margaret who was engaged at me moment in writing a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Irish Free State. The subject was the enormity of the rates imposed on her as owner of Carrickduv Castle.

It was a matter with which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had nothing whatever to do, for rates are imposed by local authorities, in Lady Margaret’s case by Peter O’Farrelly and his friends who composed the Rural District Council. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is occupied with much more important things, like in-come-tax, customs and excise.

Lady Margaret wrote to him partly because she knew it was no use writing to Peter O’Farrelly and partly because she believed in going “straight to headquarters.” She also believed ir. the use of vigorous language when expressing a sense of grievance. This was the fifth letter she had written on the subject. The Chancellor, being a very courteous man had read the first two and answered them. The next two he had answered without reading them. This is not always easy to the plain man; but our statesman, even in small States, know how to do it. Lady Margaret, who suspected that this was happening, embodied a serious threat in the fifth letter. She stated her intentions of appeal from “headquarters” to an even higher authority. She would state her case in the form of a petition of right to the League of Nations. This, she felt, was likely to startle any clerk into whose hands the letter might fall, after the Chancellor had thrust it away from him. The startled clerk would then — this was Lady Margaret’s hope—insist on something being done. A letter of such importance demands the closest attention in the writer. That was why Lady Margaret paid no heed to, perhaps did not hear, Quinn’s apologetic introduction of his speech. He tried again, beginning with a cough loud enough to awaken a light sleeper.

“Begging your ladyship’s pardon—’

This time Laay Margaret looked up impatiently. She was accustomed to Quinn’s way of dealing with trifles as if they were affairs of State. She expected nothing of any importance even after the portentous introductory cough. “If the kitchenmaid is going to be married,” she said, “get another one, and don’t worry me about it. There can’t be the slightest difficulty. The country is full of barefooted girls and one of them is no worse than another. You can get a dozen if you try.” ■ “It’s not the kitchenmaid at all.” said Quinn. “I wouldn’t bother your ladyship with the like of her. And anyway who’d marry that one? A plainer headed lump of a girl than that same kitchen-maid it would be hard to find within the four seas of Ireland. A man would have to be blind before he’d take up with the like of her.” “If it’s , not the kitchenmaid wanting to get married,” said Lady Margaret. “What is it?”

“H’s the two young ladies,” said Quinn. - “Can't be.” said Lady Margaret. “There’s nobody here to marry them except Ronnie, and he couldn’t marry them both.”

“It’s not marrying they’re after,” said Quinn. Then he sighed heavily, and added, “it might be better for the rest of us if ir was.” “What is it then?”

“Fishing nets,” said Quinn. “It may be in accordance with your ladyship’s wishes or it may not. Your ladyship knows best about that. But anyway they were down in Ballycon this morning buying, a fishing net.” “Do you mean a hair net?”

“I do not. It's a net to catch fish in. It’s no business cf mine, of course, and I’m the last man to be interfering with what’s no business of mine. But I’d have thought myself there was enough fish brought into this house already, without going out and buying a net, so as to catch more. The place is cluttered up vzith fish, the same as it might be a pigsty and the' sow after farrowing.” Lady Margaret was very much of Quinn’s opinion on this point. For a couple of days she had been given mullet at every meal. Like the children of Israel with their manna she had begun to loath that kind of food, though at first she had found it pleasant enough. The staff fulfilling Quinn's prophecy, had flatly refused to touch mullet however cooked. Thus the whole task of consuming Daphne’s original catch nact fallen on the diningroom.

■■l’m dead sick of the look and the smell and the taste of mullet.” said Lady Margaret firmly. “And TH eat no more, not if anyone was to come along and pay me ten shillings a mouthful.”

"Nobody could blame your ladyship for that,” said Quinn. "But it's mullet there will be, and lots of them if tire young ladies get to work with the net they're after buying.” "Who's paying for the net?” •'fl isn’t for me to say,” said Quinn. ■'Fut what the man that sold it to them was saying to me is that the bill is to be sent in to your ladyship. What brought him out here to speak to me, was the way he was wondering whcthyour ladyship would pay that same bill or not.” "Ask Miss Daphne to come here at once and speak to me,’ said Lady Margaret. “Where is she?” "I wouldn't wonder.” said Quinn. "But she might be out in the kitchen garden eating strawberries. It was what the cook was saying to me yesterday that there'll be none for janii this year if the two young ladies goes] on the way Uicy’re going. If it isn't

in the sea they are, it's eating strawberries, without they’d be down in Ballycon buying fishing nets.” “Wherever she is, find her,” said Lady Margaret. “And send her io me.”

Quinn was right in his guess. The girls were in the kitchen garden. Mousie was sitting on a wheel barrow, looking gorged and slightly exhausted. Daphne was still eating with undiminished vigour. A gardener with a mournful expression of face, was looking on from a distance. He had already that morning listened to some hard words from the cook on the subect of the shortage of strawberries for jam making. He foresaw that even harder words would be spoken the next time he had to go into the house with the daily supply of vegetables and brought no strawberries with him. Quinn delivered his message, and being a kindly man added a word of warning to Daphne. Her ladyship’s wrath was, in his opinion, a thing to be feared.

“I’d say now,” he said “that her ladyship might be a bit annoyed about something. If I was you, Miss I’d go easy with her.” “Is there a row on?” said Daphne.

"I wouldn’t say that,” said Quinn. “But if I was you I wouldn’t be crossing her not more than what you can’t help.” “Is it the strawberries?” said Daphne. “There was some talk about jam.” “It is not the strawberries. “Sure, what matters strawberries? Nobody would say a word about them, without it might be the cook and who cares what she says?”

“Well I can’t think of anything else I’ve done,” said Daphne, “which could possibly be called wrong. Can you, Mousie?”

“It might be that cream you took out of the dairy,” said Mousie, who had a good memory and a very sensitive conscience.

“We only did that twice,” said Daphne. “It can’t be that.” “If you was to ask my opinion,” said Quinn, “I’d say it was the mullet.” “Oh, if tnat’s all, there’ll be no trouble at all. We’ll soon get her as many more as she can possibly want. Did you hear that we had bought a net of our own? We’d better go and tell her about that. Come on, Mousie.” In spite of the quantity of strawberries she had eaten Daphne was alert and cheerful when she entered her Aunt's room. Mousie, following behind, seemed a little dejected. She was suffering from a slight feeling of nausea, and was afraid that if it increased at all she might be suddenly sick.

“Daphne," said Lady Margaret. “What’s all this about you buying a fishing net?” “I thought you’d be pleased about that,” said Daphne. “But how did you hear? We intended to keep it a secret and to have it for a surprise for you. just in case you had a birthday or an anniversary or anything of that sort in the course of the next few days. I'm not sure when your birthday is, Aunt Margaret, but I don’t suppose you’ll mind getting your present a little too soon.” “I don’t object to that in the least and what’s more I don’t object to paying for my presents myself. When you get to my age you’re accustomed to that.”

“Of course if you think it’s too dear —”

“I don’t,” sadi Lady Margaret. “I don't even know what you’ve promised I’d pay for it.” “For if you do think it’s too much to spend we might be able to manage without it. I was thinking this morning that the net which is over the strawberry bed, might do quite well, and it’s no particular use where it is. At least it won’t be soon, for in another couple of days there’ll be no strawberries left."

“What I object to,” said Lady Margaret, “is any kind of net which catches mullet. I'll have no more ot those fish brought into this house.” “I feel rather that way myself,” said Daphne “and so docs Mousie. It was only after breakfast this morning that she said to me tnat if she at any more mullet she’d be sick.”

Lady Margaret glanced at Mousie and her expression of mild curiosity deepened into one of alarm. The usual colour had completely vanished from the girl's face, which had become a watery olive green. “Are you going to be sick?” said Lady Margaret. “I’m afraid I am,” said Mousie. “I’m very sorry, but in a minute or two I shan’t be able to help it.” "Then get out of this room at once.” “There,” said Lady Margaret when Mousie had gone. “There, what did 1 tell you? That's mullet and you're proposing to bring more into the house.” “Strawberries. I'm nearly sure," said Daphne. "Not mullet. But —" Daphne liked to be quite fair and judicial, "It may have been a mixture of the two." “Anyhow,” said Lady Margaret, “DI have no more mullet. If you insist on fishing you must catch something else.” “Ch, very well,” said Daphne. “But I do think you ought to be more consistent and you ought not to blame me. I don't want to catch mullet. It isn't for my own pleasure. I'm doing it. I'd never have thought of doing such a thing if you hadn't set me on in order to put a stop to that man O'Farrelly's poaching.” Lady Margaret, a just woman even when suffering from a surfeit of mullet, could not deny this. And she was not ungrateful. Daphne had got the better of O’Farrelly once, and it was the first real triumph Lady Margaret had enjoyed. But even such victory may be too dearly purchased. A continuous and unbroken diet of mullet is a heavy price to pay.

“Couldn’t you stop him poaching without filling my house with mullet?” she pleaded. “Of course,” said Daphne. “I could catch the mullet and then throw them back into the sea. But that seems like waste, and I was always brought up to believe that waste is wrong.” “Not nearly so wrong as eating what makes you sick,” said Lady Margaret. “It isn’t,” added Daphne thoughtfully “as.if there were too many mullet in the world generally. That is, what is called overproduction, and then it would be quite right to throw them back into the sea. We had a lecture about that last term from a young man with most enormous spectacles who came from the London School of Economics.”.

“I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about," said Lady Margaret. “But if that’s the sort of thing they taught you in your college, I’m extremely glad you didn’t learn it and failed in your examination.” “It wasn’t the economics that stuck me. That was easy enough. I could have done it standing on my head. There’s really nothing the least difficult about economics.

“All you have to do is to take all the old proverbs you can think of — ‘Make hay while the sun shines,’ ‘Waste not want not,’ ‘A stitch in time saves nine,” and things like that. Then contradict them all flat, especially the one about a penny saved is a penny gained. When you’ve done that you’re an advanced economist.”

“I’m not an economist, advanced or any other kind,” retorted Lady Margaret. “Nor am I,” said Daphne. “But that’s what the young man with the spectacles said, only in other words.”

“What I want,” said Lady Margaret, “is not economics but to get the better of that ruffian O’Farrelly without ruining my digestion with a diet of boiled and baked mullet.” “Digestion,” said Daphne, “is the result of the operation of the gastric juices " This was one of the subjects she had studied while at college. Her knowledge though very imperfect, as the examiners discovered, would have been quite sufficient to enable her to give a lecture on the subject. Unfortunately, just as she started describing gastric juices she was interrupted by the arrival of Ronnie. “I drove over." he said, “because I thought you ought to know that Peter O’Farrelly is going to set his net again this afternoon. He was overhauling it yesterday afternoon and I saw him putting it into his boat this morning so I'm pretty sure that’s what he's at.” “That’s annoying." said Daphne, "for I haven't got my net yet, and I won't have it till tomorrow at the soonest."

“It. must be slopped," cried Lady Margaret. “I won't have it. Do you hear what I say Ronnie, stop him!"

"How?" said Ronnie. "I would if I could only see how."

"I don't care how you do it, so long as it's done."

(To be Continued)