By degrees the effervescence of little Ireland, in which They all watched over him as if he were heir to a throne. The Senator, busy with his approaching entrance into local politics, had already introduced him to the leaders, who formed a rather mixed circle of intelligence and power. He had met its kind before on the frontier, where the common denominator in politics was manhood, not blue blood, previous good character, wealth, nor the stamp of Harvard. A member held his place by virtue of courage, popularity, and ability. Arthur made no inquiries, but took everything as it came. All was novelty, all surprise, and to his decorous and orderly disposition, all ferment. The clan seemed to him to be rushing on "Do you think you can do it, me boy?" said the Senator. "If you think you can, why you can." "I know I can," said the reckless Dillon, who had never made a speech in his life. "An' lemme give you a subject," said Judy. They were all together in the sitting-room, where the Senator had surprised them in a game of cards. "Give a bastin' to Mare Livingstone," said Judy seriously. "I read in the Sun how he won't inspect the parade on St. Patrick's Day, nor let the green flag fly on the city hall. There must be an Orange dhrop in his blood, for no dacint Yankee 'ud have anny hathred for the blessed green. Sure two years ago Mare Jones dressed himself up in a lovely green uniform, like an Irish prince, an' lukked at the parade from a platform. It brought the tears to me eyes, he lukked so lovely. They ought to have kep' him Mare for the rest of his life. An' for Mare Livingstone, may never a blade o' grass or a green leaf grow on his grave." The Senator beamed with secret pleasure, while the others began to talk together with a bitterness beyond Arthur's comprehension. "He ought to have kept his feelings to himself," said quiet Anne. "If he didn't like the green, there was no need of insultin' us." "And that wasn't the worst," Louis hotly added. "He gave a talk to the papers the next day, and told how many Irish paupers were in the poorhouse, and said how there must be an end to favoring the Irish." "I saw that too," said Judy, "an' I sez to meself, sez I, he's wan o' the snakes St. Pathrick dhruv out of Ireland." "No need for surprise," Mona remarked, studying her cards, "for the man has only one thought: to keep the Irish in the gutter. Do you suppose I would have been a teacher to-day if he could have kept me out of it, with all his pretended friendship for papa." "If you baste the Mayor like this now, there won't be "Ay, there it is," said Judy. "Yez young Americans have no love for the green, except for the fun yez get out of it; barrin' dacint Louis here, who read the history of Ireland whin he was tin years old, an' niver got over it. Oh, yez may laugh away! Ye are all for the red, white, an' blue, till the Mare belts yez wid the red, white, an' blue, for he says he does everythin' in honor o' thim colors, though I don't see how it honors thim to insult the green. He may be a Livingshtone in name, but he's a dead wan for me." The Senator grew more cheerful as this talk grew warmer, and then, seeing Arthur's wonderment, he made an explanation. "Livingstone is a good fellow, but he's not a politician, Artie. He thinks he can ru—manage the affairs of this vil—metropolis without the Irish and especially without the Catholics. Oh, he's death on them, except as boot-blacks, cooks, and ditch-diggers. He'd let them ru—manage all the saloons. He's as mad—as indignant as a hornet that he could not boo—get rid of them entirely during his term of office, and he had to speak out his feelings or bu—die. And he has put his foot in it artistically. He has challenged the Irish and their friends, and he goes out of office forever next fall. No party wants a man that lets go of his mouth at critical moments. It might be a neat thing for you to touch him up in your speech at the banquet." The Senator spoke with unctuousness and delight, and Arthur saw that the politicians rejoiced at the loquacity and bad temper of the Honorable Quincy Livingstone, whom the Endicotts included among their distant relatives. "I'll take your subject, Judy," said he. "Then rade up the histhory of Ireland," replied the old lady flattered. Close observation of the present proved more interesting and amusing than the study of the past. Quincy Livingstone's strictures on the exiles of Erin stirred them to the depths, and his refusal to float the green flag from the city hall brought a blossoming of green ribbon on St. Patrick's Day which only Spring could surpass in her decorations of the hills. The merchants blessed the sour "If they were only marching for Ireland!" one man cried hoarsely. "They'll do it yet," said another more hopeful. Within the cathedral a multitude sat in order, reverently quiet, but charged with emotion. With burning eyes they watched the soldiers in front and the priests in the sanctuary, and some beat their breasts in pain, or writhed with sudden stress of feeling. Arthur felt thrilled by the power of an emotion but vaguely understood. These exiles were living over in this moment the scenes which had attended their expulsion from home and country, as he often repeated the horrid scenes of his own tragedy. Under the reverence and decorum due to the temple hearts were bursting with passion and grief. In a little while resignation would bring them relief and peace. It was like enchantment for Arthur Dillon. He knew the vested priest for his faithful friend; but on the altar, in his mystic robes, uplifted, holding the reverent gaze of these thousands, in an atmosphere clouded by incense and vocal with pathetic harmonies, the priest seemed as far away as heaven; he knew in his strength and his weakness the boy beside him, but this enwrapped attitude, this eloquent, still, unconscious face, which spoke of thoughts and feelings familiar only to the eye of God, seemed to lift Louis into another sphere; he knew the people kneeling about, the headlong, improvident, roystering crowd, but knew them not in this outpouring of deeper emotions than spring from the daily chase for bread and pleasure. A single incident fixed this scene in his mind and heart forever. Just in front of him sat a young woman with her father, whom she covertly watched with some anxiety. Outside the cathedral a joyous uproar attended the beginning of that parade which the Mayor had declined to review. As his party was to enjoy it at some point of Fifth Avenue he did not tarry to witness the surprising scenes about the church, but with Louis took a car uptown. Everywhere they heard hearty denunciations of the Mayor. At one street, their car being detained by the passing of a single division of the parade, the passengers crowded about the front door and the driver, and an anxious traveler asked the cause of the delay, and the probable length of it. The driver looked at him curiously. "About five minutes," he said. "Don't you know who's paradin' to-day?" "No." "See the green plumes an' ribbons?" "I do," vacantly. "Know what day o' the month it is?" "March seventeenth, of course." "Live near New York?" "About twenty miles out." "Gee whiz!" exclaimed the driver with a gasp. "I've bin a-drivin' o' this car for twenty years, an' I never met anythin' quite so innercent. Well, it's St. Patrick's Day, an' them's the wild Irish." The traveler seemed but little enlightened. An emphatic man in black, with a mouth so wide that its opening suggested the wonderful, seized the hand of the innocent and shook it cordially. "I'm glad to meet one uncontaminated American The uncontaminated looked puzzled, and might have spoken but for a violent interruption. A man had entered the car with an orange ribbon in his buttonhole. "You'll have to take that off," said the conductor in alarm, pointing to the ribbon, "or leave the car." "I won't do either," said the man. "And I stand by you in that refusal," said the emphatic gentleman. "It's an outrage that we must submit to the domination of foreigners." "It's the order of the company," said the conductor. "First thing we know a wild Irishman comes along, he goes for that orange ribbon, there's a fight, the women are frightened, and perhaps the car is smashed." "An' besides," said the deliberate driver as he tied up his reins and took off his gloves, "it's a darn sight easier an' cheaper for us to put you off than to keep an Irishman from tryin' to murder you." The uncontaminated citizen and two ladies fled to the street, while the driver and the conductor stood over the offending passenger. "Goin' to take off the ribbon?" asked the conductor. "You will be guilty of a cowardly surrender of principle if you do," said the emphatic gentleman. "May I suggest," said Arthur blandly, "that you wear it in his stead?" "I am not interested either way," returned the emphatic one, with a snap of the terrible jaws, "but maintain that for the sake of principle——" A long speech was cut off at that moment by a war-cry from a simple lad who had just entered the car, spied the ribbon, and launched himself like a catapult upon the Orange champion. A lively scramble followed, but the scene speedily resolved itself into its proper elements. The procession had passed, the car moved on its way, and the passengers through the rear door saw the simple lad grinding the ribbon in the dust with triumphant heel, while its late wearer flew toward the horizon pursued by an imaginary mob. Louis sat down and glared at the emphatic man. "Who is he?" said Arthur with interest, drawing his breath with joy over the delights of this day. "He's a child-stealer," said Louis with distinctness. "He kidnaps Catholic children and finds them Protestant homes where their faith is stolen from them. He's the most hated man in the city." The man accepted this scornful description of himself in silence. Except for the emphasis which nature had given to his features, he was a presentable person. Flying side-whiskers made his mouth appear grotesquely wide, and the play of strong feelings had produced vicious wrinkles on his spare face. He appeared to be a man of energy, vivacity and vulgarity, reminding one of a dinner of pork and cabbage. He was soon forgotten in the excitement of a delightful day, whose glories came to a brilliant end in that banquet which introduced the nephew of Senator Dillon into political life. Standing before the guests, he found himself no longer that silent and disdainful Horace Endicott, who on such an occasion would have cooly stuttered and stammered through fifty sentences of dull congratulation and platitude. Feeling aroused him, illumined him, on the instant, almost without wish of his own, at the contrast between two pictures which traced themselves on his imagination as he rose in his place: the wrecked man who had fled from Sonia Westfield, what would he have been to-night but for the friendly hands outstretched to save him? Behold him in honor, in health, in hope, sure of love and some kind of happiness, standing before the people who had rescued him. The thousand impressions of the past six months sparkled into life; the sublime, pathetic, and amusing scenes of that day rose up like stars in his fancy; and against his lips, like water against a dam, rushed vigorous sentences from the great deeps opened in his soul by grief and change, and then leaped over in a beautiful, glittering flood. He wondered vaguely at his vehemence and fluency, at the silence in the hall, that these great people should listen to him at all. They heard him with astonishment, the leaders with interest, the Senator with tears; and Monsignor looked once towards the gallery where Anne Dillon sat literally frozen with terror and pride. The long and sincere applause which followed the speech warned him that he had impressed a rather callous crowd of notables, and an exaltation seized him. The "You have the gift of eloquence," said Sullivan. "It will be a pleasure to hear you again," said Vandervelt, the literary and social light of the Tammany circle. "You have cleared your own road," Birmingham the financier remarked, and he stayed long to praise the young orator. "There's nothin' too good for you after to-night," cried the Senator brokenly. "I simply can't—cannot talk about it." "Your uncle," said Doyle Grahame, the young journalist who was bent on marrying Mona Everard, "as usual closes the delicate sparring of his peers with a knockdown blow; there's nothing too good for you." "It's embarrassing." "I wish I had your embarrassment. Shall I translate the praises of these great men for you? Sullivan meant, I must have the use of your eloquence; the lion Vandervelt, when you speak in my favor; Birmingham, please stump for me when I run for office; and the Senator, I will make you governor. You may use your uncle; the others hope to use you." "I am willing to be of service," said Arthur severely. "A good-nature thrown away, unless you are asked to serve. They have all congratulated you on your speech. Let me congratulate you on your uncle. They marvel at your eloquence; I, at your luck. Give me such an uncle rather than the gift of poesy. Do not neglect oratory, but cultivate thy uncle, boy." Arthur laughed, Monsignor came up then, and heaped him with praise. "Were you blessed with fluency in—your earlier years?" he said. "Therein lies the surprise, and the joke. I never had an accomplishment except for making an uproar in a crowd. It seems ridiculous to show signs of the orator now, without desire, ambition, study, or preparation." "Your California experiences," said the priest casually, "may have something to do with it. But let me warn you," and he looked about to make sure no one heard, "that early distinction in your case may attract the attention you wish to escape." "I feel that it will help me," Arthur answered. "Who that knew Horace Endicott would look for him in a popular Tammany orator? The mantle of an Irish Cicero would disguise even a Livingstone." The surprise and pleasure of the leaders were cold beside the wild delight of the Dillon clan when the news went around that Arthur had overshadowed the great speakers of the banquet. His speech was read in every gathering, its sarcastic description of the offensive Livingstone filled the Celts with joy, and threw Anne and Judy into an ecstasy. "Faith, Mare Livingstone'll see green on St. Patrick's Day for the rest of his life," said Judy. "It' ud be a proper punishment if the bread he ate, an' everythin' he touched on that day, shud turn greener than ould Ireland, the land he insulted." "There's curse enough on him," Anne replied sharply, ever careful to take Arthur's side, as she thought, "and I won't have you spoiling Arthur's luck be cursing any wan. I'm too glad to have an orator in the family. I can now put my orator against Mary Everard's priest, and be as proud as she is." "The pride was born in ye," said Judy. "You won't have to earn it. Indade, ye'll have a new flirt to yer tail, an' a new toss to yer head, every day from now to his next speech." "Why shouldn't I? I'm his mother," with emphasis. |