The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 29 September 1921, Page 3

The Storyteller

(By William O'Brien.)

WHEN WE WERE BOYS

CHAPTER. XXVlll.—(Continued.) "It is glorious! No wonder Italy is free," said young Rohan, passionately. "'Parting Lovers' the poem is called."

"Poor Harry is my Giulio," she said, without noticing, "and oh, dear me, Ido so grudge him—l do so shudder!" Ken Rohan's heart said to him darkly, "She well may. If it were with us only a matter of "flashing our souls out with the guns" there needn't be much shuddering ; it is different when it is a matter of flashing our souls into a garotter's jacket—into a felon's hell." But aloud he said gaily, "Yes, but you'll end by saying "Go!" and go he will, and return, too! Italy is not going to have all the poetry and triumph to herself." '"But why go at all? Why for ever these miserable flags and drums and the tears that follow them? 0 there is so much goodness in the world, so much unselfishness, so much affection!—and yet a handful of wicked, selfish, heartless men and women force guns into the hands of the millions who only want to be kind to one another, and bid them slay and mangle or be slain! Who would be the worse if our poor folk had their little cabins safe over their heads— the genius of their indestructible old race restored again to its kindly throne in Eirinn of the Streams? Why should that shadow cross our path to-night? Why cannot the two nations—why cannot all the world—sit as you and I are sitting here to-night, respecting one another, admiring one another, liking one another—l only too happy to think that some of your bright Celtic blood flows in my veins—and you not, I think, at -all disposed to let this foolish blood of mine flow out in order to analyse how much of it is Protestant and English? Oh! why cannot people be the same in millions?"

"Because there are not many like you in the world—if there is another one," he said fervently, almost in a whisper.

"I did not mean you to say that, and I did think you would have known that I did not mean you to say it, she said, with a flush of pain. "I did—l do know it, Miss Westropp; forgive me," he cried, reverently bowing his head. "After all, what do we all dream but that there may be— there are—lions like you in the most brilliant part of you—a compassionate human soul ? Heaven grant it if ever this heartbreaking old world is to be put to rights!" "Or," said she, her little head supported thoughtfully between her hands, "if the old nun is not wiser than, all the philosophers and statesmen, and if all the pangs and complications of this shadowy world are not divine messages to remind us of a brighter- . Didn't you hear some noise? Listen! There it is again—trampling on the gravel. Heavens! what has happened " and she sprang to the window and tore aside the blind. "Look! The place is full of them— armed men!" -

'At the. same moment the great hall-bell was tugged and sent its alarum vibrating through the silent caverns of the Castle.

"May I leave you for one moment to see* what it is about—one moment only, and I will be back?" he said, moving towards the door. - "No, no!—I must know," she cried, springing after him. "Thank you!—l am all right now";'and when he reached the heavy oaken portal, she was beside him, white, but calm. m

"Who's there?" he demanded, as the bell went off into new and more violent convulsions.

"In the Queen's name open!" answered a deep voice outside. "•.-.--'.

Young Rohan undid the massive chain fastenings, and the great door swung slowly back. The light of the halllamp fell upon-clumsy dark figures shrouded' in frieze greatcoats, and behind them a vague living mass, amidst which the light: picked out flashes of scarlet and the tips' of bay-

dhets here and there against the shifting black background. The foremost of the great-coats pushed unceremoniously forward. Ken Rohan put him quietly but resolutely back.

"Let me pass," said the man, gruffly, thrusting forward a rifle.

"Not until yem've explained your business," said Rohan, grasping the rifle with both hands by the barrel.

"You have no right to see the warrant is a felony the 11th and 12th Victoria will tell you that —we've a right to enter, arrest, and search," said Head-Constable Muldudden, whose pride in the legal reference had checked for the moment his rude onset. "I bear a warrant for the arrest of Michael MacCarthy, commonly called Captain MacCarthy, on a charge of Trayson-felony— me at your perr'l!"

"Captain MacCarthy is not in this house — my word!" came the answer, in Miss Westropp's calm, clear tones. She stood forward, facing the lurid circle of arms and rough figures like some statue of a Madonna suddenly gleaming into life.

The policemen on the steps involuntarly stepped back a pace. Muldudden's hand went perforce to his hat as in the old exorcisms the Evil Spirit is compelled to make the sign of the Cross at departing. "Very sorry, Miss," he said, with a certain cowed insistence, "but orders is orders. We'll have to search the Castle."

"Miss Westropp has pledged her honor that Captain MacCarthy is not here," said Rohan. "JDo you persist in breaking into the house at this time of night, when you know there is nobody but a helpless lady and her servants on the premises?"

"You are there," said the other, with insolent meaning. "Stand aside, if you don't want to commit a misdemeanour yourself, my fine fellow, as you've escaped trayson-felony this time.'

The head-constable made a lunge forward again with the muzzle of his rifle. Quick as thought the young man had wrenched it out of his hands, and held the clubbed musket fixed menacingly over his head in the doorway.

"Stop !" cried an authoritative voice, its owner advancing out of the darkness. "There are express orders not to give Miss Westropp any unnecessary annoyance. If Miss Westropp assures you that the man named in the warrant is not in the house it is sufficient. Head Constable Muldudden, you can fall back."

"Mr. Hans Harman!" exclaimed Miss Westropp, as the agent, wrapped in a heavy cloak, pushed the policeman on the steps back into the darkness, and doffed his lowcrowned hat. "Pray, am I to count myself indebted to you for terminating or for initiating this visit?"

"An accident — mere accident —my being here, I assure you, my dear young lady. A dreadful duty—but these are dreadful times. The officer of police, Mr. Flibbert, was away on his honeymoonit was a very pressing matter —and as there was no other magistrate immediately available, Muldudden called upon mepressed me into the service by my allegiance, so to say."

< "I have no doubt he called upon the proper person, sir," she replied, in a tone that somehow prompted linn to put up his hand to see if anything had cut him across the cheek. "Am I to consider myself free to treat this' scene as closed, or does your duty to your Sovereign press you any further?"

"Young ladies, of course* cannot be expected to understand the stern duties that times like these impose upon men; but I assure you that the instructions were that you should be treated with every possible consideration."

"And doubtless, sir, so I have been. Is there anything more?" she asked, holding the great door half open. His sleek self-command forsook him under the lash of that girlish voice. "Nothing more," he said, as he turned into the darkness, "except that your father will be here tomorrow night, and will, no doubt, take care that there shall be no repetition of the proceedings which caused this visit to Drumshaughlin Castle, and no continuance of the acquaintances which pain his daughter's best friends." The hoarse order —"Fall —march!" and the heavy trampling on the gravel were the last sounds that came through as the great iron-clamped door swung back into its chains.

"My father returning, and not a word to give me noticenot a message or a hint to me?" mused Miss West-

ropp, as she faced back through the echoing corridor. "Oh! I dare say he has been teased to death with that ill-natured gossip of Harman's, and is coming back to give me a terrible blazing-up for my iniquities, dear old pappy! Only wait till we see whether it's Mr. Hans Harman or I that will have the worst of his agent's exploits to-night from him ! Oh! but Captain McCarthymy poor, poor. Captain!"

"Captain Mike's old luck —but 'twas a close thing this time/' said Ken Rohan. "Somebody must have passed the word."

"Oh! but if notif he does not know —go and find him! go and warn him! go!" she cried, vehemently. "I will hot feel lonesome now—and—what a selfish creature I am !how they must be waiting and trembling for you all this time at the Mill, while I have been keeping you here to nurse me! And my own poor Harry—God of Sorrows! what a country is this! —what a tangle of hopeless chains around young lives! Where can Harry be ? How is the Captain to be warned? What is to be done?"

"Here is somebody who will, perhaps, answer the question for us," said Rohan, as the hall-bell again sounded.

"Heavens! if it should be the Captain!He is lost!" she cried, white as death.

"It is Harryl hear his voice in the corridor," he answered; and the next moment Harry Westropp staggered into the room, like one drunk or insane, and tumbled into a chair, crying: "Whiskyfor God's sake, Mabel, whisky!" His eyes were staring wildly, his light hair tossing in anarchy, his throat, as Ken Rohan placed the tumbler in his hands, burning like the funnel of a ship's boiler. "The police were here?" he ejaculated, after a greedy gulp. "I passed two of them*this moment in the avenue. They are outside still. Have they told you?"

"In Heaven's name, what?" cried Miss Westropp, who-had sunk on her knees at ms feet, with her hands clasped.

The strain appeared to have been too much for his mental faculties. His head fell heavily between his hands, and tears broke from his eyes; and all that was distinguishable from his sobs was "Quish! poor Quish!"

CHAPTER XXIX.—QUISH GOES HOME.

Earlier on that night of uneasy moaning winds a man glided into the darkened chapel. Only one half of the door remained open, the chapel-woman having already bolted the other half for the night, as a signal to stray worshippers that the hour of total closing was at hand. Inside all was getting dark, except where a feeble red glow from the lamp before the altar trembled in the deep gloom like the heart of a mystery. The man stumbled against a pillar and fell on his knees. A fugitive gleam of moonlight burst on him as through a bull's-eye, deepening every furrow on his haggard face, and making the statue of a past parish priest fixed against the wall beside him horrible with the bluish-white tinge of a dead man's face. He shrank back blinded. The patch of troubled moonlight disappeared, and seemed to have deprived him of the light of his eyes. There was not a sound in the chapel. The pillars' and confessionals loomed darkly like monstrous dead forms." It seemed to him that his own breathing must bo heard in the most distant corners, so loud it sounded and so fiercely it tore its way through his chest. He staggered back towards the doorway, and had one hand on the handle of the inner swing-door when the low groanlike cadence of a Latin prayer somewhere in the darkness first startled, and then reassured him. 'He let go the doorhandle and crept again along the wall, groping his way /stealthily till he started back again with trembling limbs. His hand had touched the cold white face of the dead parish priest. He gently resumed his way on tip-toe towards the altar-lamp, and presently, just as the red glow died off into deep umbered shadows, he stood beside a prostrate form with something that shone like a silver crown on its head. "Father Phil," muttered the man in a hoarse whisper which, nevertheless, he thought sounded like the alarm of a groat bell. The, silver crown continued to be bent low before the tabernacle, and no sign of life came until again there came that low wailing Latin heartcry: "Si iniquitatea observaveru, Domine, Vomine, quia sustinebit?" —that sad-sweet hymn of human weakness in which saint and sinner, great and lowly, have for thou-

.sands of years confessed a common kindred before the allspotless, all-mighty, all-merciful Throne. The man trembled violently, and seemed to hesitate then ,as if worked to desperation, he plucked the old priest by the soutane, whispering in a thick voice in his ear:

"For God's sake, quick, Father Phil! A man is dying!" '

The old priest started. His first confused impression was that some damned soul had just addressed him. But Father Phil had lived too long in both worlds, and seen too much of their troubles, to be very much perturbed by summonses either from the living or the dead. He groped for his biretta on the altar-step, and silently drew the stranger into the adjoining sacristy, where a taper was lighted. The stranger shrank back as if the sun out of heaven had suddenly flashed in his eyes.

"What! Owen!" cried the priest. "Is it the old man? What has happpened, boy? Why do you look so frightened?"

"It's Quish—Quisirthe bailiff!" The words struggled out in a rasping gurgle. The boy's face seemed to have absorbed fifty years of cares and hardness since the night we saw him in his father's cabin at Cnocawn. "Quick, Father, or you'll hardly ketch him!"

The priest turned his eyes full on the old-young face cowering before him, and all the blood in young Owen's heart seemed to fly to that face under his scrutiny. "O—----oh!" he cried, in a voice that rent his hearer's heartstrings. "Oh! you unhappy boy!" Without another word, he flung aside his soutane, and seized his black?green overcoat and hat. In his haste the old hat rolled on the floor. The young lad knelt on the floor to pick it up. He remained on both knees, with a downcast face of misery, holding out the hat in his hand. The old priest looked at him, took the hat with a shudder, and murmured "God forgive you!" The other rose, and a dark scowl disfigured his young face horribly.

"Amen, Father," he said, half sullenly, "but he was an informer!"

The priest turned on him a dreadful look. The young fellow's powerful frame fell in under it as if that Spanish contracting iron cage was crushing hrs bones. "Don't tell me!" he cried, with the dread emphasis of an exorcist. Then, seeing him broken: "is it at his mother's place he is—the body, is?" he asked, more gently.

"It is, your reverence —but he is not dead — will be in time," said the other, eagerly.

"Quick, get round my pony," said Father Phil, placing the viaticum and the oils for the Last Sacraments in his breast.

(To be continued.)

Go and help Jesus. Why should a single soul be lost for which He died ? I say, why should one be lost ? There is Precious Blood to be had for the asking, and what it gives is grace. When the Fountain of all grace is springing up like a living well of joy in the heart after Holy Communion, ask Him to open all men's eyes to the beauty of His grace, and so you will cause His grace to multiply, and with the multiplication of grace His interests to pros—Father Faber.