Duffy

“ It seemed to Rock that Walters raised his voice a trifle, and that he managed to impart a sneer into those words. Every man could hear. It seemed to Rock like a deliberate taunt, a barb purposely planted to rankle in Duffy’s skin. For a second there was silence. Elmer Duffy’s Adam’s apple slid nervously up and down his lean throat. His face flushed. Rock read the signs for himself. A few spiteful reminders like that, and Duffy would feel that he had to go gunning for his brother’s slayer. Buck Walters broke that strained hush. He lifted his hat to Nona. ”

“ Father Christmas comes before the curtain and says:—"Good [5] people, you see that Duffy wans't at all scared at the Bucca-boo's appearance, because in old times people were so much used to dealings with the devil—women especially—that they didn't mind him. Duffy is now gone off by the outer door and stair, to merrily pass the day; and old Jone, hearing a rumble all through the house, thinks her to be busy at work."
Duffy passes a great part of her time at Trove Mill, near at hand; where a crowd of women high and low, meet to take their turn at grinding, serging, &c. ”

“ In the next, Duffy (now Madame Lovell) is beheld walking up and down her garden, or hall, decked out in a gown with a long train, hanging ruffles at her elbows, ruff of monstrous size round her neck, towering head-dress, high-heeled shoes, with bright buckles, earrings, necklace, fan, and all other accessories of old-fashioned finery. The bucca-boo is seen grinning, half-hidden, in the corner ”

“ It was at the opening of our Literary Society that I first met Duffy in the flesh, but I had known and admired him in spirit from my earliest boyhood. I was greatly pleased when he told me he had been much interested in my publications, not only those issued more recently, but those of many years before. ”

“ The feeling of the officers and men was one of stern delight, of that strange religious exaltation with which men of Celtic race and faith go into battle, whether the arena be Vinegar Hill, Fontenoy, or Rouge Boquet. As the trainful of happy warriors steamed through the first leagues of the journey to the Front, Father Duffy, the Regiment’s beloved Chaplain, passed from car to car hearing confessions and giving absolution. Rosaries—the last dear gift of mothers and sweethearts—were taken out and by squads, platoons and companies the soldiers told their beads. ”

“ I don’t mind rumors in the army. They are part of the game. With eating and growling, they constitute our chief forms of recreation. Fact is, I am made the father of most of them in this regiment. When some lad starts his tongue going, and everybody tells him just what kind of a liar he is, he says that Father Duffy said so, and Father Duffy got it straight from Secretary Baker or General Pershing, or, who knows?—by revelation. It is a great compliment to me, but a left-handed one to my teaching. ”

“ If we only had more such men as Judge Duffy, the poor unfortunates would not find life all darkness.
I began to have more confidence in my own ability now, since one judge, one doctor, and a mass of people had pronounced me insane, and I put on my veil quite gladly when I was told that I was to be taken in a carriage, and that afterward I could go home. ”

“ But he said nothing, only looked Duffy coldly in the eye. And Duffy began to shake him until his head snapped back and forth, yanking him at last roughly off the bar, so that his boot heels struck the floor with a crack.
“Buy a drink for the crowd, runt,” he commanded.
“You go to hell,” Kerr defied him. “Buy your own drinks. You’re too big for me to fight with my hands. But you lay off’n me long enough for me to get a gun, and I’ll shoot with you for the drinks, you side of raw beef on the hoof!” ”

“ A quick-witted bartender hastily set up another glass, thus stifling the protest that was evidently on tap by the man whose drink had been taken. That, to Rock, was an indication of how far Mark Duffy’s size and disposition had carried him in Clark’s Ford. But he was hardly prepared for the big man’s next action. Considering the time and place, it seemed suicidal.
Duffy walked right down the bar, shouldering all and sundry out of his way. His big red face was wreathed in a sardonic grin, and his bellowing voice uttered a warning to all in his path:
“Make room for a man. ”

“ As I have already said, MacLeod, Duffy, and MacNab were left in the finals. Duffy was grave and quiet when he made the first of his last three throws, and grew graver yet when the measurer gave him less than before, and while Sandy was doing his contortion act, twisting, jumping, and breathing hard, like a man possessed, he had a conference with two of his principal backers who stood by themselves apart. ”

“ He alluded to the Attorney-General's having spoken of him as "that wretched man, Flood." "My lords," said he, "if to love my country more than my life makes me a wretched man, then I am a very wretched man indeed." Edward Duffy, it might be supposed by anyone looking at his emaciated frame, wasted by consumption, and with the seal of death plainly set on his brow, would not be able to offer any remarks to the court; but he roused himself to the effort. The noble-hearted young fellow had been previously in the clutches of the government for the same offence. ”

“ Then he got up. “Where’s me gun?” “You are to wait for Father Duffy. He wants to see you.” “Father Duffy done all for me I need, and he’d be the last man to keep a well man out of a fight. I’m feeling fine and I want me gun. I’m going back.” He spied a stray rifle and seized it. “Keep out of me way, now, I don’t want to fight with the Irish excipt for fun. This is business.” So wounded, bruised, half deaf, John Finnegan returned to battle. Immortal poems have been written of lesser men. ”

“ Duffy said, “there’s only one man you can be.”
“You are right,” Rock said. “I will bet you a new hat, Walters, that Elmer Duffy names me what Dave Wells called me in Benton. I can see half a dozen riders in this crowd I worked on trail with, until we came to Clark’s Ford in Nebraska. If you want to be dead sure, Elmer, there is a sorrel horse with two white hind feet and a big star on his forehead, branded JB, and a black, branded a Bleeding Heart, grazing in the pasture back of the barn. And I could tell you more that only one man could know, Elmer. Tell Buck Walters who I am.” ”

“ He thought that in her eyes he would ascend to an angelical stature; and, as he attached the fervent nature of his companion more and more closely to him, he heard the strange impersonal voice which he recognised as his own, insisting on the soul's incurable loneliness. We cannot give ourselves, it said: we are our own. The end of these discourses was that one night during which she had shown every sign of unusual excitement, Mrs. Sinico caught up his hand passionately and pressed it to her cheek.
Mr. Duffy was very much surprised. ”

“ CHAPTER III—THE STEERING WHEEL When the sun flung its Midas touch across the Nebraska plains the morning after what was but an episode in Clark’s Ford, it struck a ruddy sheen on the sorrel horse Rock Holloway bestrode and made the sleek coat of the black pony that carried his bed, shine like a piece of widow’s silk.
Rock hummed a little tune as he rode. He had lived through that unavoidable encounter with Mark Duffy. He had avoided open clash with Duffy’s brother by quitting the Seventy Seven. A blood feud is no light thing to be involved in. Rock had no regrets over Mark. ”

“ Kerr dodged sidewise. And for the first time Duffy seemed to see and recognize Rock. He stared briefly. Rock looked back at him, expressionless. Duffy turned on Kerr again. His hand crept toward the gun in his belt.
“You’ll buy a drink, or you’ll dance,” he said meaningly. “Look spry, little feller! Buy drinks or dance.”
He punctuated the last sentence with a shot into the floor at Kerr’s feet. Whereat Rock stepped between the little man and his tormentor. His Colt was in his hand. Like Duffy’s, it pointed at the floor. There was a swift surge of men away from the bar. ”

“ Duffy wouldn’t back a play like that just to satisfy either his own or Buck Walters’ grudge. Between the Seventy Seven and the Maltese Cross, ranging around forty thousand cattle, a few rustled calves by the Goosebill don’t cut so much figure, except as an excuse for action. No; ‘there’s more in this than meets the eye,’ as Shakespeare or some other wise gazabo said once. You have lost calves, yourself.”
“Yes, I know I have, and I can’t afford to. I certainly hate a thief.”
“So do I,” Rock murmured. “Still, I don’t hate you.”
“Me?” she uttered in astonishment. Her head went up imperiously. ”

“ Rat River was calling him, but Martin Duffy was past the taking. Like the man next at the gun, Barnes Tracy sprang into the chair with the I, I, D. The surgeon, Giddings helping, dragged Duffy to the lounge in Callahan's room—his Chief was more to Giddings then than the fate of Special 326. But soon confused voices began to ring from where men were crowding around the despatchers' table. They echoed in to where the doctors worked over the raving Chief. And young Giddings, helping, began, too, to hear strange things from the other room. ”

“ He lets himself out most in his affection for his men who reciprocate his devotion. Company D under Jim McKenna will play a big part in our annals of war.
Alexander E. Anderson of Company E is a 69th man by heredity. His uncle, Colonel Duffy, commanded the Regiment in 1898. His cousin, Major John Duffy, was in the Regiment when Anderson was old enough to join it—and [Pg 28] he joined it as a private just as soon as they would let him. He is a soldier through and through. His family and his business are near to him, but the 69th is first in his thoughts. ”

“ Thrown upon the world without friends and without fortune, accident introduced him, in his early youth, to the acquaintance of John Haywood, Esq., the venerable Treasurer of this State, who, in the exercise of that benevolence for which his whole life has been conspicuous, gave him employment and enabled him to prosecute his studies and prepare himself for the bar. Duffy had an opportunity of witnessing the splendid displays of Davie and Moore and he profited by their example. ”

“ CAMP MILLS September 1st, 1917
We are tenting tonight on the Hempstead Plains, where Colonel Duffy and the Old 69th encamped in 1898, when getting ready for service in the Spanish War. It is a huge regiment now—bigger, I think, than the whole Irish Brigade ever was in the Civil War.
We have received our new men transferred from the 12th, 14th, 23rd and 71st N. G. N. Y. Our band played them into Camp with the Regimental Air of “Garry Owen” mingled with the good-fellow strains of “Hail! Hail! the Gang’s All Here.”
All in all, the newcomers are a fine lot. ”

“ But he was invariably drawn back to her by the spell of her goodness. He appears as a rock of strength amid all the sparkling, moving, changing tide of ideas and feelings that rippled, dashed, recoiled, and returned unceasingly in every hour of the sojourn at Coppet. His steady sense and calm judgment bring out into sharper contrast the unrest of Constant; the flashing splendor of Madame de Staël; the dreamy refinement of Mathieu de Montmorency; the fantastic charm of Madame de Krüdener, and the unfailing grace of the lovely “Juliette.” ”

“ Duffy declared, embellishing his statement with an earnest oath. “And I suppose all a man can expect when he finds that a bunch of thieves is loose on the range is for featherheads like you to make a joke of it. If it was your cattle that’d been killed, you’d sing a different tune.”
Charlie Shaw’s laughing mouth shut in a tight line.
“I would, Elmer,” he said quietly. “I’d keep my mouth shut and go after ’em. I wouldn’t waste my breath cussin’.”
“You wouldn’t waste your breath cussin’!” Elmer exploded. “No! All you c’n waste is the outfit’s time an’ your money at poker. ”

“ But it is not so easy as some people imagine to shake off the remembrance of what we have been, and it is still more difficult to make our friends oblivious on that point, particularly if we have ascended in the scale of respectability. Thus it was, that in spite of my grandfather’s weighty purse, he could not succeed in prefixing Mister to his name; find he continued for a long time to be known as plain ‘Shawn Duffy, of the Devil’s Half-acre.’ It was undoubtedly a most diabolic address ”

“ They drank at intervals from their huge pint tumblers and smoked, spitting often on the floor and sometimes dragging the sawdust over their spits with their heavy boots. Mr Duffy sat on his stool and gazed at them, without seeing or hearing them. After a while they went out and he called for another punch. He sat a long time over it. The shop was very quiet. The proprietor sprawled on the counter reading the Herald and yawning. Now and again a tram was heard swishing along the lonely road outside. ”

“ You will find me less a bookman when you next see me, and more, I hope, of a man.'
He won the admiration and affection of his comrades in arms; they 'speak with awe of his coolness and his nerve in scouting patrols in No-Man's-Land'; and the chaplain of his regiment, Father Duffy, says, 'He was absolutely the coolest and most indifferent man in the face of danger I have ever seen. It was not for lack of love of life, for he enjoyed his life as a soldier—his only cross was distance from home. ”

“ June 23.—My coverlid nobly does duty, protecting us from the sun’s hot rays by day and the heavy dews at night. Have no doubt but it has saved my life many times. Never have heard anything from Hendryx since his escape. Either got away to our lines or shot. Rebels recruiting among us for men to put in their ranks. None will go—yes, I believe one Duffy has gone with them. Much fighting. Men will fight as long as they can stand up. A father fights his own son not ten rods from us. ”