The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 28 July 1921, Page 3

The Storyteller

(By William O'Brien.)

WHEN WE WERE BOYS

CHAPTER H ARMANI AN A. "I'm the enemy, you know, Dawley; Beware of me! It's only fair to toll you that," said Mr. Hans Harman, with his back to the scant fire in his bleak study at Stone Hall. He seemed to have found a saving in coals by this system of heating. He absorbed sufficient caloric himself with a trifling consumption of coals, and his visitors were dependent upon him for their heat supply. If he wanted to freeze, he need only look —there was nothing else in the room to counteract the impression. If he beamed and glowed, the visitor might still feel chilly enough, animally speaking, but Hans Harman's geniality only sparkled the more for the surrounding polar region. His large handsome eyes at present shone with mischief-loving Warmth, like a frisky sea-coal fire. Dawley, the tailor, looked as though he were enjoying the privilege of warming his hands at them. It being a cold autumn-deathbed day, warmth in some form was opportune, and it never struck Dawley that the glow in Hans Harman's face would have been as well if it proceeded from the grate. "You're a famous rebel, all the world knows —something high up, now, I'd sweara Brigadier-General with a cocked-hat, very likely? I hear the most desperate stories about the marching and the square-forming of your midnight battalions in the Glen. Well, well," he rattled along, noting pleasantly that the Brigadier-General's cocked-hat was already dancing proudly in Dawley's beady little eyes and on the tip of his cocked-nose, "we'll have to be shooting and charging one another one of those days, I presume— mind, you must expect no quarter from me ! —but in the meantime, Dawley, I hope you won't disappoint me about that knickerbocker suit this week. I may have to wear it against you in the campaign hereafter; but that's no reason why it shouldn't be honorably paid for and a good —a credit to both of us."

'You'll have it by Saturday, sir, as neat as a glove, if I have to sit up all night for it on well-water," said Dawley.

"It's no business of mine, of course; but really one does sometimes scruple to see a smart fellow like you, with your interesting little family—the fourth or the fifth, that last little event, which, Dawley?"

"I thank God I'm not afflicted with them kind of things, sir," said the Brigadier-General, with a somewhat stiff toss of the cocked-hat and feathers.

"True, by Jove! I had forgotten that there was somebody as lucky as myself in this baby-squalling country," laughed Mr. Harman, impcrturbahly. "'But it is all the more painful to see a man, who hasn't a houseful of brats to drag him down, and who might make his way in the world, made the dupe of men without a grain of his own honesty or capacitymen that are, perhaps, feeding on the fat of the land while he is squatted all night with his lapboard stitching a knickerbocker suit. Not but what I should be the last in the world to object to hard industry on a knickerbocker suit," he added, with a genial laugh. ''lndeed, it's de quare set of Democrats dat's going—dat's true enough," mused Dawley, as if to himself. "Making an Irish Republic be gallivanting in a Castle, and shaping up to de aristocracy. As if dat was what de people subscribed dere hard-earned money for!" "Between ourselves, Dawley, I think your Democrats show their very good sense, in not residing in Blackamoor Lane as long as they can enjoy high life in a Castle," laughed the agent. "Well, I don't want to worm myself into your confidence in matters of that sort; though, perhaps, it would be easy enough for me to make a good fellow of myself by pretending that I'm not against you—resolutely and mercilessly against yon. I will only say that it's a pity, that's all; and if you only knew the kind of men you are trusting to—how they are trafficking on you and selling you in droves, by Jove! and not for a hatful of

sovereigns even, but for *a night's rations of whisky. Stay, Dawley, I know you won't abuse my confidence any more than make my coat a misfit, though we are enemies—honorable enemies. There is one of these rascal's below. Just step behind that screen, and you will hear for yourself." J

Mr. Harman rang the bell, and Quish plantigraded into the room like an elephant that had playfully deprived one of the public of a hairy cap. "Well, fellow," said the agent, severely, "you've spent that last half-sovereign-gone into Moll Carty's till—poured down your own thirsty gullet, eh?"

The elephant intimated by a heavy double-shuffle of its kind hooves, and certain vague noises in the gullet in question, that the agent was impregnable in his facts. "Precious bad value you gave the Government for its money—for you know well, sir, it's the money of the public and not mine that you are soaking yourself in whisky with. You'll have to look sharp, sir, and let us know more of this infernal conspiracy, or I'll hand you over to public justice and make an example of you—do you hear?" "I'll do my best, zurr," said Quish, who essayed the smallest effort of eloquence with as painful a wrestling of the spirit as the orator Flood when he used to rise for one of his great efforts.

"Well, what have been the American Captain's movements since you last reported?" "Twenty-three brace on Thursday, and two blackcock." Ihis was the one topic in the world on which his tongue was not clogged with triple chains. "Friday, a parcel of boys scared the birds, drat 'em !-only a few brace and an odd snipe."

The agent frowned angrily. "Don't put me off with Your infernal dogboy humbug," he said, menacingly. "You know very well what I mean-any drilling ?-any strangers m square-toed boots ?-any meeting of Centres at the Castle, "Lots, zurr," said the monster, looking roguishly with one eye and truculently with the other. "Hid in the \servathry an hurd it all. Seems there's a change from the Bay-ships are to come round to Kenmare-some big fellow spected next week that'll settle it all. Quish will keep an eye. Half a sov, zurr,' belched the animal, panting after so much violent word-vomiting. "Vague and incoherent, as usual, I wish your ear was more serviceable an your mouth, or, better still, , f , b , rUsh t ]le mud out of whatever answers you for a noddle, said the agent contemptuously. "Well there's the money, and mind you report the instant this stranger sets foot in the district; or-listen !-so sure as you'll never Wian', angman + Strafght in the face ' y ° U ' ll make that hangman s acquaintance-either that, or I'll denounce vou to the venge «of the men you are betraying-perhaps wit? + r y ' ' i 6 b " J r ' Wh °' I hear ' is a d 4e?ate ,ow with the revolver. Go!" contemnt elthe Tl '«*«"*'" Quish, with the your W •"" ■7 nt f ° r a gadfly - " More I'™'- to jour honor! and burying the piece of gold in his mw with the clutch of a fasting wild animal, th great loucn' -oh I if ° ut „: ,f the room ' hairy ca p and a »- out oft" VU T y> exclail »ed little Dawley, stalking out of Ins ambush with a brow of darkness ',',,, ;"Z L e fr from dat yed abortion • bloody ¥th begotten caricature of ould Nick! "Keolawn" fiZn • I de bailiff! Oh den, oh den wasn't T from Qmah -But you mustn't, you know—honor bright !,'«,'* ice to me,» said Mr. Hans Harman Xblv "l 7 ' + f" t: C wor h sr„ nt the U r ed T yM ' r i -ot \z t *!: aTi „ o di y th s o z°th r, anxious to ]et you ta «- henest because nren are political opponents the" theT'nrav ,'" g;ve some credit for honesty where it's due. l U shoot you down liko a „n at ee no " the field, dawley n tn VeT T** hfe none of your atrocious velve ■'eoLri ' *? l° UT coat." Whereunnn Mr w X Son a sh°otingdoor for Z%l£' HanS Harman s **** <**»*« the

Kicked him downstairs with such good grace, That D. thought he was kicking him up.

Perhaps it was the draughty, stony-faced staircase that did it, but the suppplies of cheerful warmth the agent took in at the study-grate were exhausted before he had mounted to his wife's room; for it seemed to be a gust of cold air that entered the darkened sick-room with him and blew into the drawn, livid, peevish face fastened, as in some slow, torturing apparatus, upon the pillows of the vast gloomy bed. Hans Harman, however, regaled the invalid with a cheerful smile and a hand that, so to say, presented the smile on a silver salver, as he said: "And how are you to-day, my dear ?"-looking then for an answer to Miss Deborah as if the sufferer had nothing further to do with it, but had bequeathed her views on such matters to her sister-in-law, as sole depository and Authorised Version thereof "No worse," was the laconic reply of Miss Deborah, who was standing sturdily over the pinched white face, with the open Bible on the one hand, and a bowl of some nauseous homoeopathic mess, which she prided herself on brewing herself, on the other-a sainted shedragon flapping darkly around the dismal bed-a Holy Inquisitor demanding incessantly of a patient "put to the question what further the most unreasonable of sufferers could desire than a dark chamber, a bed as pompous as a hearse, medicinal draughts of choicest colocynth, the Holy Scriptures and a woman of inflexible virtue to administer these good things m their wholesome season. Mr. Harman was a dutiful husband; but, having cheered his wife with hi customary duti ul visit, and, being a man who lived laborious days public duty compelled him and the gust of Deborah' to take their departure, carrying with them Miss ™ I! I"'! 5 f n^ bUlletin; they ' in factj as the French the'or!;^ mimSter ' S ™ Ce ' aml t 0 The next order of the day was the Mill at Greenane, where the indefatigable agent descended as from a chariot of ecu ml rJd " h ° Ur te ™ ' having, in the meantime, accumulated stores of warmth that ordinary terrestrial s r,Zt7 r a tv° aCC ° imt f 0r ' e ™ * • bitter 0 - tobei blast had not been blowing all the way. "Only puled up to see how you are, Rohan; glad to see you Z sturdy on your pins again," he said. "This is hd news in rest of i 1 UppreSSln , ot th,S Fenian newspaper, -"the dreadful tnin Pe V*, tnie that y Ur SOn ™ some thrust 1 ;° r other that got it suppressed." This last vtib for th so 7 tis ? kit that the I)oint 0f st -l ™ visible, for the contemptuous disregard of his offer of the 2i; s r Pe ** ° ffi - ~»- * the a^:

He had made the one thrust that could stir the millers slumbering independence. "Thank you, sahr t I ™ £\"S f f e + r ble to tako care ° f " aeenthad" « "' C iron ™% before which the meet „™ ***** m th ° V™*-™™ -d at town's

"Faith I hope so for his sake, and for yours Vn,,™ *r ta s™ u v heir n r at a snu « Sh £es that offer rt' , "^"'" n . * eVen be wmmonly civil to those that offer it, don't easily learn that when they dash the heads a Ea ,„ st stone walls it , not the .J,**^ " -Lat the denco has come oyer ~w , Eohan, that you should copy the boy's manner as well as his ejections to a Government situation 5 " objections hat mfoW V ,PPOSGCI th reference ™ to something and might have happened about the time his illnesf and fogs that stil, iCL W IrT^XeriluT Harmau," £ £ tions, 'tis untiring so Wonderful if ,£ a °: "' ««*»•. ambition blacking the boots of the™ 7* T" d ° eS not Dargan a magistrate. At rtfeh r 0 i f "In Humphrey like a lusty wrestler. g h " Myles ohackfe n "Come, Eohan, confound it, you mt n „t ,* „ Phrey hear that," laughed the agent. 1"1 "t?"^

trap, and bending down cheerfully to whisper the remainder. "At all events unless you're prepared »to take up that little bill of his for £3OO on the 24th. He's such an infernal old screw he wouldn't do it for me, unless I handed over to him that old decree for possession, you remember, as security. Of course, that does not matter to a man of your means. But that's old Humphrey's way; and that's what has brought him to be a Justice of the Peace —that and civility. I'm just driving up to see him take his seat just to give him a neighborly leg-up, you know. Goodday, Rohan. I'm sorry I don't find you in such good health this morning."

"Handed over the decree for possession to old Dargan!" repeated the miller, stopping to watch the agent's halfblood mare cavorting and her master distributing salutes up the street. "They're up to mischief. They're infernal scoundrels, both!" said Myles Rohan, as he turned to his books and freight-notes with a heavy heart.

Mr. Hans Harman descended from his chariot of the sun at the side-door of the dog-hole called the magistrates' room, from which, through another door, the magisterial deities were wont to rise upon- the Bench of the Petty Sessions Chamber, like rododaktulous morning. "Admiral, I'm so glad!" cried. Mr. Harman, greeting with respectful enthusiasm a noble-looking, silvery-frosted old gentleman, who had not yet taken off his old-fashioned cloak and gloves.

"I hope that this isn't true, Harman? —at all events that we're not to expect his company here to-day?" said the Admiral, tranquilly.

The agent laughed, and shrugged his shoulders. "It's rather a trial, of course; but you won't be too hard on the old ass, Admiral—l don't think you could be hard upon anybody."

(To be continued.)