CHAPTER VIII

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.

_Jim and Wally_] [_Page 132_