Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 May 1915 — PEG O' MY HEART [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PEG O' MY HEART

By J. Hartley Manners

A Comedy of Youth Founded by Mr. Manners on His Great Play of the Same Title—lllustrations From Photographs of the Play Copyright, 1913, by Dodd, Mead G* Company

CHAPTER 11. Angela Speaks Freely. NATHANIEL’S indication at his sister’s conduct was beyond bounds when he learned who the wounded man was. He ordered the soldiers to take the man and themselves away. The magistrate interposed and begged him at least to let O’Connell rest there until a doctor could patch him up. It might be dangerous to take him back without medical treatment. He assured Nathaniel that the moment they could move him he would be lodged in the county jail. Nathaniel went back to , his study as the sorry procession passed on to the front door. He sent immediately for bis sister. The reply came back that she would see him at dinner. He commanded her to come to him at 'once. '

In a few minutes Angela came into the room. She was deathly pale. Her voice trembled as she spoke: “What do you want?” “Why did you bring that man here?’’ “Because he is wounded.” “Such scoundrels are better dead.” “I don’t think so. Nor do I think him a scoundrel.” “He came here to attack landlords—to attack me—me! And you bring him to my house and with that rabble! It’s outrageous! Monstrous!” “I couldn’t leave him with those heartless wretches to die in their hands.” “He leaves here the moment a doctor has attended him.” “Very well. Is that all?” “No. it isn’t!” Kingsnorth tried to control his anger. After a pause he continued: “I want no more of these foolhardy, quixotic actions of yours. I’ve’ heard of your visiting these wretched people—going into fever dens. Is that conduct becoming to your name? Think a little of your station in life and what it demands.” “I wish you did a little more.” “What?” he shouted, all his anger returned. “There’s no need to raise your voice,” Angela answered quietly. “I am only a few feet away. I repeat that I wish you thought a little more of your obligations. If you did and others like you in the same position you are in. there would be no such horrible scenes as I saw today—a man shot down among his own people for speaking the truth.” “You saw it?” Nathaniel asked in dismay. * - “I did. I not only Maw, but I heard. I wish you had too. ' I heard a man lay bare his heart and his brain and his soul that others might know the light in them. I saw and heard a man offer up his life that others might know some gleam of happiness in their lives. It was wonderful! It was heroic! It was godlike!” “If I ever hear of your doing such a thing again you shall go back to London the next day.” “That sounds exactly as though my dead father were speaking.” “I’ll not be made a laughingstock by you.’’ * “You make yourself one as your father did before you—a Kingsnorth!

What has your name meant? Because one of our forefathers cheated the world into giving him a fortune by buying his goods for more than they were worth we have tried to canonize him and put a halo around the name of Kingsnorth. To me it stands for all that is mean and selfish and vain and ignorant—the power of

money over intellect. How did we become owners-of this miserable piece of land? A Kingsnorth swindled its rightful owner—lent him money on usury, bought up his bills and his mortgages and when he couldn’t pay foreclosed on him. No wonder there’s a curse on the village and on us!” Kingsnorth tried to speak, but she stopped him: . “Wait a moment It was a good stroke of business taking this estate away. Oh, yes, it was a good stroke of business! Our name has been built up on ‘good strokes of business.’ Well, I tell you it’s a bad stroke of business when human lives are put into the hands of such creatures as we Kingsnorths have proved ourselves!” “Stop!” cried Nathaniel, outraged to the innermost sanctuary of his being. “Stop! You don’t speak like one of our family. It is like listening to some heretic—some”— “I don’t feel like one of your family. You are a Kingsnorth. I am my mother’s child—my poor, gentle, patient mother, who lived a life of unselfish resignation, who welcomed death when it came to her as a release from tyranny. Don’t call me a Kingsnorth. I know the family too well. I know all the name means to the people who have suffered through your family.”

“After this—the best thing—the only thing—is to separate,” said Nathaniel. “Whenever you wish.” .“I’ll make you an allowance.” “Don’t let it be a burden.” “I’ve never been so shocked—so stunned”— “I am glad. From my cradle I’ve been shocked and stunned—in rpy home. It’s some compensation to know you are capable of the feeling too. Frankly, I didn’t think you were.” “We’ll talk no more of this,” and Nathaniel began to pace the room. “I am finished.” and Angela went to the door. “It would be better we didn't meet again—in any event, not often.” added Nathaniqj. “Thank you,” said Angela, opening the door. He motioned her to close it. that he had something more to say. “We’ll find you some suitable chaperon. You can spend your “winters abroad, hs you have been doing—London fo£ the season—until you’re suitably married. I’ll follow out my father’s wishes to the letter. You shall be handsomely provided for the day you marry.” She closed the door with a snap and came back to him and looked him steadily in the eyes. “The man I marry shall take nothing from you. Even in his ‘last will and testament' my father proved himself a Kingsnorth. It was only a Kingsnorth could make his youngest daughter dependent on you!” “My father knew I would respect his wishes.”

“He was equally responsible for me. yet he leaves me to your care—a Kingsnorth! The men masters and the women slaves! That is the Kingsnorth doctrine.” A servant came in to tell Angela the doctor had come. Without a word Angela went out to see to the wounded man. The servant followed her. Let alone, Nathaniel sat down, shocked and stunned, to review the interview he had just had with his younger sister. When Angela''entered the sickroom she found Dr. McGinnis, a cheery, bright eyed, rotund little man of fifty, talking to the patient and punctuating each speech with a hearty laugh. His good humor was infectious. The wounded agitator felt the effect of it and was trying to laugh feebly himself. "Sure it's the fine target ye must have made with yer six feet and one inch. How could the poor soldiers help bittin' ye? Answer me that!” And the jovial doctor laughed again as he dexterously wound a bandage around O'Connell’s arm. “Aisy now while I tie the bandage, me fine fellow. Ye’ll live to see the inside of an English jail yet.” He turned as he heard the door open and greeted Angela. “Good afternoon to ye, Miss Kingsnorth. Faith, It’s a blessin’ ye brought the boy here. There’s no tellin’ what the prison surgeon would have done to him. It Is they tell me, the English doctors rub into the Irish wounds to kape them smartin’. And, by the like token, they do the same, too. in the English house of commons. Saltpeter tn Ireland’s wounds is what they give us.” “Is he much hurt?” asked Angela. “Well, they’ve broken nothin'. Just blackened his face and made a few holes in his skin. It’s buckshot they used. Buckshot! Thank the merciful Mr. Foster for that same. ‘Buckshot Foster,* as the Irish reverently call him.”' “What a dastardly thing to do!” she cried.

“Ye may well say that, Miss Kingsnorth,” said the merry little doctor. “But it’s betther than a bullet from a Martini-Henry rifle, that’s what it Is. And there’s many a poor English landlord's got one of ’em in the back for ridin’ about at night on his own land. It’s a fatherly government we have. Miss Kingsnorth. ‘Hurt ’em, but don’t quite kill ’em,’ sez they, ‘and then put ’em in jail and feed them on bread and wather. That’ll take the fine talkin' and patriotism out of them.’ sez they.” > “They’ll never take it out of me, They may kill me perhaps, but until they do they’ll never silence me,” murmured O'Connell in a voice so low. yet so bitter, that it startled Apgela. “Ye’ll do that all in good time, me fine boy,” said the busy little doctor. “Here, take a pull at this,” and be handed the patient a glass in which lie had dropped a few crystals into some water. Dr. McGinnis said in a whisper to Angela: “Let him have that every three hours; oftener if he wants to talk. We’ve got to get his mind at rest.” “There’s no danger?” asked Angela in the same tone. “None in the wurrld. He's got a fine constitution, and mebbe the buckshot was pretty clean. I’ve washed them out well.” “To think of men shot down like dogs for speaking of their country! It’s horrible! It’s wicked! It’s monstrous!” “Faith, the English don’t know what else to do with them, miss. It’s no use arguin’ with the like of him. That man lyin’ on that bed ’ud talk the hind foot off a heifer. The only way to kape the likes of him quiet is to shoot him, and begob they have.” “I heard you, doctor,” came from the bed. “If they’d killed me today there would be a thousand voices rise ail over Ireland to take the place of mine.” “Faith, I’d rather kape me own life than to have a hundred thousand spakin’ for me and me dead. Is it long yer stayin’ here?” and the little man picked up his hat. “I don’t know,” said Angela. “Well, it’s you they’ll miss when ye’re gone. Miss Kingsnorth. Faith, if all the English were like you this sort of thing couldn’t happen.” “We don't try to understand the people, doctor. We just govern them blindly and ignorantly,” “Faith, it’s small blame to the English, We’re a mighty hard race to make head or tail of. and that's a sact —cryin’ salt tears at the bedside of a sick child and lavin’ to shoot a poor man in the ribs for darin* to ask for his Tint.” “They’re not Irishmen.” came from the sickbed. 2 “Faith, and they are, now. And it’s small wondher the men who sit in Whitehall in London trate them like savages.” “I’ve seen things since I've been here that would justify almost anything!” cried Angela. “I’ve seen suffering no one in England dreamed of; misery that London, with all its poverty and wretchedness, could not compare with. Were I born in Ireland I should be proud to stake my liberty and my life to protect my own people from such horrible brutality.” The wounded man opened his eyes and looked full at Angela. It was a look at once of gratitude and reverence and admiration. Her heart leaped within her. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Angela Had Seen Suffering No One Dreamed Of.