The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 14 April 1921, Page 3

The Storyteller

v WHEN WE WERE BOYS r'—K- b|»? .:j±y ,c<siS' r h'i- £ fo-bl : (By William O’Bbien.) " :SVf ' v CHAPTER XXL—(Continued.) • Perhaps the hardest of Miss Westropp’s pets to understand was the American Captain. Englishmen love to think that all their actions are determined by the rules of pure prose, merciless logic, and hard sense. They are, on the contrary, the most whimsical and sentimental of men. They are only in dread of being thought so. What possible process of >logic could account for the fact ; that Neville’s notion of the cause of law and order in Ireland was decided by the offensive twist of Sub-Inspector Flibbert’s; moustache, and that he only came to like Captain Mike MacCarthy by disliking Flibbert? So it was, at all events. He could not help thinking what a figure burly Captain Mike, with his antic dialect, devil-may-cares: felt hat, and square-cut clothes of dingy black, would cut among the young men of the Knightsbridge mess, with whom an ill-chosen word was as painful a disfigurement as a crease in their morning coats; but then he thought how little Flibbert’s irritating strut and ; Drumshaughlin fashions would fare in the same company; and the next time he met the American Captain, he astonished that grizzly warrior by saying, “I’ve been reading up your war a bit. There was never anything like it—such dogged hard work, I qnean.7 - ; /- “Just so. There wasn’t much of a show—no return tickets at excursion rates —no programme of dance music on the grounds. No, sir, ’twas all con-ducted on strict business principles. When you’ve got to kill a million and a half of your fellow-men in a limited time, where’s the use of dressing them up in osprey feathers and them kind of fixings? don’t deny there’s pluck behind your fine coats, you Britishersnot by no means,” said the Captain, determined to be generous. : “Your boys have done some rale: purty . things from time to time, in a small way. All I want entered on the minutes is that an army don’t miss pipeclay when it’s short of boots. When we started out after Joe Johnson, the Union supplied us . with- a gun and carriage-belt, and I guess that , was . about allr except fellows to fire. at. We wrastled Joe’s hash purty powerful all the same for plain citizens. You think that’s bragging?” An unconquerably candid increase of color in Neville’s fresh face betrayed him. He had indeed been thinking vaguely that this .was not Knightsbridge form. It seemed an additional rudeness to force him, to confess or deny it. t Hut he did not yet know - Captain Mike. . “So it is bragging,” said the American Captain, knocking away a pyramid of ashes from the end of his cigar with, leisurely gravity !,Rather ’taint bragging advertising.. What’s a new country like ours to do but ?advertise ?j; She’s bet out of the market unless she advertises. It’s all well

for your crowd to - hold . your tongues about your - battles, an’ look modestsilence comes easier to you than descriptive particulars—l don’t say nothing agon it—but your advertising’s done for you’ve had your historians booming. along ever so many y centuries ’ now —had a J most all the lying to yourselves. Consequence is you’re a great nationyou’ve only . got .to hold your tongue for people to believe Battles of Waterloo about you. We’re only beginnerswe’re not above writin’ our own puffs .and stickin’ our own. bills—else I’d like to know who’s goin’ to hear that Gettysburg j was a bigger day’s work than: Waterloo! No, sir, we ain’t ashamed of advertising honest • goods. And our work .on the Potomac was real honest. I can tell you them that came out alive deserved the remarks of the Gettysburg Evening Telegram, Yes, sir.” !. -;V" .“I can easily .“ believe it,” /said. the young Life Guardsman ' fervently. “Won’t you r have another cigar '■' '/ AJ Joshua Neville was attracted by His hew Irish siirv.

roundings from a totally 4 opposite standpoint to | his son’s. v/ Reggy liked them because they were y so s utterly un-English his father because he- felt stirred by a, mission to make them as English H as v his own flesh and blood The young Guardsman was /of the V type of Norman invaders who had to be restrained by statute from adopting’ the wild " Irish dress and ' marrying an Irish- wife. The- native faults- of character which inspired the father with the ambition of reforming them, rather disposed the son to. imitate them. He fretted under the sense of > his own taciturnity and poverty of mental landscape/ -He envied this people, their imaginativeness, their recklessness, their elegant laziness, their power of dining ' on - National aspirations and supping divinely .on an evening prayer. He only wished he could be as nimble of wit and lazy of limb as the most incorrigible of them. His father, .on the other hand, could S not T see why v they might not become as methodical and T practical; and as much - attached to the grindstone for the grindstone’s sake as he was himself. ■ The two/ impressions only differed from the point of view. The Englishman, as a social animal, is the' most diffident of men ; the Englishman of Commerce the most indomitable. The young Guardsman, ;it must be confessed, , only saw the outer rind of. things. Joshua Neville could not in the least understand why Glengariff should not be in its kind as thriving a ■ place -as the Black Country; scenery, of course, had no chance in the market against coal and iron but he had known no end of good strokes made in scenery, and with an inferior article, too, to that which a Glengariff prospectus could put on the market. _ What gold , diggings that ugly blotch of mud which. the" Liverpudlian- take for the seashore had been turned into!. And . there were , lots of -, things to -be done with* Glengariff besides , floating■ a Casino. He had satisfied himself by personal investigation (as well as out of the pages i of'Thom’s Almanac)4that the district . was singularly rich in mineral, wealth, and that the coast was teeming with fishes running about-in vain importuning the natives to catch them. It gave• Joshua Neville genuine personal pain that jthis should be so. ' Curiously enough, it was not without a certain subtle sense of national self-satisfaction as, well that he devoted himself to noting down , the hundred-and-one things which might be done with the Glengariff country, and were not. .He developed as keen/ a relish for investigating the. economic eccentricities of the place day by day as his son did for shooting over the mountains. And what bags the father as well as the son made! Everything wanted mending everywhere. The house drains of Clanlaurance Castle were of as archaic -a/ type as the arrangement for: emitting ■ smoke through the tatch ' of the huts 'at the Ranties. One day he sighed over a pitful of fish laid out for manure for -want of a market* / Another, he noted with horror that the fishery pier, which it had taken a quarter -of a-- century of - agitation *to erect, had ■ been erected at the ; only spot on that part of the coast where the hungry sea could burst in (as, of course, it duly did and scooped away the foundations like so -much piecrust at a bite). J..ltk was, ? in '' this way, a still more trying thing /• to a ; man of business to find '. that even the town clock was of the v most unsteady and dissipated habits as a time-keeper, being sometimes too fast, often too slow, and still oftener altogether asleep at its post. It was one of Joshua Neville’s boasts, to possess a chronometer which showed Greenwich as well as Irish time without a variation of twenty seconds in as many months. Precision in such matters he regarded as of the essence of; English greatness; fancy, then, this j shameless clock, cooly lying to the extent of twenty minutes at a time, and a morning or two after declining point blank to give any information whatever., on the subject. :■>- - “Now, what, have you got to say to that?” he demanded in a tone in - which sincere annoyance 7 was blended with no less sincere complacency. - “English rule does not .set : the works of a clock astray. As a strong well-wisher of Ireland, I want to know why you won’t keep «the - correct time?” “Because; like ? Atlantic ocean, we’ve got so

• • r • ! • -•- </*■•. y V >; V- 5. '• ; much, of it on our hands that .it is not worth measuring; to a nicety,’’; said the „ Rector, good-humouredly. * ‘‘Well, indeed, now that you mention- it,” said; Father Phil, “a queer thing happened myself, the other morning, through the | vagaries of that same town clock:;bad : cess to it for a town clock! I—l hadn’t my own watch convenient stammered the old priest, with a suspicion of deeper red. on his weather-beaten apple cheeks b“aiid when I jumped out* of bed to look at the town clock, I found to ; my horror that it was within a minute of the hour for eight, o’clock Mass, and the, bell not rung nor the chapel opened. There was no sign of the chapel-woman. I rushed out and rang the bell myself—not very artistically* lam afraid,; but I suppose I put my heart in it, for before I had' given the last tug at the bell I had the whole town, men, women, and children, rushing out'half dressed to know what was the matter. What do you think? The town clock was not going -at all that nightit was only four o’clock in the morning and, of course, when the people heard the bell 1 banging away at that unearthly hour they thought it must be a fire or ’the-Fenians that were after coming. I am told that Patsy Kent, who has the winding of the town -clock,; was on a slight bit of a , caper at the time. He is one of the most harmless creatures you would meet in a day’s walk only for an occasional drop too much. . But, upon my word, they are the kindest people in the world, or they would have thought : it was not Patsy Kent but I that was on the caper that morning.” 4 Joshua- Neville felt in the depths of his logical soul that this was not a relevant answer to his remark on the disregard of precision in ,'native , time-keeping; but he felt some difficulty in resuming the theme in view of a droll little drama, which seemed to impart a certain halo to Patsy Kent’s reprehensible part in the town clock’s aberrations. His heart warmed to the American Captain when that grizzled warrior broke out — ; ./ s I 'I 5 I

4 “That’s my :native /land down to the bed-rock! and I’ll venture a small pile you didn’t bring Patsy fooling out of, his bed .that morning, was too drunk for that. I reckon he thought himself the most sensible man in the town in that transaction. Most probable, ,if Editor. Murrin called . around:,for., his views for the Banner, Patsy would maintain in big type that ’twas" all the fault of his reverence in bein’ up so early.” | | f'-A. -J ■ \# .

“Maybe there’s some sense in that same,” said Father Phil, judicially-shaking his head, * ; “No, —nary bit-not so much sense as would keep a mosquito from buzzing when he means business,- No, sir, the gen’leman from Sheffield’s ;quite right—l expect I have located you correctly; boss.” “I do come from that part of the country,” said Neville, gravely.V V ■ : ._ v '• ‘ “That’s so. The Hon. Joshua Neville’s ideas are the ideas *of-- a brainy man, if «he -will- allow- a plain Amurrican citizen tos say so. It’s what I’ve been saying all over the camp since I came hereabouts—you want is to keep tugging at that bell all the time till you wake Patsy Kent, and wake /the. town, and wake the whole blessed poppy-headed- country. This, sir, would/ be a great country 5 if the people only'knew what o’clock it is.” ■ . ‘

“It’s all very well for you to taunt Patsy with not knowing what o’clock it is—you haven’t stolen his watch. We have—Mr. Neville and I,” said the Rector.

“That, of course, is a joke,” said Neville, who was always uneasy in - ? metaphorical discourse, ' h/ . “It’s -no joke for the creatures in those cabins yonder. Our great nation has been- picking their tattered pockets ever since the Crusades or so. ' It’s no joke for me either. If everybody had his own, my gold repeater would in Father Phil’s .pocket and not in mine.” . , &&&:& J. v

t ' “Why, then,- my dear, J’m not so. well able to keep ; 1 ‘a: silver one when I’ve got it,” said Father Phil, with- i s-a M smile, < ‘No. Somebody jelse would- rob -you. if I didn’t; so I : hold on to the gold : repeater - and to the Church

Establishment; but I don’t feel at ! all commissioned from on high to lecture you on the faults of this Papistical watch of yours. No, Mr. Neville; you’ll .4v«i§«K*ivV !».••*. «<wr»!s?r«.?ss- wsodfc*. . aM* •!:)'■" . , Vi-** '» find a thousand things wrong in this country, bub-ho-- a thing so wrong as ourselves- —I with my £6OO a year • of Irish money for cursing the Irish people, and you, f who pay an army. (God forgive you !) to collect my ill-gotten goods for ) Yaol^f - I| . ...^ . • “My dear c Mr.- T Motherwell, you | mistake me; T * f assure you,” pleaded Neville, earnestly. “Nothing could be further from my thoughts than to wound the susceptibilities of our Irish brethren. % They are most . estimable people—forgive me for saying it in your presence, Father Sullivan— charming people, positively charming! ,|I only want to know how to serve them —I do, f indeed. f I quite i\ agree £ with our good friend the Rector that the Church Establishment is an anachronism, and l am prepared (to co-operate ‘n any properly matured scheme of disestablishment and disendowment.” V ' 'J - :,. ;^'“'r‘;Just so; and rob Mrs. Motherwell and the babies ; by way of appeasing your conscience ft for robbing the Irish .nation, at. large, said the Rector, his big brown * : eyes glistening good-humoredly under the soft felt hat ‘ from amidst ? billows -of silky brown hair and beard. “But I can tell you you ■ won’t I find Mrs. Motherwell - submitting ‘to your penal laws; as meekly as the conr quered Jacobites did.•• : j “Bully for Mrs. M. !” observed the. American Capy t aim :.r 7 , - r U^Z±^ t (To. be continued.) .. .. I vjs di vjil -s.'S-ft. 'H - .y.d’Vi f- .•< : ~ij j i'f> ¥< "t THE PRISONER. ” • Here is the happy house . where .. he was born, * The fields of * honey-grass;' 5 the 1 springing corn, V Mountain .on mountain; far and 5 far| away, - And Glendalough, golden and , silver grey— The ■ Dark Rose made, her own of him who knows - -■ - There jis no beauty like to hers, , Dark Rose, kß* i i; \ |j '■ d Soft singing -of streams is here and hark! the lark f— - - That ;is : not still between the. day and dark Jp Thrushes and-blackbirds ‘and the cushat dove. j; ..... ; The wind . wanders, rain., from s: the hills above |||.' • J a ' v,i Steals* on ” her silver feet, and the grey mist Is b Veils for a little sapphire and amethyst. if *%W ■ i ■il ir| Where does the Master tarry, whither stray • \ i His feet .that : loved so well the appointed way,' * 0 That trod the ; pastures lightly, the rich mead AC The sheep * run with their lambs, the cattle feed ( Knee-deep ,in . grass; . their .liquid; eyes give praise. ” - { Why is he absent from the nights and days ? .'■■.T B ;%ji "3 r-if i't h 'i ‘ 1 • Now in his dreams alone he hears i the birds ■ And the familiar voice of flocks and herds; In dreams he feels the wind upon his face, H . Visits once more the old beloved place. J jig., He is free, ,he is free, until he l wakes once^moi^ ? ' v ‘ To the stark prison-walls, the ; unopening door. * &Z He takes his outing in the prison yard. 5. iti His dear Black Rose has slipped through wall and guard • Her - beauty f and ._ glamor blind J his wondering eyes, For whom so many men made sacrifice, ' jp Flinging their lives down , with a jest and song So she keep so she keep young. ; ; What matter for the gyves upon his hands! ■ ' »P ? she is with him and she understands l » And she will lead him yet to the free air ■ If . '" U And this wild {.beauty that but covers her. T' . Afs - ■/ A Ad she ;is i worth it all, his Lady who knows ' There is no beauty like tochers, Dark .Rose. jr : f ——TT A r TTT A T)TXTIA Tv\T tXT in 'Cf4*. AX .