Peg O' My Heart Part 1

Peg O' My Heart.

by J. Hartley Manners.

PREFACE

Up to the time of publication, December 1922, "Peg o' My Heart" has been played as a comedy in English in the United States and Canada in excess of 8000 times, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in excess of 6000 times, in India 65 times, in the Orient 20 times, in Holland 152 times, and in Scandinavia 23 times. Australia and New Zealand have seen 701 performances while South Africa has witnessed 229.

Three companies are playing in France where the total performances exceed 500, the Belgian figures are not yet available, Spain has two companies, and Italy five, the total figures for these three countries last-named running well over a thousand performances. In France and Belgium "Peg de Mon Coeur" is the t.i.tle for the French language version, in Italy "Peg del Mio Cuore" is the name of the Italian "Peg", while her Spanish admirers and translators have named her "Rirri."

Over 194,000 copies of the novel have been sold in the United States, while the British Empire has bought 51,600 in novel form. In play form 3000 copies have been sold to date. The new film "Peg o' My Heart" in nine reels is being distributed throughout the entire world, and while innumerable companies are playing the comedy throughout the United States, Canada and the British Empire, an internationally-known composer, Dr. Hugo Felix, is at work upon the score of a "Peg" operetta in collaboration with its author, so that the young lady may continue her career in musical form.

The present work is submitted in its original form with the addition of ill.u.s.trations taken from the film recently made, through the courtesy of the Metro Pictures Corporation, for which acknowledgment is gratefully made.

It is believed that these statistics are unique in theatrical and publishing history for it will now be possible in any large city to read or witness "Peg o' My Heart" in the five phases of her career to date, viz., novel, printed play, acted comedy, photo play and operetta.

J. Hartley Manners.

The Lotes Club, New York City, December, 1922.

CHAPTER I

THE IRISH AGITATOR MAKES HIS FIRST APPEARANCE

"Faith, there's no man says more and knows less than yerself, I'm thinkin'."

"About Ireland, yer riverence?"

"And everything else, Mr. O'Connell."

"Is that criticism or just temper, Father?"

"It's both, Mr. O'Connell."

"Sure it's the good judge ye must be of ignorance, Father Cahill."

"And what might that mane?"

"Ye live so much with it, Father."

"I'm lookin' at it and listenin' to it now, Frank O'Connell."

"Then it's a miracle has happened, Father."

"A miracle?"

"To see and hear one's self at the same time is indade a miracle, yer riverence."

Father Cahill tightened his grasp on his blackthorn stick, and shaking it in the other's face, said:

"Don't provoke the Man of G.o.d!"

"Not for the wurrld," replied the other meekly, "bein' mesef a Child of Satan."

"And that's what ye are. And ye'd have others like yerself. But ye won't while I've a tongue in me head and a sthrong stick in me hand."

O'Connell looked at him with a mischievous twinkle in his blue-grey eyes:

"Yer eloquence seems to nade somethin' to back it up, I'm thinkin'."

Father Cahill breathed hard. He was a splendid type of the Irish Parish-Priest of the old school. Gifted with a vivid power of eloquence as a preacher, and a heart as tender as a woman's toward the poor and the wretched, he had been for many years idolised by the whole community of the village of M--in County Clare. But of late there was a growing feeling of discontent among the younger generation. They lacked the respect their elders so willingly gave. They asked questions instead of answering them. They began to throw themselves, against Father Cahill's express wishes and commands, into the fight for Home Rule under the masterly statesmanship of Charles Stuart Parnell.

Already more than one prominent speaker had come into the little village and sown the seeds of temporal and spiritual unrest. Father Cahill opposed these men to the utmost of his power. He saw, as so many far-sighted priests did, the legacy of bloodshed and desolation that would follow any direct action by the Irish against the British Government. Though the blood of the patriot beat in Father Cahill's veins, the well-being of the people who had grown up with him was near to his heart. He was their Priest and he could not bear to think of men he had known as children being beaten and maimed by constabulary, and sent to prison afterwards, in the, apparently, vain fight for self-government.

To his horror that day he met Frank Owen O'Connell, one of the most notorious of all the younger agitators, in the main street of the little village.

O'Connell's back sliding had been one of Father Cahill's bitterest regrets. He had closed O'Connell's father's eyes in death and had taken care of the boy as well as he could. But at the age of fifteen the youth left the village, that had so many wretched memories of hardship and struggle, and worked his way to Dublin. It was many years before Father Cahill heard of him again. He had developed meanwhile into one of the most daring of all the fervid speakers in the sacred Cause of Liberty. Many were the stories told of his narrow escapes from death and imprisonment. He always had the people on his side, and once away from the hunt, he would hide in caves, or in mountains, until the hue and cry was over, and then appear in some totally unexpected town and call on the people to act in the name of Freedom.

And that was exactly what happened on this particular day. He had suddenly appeared in the town he was born in and called a meeting on St. Kernan's Hill that afternoon.

It was this meeting Father Cahill was determined to stop by every means in his power.

He could hardly believe that this tall, bronzed, powerful young man was the Frank O'Connell he had watched about the village, as a boy--pale, dejected, and with but little of the fire of life in him. Now as he stood before Father Cahill and looked him straight through with his piercing eye, shoulders thrown back, and head held high, he looked every inch a born leader of men, and just for a moment the priest quailed. But only for a moment.

"Not a member of my flock will attend yer meetin' to-day. Not a door will open this day. Ye can face the constabulary yerself and the few of the rabble that'll follow ye. But none of my G.o.d-fearin' people will risk their lives and their liberty to listen to you."

O'Connell looked at him strangely. A far-away glint came into his eye, and the suspicion of a tear, as he answered:

"Sure it's precious little they'd be riskin', Father Cahill; havin' NO liberty and their lives bein' of little account to them."

O'Connell sighed as the thought of his fifteen years of withered youth in that poor little village came up before him.

"Let my people alone, I tell ye!" cried the priest. "It's contented they've been until the likes of you came amongst us."

"Then they must have been easily satisfied," retorted O'Connell, "to judge by their poor little homes and their drab little lives."

"A hovel may be a palace if the Divine Word is in it," said the priest.

"Sure it's that kind of tachin' keeps Ireland the mockery of the whole world. The Divine Word should bring Light. It's only darkness I find in this village," argued O'Connell.

"I've given my life to spreadin' the Light!" said the priest.

A smile hovered on O'Connell's lips as he muttered:

"Faith, then, I'm thinkin' it must be a DARK-LANTERN yer usin', yer riverence."

"Is that the son of Michael O'Connell talkin'?"