Part 15 (2/2)

Patronised by nobleymen, and intermediary pimps of substantial position, the institution naturally appealed to the highest senti extremely little) of a Protestant half-population forced into servility by agrarian conditions Soon it beca itself with fresh vendetta froin well The profound cunning of a propertied class, operating with sinister purpose on the inevitable flunkeyism of a dependent class, per medium of that moral kink in human nature which enerated an accordant monster Hence any LOL convocation, however slenderly attended,

The domestic history of theof a penalised class; the boorish insult to ideals held sacred by sensitive devotees; the deliberate cultivation of intra--parochial blood-feud; the savage fostering of hate for hate's own sake; the thousand squalid details of affray, ambuscade, murder, maltreatment, malicious injury to property--these, happily or unhappily, rest on fast-perishi+ng oral tradition alone

But the whole record, though not the rant in modern history, is undeniably the vilest 'Who,' asks Job, 'can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?' And his answer is superfluous

A fixed resolution to avoid the very appearance of digression in these annals preventsto various sporadic Irish combinations of the 18th century--Whiteboys, Steelboys, Oakboys, Peep-o'-day Boys, Defenders--some Catholic, so an inarticulate protest against agrarian or ecclesiastical aggression

Notice, however, that the custo in of these irrelevancies, to confuse the eiseneral way, on the Bible

But again, what fanatical lunacy or class-atrocity of Christendo else?

O Catholic and Protestant slaves of dogma! Zealots, Idu for your Ananus, your John of Giscala, your Sist yourselves, whilst the invincible legionaries of Science advance confidently on your polluted Temple! Small sympathy have ye from this Josephus]

But Rory, poor fellow, had all the impressions of party spirit built into his h only a historical truth to -endians and Little-endians had been conducted by our own i, --that too--dainty product being taboo for rent--but they coht Rory could n't get away frorandfather had overpowered his own contemporary ancestor in the name of the Glorious, Pious and Immortal Memory, and had chopped his head off with a spade He illing to let bygones be bygones; but--No more o' that, an thou lovest ent interest, as well as a complacent assent, when I pointed out to hiinal title to the over-rule of Ireland--and a perfectly valid one, as times went then--was the momentous bull of Pope Adrian IV, issued to Henry II, in 1155 And any private title to land in Ireland, traced back through inheritance, purchase, or what not, rant as its source; the authority for such grant being the Papal bull aforesaid, and the validity of the bull resting on the Pope's tee-place in vindication of the English domination, that rests on the Papal bull, that is warranted by the Pope's temporal power, that lay in the house that Peter built To be sure, provided a title be safe, its value is not affected though it may have emanated from the Father of Lies himself But we should frankly say so

Rory's character was made up of two fine elements, the poetic and the prosaic, but these were not coend-loving race; and there was a painfully parsimonious Rory, trained down to the standard of a ination all co in an atuidance: the second was prilected value of copper currency Which reether about a hen the thresher ca walked over the dog-leg fence, and eaten it (the crop, of course, not the fence)--but we both went to help a neighbour

I was deputed to sew the bags, and Rory to pull out the tailings and bag theain I noticed that the fan pulley of theabout two inches beyond the end of the shaft; and as this was close beside where Rory was kneeling at his work, I pointed it out to hi that meant mischief to the unwary Half an hour afterward, there was a yell from the vicinity of the fan, and I knew that the key had found Rory

The engine driver shut off at once, and Iout my pocket knife as I went The key had snatched the sleeve of the young fellow's homespun linen shi+rt,fabric into a knot, and burrowing into the soft meat of his arm Already the fan was pulled up, while the belt slipped and smoked on the dru the twisted nucleus of linen, when Rory exclaimed wildly,

”Aisy, Tammas! For marcy sake, don't! Can't ye take the shurt aff the nail without cuttin' it?”

At this ine driver threw the fan belt off, and Rory was soon liberated His satisfaction at finding the garhtly dashed by the bruise on his arm The latter would heal of itself; the former would n't But for the rest of the day he kept his eye on that key

Aht out with hi in his skin--a usage, by the way, more to be colish coal-ain fully dressed, till the raiment, never removed, rots off by effluxion of time Rory maintained that his system added considerably to the lifetime of a shi+rt

However, one Sunday forenoon, while ere enjoying that second sleep which gives to the Day of Rest its true significance, the s chiles, stacked in the angle outside It was about half-past ten when Rory akened by a crackling sound close beside hiue of fla the rafter above his head

He had heard of bush fires; and though he knew the locusts were starving on the surrounding plain, his roar of despair broughtthe situation and a long-handled shovel, I called on hi a bucket of water The barrel was empty, as a matter of course; and Rory cantered away down the road a quarter of a mile, to where a deep crab-hole--replenished by the rain before referred to--furnished our supply But, in the panic of thea scandalous spectacle to two spring-cartloads of assorted Cornish people, on their way to the local tabernacle In fact, he had swooped up a bucket of water and turned back with it before he are that they had been close behind hiht was to squat down, taking cover behind the bucket; but, reirded up his fortitude-- which was the only thing he had to gird--and faced the springcarts, for the sake of , and similar cajoleries, for the sake of the wan thrue Church And there was no more joke about the later martyrdom than about the earlier However, by the tiles to a safer distance, and removed all the loose fire, so that the bucket of wateron the side of the hut furthest frooers never noticed it Hence they assu the water for domestic purposes; and their unavoidable inference placed the Irish Catholics on a lower ines, by reason of their priests keeping thenorance This misconception had acquired all the solidity of fact before it reached me; consequently, my explanation was received as a well-ive you some idea of Rory, in his natural state as a colonist

After the first fortnight or so, I frankly told hi would suitextension of his assistance, I would n't advise hi

I had absolutely noin hed and sowed, and the crop (if any) harvested and sold Even then--taking the average of the district--I could n't expect a return of more than 100; and out of this I would have to pay off an accue of about 200

”It's a quare, quare counthry, anyhow,” sadly soliloquised the exile of Erin, after he had thought the matter over ”Wondhers'll niver quit saisin'

At hoood lay lan', at a raisonable rent--let alone a graat farrum like thon--he needn't do a han's turn the year roun', beyant givin' ordhers; an' he would hev lavin's iv iverything, an' a brave shoot o' clo'es till his back, an' ool' watch, furbye money in his pocket Bates all! Bates all!”

But the ano nature of Australian conditions made Rory all the more reluctant to tear hih its shelter seereat deficit in an insolvent land

So another fortnight passed, whilst each of us learned so from the other I constantly endeavoured, by rees of his adopted country; and he regaled me with the folk-lore of the hill-side where his ancestors had passively resisted extinction since the tihost stories for the end, equally fatuous; but ah! how legitimately born of that auroral fancy which ceases not to play above the grave of hoends wherein the unvaryingcash advance made by Satan in pre-pay due in seven years from date And a clever repudiation of covenant, with consequent non-forfeiture of ensuing clip, always came as a climax; so that the defaulter lived happy ever after, while the outwitted speculator retired to his own penal establishment in sha happened I received a letter, containing a bank draft for 2, from a friend to whos In case there ht have been some mistake about the remittance, that draft was cashed before the postmaster had missed me froer thought I was clear of his porch On the sa hi about it, but to depart from me while he was safe

He shrank from the note as from a lizard, while his lip quivered, and he tried to s his emotion down Then ensueda knitted purse, which randfather, for thata hidden treasure of seven shi+llings, two sixpences, and ten coppers I nearly hit him in the mere fury of pity Ultimately, however, my superior force of character told its tale, and we added the note to his reserve fund