Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 61, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 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 —Illustrations From Photographs of tlie Play

CHAPTER XXVIII. After Many Days. Frank O’Connell stood o« the quay that morning In July and watched the great ship slowly swinging in through the heads, and his heart beat fast as he waited Impatiently while they moored her. His little one had come back to him. ' Amid the throngs swarming down the gangways be suddenly saw his daughter, and he gave a little gasp of surprised pleasure. They reached O’Connell’s apartment It had been made brilliant for Peg’s return. There were flowers everywhere. His heart bounded as he saw Peg’s face brighten as she ran from one object to another and commented on them. “It’s the grand furniture we have now, father!” “Do ye like It Peg?” . JThat I do. And it’s the beautiful

picture of Edward Fitzgerald ye have on the wall there I” “Ye mind how I used to rade ye his life?” “I do indade. It’s many’s the tear I’ve shed over him an’ Robert Emmet” “Then ye’ve not forgotten?’ “Forgotten what?" “All ye learned as a child, an* we talked of since ye grew to a girl?” “I have not. Did ye think I would?” “No, Peg, I didn’t Still, I was wondherin’ “What would 1 be doin’ forgettln’ the things ye tatight me?’ “An’ what have ye been doin’ all these long days without me?’ He raised the littered sheets of his manuscript and showed them to her. “This.” She looked over her shoulder and read: “From ‘Buckshot’ to ‘Agricultural Organization.’ The History of a Generation of English by Frank Owen O’Connell.”

She looked up proudly at her father. “It looks wondherfut, father.” “I’ll rade it to you in the long evenIn’s now we’re together again.” “Do, father.” “An’ we won’t separate any more. Peg, will weT , “We wouldn’t have this time but for you, father.” “What made ye come back so sud-den-like?” “I only promised to stay a month.” “Didn’t they want ye any longer?” “In one way they did an’ in another they didn’t It’s a long history—that’s what it is. Let us sit down here as we used |o in the early days an’ I’ll tell ye the whole o’ the happenin’s since 1 left ye.” She softened some things and omitted others—Ethel entirely. That episode should be locked forever in Peg’s heart Jerry she touched on lightly. “There’s one thing. Peg, that must part us some day when it comes te sou,” he finally said. “What’s that, father?" “Love. Peg.” She lowered her eyes and said nothing. “Has it come? Has It, Peg?’ She buried her face on bls breast and, though no sound came, be knew by the trembling of her little body that she was crying. So it had come Into her life. The child he had sent away a month ago had come back to him transform, ed In that little time into a woman. The cry of youth and the call of life had reached her heart After awhile be stood up. “Ye’d betther be goin’ to bed. Peg.” “All right father.” She went to the door. Then she stopped. “Ye’re glad I’m home, father?” He pressed her closely to him. “I’ll never lave ye again,” she whispered. All through that night Peg lay awake, searching through the past and trying to pierce through the future. Toward morning she slept and in a whirling dream she saw a body float-

Ing down a stream. She stretched out her hand to grasp it when the eyes met hers, and the eyes were those of a dead man—and the man was Jerry! She woke trembling with fear, and she turned on the light and huddled into a chair and sat chattering with terror until she heard her father moving In his room. She went to the door and asked him to let her go in to him. He opened the door and saw his little Peg, wild eyed, pale and terror stricken, standing on the threshold. The look in her eyes terrified him. “What is it. Peg, me darlin’? What Is it?”

She crept in and looked up into bls face with her startling eyes, and she grasped him with both of her small hands and In a voice dull and hopeless cried despairingly: “1 dreamt he was dead—dead! An’ I couldn’t rache him. An’ he went on past me—down the stream—with his face upturned.” The grasp loosened, and just as she slipped from him O’Connell caught her in his strong arms and placed her gently on the sofa, and she fell asleep.

Those first days following Peg’s return found father and child nearer each other than they had been since that famous trip through Ireland when he lectured from the back of his historical cart. She became O’Connell’s amanuensis. During the day she would go from library to library in New York verifying data for her father’s monumental work. One evening some few weeks after her return she was in her room preparing to begin her night’s work with her father when she heard the bell ring. That was unusual. Their callers were few. She heard the outer door open, then the sound of a distant voice mingling with her father’s. Then came a knock at her door. “There’s somebody outside here to see ye, Peg,” said her father. “Who is it, father?" “A perfect sthranger—to me. Be quick now.” She heard her father’s footsteps go into the little sitting room and then the hum of voices. Her father was talking. She opened the door and walked in. A tall, bronzed man came forward to greet her. Her heart almost stopped. She trembled violently. The next moment Jerry had clasped her hand in both of his. “How are you, Peg?” He smiled down at her as he used to in Regal Villa, and behind the smile there was a grave look in his dark eyes and the old tone of tenderness in his voice. “How are you, Peg?” he repeated. “I’m fine, Mr. Jerry," she replied tn a daze. Then she looked at O’Connell, and she hurried on to say: “This is my father, Sir Gerald Adair.” “We’d inthroduced ourselves already,” said O’Connell good naturedly,

eying the unexpected visitor ail the while. “And what might ye be doin’ in New York?” he asked. “I have never seen America. 1 take an Englishman’s interest in what we once owned”— “An* lost through misgovernment.” “Well, we’ll say misunderstanding." “As they’ll one day lose Ireland.” “I hope not The two countries understand each other better every day." The bell rang again. Peg started to go, but O’Connell stopped her. “It’s McGinnis. This Is bis night to call and tell me the politics of the town. I’ll take him Into the next room, Peg, until yer visitor Is gone.” “Oh, please,” said Jerry hurriedly and taking a step toward the door, “allow me to call some other timer’ “Stay where ye are!” cried O’Connell, hurrying out as the bell rang again. “1 want to ask ye somethin’, Sir Gerald,” she began. “Jerry!” he corrected. “Please forgive me for what I said to ye that day. It was wrong of me to say it Yet it was just what ye might have expected from me. But ye’d been so fine to me—a little nobody—all that wondherful month that it’s hurt me ever since, an’ I didn’t dare write to ye. It would have looked like presumption from me. But now that ye’ve come here ye’ve found me out, an’ I want to ask yer pardon, an* I want to ask ye not to be angry with me.”

“I couldn’t be angry with you. Peg.” He paused, and as he looked at her the reserve of the held In, self contained man was broken. He bent over her and said softly: - “Peg, 1 love you!” The room swam around her. Was all her misery to end? Did this man come back from the mists of memory because be loved her? She tried to speak, but nothing’came from her parched lips and tightened throat Then she became conscious that he was speaking again, and she listened to him with all her senses, with all her heart and from her soul. ‘T knew you would never write to me, and somehow I wondered just how much you cared for me—if at al). So I came here. I love you, Peg. I want you to be my wife. I want to care for you and tend you and make you happy. I love you!” Her heart leaped and strained. “Do you love me?” she whispered, and ber voice trembled and broke.

“I do. Indeed I do. Be my wife.” “But you have a title,” she pleaded. “Share It with me,” he replied. “Ye’d be sb ashamed o’ me.” “No, Peg; I’d be proud of you. I love you.” Peg broke down and sobbed. “I love you, too, Mlsther Jerry." In a moment she was in his arms. It was the first time any one had touched her tenderly besides her father. Jerry stroked her hair and looked Into her eyes and smiled down at her lovingly as he asked: “What will your father say?” She looked happily up at him and answered: “Do you know one of the first things me father taught me when I was just a little child?" “It was from Tom Moore, ’Oh, there’s nothin’ half so sweet in life—as love’s young dream.’ ” When O’Connell came into the room later he realized that the great summons had come to his little girl. The thought came to him that he was about to give to England his daughter in marriage! Well, had he not taken from the English one of her fairest daughters as his wife? And a silent prayer went up from his heart that happiness would 'abide with his Peg and her Jerry and that their romance would last longer than had Angela’s and his.

“I love you, Peg,” eaid Sir Gerald.