FLOWER OF THE BOG.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19508, 11 December 1926, Page 18 (Supplement)

FLOWER OF THE BOG.

(AN IRISH LOVE STORY).

CHAPTER XVH. In response to Alan's request Parratt •said he would accompany him to Bog House and leave no stone unturned to secure for him the coveted tete-a-tete with Patsy. They crossed the stile and went down the lane, and as they emerged on to the road Hugh D'Arcy stepped from betwixt his moss-grown gate pillars and hailed them genially, his plump red face wreathed, in a wide and friendly smile.

"The very pair I was on the look-out for. 'Tis well met and in yo'll both come and drink a health this red-letter day. What d'ye think I've discoveredi\iy Patsy is in love." r faken aback, Alan was dumb, but his eyes shone, and Hugh ieant on a shoulder of each and opened his overflowing heart. "In love, she is, the girleen. Op she sails to mo an hour ago and, says she, 'Father, Nick,has proposed, and bearing in mind a talk you and I had, I'm asking you for the last time is it your will that-1 should marry him, and a straight answer I want.' So I says, ' 'Tis a -•straight answer ye'll get. asthore. Marry him if ye like, and if ye don't like, just tell him - 'tis useless, for I see the folly of trying to force a girl against her inclinations. Choose your own husband, Patsy, and your choice will be mine.' I put it to ye, boys, could I speak fairer 1" "You could not, sir," said Alan gratefullv. "Your sentiments do you credit," said Parratt. "Sure, she's all I have, and why would I be making her unhappy?" said D'Arcv. "She's pure .gold right through, and .."worthy of every consideration, but the uncertainty of her would keep a Solomon guessing. The minute I lifted the pressure off her, what does she next ? Ye'll hardly believe it. She accepted Nick Boyle on the spot, and they're to be married after the harvest." The blank expression of his listeners ■escaped D'Arcy's notice, the ashen hue of Alan's altered face. "She must have been in love with Nick all along, and only contrariness made her cold to him," Hugh gurgled throatily. "She wouldn't have her old father pushing his oar in where he wasn't wanted. If I had let her alone shei'd have taken him at once, and we'd have been saved many a tiff and a bout of words. The fool 1 was! They're in the parlour now content as mating doves, and up ye'll come to wish them joy." "Sorry we can't to-night," Parratt said hastily, moving in front of Alan to focus D'Arcy's attention on himself. "Awfully sorfy, but perhaps we'll have the pleasure to-morrow." » "No time like the present," ,Hugh cried boisterously. " Pettigrew, you won't refuse? You've been kind as a brother to my little colleen, and you'll shake her by the hand —aye, and take a kiss if you want one for friendship. Nick won't grudge it to you that cured her of her weakness quicker than doctors. In ye go," gripping their arms and pushing them before him to the gate. "We will," Alan said hsushly. "Never mind Ed's vapourings. He's shy of lovers. I'm keen to congratulate Miss D'Arcy on her engagement,, and her true and steadfast heart. Pure gold, didn't you say she was, sir—gold without alloy; nothing counterfeit in her? Yesi, we'll wish them joy! Being the girl she is, Miss D'Arcy will be intrigued to see and hear us do it. Are you pinching me, Ed ?"

- i Parratt cast him a warning glance. ■ "Alan, you forget we have promised Miss i 'Pettigrew we wouldn't delay." "Fetch her over, too!" cried Hugh, flourishing his-arms. "Again," pursued Edgar, buttonholing Mm, " Miss D'Arcy and Mr. Boyle aren't prepared for an influx of visitori;. We'd embarrass them, and be a blessed nuisance Wait till to-morrow, and we'll celebrate the occasion fittingly. Reflect, and you'll agree that your daughter' and her fiancee should have this evening to themselves. Delicacy of feeling demands it. You see ■■■... that, don't you V Hugh rubbed his chin lugubriously. "I'm not posted in etiquette the way you city men are, but maybe you're talking sense. " Patsy and Nick mightn't like lis to disturb them in the parlour. It stands to reason they've a deal. to say to each other. I didn't think, Mr. Parratt. I rushed out to tell ye, and work off the excitement. I'm not denying,it's been the dream of my life to clinch the match, and for Patsy to settle it of her own free will has me clean giddy. I don't know what I'm doing." "A natural effect of such a happening," Emiled Edgar, his flow of language preventing Alan from blundering into selfbetrayals. "We offer our united' good wishes, and trust you'll excuse our haste,. which is due to our promise to Miss'Pettigrew. If it weren't for that we could talk, you to a wilted rag." 'Tm sure, I'm sure," said D'Arcy, squeezing their hands. "And, indeed, a better neighbour than Pettigrew I wouldn't ask to have. A son he is to nie, and when Patsy gees to Curlews I'll be running ~in to forget the lonesomeness in his chimney-corner." '"You will, Mr. D'Arcy. Meanwhile you can depend on his friendship in any emergency. See you ■ to-morrow. Sir." He led Alan away hurriedly. The latter wheeled round out of sight of Hugh. -''You and your lies!" he snarled. "I and my lies have been your salvation. You'd have made an exhibition of yourself had I allowed you to go in. The girl has played you false, and you are in the frame of mind to say and do idiotic things. No matter what the pro- . vocation, there's no use in acting the madman. You've had a hard and nasty knock. Keep quiet till you have Steadied." "She has jilted me," thickly. "Plainly she has—of her own free will." "She has lied to me. Her very looks ■were lies." "It's the habit of some of her sex, " She's the vilest cheat on earth to do It; after all that has passed between us." "in that case you've had. a lucky escape." " Two weeks ago, she kissed me Tjassionateiy, vowed she lovreel me and would cling to me through every oposi■fcion Her eyes .were wells of truth. You should have seen her innocent child's " These hypocrisies ought to reconcile you to hei inconstancy- " Wise, aren't you?" Alan's fierce mis- . erv seemed to spring out at Parratt and smite the sophisms irom his hps. _ If . she were a very weathercock of inconstancy I'd want her. She is mmy blood. Till mv vains are drained dry I can t be rid of her- till my last breath is drawn she'll bo a part of me. That's how I love her. She has got me body and soul to db , "I didn't imagine you were so badly hit," he said humbly. "I thought «you an unemotional man s man not on who'd invite a woman o trample on y-u; It s a shame tm g should cozen you, a ghastly shame. What she did it for I' cannot conjecture. Oan

s °-'f can't, it's all hideous nightmare." "Perhaps for the mere gratification of conquest." _ n "She was never a flirt"Your unsusceptibility may ri have tempted he, to try her powers, said Edgar, recalling' a remark he had heard that Alan and Patsy had been antipathetic at th' beginning of their acquaintance. ~ " Oh, stop," Alan exclaimed wearily. " You're digging the knife in and driving me wild. If an angel from heaven had told me she'd prove false I'd have scoffed and disbelieved. My brain is whirling. You were right to drag me away and not let me become a laughing-stock to her and Boyle. To think that the moment she had freedom of choice she threw me + over and took Boyle whom she had continually flouted! Tt think of them together yonder, kissing as wo kissed —in each , other's arms. „ _ .'i

BY MADGE BARLOW,

(COPYRIGHT.J

He flung round the gable of the house and Parratt followed, afraid to leave" him. Alan motioned him back.

" I'm safe enough. I shan't commit suicide .or behave crazily. I have a craving >to be alone, Humour it, Ed. and if you've a spark of regard for a pal keep Aunt Susan from flying out to offer She's a dear, but she'd goad me tA frenzy." He walked off abruptly, and sought a solitary place where none would disturb him. Sitting' with his head in his hands he studied t&e riddle of Patsy's jilting and found it mnsolvable unless the solution were utteV* fickleness and heartlessness. Amid t|ie wreckage of his one and only love idyll lie strayed in thought—a man distraught, disillusioned, bitter in his griet. Finished V No, not yet. He wasn't going to take dismissal meekly like a dog. " 1 will see yojj at eleven, and hear your explanation ft* you have one. Refuse to meet me an«J I will Speak to you in the presence of vrtur father and Boyle, though I should prefdr to spare you that. It shall not be a secr&t meeting. I will call at Bog House punctually, and demand an interview."

Patsy read Alan's note, and quaked. To decline to see him was her first impulse, but a second reading showed that he was not to be trifled with, and outraged with pride and indignation at his pretence of injury, stee,jed her spirit. The duplicity of his move' braced her. She couid assume a bravado to equal his. She went on' to the front garden at eleven, and was cool as snow when the tall figure swung up the sanded path. Under the sky's blue vault it was easier to be composed. Across the grass patch Jamsie Brannan scuffl clay about the roots of the autumn dahlias.

Alan's sorrowful grey eyes disquieted her, piercing into hers questioningly. He had difficulty in controlling his voice. "Is Jamsie there for protection ? Can't we get away from him ?" ho began. " I» would rather you said anything you have to say here." " Very well, then. Is it true that, you have jilted me, Patsy ? I can't think it of you. It seems impossible," "Jilted isn't a fitting word. We weren't properly engaged Her surfact. calmness staggered him. How was he to know that beneath the frigid exterior Patsy was in a fever, torn by the pings of lacterated pride, of love given, unwanted and despised ? The veins swelled 011 his forehead. " So you have accepted Boyle ?" he said hoarsely. " I have promised to marry Nick." "You gave me-the same promise." "I made a mistake," briefly. Stupefication settled on his drawn face. " A mistake when you said you loved me?"

" Yes, a mistake," she reiterated glibly as a parrot repeating a phrase it has been taught. " You are certain you aren't mistaken m accepting Boyle ?" His sarcastic tone flayed her. " Quite," she replied, chin up but trembling. " Still, he's shouldering a big risk. The jilt changes oftener than once. I, for instance, would have staked my soul you meant Jill you _said. N6w lam convinced you didn't mean a syllable your lips uttered. You were fooling me, if not to gratify the old spite; then for sheer wicked pleasure in breaking a heart. Wasn't that your motive ? You shall admit it. I'll compel you to." Ha had raised his voice in his anger, and Jamsie rested on the spade and viewed them anxiously. " It—it was," she stammered, his vehemence startling her, dragging the reluctant lie fron her.

He looked down at her, his features stiffening. " I won't tell you what ought to be done with girls of your stamp," he said. " You might be shocked. You aren't used to the plain speech of plain men."

Patsy flushed crimson. Oh, he acted cleverly, more cleverly than she. If Stella's evidence against him had not been brutally clear and unrefutable she could almost have believed she did him a cruel wrong The flush faded, leaving her pale and haughty. j "Your opinion of me isn't-of any consequence," she answered, plucking a rosebud and fastening it in her belt. " I expect it isn't,"-'he replied, turning on his heel " You are a law unto yourself, and above criticism. If I saw the least "sign of penitence for your callous treatment, of me I'd speak less roughly, but wore-: of mine, rough or smooth, couldn't touch your shallow nature. I suppose fools invite a kicking. Well, I shall not whine because I'm kicked. I've had my lesson, and the girl doesn't live who'll teach me another like it."

He walked away, and Jamsie hobbled over to Patsy standing rooted to the ground, shaken to the foundation of- her being. . " We'll have a great show of dahlias later, missie. The plants be rare- and strong this year." " " Be they?" she mocked, her stony face discouraging him. He shuffled the pebbly gravel about with the toes of his boots, and peered askance at her, exercised in his mind.

" Miss Patsy, is aught amiss between you and Mr. Alan ?" " How dare you!" she flashed out. " Aw, now, missie, ye won't be angry wid ould Jamsie that rocked ye in the cradle. I heard hot words on both sides, and you and Mr. Alan are terrible cut up, and there's a ring on your finger shouldn't be there. I've sartin things to say to ye that might set matthers right if ye'd listen." . .

Her eyes flashed sharp, lightning. She almost sprang at him. "Attend to your own business, Jamsie, Brannan, and don't interfere in mine till I ask you." Before the blaze of her wrath, Jamsie cringed and retreated, holding his hand to his withered cheek, as if he she had struck him. CHAPTER XVIII. The announcement of the engagement thrilled Stella and Ivillyduff. It had not occurred to Stella that Patsy might takethat safe and easy way out of her dilemma, and she was in ecstasies. To herself no blame could now be attached. Alan would never discover how she had checkmated hirn. He would suffer, thinking Patsy fickle, and fall to her own skilled angling in some rash hour when he didn't "care what became of him. Congratulations were showered on Patsv by letter and in person. She wore a magnificent emerald ring, an heirloom of the Boyle family, and flaunted a spurious gaiety which passed muster with the undiscerning as genuine. Sustained by pride, she deceived even Alan.

Aunt Susan decreed that there should be no deavage of friendship on the score of her nephew's jilting. Outside Grange, none but Patsy knew of it. She talked to Alan earnestly, counselled him, drilled him into obedience to the conventions which forbid a cast-off lover to expose his wounds and be churlish to the lady who has maltreated him.

For his ultimate good, Aunt Susan gave the thumbscrews an extra twist, and insisted on entertaining the betrothed pair as everybody else was doing. To him, it was a hideous ordeal, and no less to Patsy, but the artifice ingrained in women by long centuries of necessitous practice enabled her to bear it better; and, as we have said, to.persuade people that she was happy. To see her with Nick in public was to see her at her radiant best. He sighed in vain for private demonstration of her love, but was sure he had won it, and attributed her reserve to shyness. He himself was an exuberant lover, parading his raptures unabashed. Patsy was his, therefore he must kiss and hug her at every opportunity, be beside hexalways, tell her a hundred times a day how precious she was. No girl can endure that from a man she is marrying out of pique. She went perilously nigh to fiatmg him in the early stages of her mistaken engagement* .

Mistaken! Her feelings quickly told her so—the curious feeling of personal degradation which clung to her after he had been effusively timorous. Perhaps the coarse streak "Nick's horsey pursuits had developed made him too boisterous, heedless of the girlish delicacy which was as sensitive to rude handling as the bloom on the peach. Nick, the accepted, jarred on her the moment he claimed the privileges of his position. | for his peace, ho couldnH get at the reason of her preference for his outdoor company. They took lengthy drives in his smart high-wheeled trap with Red.Rory in the shafts, and rode often together. He brought her the hunter she had refused. " You'll let me off our bargain," he said to Alan. " Selrna is Patsy's, and I'll sell you another mount that'll suit you as well." They cantered past Grange with a frequency that suggested to Alan that the choice of roads was Patsy's, and anger burned in his breast like a slow, consuming fire. He Wondered what manner of pitiless creature she was. Stella's character shone white by comparison. He had sneered at her misplaced affection, and she hadn't sneered back. If she knew he had gone through the same mill, she wouldn't taunt him. Her silly masquerade wronged no one, and though she had been fast and reckless in those remote hectic days, the whole world bad been more or less mad. As for Parratt, maybe she hadn't tricked him; maybe he had been - self-deluded. She pleaded innocence, and surely Parratt couldn't forget' her if he had painful cause to remember. Anyhow, his old rigid code of morals seemed absurd and effete to Alan since Patsy fell from grace. No woman, he said cynically, should be expected to reach to his standard. They were frail stuff, with just a few fine and lovely exceptions to show the sort of women they might have become if they hadn't spoiled themselves.

He would be decenter to Stella, he decided.

The result was that Stella built large hopes on his softened manner, and pushed her advantage tirelessly. In country regions there can be no evasion of the social round. Forced to meet Patsy constantly, and be a woodenfaced spectator of Nick's bliss. Alan underwent a refinement of torture which left harsh traces on him. A month of it reduced him to the verge of breakdown. He longed for summer's ending, for winter's howling winds and biting frost—the darkness of weary nights when she would be Boyle's wife, and he quit of the killing sight of her. Aunt Susan found it difficult to receive and smile upon Hie girl who had wrought such wanton mischiof.

One evening Patsy was summoned to the parlour to confer with Attorney Duggan. She and her father had lunched at Curlews, and driven afterwards with Nick to the county Horticultural Show, and on returning home she pleaded fatigue and went to her room, remaining there till Nick grew tired of kicking his heels downstairs, and called up to her that he would be over first thing in the morning. Duggan sat talking to Hugh D'Arcy and endeavouring to conceal a crushing disappointment. He blinked at Patsy's emeralds, and chewed his nails. Hugh's smile was broad and bland. "Our benefactor here isn't satisfied that you're engaged to Nick, and wants to ask you whether 'tis true, or a blast of hot air we're blowing. If you satisfy him, 'child, he'll be afraid of his life to offend Nick by foreclosing, but if you don't 'tis the side of the road for us promptly, and the clothes we stand in for our holy all." "I am engaged to Mr. Boyle," said Patsy coldly. Duggan gulped an emotional lump in his throat, and bowed. "You have belied rumour so many times, Miss D'Arcy, that I'd scruple to lay the value of a pinch of snuff on town gossip unless " I had confirmation of it from yourself. I know the Boyle emeralds, and they are proof enough for me, they and your statement. Of course you know your father has got into a tangle he couldn't unravel in a thousand years, and but for the backing of Mr. Boyle I'd push my claim, and who'd blame me ? Not a penny of interest I've had these years. Neitfor of you can say I wasn't patient." "You were,, patient as a cat watching a mousehole, and sure of the mouse," she replied, deadly civil. "I have to live," ho protested. "And how you *do it on the fat pickings is a marvel," murmured Hugh, ■serenely conscious of substance behind him in the shape of Nick. Duggan s sallow jaws quivered. "I don't do it on the D'Arcy pickings, my good sir." "Faith, no, or you'd be sitting m your bare bones, deuced uncomfortable. (To be continued daily.)