me
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1947.
A "Faust" Story with an Irish setting.
of
SIR DOMINICK
SARSFIELD
The
road as it approached the was wood when my father was bouse skirted the edge of a pre- gossoon, and Murron Wood was the cipitous rien, clothed with hazel, grandest of them all. Twas there dwarf-oak, and thorn, and the silent Str Dominick Sarsfield first met the house stood with its wide-open hall devil, the Lord between door Incing this dark ravine,
harm, and a bad mcoting it was for him and his."
us and
Pat, Sarsfield, in Dublin, and the sword and pistols his grandfather carried in Aughrim, and two.or three trifling things of the kind.
And says he, "Con, they say If the divil gives you money overnight, 'you'll find nothing but a bagful of pebbles, and chips, and nutshells, in the morning. If I thought he played fair, I'm in the humour to make a bargain with him tonight."
N'the early autumn of the year. 1838 business called to the South Ireland. The weather was de lightful, the scenery and people were new to me, and, sending my luggage on by the mail- coach route in charge of a ser vant, I hired a serviceable nag, at a posting-house, and, full of the curiosity of an explorer, I commenced a leisurely journey of five-and-twenty miles
I walked in and looked about me, horseback, by sequestered
through passages
with overgrown crossroads, to my place of nettles and weeds; from room to
room with destination.
cellinga rotted, and here It was about four o'clock when the and there a great beam dark and attracted me, and my new sequnin- I'll not refuse his offer.
worn, with tendrils of ivy tralling road, ascending a gradual steep, over it.
The tall walls with rotten found a passage through a rocky gorge between the abrupt termina- tion of a range of mountsius to my left and a rocky hill that rose dark and sudden at my right. Below me lay a little thatched village, under
оп
the
laste plaster were stained and mouldy,
In some rooms the remains of and in decayed wainscoting crazily swang to and
and fro.
I had become interested in the ad- venture which had occurred in the very scenery which had so greatly
tance, the little hunchback, carily entrented to tell me the story, and spoke thus, so soon as we had each resumed his sent.
was
The great sinircase was of oak, which had stood the weather won- a long line of gigantic beech trees, dorfully, and I sat down upon its through the boughs of which
sitoriness of all things under the left,
stretched sun. turf-smoke. To
my
Except for the hoarse and distant away for miles, ascending the moun. tain range I have mentioned, a wild-clamour of the rocks, hardly audible parkc, through whose sward and where I not, no sound broke the terns the rock broku, time-worn profound stillness of the spot. and lichen-stnined.
In this mood I heard, with an un-
to winda pleasant surprise, close As you descend, the road
me, a and, I. slightly,
with the grey park-wall, volee that was drawling. bullt of loose stone, and mantled here and there with ivy, at its left, and crosses a shallow ford: and as i approached the
village, through
"Lord forbid!" anys my grand- father, standing up, with a start, and crossing himself.
"They
say the country's full of men, istin' sogera for the King o' France. If I light on one o' them, Have you any whisky?"
My grandfather took it out of the buffer, and the mastlier pours out some into a bowl, and drank it off. "I'll go out and have a look at my horse." says he, standing up. There catale when Sir TT was a ne
was a sort of a stare in his eyes, us Dominick came into it; and grand he pulled his riding-clonit about doings there was entirely, feasting him, as if there was something bad pipes in the country round, and a welcome for everyone that liked to
There wha come.
the wine, by hogshead, for the quality: and pot- looking after the horse for you my- teen enough to set a town a-fire, and sell," says my grandfather.
"I'm not goin' beer and cidher enough to float n
#table." navy, for the boys and girls, and the says Sir Dominick; "I may as well likes o' me. It was kep' up the best tell you, for I see you found it out part of a month, till the weather already-I'm goin' across the deer- park; if I come back you'll see me in an hour's time. By
But, anyhow, you'd better not follow me, for if you do. I'll shoot you, and that id be a bad ending to our friend- ship."
towly chimneys sent up their thin steps, musing vaguely on the tran- and fiddling, free quarters for all the in his thoughts.
breaks in the woodlands, I caught glimpses of the long front of an old ruined house, placed among the trees, about half-way up the pic- turesque mountain-side,
melancholy of this ruin piqued my curiosity, and when I had reached the rude thatched public-house, with the sign of St Columbkill, with robes, mitre and crozier displayed over its lintel, having seen to my horse and made n good meat myself on a rasher and I began to think again of the wooded park and the ruinous house, and resolved on a ramble of half an
THE solitude and
TEKS, I
SHERIDAN LE FANU
fancled, sneering, repeat the words:, brake, and the rain "Food for worms, dead and rotten, for God over all."
"Sure, I won't be a minute run- ning out myself to the stable,' and
to the
And with that he walks down this passage here, and turns the spoilt the nod key in the side door at that end of it, and out wid him on the sod into the moneen figs, and the fair the moonlight and the cowld wind; of Allybally Killdeen comin'
ou **
and my grandfather seen him walk. they wor obliged to give over their ta' hard towards the park-wall, and
then he comes in had divarslon, and attind to the pigs.
and closes the But Sir Dominick was only
ht
door with a heavy heart ginnin' when
they wor lavin' There was no way of gettin' rid of his money and estates he did not
There was a small window in the wall, here very thick, which been built up, end in the dark receus of this, deep in the shadow, I now saw a sharp-fentured man, sitting with his feet dangling. His keen eyes were fixed on me, and he was smiling cynically, and before I had well recovered my marprise, he re- pented the distich
"If death was a thing that money
could
The rich they would Hve, and the
poor they would die."
be
off.
he
QUIR Dominick stopped to think what with drinkin', dicin', racin', when got to the title of the was not decr-park, for he had not made up cards, and all soarts, it many years before the estates wor his mind when he left the house and in debt, and Sir Dominick I dis- the whisky did not clear his head, tressed man. He showed a bold only it gev him courage. kour among ita
mong ita sylvan solitudes.
front to the world as long as And he made up his mind, if no could; and then Bould his better thought came to him between The
rame of the place, i found, was Dunoran; and beside the gate a
and most of his horses, and gev out that and there, so soon as he came stile ndmitted to
to Murrea Wood, he'd hang him- "It was a grand house in its day, and the like; and so off with him self from one Krounds,
was going to travel in France,
of the oak branches through which, with 11 passive str," he continued, "Duneran House, enjoyment, I began to saunter to- und the Sarsfields.
Dominick for a
no one In these with his cravat. while; and no wards the dilanidated mansion.
It was a bright moonlight night- Sarsfield was the last of the old parts heard thle or tidings of him for
three
Just a bit of a A
ite lost his life not six fout two
Til at Just there was long grass-grown road,
years. many turns and windings, led up to away from where you are sitting."
quite unexpected, one night there driving across the moon now and as light the old house, under the shadow of As he thus spoke he let himself comes a rapping at the big kitchen then, but only for that, the wooll
down, with a little jump, on to the window. It was past ten o'clock, a'most as day. ground.
Down he goes, right for the wood and old Connor Innion, the butler.
the
with stock.
BY THE
WAY by Beachcomber
(From my special correspondent) WAGGLING PARVA
Sir
TIE Wis 骸 dark-faced,
sharp 11 featured, little hunchback, and had a walking-stick in his hand, with the end, of which he pointed to a rusty stain in the plaster of the wall.
that mark, sir?" "Do you mind he asked.
I said, standing up, and looking at it, with n curious noti
tipation of something worth hearing. That's about seven or eight feet
A 7:32, Waggling Parva time, from the ground, sir, and you'll not
.tomorrow morning. Driuess what it is."
"I dare say not," snid 1, "unless it Strabismus (Whom God Pre is a stain from the weather," serve) of Utrecht will jerk back "Tis nothing so lucky, sir." he the zunge-lever which will re- answered. with the same cynical lease the Moonbeam
a wag of his hend, still smile and on
pointing at the mark with his stick, moonward quest.
"That's a splash of brains and blood, It's there this hundred years; and it will never leave it while the wail
its
In that split second, history will begin to be made, and man in his pride will reach out to grasp the secret of the interstellar
spaces. Hurtling skyward at a speed so terrific that imagination boggles, the compact mass of metal will cleave its pioneer trail through the
pathless stratosphere, carrying the little band
ndalists Into strange realmy
stands."
"He was murdered, then?"
"Worse than that, sir," he, pnswer- ed.
"He killed himself, perhaps?" "Worse than that, (iself, this cross between us and harm!"
He became silent, and looked ut
Sarsfield's death
he
or
cloud
WIN
my grandfather, was sittin' by the of Murron. It seemed to him every fire plane, warming his shins over step he took was as long as three, it. There was keen east wind blow- and it was no time the ing along the mountains that night, among the big ook-threes with their one to an- and whistling cowid enough through roots spreading from the tops of the trees and soundin' other.
Just as he made up his mind not lonesome through the long chimneys.
with him himself, So he wasn't quite sure of the to make away
step knockin' at the window, and up he whin should he hear but a
clinkin' along the dry ground under gels, and sees his master's face.
the trees, and soon he sees a grand gentleman right before him comin' up to meet him.
He was a handsome young
glad to see him safe, for it was a long time
man
My grandfather was be there was any news of him; like himself, and he wore a cocked
but he was sorry, too, for it was a hat with gold lace round it, such as elianged place and unly himself and officers wear on their coats, and he old Juggy Broadrick in charge of the had on a dress the same as French hause, ond a man in the stables, and officers wore in them times. it was a poor thing-to-ree-him- comin' back to his own like that.
He shook Con by the hand, and
says
ber
H stopped opposite Sir Dominick.
and he cum to a standstill also. The two gentlemen took off their hats to one another, and says the stranger:
" came here to say a word to you. Feft my horse with Dick In the stable; I may want him again before "I am recruiting, sir," says he, morning, or I may never want him."
And with that he turns into the "for my sovereign, and you'll find big klichen, and draws a stool, and my money won't turn into pebbles, sits down to take an air of the fire, chips, and nutshells, by tomorrow.
This is the last day of Forgall,
"Don't be afrald," says he, "the "It's all over with me, Con," sald money won't burn you. If it proves Sir Dominick.
honest gold, and If It prospers with "Heaven forbid!" says my grand- you, I'm willing to make a father. of in our philosophy. Is
Sir Dominick
past praying for," says Sir says he; "I'll serve you seven years, man at last on the point of solving the
was a long while before I was born. Dominick. "The last guinea's gone; and
at the end of that time you riddle of the moon? The outcome
But my grandfather was butter here the ould place will follow it. It shall serve me, and I'll come for will tell. All we can do is to salute long ago, and many a tine I heard must be sold, and I'm come here, I you when the reven years is over, the courageous Strabismus
minute team as they prepare to launch them-/ tell how Sir Dominick came by his don't know why, like a ghost to have when the clock turns the
death. There was no masther in the a last tool round me, and go off in between February and March; and great house ever, since that happen- the dark again.”
the first of March ye'll come away And with that he tould him to be with me, or never. You'll not find sure, in case he should hear of his me u bad master, any more than death, to give the oak box, in the bad servant. I love my own; and closet off his room, to his cousin,
(Continued on Page 11)
and hin
selves, on a journey beside which the dreams of the scientists pale into In- significance stop. Lit-tle Bo-Pest "DAY-DY, why do pol-i-tic-i-ans
keep on talk-ing about the Dun-kirk spir-it?"
"That, boy, was the in-dom-it-nb-le spir-lt of nur sol-dlem in the war"
"And did the soldiers at Dun-kirk refuse de ight an-y more un-less they got shor-ier hours" and more play?
"Well-of course not, boy. Stop ask-íor ques-il-ons."
In Passing
THE news that New South Wales officials have put the wrong man's hend on a stamp has made philate- Hats olmost foam at the mouth with Joy. It is as though a collector of first editions had heard of a shop where they were selling
of "War and Peace"
edition
first
with
ໄກ່.
page 314 (repeated three
times) following page 712 and preceding page 10. I believe there is a firm which prints grotesque stamps order to catch the collectors. Some ⚫denler orders, let us nav, a twopenny- halfpenny with Mr Humphrey Bo gart's face on it, and then advertises it in the Philatelists Argus. What do I care?
CUSTOMS officials who followed a man into an hotel at a port found the chimney of the room stuffed with nyfan stockings-17,348 pairs. "What are all these doing here?"
ed.
Eah! your honour, the woods about here is nothing to what they wor. All the mountains atong hure
Peninsula Hotel
Christmas Eve Dec. 24, 1947:
DINNER DANCE
Christmas Night Doc. 25, 1947)
DINNER DANCE
Boxing Night Doc. 26, 1947 DINNER DANCE
they asked. "Never saw them be- New Year's Eve Dec. 31, 1947)
fore in my life," said the traveller.
נום
"I've only just arrived. Perhaps all these things were brought by birds, to build their nests in the chimney.” "And this trombone?" isked oficial, producing the mooty In- strument from the chimney, "Oh. sold the traveller. "Some bandsman must have dropped it from a plane,"
DINNER DANCE
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Introducing his sensational CHINESE TROUPE
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Rothmans Cigarettes
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Merry Christmas
Christmas Evo Dec. 24, 1947 DINNER DANCE
Make Merry.
Christmas Day 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
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Boxing Pay 4. p.m. to 6 p.m. TEA DANCE
Now Year's Evo Doc. 31, 1947
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With ***
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