Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 May 1915 — PEG O'MY HEART [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PEG O'MY HEART

By J. Hartley Manners

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

CHAPTER 111. The Irish Patriot. SO far no man in the little walled in zone she had lived in had ever stirred Angela to an even momentary enthusiasm. They were all so fatuously contented with their environment. Sheltered from birth, their anxiety was chiefly how to make life pass the pleasantest. They occasionally showed a spasmodic excitement over the progress of a cricket or polo match. Their achievements were largely those of the stay at home warriors who fought with the quill what others faced death with the sword for. Their inertia disgusted her. Their self satisfaction spurred her to resentment. < Here was a man in the real heart of life. He was engaged in a struggle that makes existence worth while—the effort to bring a message to his people. Then arose a picture of her sister, Monica, with her puny social pretensions—recognition of those in a higher grade, bread and meat and drink to her; adulation and gross flattery, the very breath of her nostrils; her brother’s cheap, narrow platitudes about the rights of rank and wealth. The memory of her mother was the only link that bound her to her childhood—the gentle, uncomplaining spirit of her, the unselfish abnegation of her, the soul’s tragedy of her, giving up her life at the altar of duty at the bidding of a hardened despot. She was roused from her self searching thoughts by the doctor’s voice and the touch of his hand. “Goodby for the present. Miss Kingsnorth. Sure it's in good hands I’m lavin' him. But for you he’d be lyin’ in the black jail with old Dr. Costello glarin’ down at him with his gimlet eyes.” Angela sat down at a little distance from the sickbed and watched the wounded man. His face was drawn with pain. His eyes were closed. But he was not sleeping. His fingers locked and unlocked. His lips moved. He opened his eyes and looked at her. ■‘You need not stay here,” he said. ‘‘Would you rather I didn’t?" “Why did you bring me here?” “To make sure your wounds were attended to.” “Your brother is a landlord—‘Kingsnorth, the absentee landlord,’ we used to call your father as children. And I’m in his son’s house. I’d betther be in jail than here.” “You mustn't think that” “You’ve brought me here to humiliate me—to humiliate me!” “No. To care for you, to protect

you.” ■•Protect me?” ‘‘lf I can.” "That’s strange.” “I heard you speak today.” She paused. “You mustn't go to prison.” “It’s the lot of every Irishman today who says what he thinks.” “It mustn't be yours! It mustn't!” Angela’s voice rose in her distress. She repeated: “It mustn’t! I’ll appeal to my brother to stop it” “If he’s anything like his father it’s small heed he’ll pay to your pleading. The poor wretches here appealed to old Kingsnorth in famine and sickness —not for help, mind ye. just for a little time to pay their rents—and the only answer they ever got from him was ‘Pay or go'”’ “I know. I know!” Angela replied “And many a time when I was a child my mother and I cried over it” lie looked at her Curiously. “You and yer mother cried over us?” "We did. Indeed we did.” "They say the heart of England is in its womankind. But they have nothing to do with her laws.” “They will have some day.” “It’ll be a long time cornin’, I’m thinkin’. If they take so long to free a whole country how long do ye suppose it'll take them to free a whole sex —and the female one at that?” “It will come!” she said resolutely. “And you cried over Ireland’s sorrows?” “As a child and as a woman.” said Angela. “And ye’ve gone about here tryin’ to help them, too. haven’t ye?” “I could do very little.” “Well, the spirit is there—and the heart is there. If they hadn’t liked you it’s the sorry time maybe your brother would have.” He paused again, looking at her intently, while his fingers clutched the coverlet convulsively as if to stifle a cry of pain. “May I ask ye yer name?" he gasped. “Angela.” she said, almost in a whisper. “Angela.” he repeated. “Angela! t’s well named ye are. It’s the minsterin’ angel ye’ve been down here—o the people—and—to me.” “Don’t talk any more now. Rest.” “Rest, is it, with all the throuble in .le wurrld beatin’ in me brain and trobbin’ in cm heart?”

ary to Sleep until the doctor comes tonight.” He lay back and closed his eyes. Angela sat perfectly still. In a few minutes he opened tjjem again. There was a new light in his eyes and a smile on his lips. “Ye heard me speak, did ye?’’ “Yes.” . “Where Were ye?” “Above yoti; behind aTJahk of trees.'* A playful smile played around his lips as he said. "It was a good speech, wasn’t it?” “I thought it wonderful.” Angela answered. ’ . ‘ “And what were yer feelin's listenin’ to a man urgin’ the people against yer own country?” “I felt 1 wanted to stand beside you and echo everything you said.” “Did you?” And his eyes blazed and his voice rose. “Yon spoke as some prophet speaking in a wilderness of sorrow trying to bring them comfort.” He smiled whimsically as he said in a weary voice; “I tried to bring them comfort, and 1 got them broken heads and buckshot.” “It’s only through suffering every great cause triumphs.” said Angela. “Then the Irish should triumph some day. They’ve suffered enough, God knows.”

“They will,” said Angela eagerly. “Oh, how I wish I'd been bom a man to throw in my lot with the weak, to bring comfort to sorrow, freedom to the oppressed, joy to wretchedness! That is your mission. How I envy you! I glory in what the future has in store for you. Live for it! Live for it!” “I will!” cried O'Connell. “Some day the yoke will be lifted from us. God grant that mine will be the hand to help do it. God grant lam alive to see it done. That day’ll be worttt livin’ for—to wring recognition from our enemies, to —to —to”— He sank back weakly on the pillow, his voice falling to a whisper. Angela brought him some water and helped him up while he drank it. She smoothed back the shining hair—red. shot through gold—from his forehead. He thanked her with a look. Suddenly he burst into tears. The strain of the

day had snapped his self control at last. The floodgates were opened. He sobbed and sobbed like some tired, hurt child. Angela tried to comfort him. In a moment she was crying too. He took her hand and kissed it repeatedly, the tears falling on it as he did so. “God bless ye! God bless ye!” be cried. In that moment of self revelation their hearts went out to each other. Neither had known happiness nor love nor faith in mankind. In that one enlightening moment of emotion their hearts were laid bare to each other. The great comedy of life between man and woman had begun. ♦ ♦ * * * * * Three days afterward O’Connell was able to dress and move about his room. He was weak from loss of blood and the confinement that an active man resents. But his brain was clear and vivid. They bad been three wonderful days. Angela had made them the most amazing in his life. The memory of those hours spent with her he would carry to his grave. She read to him aua talked. to him

and lectured him antTcomfurted him. And in a little while he must leave it all. He must stand bis trial under the “crimes act” for speaking nt a “proclaimed” meeting. Well, whatever his torture, he knew he would come out better equipped for the struggle. He had learned something of himself he had so far never dreamed of in his bitter struggle with the handicap of his life. He had something to live for now besides the call of his country—the call of the heart—the cry of beauty and truth and reverence. Angela inspired him with all these. In the three days she ministered to him she had opened up a vista he had hitherto never known. And now be had to leave it and face his accusers and be hectored and jeered at in the mockery they called "trials." From the courthouse he would go to the prison, and thence he Would be sent back into the world with the brand of the prison cell upon him. And back of it all the yearning that at the end she would be waiting and watching for his return to the conflict for the great “cause" to which he had dedicated his life. On the morning of the third day Mr. Roche, the resident magistrate,' was sent for“by Nathaniel Ivingsnorth. Mr. Roche found him firm and determined, his back to the fireplace, in which a bright fire was burning, although the month was July. "I’ve sent for you to remove this man O’Connell,” added Nathaniel after a pause. “Certainly—if he is well enough to be moved.” “The doctor. I understand, says that he is ” “Very well. I’ll drive him down to the courthouse. The court is sitting tow,” said Roche, rising. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

O’Connell Had Endured Months of Torture.