A Good Turn.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 160, 1 February 1902, Page 4

A Good Turn.

Short Story,

By Jdli M. Cabottib.

I like to think of that farmer ; a man who could weep and bewail his ill-fortune with a noble vociferousness that left the weaker lamentings of his wife unheard and unnoticed. He was “ ullagoning ” the night that the brave Captain Power rode by on his white horse, Satan. The captain had jn?t been on one of his little excursions, and it had turned out fairly profitable. One of his men had informed him that the family at the Castle had started for the Continent, leaving no one it home but the old half-dead head of the house, Colonel Poulson, and a couple of servants. The latter, it had been ascertained, had gone off to spend a •‘wet - ’ evening with some friends at a distant ' public house, so the Captain (bought he would enliven the old gentle'nan’s solitude by a call. “Servants are vile rogues,” he said to himself. “ Look at that ! Enjoying themselves, and leaving the old man a nrey to loneliness and his gloomy reflections.”

And yet it did not seem to strike the old Colonel as a particularly pleasurable surprise tc see Captain Power enter his room aud advance to his bedside.

“ Who are you T’ he quavered. “Bl “bless”) “you, what brings you into a gentleman’s room, unannounced, and r.t this hour of night?

Who are yon ?” “ Ah, my dear sir, you are welcome to raid the Captain, blandly. “I’m Moonlight—Captain Moonlight, very much, indeed, at your service. I thought I’d call ”

“ Thank you for nothin" ! It was a piece of hlnzi.g impudence, d’ye hear that, Captain Midnight ? I never heard of (ne of your name in the army. You’re i nvlitia fellow, I take it—militia be—d cl !” The Colonel spat out venomously, .and waved his visitor away. His manners had suffered from his gout, and the Captain understood how it was. “ I’m not in a humour, thanks bo to God, fortaking offence, Colonel,” lie said “ but it U about the only thing I’m not willing to take from you ! Your plate and stun, now, where are they'?’’ “My plate? I’ll see you to the four |and t wenty dev ”

“You’ll hand me your keys, like a good fellow,” said Captain Power, briskly. The colonel had snatched up some articles of wearing apparel that lay. on a chair beside him, and these the Captain, with a tapof his sword-{jilt, and an apology, dislodged nub of the poor trembling old clutch. The keys wore in the trousers pocket.

“Your a cowardly, lowered villain,” said the old gentleman, “hub you’ll smart for this. I have your full description, and to-morrow will give it, first thing, to one of my brother magistrates' So plunder away you brute ! I’ll see you shake a ‘loose leg’ for your doings as 1 sure as y--u have the face of a combined

wo;f and ape.”

The Cap'ain laughed airily. “ Personalitws are never in good taste, Colonel,’’ he said ; “ but a bad liver would make a scold o£ the finest preux chevalier that ever stepped, and you are far from Miat - This is the plate chest, isn’t it?” pulling an iron-clamped box from fosneath the bed and filling the rnom with dust and Tue at the name time. No housemaid with her broom hid been allowed to approach the treasure place of its owner, who now looked with a stoical burning eye at the opening and emptying of it.' An op'-n-work bag of gold was transferred by the Captain to his coat pocket, and then pulling a sheet off the Colonel’s bed he piled upon it the fine stock of antique silver. It was a slenderer store than the Colonel had once owned, for many vases and bowls had been sent to London to provide for the Continental journeyings and to supply the stock of sovereigns fn the netted bag. “ Well, Colonel,” said Caplin Power, Ipolitely laying the keys on the old gentleman’s pillow when he had slung the sheet-full of treasure over his shoulder.

“ I’ll have to apologise for the suddenness of all this ”

“I'll have yon in the hue-and-cry—the d 1 contuse me if I don’t ” the old gentleman was beginning, when a tap on the head from the Captain’s sword silenced him.

“ That’ll confuse you, at any rate, for awhile,” he said, and chuckling gleefully he made his way downstairs and out into the night. There were many hidingplaces off the old Kilkenny high-road, and to one of these ha made straight with hia prey. Having securely bestowed it in the bog he returned once more to the road, and it was in passing a lonesome farmhouse that he heard and was drawn thither by the Bounds of grief already alluded to. The Captain was a softhearted naan, and he dismounted and entered the house of lamentation.

“ Good evening,” he said, “ What’s

wrong here'?” The man ceased tearing his hair and the woman gulped down a final snuffling sob, and advanced to offer a seat to the gentlemanly stranger. " Oh, what 'would be wrong, your honour, only that we’re in says of throuble' It’s the villian of a landlord, old Colonej Paulson, beyant, that’s killing us entirely about the rent. His agent, Mr Martin, will be hero to-morrow evening an’ out we’re to go if we haven’t the money for him.”

“ How much rent do you owe ?” “ Only six years. And the villain never to let on what he was going to do so that we’d have a chance to drive oft the cattle an’ remove the potatoes to a friendly neighbour’s. The cruel Turk. he came down on ns like a ton of nails, may misfortune scald him 1 ’ “ Have you any children ?” . “ Childhre ? Come here, your honour.”

Hi* honour followed the grief-stricken pair into a room whose atmosphere was overpowering, and there in 4wo or three, beds ranged together was a row of children in every stage of unrest and un* clothedness.

“ Tea twins an* seven .single children, 1 j)nuffled- the mother, ,f seventeen in all, and only the ten acres to; support them.

would refuse, as the Colonel did, to knock off five years an’ let ns see what wo could do in the way of r’ising the remainder in the bank

He’s a cold-blooded scoundrel' to ask any rent at all from you,” said Captain Power, indignantly. “Just Heaven, how long are the selfish and hard of heart to be let flourish on the earth ? What is the amount ot your debt ?”

“Seventy pounds, your honour,* 5 groaned the man.

“ Let me see,*’ said the Captains drawing out the netted bag. The abstraction of seventy sovereigns made a tolerable difference m the bulk, but the warmth of a generous action suffused his heart, and he slapped the gold nobly bn the table. “ Here’s the money, good people,” he cried, u and sleep in peace.’’

. “ Sleep ?” yelled the pair in a treraout of relief and delight, “an’ we afther meeting an angel unawares.” And they wept and knelt around him, clasping hfa knees and kissing his trousers’ hem. Tbfc children awoke, and added their cries dlf alarm to the clamour, so that the C iptain was fain to hurry away, promising, however, to call ufcer the interview with thb agent.

Next morning when Mr Martin Chlled he received the money with some rather nnqracefui language, relating to 'the “ hiding ” and “denying” ot it fot sh

long a time. “ To have this safe all these yeteYs ih »n old sto king-foot or teapot, and to put me to so much bother and annoyance in the hopeless effort to collect it!” he Said, sourly. “Upoi my soul, your doublefacedness deserves horse whipping, 'nothing less.”

“ You’re wronging us, Mr Martin, doing us a crewel injmlice,” wept the pair. “ Sure ’twaa a gift bestowed on us by a wandering gentleman—an angel out d( heaven he was, if ever one of the like appeared •”

“ A wandering gentleman making yoQ a present of seventy pounds'? Get out*! Tell thai to the marines !”

He was still grumbling to himself, although secretly well pleased in the possession of the money, when on the fast darkening road, at a point whose repute had an evil association with rapparees and other uncanny apparitions of that kind, he was startled by a voice demanding “ his money or his lifo -rt Mr Martin was a brave man enough, but it does not always take a coward to shrink from the immediate neighbourhood of the musz'e of a pistol and a hlack-avised face ou a lonely road in the twilight. The agent gave up his money, ten pounds at a time, and then resumed his ride and his curses.

At dark on the following evening Captain Power dropped into the and found the seventeen children and ihe parents seated around the table picking savoury bones and drinking goose-broth in high glee. Upon seeing him there was a united shout of welcome from them. The mother ran for a chair for him.

“ Oh, sir, dear, oh, your honour, you’rt -is welcome as the flowers o’ May. Would you fancy a slice o’-the breast oi the croose ? No. Ah, do, your honour ‘-J Weil, well, well!” “ Eat away and enjoy yourselves,’’ said the cap'ain benignantly. “ I cau aoe by you that the agent is paid. Is the shark fully content ? “ Ob, your honour, he ie an’ he isn’t } that’s the way it is with him. He—he I* hoo —hoo ! Oh, murdher, such divarsion jj keck 1 keek ! keck ! Sure he wasn’t gone a mile o’ the road when a blackguard of a highwayman, one Captain Power, robbed him, wasn’t that great ?—not to let it warm in the divil’s pocket ! He was here to-day blasting-us off o’ the lac# o’ the earth for not paying him long ago an’ avoiding this, but we cared little j! we had his recate for the -money, and it' did us good to have him out of it. Hoo ; —hoo ! Murther, isn’t it grand fun !’, “So Power robbed him ? What kind of a fellow is he, this Captain ?” “ Oh, a hang-gallowt robber, yout honour, that’s here, there, and everywhere—wherever a haul is to be made. Ho robbed the Colonel after half killing him the night before, but the old maa revived an’ gave his description, an’ the magistrates are after offering a hundred pounds reward for him, fielll be nabbed for sure. But in the mean While bewart of the lonesome road, your honour, lot being a moneyed man you’d he a fair mark for him an’ his gang.” “ You think he’ll be captu'rod ?”

“Assure as there’s mate in mutroa, your honour, an’ % good thing too. I have a cousin in ;tho police that’s sharf enough to nab him if nobody else tried it*' Ee’s very fond of us. ®e yvas here last night listening in delight and axing al the questions about you and yonr nobl< act of kindness; He was plazed entii eli when we told him you’d be here thrl evening, for says he with his warm good heart, “ i’ll be escorting, him home « protect him against that lamb of I Captain. Ah, here he is.”

Sure enough, there was the policematß in the doorway and outside could b| discerned the glimmer of the caps of of his fellows. a

“ Good evening, Captain Power,” sail the peeler genially, ' The Captain’s hand instinctive!) sought his pistol pocket, hut the police man and his comrades were too quick foi him.

“None oi that, Captain,*' (aid 1 former. “ Well, we njay as well jogging; there expecting as at the Bri well an’ we’re a bit hungry alter prowli

about outside ail the evening.” The dazed family beheld in spaechla astonishment their benefactor—-Captai Power !—taken away to gaol He wi halfway to that abode of misfortui when the farmer’s superfaction lightene and he uplifted his voice in bewailing that reached the highwayman’s ears.

“He’ll give me a good keening at tl funeral,” he said, *» but ’twaa a da transaction after all—a man’s life-for pillaloo 1” 1