The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 20, 18 May 1922, Page 3

The Storyteller

(By William O’Brien.)

When We Were Boys

CHAPTER XXXlX.—(Continued.) It was only that morning Hans Harman had finally satisfied himself that the Composition Account was in the hands of the all-seeing Englishman. Things had been going horribly wrong with him all round. A superstitious belief in luck was the agent’s religion. His belief in his own star had hitherto been indomitable. But now that the run of luck was against him ho had the gambler’s usual cowardly conviction that if red was breaking the bank he . had only to lay a napoleon on it to transfer the luck to black. His latest great scheme had been to make himself the Attorney-General’s chief bottle-holder, with a view to obtaining the vacant seat at the Local Government Board by way of recompense. His agency at Drumshaughlin. had, of course, become untenable; but, on the other hand, Lord Drurashaughlin could have no ' interest in provoking a public exposure of his own family skeletons; and what with the 80001. he would receive from the county for the burning of Stone Hall, and the income he might hope to derive from the reinvestment of the Hugg loan and his own, he was able to map out a career of opulence and splendor for himself in Dublin, where' a seat at the Local Government Board was the blue ribbon of place-hunting ambition. But, though he threatened in his own daring way to throw himself into the Fenian camp, he could not bring Toby Glascock to business about the vacancy in the Local Government Board. The fact of it is, the AttorneyGeneral, who never liked the agent’s cynical air, had heard rumors of the relations between Harman and his principal; • and was so satisfied that the Puddlestono peerage had made the Drumshaughlin tenantry secure, and so universally assured that the whole contest would be a mere matter of form, that he flatly rejected Harman’s terms, and was even emboldened (out of hearing of the reverend clergy) to tell the agent that he might go to the Fenians, or go to the devil, if upon mature consideration he felt so disposed. The agent did quietly arrange a little revenge by giving Mat Murrin*’a secret letter to the tenantry; but he no longer felt as if his - revenge had much sting in it. He felt like a beaten general who could look for no higher satisfaction than gouging a wounded enemy’s eye out for mere mischief’s sake on his line of light. And now he had learned for certain that the Composition Account, the key to his life of fraud, had fallen into the iron grip of Joshua Neville. This book he had usually kept locked up in his own cabinet at Stone Hall. But, so completely secure seemed the triumph of his plans for forcing a sale of the estate, that in sitting up late v at night, preparing the Rental for the Court, ho had transferred the Composition Account-book to the Rent Office for the purpose of readier reference as to the difference between the nominal and real rental, and had overlooked it among the other books which ho locked into the safe upon the night of Joshua Neville’s ’midnight visit to the office. He had not at first remembered the circumstance, and had searched for the private account-book like a maniac in all sorts of possible and impossible places; but this morning the recollection of having seen its red-and-gold-lettered title on the white vellum among the pile of estate-books he had bundled into the safe, suddenly flashed upon him clear as day; and he started up, ashen-colored as a corpse, with the horrible thought that a policeman had just grasped him by the collar and hissed “Felon!” in his ear, “Neville is quite capable of doing —those infernal virtuous fellows always are mercilessbut I dare say they would scarcely search me, and ten minutes would do it,” he said, opening his cabinet and placing a small phial of laudanum in his breast-pocket, “Poor Deb!” he said, as he saw his sister’s green and shrunken face on the gardenpath outside. There is no such thing as a perfect villain. Hans Harman was about as bad a scoundrel as I could find in nature; but it was impossible not to feel some touch of human kinship with him as he stood there by the window, like a chained and doomed wild animal, softening’ towards the one human creature who had been tendrils of affection cling round his lonely JHfiSKfhere;i is the insurance for five thousand on my have that at all ’events, in spite of all the h(Jj^H^HdBMKI;

tear my carcase,” and he spent half an hour over some legal instrument, which he then called in Deborah and a servant to witness and, without the slightest word of explanation, kissed Deborah on the forehead. “If I had only a trifle of ready money,” he said, after bundling his sister out as unceremoniously as ho had embraced her. “But, curse it! — is no time to realise, and.any application at the bank might only precipitate matters. What if I try old Dargan? He is to a certain extent in the same boat.”

It was a novel sensation to Hans Harman to feel his heart go pit-a-pat in a sickening way •as he saw HeadConstable Muldudden’s great-coated figure approach his gig on the way to Dargan’s. The horse felt a sudden jerk at its jaws and nearly stumbled. The handsome spectre that held the reins hardly dared to raise his eyes out of their dark circles. “Has he the warrant?” was the question that every drop of blood seemed to ask as it jostled towards his heart. Head-Constable Muldudden had not the warrant, however, and had the usual full-dress salute for the agent. Muldudden had just been informed that he had been awarded “a record” for distinguished service against the Rebels, and could not conceive how anybody could bo thinking of anything else in the world this morning.

Humphrey Dargan had but a frosty welcome for his old patron. The money-lender was* sitting in the back parlor at the bank counting over sovereigns and banknotes, which he was building into solid ramparts and pyramids in front of him. It was an immense sum being in full discharge of all interest due on the Drumshaughlin loans; and Joshua Neville himself had just been with him to deliver the notes and gold and receive his receipt. Neville had also frightened him out of his senses by hints that a colossal fraud had been discovered, and that the degree to which criminal responsibility attached to the several parties thereto was still a subject of painful investigation. A violation of the criminal law was the very last thing Dargan’s cautious soul had contemplated. That he should have pinched and schemed all his life to end his days in a convict’s jacket was an idea altogether insupportable. He had reposed implicit confidence in Hans Harman’s astuteness and knowledge of law; but if Harman’s own feet were in the snare was he likely to he over-nice about exculpating his confederate? Ever since his failure to carry His Worship for the Club, Mrs. Dargan had conceived a distrust of, and contempt for, the agent. She blamed him for tho wreck of all her ambitious dreams —for the unpleasant sensation made by her own skyblue silk and emerald-green sunshade at the archery tollman ment— little Flibbert’s insolent demand of an additional thousand pounds with Lily’s fortune —for the ugly cough contracted by poor Lily herself during that secret night mission to the Mill—for the three thousand pounds’ worth of bills Lord Shim-one’s son had inveigled Lionel into “doing” for -him before bolting for the Colonies. And now that she learned that the fallen agent was himself within measurable distance of a police-cell, the worthy lady observed to His Worship, with a chaste virtuousness all her own: ‘"Serve him quite right too. And I have to request, Humphrey, that you will give all the assistance possible to the ministers of justice. He will possibly be brought before yourself,” she added, with a last touch of feminine satisfaction.

“The truth of the matter is, Mr. Harman, sir,” remarked Mr. Dargan, kneading his hands together as if rubbing them with' an unusually heavy lather of soap, “I’m the feether of a family, sir—humble people, sir, but still in their own way have managed by humble industhering to keep a clane sheet, so to say, sir, as between man and man and altogether apart from the disgreece, sir, as Mrs. D. remarked: ‘You’re getting on in years, Humphrey,’ she says, ‘ and how do you think -a flagged cell would agree with your rheumatism in the end of your days?” That’s the way women do be talking, Mr. Harman, and'in short, sir ” s “Devil take your cant! You mean that you’re afraid your own crooked neck is in danger, and that if tightening, the rope round my neck can save you, you’ll do the strangling.” ; ■ -■■■'

The money-lender bobbed in his chair, as if an electric battery were playing under his long nails. There , was something in the agent’s face that frightened him; it gave

him a thrill of relief when he saw a policeman pass the window. “Well, Mr, Harman, sir, you do put things in strong language—in powerful strong language, sir , but that, was always a pleasant way of yours— he I” he sniggered,' with a ghastly assumption of gaiety.' “All that I ventured to submission I always do hold by as a man that knows his pleece, sir, and ever did — all I so far trespassed as to submit was that this affair in the Landed Estates Court seems to have been, sir, ahem! — in short, a narrow squeak, sir— and now I’m told there’s something behind, Mr. Harman, sirsomething worse, they really do bo telling me, sirsomethingahem —in short, sir, too onpleasant to be mintioned among gintlemen, so to say, Mr. Harman, sir ”

-“Fiddlesticks, Dargan, you moneyed men are always afraid of your shadows,” said Harman, in his old jaunty way, appropriating the fire with his spread coat-tails as he used to do at Stone Hall, and laughing down over the shoulder of the money-lender, who was sitting in front of him. “This meddlesome Englishman has got under some damned Fenian influence or other, and has a plot on foot to get rid of me by cooking the estate accounts against me. I’ve got to remove myself out of the fellow’s power for a. while, or he may give you and me trouble; hut it’s a. mere question of my quitting the country for six months, and of your giving me the means to quit it.” He left the fire and walked to the opposite side of the table for the purpose of looking Dargan full in the face. “Me, sir!” exclaimed the money-lender, bounding in the air. “Two thousand will do ithalf that heap of money you have there on the table before you. It is the merest matter of accommodation. You have got the Hugg loan secured, and I will give a lien on the 8,0001. that will be coming to mo from' the Grand Jury at the Spring Assizes. I- could raise it at the bank myself within half an hour, only that I don’t care to be drawing large sums there publicly at this moment. Hell and furies! Dargan, you don’t mean to say you hesitate ? Will it take a legal argument to hammer it into your stupid skull that you will be running absolutely no risk, and that you 1 will be saving yourself as well as me from very substantial risk by putting me out of harm’s way?” “A stupid old skull it is, I must allow, though it, served you well enough' in /a small way in its time, 'Mr. Harman, sir,” said the money-lender, with that feline movement of his long nails from under' their, velvet sheath with which his humbler clients were familiar enough, and which even his most powerful ones had once in a way made uncomfortable acquaintance with. “My knowledge •of law is not much, sir, to be sure; but they do bo telling methey reelly do, sirHead-Constable Muldudden now, for example, is a deep man about the sections of an Act of Parliament ” Has Muldudden been talking of my name?” gasped the agent.

Not exactly that, sir, but I once heard Head-Constable Muldudden referring the Bench to the section that makes it in short, Mr. Harman, sir, a felonyyes, reelly!—to conspire for the purpose of— of course, it’s a funny thing to say, sir for the purpose* of screening a criminal from justice, so to say, Mr, Harman, sir.”

May. the devil roast you on a slow fire!” muttered Harman, walking, round to his former position between the fire and the money-lender’s chair. For a moment there was silence in the room. Harman’s eyes rested on the barricade of money which Dargan hsd just .been building up in sections. . The dull gleam of the gold fascinated him* made him giddy. Suddenly a wild, bloodshot-like light flamed into his eyes. His tall figure towered up behind the money-lender like a handsome panther ready to spring. “Make it one thousand, Dargan,” he said, almost caressingly. “I have been your friend. It is to me you owe your endless farms, your loan transactions with Lord Drumshaughlin, your magistracy. Make it one thousand. It will enable me to start a ranche in a small way. , It will save my life, and you will have security ten times over at your mercy.” v _ Humphrey thanked his stars that he had not to face his visitor this time. He could not for worlds have turned around and met his confederate’s eye when answering this piteous appeal. “I am an old man, Mr, Harman sir, and I never bargained for getting , into collision, with

the lawyou know I never did, sir,” he whimpered in a feeble whine, instinctively plunging his long bony fingers into the pyramids of gold, and drawing them silently towards him as if they clung to his flesh. (To be continued.)