The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 45, 25 November 1925, Page 3

The Storyteller

(By Charles J. Kickham.)

For the Old Land A TALE OF FIFTY YEARS AGO.

CHAPTER IV—(Continued.) Ambrose Armstrong was the son of an attorney who, during the minority of the present landlord, managed the estates upon which the Dwyers of Corriglea were the oldest and most respected tenants. One day the attorney took his sickly little son with him in his gig when going his customary rounds among the tenantry, and finding that the boy seemed to have taken a liking to John Dwyer’s eldest son, who was about his own age, left him to play in the old orchard during a long summer’s day. In tlfe evening, as Mrs, Dwyer was lifting him into the gig, little Amby turned round his head and burst into tears on seeing his playmate at the orchard gat© looking shyly and regretfully after him. “Leave him to me, sir,” said the farmer’s warm-hearted wife, “and you’ll see how strong the mountain air and the goat’s milk will make him.” “I will,” replied the attorney with subdued emphasis, after a pause, during which his eyes glanced alternately from his son’s pale face to the ruddy cheeks of the sunburnt urchin at the orchard gate. “Will you stay with Mrs, Dwyer, Amby?” “Yes, sir, please,” returned the boy, the tears again rising to his eyes ; and thus commenced a life-long friendship between Martin Dwyer and Amby Armstrong— for upwards of seven years. after lived almost entirely at the old ivied farmhouse, trudging daily to the village school with Martin Dwyer, quite winning the old schoolmaster’s heart by the gentleness of his manners and his superior penmanship. The penmanship and the wonderful improvement in the boy’s * health suggested to the attorney that after all “Amby might be good for something.” He was sent for a couple of years to a good school, and then duly installed in his father’s office. The delicacy of the lad’s constitu- ' tion, however, soon began to tell against him, and the attorney saw the wisdom of allowing him long intervals of rest. It was during these holidays that John Dwyer initiated him into the mysteries of the “gentle craft.” His friend Martin, even in those early days, preferred holding the plough to amusement of any sort. “Don’t you think,” said Mrs. Armstrong, addressing her husband one morning as he stood up from the breakfast table, “don’t you think that Amby is getting to look very pale and ill again?” “Yes,” was the reply, “I have noticed it. I fear he’ll never take kindly to the law.” “Why do you say that?” Mrs. Armstrong asked. “It is too hard he works. He never cares to go anywhere, except an odd time to the Glebe.” - . “He must try Mrs. Dwyer’s prescription now at all events,” said her husband. “Nothing sets him up like the goat’s milk and

the mountain air. I really believe if . she had not asked me to leave him that day when he was a little fellow he f d be in his grave long ago.” “They must be very kind people,” said Mrs.: Armstrong. “Amby was always so anxious to be with them when he was a boy ; but now that he’s a young man, and so much admired, I can’t help wondering why he cares so little for. society. And why do you say he doesn’t care for law? Is it because he plays the fiddle?” “Not exactly,” her husband replied, “but I have reason . to suspect that he .pens a stanza when he should engross.” “Do you mean writing poetry?” Mrs. Armstrong asked in surprise. “That’s just what I do mean,” replied the attorney, gloomily. “A fishing-rod and a book of ballads under his arm was bad: enough; but if, as I am told, it was he wrote the verses in Saturday’s Loyalist, I give him lip.” ' “Oh, you shouldn’t say that,” returned his wife. “They were all praising that little poem at the Glebe last evening. Now I see why they like Amby so much. They prize talent more than anything.” “All very fine,” the attorney answered with an impatient shake of the head. “Have his shirts and stockings ready,” he added after a pause, “and I’ll take him over to Corriglea on Friday.” Mr. Armstrong returned home from Corriglea that same Friday, more doubtful than ever as to Amby’s “doing any good.” Not that he had lost faith in the efficacy of Mrs. Dwyer s prescription, or that the fishing rod and book of ballads were likely to prove more deleterious .than usual but there was John Dwyer’s eldest daughter just returned from the convent boarding school, one of the most intelligent and graceful girls he had seen for some time. “I never thought of this before,” the attorney soliloquised, as he tightened the rein while passing over a little mountain rill that crossed the road. “He didn’t seem a bit surprised either as 1 wasto see her grown such a fine young woman. And so far from showing any surprise or bashfulness at seeing the change in her, she looked and laughed at him as if he were still a boy. “However,” he continued, looking at; the bright side, of the picture, . “she appears to be a sensible girl who won’t listen to nonsense. She’ll be getting married in . Shrove. • And nothing worse will come of it than an outbreak of poetry. Ned Cormack would be a good match for, her,” the attorney went on, his mind reverting to business. “She doesn’t look like the sort of girl that would turn up her nose at a man because he or his father got up in the world—instead of coming down as so many have done. I’m glad ?Ned Cormack got that farm of Connelly’s. He’s a decent sort of fellow.” And Mr. Armstrong touched his horse with the whip and

|., got him into a brisker trot, as he thought of the cheque presented todiirirby Ned Cor- (*.- mack on - getting possession of Connelly's fe farm. “But he ought to build a decent

house without" waiting for a lease. He’s f '5-he best tenant on the estate now, only that he is so cautious.”

The • attorney’s guess was a shrewd one enough. Ned Cormack did propose for Ellen Dwyer, though Molly Manogue, who was supposed to be omniscient in such matters, never got the slightest hint of it. Ned Cormack was not the man to set people talking about his match-making 'until he had made pretty sure, .that'it' would not end in talk. He learned from John Dwyer’s daughter herself that her vocation was to be a nun, and the escapade to Cork was the result. It was not, however, generally known that the lady who played the piano and was afraid of the cows was a great friend and regular correspondent of his first love. In fact the escapade to Cork was all Ellen Dwyer’s doing, and in after years Ned Cormack’s children were her pupils and her pets, and even at the time our story commences—these children were young. women, and their father’s hair sprinkled with • grey —Sister Mary Bernard could never mention Ned Corraack’s name without blushing. But as for that matter, her nephew, Tom Dwyer, noticed that a rosy tinge used to steal into his- aunt’s pale cheek whenever she inquired whether Mr. Armstrong still came down to the river to fish. However, it must not be inferred from this that he also wanted to marry her. On the contrary, even in his father’s presence, on that Friday evening when the at-

tgrney’s fears for his son’s safety were just awakened, Miss Dwyer made laughing allusions to the low thatched house beyond the river, and the narrow boreen, at which young Amby Armstrong, blushed like a girl. For it so happened that Ned Cormack had a sister who sang certain favorite ballads of his with such ravishing sweetness that the young angler often returned to the ivied farmhouse with an empty basket, confessing to Ellen Dwyer that he had lost the best part of the day listening to Aileen Cormack’s

singing. And how the memory of those hours clung to him for ever * after! And how changed everything seemed when the voice that so charmed him was hushed for ever !' But even when Aileen Cormack was mouldering in the silent dust, and Ellen Dwyer was a cloistered nun, the ivied farmhouse — above all, the bridgehad a charm in the eyes of Ambrose Armstrong which he felt that no other spot on earth could . ever possess for him. And as - the quiet years rolled on until these last three, he was -seldom missed during the spring and summer months for many days together from the river, between Glenbawn Mill and the bridge at Corriglea.

5 “I am always a dreamer, Tom,” Mr. Armstrong repeated again, still looking earnest-

ly towards the old house, and the orchard

x with its all of great boulder stones. His • y^heart ; sank within him as he pictured his - schoolfellow and life-long friend, with his wife and children drivenas he had seen so many others driven-far.from their home.

“Tom is a strong young fellow,” he reflected,

“who can make his way in the world. And as for his mother, she can grumble and complain to her heart’s content wherever she is. But poor Martin’s heart would break. And then the poor little girls!”

Nannie and Nellie had called to see him the previous Sunday after Mass, and how bright and happy they looked as they told him about their flowers in that corner that used to he so “handy for the young turkeys.” At the thought of the bright, happy little creatures, the tears came into the old gentleman’s eyes; and glancing hurriedly towards his companion, by whom he did not wish his emotion should be observed, he was struck by a strange expression in the young man’s face.

Yes, there was Miss Cormack walking up and down by the hazels, in her red cloak, and ,with her long curls floating in the air. But what was there in that to account for the look of surprise and sorrow in the face of his young friend !

“She’s a fine girl, Tom,” Mr. Armstrong remarked, tauntingly, .

“There’s no mistake about that, sir,” Tom Dwyer answered with a solemnity that the occasion scarcely demanded. “She has the name of being the finest and the handsomest and the most accomplished girl in the country.”

“And she knows how to walk,” added Mr. Armstrong, moving a step backward in order to keep the young lady in view to the end of her walk for they were looking through the arch of the bridge. “I’d only ask to see the motion of her head to know that she, has a graceful carriage. But now, Tom,” he continued more seriously; “tell me, is there anything between her and you ? I am more deeply 7 interested in the matter than you may suppose. I’ll perhaps tell you the reason why another time.”

“There was never a word about it,” Tom answered with quiet emphasis.

“Oh, it may not have come to words,” returned Mr. Armstrong.

“Nor to thoughts,” said Tom, with a laugh. “And if I did think of her it would be little use for me. It is generally said that no one but an estated man will get her; and sure there’s nothing surprising in that.”

“You talk like a sensible man, Tom, -. Her father will expect a rich husband for her. But do you know, ~ I think you’d have the mother’s' good word; you were always such a favorite with her. And now tell me honestly what was the cause of that look of blank disappointment I noticed in your face just now? You were certainly looking at the lady in the red. cloak at the time’.’

“It had no reference to her at all, sir,” Tom Dwyer replied, dropping his eyes thoughtfully upon the ground. “The fact is,” he added after a pause, and with a sad sort of smile, “the thought that came , across my mind when ,1, saw her walking by herself was” —here Tom Dwyer became embarrassed, and looking about him— as people are apt to do under such circumstanceshe saw - his father standing on the bridge with his hands resting upon the parapet, much in the attitude and with , the expression of an after-dinner orator, conscious of having his

speech well by heart, looking smilingly down upon them.

“My father is glad to see you, sir,” he xtxj la tutu id tu- oce Ji/Uj oil } no remarked, not sorry for the relief from his embarrassment. “ ’Tis long since I saw him in such good humor.”

“I never saw him in anything but good humor,” said Mr. Armstrong, returning Martin Dwyer’s wave of the hand. “But certainly he does seem to be in unusually high spirits,” he added, as Martin Dwyer, his thin and worn face beaming with childlike glee, flourished his hand above his head, and then brought the open palm slowly down upon the parapet, - as the before-mentioned after-dinner orator might have concluded a rhythmic and convincing peroration.

The old farmer, after another wave of the hand, got over the stile wi,th an agility that reminded Mr. Armstrong of early days, and walked quickly along the path through the meadow which led straight from the bridge to his house.

“He’s after’ hearing some news,” said Tom. “Maybe, ’tis about the election.”

This remark brought back the picture which Mr. Armstrong’s fancy had conjured up a few minutes before — old farm-house a desolate ruin, or occupied by strangers, and Martin Dwyer and his family exiles in - a strange land, and, as if wishing to drive it away, he said hurriedly:

“Tom, tie up my rod,” and opening the wooden gate he crossed an angle of the next field and came out through another gate upon, the road, going at once— a matter of course the bridge. A little to his surprise, he caught a glimpse of the red cloak disappearing within the glass porch for it looked as if .the young lady , had seen and wished to avoid meeting him. His thoughts, however, were too busy with the old farmhouse and its occupants to give much heed to the whims of even the “finest and Hie handsomest girl in the country”; and he was rather startled a few minutes afterwards when he felt his hand grasped by Ned v Cormack, who welcomed him to Corriglea Bridge with a warmth that was unusual with him.

“Margaret saw you,” he said. “And they all want you to come in. Shake hands with Mr. Armstrong, Eddy,” he added, turning to his little son, a bright, curly-headed boy of six or seven. “He’ll be telling hereafter,” he continued, “how he met you here on the bridge.” ■ -

“Why,” Mr. Armstrong asked, a, little surprised, “are people likely to remember me hereafter?” -i

“To be sure they are,” was the' reply. “Everyone missed you these two or .three years. Won’t you remember Mr. Armstrong when , you are a man, Eddy ....... ' •

“Yes, sir,” replied the boy, who however, seemed to be entirely occupied with the wheel of the fishing rod, which Tom Dwyer allowed him to turn round and round.

“I’m going up with Tom,” said Mr; Armstrong. .... ... v ...

. “But I’ll run in on r my way home "-to see Mrs. Cormack and "the,-young ladies.” . ,1 ;

; “Make him stay, for r the night, Tom;” : said Mr. Cormack. -i“ Father Feehan coming over; or, if you wish;”;he continued, turning to Mr. Armstrong, “Flljpack you

into the covered car and send you home at any hour you like.” . . . , ■ “Well, when I have taken a rest on the -rustic seat in the orchard, I’ll think about P it,” returned Mr. Armstrong. “I hop©-the r '.! seat is still there?” he continued turning to v Tom. f “It is just as it was the day you got your I photograph taken there,” "was the reply. '“The little thatched roof keeps.off the rain, . so that the timber is as sound as ever.” : • .:• ’ “I , often hear - that same photograph disV.. cussed,” said Mr. Cormack. “My daugh- ! ter Alice, says its the handsomest face and -head she ever saw. I forget the name of the saint she says it is like.” V 'Mr. Armstrong smiled, and perhaps a litr, ~ tle bashfully, while Tom Dwyer laughed •; aloud, and turning round upon his heel seemed to have discovered something on the top of Kileafrehaun that wholly absorbed him for several minutes. . , - “And she has some of your poetry set to music,” Mr. Cormack added. “Good-bye till evening. Come, Eddy, my man, shake hands again with Mr. Armstrong.” Mr. Armstrong and Tom Dwyer seeming to have forgotten the stile and the path through 1 , :the- —walked on in silence, until they ; came to where the road from the bridge met that which skirted the mountain, when Mr. Armstrong said; “I suppose Alice has grown to be a fine - girl since I last saw her?” .“So she is, sir,” Tom answered assentingly, rather than as if replying to a question. “Though people don’t take much notice of her, the sister is looked upon as such a beauty.” V , “Does she sing well?” Mr. Armstrong asked, his thoughts going back to the woodnotes wild that flung their magic spell around him long ago. “Wonderfully!” Tom Dwyer answered. “ ’Twould thrill through you till you wouldn’t know what was coming over you.” Mr. Armstrong smiled, but said nothing. “Mrs. Cormack,” Tom added, “was saying she wouldn’t let her go back to school this summer as she was not very strong. It was : Mrs. Mary Bernard that noticed it, and advised her to bring Alice home at Easter.” Again their conversation was interrupted V by old Martin Dwyer, who was hurrying to- ;< : wands them from the house, with the same elated look as when they first saw him stand- ;- ing on the bridge. In. fact from that mo- - ment to the present Martin Dwyer seemed to be on the brink of a side-splitting burst of laughter. Every object his eyes chanced to rest upon seemed provocative of mirth. T " Miss Cormack’s ringlets floating on the breeze as she paced slowely up and down 3- ’by the’ river, the lark that sprang from . - under his feet as he , leaped with almost youthful lightness over a drain in the meadow- . —even a lonely, heron on the top of a, dead pine in a ; marshy corner near Poul-na-copple ’ —though the very incarnation of desolation l-T' and despair—seemed to intensify Martin ST- -Dwyer’s tendency to-risibility as he hastened X?" : to tell his wife the “good news” he had \ r-.heard at the forge. * A heavy' deadening load was lifted from v many another hea'rt besides -Martin Dwyer’s

that day. Men who for weeks before had moped idly about, or gone through their daily tasks listlessly and with relaxed muscles, drew a long breath of relief, and resumed their wonted energy and cheerfulness. And women, wiping away the tears that sprang into their eyes at the glad tidings, went into their rooms, closing the door softly behind them, dropped upon their knees, and with clasped hands offered up prayers to Heaven for an unhoped for mercy Honorable Horatio O’Mulligan had retired. There was to be no contest ! Fifty or sixty gentlemen connected with the law were disgusted. And Sammy Sloane, the process-server, ate his rashers- and eggs that morning without an appetite. But some thousands of poor tenants-at-will rejoiced and for their —even without thinking’of Martin Dwyer and his pretty little daughters—we are not sorry that the length (or the shortness) of the Hon. Horatio O’Mulligan’s purse prevented him from “contesting the county” against the other Liberal candidate, the wealthy but ungrammatical Mr. Brummagem. In fact we are glad • the legal gentleman, and Sammy Sloane, the process-server, and a great many others — including an embryo sub-inspector of police or two—to the contrary notwithstanding. “No contest!” said Martin Dwyer, as a turn in the road brought them in view of the old ivied farm-house. “Is that so?” Mr. Armstrong asked, turning to his old friend, whose silence, taken in connection with his evident high goodhumor, was beginning to cause him some surprise. “I am very glad to hear that piece of news Martin.” “Yes,” returned Martin Dwyer, mo/'ng to the side of the road, and raising his head high, so as to be able to see over the larch grove, the loads of lime that dotted a square patch of pale brown, like little

white tents a good way up the mountain. “I’ll go on with the lime-burning.” - ■ , . Tom looked at Mr. Armstrong with a shake of the Lead, which said as plainly as words ‘"What a simple poor man my father is! He thinks the danger is over.” And now Mr. A; mstrong bent his eyes upon the ground as he reflected-that a general election must come within three years, and might come before the end of one. The light that sparkled in Nellie’s eyes, and the more liquid lustre that beamed in, Nannie’s as they ran down to the road to welcome their old friend, brought a sympathetic gleam into their brother’s face which had been unusually clouded ever since he saw Miss Cormack walking along on the river bank. The ' little girls hurried Mr. Armstrong away to see their flower-beds, before he could shake hands with their mother, who smiled approvingly as if the substitution of the flower beds for the rank docks and nettles was all her own doing, and looked like a woman who had never quarrelled in her life. “Don’t ye know,” she said at length, “that poor Mr. Armstrong must be starved and tired? Come in, Mr. Armstrong, and don’t mind their flowers till you’re after having something to eat.” “Now,” said Mr. Armstrong, turning to Nannie and Nellie, having done ample justice to the repast which Mrs. Dwyer, with many suggestions of regret that she had not been earlier apprised of his coming, had placed before him —“Now, let us go out to the orchard, and I’ll have a rest on the old seat.” ■ e ■ Tom walked up the hill, ostensibly to see how Mick Connell and Paddy Brien were getting on with the lime-spreading; but in reality to sit' under the Brown Reck and commune with his own thoughts. (To be continued.)