In the years that followed, "Larry's cads" came to be, for the young Talbot-Lowrys, a convenient designation for the friends into whose bosom Providence had seen fit to fling their cousin. But Larry never either approved or accepted it. He was entirely pleased with his new friends, and especially with that son of the house whose position he had usurped, Mr. Bartholomew Mangan.
Barty was a lengthy, languid, gentle youth, of nearly nineteen, darkly, pallidly handsome, sweet natured, and slovenly, like his mother, and, unlike her, poetical, idealistic, unpractical, shy, and self-conscious. He was, at this period, working in the office of one of the two solicitors, who, with the aid of a branch of a bank, a Petty Sessions Court, and the imposing, plate-glass bow-windows of Hallinan's hotel, enabled Cluhir to convince itself of its status as a town. Further proof of the civic importance of Cluhir was found in the existence of a debating club of very advanced political views among its young men, of which Barty Mangan was secretary. Its membership, if small, was select, since its Republican principles did not compel it to admit to its privileges shop-assistants, or artisans, while they automatically excluded members of the class that were usually referred to in the club discussions as "Carrion Crows," or if the orator's mood was mild, "the garrison." In Ireland the attitude of mind that is termed, alternately, Disloyalty or Patriotism, is largely a matter of class, and Barty Mangan's introduction of Master St. Lawrence Coppinger, as an honorary member of the club, partook of the nature of a shock to those of the faithful who were present at his first appearance in the club room, a severely plain apartment, that offered no impediment in the matter of luxury to high thinking. But the faithful of the "Sons of Emmet" Club had nothing to fear from this half-fledged young Carrion Crow. The English school to which Larry had been sent had dulled the fire lit by the poems of The Spirit of the Nation, but it had not extinguished it. It had flickered for a time, during which Hunting had superseded Patriotism, and Mr. Jorrocks had reigned alone; but the oratory of the Sons of Emmet, to which Larry was now privileged to listen, had had the effect of restoring to life and vigour the long-neglected, half-forgotten tenets of the Companionage of Finn. Larry's store of enthusiasm was quite equal to supplying motive power for running two engines; hunting still held its own, and after a club debate in which he had taken an energetic part, even the most exclusive of the Sons of Emmet admitted that Barty's importation was worthy of the privilege that had been extended to him.
A spell of cold weather had compelled a postponement of Larry's return to his own home. When snow and frost visit a country unused to their attentions, they are treated with a respect that they do not receive elsewhere. The Doctor's orders were strict, and Larry spent the last days of his stay at No. 6, The Mall, seated in semi-invalid state by the dining-room fire, occupied, mainly, in the consumption of literature provided by his new friend, Mr. Barty Mangan, that consisted of poems, books, and pamphlets of precisely that shade of politics of which his family most thoroughly disapproved, and absorbing what would be, in their opinion, the most entirely poisonous points of view.
The Big Doctor, smoking a comfortable evening pipe over the fire, would join in the discussions between his son and his visitor, offering just as much opposition to Larry's revolutionary flights as was stimulating, and flattering his sense of youth and daring.
"We mustn't send him back to his auntie too much of a rebel altogether!" The Doctor would say, grinning at the enthusiast with his pipe wedged under a tooth; "isn't it good enough for you to be a poor decent old Nationalist like myself? I'm sure there's no one would disapprove of me, is there, Annie?"
"Don't be too sure of that at all!" Mrs. Mangan would reply coquettishly, trying to look as if she did not agree with him; "wait till his auntie hears the notions Larry's taking up with, and she'll think we're all the worst in the world! And the Major! The Major'll go cracked-mad!"
"It doesn't matter where he goes!" says Larry, defiantly, "I've had these 'notions,' as you call them, for ages and ages!"
"Ah, God help you, child!" Mrs. Mangan would probably say, "keep quiet now, till I get you a glass of hot milk!"
Politics did not form the only point of contact that had been established between Larry and the Mangan household. Since his promotion to comparative convalescence, Tishy, daughter of the house, had entered more actively into his scheme of life, and the point of entrance was music. Some divergence in view as to music is more easily condoned, on both sides, than in the other realms of the spirit. It matters not from how far countries the travellers may come, or how widely sundered may be their ideals, there are rest-houses at which they can draw rein and find agreement. One of these, possibly the greatest of them, is folk song. Ireland, whose head is ever turned over her shoulder, looking to the past, has, in her folk song, at least, reason and justification for her preoccupation with what has been in her music, rather than with what is, or is to come. It is difficult to reconcile the eternal beauty of traditional Irish melody with the lack of musical interest and feeling that distinguishes the mass of modern Irish life. But, here and there, a string of the harp that has hung, mute, on Tara's walls for so many centuries, utters a sigh of sweet sound, and at Number 6, The Mall, Cluhir, the soul of music had still some power of inspiration.