The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 24 February 1921, Page 3

The Storyteller

(By William O’Brien.)

WHEN -WE WERE BOYS

CHAPTER XVlll.—(Continued.)

"I am not coming to dun you about that trifle of rent, Myles," Harman said, as he threw the reins to the boy, and joined Myles Rohan, who was standing at the door of the mill-house with his hands in the pocket of his blousy white breeches, and a less aggressively open look than usual upon his broad ruddy face. "I always say you are as safe as Threadneedle Street. But the fact of it is, Lord Drumshaughlin is always tight for money—he is a most unreasonable manit is so long since he saw. his property, he forgets that we can't quarry gold out of the Coomhola grits. And such a temper as he has! Speaking between you and me, I sometimes think of flying to a ranche in the Rocky Mountains, or mid-Africa, or somewhere. Well, but what can we do to stop his mouth ? It is only a matter of—let me see — by Jove, there are four gales —£256 14s, besides that little balance for the stable.'''

"I am sorry to say I cannot do much at the present moment," said the miller. "The milling business is not what it used to be. The Americans are running us off our legs. We are no match for them in this unfortunate country. They have the capital and the new machinery. You can get American flour in Cork market this moment for a song. There will soon be nothing but Indian corn left for us to grind— to eat, either, I'm thinking." "I am sorry to hear that, Mylesyou millers used to hold your heads so high, you know. Those Americans are playing the devil with everything. I would not have an American article enter the country, except American letters. There's an infernal lot of treason in them, but there's money, too. Keep the money, say I, and hang the treason. Well, but we'll have to manage something, you know—a bill at three months, now, would do nicely, and you'll have the harvestwork coming in." "There are bills of mine out in both the banks," said the miller, shaking his head, "and'until I can make a lodgment or so— — " : "Pooh! Dargan will discount one for £250 at all events."

"Dargan and I are not on very good terms. . I should not like to ask him."

"Then I will, and I should like to see him refuse me ! A hundred and fifty will keep his lordship's gout in good humor. I dare say the odd hundred will turn in handy enough for yourself." "This is very kind of you, sir," said the miller, with downcast eyes, coloring. -' "Not at all. I'm a skinflint and a heartless tyrant, you know. Or was it a black-livered exterminator you called me that day you ran against me for the chairmanship of the Board and raked up that old business of the Coomhola clearances against me ■ "Well, and I was rieht about the "Coomhola clear-

ances, if it comes to that," cried Myles, bridling up. "There you go—l knew I would draw the badger," laughed ; Mr. Harman, gaily. "My dear Myles, I would let a fellow heave every adjective in the dictionary at me at a. shilling a gross. Besides, .I beat you for that chairmanship, . you know, so I had the best of the argument. ~ A-man must live, even if he is an agent, till yau've got ah act to hang-him. I have to do some grinding, like : yourself, only in a different way—worse luck mine. Trade is hard for both of us. Why • shouldn't we be good, neighbors idnßy the way, I am sorry' to hear I : of your trouble with your boy, Myles." 5 ..;..,^^; £?&§'£? i** ;j H'*- a "* E '*, s*W* * ,« "Well, sir, we can't put old heads on young shoulders, can we?" said the miller, fidgeting a little uneasily. aUX SIHt fr&B£TO OWITAJUrSSA* *»#ft^.^-»>

"Certainly not. "I suppose we all had a dash of the devil in us in our time. And after all the devil is not so black as he is-painted. Why shouldn't we be able to get the youngster out of harm's way? They'd probably transport him, and it's such utter rubbish, you know. A post in the F/our Courts, now —there are so many of those things going that keep a young fellow loyal to his cigars and clean collars. If the Government want the county for their AttorneyGeneral at the election, I really don't see why we of the Drumshaughlin interest should not claim our bunch out of the basket of grapes. You always voted Whig, Myles, in spit of his lordship and myself being on the same side—which was very creditable to your principles. Think it over, and if a note from me to Glascock can put the boy in the way of a good thing There, I'll say no more. If you've filled the bit of paper, I'll make it all right with old Dargan myself, and send you down the balance in bullion."

"I wonder is he laughing at me?" mused the miller, scratching his poll, as he saw the agent's tall figure swinging off through, the Mill-gate. "lie's a man, somehow, that it's a greater comfort to be pitching into than to be taking a hundred sovereigns from. Sure enough, he caught it hot that day at the Board. Well, well, maybe it's too much of what we call spirit and strong language we have in this country for our means. That hundred comes in the nick of time, whatever."

"I want you to do a bill of Myles Rohan's for two hundred anrj fifty," said Mr. Harman, dangling his long legs unceremoniously from the counter of Mr. Dargan's private money office.

"Hum, Mr. Harman, sir, don't you think now, reelly, sir— see, the milling, trade—and, don't you persave, Rohan has been diping a little lately?" Mr. Dargan piped in his plantive voice, stroking his starved white beard deprecatingly the while—"l would say dipping, don't you persave?" "Yes, Rohan has got a bad shake—all round," saidthe agent.. "But this is to oblige me, and there is his note of hand." Mr. Dargan took the stamped paper in his thin hands, and examined it with the martyr air of an editor who is required by an influential subscriber to insert bad poetry. "Well, well, Mr. Harman, we have done a goodish bit in this line—you and I have—a goodish bit,' I may preshume to say/sir, for a small country practitioner, sir, so to say " "And made a devilish pretty thing out of it," said the agent, "You might let me have three Bank of England fifties. I don't want to appear in this thing at the bank." b

Mr. Dargan skipped to his safe in a series ..of mild electric shocks. "No news yet, sir, about—ahem ! that small affair of mine, sir?" he asked timidly, as he fumbled for his keys. .-..." • _ "About the magistracy? No, certainly not, These things are not done in a day." - "Just what I- observed to my. wife, sir; but you know what leedies are, sir. Lord Drumshaughlin is Lord-Lieutenant of the county—that's what these foolish wimmen do be saying, sir—and his lawrship could arrange it with a scratch of the pen, sir—yes,rreelly.": "You don't imagine Lord Drumshaughlin keeps a staff of clerks to answer all the begging-letters in the county?" Indeed, no, sir, it did not strike me that way—that s very clever, sir," said Mr. Dargan, half closing the safe again, and turning round to face the agent' though there be those that would tell you—l don't deem if myself, sir but: there will be those that will talk and will say-that I have" resaved more begging-• letters than ever I wrote, and have the signatured at trie bottom to show for them, too sir " • $ " N ™ en Dara n, don't be so hard on my little jokes. The thing will be done, of course, M you know what Lord Drumshauhglin is when he has the gout on him, and you know what a snuffy lot those local magistrates here are, and how they have to be humored and squared—confound them!—before

making -you free of the craft.. .But it's as good as done take my word for it.", , .....,;.. ....

.'That's very eemiable of you. sir." said the moneylender, dipping the beard until it seemed low enough to .'sweep the floor. "Very, eemiable, I'm sure, sir; and will be very consoling to- Mrs. D.— coming from headquarters. How will you take the balance, sir notes or gold ?" :; •< . "That is young Harold—the young Frenchman Father Phil's scapegrace the street from the hotel, isn't it? That's all right. Bye-bye, Dargan," cried* the agent, arriving at the door in time to come plump against the cigarsmoke of the young gentleman in question. . He hailed him with a cheery "How do you do? 'I got that application for the Town Hall for your Christy Minstrels. Of course, you must have it. I don't know anything a country town wants more than a good laugh. I wish we could instal your nigger minstrels in the Town Hall permanently in place of the Board of Town Commissioners. Your stump speeches would be just as sensible, and more amusing." - "I hardly hoped our darkies would earn the civic crown, sir," laughed Jack, a little embarrassed by the agent's cordiality. "We owe you a thousand thanks." "Not a bit—only the gaslight, which won't be much. Put me down for three front seats." "It is very good of you to occupy yourself with such trifles —a man of affairs, who must be so pressed as you."

"That is the way with all you youngsters—want to squeeze all the fragrant essences of life into your own scent-bottles, and leave us old fellows nothing but our ledgers and our Bibles. You would never suspect me of a taste for Chopin, now, I dare swear! Come up to Stone Hall some evening and see. I suppose you regard me as the enemy, and will hold no parley with the Philistine?"

" "I—l don't understand, sir." "Nonsense; you understand very well, and so does all the world. You don't suppose you' can conspire with a man like Dawley, now, for instance, without every bird on the hedgerows knowing that you are preparing to blow us all sky-high one of these nights. Don't be a bit alarmed, my dear fellow, and don't in the least apologise. I believe the British Empire will blow you sky-high instead, and therefore I stick by the British Empire; but in the meantime I am very glad indeed to see the British Empire getting a dose of the terrors it thinks so lightly of, when it is we small fry that are being flogged for its sins. Them's my politics. If you think a barefooted Irish Republic, or the county gaol, preferable, that is your affair. I dare say we'll exchange a shot or two some day on the subject—if we let you get -hold, of revolvers; , but en attendant, as the French " say, I shall be glad if you will drop up to Stone Hall and hear me strum a fugue or two." , • - • &

And before a week was over Jack Harold found himself actually in drawing-room at Stone Hall, lolling over the music-book, while Lord Drumshaughlm's agent was—playing the piano. Mr. Harman's taste for Chopin was no joke. The pianoforte was one of his few dissipations in life. His long white, fingers had' recourse to the piano after dinner, as" other men have recourse to wine. Abbe Liszt's 'recitals:were the one form of- London: entertainment that attracted' him. He himself played with excellent technical skill—some judges thought like a musician, as some judges thought Hans Harman a remarkably handsome man of his years. Others (among whom Jack) remarked that Harman came very near being a great musician, as he came very near being a-handsome man but that there was something just a shade too hard in his touch, as his face was just a shade too thin, and his eyes a shade too bulgy, and his teeth a shade too sharp looking for the best models. But where will you find perfection outside Books . of Beauty How many young girls- of Cortone did Zeuxis take as =; models for his Helen? Young Harold was musician enough to feel a' good deal of interest in Mr. Harman's performance, and hypocrite enough to feign a great deal more. He

was thoroughly glad to have advanced from the barparlor at; the Drumshaughlin Arms to the drawingroom at Stotie Hall, cheerless and drab though it looked and I cannot conceal the fact that when Miss Deborah made her appearance with tea our friend courted her and deferred to her with the enthusiasm of a finished young toady. Even gay young revolution" ists are not perfect. : 1 - ■ “My sister and you ought to be sworn allies, now that you are at war with Monsignor McGrudder,” said the land-agent, who really liked young men’s ways, as he liked young monkeys. He spent one whole wet Sunday afternoon in the Regent’s Park about the monkey-houses, and expended a large sum in copper on nuts. “I hear he thundered against you finely.” “I missed it. I was in bed,” said Jack, with a flavor of insolence. “It is a hint I learned in Paris —tell your concierr/c never to be in a hurry to wake you until the revolution is quite over for the day.” Miss Deborah, who had only consented to meet the priest’s nephew under her brother’s orders, and" expected to find a bumpkin with an Indian-meal complexion, was greatly edified to find a Papist who was not afraid to talk of his priest with this cheerful impertinence—a young Papist, too, with an uncommonlyturned foreign moustache and a dash of delicate color in . his cheeks. She had remarked his smart dolman with its pretty capuchon as he came up the lawn, and thought it picturesque and chic. I should hope there are a good many Roman Catholics who are not much frightened by incantations nowadays,”. she remarked graciously, “though it is really distressing the number of poor people who still believe in Mr. McGrudder. We have only to trust to the influence of enlightening zeal and loving counsel to dispel the shades of ignorance which still haunt the darkened souls of our t humbler brethren,” said Miss Deborah, falling into a quotation from the last annual report of her society. “At the same time I feel bound to tell you, Mr. Harold, that I cannot approve of young men lying in bed upon the Sabbath. That is a matter I should like to discuss with you. It is not enough to have lost the relish for the debasing doctrines of Mr. McGrudder. That is something, but it is not all. That is only the first sprinkle of the waters of regeneration ” “Hang it all, Deborah, you’re not going to regenerate the young man with tracts and blankets, I hope,” said Harman. v; Upon my word, I was never half so happy under a pulpit,” said our democratic rascal, more than half persuading himself that the younger Miss Harman had a blight pair of eyes, and a not irresponsive pair when you looked into them, which he did, saucily. 7 -■ Your compliments are as inexcusable as brother’s levity,” she murmured, dropping her eyes with a guarded sort of austerity. - : Especially as he will have nothing pretty left to say to Miss Westropp, whom I see on the terrace,” ! said the agent, rising in time to extend his hand to. a young girl, who .pulled off her straw hat.as she cameinto the room, with a wolf-hound at her heels,* and cried : “I have come to ask Deborah for a cup of tea. !’ I felt so lonesome-T-not a soul to talk to except Bran '” Then she stopped, with a startled look, seeing a ! stranger. j ° •

(To be continued.)