JOHN O’NEILL
“A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay.”
DRYDEN.
“And we’re hanging out the sign
From the Leeuwin to the Line:
‘This bit of the world belongs to US!’”
THE words came floating down the hillside at the top of a cheery young
baritone. Also down the hillside came sounds of haste—heavy footsteps,
crashing undergrowth, and rustling of bracken.
The hill sloped steeply, ending with an abrupt plunge into a boreen
below: a little winding lane, walled in by high banks, clad with heather
and furze, and all abloom with wild flowers. The main road ran westward,
dusty and hot in the June sunlight; but the boreen was all in shade,
twisting its way in and out between the hills. The dew was yet on its
grass, though in the blossoming furze above, fringing the banks, the
bees droned heavily, winging their busy way among the hot sweetness.
The noise overhead came nearer, and there came into the song staccato
notes never intended by the composer, as the singer half-slid,
half-plunged, down the hillside, taking inequalities in the ground with
long strides. Nevertheless, the voice persevered, happy, if disjointed,
until it was just above the boreen. Then the song and the hurrying
footsteps ceased together, and there was a pause.
“Wire!” said Wally’s disgusted tones. “And barbed, at that! Didn’t we
have enough in France!”
The wire was half-hidden in the tangle of grass and furze; a tense
strand twanged as his boot caught it in clambering over. His thin face
showed for a moment, peeping over into the boreen. There was nothing to
do but slither, and slither he did, landing in the little lane with a
mighty thud, and bringing with him a shower of furze blossoms, and
clattering stones and clods. They fell close to a man sitting on a
fragment of rock and leaning back against the bank. He had not stirred
at the commotion overhead, and now he sat motionless, looking up at the
tall lad with a faint smile.
“I beg your pardon!” said Wally, abashed. “I say. I hope nothing hit
you?”
The man on the boulder shook his head. It was a big head, with a wide
brow and lines of pain round the eyes; but he was a small man, and the
hand lying on the knee of his rough tweed suit was startlingly thin.
Even as he leaned back against the bank it was easy to see that his
shoulders were misshapen and humped. Wally glanced once, and withdrew
his eyes hurriedly, with a boy’s instinctive dread of appearing to
notice anything amiss.
“Beastly careless of me!” he said, apologetically. “I never thought of
anyone being down below.”
“Well, you gave enough warning that you were coming,” said the man.
“Anyone remaining below did so entirely at his own risk. Do you always
come down a hill in that fashion, may I ask?”
Wally grinned.
“Not always,” he admitted. “But it was a jolly hill; and it had taken me
such a time to climb up it that I had a fancy to see how quickly I could
get down. And I was feeling awfully fit. It’s so jolly to be feeling
well—makes you act like a kid.”
“It must be jolly,” said the other, laconically.
Wally flushed hotly, in dread of having hurt him. It was painfully clear
that to feel well was not a common experience for the man on the
boulder. He had a sudden wild desire to undo the impression of exuberant
health and spirits. The tired eyes were even harder to face than the
twisted shoulders.
“Been an awful crock, really,” he said, sitting down on another fragment
of rock. “Gassed—over there.” He nodded vaguely in the direction—more
or less—of Europe. “Makes you feel like nothing on earth.”
“It’s pretty bad, isn’t it?” asked the other, with swift interest.
“Rather. We didn’t get anything like a full dose, of course, or we
wouldn’t be here. But even a little is rather beastly. And the worst of
it is, that it hangs on to you long after you’re better—it seems to
lurk down somewhere inside you, and gets hold of you just as you’re
beginning to think you’re really all right. It actually makes a fellow
think he’s got nerves!”
“You don’t look like it,” said the man, laughing for the first time. The
brown, boyish face did not suggest such attributes.
“Well, it truly does make one pretty queer,” said Wally, laughing too.
“However, I believe we’ve nearly got rid of it—this country of yours is
enough to make us forget it.”
“You’re Australian, aren’t you?” the man asked.
Wally nodded. “How did you know?”
“Oh, this is a little place,” said the other. “Strangers are our only
excitement, and since the war started we haven’t had nearly so many. All
the people who used to come here to fish are away fighting.” He sighed.
“Most of them will not come back any more. You were quite a godsend to
us. Your boatman told one of my men about you; and the baker’s boy tells
the cook; and the butcher tells every one; and the postmistress is
simply full of news about you. As for the shops, they are fairly
buzzing!”
“Why, there are only two,” said Wally, laughing.
“That’s why they buzz,” said the man. “I don’t go into shops, myself;
but I have been altogether unable to repress the delighted confidences
of my chauffeur. He tells me that you’re all very keen fishermen——”
“And don’t know a thing about it!” said Wally. “Did he tell you that,
too?”
“He said you were getting on,” said the other, guardedly, his eyes
twinkling. The chauffeur’s confidences had probably been ample. “But
your stories of Australia have them all fascinated, and if they
weren’t—most of them—grandfathers, they would probably emigrate in a
body. Thank goodness, though, we’ve not many slackers here: almost all
our young men are fighting. My chauffeur, poor lad, lost a leg at Ypres.
His wooden leg is fairly satisfactory, but of course he can’t go back,
much as he wants to. We’re nearly all old men or—cripples”—his voice
was suddenly bitter: “and it’s rather pleasant to see young faces again.
You bring the stir of the world with you.”
“We’ve had so much stir that we were uncommonly glad to get away from
it,” Wally answered. “And this is a jolly place; if there were more big
timber it would be nearly as good as our bush-country.” He paused,
cheerfully certain of having paid Ireland the highest possible
compliment: then he rose. “I must be getting back.”
The man on the boulder rose also, slowly. When he stood up, his crooked
shoulders became more evident. He took one or two steps slowly and
painfully. Then he staggered, stretching an uncertain hand towards the
bank.
“Can I help you?” It was impossible to pretend any longer not to notice:
he was swaying, and Wally was beside him with a swift stride. The other
caught at the strong young arm.
“Thank you,” he said, presently. There were drops of perspiration on his
brow, but his voice was steady. “I’m something of a crock myself, and
this happens to be one of my bad days. I came up here because I couldn’t
stand the car any more—it’s waiting for me on the road. If you would
not mind helping me——?”
They went along the boreen slowly, between the blossoming banks. The man
rested heavily on Wally’s arm.
“Sure I’m not tiring you?” he asked, once. “You’re not fit yourself,
yet.”
“Oh, I’m all right,” Wally answered. “Please lean as much as you like.
Would you like a rest?”
“No—we’re nearly there. And I’m better.” His face was white, but he
smiled up at the tall boy. Then a turn in the lane brought the high road
in view, and, drawn up by the side, a big touring-car. The chauffeur,
drowsing in his seat in the sun, became suddenly awake. He limped
quickly towards his master.
“Sure I knew you had no right to be going up there alone,” he said,
reproachfully. “Will you give me the other arm, sir?”
“I’m all right, Con. This gentleman has helped me splendidly.” But he
put a hand on the chauffeur’s sleeve, more, Wally fancied, to pacify him
than because he needed extra help.
In the car, he leaned back with a sigh of relief. It was luxuriously
padded, and there were special cushions that the chauffeur adjusted with
a practised hand.
“Awfully sorry to have been such a nuisance,” he said. “Thanks ever so
much; you saved me a rather nasty five minutes.” He looked wistfully at
Wally. “I suppose you wouldn’t come home with me?”
Wally hesitated. He wanted badly to get back to his party and to the
trout that were so tantalizing and so engrossing. But there was
something hard to resist in the tired eyes.
“You would be doing me a real kindness,” said the other. “I can send
word to your friends——” He broke off. “Oh, it’s hardly fair to ask
you—you didn’t come here to muddle about with a sick man. Never
mind—I’ll get you to come over some day when I’m more fit.”
“I’d like to,” said Wally, cheerfully; “but I’m coming now, as well, if
I may.” He hopped into the car, and sat down. “If you could let them
know, I should be glad—they may be waiting for me.”
“Where are they?—at the hotel?”
“No, they’re fishing Lough Nacurra. I said I would turn up about twelve
and hail them; it’s Australian mail-day, and I’ve been posting the
family’s letters.”
“If doesn’t seem fair to keep you,” said the car’s owner. “But these
days I dread my own company. So if you’ll come to lunch with me I’ll
send you back to them in good time to get a few trout before the
evening. Home, Con.” The car started gently, and he leaned back and
closed his eyes.
Wally felt slightly bewildered. Here was he, in company with a man whose
name he did not know, and who was apparently going to sleep—both of
them being whisked through the peaceful Irish landscape at an
astonishing rate of speed in a motor which surpassed anything he had
ever imagined in luxury of fittings. It was a very large car: four
people could easily have found room in the seat he shared with his
silent host, and there were, in addition, three little arm-chairs which
folded flat when not in use. It was splendidly upholstered, and there
were electric lamps in cunning places, and many of what Wally termed
“contraptions”; pockets and flaps for holding papers, a clock and
speedometer, and a silver vase in which nodded two perfect roses. Wally
infinitely preferred horses to motors: but this was indeed a motor to be
respected, and he gazed about him with frank interest, which did not
abate when he found that his host was looking at him.
“I was admiring your car,” he said. “It’s a beauty; I don’t think I ever
saw such a big one.”
“Well, I use it as a bedroom very often,” said the other. “I like
knocking about in it; and I hate hotels; so Con and I live in the car
when we go touring, and he cooks for me, camp-fashion. This seat makes a
very good bed; and I have various travelling fixtures that screw on here
and there when they are needed, or live under the seat. I planned it
myself, and I don’t think there’s a foot of waste space in it. Con
sleeps in the front seat. We have an electric cooker, and he turns out
uncommonly good meals. Of course, if we encounter really bad weather we
have to put in for shelter, but I’m glad to say that doesn’t often
happen to us.”
“How jolly!” Wally exclaimed. “I suppose you’ve been all over Ireland in
that way?”
“Ireland—Scotland—England: and most of Europe and America,” said his
host. “I’m an idle man, you see, and travelling, if I can do it in my
own fashion, makes amends for a good many things I can’t have.” The
weariness came back into his face. “I might as well introduce myself,”
he said; “I forgot that I had kidnapped you without the civility of
telling you my name, which is O’Neill—John O’Neill. I live at
Rathcullen House, where we shall be in another minute or two.”
Memory came back to Wally of a road perched above the lough, and of a
little runabout car driven by a man in motor-goggles: and of the
boatman’s confidences.
“Then you’re Sir John O’Neill?” he asked.
“Yes—the first part of it doesn’t matter. The line goes back a good
way, but I’m the last of it. But the old house is rather jolly; I hope
you will all come and see it as often as you can spare the time.”
The car swung off the road as he spoke, and through a great gateway
where beautiful gates of wrought iron stood open between massive stone
pillars. A little gabled lodge, with windows of diamond lattice-work,
was just within: a pleasant-faced woman in pursuit of a fleeing
mischievous child stopped, smiled, and dropped a curtsey, while the
three-year-old atom she had been chasing bobbed down in ridiculous
imitation, her elfish face breaking into smiles in its tangle of dark
curls. John O’Neill smiled in return; and the car sped on smoothly, up a
wide avenue lined with enormous beech-trees, arching and meeting
overhead so that they seemed to be driving into a tunnel of perfect
green. Between their mighty trunks Wally caught glimpses of a wide park,
where little black Kerry cattle grazed.
For over a mile the avenue ran its winding way through the park. Then
the trees ceased, and they came out into a clear space of terraced lawn,
blazing with flower-beds, and sloping down to a lake fringed with
ornamental plants, and dotted with many-coloured water-lilies, among
which paddled lazily some curious waterfowl which Wally had never seen.
Beyond the lawn stood a long grey house; a house of old grey stone, of
many gables, clad in ivy and Virginia creeper. Even to the Australian
boy’s eyes it was mellow with the dignity of centuries. It was not
imposing or majestic, like the old houses he had seen in England; but
about it hovered an atmosphere of high breeding and of quiet peace: a
house of memories, tranquil in its beauty and in its dreams.
The car came to rest gently beside a stone step, and in an instant a
white-haired old butler was at the door, offering his arm to his master.
John O’Neill got out slowly, and limped up the steps to the great
doorway, where an Irish wolf-hound stood, looking at him with liquid
eyes of welcome.
“I say—what a jolly dog!” Wally uttered.
“Yes, he’s rather a nice old chap,” said his host. “Shake hands,
Lomair”; and the big dog put a paw gravely into Wally’s hand. He
followed his master into the house.
The great square hall was panelled with old oak, almost black in the
subdued light within. A staircase, with wide, shallow steps, wound its
way in a long curve to a gallery overhead: and at the far end, an
enormous fireplace was filled with evergreens. Eastern rugs lay on the
polished oaken floor; in one corner a stand of flowering plants made a
sheet of colour. On the walls were splendid heads—deer of many kinds,
markhor, ibex, koodoo, and two heads with enormous spreading antlers,
stretching, from tip to tip, fully eleven feet. They drew an exclamation
from Wally.
“They belonged to the old Irish elk,” O’Neill explained. “He must have
been a pretty big fellow; a pity civilization proved too much for him.
He has been extinct thousands of years.”
“Fancy seeing a herd of those fellows!” Wally exclaimed, gazing in
admiration at the noble head. “But however would he get those antlers
through timber?”
“I don’t think he frequented forests much,” O’Neill said. “The plains
suited him better. But he must have been able to lay his horns right
back—all deer can do that when necessary. I dare say he could dodge
through trees at a good rate.”
“Well, he looks as if he could hardly have got through the doorway of a
Town Hall,” Wally commented. “You have a splendid lot of heads. Did you
shoot them yourself?”
“A few—I can’t do much stalking,” O’Neill said. “I got those two
tigers, but that was from the back of an elephant. My father shot most
of the others; he was a mighty hunter. The trout were mine”—he
indicated some huge stuffed specimens, in glass cases, on the wall.
“They’re splendid,” Wally said, regarding his host with much admiration.
“And you actually shot the tigers! Was it very exciting?”
“No—the trout took far more killing. The elephants and the beaters did
most of the work so far as the tigers were concerned; it was only a sort
of arm-chair performance on my part. I simply sat in a fairly
comfortable howdah and fired when I was told to do so.”
“It sounds simple, but—well, I’d like to have the chance. And you must
have shot straight,” Wally said. He glanced from the grim masks to the
slight figure with ungainly shoulders, marvelling in his heart at the
contrast between hunter and hunted. At the moment John O’Neill did not
look capable of killing a mouse.
He dropped in to a big arm-chair, motioning Wally to another. The colour
was returning to his face, and his eyes began to lose their pain-filled
expression. In the big chair’s depths he looked smaller than ever; but
his eyes were very bright, and soon Wally forgot his morning’s fishing
and altogether lost sight of his host’s infirmities in the fascination
of his talk. Half-crippled as he was, he had been everywhere, and done
many things that stronger men long vainly to do. He had travelled
widely, and not as the average tourist, who skims over many experiences
without gathering the cream of any. John O’Neill had gone off the beaten
track in search of the unusual, and he had found it in a dozen different
countries. He had hunted and fished; had shot big game in India and made
his way up unknown rivers in South America, until sickness had forced
him to abandon enterprise and return to civilization to save his life.
Wandering in the bypaths of the world, he had brought home a harvest of
queer experiences; he told them simply, with a twinkle in his eye and a
quick joy in the humorous that often left his hearer shaking with
laughter.
Wally listened in growing wonderment and a great sense of pity. If this
man, so cruelly handicapped, had already done so much, what might he not
have done, given a straight and sound body! Yet how he had accomplished
even the tenth part of what he had done was a mystery. Wally looked at
the frail, slight figure with respectful amazement.
John O’Neill broke off presently.
“I rattle along at a terrible rate when I’m lucky enough to find a
listener,” he said. “And lately I’ve been horribly sick of my own
society. You see, they wouldn’t have me in any capacity at the Front; I
offered to do anything, and I did think they might have let me drive an
ambulance; but an ambulance driver over there really has to be a hefty
chap, able to put his shoulder literally to the wheel when a road goes
to pieces in front of him, owing to a shell lobbing on it; and of course
they said I wouldn’t do, so soon as they looked at me. So I went to
London and did Red Cross work and recruiting—and overdid it, like a
silly ass. Broke down, and had to crawl home and be ill.”
“Hard luck!” said Wally, sympathetically.
“Stupidity, you mean,” remarked his host. “A man ought to know when he
has had enough, whether it’s work or beer. But it’s not easy to stand
aside when all the lucky people—like you—are playing the real game. At
best, mine was only an imitation.”
“I don’t agree with you,” Wally said, warmly. “We can’t all fight—the
rest of the country has to carry on.”
“Oh, well, there are enough slackers and shirkers to do that,” O’Neill
said. “And anyhow, I couldn’t even carry on at what I did attempt to do.
Never mind—tell me your own adventures.”
Wally’s story of war did not take long in the telling; but he spun it
out as much as possible, switching from war to Australia in response to
the eager questions of the man in the big leather chair. John O’Neill
was a curious blending: at one moment almost savagely cynical and
despondent, as his own physical handicap weighed upon him: at the next,
laughing like a boy, and full of a boy’s keen interest in what he had
not seen. Australian talk held him closely attentive: it was almost the
only corner of the world that he had not visited, but he meant to go
there, he said, after the war. Travelling by sea was unpleasant enough
at any time without the added chance of an impromptu ducking if a
submarine or a mine came across you.
“Do they all buck—your horses?” he asked. “I can ride a bit, but a
buckjumper would be beyond me.”
Wally reassured him as to the manners of Australian steeds.
“There’s a general impression in England that we all live in red shirts,
in the bush, and ride fiery, untamed steeds,” said he, laughing. “It
goes with the universal belief that all Australia is tropical. I’ve
tried to tell fellows in England that there are parts of Australia where
we have a pretty decent imitation of Swiss winter sports—skiing,
skating, and all the rest of it; but they look on me with polite
disbelief. They can’t—or won’t—understand that Australia stretches
over enough of the map to have a dozen different kinds of climate. Not
that it matters, anyhow; I don’t think we expect people to be wildly
interested in us.”
“We’ll know more about you by the time the war is over,” his host
suggested.
“Well—I suppose so. Lots of our fellows will come to London; we’re all
awfully keen to see it, and it’s a great chance for us. I only hope we
shall take a lot of your men back with us; they’re falling over each
other in England—or will be, once the war is over: and we want them. We
needed them badly enough before the war: afterwards it will be worse
than ever.”
“Don’t you preach emigration in Ireland,” said O’Neill, laughing.
“Why not? They emigrate, whether you preach or not; only they go to
America and Canada, because they’re near and there’s nothing between
them and Ireland. They would probably do much better if they would come
to Australia, only they don’t know a thing about it. I told one old
woman a few things about Australia and wages there, and all she could
say was, ‘God help us!’ When I’d finished, she said. ‘And Australy’d be
somewhere in Americy, wouldn’t it, dear?’”
“Did you say, ‘God help us’?” laughed O’Neill.
“I might have,” grinned Wally. “They know Canada—but then, look what
Canada is!” He gave a mock shiver—Wally had been reared in hot
Queensland. “As one Canadian chap said to me, after visiting our
irrigation settlements—‘I don’t know why people come to us instead of
to you: just look at the climate you’ve got—and we have three seasons
in the year—July, August, and winter!’ But I suppose they seem nearer
home, and they can’t realize that when you once get on a ship you might
as well be there for a month as a week.”
The white-haired butler announced luncheon, and they found the table
laid in the bow-window of a long and lofty room, whence could be seen
the park, ending in a glimpse of bog and heather, with a flash of blue
that meant a little lough caught among the hills. Afterwards, they
strolled out on the terrace and through the scented garden to the
stables, where two fine hunters and some useful ponies made friends with
Wally instantly.
“The Government took most of my horses when war broke out; but I managed
to keep these two,” said O’Neill, his hand on an arching neck while a
soft muzzle sought in his pocket for a carrot. “I’d sooner have paid
what they were worth than let them go; they’re too good for war
treatment, unless it were absolutely necessary. And thank goodness this
is not a war of horses. Would you care to try one of these fellows, some
day?”
“Wouldn’t I!” said Wally, beaming. “And—could Jim?”
“Of course—and what about Jim’s sister? Does she ride?”
“She does,” said Wally, suppressing a smile at that incomplete
statement.
“Rides anything that ever looked through a bridle, I suppose,” said his
host, watching him. “She looks a workmanlike person. That brown pony is
pretty good; she might like him. I can show you all a bit of Irish
jumping—ditches and banks instead of your fly fences.”
“We’ll probably fall off,” said Wally, with conviction.
“Then you’ll find the falling softer than in Australia,” O’Neill said,
consolingly. “But I don’t fancy you will give us much fun that way.”
The motor waited at the hall door.
“Con will drop you near your people,” O’Neill said. “I’d like to come
with you—but if I overdo things to-day I’ll pay to-morrow; and I’m
anxious to see the last of this attack. Will you tell Mr. Linton I hope
to call on him in a few days?”
“We’ll be awfully glad to see you,” Wally said. “And thanks ever so for
giving me such a good time.”
O’Neill laughed. “Is it me now, to be giving you a good time?” he said.
“I thought ’twas the other way round it was. You have helped me through
a stiff day, and I’m very grateful.” He shook hands warmly, and the
motor whirred away.
[Illustration: He fell close to a man sitting on a fragment of rock and
leaning back against the bank.”]
_Jim and Wally_] [_Page 132_