The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 23 September 1920, Page 3

The Storyteller

(By William O'Brien.)

WHEN WE WERE BOYS

CHAPTER V.—ST. CECILIA. Ken Rohan was not long in St. Fergal's before he knew that Jack Harold, in the teeth of the President's warnings against him, was a privileged person. Having been bred up to the pretty graces and vices of schoolboy life in Paris (where his father had been, up to the time of his death, a physician in one of the poorer northern suburbs) he could., -do a number of things which in Clonard might well pass for genius; he could turn the song of "The Shan van Vocht" into jingling Latin; he could remove the celestial and terrestrial globes and substitute a mock pair, charged with powder, which would explode at a touch from Father Mulpetre; he could make his own songs, sing them, and play meltingly on the fiddle, like a charge of cavalry on the pianoforte; he could, as occasion required, enact Brutus in the play of "Julius Caesar," or Dr. O'Toole in the farce of "The Irish Tutor," and bring down the house in both; it was he who painted the scenes which were the admiration of rural mammas on speech-day every summer; it was he who modelled the toffm of the Senators (with the help of the College tailor) he taught those clumsy little Romans what to do with their legs and arms, his own hands attached to the neighborhood of the heart of Julius Caesar the bladderful of blood which he was presently to shed ; on all things, from the color of gloves to the plotting of a mutiny, he was the glass of fashion and the mould of form at .St. Fergal's—a young person whom every mamma, who came once a year to see great Caesar die, longed to see her darling imitate, even though it was rumored that Master Harold smoked cigarettes. It is easy for me here to observe that his attainments were rather broad than deep, rather brilliant than accurate ; but boys do not break their idols as they do their toys to know what is in them. Of what consequence was a miserable rule of syntax to a fellow who could chirp Beranger's choruses like a bird ? He used to say himself that the Great Bear was the only constellation on the globe he could get into his head, because he had painted him to the resemblance of Father Mulpetre, with the addition of a yellow moustache and a black pipe; and the boys admired his ignorance immensely. What, indeed, had a chap like that to do with beggarly little stars? Dr. O'Harte, no doubt, judged more wisely; but Harold had a ready wit, a fertile brain, not a bad heart, and a turn for a thousand things; and was, besides, an ornament and a centre of culture in St, Fergal's. He was, therefore, sedulously maintained there at a reduced pension (his mother having been left poorly off, and his uncle, who paid the pension, being only a country curate). There was some vague consideration as to his assisting in the teaching of French conversation. Except that in ordinary speech he stumbled frequently into what was in fact his native tongue, this condition was never put in practice; and far from owning any position of dependence, he lived as a benevolent despot among his fellows, and claimed, even from his seniors, the privileges of a valued, though somewhat dangerous favorite. One of these privileges was the possession for his sole use of the small circular chamber in the small foolscap tower which ornamented an odd corner of the college buildings. He called it "the Observatory" and was very proud of it. The name was very likely a tribute to an old-fashioned telescope, which stood there mounted upon a brass carriage, gazing out upon the heavens with. a wise look which would never have led you to suspect that one of. its eyes was out—the far one. 1 he telescope was bequeathed to Jack by a whimsical old professor who loved star-gazing and

loved Jack, and by a bad syllogism arrived at the con? viction that Jack’s interest in the stars must be as great as his own. The poor man denied himself for four ; years his annual vacation trip to the Lisdoonvarna Sulphur Spa in order to save up the price of his telescope-; and as soon as the telescope arrived—it was a second-hand Guinaud of some pretensions—his rheumatism mounted to his head, and he mounted to the stars without the help of the telescope. lam afraid you will not think the better of Master Jack for knocking an eye out of his legacy; but Master Jack was a cherub wholly without wings. He wept over the dead body of his poor old friend ; but, having no enthusiasm about his poor old friend’s stars, he gouged out with much neatness the disc at the larger end of the Guinaud, and made the interior the receptacle for a long clay pipe, a paper of cigars, a sixpenny Count de Monte Gristo rolled up small, some keys t 6 the classics, and other contraband articles over which Father Mulpetre had the authority of a moral gauger. The instrument still kept its sightless socket fixed in solemn contemplation on the firmament, with such perfect good faith that Father Mulpetre, who was short-sighted and could never see anything through a telescope except black things, did not for a moment dream that he could see any better by looking through the wrong end. However, Jack Harold’s little Alsatia was seldom invaded, even by Father Mulpetre. It was approached by a short spiral iron staircase, and being remote from the bustle of the house and lighted by two funny little windows from the north, was in every respect an eligible retreat for a young philosopher and artist. & 1 1

v- Hie arma; Inc currus ,” as the young gentleman himself impudently remarked when showing Ken Rohan the Observatory for the first time; and Ken liked even his impudence so well that he spent more of his MV,? Was T good for him m this foolscapped little Mount Ida. It was to him a museum of endless curiosities and novelties. There was a fiddle. There was a fairy httie fan, whose leaves glowed with real butter- :' , ! ln S s of many colors, gummed on by some presen ative process of his own (Jack Harold had no respect f 0 the feelings of butterflies). There were many little retorts and blow-pipes, and tall glass phials with lovp h r! ng l 111 them, and a small battery to match'. He loved chemistry just enough to blow out every pane sLfwhhV tW ° ™ y little Willdows 011 one occadrofren Vi” unex ect f d explosion of carburetted hyirogen. There was always an easel with an infirm of chlohV agai " St SOm l or other, and a palette of chaotic wet colors, and strange little bottles of oils, and narrow little tinfoil tubes with clammy drops of baples yellow or Persian red oozing out of them He was. nothing If not an artist. There was a small in C ?t and Wlth eV6r 80 ma " y a PP etisin g little drawers m it, and an appearance of holding somethin queer ftelulir v /fa,’ f'gy one. He could show yo“ the bullet which killed Baudin. His father, who had been beside him on the barricade, extracted it and lift h t T elf the da 7 in the Rue stseVeNn hVwf • of k ls treasures was a scooped potato in which he had inserted a dial plate with clockwork of the most exip^Leptime 0 "’ Wl ” Ch W °" ld do almost a "y thi “8 K “ Woß,a there tL? 11 ’ 7 'fT- what you’re rummaging about • ; That is fulminate of silver in your hand It tekeTare*.’’ 15 '™ d °' Vn * hiS little chamb “ if you don't

You made it yourself?” wrono- 1 r a ]? e lfc .J nyS -n f ’ and lam sure I made it W.).A lt will g ° ° ff ' La it down then!” artlst with an impatient little stamp of his root, iooiqng up from his painting. P world !”° U are the m ° St > ondei Tul fellow in the

Very well, come and look at my St. Cecilia. I

go to stake my fame there.’' He drew off his brush for a complacent survey of the -filled canvas before him, a crude copy from memory.;' of Raphael's picture of St. Cecilia, letting" the instruments of earthly music drop from her hands as her ears drink in the firs* rapturous sounds of the; harmonies of heaven, “Hallo!” cried , Ken Rohan, stopping suddenly. “What, then ? Don’t you find her charming, my on ye mix grands yeux hleusl The Doctor is going to present her as an altar-piece for the cathedral. I don’t think he shall get her. I shall keep her for my own private devotions. She is adorable—not so?” “You don’t mean to say that is St. Cecilia?” “Not Raphael’smine. The Doctor has remarked the same thing! “But St. Cecilia has not blue eyes and yellow hair like that,” he says. He knows every saint and madonna in every church in Italy, that wonderful Doctor! “Ah!” I respond, “but you understand blue eyes better in Ireland.” He has looked very serious at that, and has bored me through with that Holy Office eye of his ; nevertheless, my St. Cecilia has not been burned as a heretic. “But, I say, —how do you know that the St. Cecilia had brown eyes ?”

He turned abruptly round towards Ken Rohan, who had been standing behind him ; his eyes v ere fixed upon the canvas with an annoyed sort of interest, and the question brought a * red flush over his forehead.

“What! you know our St. Cecilia, and are jealous. Confess it!” the artist cried half gaily, half maliciously. “I—l almost thinkl hope not, but ’ Yes——my friend ’ ’ “You—you don’t know anybody that is at school at the Calvary —there?” pointing through the window towards an adjacent block of buildings of the same character as the College. “But yes! hourra, I am so charmed. The portrait is then perfect! But, I say, Kenthis is a secret of the most profound—you shall not betray me ? —word of honor?” --

"You are joking, you are not going to play this trick upon people in the house of God?" * "But yes. One need not be ugly to be a saint. I have promised the picture to the Doctor. For the rest, I could not help it. I fell in love with my St. Cecilia, and could not refuse her blue eyes; also, to say true, I forgot how to mix the proper shade of brown." "Then I—l suppose you know her pretty well? — well, enough to —to do this sort of thing?" "And why not?" with a malicious little shrug of his shoulders and eyebrows (which, after the French fashion, worked by the same spring). "Look then. You see yonder tourelle on top of the Calvary Convent?" He pointed towards the little foolscap turret at the nearest angle of the neighboring convent; it stood not more than 300 yards from the northern angle of the college ; with only a high boundary wall and the foliage of the tops of the trees in the convent grounds visible between. The same architect, having built the two buildings upon very nearly the same plans, the two corner towers bore a strong family likeness to one another, except that the ladies of the convent had turned theirs into a little conservatory, windows ?11 over. "Very well, that is St. Cecilia's shrine. She comes there whenever there is a poetic sunset to look at it, and, my faith, the sun in heaven is not so beautiful to look at as herself. The sunset inflames the glass around her like the gold background of a Fra Angelico." "Oh! is that all?" "Do not impatient yourself. That is only the raising of the curtain of my little drama. There flutters about the convent one old pigeon whom the Reverend Mother loves. His dovecote rests against the tourelle. I catch the : little beast, pour out my soul into a charming billet, attach it to the pigeon's leg and—! a pigeon-post of the most commodious installed between us."

“You don’t mean to say you did this? ” “Assuredly I considered it a cJief-do&uvre ; but genius obliges one to be candid, as well as modest.” “Andand—that she was a party to such conduct stammered Ken, falteringly, “And responded with billet still more charming in English, still more conformable to the rules of your perfidious grammar not?” “Stuff! This is outrageous. I do not believe it!” burst out the other, with flaming eyes. That curious pallid spot which we have seen once already declared itself in the centre of Jack Harold’s cheek. “You do not believe it! Do you know what that wishes to say in French?” he said, his lip slightly paling and trembling. There was something in his look that strangely touched and disarmed the younger man.

“Jack, I should not have put it that way. Perhaps ” “There is no perhaps. My dear boy, do not believe half what I say; only you need not always mention that you don’t believe it. You are right, perfectly. • She never did answer me.” “But your brave pigeon ” “My brave pigeon was a fool. In place of flying back to St. Cecilia, the imbecile wobbled about the grounds for some moments and then directed his steps towards the Reverend Mother, who, it seems, was in the habit of feeding him about that hour. The Reverend Mother did not do justice to my genius. She made me a magnificent row. The Doctor held a Grand Inquisition to try whose was the handwriting of the little billet. As for me, I have six, 10, 12 handwritings, as it pleases me; and the pigeon, you conceive, could not peach, though he was stupid enough for anything, that devil of a pigeon. In effect, nobody dared to accuse me but an excellent young man with a brogue, who is reading for the Church, came very near to be expelled, and he really deserved it—his handwriting was so like.” “Did you see her often afterwards r ’ “Hallo! has not the Grand Inquisition concluded ?” He looked up again into Ken’s face, which was again burning red. “I say, Ken; I go to tell the Doctor you are blushing about a young woman. You are in love, sir, and with my St. Cecilia—we shall blow one another’s brains out, at your convenience; not so?”

“I can’t bear that sort of thing,” said Ken, hotly. “She’s nothing to me. You know that. We were children together— all.”

"Oh! that's all," repeated Jack Harold, with an enigmatical smile. "Then, I may tell you I meet St. Cecilia several times when the young ladies of the Calvary take their promenades; she passes close to me; she no more sees me than if I wore a coat of darkness. But the pretty little devil, her friend—she of the piquant little curly head—comes up behind me one day and slips into my ear: "Ha, ha! I'll tell!who's sending love-letters to the Reverend Mother?" Bah! they wrung the neck of that pigeon— is my only consolation. St. Cecilia never again is seen in her shrine. But art does not die with a pigeon; it does not lay down its arms before a Reverend Mother. I dream my dream I construct my shrine; I create my saint la voilal And, my faith, the Reverend "Mother shall yet kneel to my St. Cecilia, if she expects grace." (To be continued.)