Grey Town Part 7

"It's from Denis!" cried Mrs. Quirk. "Denis, that I believed was dead!

Call Mr. Quirk, my dear! Oh, this is too much joy! G.o.d is good, far too good, to an undeserving old woman like me."

Kathleen went out into the gardens and found Mr. Quirk, spade in hand, busily instructing a raw recruit how to work.

"There's no art in it," he remarked contemptuously. "'Tis merely a matter of muscle. You won't do for me!"

"Mrs. Quirk wants you in the dining-room," said Kathleen.

"Wants me? And what for?" he asked.

"She has a letter from your son."

Mr. Quirk laughed contemptuously. But he paused in his work to reply.

"My only son is dead these ten years. Is she mad?"

"No, she is not," replied the girl indignantly. "I opened the letter myself, and it is from your son."

"I will come and see it. It is probably some idle vagabond that is playing a trick on her," growled Samuel Quirk. "Here," he cried to the labourer, "take the spade, and let me see what you can do."

Kathleen was always annoyed by the old man's a.s.sumed contempt for his wife. Samuel Quirk recognised the fact, and was secretly amused at it.

He feigned a greater intolerance and disrespect before the girl, just to increase her indignation. Now, as she moved away, the picture of resentment, he called out:

"Tell her I am coming to expose the scamp. She is too soft. Every idle fellow makes use of her."

Kathleen found the old lady holding the opened letter upside down, vainly attempting to decipher the writing, while the tears of joy dropped from her eyes upon the pages.

"Mr. Quirk does not believe it is from your son," said Kathleen.

"Who but Denis would call me mother?" she asked. "But himself was just saying that to annoy you; don't be taking too much notice of him. Read it, dearie. Let me hear my boy speaking to me again."

"I have prospered and made a fortune in America. I am coming home to look after you and the father. Prepare to pack up and come with me to a better home than the old one in Collingwood. I have been wanting all these years to have the old mother, who sacrificed herself for me, beside me."

"And why not sacrifice myself for him? Wasn't he my only child? And a dear boy--and good. Didn't my heart all but break with joy when I first saw him serving the good priest's Ma.s.s! It was Father Healy's himself, no less. Does he say anything about the Faith?" asked Mrs. Quirk.

"I shall buy a fine home, with the church not half a mile away. You can make the church your second home, as you did in Collingwood," read Kathleen.

Samuel Quirk marched relentlessly into the room, his face showing the most determined incredulity it could a.s.sume.

"Let me see the letter," he said, calmly taking it from Kathleen.

"Could Denis write like this?" he asked.

"And who better?" cried Mrs. Quirk. "Wasn't he the smartest boy at school? Do you remember the day he won all those prizes?"

A smile of pride overspread the old man's face for one moment, then he remorselessly subdued it.

"I am thinking it is some scamp that has heard how soft you are," he remarked, as he read the letter. "Hem! I wonder how much money that will be? And when will he be here?"

As if in answer to his question, the sound of wheels was heard on the avenue. Mrs. Quirk flew to the window, while the old man followed more sedately.

"It is himself!" cried Mrs. Quirk. "Let me be the first to bid him welcome."

She almost ran to the front door in her excitement, to find the strong arms of a man around her.

"Glory be to G.o.d! And is it Denis?" she sobbed.

"Who else would it be?" answered the newcomer.

CHAPTER V.

DENIS QUIRK.

Cairns was compounded of energy, his policy to s.n.a.t.c.h from the hands of progress all that was good, and make the uttermost use of it. "Try all things," he would say. "Throw away the rubbish, and keep that which is enduring." Under his management, "The Observer" advanced from a second-cla.s.s country paper to one but little inferior to the metropolitan organs.

One man whom he found on the staff he cla.s.sified as hopeless.

"Worse than this," he added, speaking to Desmond O'Connor, to whom he unburdened himself, "'Gifford will never learn. He believes himself to be a journalistic planet. I don't mind an ordinary honest fool that knows it is a fool, but a fool that regards its own inane folly as the final thing in wisdom is hopeless. Gifford must go."

Here, however, Cairns found himself opposed to his employer. Ebenezer Brown had so high a respect for Gifford that he had been sorely tempted, after the death of Michael O'Connor, to place the sub-editor in the editorial chair. For this promotion Gifford was fully prepared, and only a very small incident preserved Ebenezer Brown from ruining his paper.

It had so chanced that the editor of a leading metropolitan paper had come to the funeral of his former colleague, Michael O'Connor. Meeting Ebenezer Brown after the funeral, he had asked:

"Who will succeed O'Connor?"

"I am thinking of promoting Gifford," replied the old man.

"Gifford!" cried the editor, under whom many a journalist had graduated.

"Are you quite mad?"

"Are you?" retorted Ebenezer Brown, hotly.

'Many people say I am. But I was sane enough to shoot Gifford out the first chance I had of ridding the paper of him.

"You sent him to me with a yard of testimonial," growled Ebenezer Brown.

"Diplomacy, my dear sir. I never make an enemy unless I find myself compelled to do so in self-defence. You needed a new sub-editor, I a new reporter, and I merely shuffled the cards and dealt them again. In your case Gifford seems to have proved a success."

"How do you know that?" asked the old man, rudely.

"You are anxious to promote him."

"On your recommendation. 'A brilliant journalist' you called him," cried Ebenezer Brown.

"And he has been with you six months. Surely you know him by this time?"