The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 3 November 1921, Page 3

The Storyteller

(By William O’Brien.)

WHEN WE WERE BOYS

CHAPTER XXX.—(Continued.) "/g Another force in Humphrey Dargan’s favor was set to work upon the hurried arrival home of Sub-Inspector , Flibbert and his bride. , His honeymoon was sadly dark- * ened by the - news of the tremendous events that were enacting at Drumshaughlin in his absence and without his' authority. Upon the first hint of the warrant for the American Captain, he expressed grave fears to his wife that she would have to give up the Castle Drawing-room, / as if the prospect of escaping that awful presentation were not the best bit of news the poor child had heard ’■ on her honeymoon. When later on in the . day he purchased from a bawling newsvendor the intelligence of the’ assassination of the bailiff, he rushed in to bid her to pack her trunks for the night mail to the South ; and the alacrity with which she obeyed his joyous message did not in the least diminish his resentful feeling that it was somehow to his wife’s passion for Viceregal festivities he owed his absence from Drumshaughlin when the two greatest opportunities of his life had arrived and caught him napping. “Indeed, indeed, Augustus' I never wanted to remain at all,” she was experienced enough in the ways of men to plead. ' “Of course, dear,” he answered, sweetly, “only you forgot to mention that in time. Now we have managed matters so that we have not only missed my chances at Drumshaughlin, but we shall miss the Drawingroom here as well.” To which Lily thought it inadvisable to make any retort, ,even in the shape of a furtive tear; but all the way down in the stifling train had oppressive dreams of putting forward the datf of the, murder, and putting back the date of the Drawing-room for her own wicked purposes ; and towards the end of the journey began to cast timid looks at Augustus George, as if it was really she herself who had comrnitited the murder and was being brought back back in custody. It may easily be inferred that poor Lily had found the honeymoon the most trying episode in her life, since a day long ago when a child she, had missed her little companions and been delivered to Mother Rosalie at the Convent gate by a strange man who had found her crying, and who had made faces at her and personated “The 800 Man” for the purpose of illustrating the horrors that awaited bold little girls who had miched from school. Augustus George had not at all made faces at her, but, on the contrary, doated very sufficiently on her blush-rosy cheeks; still she could not help associating * his figure with that of the strange man, and once or twice, perhaps, she sighed for a dear old Mother Rosalie at the end of the journey to take her back and slap her. The only real friend she made oh the wedding trip was an ancient sentimental chambermaid at the dreary hotel, .’ with whom she found shelter from the eyes of those awful ; waiters, and who patronised her like a pretty baby. Mr. Flibbert’s friends at the Depot “County,” with a > fierce moustache which had ceased to be civilian without having become quite military; the “County’s” lady, a terrific personage who was to present her at the Drawingroom ; the barely razorable cadets, who were quaffing their first goblet of Dublin life, and whose talk was of the new regulation in the Code as to boot-money, and whether young Hankoff found his old station at Killala or his new station at Killaloe tho beastlier hole of the two —all those great folk, and the more dazzling ordeal they prefigured to her of the Throne-Room, simply filled with terror the shrinking, convent-bred little country girl. Flibbert admired her so much that he considered it almost a personal affront that she could not be got to “come out.” A criticism which he overheard one green cadet confiding to another, “Devilish pretty, you know, but such a little ninny!” rankled in his mind to such a degree that he seriously/ thought of consulting the “County’s” wife as to whether /i a course of lessons in elocution, .or at an Academy of / Deportment, or perhaps in a Riding School for Young Ladies, was usually found to be of most effect in such . cases. At home v at The Roses (which Mrs. Dargan had ;

bestowed on the young people as a temporary residence, old Humphrey having 'stoutly refused to quit his old pawnoffice parlor) the Sub-Inspector’s failed to rise to the height of Mr. FHbbert’s ideal as dismally as she had done in the gilded drawing-rooms of the Depot. She was like a seedling of gentility which would not come up, and all, her hew friends, and even her own mother, were engaged daily in. rooting up the earth about her to inquire why she was not coming on. With Frank Harman, singularly enough, alone of her husband’s set, she established some approach to a friendly alliance—such alliance as a sickly flower in - a London back-yard may be said to have struck rip with the great blank walls which do not fall and crush it. She called Miss Harman ‘‘ma’am” with the sweetest good faith, and seemed to be honestly apologising for being in the ,way when she called; and that genial grenadier was so touched with the poor child’s simplicity that she, as it were, took her in her lap as caressingly as if she was a silky little Blenheim spaniel, and said she was a great deal too good for that mercenary little Flibbert, and peremptorily pitched into the fire a packet of leaflets against Popery which Miss Deborah had prescribed for Lily as improving literature. His wife’s Avant of social enterprise was a grievous trial to the Sub-Inspector, who, however, accepted her shortcomings without the least intentional unkihdness, and set himself to reconquer Miss Harman’s favor with more assiduity than he had ever dreamt of devoting to the winning of poor Lily’s love. He was much consoled for his absence during the two historic 'events of the week by the failure of his subordinate, Head-Constable Muldudden, . either to apprehend the American conspirator or to elicit the smallest scrap of evidence against Quish’s murderers. There Were not wanting in the force men who, 1 either toadying .to Mr. Flibbert’s greatness, or envious of the well-known legal attainments of the Head-Constable, were ready with specious stories of how the American Captain was seen escaping through the shrubbery owing to Muldudden’s neglect to place a policeman on the postern gate; and how a police patrol were bound to have taken Quish’s murderers red-handed only that the same jolter-headed Muldudden had instructed the patrol to take the Coomhola road instead of that over the Bauherlin Mountains on that ’ particular evening. Flibbert, who naturally regarded the swoop on the American Captain and the murder as attempts of a designing subordinate to take a mean advantage of his absence, was, if possible, even more sarcastic on the arrangements which Muldudden had made than on those' which he had omitted; and when that discredited commander ventured to suggest from certain appearances that the American Captain might possibly be lying hidden in the belfry, the 'Sub-Inspector said: “Don’t be a donkey, Muldudden!” in the hearing of a whole day-room-full of grinning subordinates. “Well, sir,” said the unfortunate Head-Constable, t making a last gallant rally of his forces, “if you’ll refer to page 96 of Humphrey’s ■ Justice of the Peace you’ll find ” , “How to let murderers and conspirators slip through my fingers, no doubt,” sneered Flibbert, who thought his own remark so crushing that he determined to mention it incidentally to the County-Inspector. Mr. Flibbert. in fact, took up charge of the peace of the community with the air of a Curius Dentatus recalled by his country from his cottage. Every day that the American Captain remained uncaught and the Bauherlin . Mountain murder untraced he looked a deeper and deeper fellow' for preserving the secret so long; and now that he had Humphrey Dargan s iron safe behind him, and a public looking up to him as its preserver from the horrors of rebellion and assassination, he had no longer any false modesty about asserting his own importance as one of the Great Powers of Drumshaughlin society. He was slightly, taken aback when, proposing himself a cosy, confidential chat with Lord Drumshaughlin touching the peace of the district and the follies of his son, Harry, his card was answered with an intimation that, if he had'any message for Lord Drumshaughlin, he might send it in by the maidservant; but Miss Harman and Mr. Flibbert quite agreed that Lord Drumshaughlin was an old tyrant who was probably mad and who certainly drank; and they agreed still more cheerfully that, between the Harman influence

and the Flibbert influence, Humphrey Dargan’s election w r as as safe a prediction as the next! eclipse of the moon announced in the almanacs. Young Lionel Dargan, who remained in Drumshaughlin smoking eighteeenpenny cigars on the Club steps with the Sub-Inspector, and discovering some object of sudden interest in the sky Avhen Ken Rohan passed on the other side, Aims, only tearing himself from the embraces of his college chum, Lord Shinrone’s son, for a feAv days longer to see whether his father’s election to the Club might not be triumphantly followed by his own. “By George, here’s Drumshaughlin! looking as touchy as the very—-gout. Come to carry our. gombeen friend, of course cried old Grogan, who was one- of a group before the reading-room fire on the evening of the ballot. There v as an unprecedented muster of members, and the regular set of army men and evergreen old bachelors, who spent their evenings over their spirits-and-water, card-tables, and Tory papers, wore amazed at the number of unexpected ghosts that arose as on a general resurrection —those queer anchorets of the desert whom county society loses sight of from time to time, nobody can tell how: men who have become so absorbed in the breeding of shorthorns that they only turn up like the shorthorns on cattle-show days, with apparently a strong dash of the shorthorn strain in their own ways, and even countenances; men who are reputed to have had attacks only known to the doctor, or to have been married to their housekeepers, or to have been reduced to living off their own poultry-yard; or again, men smitten with, some household grief, some adored daughter cut off in the May-morn of her days, some son banished in disgrace to the Colonies, and who are seldom seen out- of their sepulchres except at some pressing call of public duty the Grand Jury, the election of a Chairman of Board of Guardians, or an insurrection. “Harman must have made a deuce of a whip,” remarked Major Grogan to his friend Captain Brandeth, as all those unaccustomed spirits of health or goblins damned glided into the —-men pale with the gracious dignity of grief, men who paid their debts in cruel wrinkles, men whose eyes and noses were beginning to wear the ignoble purple livery of Drink, and men who only looked in for the night from Aix or Egypt as a composition with their consciences for neglected duty, as a beauty might call into a cottage after a riotous London season. I did think my old friend would not have thrown in ■ his weight against us on this occasion,” said Admiral Ffrench, with his sad old courtly smile, as Lord Drumshaughlin made for his corner with outstretched hand. “Why? How do you mean?” Well, I cannot help thinking that you might have left this to your agent, Drumshaughlin, and left us old fellows some chance of a stand in our last ditch.” “Look around you, and see how Harman has done his whipping-up. I never mean to be seen in this room again. iloiituri te salutamvs. If we had not been handicapped by having your name against us, indeed ” j , “My name! Who has dared to use my name? Why, my dear Admiral, my name and my vote will be for hunting the fellow like a vagabond dog with the most ignominious article you can find in the kitchen tied to his infernal impudent tail.” Admiral Ffrench and his sedate group of county mag- • nates started delightedly, as if, a bombshell sailing down upon them had burst in bonbons instead of splinters of old iron. “Why, we have only to send that around, and all is over,” the Admiral exclaimed. “Ralph, this? is more like the old friend I once had—do you remember the night some c young dare-devils presented the Lord Chancellor at the Historical with a face as black as a Christy Minstrel, Ralph?—and the night of the row at the Turkish Em-bassy-how that fat old Pasha did yell when you knocked him over into the flower-pots and walked off with the lady m your arms?—and do you recollect that morning with' the French sergens-de-ville, coming home' from— dear! ah, dear!” and the two old fellows fell on one another’s shoulders and shook hands and laughed and (I rather suspect) cried for old times sadly-joyous sake. “Well, well, I am not sure that things have grown so much better in these wisp days. I am told there is not a single- noblemans son in Trinity, College now, except poor old Shinrone s who is hirpd put to a tutor as an advertisement, ley have fallen back on the agents’ sons, and the bailiffs’.

They tell me a young fellow of Dargan’s is the most fashionable figure in Grafton Street of an afternoon. Ralph, my old friend, that grandfather of mine mfide a pretty mess of ,it when he sold Clonakilty to Castlereagh. We, who had this country as our Garden of Paradise, are jostled out of it by the Dargans, if worse still does not happen us—if we’re not content to remain and take their pay. Well, it’s something if we can remind this man that there Is still some savor of prerogative left in us. I confess I was beginning to forget myself that there was anything wanting to the title of gentleman which a fee paid at the office of Ulster King of Arms could not purchase.” They had chatted together in a confidential corner: it was years since the Admiral’s grave sweet face of courtesy had been so disturbed by the old wild blood of Navarino, and a moment afterwards he cast his eyes timidly around to see if anyone was looking;—but the fact that Lord Drumshaughlin had come to pill Humphrey Dargan , could not long remain a secret. The rooms were by this time unusually full of bustle and animation. The Dargan faction was triumphant. Little Flibbert was an Iron Duke on the Field of Waterloo; He discussed the prospects of a rising with the sangfroid of an experienced statesman who created apprehensions in order to allay them with a wave of his hands. He was so knowing on the subject of Quish’s murderers that it would have seemed a pity to spoil so exquisitely deep a game by catching them. “Upon my soul, that little man takes, the British Empire under his patronage more gracefully than the lady with the trident on the penny pieces,” remarked a plethoric old Major who had smelt gunpowder. “My dear fellow, why not?” said the Admiral, with a smile. “We’ve set up the policeman as a god over the people, and it’s only even-handed justice that he should end' by ordering us to our knees ourselves. Here’s Mr. Hans Harman, who wants us to add Mr. Flibbert’s father-in-law to our family circle, and yet we are surprised that in a country where the magistrates take their law from Head-Constable Muldudden society should begin to revolve 'around the Sub-Inspector.” “After all, Admiral,” said Hans Harman, pleasantly, “so high-born and good-natured a man as you ought to be above objecting to a man’s making his money in trade.” “What I object to is his making his character of gentleman in money,” rejoined the Admiral. “If there is to be equality all means; but why not try the plan of making all our neighbors whole peopleour friends and instead of honoring the sordid vulgarians who have successfully plundered them?” “Suppose we begin by balloting for the two interesting peasants who shot my bailiff the other night, and who are possibly lying inside the hedge to-night for myself?” said. Hans Harman, with that growing mixture of boldness with his bonhomie which had already perplexed Lord Drumshaughlin. “But lam not sure that you will get the Club to agree with you, Admiral, Hullo, Deverell I Didn’t let the sciatica frighten you, eh?” he said, gaily, turning to a dry cheese-paring of a man, who seemed to have invested all the vivacity of his life in a large family of daughters, and who had invested a considerable loan from Humphrey Dargan in the same quarter.

(To be continued.)