XIV. OWNEY. Otherwise Owen Rafferty, for "sure he does be ranging the roads from morning till night like a wild goat," as any one among us would tell you. Summer or winter his garb varies not, save that in the depths of the latter the ragged remains of a red woollen muffler muffler are wisped round his neck. Otherwise his clothing consists of garments (two in number) adapted by his mother, more or less indifferently, from those cast off by his father. His legs are thrust through a pair of trousers which end immediately below the knee and terminate in a slight fringe, the formality of hemming the raw edges of the material not being deemed necessary. Similarly, the erstwhile tails of the coatee which he has been wearing of late, worn literally to a stump, have split yet again into small fluttering festoons. His head and his feet are bare. He seldom walks, his usual way of going being at a trot or canter, varied by a leaping progression. In wet weather he likes to leap from puddle to puddle. There is something peculiarly gratifying in the sound of the plop-plump of your naked feet in the round shallow pools of muddy water. aged ten, classified by his mother as a "bold" childthe epithet signifying in Irish speech naughtiness pure and simple. "Small of his age," "knowin' as a Christian and cute as a pet fox," "a rale ould crab," are other figures of speech among us used to describe him. Small of stature he undoubtedly is, but of a personality above the average. A slender child, supple in movement, fleet of foot, quick in wits and thought. His eyes are coal-black and, as a rule, of beady brightness, though upon occasion dreaminess clarifies and dilates them so that they acquire a mystical radiance, and a light, as if from somewhere very far away, shines through them. But these occasions are rare and fugitive; for the most part he scrutinises you with the shrewd twinkle of the accomplished worldling. Worldling he is, and knows his world through and through. Precocious in its lore he is likewise, although, or perhaps because, for what he calls "skule" he has only complete contempt and distaste. So much so, that his ingenuity and resource in escaping from and evading its forbidding portals are proverbial. Owney's books are men and women, and his studies in the human comedy are ceaseless and informing. He is known to all of us, and knows us well, But the supreme adventure of Owney's life, so far at all events, is his friendship with the Cadet. This wonderful and stupendous person sprang upon Owney in consequence of a slight mishap to a motor bicycle. Forced to dismount in order to execute some small repair, the Cadet rose once more to his feet to find Owney gazing at him with an expression of entranced interest. From the height of six foot something the Cadet returned Owney's gaze with goodwill. "Hullo," he exclaimed ; "where do you come from? Irishman-born Owney replied with another question. a bit. Owney caught his arm convulsively. "It isn't stoppin' ye'd be yet," he gasped in imploring staccato. "For the love o' God go on." The Cadet laughed. "So you like it, old son," he returned genially. "Begob 'tis grander than eatin' cockles on Tinnemoran Strand." So the friendship progresses "Would that be aisy to ride mightily. now?" The Cadet's eyes twinkled. "Try," he replied laconically. Owney looked at him again, this time his beady black eyes slightly suspicious. The other met the suspicion with a square look, under which it melted even as a white mist beneath the morning sun. "You get up there," said the Cadet, pointing to the machine; and after the fraction of a second of hesitation, Owney obeyed. The machine spun along with a great whizzing and buzzing. The owner of it glanced round at his passenger. A grin of ecstatic quality met his glance. He let a little more speed into the going and glanced round again; it was evident this urchin liked it. The Cadet let her out yet a trifle more, and the Irish road began to let them know its quality. The straight spike of black hair which falls down over Owney's forehead between his eyes was rising and falling to every separate bump. "You're a sportsman," jerked the Cadet, and he slowed down I fear it receives support of nefarious description from the senior partner. One of Owney's pet vices is cigarettes. He is an accomplished smoker of the unfinished ends which the Great of the world cast from them. Owney would see a cigarette end a mile away. Let him run ever so fast, they never escape him. He secrets them in some mysterious fastness of his person, till such time when he can procure, by fair means or by foul, a light, sometimes indeed a match, but more often a surreptitious contact with a sod of smouldering turf from some one's fire, for matches are costly luxuries in these days, and hard to come by. The Cadet, reprehensible fellow, allows Owney to have his cigarette ends while still alight. Oh, splendid warrior and gentleman! Small wonder that Owney endows him with every God-like attribute! He constitutes himself the Cadet's assistant mechanic (unpaid) in the repair and upkeep of that entrancing bundle of mechanism-the motor bicycle. The eyes sparkle again, filled with quick intelligence. "Could ye tell me now, how does he keep his crown on when he does be walkin' about? " The Cadet remains immovably grave. "Ah, that is his secret, Owney." "I'd like for to see it," Owney observes reflectively. "Perhaps you will some day, when he comes here. He's the King of Ireland, sonny." "Begob he's not." There is no mistake about the emphasis. The Cadet wisely refuses to challenge it. Indeed, he is possibly more interested in his own reflections, for he says after a short pause "I'd like to dig into that hill." Owney follows the direction of the speaker's eyes, and then looks at him with great solemnity. "That hill! If ye touch a sod in that hill the fairies 'll ate ye." "Fairies!" The Cadet's accents sound amused, and his eyes rest again upon the socalled hill, which is in point of fact a huge, conical, grassy mound known as Ballyduggan Fort, from the local tradition that the Danish invaders in their retreat used it to bury arms. ""Tis the fairies' Rath, so it is," Owney continues. "Have you ever seen the fairies?" asks his friend. "Augh, to be sure I have." The Cadet's eyebrows go up. "And what may they be like?" The child glances about him quickly and cautiously. "Sure and aren't they grand little men in green coats." "Never! And where do you see them ? " "Sure and don't I see them leppin' in and out of the hedges." Owney's voice is lowered; it sinks to a whisper as he adds, "An' they do be out and around the Rath on bright nights. Begob they do. Dancin' and leppin' in rings, sky-high." "In rings?" "Aye, sure ye can see the fairy rings they do leave on the grass." The Cadet nods; he has seen the curious markings which all the countryside persists in pronouncing fairy rings. Perhaps that is why when, one moonlight evening in midwinter, Owney mysteriously offers to show him "somethin' at the Rath, he is rather indifferent to the proposition. The child has so plainly set his heart upon it that the other's good-nature gets the better of his disinclination. He proposes that they should both go thither on the motor bicycle. To his surprise, for once Owney de clines that hitherto unfailing as he speaks, and begins rooting treat. ""Tis creepin' along we'd better be." His eyes narrow oddly, "The fairies 'ud be terrible wicked if they cot a sight of us, and sure the noise of that 'ud wake the dead!" So creep they do by devious ways known only to Owney, and by no means easy going. The Cadet's feet are soaked before he gets there even fieldservice boots are a disadvantage compared to bare feet on certain occasions. They emerge at last on the side of the Rath, at a spot which the Cadet does not know. The moon is at the full, and the grass gleams white and sparkling in its clear cold radiance. The stillness is uncanny. The spirit of solitude broods over the spot. "I haven't been round this side before," says the Cadet suddenly, and he glances about him, alive to the strange beauty of this queer hill which rises so starkly above the fields. He notes for the first time a small group of slender arrowy firs, like stone pine, standing clear and solitary like a sentinel group about twenty yards above where Owney has now halted. The latter looks up at him and then down at the ground. "Whisht! " he ejaculates huskily; "look at the ring there." The Cadet laughs. The child catches his hand. "Don't laff for yer life. Look, come here-look." He goes down on his knees VOL. CCIX.-NO. MCCLXIV. up the earth, from which the grass has curiously receded, with his finger-nails. The Cadet, puzzled, watches him. "Stoop." Owney's voice is quick and low. His friend stoops to humour him. Owney scrapes and burrows furiously. "Have ye e'er a knife? Here, put it in down there." Suddenly interested, he does not know why, the Cadet starts digging with his big claspknife. The latter comes against a curious lump. "Eh," the Cadet exclaims wonderingly. "Go on," repeats Owney. "I'll help ye." "What the devil's in it, Owney? Owney shakes his head. "Ye'll know yerself. 'Twas the queer way they had. I seen them The Cadet is thoroughly roused. "Whatever it is we must find it out," he mutters; "that's clear." They succeed in getting the earth, which is rather loose, away sufficiently to enable the Cadet to pursue his investigations. Suddenly he utters a sharp ejaculation— "Gelignite-by God!" He stares at Owney, whose eyes, shining like jet beads in the brilliant moonlight, devour him. "For the love o' God," he whispers, "take care and don't let it hurrt ye." The Cadet smiles down on him. "It won't hurt either of us like that, my son, and it will never hurt any one, please goodness." He glances round carefully, noting the direction. "We'll fetch this out before the sun sets to-morrow, Owney." The child turns a little pale. "With the sodjers," he whispers. The Cadet nods. "Don't be frightened, old son," he says, as he catches sight of the boy's face; "I'll take care no harm comes to you." A slow smile of indescribable cunning and affection creeps into Owney's eyes. "I'll sit on the wall beyant" -he points towards a fragment of low loose stone wall running across the field at the base of the Rath-"and belt ye with stones when yer doin' it." The newspapers duly reported some days later a smart capture of gelignite and other explosives hidden by the Sinn Feiners with considerable astuteness in a lonely spot, unnamed and very vaguely indicated. The accounts added that while the troops, who were guided to the place by Cadets of the Auxiliary Force stationed in the neighbourhood, were engaged in removing their booty, they were set on by a gang of Irish children, who were so depraved as to hurl stones and other missiles at the sorelytried forces of the Crown. The assemblage seemed to be under the command of a a ragged urchin, who yelled at the top of his voice, "T' hell with the English." |