The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 8 September 1921, Page 3

The Storyteller

(By William O’Brien.)

WHEN WE WERE BOYS

CHAPTER XX\ II. —(Continued.) The Secretary’s lower lip fell. He did not like levity in such matters. These Irish lords were as bad as the rebels and the rivers. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing to make absenteeism a treason-felony as well as burying an old pikehead. But the old Adam was not yet dead in John Jelliland. He at once concluded that he could see through this visit of Lord Drumshaughlin. He remembered their former interview, and his instinct as a politician smote him that he had never since clone anything to propitiate a man who would almost certainly lie elected for the vacant Irish Representative Peerage, and whose important County might at any moment Tail vacant whenever a place sufficiently shady could be got for old O’Shaughnessy. Besides, at the remembrance of that odd stripling, Harry, a curiously humbling thought struck the Secretary. “How is your son? he said. “What a sharp follow! I remember very well he was the first who told me all about this conspiracy one of the best informed young persons I have ever met on the subject of Ireland. I have been casting about to see what we could do for him.” He had been casting about for .just three minutes on the subject; but John Jelliland, who, in the ordinary concerns of life' uas stern Tiuth itself, admitted in politics a certain degree of what the theologians call “economy”—Political Economy, in the casuist’s sense, not in Adam Smith’s or Ricardo’s. “You know a young follow like that generally does best in the Colonies.’ There was some vague association in his mind between Harry and Botany Bay, which he could not for the life of him account for.

“The Coloniesa capital place for a young fellow,” said Lord Drumshaughlin, with surprise. “Well, they’re raising a Cape Mounted Force, and 1 should say a commission there would suit your young fellow down to the ground. I'll write to Sir Frederick Flamwell, the Colonial Secretary, this afternoon, if you have no objection, It s a curious thing how my little dachshund Halmar took to your son,” observed Mr. Jelliland, with a deep sigh. “Do you know I’ve lost Halmar since? As your boy said, I would give almost anything for a pup out of that bitch. Singular how capitally Halmar and your boy understood one another—and the whimsical thought flashed across his mind that upon the whole Pepper would have made a better Chief Secretary for Ireland than his master—a thought which, grotesque as it was, somehow saddened him. “Well, well, I suppose we cannot do better than put up Flam well for that commission.” “I am very heartily obliged to you,” exclaimed Lord Drumshaughlin, in much surprise and glee,- “butah—to be frank with you, it was not about that I called.” “Oh!” said the Chief Secretary. “No. The truth is, I suppose you’re aware that my boy, Harry, is as wild as a young colt, and has drawn all sorts of loiterers and queer characters—Fenians and all that—about my place, Drumshaughlin Castle.” Ha! Now John Jelliland could read him through and through. So then this extraordinary business of the American Captain, and the strange doings reported by the police from Drumshaughlin Castle, were part of a plan to bring pressure to bear on the Government to make provision for this young scapegrace, Westropp ; and now that the plot had been successful, and the young fellow handsomely transported to the colonies, Lord Drumshaughlin wanted to save the retreat of his minor accomplices. There was nothing too deep or base for those Irish place-hunters. But even maimed as Tie was by the catastrophe on the Suck, John Jelliland was, at least, not to be deceived by their knavery. “I understand, my lord, perfectly,” he said, with an icy smile of self-satisfaction. “In particular, I am informed that there, is an American emissary ”

"Quite so, my dear lordthe name is, I am confident, McCarthy, and, I rather think, Michael," said the Secretary, proudly.

"According to the information that reached me, the fellow has actually taken up his quarters in my Castle."

"Precisely; and, of course, you want us not to execute the warrant —to let the fellow slip through to America—no fuss or annoyance about tho thing. Well, I dare say, if you really desire it—if you insist "

"Heaven and earth, no, my dear sir," thundered Lord Drumshaughlin. !'Do you think I am stark mad, or perhaps a Fenian myself? I am going home to Drumshaughlin to-night, and do you think I want an American, fill—busterer to meet me in my own arm-chair with a b.owieknife? Good heavens, no! Pardon my heat, my dear sir. But what I came to ask you to do was to have the fellow's arrest effected before I reach —this very night, if possible—so that there may be no possible room for doubt as to the attiude of the Government, or as to my own, with regard to fellows of that kind. And the only other favor I should entreat is that the affair may be conducted with as little alarm or annoyance as possible to my daughter, who, for her foolish brother's sake, appears to have tolerated this man's presence under my roof."

John Jelliland sank back in his chair, as if another wide-weltering river Suck had overflowed and overwhelmed him. The rod of an all-chastening Providence, had been used once more upon his offending shoulders. But he was now getting rather broken to the discipline. In a moment or two, he meekly kissed the rod, and once and for ever dismissed Ireland and Irishmen as the Sphinxes of the nationsthe teasing, shifting, rebellious, fascinating, ragged Unknown and Unknowable.

"So that was what you desired, Lord Drumshaughlin," said the Chief Secretary, with a sigh of resignation. "Certainly. The warrant for that man's arresta most dangerous manwent over several days ago. It shall be executed to-night, and, of course, as you,.suggest, with every possible consideration for Miss Westropp's feelings."

As Lord Drumshaughlin drove back to the club to dine, and set Mundle at the work of packing, he somehow felt that he, who had set out as a bare-footed penitent, was returning as a victorious general; for he had not only crushed treason's head, but he,* of course, debited himself with the piece of luck that had befallen Harry, as though it had been the result of deep forethought and diplomacy of his own. He pulled up outside a telegraph station in Piccadilly, and despatched the following telegram to Garrindinhy, prepaying postage to Stone Hall, Drumshaughlin:-

"Am returning to Ireland by night-mail from Euston. —Drumshaughlin."

CHAPTER XXVIII—A FIGURE IN THE DARK.

The Hon. Miss Westropp was relieved from an unexpected quarter of the miserable doubts which haunted her ever since .young Harold burst into her poor little fairyland like a Black Knight with his declaration of love. It was Frank Harman who effected her deliverance. That good-natured grenadier thought the genial off-hand way was the best way of reassuring Mabel that her offences had not put her outside the pale of society.

"Deborah is such an absurd creature," Miss Harman rattled along, as if crossing a stonewall country at an easy gallop. "She'd really leave one no society but Mr. Primshanks, and no literature except his hymn-book. I. am positively in dread she will forbid the Two-Shilling Novel Series the house next. As for you, my dear child, the naughtiest heroine in the Series is not a more dreadful young person in her eyes."

"Indeed?" said Mabel.

"Yes. You know what Deborah isthinks there ought to be a law to oblige young men to go about logged and muzzled, and that a young lady who marries out. of the county families might almost as well have forgotten to be married at all." '

"I don't think these are matters for coarse jests," said Miss Westropp, repressing herself with some difficulty.

"Nor I; but, I assure you, Deborah doesn't at all regard it as a jest. She is quite seriously shocked by your wicked Gunpowder Plot against the foundations of society, dear. As for me, I am never" done telling her that the

time for those ridiculous old strait-laced frumps and social distinctons of- hers is gone with Noah's Flood. We're all changing and turning the ofd order topsy-turvy; and why not? There's my brother Hans moving heaven and earth to carry that old gombeen-man, Dargan, for the Club. I'm canvassing for him myself. What do I care whether a man had a grandfather, or is a grandfather unto himself? In a progressive age he may be just as useful, if he only keeps a loan-bank, or just as good a soldier if he's only an American. Apropos, my dear Mabel, I must know your American Captain; I hear such funny stories of him. Do trot him out. I am dying to meet him. I am positively determined to meet him."

Frank Harman had galloped breezily along without in the least noticing the color mounting in Miss Westropp's cheek. The latter could bear it no longer. "I am afraid," she said, touching the bell, "I shall have to leave my guest, Captain MacCarthy, some liberty in the selection of his acquaintances, and for the future I shall have to claim some voice also in choosing my own. Order Miss Harman's ponv-chaise to the door, please. Mary."

Miss Harman's candid impertinences and her sister's poisonous tattle completely reassured Miss Westropp that she could not be so far wrong in breaking from the traditions of a society such as theirs to brighten and be brightened by the lives of the simple, kindly, honest-hearted folk, who gathered around her as around a glowing fire that had suddenly leaped forth in their chill world. After all, was young Harold's hysterical love-fit so unpardonable a piece of silliness compared with Miss Deborah's infamous hints and envious green-glasses? Which was the more truly vulgar figure— of the bony female grenadier, just goneherself the daughter of a successful tithe-proc-tor —affecting to make and unmake social laws like an Eastern Sultana? or Captain Mike's rugged form, strong as a mountain pine, with a voice that could be gentle as a zephyr whispering among the pine-tops? Were the young fellows who raved of rushing steeds and clashing swords in an open field for Ireland so much worse company for Harry than the young squireens who only raved of the ambitions of a horse-jockey in the tipple of a groom ? Was it really so very degrading, in the midst of the beauteous glens, to feel the quickening glow of friends, home, and country, instead of regarding them all as a turnkey's daughter might regard her father's prisoners—as an Hyrcanean tiger's daughter might regard her father's prey? And, when she flitted among the mountain cabins, welcomed to the warmest corner, romping with the children, listening to the old man's tales, soothing, a heathery sickbed with her bright eyes (and perhaps, now and again, with some less potent cordials) —was she in very truth betraying the cause of society, morality, and religion, because she did not use their hospitality as a sanitary detective, spoil their Heaven to give their cabins a coat of whitewash, and force them to swallow down one of the Thirty-nine Articles with every mouthful of port-wine She could not think so; and, as a matter of fact, she did not reason the matter out with any such particularity. A German poet once said that the Rose is without a Wherefore: "Sir, blvhct veil sic bluhet." Mabel Westropp blossomed and gave forth perfume because it was her nature to; and the sweet scent flowed over the mountain sides all the more deliriously after the Harman rainstorm had beaten upon the tender petals.

Her life passed in a whirl of simple delights those days: trotting through the woods with the little Motherwells; watching her chrysanthemums come out in their battalions of pink and white; organising apple-feasts and kiss-in-the ring for the urchins of the Ranties; plotting mysterious loans and packages of tea for some of the most desolate creatures on Mrs. Rohan's lists; amusing Harry's ambition in the parting of his hair; working a Grand Army badge for Captain Mike; reading the German poets with Joshua Neville (who, it must be owned, admired the German poesy chiefly for the rugged, old-red-sandstone look of it in print, and who every day with new wonder beheld these uncouth, wrought-iron words dissolve in honey music on Mabel's lips and shape themselves in airy visions under her spells). With Georgey O'Meagher she became fast friends, and early elicited from that frank young party

the open secret of her unrequited passion for Ken Rohan.

■"Oh, yes," Georgey would say, in one of their schoolgirl coenacula, "I love him oceans wide and mountains high, and I would tell him so, too, only he wouldn't in the least believe me. I do believe he's nearly as fond of me as he is of his dog Snipe; but that's just it—he's fond of me in precisely the same manner, and how could he ever suspect that Snipe should have matrimonial designs on him?"

"If he is conceited enough to be capable of making such a comparison, I want to hear no more of him," said Miss Westropp energetically.

“He compare a woman with a terrier! Why, the truth is, he will insist on thinking all women are angels, or ought to be. And, indeed, they’re not —at least, I know Fm not; and,” with a saucy pout, “I’m not so much worse than that provoking little vessel of perfection, Lily Dargjfn, whom he used to adore under the name of St. Cecilia, and who has got married to little Mr. Flibbert, the policeman.” “Dear, dear, what a misery it must be for you, child!” “Oh, no, it isn’t. I don’t mean at all to die of love—especially as long as you lend me Captain Neville to flirt with,” laughed Miss Georgey, “I have no more notion of crying my eyes out for Ken Rohan than for a Prince of the blood royalthough, indeed, I’d die for him ten times over, if ’Would be of any use to him,” she burst out impetuously. “I’d be with him in this conspiracy or rebellion, or whatever it’s going to be, only they object to our petticoats and are afraid we’d faint. And as I’m no use myself, I’ve given him Tom.”

"And who is Tom?" asked Miss Westropp, with much interest.

"Tom is my brother— call him the Doctor, because he has no more chance of becoming a doctor than I have of becoming Brigadier-General. I told him the other day, 'Tom, you must bo sworn in a Fenian.' 'And what is that?' said he, for the boy thinks of not!) in g but his tobacco-pipe and bottled stout, and he does ask such puzzling questions. "Oh, bother," I said, "ask Ken Rohan, and, wherever he goes, follow him." "All right, Georgey," said Tom— though he's not much at his books, Tom will follow, you may be sure, if it was to death, or to the gates of— English headquarters, you know." ,

"But do you think there is really, really any danger of—of things of that sort " asked Mabel, shuddering. "I have no head for politics—not much head for anything else, either; but I don't see why Irish boys should not try a change under their own flag as well as Captain Neville would go out to-morrow and risk his life against some miserable swarm of Abyssinians or Ashantees. I like men to risk their lives. It is the only prdof of sincerity you can get from them. And then it is a woman's duty to weep as she can't fight, and there must be such a pride in weeping for the brave."

Mabel looked very white and trembled. "I'm such a coward," she said faintly. "Don't, dear'!—l know I should die of terror to think poor Harry, now, for instance. —lt is too horrible! And, ah! what a different thing for our poor boys from going out clad with all the glory of an irresistible Empire!"

“Upon my word, Miss Westropp, you have only yourself to blame if I count Captain Neville among our poor boys, and object wholly to his being eaten, by African cannibals for the glory of the Empire,” said irrepressible Georgey. (To be continued.)