Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, David Edwards, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) THE O'RUDDY _A ROMANCE_ BY STEPHEN CRANE _Author of "The Red Badge of Courage," "Active Service," "Wounds in the Rain," etc._ AND ROBERT BARR _Author of "Tekla," "In the Midst of Alarms," "Over the Border," "The Victors," etc._ _With frontispiece by_ C. D. WILLIAMS NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS _Copyright, 1903,_ BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY * * * * * THE O'RUDDY CHAPTER I My chieftain ancestors had lived at Glandore for many centuries and were very well known. Hardly a ship could pass the Old Head of Kinsale without some boats putting off to exchange the time of day with her, and our family name was on men's tongues in half the seaports of Europe, I dare say. My ancestors lived in castles which were like churches stuck on end, and they drank the best of everything amid the joyous cries of a devoted peasantry. But the good time passed away soon enough, and when I had reached the age of eighteen we had nobody on the land but a few fisher-folk and small farmers, people who were almost law-abiding, and my father came to die more from disappointment than from any other cause. Before the end he sent for me to come to his bedside. "Tom," he said, "I brought you into existence, and God help you safe out of it; for you are not the kind of man ever to turn your hand to work, and there is only enough money to last a gentleman five more years.