diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 18957-8.txt | 7847 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 18957-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 183638 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 18957-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 193216 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 18957-h/18957-h.htm | 7925 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 18957.txt | 7847 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 18957.zip | bin | 0 -> 183578 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
9 files changed, 23635 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18957-8.txt b/18957-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..14b0b75 --- /dev/null +++ b/18957-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7847 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Strangers at Lisconnel, by Barlow Jane + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Strangers at Lisconnel + +Author: Barlow Jane + +Release Date: July 31, 2006 [EBook #18957] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRANGERS AT LISCONNEL *** + + + + +Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Ted Garvin and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +STRANGERS AT LISCONNEL + +_A SECOND SERIES OF IRISH IDYLLS_ + + +BY + +JANE BARLOW + + + + + NEW YORK + DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY + 1895 + + + _Copyright, 1895_, + + by + + Dodd, Mead and Company. + + + + + TO + + M. L. B. + + [Gaelic: Is fada mé beo do dhiaigh.] + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +CHAPTER I. + +OUT OF THE WAY 1 + + +CHAPTER II. + +JERRY DUNNE'S BASKET 14 + + +CHAPTER III. + +MRS. KILFOYLE'S CLOAK 31 + + +CHAPTER IV. + +A GOOD TURN 53 + + +CHAPTER V. + +FORECASTS 80 + + +CHAPTER VI. + +A FAIRING 112 + + +CHAPTER VII. + +MR. POLYMATHERS 139 + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +HONORIS CAUSA 168 + + +CHAPTER IX. + +BOYS' WAGES 211 + + +CHAPTER X. + +CON THE QUARE ONE 235 + + +CHAPTER XI. + +MAD BELL 271 + + +CHAPTER XII. + +A FLITTING 303 + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +A RETURN 324 + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +GOOD LUCK 340 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +OUT OF THE WAY + + +To Lisconnel, our very small hamlet in the middle of a wide bogland, the +days that break over the dim blue hill-line, faint and far off, seldom +bring a stranger's face; but then they seldom take a familiar one away, +beyond reach, at any rate of return before nightfall. In fact, there are +few places amid this mortal change to which we may come back after any +reasonable interval with more confidence of finding things just as we +left them, due allowance being made for the inevitable fingering of +Time. We shall find some old people who have aged under it, and some +who, as certain philosophers would hold, have grown younger again. The +latter may be seen just beginning, perhaps, to sit up stiff on a woman's +arm, or starting for a trial crawl over mother earth; and of them we +remark that there is another little Ryan or Quigley; while the former +stay sunning themselves so inertly, or totter about so shakily, that we +notice at once how much old Sheridan, or the Widow Joyce, has failed +since last year. These babies and grandparents often associate a good +deal with one another at the stage when the old body is still capable of +"keepin' an eye on the child," and the child still resorts to all fours +if it wants to get up its highest speed. But this companionship does not +last long in any given case. Very soon the expanding and the contracting +sphere cease to touch closely. On the one hand, the world widens into +more spacious tracts for nimbler and bolder ranging over with all manner +of remarkable things growing and living upon it, to be gathered and +captured, or at least sought and chased, among pools, and hillocks and +swampy places. On the other, it shrinks to within the limits of a few +dwindling furlongs and perches, traversed ever more feebly, until at +length even the nearest stone, on which the warm rays can be basked in, +seems to have moved too far off, and the flicker-haunted nook by the +hearth-fire becomes the end of the whole day's journey. + +Thus the generations, as they succeed one another, wave-like preserve a +well-marked rhythm in their coming and going--play, work, rest--not to +be interrupted by anything less peremptory than death or disablement. +This wag-by-the-wall swings and swings its bobbed pendulum without +pause, but one swing is much like the other, and their background never +varies. Little Pat out stravading of a fine morning on the great +brown-wigged bog, and, it may be hoped, enjoying himself thoroughly, is +taking the same first steps in life as young Pat his father, now busy +cutting turf-sods, and old Pat, his grandfather, idly watching them +burn, with a pipe, if in luck, to keep alight. And the Lisconnel folk, +therefore, because the changes wrought by human agency come to them in +unimposing forms, are strongly impressed by the vast natural +vicissitudes of things which rule their destinies. The melting of season +into season, and year into year, the leaf-like withering and drifting +away of the old from among the fresh springing growths, are ever before +their eyes, and the contemplation steeps them in a sense of the +transitoriness of things good and bad. Even the black soil they tread on +may next year flutter up into a vanishing blue column through a +smoke-hole in somebody's thatch. They carry this sense with a light and +heavy heart. In like manner they make the very most of all unusual +events. They find materials for half-an-hour's talk in the passage by +their doors of one of those rarely coming strangers, who do appear from +time to time, as frequently, indeed, as anybody would expect, having +surveyed the thoroughfare that links us with humanity. For if we follow +it southward, where, like the unvanishing wake of some vessel, it +streaks the level plain, that is lonely as a wide water, but stiller, we +pass by Dan O'Beirne's forge, now neighbourless, and through humble +Duffclane, and on to Ballybrosna, our Town; but we must go many a mile +further to reach anything upon which you would bestow that title. Or, if +we turn northward, we only find it seaming another ample fold of +bogland, outspread far and far beyond Lisconnel before a grey hill-range +begins to rise in slow undulations, crested with furze and broom. Here +we smell turf-smoke again, and see a cabin-row that is Sallinbeg, and +hence the road strikes north-westward in among the mountains, where a +few mottled-faced sheep peer down over it from their smooth green walks, +but do not care to trust their black velvet legs upon it. And then, by +the time that the air has become sea-scented, the road climbs to the +top of a hill, and stops there abruptly, as if it had been travelling +all the while merely to look at the view. The truth is that the funds +for its construction would go no further, and, in consequence, wayfarers +coming along by the shore still have to tread out a path for themselves +across a gap of moorland, if they are bound for Lisconnel. + +You may perceive, therefore, that Lisconnel lies out of the way, on the +route to no places of importance, and as its own ten or a dozen little +houses are, I fear, collectively altogether insignificant, it has small +reason to expect many visitors. The Widow M'Gurk said one day that you +might as well be living at the bottom of the boghole for any company you +got the chance of seeing; but this was an exaggeration. She was vexed +when she made the remark, because Mrs. Dooley, old Dan O'Beirne's +married daughter, then staying at the forge, had promised to come and +inspect a pair of marketable chickens, in anticipation of which Mrs. +M'Gurk had wetted a cup of tea and used up her last handful of wholemeal +for a cake, that Mrs. Dooley, who was in rather affluent circumstances, +might not think them "too poorly off altogether." But, after all, the +hours had slipped blankly by, and nobody had arrived. So the widow had +ruefully put her teapot to sit on the hob until himself came in--for, +properly speaking, she was at this time not yet a widow--and had stepped +down her tussocky slope with her double disappointment to Mrs. Kilfoyle. + +Mrs. Kilfoyle was knitting at her door and not looking out over the bog, +where the flushed light of the sunset drowsed on the black sod in an +almost tangible fire-film. Against it the poppies stood up dark and +opaque, but the large white daisies had caught the wraith of the glow on +their glimmering discs. She had been thinking how not so long ago her +son Thady used to come whistling home to her across the bog when the +shadows stretched their longest. The sunset still came punctually every +evening, but had grown wonderfully lonesome since the kick of a +cross-tempered cart-horse had silenced his whistling and stopped his +home-coming for ever. Thady's whistling had been indifferent, considered +as music, yet it had sounded pleasant in her ears, and Mrs. M'Gurk's +trouble seemed to her not very serious. However, she replied to her +complaint: "Ah, sure, woman dear, like enough she might be here +to-morra." + +"And if she is, she'll be very apt to not get e'er a chuck or a chucken +off of me--not the feather of a one," said Mrs. M'Gurk, resentfully, +"plenty of other things I have to do besides wastin' me time waitin' for +people that don't know their own minds from one minyit to the next, and +makin' a fool of meself star-gazin' along the road, and ne'er a fut +stirrin' on it no more than if it was desolit wildernesses." + +She would not for the world have alluded to her expenditure of more +material resources, and accordingly had to explain her vexation by +putting a fictitious value upon her time, which, in reality, was just +then drearily superabundant. + +"Sure," suggested Mrs. Kilfoyle, "the poor woman maybe was kep' at home +some way, and she wid ivery intintion to be comin'. I declare, now, +you'd whiles think things knew what you was manin' in your mind, and riz +themselves up agin it a' purpose to prevint you, they happen that +conthráry." + +As Mrs. M'Gurk's experience did not dispose her to gainsay this +proposition, and she was nevertheless disinclined to be mollified by it, +she likewise had recourse to generalities, and said: + +"'Deed then it's welcome anybody is to stop away if they're wishful, +hindered or no. Long sorry I'd be to have people disthressin' themselves +streelin' after _me_." And she added, rather inconsistently, the remark +already mentioned: "But the likes of this place I never witnessed. You +might as well be livin' at the bottom of the blackest ould boghoule +there, for e'er a chance you have to be seein' a bit of company." + +"And it's yourself 'ud make the fine sizeable waterask, ma'am," a +high-pitched voice said suddenly from within doors, causing Mrs. M'Gurk +to start and peer into the dark opening behind her, somewhat taken aback +at finding that she had had an unsuspected audience, which is always +more or less of a shock. The first object she descried through the hazy +dusk was the figure of the old woman known to Lisconnel as Ody +Rafferty's aunt, but in fact so related to his father, sitting with her +short black dudeen by the delicate pink and white embers, for the +evening was warm and the fire low. Ody himself was leaning against the +wall, critically examining Brian Kilfoyle's blackthorn, and forming a +poor opinion of it with considerable satisfaction. Not that he bore +Brian any ill-will, but because this is his method of attaining to +contentment with his own possessions. + +"Whethen now and is it yourself that's in it, Ody Rafferty?" said Mrs. +M'Gurk, as she recognised him. "And what talk have you out of you about +waterasks? You're the great man, bedad." + +"Me aunt's lookin' in on Mrs. Kilfoyle, ma'am," said Ody, "be raison of +Brian bein' off to the Town. And right enough you and me knows what's +took him there; and so does Norah Finegan. Och, good luck to the pair of +thim." + +"Coortin'," said his aunt, who preferred to put things briefly and +clearly. "But I was tellin' Mrs. Kilfoyle to not be frettin', for sure +God is good, and they'll be apt to keep her in it all's one." + +"Goodness may pity you, woman," said Mrs. M'Gurk. "Brian 'ud as lief +take and bring home a she _hyenna_, and it ravin' mad, as anybody 'ud +look crooked at his mother, I very well know." + +"Norah's a rael dacint little slip of a girl," Mrs. Kilfoyle said +tranquilly, considering that her son's character needed no certificate. +But the old woman only grunted doubtfully, and said: "Och, is she?" For +she had been a superfluous aunt so long that she found it hard to +believe in anything better than toleration. + +"Talkin' of company," said Ody, to change the subject--which his aunt's +remarks often disposed people to do--"Mad Bell's just after shankin' +back wid herself; she's below colloguin' wid Big Anne. It's a fine long +tramp she's took this time; so if she was in the humour she'd a right to +ha' plinty to be tellin' us." + +"Well, now, I'm glad the crathur's home," said Mrs. Kilfoyle. "It's +lonesome in a manner to think of the little ould bein' rovin' about the +world like a wisp of hay gathered up on the win'; for all, tubbe sure, +it's her own fancy starts her off." + +"I won'er where to she wint this time," said Mrs. M'Gurk. + +"You might as well," said Ody, "be won'erin' where a one of thim +saygulls goes, when it gives a flourish of its ould flippers and away +wid itself head foremost--barrin', in coorse, that Mad Bell's bound to +keep on the dhry land at all ivents. But from Sallinbeg ways she come +this evenin', singin' 'Garry Owen' most powerful--I know that much." + +"Ah, then she might be chance ha' been as far as Laraghmena, and ha' +seen a sight of me brother Mick and Theresa," Mrs. Kilfoyle said, with +wistful interest. For at Lisconnel we still look not a little to the +reports brought by stray travellers for news of absent friends, much as +we did before the days of penny posts and mail trains. And our +geographical lore is vague enough to impede us but slightly in our hopes +of obtaining information from any quarter. Only the probability seems to +be increased if the newcomer arrives from the direction in which our +friend departed. + +"Sure she might so," said Ody. "But niver a tell she'll tell onless she +happens to take the notion in the quare ould head of her. It's just be +the road of humouring her now and agin, and piecin' her odd stories +together, you git e'er a discovery, so to spake, of the places she's +after bein' in." + +The scenes of Mad Bell's wanderings did indeed reveal themselves to her +neighbours confusedly and dispersedly in her fitful and capricious +narrative, like glimpses of a landscape caught through a shifting mist. +As this sometimes distorts the objects that loom within it, so Mad +Bell's statements were occasionally misleading. Once, for example, she +threw the Quigley family into most distracted concern by her accounts of +the terrific "shootin' and murdherin' and massacreein'" she had seen in +progress down away at Glasgannon, where Joe Quigley had taken service +with a strong farmer; these disturbances being in reality nothing more +than a muster of the county militia. + +"But I can tell you how she thravelled a good step of the way home," Ody +now continued, "for she tould me herself. The Tinkers gave her a lift in +their ould cart. Somewheres beyant Rosbride she met wid them; glory be +to goodness 'twasn't any nearer here they were, the ould thieves of sin. +Howane'er, _Mrs. M'Gurk_ belike 'ud be wishful to see thim comin' along. +Fine company they'd be for anybody begorrah. Troth, it's the quare ugly +boghoule she'd find the aquil of thim at the bottom of." + +Mrs. M'Gurk, however, said protestingly, "Och, wirrasthrew, man, don't +be talkin' of the Tinkers. They'd a right to not be let set fut widin +tin mile of any dacint place. Thim or the likes of any such rogues." + +And Mrs. Kilfoyle said, "I'd liefer than a great deal they kep' out of +it. Ne'er a one of the lot of them I ever beheld but had the eyes +rowlin' in his head wid villiny. And the childer, goodness help them, do +be worse than the grown people." + +And Ody Rafferty's aunt said, "Bad cess to the whole of them." + +For in Lisconnel nobody has a good word to say of the Tinkers. + +The tribe and their many delinquencies have even supplied us with a bit +of the proverbial philosophy in which not a little of our local history +is epitomised. The saying, "As pat as thievin' to a tinker" is probably +quoted among us as frequently as any other, except, perhaps, one which +refers to Jerry Dunne's basket. This latter had its origin in a certain +event, not like the former in the long-accumulating observation of +habits and propensities, and to explain it therefore is to write a +chapter of our chronicles. Moreover, the event in question is otherwise +not unimportant from a sociological point of view, because it is very +likely to have been the first morning call ever made at Lisconnel. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +JERRY DUNNE'S BASKET + + +So it is worth while to tell the reason why people at Lisconnel +sometimes respond with irony to a question: "What have I got? Sure, all +that Jerry Dunne had in his basket." The saying is of respectable +antiquity, for it originated while Bessy Joyce, who died a year or so +back, at "a great ould age entirely," was still but a slip of a girl. In +those days her mother used often to say regretfully that she didn't know +when she was well off, like Rody O'Rourke's pigs, quoting a proverb of +obscurer antecedents. When she did so she was generally thinking of the +fine little farm in the county Clare, which they had not long since +exchanged for the poor tiny holding away in the heart of the black bog; +and of how, among the green fields, and thriving beasts, and other good +things of Clonmena, she had allowed her content to be marred by such a +detail as her Bessy's refusal to favour the suit of Jerry Dunne. + +Mrs. Joyce eagerly desired a brilliant alliance for Bessy, who was +rather an important daughter, being the only grown-up girl, and a very +pretty one, among a troop of younger brethren; so it seemed contrary +enough that she wouldn't look the same side of the road as young Jerry, +who was farming prosperously on his own account, and whose family were +old friends and neighbours, and real respectable people, including a +first cousin nothing less than a parish priest. Yet Bessy ran away and +hid herself in as ingeniously unlikely places as a strayed calf whenever +she heard of his approach, and if brought by chance into his society +became most discouragingly deaf and dumb. + +It is true that at the time I speak of Bessy's prospects fully entitled +her to as opulent a match, and no one apparently foresaw how speedily +they would be overcast by her father's improvidence. But Andy Joyce had +an ill-advised predilection for seeing things what he called "dacint and +proper" about him, and it led him into several imprudent acts. For +instance, he built some highly superior sheds in the bawn, to the +bettering, no doubt, of his cattle's condition, but very little to his +own purpose, which he would indeed have served more advantageously by +spending the money they cost him at Moriarty's shebeen. Nor was he left +without due warning of the consequences likely to result from such +courses. The abrupt raising of his rent by fifty per cent, was a broad +hint which most men would have taken; and it did keep Andy quiet, +ruefully, for a season or two. Then, however, having again saved up a +trifle, he could not resist the temptation to drain the swampy corner of +the farthest river-field, which was as kind a bit of land as you could +wish, only for the water lying on it, and in which he afterwards raised +himself a remarkably fine crop of white oats. The sight of them "done +his heart good," he said, exultantly, nothing recking that it was the +last touch of farmer's pride he would ever feel. Yet on the next +quarter-day the Joyces received notice to quit, and their landlord +determined to keep the vacated holding in his own hands; those new sheds +were just the thing for his young stock. Andy, in fact, had done his +best to improve himself off the face of the earth, and he should +therefore have been thankful to retain a foothold, even in a +loose-jointed, rush-roofed cabin away at stony Lisconnel. Whether +thankful or no, there, at any rate, he presently found himself +established with all his family, and the meagre remnant of his hastily +sold-off gear, and the black doors of the "house" seeming to loom ahead +whenever he looked into the murky future. + +The first weeks and months of their new adversity passed slowly and +heavily for the transplanted household, more especially for Andy and his +wife, who had outgrown a love of paddling in bogholes, and had acquired +a habit of wondering "what at all 'ud become of the childer, the +crathurs." One shrill-blasted March morning Andy trudged off to the fair +down below at Duffclane--not that he had any business to transact there, +unless we reckon as such a desire to gain a respite from regretful +boredom. He but partially succeeded in doing this, and returned at dusk +so fagged and dispirited that he had not energy to relate his scraps of +news until he was half through his plate of stirabout. Then he observed +"I seen a couple of boys from home in it." + +"Whethen now, to think of that," said Mrs. Joyce with mournful interest, +"which of them was it?" + +"The one of them was Terence Kilfoyle," said Andy. + +Mrs. Joyce's interest flagged, for young Kilfoyle was merely a +good-looking lad with the name of being rather wild. "Ah sure _he_ might +as well be in one place as another," she said indifferently. "Bessy, +honey, as you're done, just throw the scraps to the white hin where +she's sittin'." + +"He sez he's thinkin' to settle hereabouts," said Andy; "I tould him +he'd a right to go thry his fortin somewhere outlandish, but he didn't +seem to fancy the idee, and small blame to him. A man's bound to get his +heart broke one way or the other anywheres, as far as I can see. I met +Jerry Dunne too." + +"Och and did you indeed?" said Mrs. Joyce, kindling into eagerness +again. + +Jerry had been absent from Clonmena at the time of their flitting, and +they had heard nothing of him since; but she still cherished a flicker +of hope in his connection, which the tidings of his appearance in the +neighbourhood fanned and fed. + +"And he's quit out of it himself," Andy continued, "for the ould uncle +of his he's been stoppin' wid this while back at Duffclane's after dyin' +and lavin' him a fine farm and a hantle of money, and I dunno what all +besides. So it's there he's goin' to live, and he's gave up the ould +place at Clonmena, as well he may, and no loss to him on it, for he sez +himself he niver spent a pinny over it beyont what he'd be druv to, if +he wanted to get e'er a crop out of it at all, and keep things together +in any fashion: he wasn't such a fool." Andy hesitated, as if on the +brink of a painful theme, and resumed with an effort: "He's bought +Magpie and the two two-year-olds off of Peter Martin. Chape enough he +got them, too, though he had to give ten shillin's a head more for them +than Martin ped me." + +"Mavrone, but some people have the luck," said Mrs. Joyce. + +"And Jerry bid me tell you," said Andy, the memory of his lost cattle +still saddening his tone, "that he might be steppin' up here to see you +to-morra or next day." + +At this Mrs. Joyce's face suddenly brightened, as if she had been +summoned to share Jerry Dunne's good luck. She felt almost as if that +had actually happened. For his visit could surely signify nothing else +than that he meant to continue his suit; and under the circumstances, +Bessy's misliking was a piece of folly not to be taken into account. +Besides that, the girl, she thought, looked quite heartened up by the +news. So she replied to her husband: "'Deed then, he'll be very +welcome," and the sparkle was in her eyes all the rest of the evening. + +On the morrow, which was a bright morning with a far-off pale blue sky, +Mrs. Joyce hurried over her readying-up, that she might be prepared for +her possible visitor. She put on her best clothes, and as her wardrobe +had not yet fallen to a level with her fortune, she was able to array +herself in a strong steel-grey mohair gown, a black silk apron with +three rows of velvet ribbon on it besides the binding, a fine small +woollen shawl of very brilliant scarlet and black plaid, with a pinkish +cornelian brooch to pin it at the throat, all surmounted by a snowy +high-caul cap, in those days not yet out of date at Lisconnel, where +fashions lag somewhat. She noticed, well-pleased, Bessy's willingness to +fall in with the suggestion that she should re-arrange her hair and +change her gown after the morning's work was done; and the inference +drawn grew stronger, when, for the first time since their troubles, the +girl began to sing "Moll Dhuv in Glanna" while she coiled up her long +tresses. + +All that forenoon Mrs. Joyce had happy dreams about the mending of the +family fortunes, which would be effected by Bessy's marriage with Jerry +Dunne. When her neighbour, Mrs. Ryan, looked in, she could not forbear +mentioning the expected call, and was further elated because Mrs. Ryan +at once remarked: "Sure, 'twill be Bessy he's after," though she +herself, of course, disclaimed the idea, saying: "Och musha, ma'am, not +at all." The Ryans were tenants who had also been put out of Clonmena, +and they occupied a cabin adjoining the Joyces', these two dwellings, +backed by the slopes of the Knockawn, forming the nucleus of Lisconnel. + +About noon, Paddy, the eldest boy, approached at a hand gallop, +bestriding a donkey which belonged to the gang of men who were still +working on the unfinished road. As soon as the beast reached the +open-work stone wall of the potato-field it resolutely scraped its rider +off, a thing it had been vainly wishing to do all along the fenceless +track. Paddy, however, alighted unconcerned among the clattering stones, +and ran on with his tidings. These were to the effect that he was "after +seein' Jerry Dunne shankin' up from Duffclane ways, a goodish bit below +the indin' of the road, and he wid a great big basket carryin', fit to +hould a young turf-stack." + +The intelligence created an agreeable excitement, which was undoubtedly +heightened by the fact of the basket. "Very belike," said Mrs. Ryan, +"he's bringin' somethin' to you, or it might be Bessy." And while Mrs. +Joyce rejoined deprecatingly: "Ah sure, woman alive, what would the poor +lad be troublin' himself to bring us all this way?" she was really +answering her own question with a dozen flattering conjectures. The +basket must certainly contain _something_, and there were so few by any +means probable things that would not at this pinch have come acceptably +to the Joyces' household, where the heavy pitaty sack grew light with +such alarming rapidity, and the little hoard of corn dwindled, and the +childer's appetites seemed to wax larger day by day. She had not quite +made up her mind, when Jerry arrived, whether she would wish for a bit +of bacon--poor Andy missed an odd taste of it so bad--or for another +couple of hens, which would be uncommonly useful now that her own few +had all left off laying. + +Mrs. Ryan having discreetly withdrawn, Mrs. Joyce stood alone in her +dark doorway to receive her guest, and, through all her flutter of hope, +she felt a bitter twinge of housewifely chagrin at being discovered in +such miserable quarters. The black earth flooring at her threshold +gritted hatefully under her feet, and the gusts whistling through the +many chinks of her rough walls seemed to skirl derisively. She was +nevertheless resolved to put the best possible face upon the situation. + +"Well, Mrs. Joyce, ma'am, and how's yourself this long while?" said +Jerry Dunne, coming up. "Bedad I'm glad to see you so finely, and it's +an iligant place you've got up here." + +"Ah, it's not too bad whatever," said Mrs. Joyce, "on'y 'twas a great +upset on us turnin' out of the ould house at home. Himself had a right +to ha' left things the way he found them, and then it mightn't iver ha' +happened him. But sure, poor man, he niver thought he'd be ruinatin' us +wid his conthrivances. It's God's will. Be steppin' inside to the fire, +Jerry lad; there's a thin feel yet in the win'." + +Jerry, stepping inside, deposited his basket, which did not appear to be +very heavy, rather disregardfully by him on the floor. Mrs. Joyce would +not allow herself to glance in its direction. It struck her that the +young man seemed awkward and flustered, and she considered this a +favourable symptom. + +"And what way's Mr. Joyce?" said Jerry. "He was lookin' grand whin I +seen him yisterday." + +"'Deed, he gits his health middlin' well enough, glory be to goodness," +she said; "somewhiles he'll be frettin' a bit, thinkin' of diff'rent +things, and when I tell him he'd better lave botherin' his head wid +them, he sez he might as aisy bid a blast of win' to not be blowin' +through a houle. Och, Andy's a quare man. He's out and about now +somewheres on the farm." + +Mrs. Joyce put a spaciousness into her tone wholly disproportionate to +their screed of tussocks and boulders; and then paused, hoping that the +next inquiry might relate to Bessy. + +But what young Jerry said was, "You've got a great run, anyway, for the +fowls." + +The irrelevance of the remark disappointed Mrs. Joyce, and she replied a +little tartly: "A great run you may call it, for begorrah our hearts is +broke huntin' after the crathurs, and they strayin' off wid themselves +over the width of the bog there, till you've as much chance of catchin' +them as the sparks flyin' up the chimney." + +"That's unhandy, now," said Jerry. He sat for some moments reflectively +ruffling up his flaxen hair with both hands, and then he said, "Have you +the big white hin yit that you got from me a while ago?" + +"We have so bedad," said Mrs. Joyce, not loth to enlarge upon this +subject. "Sure we made a shift to bring a few of the best chickens we +had along wid us, and sorry we'd ha' been to lose her, and she a +won'erful layer, and after you a-givin' her to us in a prisint that +way." + +"There was some talk that time," said Jerry, "about me and Bessy." + +"Ay, true for you, there was," said Mrs. Joyce, in eager assent, "plinty +of talk." She would have added more, but he was evidently in a hurry to +speak again. + +"Well, there's none now," he said. "Things is diff'rent altogether. If +I'd ha' known, I'd ha' kep' the hin. The fact of the matter is I'm about +gettin' married to Sally Coghlan, that's me poor uncle's wife's niece. +He's after leavin' her what he had saved up. She's a fine figure of a +girl as iver you saw, and as good as gould, and the bit of lan' and the +bit of money had a right to go the one way. So I was thinkin', Mrs. +Joyce, I might as well be takin' home the ould him wid me--things bein' +diff'rent now, and no talk of Bessy. Sally has a great wish for a white +hin, and we've ne'er a one of that sort at our place. I've brought a wad +of hay in the basket meself, for 'fraid yous might be short of it up +here." Jerry gave a kick to the basket, which betrayed the flimsy nature +of its contents by rolling over with a wobble on its side. + +At this critical moment Mrs. Joyce's pride rallied loyally to the rescue +of her dignity and self-respect, proving as effectual as the ice-film +which keeps the bleakest pool unruffled by the wildest storm wing. With +the knell of all her hope clanging harshly in her ears, she smiled +serenely, and said gaily: "Ay bedad, himself was tellin' us somethin' +about it last night. Sure, I'm rael glad to hear tell of your good luck, +and I wish you joy of it. And will you be gettin' married agin +Shrovetide? Och, that's grand. But the white hin now--the on'y thing is +the crathur's been sittin' on a clutch of eggs since Monday week. So +what are we to do at all?" + +"There's hapes of room for the whole of them in the basket, for that +matter," Jerry suggested promptly. + +"Ah, sure, it's distroyed they'd be, jogglin' along, and the crathur +herself 'ud go distracted entirely; sorra a bit of good you'd get of +her. But look here, Mr. Dunne, I've got another out there as like her as +if the both of them had come out of the one egg, and you could be takin' +that instid. It's a lucky thing I didn't set her to sit the way I was +intendin'; on'y I niver could get a clutch gathered for her, be raison +of the lads aitin' up the eggs on me. Sure, I can't keep them from the +little bosthoons when they be hungry." + +"'Twould be all the same thing to me, in coorse, supposin' she was +equally so good," Jerry admitted with caution. + +"Ivery feather she is," said Mrs. Joyce. "I seen her runnin' about there +just this minute; you can be lookin' at her yourself." + +She went towards the door as she spoke, and was somewhat taken aback to +perceive her husband leaning against the wall close outside. How much of +the discussion he might have heard, she could not tell. The white hen +also appeared within easy reach, daintily resplendent under the sunshine +on a background of black turf. And Mrs. Ryan, standing darkly framed in +her doorway, was very certain to be an interested observer of events. +For the moment Mrs. Joyce's uppermost anxiety was to avoid any betrayal +of discomfiture, and she accordingly said in a loud and cheerful tone: + +"Och, and are you there, Andy? Jerry Dunne's wishful for the loan of a +clockin' hin, so I'm about catchin' him the young white one to take home +wid him." + +But, to her intense disgust, Jerry, who had followed her with his +basket, said remonstrantly: "Whethen now, Mrs. Joyce, the way I +understand the matter there's no talk in it of borryin' at all. I'm on'y +takin' her back instid of the ould one, and I question would any +raisonable body stand me out I don't own her be rights. It's an unjust +thing to be spakin' of loans." + +Mrs. Joyce was so dumbfounded by this rebuff that she could only hide +her confusion by displaying an exaggerated activity in the capture of +the hen. + +Her husband, however, said blandly, "Och, don't make yourself onaisy, +man. Loan or no loan, you needn't be under any apperhinsion we'll be +comin' after her wid a basket. Divil a much. Stir yourself, Kitty, and +be clappin' her in under the lid. He's in a hurry to get home to his +sweetheart wid the iligant prisint he's after pickin' up for her. Ay, +that's right, woman alive; give a tie to the bit of string, and then +there's nothin' to be delayin' him." + +After this everybody said good-bye with much politeness and affability, +though withal a certain air of despatch, as if they were conscious of +handling rather perishable goods. And when Jerry was beyond earshot, +Andy, looking after him, remarked, "I niver liked a bone in that +fellow's skin. Himself and his ould basket. The lads 'ill be prisintly +comin' in to their dinners." + +"D'you know where Bessy is?" said Mrs. Joyce, her heart sinking still +lower at the thought of the disappointment, which she had presumably +been helping to prepare for her daughter. + +"When I seen her a while back, she was out there wid the childer, +discoorsin' to Terence Kilfoyle," Andy said contentedly. + +"Musha, good gracious, Terence Kilfoyle, and what's _he_ come after?" +she said in a bitter tone. + +"He stepped up wid a couple of pounds of fresh butter and a dozen of +eggs. He said he minded Bessy havin' a fancy for duck-eggs, and he +thought we mightn't happen to have e'er a one up here. She seemed as +pleased as anythin'. But if you ax _me_, Kitty," he said with a +twinkle, "I've a notion he's come after somethin' more than our ould +hin." + +"He's a great young rogue," said Mrs. Joyce. Yet there was an accent of +relief in her voice, and on her face a reflection of her husband's +smile. + +And Jerry Dunne's basket still occupies its niche in the stores of our +proverbial philosophy. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +MRS. KILFOYLE'S CLOAK + + +The opprobrious proverb already mentioned is not the only permanent mark +of unpopularity that the Tinkers have earned for themselves at +Lisconnel. Their very name has become a term of reproach among us, so +that "an ould tinker" is recognised as an appropriate epithet for any +troublesome beast or disagreeable neighbour. If they were not +case-hardened by long experience, they would surely be mortified +sometimes at the reception with which they meet almost wherever they go. +The approach of the two queer vehicles in which they now generally +travel is watched by displeased eyes all over our countryside, and they +are so to speak lighted on their way by the gleam of suspicious or +resentful glances. And it must be admitted that their evil reputation +has not been bestowed upon them gratuitously. According to Ody Rafferty, +"The like of such a clanjamfry of thievin' drunken miscreants, you +wouldn't aisy get together, if you had a spring-trap set for them at the +Ould Fellow's front door for a month of Sundays. And if himself didn't +do a hard day's work the time he was consthructin' them, he niver done +one in his life, and that's a fac'." But Ody is apt to be particularly +severe in his strictures upon the Tinkers, because he feels an +aggravated form of rivalry existing between him and them. For the +wiliness which is understood to be Ody's forte also pre-eminently +characterises many of the Tinkers' nefarious proceedings, and this makes +it seem to him that they not only set their wits against his, but throw +discredit upon his favourite quality by the glaring moral defects which +they exhibit in conjunction with it. One's pleasure in being described +admiringly as "the ould boyo that's in it," is much diminished when one +hears the same thing said bitterly of some slieveen who has filched a +poor body's meal bag, or run off with a lone widdy woman's fowl. + +Still, although the Tinkers' name has become a by-word among us through +a long series of petty offences rather than any one flagrant crime, +there is a notable misdeed on record against them, which has never been +forgotten in the lapse of many years. It was perpetrated soon after the +death of Mrs. Kilfoyle's mother, the Widow Joyce, an event which is but +dimly recollected now at Lisconnel, as nearly half a century has gone +by. She did not very long survive her husband, and he had left his roots +behind in his little place at Clonmena, where, as we know, he had farmed +not wisely, but too well, and had been put out of it for his pains to +expend his energy upon our oozy black sods and stark-white boulders. But +instead he moped about fretting for his fair green fields and few +proudly-cherished beasts--especially the little old Kerry cow. And at +his funeral the neighbours said: "Ah bedad, poor man, God help him, he +niver held up his head agin from that good day to this." + +When Mrs. Joyce felt that it behoved her to settle her affairs, she +found that the most important possession she had to dispose of was her +large cloak. She had acquired it at the prosperous time of her marriage, +and it was a very superior specimen of its kind, its dark-blue cloth +being superfine, and its ample capes and capacious hood being +double-lined and quilted, and stitched in a way which I cannot pretend +to describe, but which made it a most substantial and handsome garment. +If Mrs. Joyce had been left entirely to her own choice in the matter, I +think she would have bequeathed it to her younger daughter Theresa, +notwithstanding that custom clearly designated Bessy Kilfoyle, the +eldest of the family, as the heiress. For she said to herself that poor +Bessy had her husband and childer to consowl her, any way, but little +Theresa, the crathur, had ne'er such a thing at all, and wouldn't have, +not she, God love her. "And the back of me hand to some I could name." +It seemed to her that to leave the child the cloak would be almost like +keeping a warm wing spread over her in the cold wide world; and there +was no fear that Bessy would take it amiss. + +But Theresa herself protested strongly against such a disposition, +urging for one thing that sure she'd be lost in it entirely if ever she +put it on, a not unfounded objection, as Theresa was several sizes +smaller than Bessy, and even she fell far short of her mother in stature +and portliness. Theresa also said confidently with a sinking heart: "But +sure, anyhow, mother jewel, what matter about it? 'Twill be all gone to +houles and flitters and thraneens, and so it will, plase goodness, +afore there's any talk of anybody else wearin' it except your own ould +self." And she expressed much the same conviction one day to her +next-door neighbour, old Biddy Ryan, to whom she had run in for the loan +of a sup of sour milk, which Mrs. Joyce fancied. To Biddy's sincere +regret she could offer Theresa barely a skimpy noggin of milk, and only +a meagre shred of encouragement; and by way of eking out the latter with +its sorry substitute consolation, she said as she tilted the jug +perpendicularly to extract its last drop: + +"Well, sure, me dear, I do be sayin' me prayers for her every sun goes +over our heads that she might be left wid you this great while yet; +'deed I do so. But ah, acushla, if we could be keepin' people +that-a-way, would there be e'er a funeral iver goin' black on the road +at all at all? I'm thinkin' there's scarce a one livin', and he as ould +and foolish and little-good-for as you plase, but some crathur'ill be +grudgin' him to his grave, that's himself may be all the while wishin' +he was in it. Or, morebetoken, how can we tell what quare ugly misfortin +thim that's took is took out of the road of, that we should be as good +as biddin' thim stay till it comes to ruinate them? So it's prayin' away +I am, honey," said old Biddy, whom Theresa could not help hating heart +sickly. "But like enough the Lord might know better than to be mindin' a +word I say." + +And it seemed that He did; at any way the day soon came when the heavy +blue cloak passed into Mrs. Kilfoyle's possession. + +At that time it was clear, still autumn weather, with just a sprinkle of +frost, white on the wayside grass, like the wraith of belated moonlight, +when the sun rose, and shimmering into rainbow stars by noon. But about +a month later the winter swooped suddenly on Lisconnel: with wild winds +and cold rain that made crystal-silver streaks down the purple of the +great mountain-heads peering in over our bogland. + +So one perishing Saturday Mrs. Kilfoyle made up her mind that she would +wear her warm legacy on the bleak walk to Mass next morning, and +reaching it down from where it was stowed away among the rafters wrapped +in an old sack, she shook it respectfully out of its straight-creased +folds. As she did so she noticed that the binding of the hood had ripped +in one place, and that the lining was fraying out, a mishap which should +be promptly remedied before it spread any further. She was not a very +expert needlewoman, and she thought she had better run over the way to +consult Mrs. O'Driscoll, then a young matron, esteemed the handiest and +most helpful person in Lisconnel. + +"It's the nathur of her to be settin' things straight wherever she +goes," Mrs. Kilfoyle said to herself as she stood in her doorway waiting +for the rain to clear off, and looking across the road to the sodden +roof which sheltered her neighbour's head. It has long been lying low, +vanquished by a trouble which even she could not set to rights, and some +of the older people say that things have gone a little crookeder in +Lisconnel ever since. + +The shower was a vicious one, with the sting of sleet and hail in its +drops, pelted about by gusts that ruffled up the puddles into ripples, +all set on end, like the feathers of a frightened hen. The hens +themselves stood disconsolately sheltering under the bank, mostly on one +leg, as if they preferred to keep up the slightest possible connection +with such a very damp and disagreeable earth. You could not see far in +any direction for the fluttering sheets of mist, and a stranger who had +been coming along the road from Duffclane, stepped out of them abruptly +quite close, to Mrs. Kilfoyle's door, before she knew that there was +anybody near. He was a tall, elderly man, gaunt and grizzled, very +ragged, and so miserable-looking that Mrs. Kilfoyle could have felt +nothing but compassion for him had he not carried over his shoulder a +bunch of shiny cans, which was to her mind as satisfactory a passport as +a ticket-of-leave. For although these were yet rather early days at +Lisconnel, the Tinkers had already begun to establish their reputation. +So when he stopped in front of her and said: "Good-day, ma'am," she only +replied distantly, "It's a hardy mornin'," and hoped he would move on. +But he said: "It's cruel could, ma'am," and continued to stand looking +at her with wide and woful eyes, in which she conjectured--erroneously +as it happened--hunger for warmth or food. Under these circumstances +what could be done by a woman who was conscious of owning a +redly-glowing hearth with a big black pot, fairly well filled, clucking +and bobbing upon it? To possess such wealth as this, and think seriously +of withholding a share from anybody who urges the incontestable claim of +wanting it, is a mood altogether foreign to Lisconnel, where the +responsibilities of property are, no doubt, very imperfectly understood. +Accordingly Mrs. Kilfoyle said to the tattered tramp: "Ah, thin, step +inside and have a couple of hot pitaties." And when he accepted the +invitation without much alacrity, as if he had something else on his +mind, she picked for him out of the steam two of the biggest potatoes, +whose earth-coloured skins, cracking, showed a fair flouriness within; +and she shook a little heap of salt, the only relish she had, on to the +chipped white plate as she handed it to him, saying, "Sit you down be +the fire there, and git a taste of the heat." + +Then she lifted her old shawl over her head, and ran out to see where at +all Brian and Thady were gettin' their deaths on her under the pours of +rain; and as she passed the Keoghs' adjacent door--which was afterwards +the Sheridan's, whence their Larry departed so reluctantly--young Mrs. +Keogh called her to come in and look at "the child," who being a new and +unique possession was liable to develop alarmingly strange symptoms, and +had now "woke up wid his head that hot, you might as well put your hand +on the hob of the grate." Mrs. Kilfoyle stayed only long enough to +suggest, as a possible remedy, a drop of two-milk whey. "But ah sure, +woman dear, where at all 'ud we come by that, wid the crathur of a goat +scarce wettin' the bottom of the pan?" and to draw reassuring omens +from the avidity with which the invalid grabbed at a sugared crust. In +fact, she was less than five minutes out of her house; but when she +returned to it, she found it empty. First she noted with a moderate +thrill of surprise that her visitor had gone away leaving his potatoes +untouched, and next, with a rough shock of dismay, that her cloak no +longer lay on the window seat where she had left it. From that moment +she never felt any real doubts about what had befallen her, though for +some time she kept on trying to conjure them up, and searched wildly +round and round and round her little room, like a distracted bee strayed +into a hollow furze-bush, before she sped over to Mrs. O'Driscoll with +the news of her loss. + +It spread rapidly through Lisconnel, and brought the neighbours together +exclaiming and condoling, though not in great force, as there was a fair +going on down beyant, which nearly all the men and some of the women had +attended. This was accounted cruel unlucky, as it left the place without +any one able-bodied and active enough to go in pursuit of the thief. A +prompt start might have overtaken him, especially as he was said to be +"a thrifle lame-futted," though Mrs. M'Gurk, who had seen him come down +the hill, opined that "'twasn't the sort of lameness 'ud hinder the +miscreant of steppin' out, on'y a quare manner of flourish he had in a +one of his knees, as if he was gatherin' himself up to make an offer at +a grasshopper's lep, and then thinkin' better of it." + +Little Thady Kilfoyle reported that he had met the strange man a bit +down the road, "leggin' it along at a great rate, wid a black rowl of +somethin' under his arm that he looked to be crumplin' up as small as he +could"--the word "crumpling" went acutely to Mrs. Kilfoyle's heart--and +some long-sighted people declared that they could still catch glimpses +of a receding figure through the hovering fog on the way towards +Sallinbeg. + +"I'd think he'd be beyant seein' afore now," said Mrs. Kilfoyle, who +stood in the rain, the disconsolate centre of the group about her door; +all women and children except old Johnny Keogh, who was so bothered and +deaf, that he grasped new situations slowly and feebly, and had now an +impression of somebody's house being on fire. "He must ha' took off wid +himself the instiant me back was turned, for ne'er a crumb had he +touched of the pitaties." + +"Maybe he'd that much shame in him," said Mrs. O'Driscoll. + +"They'd a right to ha' choked him, troth and they had," said Ody +Rafferty's aunt. + +"Is it chokin'?" said young Mrs. M'Gurk, bitterly. "Sure the bigger +thief a body is the more he'll thrive on whatever he gits--you might +think villiny was as good as butter to people's pitaties--you might so. +Shame how are you? Liker he'd ate all he could swally in the last place +he got the chance of layin' his hands on anythin'." + +"Och, woman alive, but it's the fool you were to let him out of your +sight," said Ody Rafferty's aunt. "If it had been me, I'd niver ha' took +me eyes off him, for the look of him on'y goin' by made me flesh creep +upon me bones." + +"'Deed was I," said Mrs. Kilfoyle, sorrowfully, "a fine fool. And vexed +she'd be, real vexed, if she guessed the way it was gone on us, for the +dear knows what dirty ould rapscallions 'ill get the wearin' of it now. +Rael vexed she'd be." + +This speculation was more saddening than the actual loss of the cloak, +though that bereft her wardrobe of far and away its most valuable +property, which should have descended as an heirloom to her little +Katty, who, however, being at present but three months old, lay +sleeping happily unaware of the cloud that had come over her prospects. + +"I wish to goodness a couple of the lads 'ud step home wid themselves +this minit of time," said Mrs. M'Gurk. "They'd come up wid him yet, and +take it off of him ready enough. And smash his ugly head for him if he +would be givin' them any impidence." + +"Aye, and 'twould be a rael charity--the mane baste--or sling him in one +of the boghoules," said the elder Mrs. Keogh, a mild-looking little old +woman. "I'd liefer than nine nine-pennies see thim comin' along. But I'm +afeard it's early for thim yet." + +Everybody's eyes turned, as she spoke, towards the ridge of the +Knockawn, though with no particular expectation of seeing what they +wished upon it. But, behold, just at that moment three figures, blurred +among the grey rain-mists, looming into view. + +"Be the powers," said Mrs. M'Gurk, jubilantly, "it's Ody Rafferty +himself. To your sowls! Now you've a great good chance, ma'am, to be +gettin' it back. He's the boy 'ill leg it over all before him"--for in +those days Ody was lithe and limber--"and it's hard-set the thievin' +Turk 'ill be to get the better of him at a racin' match--Hi--Och." She +had begun to hail him with a call eager and shrill, which broke off in a +strangled croak, like a young cock's unsuccessful effort. "Och, murdher, +murdher, murdher," she said to the bystanders, in a disgusted undertone. +"I'll give you me misfort'nit word thim other two is the pólis." + +Now it might seem on the face of things that the arrival of those two +active and stalwart civil servants would have been welcomed as happening +just in the nick of time; yet it argues an alien ignorance to suppose +such a view of the matter by any means possible. The men in invisible +green tunics belonged completely to the category of pitaty-blights, +rint-warnin's, fevers, and the like devastators of life, that dog a man +more or less all through it, but close in on him, a pitiful quarry, when +the bad seasons come and the childer and the old crathurs are starvin' +wid the hunger, and his own heart is broke; therefore to accept +assistance from them in their official capacity would have been a +proceeding most reprehensibly unnatural. To put a private quarrel or +injury into the hands of the peelers were a disloyal making of terms +with the public foe; a condoning of great permanent wrongs for the sake +of a trivial temporary convenience. Lisconnel has never been skilled in +the profitable and ignoble art of utilising its enemies. Not that +anybody was more than vaguely conscious of these sentiments, much less +attempted to express them in set terms. When a policeman appeared there +in an inquiring mood, what people said among themselves was: "Musha cock +him up. I hope he'll get his health till I would be tellin' him," or +words to that effect; while in reply to his questions they made +statements superficially so clear and simple, and essentially so +bewilderingly involved, that the longest experience could do little more +for a constable than teach him the futility of wasting his time in +attempts to disentangle them. + +Thus it was that when Mrs. Kilfoyle saw who Ody's companions were, she +bade a regretful adieu to her hopes of recovering her stolen property. +For how could she set him on the Tinker's felonious track without +apprising them likewise? You might as well try to huroosh one chicken +off a rafter and not scare the couple that were huddled beside it. The +impossibility became more obvious presently as the constables striding +quickly down to where the group of women stood in the rain and wind +with fluttering shawls and flapping cap-borders, said briskly, "Good-day +to you all. Did any of yous happen to see e'er a one of them tinkerin' +people goin' by here this mornin'?" + +It was a moment of strong temptation to everybody, but especially to +Mrs. Kilfoyle, who had in her mind that vivid picture of her precious +cloak receding from her along the wet road, recklessly wisped up in the +grasp of as thankless a thievin' black-hearted slieveen as ever stepped, +and not yet, perhaps, utterly out of reach, though every fleeting +instant carried it nearer to that hopeless point. However, she and her +neighbours stood the test unshaken. Mrs. Ryan rolled her eyes +deliberatively, and said to Mrs. M'Gurk, "The saints bless us, was it +yisterday or the day before, me dear, you said you seen a couple of them +below near ould O'Beirne's?" + +And Mrs. M'Gurk replied, "Ah, sure, not at all, ma'am, glory be to +goodness. I couldn't ha' tould you such a thing, for I wasn't next or +nigh the place. Would it ha' been Ody Rafferty's aunt? She was below +there fetchin' up a bag of male, and bedad she came home that dhreeped, +the crathur, you might ha' thought she'd been after fishin' it up out +of the botthom of one of thim boghoules." + +And Mrs. Kilfoyle heroically hustled her Thady into the house as she saw +him on the brink of beginning loudly to relate his encounter with the +strange man, and desired him to whisht and stay where he was in a manner +so sternly repressive that he actually remained there as if he had been +a pebble dropped into a pool, and not, as usual, a cork to bob up again +immediately. + +Then Mrs. M'Gurk made a bold stroke, designed to shake off the hampering +presence of the professionals, and enable Ody's amateur services to be +utilised while there was yet time. + +"I declare," she said, "now that I think of it, I seen a feller crossin' +the ridge along there a while ago, like as if he was comin' from +Sallinbeg ways, and accordin' to the apparence of him I wouldn't won'er +if he _was_ a one of thim tinker crathurs--carryin' a big clump of cans +he was, at any rate--I noticed the shine of thim. And he couldn't ha' +got any great way yet to spake of, supposin' there was anybody lookin' +to folly after him." + +But Constable Black crushed her hopes as he replied, "Ah, it's nobody +comin' _from_ Sallinbeg that we've anything to say to. There's after +bein' a robbery last night down below at Jerry Dunne's--a shawl as good +as new took, that his wife's ragin' over frantic, along wid a sight of +fowl and other things. And the Tinkers that was settled this long while +in the boreen at the back of his haggard is quit out of it afore +daylight this mornin', every rogue of them. So we'd have more than a +notion where the property's went to if we could tell the road they've +took. We thought like enough some of them might ha' come this way." + +Now Mr. Jerry Dunne was not a popular person in Lisconnel, where he has +even become, as we have seen, proverbial for what we call "ould +naygurliness." So there was a general tendency to say, "The divil's cure +to him," and listen complacently to any details their visitors could +impart. For in his private capacity a policeman, provided that he be +otherwise "a dacint lad," which, to do him justice, is commonly the +case, may join, with a few unobtrusive restrictions, in our neighbourly +gossips; the rule, in fact, being--Free admission except on business. + +Only Mrs. Kilfoyle was so much cast down by her misfortune that she +could not raise herself to the level of an interest in the affairs of +her thrifty suitor, and the babble of voices relating and commenting +sounded as meaningless as the patter of the drops which jumped like +little fishes in the large puddle at their feet. It had spread +considerably before Constable Black said to his comrade-- + +"Well, Daly, we'd better be steppin' home wid ourselves as wise as we +come, as the man said when he'd axed his road of the ould black horse in +the dark lane. There's no good goin' further, for the whole gang of +them's scattered over the counthry agin now like a seedin' thistle in a +high win'." + +"Ay bedad," said Constable Daly, "and be the same token, this win' ud +skin a tanned elephant. It's on'y bogged and drenched we'd git. Look at +what's comin' up over there. That rain's snow on the hills, every could +drop of it; I seen Ben Bawn this mornin' as white as the top of a +musharoon, and it's thickenin' wid sleet here this minute, and so it +is." + +The landscape did indeed frown upon further explorations. In quarters +where the rain had abated it seemed as if the mists had curdled on the +breath of the bitter air, and they lay floating in long white bars and +reefs low on the track of their own shadow, which threw down upon the +sombre bogland deeper stains of gloom. Here and there one caught on the +crest of some grey-bouldered knoll, and was teazed into fleecy threads +that trailed melting instead of tangling. But towards the north the +horizon was all blank, with one vast, smooth slant of slate colour, like +a pent-house roof, which had a sliding motion onwards. + +Ody Rafferty pointed to it and said, "Troth, it's teemin' powerful this +instiant up there in the mountains. 'Twill be much if you land home +afore it's atop of you; for 'twould be the most I could do myself." + +And as the constables departed hastily, most people forgot the stolen +cloak for a while to wonder whether their friends would escape being +entirely drownded on the way back from the fair. + +Mrs. Kilfoyle, however, still stood in deep dejection at her door, and +said, "Och, but she was the great fool to go let the likes of him set +fut widin her house." + +To console her Mrs. O'Driscoll said, "Ah, sure, sorra a fool were you, +woman dear; how would you know the villiny of him? And if you'd turned +the man away widout givin' him e'er a bit, it's bad you'd be thinkin' +of it all the day after." + +And to improve the occasion for her juniors, old Mrs. Keogh added, "Ay, +and morebetoken you'd ha' been committin' a sin." + +But Mrs. Kilfoyle replied with much candour, "'Deed, then, I'd a dale +liefer be after committin' a sin, or a dozen sins, than to have me poor +mother's good cloak thieved away on me, and walkin' wild about the +world." + +As it happened the fate of Mrs. Kilfoyle's cloak was very different from +her forecast. But I do not think that a knowledge of it would have been +consolatory to her by any means. If she had heard of it, she would +probably have said, "The cross of Christ upon us. God be good to the +misfort'nit crathur." For she was not of at all an implacable temper, +and would, under the circumstances, have condoned even the injury that +obliged her to appear at Mass with a flannel petticoat over her head +until the end of her days. Yet she did hold the Tinkers in a perhaps +somewhat too unqualified reprobation. For there are tinkers and tinkers. +Some of them, indeed, are stout and sturdy thieves, veritable birds of +prey, whose rapacity is continually questing for plunder. But some of +them have merely the magpies' and jackdaws' thievish propensity for +picking up what lies temptingly in their way. And some few are so honest +that they pass by as harmlessly as a wedge of high-flying wild duck. And +I have heard it said that to places like Lisconnel their pickings and +stealings have at worst never been so serious a matter as those of +another flock, finer of feather, but not less predacious in their +habits, who roosted, for the most part, a long way off, and made their +collections by deputy. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A GOOD TURN + + +Along the road to Sallinbeg little seemed to be abroad besides foul +weather, but there was a great deal of that. The gusts that came +flapping wide-winged over the bog met the wayfarer with a furious hurtle +and grapple, as if for want of better sport they had concentrated all +their forces upon his sole repulse; and the drops they dashed into his +blinded eyes and against his benumbed hands were as icy as they could be +without ceasing to be wet. Their combined assaults were calculated +feelingly to persuade a man of his uninfluential position in the scheme +of things--his voice in this matter was so tyrannically howled down--or, +if of less philosophic mind, to bring home to him the special +disadvantages of going half-starved and clad in threadbare tatters. This +was the plight of Thady Quinlan as, leaving Lisconnel, soon lapt out of +sight behind him amid the grey web of the rain-mists, he tramped +haltingly away, with Mrs. Kilfoyle's cloak bundled under his arm, and +the dread of pursuit on his mind, and in his heart a great remorse, the +object of which you are perhaps guessing wrongly. But he had also a hope +and a purpose, and is therefore not wholly to be pitied, although the +one did wane until the other looked impossible, as mile after mile +unrolled its drenched and dreary length without bringing him apparently +nearer to his goal. + +All the while, however, he was slowly gaining upon a traveller, who had +taken the same road a few hours earlier, hopelessly and aimlessly, and +even more inadequately equipped than he. It was his sister Judy Quinlan, +from whom he had parted on the worst of terms about three o'clock that +morning. The fact is that the Tinkers' raid upon Jerry Dunne's premises, +although carried out with unusual success, had led, not at all +unusually, to complications when it was time to divide the spoil. Over +Mrs. Dunne's second-best shawl it was that the difficulty arose. Mrs. +Dunne, despite her husband's thrifty turn, owned many shawls, few of +them inferior enough to be worn at all frequently, and she had pinned on +this one three times only during the half-dozen years of her +proprietresship. So it was certainly bitter bad luck that she should by +chance have worn it to Confession on Friday, and got it soaked coming +home, and hung it up in the passage by the back door to dry slowly, +"instead of to be all cockled into gathers wid the heat of the fire +blazin' on it, you stookawn," as she explained with exasperation to +Ellen Roe, her servant-girl, who had officiously suggested the kitchen +hearth. For this precaution proved tragically self-defeating, and put +its object into the very hands of Thady Quinlan and Joe Smith, when, +under cover of the wild, wet night, they forced the feeble lock, and +made a clean sweep of all portable property that lay within easy reach. +The shawl formed the most valuable prize. It was very admirable, indeed, +being of a dappled fawn colour, with an arabesque border of shaded +chocolate and amber; but in the eyes of its new owners its greatest +charm was its weight and thickness. Judy Quinlan declared, pinching a +fold fondly between a finger and thumb, that just the feel of it done +your heart good. Her own shawl was really only a ragged cotton +table-cover, and had, as she often remarked, "no more warmth in it than +an ould dish-clout." I should observe, to make the situation clear, that +the Tinkers' confraternity at this time consisted of Thady Quinlan and +his sister Judy, and their married sister Maggie Smith, with her +husband, and his brother, and his father, and three or four children. +Hence it is obvious that in any dispute which might arise between Judy +and Maggie, the latter was likely to have numbers preponderantly upon +her side. And this was what now actually took place, the place being the +driest end of the un-roofed cabin in Dunne's boreen, where the Tinkers +had for some time past made their camp. + +The screed of thatch still adhering to the wall sheltered their fire of +purloined sods, and it burned steadily and strongly between the blasts +which made its red flame duck and sweel, and sent the white ash-flakes +fluttering. So there was light enough to show how covetous gleams from +the sisters' eyes flashed together on the shawl, of which each held a +corner. And no great wisdom was needed to forecast a storm. Mrs. Smith's +shawl was undeniably better than Judy's by many degrees but she had not +the magnanimity to consider this, even so far as to propose that Judy +should at any rate enjoy the reversion of her own. On the contrary, she +had rapidly planned its division between her two little ragged girls. +Judy, for her part, had set her heart desperately upon the acquisition, +and she deemed it her best policy to say in a tone studiously +matter-of-course: + +"Faix, now, it's glad enough I'll be to get shut of this ould wad that's +on me. Every breath of win' goes thro' it as ready as if it was a +crevice in a wall, fit to freeze you into mortar." + +A very vain device, for her sister promptly rejoined with a sarcastic +laugh and a tightened grip: "Musha moyah, how bad you are entirely. +Don't you wish you may?" which intimated plainly that the shawl was not +to be had uncontested. + +At this crisis Judy had fully expected to be backed up by Thady; but he +naturally taking a more dispassionate view of the matter, recognised +with reluctance the futility of pitting himself singly against three +opponents, two of them better men than he, who was "no great things at +all, let alone havin' one knee quare." Therefore he turned his back upon +the controversy, and feigned unconsciousness of it, instead of bouncing +up and saying with appropriate action, "And I'd like to know who at +all's got a better right to it than herself has?" + +His defection aggrieved her so bitterly, that the fiercest of her wrath +turned upon him; and after a wrangle wherein all the parties concerned +had made liberal use of those "aculeate and proper" words against which +the wary Bacon warns his quarrelling readers, she flounced away into the +darkness of the small hours of the stormy December morning, loudly +avowing her determination never to see a sight of the ugly, dirty, +mane-spirited poltroon, or open her lips to him as long as she had an +eye or a tongue in her head. Jeering laughter followed her exit on a +skirl of sleet-fledged wind. + +She seethed over her anger for many a long mile, to such fierceness was +its flame fed by disappointment and more potent jealousy. For had not +Thady, the only person she cared much about in all the world, turned +against her and sided with Maggie, "who was always a greedy grabbin' +little toad ever since she stood the height of a creepy stool?" It was +an hour or so before daybreak when she sat down to rest under an immense +bulging boulder that loomed dimly on her beside the road a little way +beyond Lisconnel. Then she began to look backwards and forwards. Far +back to the time when her father kept a little shop in Bantry, before he +was stone broke one bad year and took to carrying the remnant of his +stock-in-trade about in a basket as a higgler, which eventually led +other members of his family to wander, less reputably, for their +livelihoods. She remembered that even in those days Thady was always her +ally, and had lamed himself for life by a fall on the road when running +to rescue her from the Hutchinsons' wicked mastiff, who had knocked her +down near their gate, and was standing over her with a growl and a grin +of which she still sometimes dreamed. And again she remembered how once +she had been laid up for a long while with the fever, and had crept out +of the Union infirmary to find that her relations, supposing her dead, +had all "tuk off wid thimselves to the States," and was keening like one +demented over her desertion outside McNeight's public, when what should +come familiarly round the corner but Thady himself, who had stopped +behind, foregoing his assisted passage, because the divil a fut of him +would stir out of it so long as there might be e'er a chance at all of +Judy coming back. Whereupon it recurred vividly to her mind how she had +just called him, among other things, "a great dirty, good-for-nothin' +hulk of a poltroon," and had expressed a hope that she might never again +see sign nor sight of any such a hijjis baste hobblin' anywheres on her +road; to which he had rejoined that she might go to blazes and welcome +for anythin' _he_ had to say agin it, and that bedad a crosser-tempered +ould weasel of a wizened-up ould witch wouldn't be apt to land there in +a hurry. At last, being very tired, she escaped for a while from these +fluctuations of wrath and ruth into a nook of sleep, but the bitter cold +routed her out of it soon after sunrise, and she took the road again, +cramped and numbed, in the teeth of the gusty showers that were still +stalking over the bogland. + +As she went, the hills beyond Sallinbeg rose up frowning before her +through rifts in the cold white fleece trailed and knotted about their +front of harsh purple gloom, on which the streaks and patches of ravines +and fences and fields, with here and there a cabin gleaming, began by +degrees to be traced dimly as if a fragment of the countryside were +reflected on a dark thunder-cloud. But she was now thinking more about +her journey's end than about anything she saw on the way thither--the +bleak many-windowed workhouse at Moynalone that she well knew must be +presently her fate. Since she had thrown herself on her own resources, +three ha'pence was all she could command for ransom from the durance +into which self-preservation assuredly would not forbear to betray her. +Experience gave a dreary definiteness to anticipation. Once again she +would morning by morning awaken in the grim whitewashed ward to all the +old hardness and roughness of existence with a tyrannous restraint and +monotony superadded. She said to herself, it is true, that she might as +well be in one place as another, since she would not have Thady to go +along with anymore--the black-hearted, thievin' miscreant--and if she +had as much wit in her as an ould water-rat, she'd just creep away into +some dry ditch, and be done with the whole of it. Still, as she did come +short of that wisdom, the alternative continued to lie across her path, +a murky shadow, which she could by no means evade nor disperse. + +The invisible sun was low when Judy came to a place where the road +forks, sending one branch to creep across the level bogland towards +Sallinbeg, and one to climb up among the first tilted slopes of the +mountains. Here the Rosbride river comes jostling its way down a rocky +ravine spanned at the mouth by a bridge, past which the swift, brown +stream darts along in a more spacious and smoother channel, bound for +Rosbride Bay. Judy stood for a while and looked down over the parapet at +the swirls of creamy foam that swept under the arch. Then she took out +of her pocket a battered-looking heel of a loaf, and began to munch it. +But before she had half finished it, she tossed the crust away into the +river, being too heartsick to go on eating once the rage of hunger was +subdued. She wished sincerely that she dared fling herself after it, but +she was far too much cowed by cold and weariness to muster the courage +for such a resolve. Perhaps there was not under Irish skies that +December day, a more miserable woman than Judy Quinlan as she stood all +alone in the world on Rosbride bridge, while a black mountain rampart +lifted itself slowly against the shrouded west, and the dusk thickened +on the long, shelterless road, whence eager blasts whistled a summons to +her, nearer and nearer, till they fluttered her rags, and keened about +her ears, and chilled her to the bone. + +Suddenly something heavy and soft seemed to grasp her by the shoulders, +and thence fall around her in long, wide folds, covering her from head +to foot, much as if a small tent had been blown down on her. Of course +she screamed shrilly, and almost in the same breath she saw that Thady +was at her elbow. He had for some little time been stalking her warily, +with the great coat expanded ready to throw over her, and having done +so, was now holding it on with a rough hug. The joy with which he had at +last caught sight of the forlorn, bedraggled figure had overflowed +irrepressibly into this joke, and its successful accomplishment put the +finishing touch to his happiness. As for Judy, if the sun had leaped up +again in a fiery flurry, till the hills and the plain and the river were +all flooded with flushed light, gleaming and glowing, it would have but +dimly symbolised the transfiguration of her world. In the twinkling of +an eye her stark despair was changed into rapturous relief, a miracle +which just at first made the marvellous cloak seem almost a matter of +course. Any good thing might naturally be expected to befall her since +Thady was not estranged and lost to her after all. "Whethen now, and is +it yourself come streelin' along?" she said. "You tuk your time, bedad. +I'm here this half-hour." + +"Sure, I stopped till I would get a thrifle of things together," said +Thady. "And what d'you call that for an ould flitterjig?" + +"It's not too bad," said Judy, stroking down the cape with caressing +fingers. "A grand weight there's in it, to be sure. But where at all did +you come by it? You're not after gettin' it off of thim thievin' +rapscallions of Smiths, anyway?" + +"Thim or the likes of thim--sure not at all," said Thady, loftily. +"'Twas in a house away down below there at Lisconnel. A young woman bid +me step in to ait a pitaty, and, tellin' you the truth, I'd no fancy to +be delayin', for I'd a mistrust in me mind that the pólis was follyin'. +The notion I had was to ax her had she seen you goin' by, on'y I wasn't +wishful to be lettin' on I was anythin' to you, in case they come along. +So I thought she might be chance pass the remark herself. But out she +ran, and the first thing I noticed was this consarn lyin' convanient to +me hand in the windy. And wid that I whipped it up and made off. For +anythin' I could tell, I might ha' met me fine gintleman full tilt at +the door; and begorrah, it's as heavy to carry as a pair of fat geese. +Howane'er, I knew it's distressed you were entirely for the want of such +a thing, and bejabers, you've got it now." + +"Troth have I," said Judy, delightedly groping her way about her new +garment. "Rael dacint it was of you to be bringin' it to me, for +perished and lost I did be, and that's no lie. Och but it's the grand +one. Look at the hood there is to it. Sure it's as good as a little +house of your own. You might be out under buckets of wet in it, and +ne'er a tint you'd git whatever." + +"Ay, or, for that matter, takin' a rowl through the river there, and +sorra the harm it 'ud do you wid that on," said Thady, with pride. "But +we'd better be quittin' out o' this," he added, with a shrug and a +shiver, "for the win's tarrible, and there's a shower comin' up on us +yonder as thick as thatch. I was thinkin' you'd maybe had thrampin' +enough for this day. 'Twill be as dark prisintly as the inside of a cow, +and we'd see daylight agin before we come to Moynalone. So we might put +the night over under th'ould bridge. There's a good dry strip along the +one side of it, and the way the rain's dhrivin' we'd git a grand +shelter." + +Judy readily agreed, and they descended the little stony footpath which +led down to the river. Beneath the arch, where Thady's booted steps +reverberated hollowly, they found, as he had said, a broadish strip of +dry ground, for the bridge had allowed the stream ample measure in its +stride. The little platform was bordered by a scattering of stones and +boulders, amongst which the shallow water gurgled. It seemed to Thady +and Judy that their quarters would be very tolerable; but they soon made +a discovery which promised luxury indeed. This was a dead branch, which +lay at one end of the arch, having evidently been floated down the +current, and perhaps hauled out of the water by some thrifty body, who, +however, had made no further use of it. Long ago that must have been, +for it was dried and bleached till it glimmered through the dusk like an +intricate white skeleton. Better fuel no one could desire. Thady made +for it at once with knife and matchbox, and in a few minutes crackling +flames were crunching up the twigs and gnawing at a log. The red light +washed flickering over the wet walls, and was caught on the glancing of +the water as it fled by, rapid and dark. Blue smoke trailed up lazily +against the frame of the arch, blurring gleams of tossed foam as it +melted out into the mist. + +But a fire naturally suggested food, and Judy said ruefully, after +feeling in her empty pocket: "It's starved wid the hunger you'll be, +Thady, and the sorra a taste of anythin' have I in the world. 'Deed now, +if I'd on'y known the way it 'ud be, and I passin' thim houses below in +the boreen a while ago! I seen where there was a big cake of +griddle-bread coolin' itself, laned agin the windy-ledge, and man nor +mortal near it. I might ha' raiched it down as aisy as puttin' me fut to +the ground. But sure I was that knocked about wid one thing and another, +I thought I wouldn't be bothered wid it, so I just left it where it was, +I did so--may God forgive me," she said, with unfeigned contrition. + +Thady, however, did not seem to share in her regrets. He was lifting his +cluster of cans off his shoulders, and extracting from one of them a +bundle tied up in a red handkerchief. "Is it starved you'd have us?" he +said as he untied the first corner. "Starved! How are you?" And he +continued to repeat: "Is it starvin' she said?" while he was undoing the +several knots. When they were all unfastened, the handkerchief was seen +to hold a number of eggs and a fair supply of broken bread. Thady might +well scout the possibility of famishing. "That's somethin' like," he +said, as he saw Judy surveying his stores, "and I've a shillin' +somewheres besides." + +"Glory be!" said Judy, looking as if she could scarcely realise a world +with which they were so much beforehand. + +"And we'll be givin' them a boil in a one of the little saucepans," said +Thady. "Raw eggs do be ugly could brashes, and we've plinty of wather +handy--lashins and lavins of dhrink runnin' on tap there, so to spake." + +Supper was accordingly prepared on these simple lines with much success. +They boiled many eggs and ate them, using their scraps of bread for +plates--an expedient not unknown at far earlier banquets--and they +scooped up water to drink out of the palms of their hands--also in an +old-fashioned manner. But when they had finished Thady gave a +comparatively modern touch to the entertainment by lighting his pipe. He +occupied the nearest place to the fire, in consideration for the +scarecrow-like raggedness of his garments, which now began to weigh upon +Judy's mind amid the comfort of her magnificent wrap. + +"Froze stiff you'll be in thim ould tatters, man alive," she said +despondently. "Sure, you might as well be slingin' yourself round wid +the ould wisps of spiders' webs up over your head for any substance +there is in thim. I won'er, now, could I conthrive to reive the top-cape +off of this. 'Twould be as good that way as a cloak apiece for the two +of us." + +Thady, however, said decidedly: "Blathers, not _at all_. Is it +destroyin' it you'd be after? I'm plinty warm enough." And he rolled the +big red handkerchief which had held the eggs into many folds about his +neck, tucking it down under his coat-collar all round. "There was a +surprisin' hate in it," he said. + +By this time the dusk far and near had gloomed into darkness--the black +beetle had scared away the grey moth. As Thady and Judy sat with their +backs to the curving wall, they caught only fitful glimpses of the +opposite one when any long-fronded flickers of the fire-light waved +across and touched it. More often they fell short, and made quivering +circles shine where they struck the broken water in the mid-stream. +Without, beyond either arch, nothing was distinguishable except glimmers +of white foam shaken and tossing. On the left, looking up the river, it +seemed as if many spectral hands, borne nearer and nearer, came waving +and beckoning out of the night, to pass by and away down the river, +still beckoning and waving, carried further and further, on into the +night again. Every now and then a waft of the wind sighed in on them +along with the river, puffing about the flame and smoke, and blowing +ice-cold in their faces. When it had passed Thady always inquired: "Is +it warm at all, Jude?" and she always answered, drawing "its" folds +together with ostentatious satisfaction: "Och scaldin'." + +But between whiles there was little conversation to interrupt the +monologue of the river, which seemed to find itself many voices under +the bridge. The one unceasing rustle of the main stream was frayed along +its margin into a myriad finer noises of murmuring and plashing, as the +massed foliage on a bough dwindles at its edges into more delicate +traceries of distinct sprays and leaves. Round some stones the water +whispered mysteriously, coiling in and out of gurgling recesses, and +against others it broke with a clear chiming tinkle as if elfin anvils +rang; here it droned on with a bee's hum soft and steady, and here it +chuckled and chirped, bubbling up in sudden little rapids and cascades. +At Judy's feet was a thin flat stone, which rested loosely on the top of +another, and flap-flapped, bobbing up and down as the ripple rose and +fell. Sitting idle in the firelight, warmed and fed to unwonted +contentment, Judy watched it half drowsily for a while. Presently she +said: + +"That's the very way the lid of our ould kettle would be goin' at home +when it was on the boil, and me poor mother 'ud bid us keep an eye on +it--like enough to keep us out of divilmint. Och, but that was a cosy +little room of a could night. D'you mind it, Thady?" + +"Ay, sure," said Thady, "but it's one while ago." + +"It is that. A matter of thirty year and more, anyway, since we owned +the little shop. Sure now I remimber the day they shut it up, and put us +out of it, as plain as if it was on'y this mornin'. Grand we that was +childer thought it, because of somebody givin' us the ind of an ould jar +of sweets out of the windy to pacify us. Bedad the fightin' we had over +it was fit to ha' raised the town. But I grabbed meself a biggish lump +of peppermint twist, and would be slinkin' behind me mother to finish +it, and she talkin' at the door to ould Mrs. McClenaghan, and I heard +her sayin' her heart was broke. So I got wond'rin' to myself if the +raison was maybe that we'd ate it all on her. Och, but it's the quare +foolishness people does be remimberin'!" + +"Belike the raison of that is because it's as plinty as anythin' else +wid thim," said Thady, cynically, "or maybe a trifle plintier." + +"Sure we was on'y brats thim times," said Judy, apologetically. "For +anythin' we could tell we might as well be streelin' about under the +width of the sky like a string of wild duck, as stoppin' at home wid a +roof over our misfort'nit heads. Ould Mrs. McClenaghan next door had a +cloak the same pattern as this," Judy continued, selecting her memories +with better judgment. "But 'twas all tatters at the bottom, not worth a +bawbee to mine." + +And Thady said with interest: "Had she now?" + +"And as for me ould shawl," Judy went on, "it's been a scandal and a +caution this last three or four year; droppin' in bits it is, and small +blame to it. I wish I'd a penny for every mile I've tramped in it. Do +you remimber the joke me mother had about it's bein' a conthráry thing +that people thravellin' 'ud always begin a mile at the wrong ind? She'd +be talkin' that way to hearten up me father; but as often as not he'd +on'y let a roar at her to whisht, he was that discouraged. 'Twas a great +wish he had, poor man, to git her back settled in a little place of her +own before he was took. But 'twas in the big barracks of a Union at +Monaghan----" + +"Well, it's all one to the two of thim now anyway," said Thady, finding +that Judy's reminiscences of their family history did not tend to +enliven his meditations over his pipe. + +"Ah sure, everythin' will be all one to the whole of us, plase God, one +of these days," said Judy, who in her present mood could not easily have +realised the keen contentions and scorching jealousies of the night +before; "and when we get done with the thrampin', 'twill make little +enough differ whether it's one mile we wint or twinty hunderd. On'y I'd +liefer than a good dale thim two had had better luck wid it all. Cruel +put about they were many a time, and wantin' the bit to keep the life in +thim, and it just fretted out of thim in the ind I'm thinkin'. The +thought of it comes agin a body when one's sittin' warm and snug," Judy +said, gazing remorsefully round her shadowy, gusty lodging, and then +into the flames, lighting up a bare earth-patch, and down at the dark +folds that fell about her as she crouched on it. She seemed sunk into a +reverie. But after a while she looked up and said without apparent +relevance: "Heaven be her bed this night, the cratur. Thady, you +heathen, we'd a right to be sayin' the Rosary before we git too stupid +altogether. The eyes of you are droppin' into your head wid sleep this +minnit." + +"And me just after lightin' me pipe," remonstrated Thady. + +"Ah thin, hurry up and finish it," said Judy, betraying by this +injunction an invincible ignorance touching a man's sentiments towards +his last screw of tobacco, "or else I'll be off sound. It's the fine +warmth makes me sleepy. Sure wid this on me sorra a breath of could gits +next or nigh me to be keepin' me awake." + +"Och thin, wait till it's out," said Thady. + +"I will so," said Judy. "Sling another stick on the fire, lad, the way +you won't be perished sittin' there in thim woful ould rags. I've plinty +of prayers I might be sayin' till you're ready." + +But in a little while, Thady, lingering over his pipe, became aware, +somewhat to his relief, that she had gone fast asleep, muffled up to the +chin in her cloak, with her head leaning back against the stone wall. He +sat and looked at her for some moments with an expression partly +complacent and partly compunctious. "Bedad now the crathur was bein' +perished alive before I brought that to her," he said to himself. "Very +apt she was to be gettin' her death. 'Twas great luck I had entirely to +pick it up. It's the hard life the likes of her has whatever thrampin' +around. Ay, glory be to God, 'twas the best good turn iver I done her." + +Just at the time when Thady the Tinker was making these reflections +while the firelight flickered and the waters fleeted under Rosbride +bridge, some mile or so higher up the stream, where the long mountain +slopes are folded closer and steeper about it, a great turmoil had +arisen in a deep hollow among walls of the bare rock. Down one face of +these, a huge glistering slab, the river had for certain thousands of +years been taking a foamy leap; but to-night it happened that the rains, +beating for many days on the mountains, had eaten away the clay setting +which cemented a ponderous lump of rock into a niche immediately over +the fall, and the mass had now crashed down into the channel on the very +verge, blocking all the waterway. This, however, was a door hard to keep +shut, when every affluent rill and runnel out on the broad mountain +shoulders went darting swift and white, so that every minute swelled the +forces gathering pent in the barred passage. As the bridled torrent +seethed and climbed, hissing, behind that barrier, the great stone +tottered and swayed, and before the first foam-crest could overpeer it, +yielded to the weight of waters leaned against it, and rocks and flood, +thunderously roaring, rushed down together. + +The sound of it, dulled into a moan, came through Rosbride bridge, and +Thady, who had grown very drowsy, thought to himself that the wind was +getting up, and that they couldn't have done better than stop where they +were, instead of to be setting off tramping on such a dirty wild night. +God knew where they might have got to. + +The flood that broke away, with wave tumbled over wave, out of the +whirling pool, had not far to race down its stony stairs before it +reached a place with a turbulent floor, where the white mouths of other +two streams foamed into it through rock-rifts, loud-throated on either +hand. Thenceforward the water which had threaded the large boulders in +heavy strands coiled like monstrous braids of snaky locks, rose up and +drew together above their tallest heads into a single obliterating fold, +as it slid on smoothly with only now and then a quiver puckering its +surface, as if it had rolled over some live creature that writhed. Its +mounded solidity made its rapid motion look strange and terrible. Where +circles of thin froth swam round on it slowly, it was as black and white +as a bit of the bog in a snowstorm or under a drift of summer daisies. +At the turn of the ravine's last winding above the bridge, it plucked +away as it passed a small company of fir-trees, that long had dropped +their cones and needles into the river from a coign of vantage on a +jutting crag, and a minute after, anybody who had looked up from beneath +the arch would have seen the glimmering points of foam extinguished like +lights, further and nearer, lost amid the shadowy onsweeping of +something that set all the darkness astir as if it were one vast wing +unfurling. And then for a moment, in the narrow space lit by the fading +fire, he would have known that he was cut off from the world by chaos, +which poised towards him a formless surging front, and stooped and fell. +But as it happened nobody was keeping a watch there. + +What wakened Thady was the clang of his cluster of tinware, which the +wave dashed against the wall behind him. But before he knew this, it had +gathered him up and swung him across with it over to the other side of +the arch. There he caught hold of a twisted ivy-tod and a bough of +mountain-ash, whence he dropped on the bank, and crawled up it out of +reach, commenting in forcible language upon the occurrence, by which he +was still astoundedly bewildered. + +Judy, who was aroused in like manner, had her chance too. For a branch +of the same tree crooked a friendly arm towards her as she was borne +past, and she would have grasped it only that the weight of her heavy +cloth cloak dragged her down. So that instead of returning to dry land +for many a long day's tramp, she went out to sea in company with sundry +wrenched-off boughs, and mats of heather, and bundles of withered +bracken, and other such waifs and strays, none of which were ever again +heard tidings of any more than they were inquired after in the lonely +places they had left. Only for some stormy days the wrecked and sodden +banks of the Rosbride river were haunted by a forlorn-looking object of +a lame tramp, who sought vainly what his despair hoped to find. As he +roamed about in it, he had just one spell of consolation, which he was +often muttering over to himself. It was something he called, "The best +turn, anyway, I iver done the crathur in her life. Little enough, God +knows, little enough, but the best good turn." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +FORECASTS + + +When Mrs. Joyce used in her last days to predict regretfully that her +youngest daughter would never marry, she said a bold word, for at this +time still Theresa's years fell short of twenty, and she was generally +recognised as the prettiest girl to be seen at Mass in the small, ugly +chapel down beyant near Ballybrosna. Some people, it is true, said that +she was "just a fairy of a crathur, and too little for anythin'," and +she was, no doubt, diminutive in size. Nor had she any brilliancy of +colouring to make amends in a humming-bird's fashion for the +insignificance of her proportions, resembling rather, with her dark eyes +and hair, one of those filmy white blossoms which look the paler and +frailer for their knots of ebon stamens, or the delicate moth who shows +fine black pencillings among his pearly down. Still, nobody denied that +she had "an uncommon purty face of her own," and the neighbours, +moreover, always found her "plisant and frindly and gay enough," when +they found her at all. But they remarked among themselves that one +seldom seen e'er a sight of Therasa Joyce these times anywheres about. +They supposed she was took up wid lookin' after her mother, who wasn't +gettin' her health over well this good while back. I think myself that +Theresa's invisibility could be only in part accounted for thus, as the +explanation does not cover the fact that to slip the wrong side of the +dyke, or turn aside among screening hillocks and hollows when she +noticed the approach of her acquaintances, was the course she always +adopted if she could achieve it without hurting anybody's feelings. +Theresa much disliked doing this, as a rule, though she broke it on one +occasion in a way that surprised and puzzled those who knew her best. + +But whether Mrs. Joyce forecast the future rightly or wrongly, she had +certainly an erroneous impression on her mind when, as often happened, +she wound up her disconsolate musings by saying resentfully, "And the +back of me hand to some I could name." If she had proceeded to do so, +she would probably have mentioned persons who had done nothing to bring +about the result she was deploring, and she never thought of connecting +it with the events which had accompanied Ody Rafferty's flitting from +the Three Mile Farm more than a twelvemonth before Denis O'Meara came to +the place. + +Until Ody took up his abode at Lisconnel he had always lived with his +father, who farmed a remote bit of land out towards Lough Glenglas. It +was a holding which had been wrested from the grip of a surrounding bog +by earlier generations of Raffertys, who were a strenuous race; but in +Ody's father's time their energies had taken a turn not conducive to +reclamation, or even to the maintenance of what was already won. All +Ody's many elder brethren--sisters there were none--had run wild, and +ended by running it so far afield that the narrow, whitewashed house, +lonesome and bleak, saw them no more. Its mistress also died, failing, +perhaps, other means of exit--running wild being in her case +impracticable--and finding life impossibly dreary without Ned, the +least-good-for of her sons; and the household was thus reduced to old +Michael Rafferty, and his aunt, and little Ody. These domestic changes, +in conjunction with other untoward chances, sadly hindered farming +operations, and nature made prompt use of the pause. Season by season +the patch of tilled ground seemed to shrink at the wish of the greedy +black land that girdled it about. The outlying fields grew first garish +with golden ragweed and scarlet poppies, and then dull green again with +the brown-knotted rushes and sombre sedge, and all other marish growths, +until the re-annexation was complete, and they once more were +homogeneous part and parcel of the conquering bog. Old Michael used to +trudge heavily round his dwindling territories, which were haunted by +memories of better days. There had been a time when they had actually +"kep' a pair of plough-horses." I believe that he would have fretted his +heart out much sooner than he did if it had not been for Ody, his only +remaining son, "whose aquils," his aunt Moggy sometimes remarked rather +bitterly, "he consaited you wouldn't find plintier in the world than an +apple sittin' on a sloe-bush." As the boy grew up the old man's pride +and pleasure in him were tempered by apprehensions lest he should "take +off wid himself like the other lads." However, Ody never did this nor +anything worse than wax somewhat over-confident and self-opiniated; and +a year or so before his father's death he became associated with Felix +O'Beirne in the management of an illicit still off away in the bog, +which gave him an object in life, and had a sobering and settling effect +upon him. + +He was not more than twenty when his father suddenly died one early +spring morning, and he found himself left responsible for a few acres +well cropped with weeds, and sundry arrears of rent to be extracted from +their produce. Whereupon he resolved to abandon the struggle, and set up +on a less ambitious footing in one of the cabins at Lisconnel. So he got +ready for the move by selling off his little bit of live stock, all +except Rory, the old black pony, who had a very large head and a white +face like a grotesque mask, and with whom he would not have parted on +the most tempting terms. As for his great-aunt Moggy, when she heard of +this arrangement, she resigned herself to her fate, which was obviously +the Union away at Moynalone. What else should become of her, since she +was past field-work, and nobody could expect Ody now to be bothered with +keeping her idle, and he with scarce a penny to his name after settling +with Mr. Nugent. "Ody," she reflected, "didn't mind a thraneen what way +he had things in the house, and didn't care to be keepin' fowls, so what +good 'ud he get out of her at all?" Moggy was a dull and rather +cross-tempered old person, who had grown up in souring shade, and never +had a life of her own to live, nor yet a faculty for slipping smoothly +into other people's. Her slight intercourse with Ody had hitherto +chiefly consisted of quarrels. In fact, only the day before his father's +death, they had fallen out abusively about the broiling of some bacon, +and this seemed to make her destination all the more inevitable. +Therefore Moggy likewise set about her few dismal preparations, +oppressed by a stunned sense that the black hour she had been dreading +most of her life was now just going to strike. + +On the morning of the day Ody was to flit she held a sort of carouse at +her solitary breakfast over the remnant of a pound of tea which she had +saved after the wake. Tea was ten prices fifty years ago, and a very +rare luxury at the Three Mile Farm. As she poured it strong and black +out of the badly broken teapot, the whole one being packed up, she +thought that was the last time she'd ever have the chance again in this +world to be wetting herself a cup of tea, and she thickened it +recklessly with lumps of damp brown sugar, and swung it round in her +cracked saucer to cool, and tried hard to enjoy it. She was still +lingering over it when Ody came into the kitchen, which caused her, poor +soul, instinctively to thrust away the betraying teapot out of sight on +the black hob. + +"What way was you intindin' to go, then, aunt?" said Ody. + +"To Moynalone?" she said, turning to face her future with a deep sinking +of heart. "Sure, I suppose it's trampin' over I'll be." + +"And I won'er how long you think to be doin' it," said Ody--"a matter of +ten mile?" + +"Where's the hurry at all, supposin'?" said his aunt, desperately. + +"Blathers!" said Ody, "there's room in the cart waitin' ready. You'd be +better bundlin' yourself into it than to be sittin' here all the mornin' +delayin' us." + +"'Deed, then, beggars drive as chape as they walk," she said, "and I +might as well be gettin' the lift as far as you can take me." + +The old white-faced pony preferred to pace slowly on the long bog-road, +and, as Ody always respected his whims, the journey barely ended with +the March daylight. The old, sad-visaged woman sat all the while under +her muffling shawl in silent apathy undisturbed, and as during the +latter stages of the drive a blinking drowsiness co-operated with her +want of interest in the scenes through which she jogged, she naturally +looked around her in bewilderment when roused by the jerk of the +stopping cart. She expected to find herself in the streets of Moynalone, +drawn up, probably, at the door of the big Union workhouse. But, instead +of its long rows of casements staring down blankly on her, she saw only +the one mole's-eye window of a tiny whitewashed cabin peering at her +from beneath its thatched eaves, and all about it the great lonely bog +spreading away with never a trace of any town. + +"Och, wirrasthrew, man, what are you after doin' on me?" she said, +beginning to bewail herself querulously. "Sure you haven't brought me to +any place at all. Every hour of the black night it'ill be afore ever +I'll get there now, and the Union'ill be shut, and what's to become of +me then I dunno. You'd a right to ha' tould me----" + +"Blathers!" said her nephew, "git down out of that wid your yawpin'. +D'you want the folk here to think you're a sackful of ould hins? And go +in and be seein' after a bit of fire; it's late enough to be sure. What +fool's talk have you about the Union, and bad luck to it? You'll find +the things for the supper in the inside of the ould churn. Union, +moyah!" + +And old Moggy, alighting with cramped limbs, entered her home at +Lisconnel, feeling blissfully as if she had been _unpacked_ out of a +most horrible nightmare. + +Ody was probably actuated by several unassorted motives in dealing thus +with his superfluous old great-aunt. Pride and pity and perversity and +generosity--all had, no doubt, some influence upon his conduct, while +long use and wont had unawares given her the same sort of hold upon his +affections that was possessed in a much higher degree by Rory, the pony, +whose humours were of course easier to put up with than human foibles. +But the old woman measured his magnanimity by the immensity of the +benefit which it had conferred upon her, and with a strong revulsion of +feeling she formed an opinion of his virtues and talents as exalted +quite as that which she had often secretly jibed at in his father. +Accordingly she sang his praises unweariedly among their new neighbours, +and, as Ody was vain enough not to dislike the echoes which reached him, +he soon began to look upon her with more complacency, so that they +agreed much better than heretofore. She found no small solace, too, +after her long cronyless isolation up at the Three Mile Farm, in the +company of Mrs. Joyce, and Mrs. Keogh, and the other Lisconnel dames. In +short, a kind of Indian summer of content seemed to be setting in for +her. Moggy's mind, however, was of the self-tormenting type, and soon +devised means of marring it. They took the form of apprehensions that +Ody would presently get married, and that thereupon "the wife would put +her out of it." If she had only known, Ody was at this time, as for many +years ensuing, far too much taken up with himself, and Rory, and "the +little consarn away in the bog," to entertain any such project; but as +it was she felt that the event, with all its direful consequences, +perpetually hung over her, and might at any moment bring her new +prosperity to a miserable end. Her impending great-niece-in-law was a +vaguely appalling spectre, who threatened to take the roof from over her +head, and the bit out of her mouth, and turn her adrift to founder +hopelessly on the workhouse doorsteps. But it was not until more than a +year after their settlement at Lisconnel that she endued her bogey with +one definite form, by making up her mind that Ody "was thinkin' of +Theresa Joyce." + +Her reason was that she had one fine evening seen him carrying Theresa's +water-pail for her down the hill, an ordinary act of courtesy enough, +but the sight of which suddenly darkened the world before her foolish +old eyes more dismally than if the golden fleece of the summer sunset +had been smothered under the blackest pall ever woven in cloud-looms. +"Fine colloguin' they're havin' together," she said to herself as she +watched them and their long shadows down the slope, "and he sloppin' the +half of it over the edge instead of mindin' what he's doin'. It's +throwin' me out on the side of the road she'll be." In reality Theresa +was wondering why there would be, a quare black sidimint like, in the +water on some days and not on others; and Ody was explaining the +phenomenon confidently and erroneously on an extemporised theory of his +own. But to old Moggy's fears it seemed quite possible that they might +be fixing the wedding-day. For Theresa Joyce herself she had no manner +of misliking at all, considering her to be "a very dacint plisant-spoken +little girl," but Mrs. Ody Rafferty seemed none the less certain to +evict her without remorse. And Ody's aunt retired to rest that night in +a despondent mood. + +It was just about this time that Denis O'Meara came to stay at Lisconnel +on sick leave. The O'Mearas lived in one of the three cabins which used +to stand near the O'Beirne's forge, but which the great Famine and Fever +year left tenantless for ever after. Their household consisted of the +two infirm old people with their melancholy middle-aged son Tim, and +their sickly grandson, little Joe Egan, who was Denis's cousin. Now +Denis had been wounded in a battle somewhere out in India, and had been +promoted sergeant--"and he but a young boyo so to spake"--and owned four +medals, and stood six foot three in his stockings, and was as fine a +figure of a man as you could wish to see, let alone his gorgeous scarlet +uniform, which was a sight to behold; so if he was not a hero, get me +one, as we say in Lisconnel. But Lisconnel was quite satisfied with him +in that worshipful character, and found it very easy to adopt the +appropriate attitude towards him. For Denis was good-natured and +cheerful and never conceited at all, nor vain when there was anything +more to the purpose for him to be; qualities which have an irresistible +fascination in distinguished personages and make their followers' duty +a pleasure. It was wonderful how his sojourn enlivened everybody, even +his mournful little old grandmother, whose gratification expressed +itself chiefly in regrets that his poor father and mother had not lived +to see the illigant man he'd grown. When she said this to the younger +matrons of Lisconnel, they thought that the crathurs' fate was +commiserable indeed, and earnestly hoped that they themselves would be +spared, plase God, to witness the splendid careers that lay before their +own Denises at present playing among the puddles. But the older ones had +to content themselves with the knowledge that if they had only just so +happened to get the same chances, their own lads would have done the +very same things; a fact which seemed to give them a sort of +hypothetical proprietorship in Denis's glory. His presence brightened up +society as a tall poppy brightens up all a sombre potato-plot, and his +conversation brought strange lands and extraordinary events within one +remove--a single pair of eyes and ears--of everybody's experience. For +many years after "the summer we had Denis O'Meara up here" made a vivid +time-mark in our annals; and I fancy that the stories of some of his +exploits, with their outlines looming large through a mythical +mistiness, still float in our atmosphere. There is at least one legend +relating how a soldier out in the East cut off a mad elephant's head at +a stroke of his sabre, with the hero of which Denis O'Meara could +probably be identified. Altogether he was so exceptionally brilliant a +figure both in himself and in his fortunes, that the interest which he +excited had no element of envy in it, as might have been the case had +emulation seemed less utterly beyond everybody's reach. + +Next to his cousin, Joe Egan, a stunted, starved-looking sprissawn of a +lad, perhaps the most appreciative of his admirers was big Hugh +McInerney, whom people were apt to call an omadhawn. He also was, +comparatively speaking, a stranger at Lisconnel, having come there only +that spring to give John O'Driscoll a hand with the building of his mud +cabin, after which he stayed about doing what odd jobs offered at that +slack season of the year. Now and then he tramped on distillery business +for Felix O'Beirne, and generally acquitted himself in a manner which +appeared worthy of contempt to young Ody Rafferty, who was his companion +on these expeditions. Ody expressed his opinion in unqualified terms, +saying, "Sure it 'ud disgust you to see him moonin' along like an ould +donkey strayed out of a fair." But his senior partner, rather to his +annoyance, persisted in replying, "But, mind you, the chap's no fool." +He had nobody belonging to him at Ballybrosna, whence he came, and some +people said that he had been a workhouse child. + +At the time of Denis O'Meara's arrival, he was darning the widow Joyce's +thatch for her, and "not killin' himself ever the job," as people said, +when they reckoned how many days he had been visible crawling about on +the top of her little house, a conspicuous position in which he looked, +Mrs. Con Ryan remarked, "a quarer great gawk than he did on dry lan'." +He was occupied thus on the first afternoon that Denis walked up there +with some of the other lads, and while they talked to Mrs. Joyce and +Theresa underneath, the thatcher took a leisurely and critical survey of +the scarlet and golden newcomer, from his wonderfully polished boots to +his sleek dark head and fierce moustache. The verdict he pronounced to +himself with unfeigned satisfaction was, "Grandeur's no name for him." +Hugh himself, of large and lumbering frame, had a shag of reddish +flaxen hair, which made thatch-like eaves above his small, light-blue +eyes and high burnt-brick-coloured cheek-bones. He wore whitey-brown +rags. After the rest had gone on and in, he slithered down to the ground +and told Theresa, who was still standing by the door, that she didn't +look the size of a bit of a lady-bird beside the soldier fellow. If +anybody else had made this personal remark, Theresa might have been a +little hurt by it, as she wished herself of more imposing stature; but +sure nobody minded poor Hugh McInerney; at any rate she said, "Aye, he's +a terrible big man, isn't he? Apt to knock the head off himself he'd be +if he was offerin' to come in at our door." + +However, on the very next day Denis contrived to accomplish that feat +without any such accident when he called in at the Joyces' to ask was +his grandmother there--which she was not, nor indeed likely to be. +Failing to find the old woman, he postponed his quest for the present +and stayed talking to Theresa, who, as it happened, was at home; and +then he stopped again outside to help Hugh McInerney by handing him up +some rolls of green-sodded scraws and slippery bundles of rushes. His +long reach made him serviceable here, though his left arm was still +partially disabled by the sabre-cut that had invalided him. The gleam of +the red coat at the Joyces' door had apparently as fascinating an effect +upon Lisconnel as if the place had been inhabited by a population that +bellowed and gobbled its greetings instead of saying, "How's yourself, +lad?" and "It's a grand day, thank God," as it came sauntering up +dispersedly from various quarters. Before many minutes had passed quite +a numerous group were collected, for in these long midsummer days there +is little to be done up here except save the turf, a business which fine +weather makes short work of. In the weeks before the potato-digging, +employment becomes as scarce as the pitaties themselves, and the hours +hang limp and flaccid between the meals which punctuate them with a +plateful of coarse-grained gruel. Therefore to Christy Sheridan and +Terence Kilfoyle, with half a dozen of their neighbours, the sight of +their distinguished visitor was an oasis in a very arid desert, and they +made towards it thirstily. + +By and by the group drifted away from the road before the Joyces' house +into the rough sward behind it; rather literally drifted, as the cause +of the move was the wind, a strong soft west wind which had been blowing +over the bog all the morning in great wide gusts. They seemed to lean +hard against whatever they met, and made standing still an effort, and +devastated conversation by carrying off important fragments of it +uncaught, no matter how loudly one bawled. But the big boulders and +furze-clumps strewn about in a slight depression close by offered seats +and shelter opportunely; so amongst them presently appeared Denis +O'Meara's scarlet tunic, and Theresa Joyce's brown-striped shawl, and +Mrs. Ryan's white-frilled flapping cap, which she said was bein' +fluttered to destruction off her ould head, and Hugh McInerney's +many-rifted caubeen, for he declared that until the flurry of the blast +went down a bit you might as well be lettin' on to thatch the sails +whirlin' of a win'mill. And the rest of the company following suit might +be described in terms of their attire as for the most part sad-coloured +and dilapidated. It was just such a gathering as may be sitting to sun +themselves at Lisconnel this day--if it happens to be a fine summer +one--but with a touch of brilliance, both for eye and ear, added by the +young soldier's presence. They had, however, but fitful gleams to bask +in, for the sky was all feathered over with little silver-white plumes, +which the wind kept ruffling by so fast that the light flickered in and +out continually, as if it had come through a canopy of large slowly +waving leaves. Still, they gossiped beneath it with much satisfaction, +and catechised Denis about his adventures, and told him all the news of +the countryside; and there seemed to be no particular reason why they +should not go on doing so indefinitely. What in the end broke up the +assembly was a slight mishap that befell Theresa Joyce. + +It cannot be denied that Theresa was rather vain about her long black +hair, which she had only of late begun to put up in thick silken coils. +Her mother said you had to take your two hands to a one of them, like as +if you were twisting a big _suggawn_ (hay-rope); and they looked almost +too heavy for her small head, no matter how closely they were wound +about it. A rippling wave, moreover, ran through these tresses, which +were exceedingly soft and fine; so her vanity was perhaps excusable. At +any rate, it led her to fashion herself a small knot of cherry-coloured +ribbon made of a bit that had trimmed the sleeve of her mother's purple +merino gown. It was a _very_ small knot, because most of the bit had got +mildewed lying up, before Theresa grew to concern herself about such +things. But it looked as bright in her hair as a ruddy berry on a dark +foliaged creeper, and she wore it with a pleasure, which was destined to +be brief. For as she sat knitting with the quietly creeping fingers of +an expert in that art, a vagrant gust maliciously whisked off her little +gawd, and tossing it contumeliously on the ground, as if it were not +worth carrying, began to puff it along, skimming over the heather and +tussocks. Denis O'Meara all but rescued it for her, only that Hugh +McInerney--the omadhawn--starting forward at the same time, blundered up +against him, and tumbled with him into a furze-bush. And before they +picked themselves up, the cherry-coloured knot had met its fate in the +shape of the Ryans' black and white kid. She was tethered close by, and +had been apparently absorbed in scratching her forehead with her left +hind foot in a way that said much for the limberness of her youthful +joints. But as the bit of ribbon flirted past her she made a rapid +snatch, and swallowed it at a gulp. Mrs. Ryan stood dismayed at possible +serious consequences to the kid, and Theresa at the certain loss of her +scrap of finery; and everybody else was saying to Hugh McInerney: "Och, +you great omadhawn, why couldn't you keep yourself aisy? He had it safe +enough on'y for you gettin' under his feet"--everybody, that is, except +Denis O'Meara, who said: "Sure now the both of us wasn't mindin' rightly +where we was chargin' to; and the raison of that belike was the nayther +of us thinkin' so much of what we was runnin' after, as of who we was +runnin' for--and small blame to us bedad." + +But Hugh's self-esteem was not restored by the good-natured excuse. He +said: "Truth it is, I'd a right to ha' sted quiet. For the on'y notion I +had was puttin' meself for'ard to be gettin' a hould of it before any of +the others." And he walked off crestfallen to resume his perch on the +thatch. + +As for Theresa, she ignored Denis's pretty speech, and said 'deed now +she remembered her mother had bid her step up and see what way Ody +Rafferty's aunt was that morning. And she, too, withdrew from the group +to make this visit of inquiry. + +As she passed on her way under the place where Hugh was thatching, he +dropped a small handful of rushes on her head to call her attention, and +when she looked up she saw his red-brick-hued face in a wild +tow-coloured halo peering down at her from over the eaves. "I am sorry I +lost it on you," he said. + +"Ah, no matter about it; and it wasn't your fau't more than another's," +said Theresa. + +"You'd ha' had it now," said Hugh, "if it wasn't for the little goat +gettin' the chance to ait it while himself was tumblin' over me. But I'd +as lief have your hair the way it is now. It is the blackest ever I +seen. One might think you'd gathered it out of the middles of them red +poppies there. Stick a couple of them in it, if you want anythin'; but +to my mind it's better widout. On'y if you've the fancy to be tyin' the +bit of red string through it, I'm sorry it was ate." + +Hugh's head drew back, and disappeared from her view; but next moment +she heard him say mournfully: "What am I after doin'? Puttin' me fut +that far down a houle it's caught fast between a couple of rafters. +Firrm it is, begorrah. If I don't mind what I'm at, it's pullin' the +half of their house down, and wranchin' me ankle I'll be before I free +meself." And she saw him struggling cautiously on the roof all the +while she was ascending the slope to Ody Rafferty's door, within which +his aunt was at present a prisoner. + +A reluctant and repining one she was, having been seized with a bad +attack of lumbago at a time when she felt particularly anxious to keep a +vigilant eye upon what occurred in her neighbourhood, instead of being +left dependent upon hearsay for a knowledge of anything happening +outside her four draughty walls. Many a care-infested hour she fretted +away between them. For how could she tell with what insidious steps the +calamity to ensue from Ody's courtship of Theresa Joyce might all the +while be stealing on her? She dared not confide her fears to any +neighbour, nor would she have put much faith in the report of +observation unwhetted thereby; and she lived in daily dread of hearing +the news announced as no mere conjecture or rumour, but a very hard +fact. As the days wore on the idea took possession of her more and more +completely, but she could only wreak her helpless ill-humour by doing +foolish and futile things, such as dilating to Ody upon the imprudence +of getting married, and the undesirable qualities of black-looking slips +of colleens--a simple and ingenious expedient for putting him out of +conceit with all and any of them; while she assumed towards Theresa a +demeanor so glum and repellent that the girl could not attribute it +entirely to the irritability caused by rheumatic twinges, and from one +of her charitably intentioned visits returned with a disconcerted +expression, and a resolve, which she kept, to pay no more. But in fact +Ody was during these weeks even more than usually engrossed by the +affairs of the inobtrusive little manufactory, which he and Felix +O'Beirne superintended away in a retired part of the bog; and not they +alone, but Lisconnel collectively, had been going through some +excitement on this account. This was occasioned by the livelier interest +which the police had recently manifested in that branch of home +industry, stimulated by admonitions from their authorities to the effect +that the hunting down of illicit stills, and confiscation of the +produce, might with advantage be carried on more energetically. Hence +had resulted several appearances in Lisconnel of the constabulary from +Ballybrosna and other stations, and when these occurred Ody was in his +element of wiles and stratagems. More than once he enjoyed the moment of +their visitors' departure on a wild-goose chase, "consaitin' they've got +us be the hind leg this time for sartin;" and long did he chuckle over +the evening when they came and "sat discoorsin' as plisint and aisy as a +rabbit in its houle," by a hearth where there was "enough of the stuff +to float the lot of them lyin' widin six inches of their shiny brogues." +It was, however, thought expedient to guard against a repetition of this +perilous entertainment, and the contraband crocks were transferred to a +still more secluded hiding-place in the queer tiny sod-and-stone shanty +with Hugh McInerney, who had displayed unexpected strategical ability +and presence of mind under late emergencies, now knocked up for himself +in a hollow behind the hill. So old Moggy's fears might have been better +employed. Then about this time, too, a thrill was caused by the +mysterious horseman, who visited the O'Beirnes' forge one night, and got +old Felix to break open for him an immensely strong, small iron box +which he carried. The same box being found next morning lying empty in +the little Lisconnel stream, beside which the horse, "a grand big roan," +was quietly grazing, while his rider was nowhere, nor was ever after +anywhere, to be seen; an incident which gave scope for infinite +speculation at Lisconnel. + +All these things happened before Ody's aunt got about again. By that +time it was well on in August, and the season having been hot and dry, +Lisconnel's oat-patches were already reflecting as if in a mirror, +tarnished somewhat and rusted, the broad golden blaze that had looked +down on them so steadily, and people had begun to think about reaping. +The Ryans' field, indeed, was so ripe by the day of Ballybrosna Big +Fair, that Paddy Ryan commissioned Hugh McInerney to bring him back a +reaping-hook from it. Hugh was going to attend it on business of his +own, and Ody Rafferty had some bulkier commissions to execute in behalf +of his neighbours. But he encountered some difficulties in getting under +way, due to the inopportune devices of old Rory, whom he proposed to +bring with him. Ody had been careful not to put on his best clothes +until he had caught the beast, because, as he remarked, "He well knew +the crathur 'ud be off wid himself hidin' in the unhandiest place the +divil 'ud put in his mind, if he noticed e'er a dacint stitch on him." +Yet despite this precaution, when his master went to look for him after +breakfast, no black pony was in sight. + +"And he that'll be foosterin' everywhere under your feet other whiles, +he's that fond of company," said Ody's aunt, who hobbled out of doors +for the first time to assist in the search. "Belike he's seen you +rubbin' up your brogues, and be raison of that he's took off wid +himself. Bedad, now the big ould head of him is as full of desate as it +can hould." + +"He's a notorious schemer, God forgive him," Ody said, rather sadly, for +it went against the grain with him to admit defects in Rory. + +But his scheming bade fair to prove successful, as Ody after long +hunting stood baffled at the door, with his expedition seemingly +frustrated, when Hugh McInerney passing by reported that he "was after +seein' the baste lanin' gathered up close agin the back of the big stone +above there, wid a continted grin on the ould gob of him that 'ud +frighten you wid the villiny was in it." Whereupon the two young men +went to dislodge him from his fool's paradise, and the three started +together without further delay. + +Till a short way down the road they met old Felix O'Beirne, and with him +Denis O'Meara, at whose heels followed Joe Egan, ragged and small, his +habit being to dog his splendid cousin so persistently that old Mrs. +Byers next door said she wondered "the young chap didn't of an odd +while take him be the two shoulders and sling him over the dyke." + +"So you're off to the fair," said old O'Beirne. "And is it sellin' the +pony you'd be at last? Sure, now, he'll be the pick of the market, +that's sartin." + +"Ah, they'll niver give me me price for him, the naygurs," said Ody. + +"Our Captin-Commandin' here had a right to take him off of you for a +throoper," said old O'Beirne, "and, faix, there wouldn't be his aquil in +the len'th and breadth of the army. What 'ud you offer for him, lad? +Look at the size of the head he has on him, and the onnathural white +face of him that's fit to scare a rigimint before it, if there was +nothin' else." + +"Is it broke bankrupt you'd have me then?" said Denis, "settin' up to be +buyin' meself mounts of that expinsive discripshin?" + +"Musha, good gracious, man, promise him the first thruppinny-bit you +meet floatin' down the river on a grindstone, and you'll be buyin' every +hair in his tail," said the old man. "But come along and don't be +delayin' thim. They're goin' after fairin's for their sweethearts, the +way you'd be yourself if you worn't too great a naygur. Or, maybe, +there isn't anythin' good enough for her to be had in Ballybrosna--is +that the raison of it?" + +Little Joe was beginning to say in a resentful shout: "Naygur +yourself--he and I are goin' to get----" But Denis pulled him on +jocularly by the collar, and the parties went their several ways. + +Ody then said: "Sweethearts is it? He's the quare ould man for talkin'. +Glory be to the great goodness, I'm throubled wid ne'er a one. 'Here's +out of it,' sez I. 'Onnathural,' sez he, musha cock him up, and himself +shoein' ould garrons all the days of his life. Hi along, Rory, jewel!" + +But Hugh said, meditatively, and more than half to himself, which was +rather a habit of his: "Well, now, for the matter of the fairin', it's +just the best len'th of ribbon I can get thim to give me for a shillin'. +Yella it's to be. I wasn't long aither plannin' a way to find out the +colour she'd like. Sure, I gave her a bunch of flowers wid poppies in +it, and daisies, and furze-blossom, and foxglove, and forgit-me-not, and +midowsweet, and sez I to her, which of thim was the finest coloured. +And, sez she, the furze-blossom was, be raison of it bein' the bright +gould all over, that the others had mostly only a spark of somewheres +inside. So it's to be yella. Tellin' you the truth, I'd liefer she +wouldn't be wearin' e'er such a thing at all, anyways not in her hair, +that's a sight purtier just in the big black twists. But, sure, it's the +fancy she has, and morebetoken, I think bad of me lettin' the little +goat swally the weeny bit she had on her. Ay bedad, I'd a right to be +bringin' it to her; and, at all evints, I'd be doin' a foolish thing to +come home widout it, and me not gettin' the bit of fat bacon these six +weeks next Saturday to make up the price. I won'er now what len'th +they'd give you for one shillin'?" + +But Ody, who had not been listening, only said, oracularly: "Och! that's +accordin'," which did not materially assist Hugh's speculations. + +Yellow ribbons were not plentiful at Ballybrosna fair, and Hugh +McInerney had to ask for them vainly at several stalls before he came to +an old-clothes cart, where the proprietress, being hot and cross, took +him aback by replying: "And who ever heard tell of sellin' ribbons be +the len'th, you quare-lookin' stookawn?" + +"Sure it's meself couldn't say but you might; I niver had any call to be +buyin' such a thing before. But a bit that one shillin' 'ud be the +price of is what I'm wishful to be gettin', if it was yella--and beggin' +your pardon, ma'am," Hugh answered with a glib meekness, which mollified +the old woman as much as his not undesigned mention of his shilling. + +So she said, "'Deed, now, I believe I've a splindid yella bit +somewheres, a trifle creased in the folds, that I could make you a +prisint of for a shillin'." And she rummaged, and unrolled before him +interminable coils of vivid dandelion-hued ribbon. "The grand colour of +it couldn't be bet," she said, "in Ireland. You could see it a mile off, +and you wouldn't get the match of it in Dublin under half-a-crown. If +she wouldn't be plased wid that, you've got an odd one to satisfy." + +Ody with Rory came by as she was wrapping it up in paper, and Hugh, +pointing to his purchase with a melancholy air, said, in an aggrieved +tone: "It's a _terrible_ quantity they're about givin' me--yards and +yards--enough to rope round a haystack; and it's an ojis colour. Troth, +now, if she takes the notion to be stickin' the whole of it on top of +the little black head of her, it's an objec' she'll make of herself, she +will so. It's a pity. I'd liefer there hadn't been the half of it." + +"What for then are you gettin' more than enough of whatever it is?" Ody +asked not unreasonably. "Supposin' you wanted any such thrash at all at +all." + +"Ah, sure, I settled in me own mind to be spendin' me shillin' on it, +and that's the way it is," Hugh said resignedly. "Maybe she'll have more +wit, the bit of a crathur; she might never put it on. So now I've on'y +to see after Paddy Ryan's rapin'-hook, and then I'm done. And is it +carryin' them two bags all the way home you'd be? Sure there's plinty of +room for them on the baste." + +"Ay, is there?" said Ody. "But the fac' is Rory's in none too good a +temper this minyit, goodness help him, and he'll be apt to thravel more +contint, the crathur, if he sees he's not the on'y body wid a loadin'." + +"Rax me over the one of them," said Hugh, "I've nought barrin' the bit +of ribbon, and the rapin'-hook 'ill be nothin' to me at all." + +And in this way they plodded back to Lisconnel. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A FAIRING + + +Up at Lisconnel, meanwhile, as the idle hours loitered by, Ody +Rafferty's aunt grew tired of her solitary housekeeping, and late in the +afternoon she made her way down as far as the Joyces'. Here a number of +the neighbours were sitting about in almost the same place where Theresa +had sustained the loss of her cherry-coloured knot. But to-day there +were no rough breezes stirring to bring about such disasters by their +unmannerly pranks. The sun-steeped air was so still that the thick +bushes stood as steady as the boulders, and even the rushes nodded +slightly and stiffly. As the old woman hobbled down the slope she saw +Denis O'Meara's scarlet uniform gleaming martially against a background +of dark broom and hoary rock. Its wearer was, however, very peacefully +employed in pulling the silky floss off the heads of the bog-cotton, +which lay in a great heap before him on a flat-topped boulder, with a +big bunch of many-hued wild flowers beside it. Theresa Joyce, who sat +opposite to him, was pulling bog-cotton too, though less diligently, for +it might have been noticed that she often looked off her work, and +towards the scrap of road that lay within her ken. Joe Egan was at his +cousin's elbow, and a few other lads and lasses made a rough circle. But +old Mrs. Joyce, and old Mrs. Ryan, and old Paddy Ryan, and old Felix +O'Beirne had established themselves on a low grassy bank at a little +distance. It was kept so closely cropped by the Ryans' goat that its +dandelions grew dwarfed and stalkless, and were set flat in the fine +sward like mock suns. All this day the real sun had shone on it so +strongly that the air was aromatic with the odour of its dim-blossomed +herbs, and to touch it was like laying your hand on the warm side of +some sleek-coated beast. Old Paddy said you might think you were sitting +on the back of an ould cow, but his wife rejoined that "you'd have to go +far enough from Lisconnel, worse luck, before you'd get the chance of +doin' such a thing." And she shook her head over the reflection so +regretfully that a matter-of-fact person might have inferred her to have +been formerly much in the habit of enjoying seats on the backs of cows. + +These elders, from where they sat, commanded a comprehensive view of the +crops of Lisconnel, its potatoes and oats, green and gold, meshed in +their grey stone fences, and flecked with obstructive boulders and +laboured cairns. In the middle of the Ryans' neighbouring field there is +a block of quartzite, as big as a small turf-stack, which gleamed +exceedingly white from amongst the deep muffling greenery of the +potato-plants. Mrs. Joyce had been praising their thriving aspect to old +Paddy, who, however, was disposed to express a gloomy view of them. + +"It's too rank they're growin' altogether," he said; "ne'er a big crop +you'll get under that heigth of haulms. 'Heavy thatchin' and light +liftin',' as the sayin' is." + +To Felix O'Beirne the smooth leafy surface recalled a far-off incident +of the War, when the dense foliage of a certain potato-field had +permitted the execution of a curious military manoeuvre. It was one of +old O'Beirne's favourite stories, and he often related it at full +length, but to-day it was cut short by the arrival of Ody Rafferty's +aunt, whom Mrs. Joyce and Mrs. Ryan were prompt to greet, making room +for her between them on the bank with an alacrity which somehow conveyed +an impression of uneasiness lest she should establish herself elsewhere. + +Presently she said: "And what at all is Theresa busy wid over +yonder--and young O'Meara? Is it bogberries they're after pullin'?" + +Mrs. Joyce said: "No, ma'am, it isn't bogberries;" and left further +explanations to Mrs. Ryan, with the air of one who refrains from +self-glorification, but counts upon its being done for her, more +gracefully, by deputy. + +"Sure wasn't he out on the bog the len'th of the day, since early this +mornin', he and little Joe, gadrin' her the bog-cotton?" said Mrs. Ryan. +"The full of a pitaty-creel he brought her. They have it there in a +hape." + +"'Twas because he heard her sayin' last night she wished she had a good +bit of it to stuff the pillow she's makin' me," put in Mrs. Joyce. "Off +he went after it the first thing this mornin'." + +"Whethen now, is that the way of the win'?" said Ody Rafferty's aunt, +with a pleased smile, striking out unfamiliar paths among her wrinkles. +"Troth, but I'm rael glad to hear it. Bedad, it's a grand thing for +little Theresa." + +"He's a very dacint poor lad," Mrs. Joyce said, looking over with pride +at the handsome young sergeant, and thinking that Ody Rafferty's aunt +must have some good nature in her after all, since she was so evidently +glad of their good luck. + +"'Deed but there's not a finer young man in the kingdom of Connaught +this day," said Mrs. Ryan, who could, of course, be frankly laudatory. +"And wid everybody's good word, high and low, and drawin' grand pay, and +the colonel in his rigimint ready to do a turn for him any time, and a +rael steady kind-hearted lad to the back of that. But sure he's after as +nice a little girl as he'd ha' found anywheres, wid all his thravellin', +and as good as gould. He'll be very apt to be spakin' out to her +prisintly, for it's gettin' near his lave's ind, and what for would they +be waitin'? But to my mind it's as good as made up after what he's done +to-day." + +In a little while after this Ody Rafferty's aunt slipped away, and set +off hobbling along the road towards Duffclane. She wanted to intercept +her grand-nephew on his way home and tell him this news. For all day she +had been haunted by an apprehension that Ody meant to return with a +fairing for Theresa, the presentation of which might bring about a +crisis in his courtship very disastrous from her own point of view. Old +Moggy surveyed her world rather steadily at all times from that +particular outlook, finding in her solitary superfluousness little to +deflect her gaze. The disappointment which, on her own theory, these +tidings would bring to Ody did not do so now, and she put her best foot +foremost, animated by the pleasure of telling some new thing, one, +moreover, that threw a reassuring light upon her situation. With even +her amended opinion of the lad she could hardly imagine that he would +have a chance against magnificent Denis O'Meara, whom nobody would have +ever expected to look for a wife in poor little Lisconnel--but you never +could tell, and she felt that it still behoved her to be on her guard +against all possible perils. Therefore she at present thought it +expedient to waylay Ody, and let him know that if he had any notion of +Theresa Joyce, he was a day after the fair. + +Hobbling on bent and breathless, wrapped in her rusty black shawl, with +her shadow flitting far out over the level bog amid the slanted beams, +she looked a not inappropriate messenger of woe, symbolically impotent +and insignificant; a little dark speck in the wide westering light; a +feeble stir of life creeping on the verge of a vast silent solitude; +and full, withal, of baseless fears and futile plots, concerning the +withered shred of existence that remained to her. She was just in the +nick of time, she said to herself, when she saw the trio presently +coming over the top of the hill. Ody was pointing out conciliatingly to +the morose Rory how they'd be at home now nearly in the time he'd be +waggin' his tail; and Hugh McInerney was resolving that he would go on +straight to his own place, and defer the presentation of the ugly yellow +ribbon until to-morrow. All three were hot and fagged and dusty. + +"Well, lad, and what's the best good news wid you?" Ody's aunt said to +him, as they met. + +"Little enough," said Ody. + +"And you comin' out of a fair?" she said. "Bedad now, we make a better +offer at it ourselves up here for the matter of news." + +"What's that at all?" said Ody. + +"Sure amn't I just after hearin' tell of a grand weddin' there's goin' +to be prisintly?" said his aunt, "and that doesn't happen every day of +the year." + +"Och, a weddin'," said Ody. "I was thinkin' maybe there was somethin' +quare at our little place beyant yonder. But as long as it's nothin' +worser than weddin's you're hearin' tell of, I'm contint, if you +listened the two ears off your head." + +"It's Denis O'Meara and Theresa Joyce has made a match of it," said his +aunt, conscious that she was slightly overstating facts; "settled up it +is on'y this evenin'. And the weddin's bound to be before his lave's +out--so there's for you." + +"Sure good luck to the both of thim," said Ody, "Theresa Joyce is a +plisant little bein', I'll say that for her, and divil a bit of harm +there is in O'Meara aither. A fine chap he is for a sodger; not that +they're any great things as far as I can see--just pólis a thrifle +smartened up." + +Ody's thoughts were for the moment running on the police, a couple of +whom he had lately espied at a short distance coming across the bog. + +"Well, if you wanted to see the two of thim," said his aunt, raising her +voice as he began to drive Rory on, "there they are, just at the back of +her place, sortin' the stuff he's after gettin' her on the bog. He +brought her the full of the pitaty-creel. Her mother's as plased over it +as anythin', and sot up too, aye is she bedad." + +The old woman was for the time being almost as much disappointed as +relieved by the equanimity with which Ody had received her tidings; yet +if she had but known, they had not failed to produce a strong sensation. +Only she never thought of considering how they might affect that quare +big gawk Hugh McInerney. What did occur to her in his connection as he +begun to trudge alongside her after the pony, was that "he was as ugly +as if he had been bespoke." For Hugh's long tramp under the sultry sun +had scorched him a deeper and more uniform red brick than usual, and his +shock of tow-coloured hair jutting from beneath an unnoticeable round +cap, looked more than ever like thatch over his blinking blue eyes. When +they had gone a few yards in silence he suddenly said musingly-- + +"I dunno why he wouldn't have as good a right to be bringin' her +anythin' she had a fancy for off the bog in a pitaty-creel, as me to be +buyin' her len'ths of hijis-coloured ribbons to make a show of herself +wid. But all the same, I'd as lief he'd let it alone. For some raison or +other I've the wish in me mind I was slingin' the whole of it into one +of thim bog-houles out there--and that 'ud be no thing to go do on +her.... And that was a quare story the ould woman had about thim +gettin' married. Somebody was apt to be makin' a fool of her. Who was it +would be tellin' her I won'er?" + +But old Moggy partly overheard and said: "Thim that knew what they was +talkin' about, supposin' it's any affair of yours." + +So he did the rest of his meditating inaudibly. He said to himself that +he was steppin' home straight--continuing the while to walk in quite the +opposite direction--and that he wouldn't be goin' to the Joyces' place +to-night at all; what 'ud bring him there, and it gettin' so late? But +of course he went there, as surely as a swimming bubble goes over the +cataract's smooth lip, or a fascinated little bird down the snake's +throat. + +For the sensation which he had begun to experience, and which was a +strong one, and strange to him, was nothing less than jealousy. He was +jealous of that pitaty-creel. + +When he came to the place Ody's aunt had told of, he found a group of +young Joyces and Ryans and others gathered among the boulders and bushes +in a circle of which the heap of bog-cotton formed the centre; and a +glance having showed him that it included Denis and Theresa, he sat down +facing them, and said to himself: + +"If I'd known, now, it was bog-cotton she was wantin', I could ha' been +gadrin' her plinty last night after I come home. There's a gran' big +moon these times, wid lashin's and lavin's of light to be gettin' thim +kind of glimmerin' things by. I seen a black place below between the +sthrame of wather and the roadside all waved over white wid it, like as +if it was a fall of snow thryin' could it flutter off away wid itself +agin out of the world. I'd have got her enough to fill a six-fut sack. +What for didn't the crathur tell me?" + +Pursuing these and other such reflections Hugh's attention, which at all +times had a long tether, strayed far afield. He did not hear Denis +O'Meara inquire of him twice whether Ody Rafferty had got his fine price +for the old pony; not yet Peter Ryan rejoin after an interval that he +supposed it was such a big one, anyway, Hugh McInerney couldn't get it +out of his mouth--that was sizable enough. No doubt it was this symptom +of absentmindedness that emboldened Thady Joyce to set about twitching +out of Hugh's pocket the flimsy paper parcel seen protruding from it, a +feat which he achieved undetected, while his surrounding accomplices +nudged one another and whispered: "Och he has it now--whoo-oo he'll do +it." + +Thady conveyed what he had filched to Molly and Nelly Ryan, who +manipulated it for some time amid much giggling; and then Nelly, with +dexterous audacity pinned their handiwork on to the cap of her neighbour +Denis O'Meara, who sat all unawares. Thus it came to pass that when Hugh +was at last roused to a vague sense of tittering all round him, which +reached him much as the clacking chirp of sparrows gets meaninglessly +into our frayed morning dreams, and looking up out of his reverie, +stared about him for an explanation, the first thing his eyes lit on was +Denis's smart cap surmounted by a mass of gaudy yellow ribbon in immense +bows and loops and streamers, flapping and waggling absurdly at every +movement made by their unsuspecting wearer. And the spectacle caught his +breath, and dazzled his sight with a sudden scorching blast of wrath. +For it seemed to him that Denis was not making merely a mock of him and +his fairing, which he thought intrinsically of small amount, but through +it of Theresa herself and her foolish little fancies. And there sat +Theresa looking on, with a quick pink flush, and shining eyes, and a +quiver about her mouth. The next moment Hugh had hurled at the bedizened +cap what he happened to be holding in his hand. And this was Paddy +Ryan's new reaping-hook. + +Thereupon followed a terrible confusion and clamour, which seemed to +fill at a sweep all the spacious drowsy light of the sunsetting. For the +missile had gone surely to its mark, and had not simply knocked off +Denis's cap, but made a shocking gash in his temple, so that there were +only too sufficient reasons for the rising shrieks of "Holy Virgin, he's +murdhered--he's kilt!" Amid all the turmoil, with Denis fallen on the +ground, and Hugh standing staring, and everybody else rushing through +other like crows in a storm, one person alone appeared to act with a +definite purpose, and that was little Joe Egan. The event had made him +like one possessed with rage and despair. To Joe, weakly and timorous +and not over-wise, his valiant, handsome, good-natured soldier cousin +had come as the most splendid apparition that had shined upon him in the +dim course of his fifteen years; and he had spent the past three months +in adoring it very devoutly. So that now to see him laid low suddenly in +this savage fashion was a sight that might well cause a burning thirst +for vengeance upon the miscreant who had dealt the stroke. Joe generally +had to get his revenges wreaked by deputy; and now, as he darted away, +his intention was to find the pólis somewhere, and bring them to take up +"that great bastely murdherin' divil, Hugh McInerney," and if by any +means possible get him hung. He attained his object sooner than might +have been expected, as not far down the road a pair of constables were +run into by a small tatterdemalion figure, who, choking and stammering +and writhing in an ague fit of fury, proceeded to inform them that "Big +Hugh McInerney was just after murdherin' Denis O'Meara up above +there--takin' the head off him wid a rapin'-hook," and, further, that +"if they looked in the dirty thief's little place at the fut of the +hill, they'd find that every other stone in the walls of it was nothin' +else but a crock of poteen." + +This was the cause of the police's prompt arrival on the scene, where +nobody resented Joe's action. Denis's injury, though so grave, happily +did not seem to be mortal, in fact, on this occasion young Dan O'Beirne, +albeit scarcely more than a spalpeen, displayed a handiness and resource +about bandaging and other remedies, which foreshadowed his future +reputation throughout the district for knowledgableness in surgery and +medicine. Hugh McInerney was, of course, at once arrested, without any +resistance on his part, or any sympathy from the indignant neighbours. +He appeared to be what old Will Sheridan termed, "fallen into a serious +consternation," and was heard to make only one remark. It was when +people were saying that Theresa Joyce had took a wakeness, and her +brothers had carried her indoors. "Och, the crathur," he said, "and it +might aisy have hit her, very aisy. Miself's the quare divil." + +Once the police and their prisoner had gone, Denis having been brought +into the Ryans' house, a deep and melancholy hush settled down upon +Lisconnel, as if a murky wing had flapped out its brief flare of +excitement. The whole thing had happened so quickly that the rich light +from the west was still bronzing the edges of the flat-ledged furze +boughs, and rosing their white stems, when the little hollow behind the +Joyces' house rested quiet and deserted, with no traces left of the +company lately there assembled, except a litter of silky white +bog-cotton tufts, soon to be swept away by the breeze, and the unchancy +yellow ribbon, which had been torn out of Denis's cap, and lay coiling +among the rough grass, whence, as the dusk thickened, it glinted like +the wraith of a lost sunbeam or a ray from an evil star. + +But that night fell very dark, with a moon so closely veiled that the +flaggers and bulrushes waving their swords and spears fast by, dwindled +into mere rustlings and murmurs--the air was full of them. At the +dimmest hour anybody who had stolen out of a neighbouring door, and +passed between the faintly glimmering white boulders, as if in search of +something lost there, might have seemed only one of the whispering +shadows. And these might have begun so say, "Sorra aught can I do at +all, at all. And ne'er a soul is there to spake a word--all of thim agin +him, and it no fau't of his, when he would be torminted that way. They'd +no call to go play such a thrick on him, and he didn't mane it a' +purpose, I very well know; but the other chap was intindin' to annoy +him, sittin' there wid a great ugly grin on his face. I wish he'd never +come next or nigh Lisconnel." But be that as it may, when the next +morning's light twinkled among the dewy blades, the yellow ribbon had +disappeared. + +After this the days seemed to drag heavily at Lisconnel, where a dulness +and flatness had come over society. Dr. Hamilton had carried off Denis +O'Meara to Ballybrosna, and there was nothing to fill up the blank he +left except speculations about his chances of recovery, and censures +upon Hugh McInerney, monotonously unanimous. In his favour, indeed, no +one seemingly had a word to say. People declared that "they'd never have +thought he'd take and do such a thing, for though he might ha' been a +quare sort of bosthoon, he was always dacint and paiceable." But +cancelled praise is the bitterest of blame; and they added that "it was +rael outrageous of him to go do murdher on the likes of Denis O'Meara, +and no credit to Lisconnel for it to be happenin' him there. Iligant +charácters it 'ud be givin' them if he wint back to the rigimint wid his +eyes slashed out of his head, as much as to say he hadn't a fair chance +among us unless he'd come wid his side-arms." + +The neighbours were of opinion, too, that "it was no wonder little +Theresa Joyce had got a bit moped and quiet, after her sweetheart bein' +as good as destroyed before her eyes, and it hard to say if she'd ever +see a sight of him again." + +"It was a misfort'nit thing," Mrs. Con Ryan remarked one day, when the +subject was under discussion, "that young O'Meara hadn't actually spoke +out before it happint thim. 'Twould ha' made her a dale aisier in her +mind now, I wouldn't won'er. Because the way the matter stands, he +might take up wid some diff'rint notion, and just be off wid himself +like a cloud blown out of the sky, and she couldn't be sayin' a word, if +she was ever so sure of what he was intindin'." + +Young Mrs. Keogh, to whom she made the observation, refused to entertain +this view, and replied, "Sorra a fear is there of that. It was aisy to +see he'd ha' gone to the Well of the World's End after her, let alone +steppin' up from the Town, if he's spared to get his health. Ay, he'll +be comin' back for her one of these fine days, sure enough, plase God." + +But the fulfilment of her confident prediction looked several degrees +more doubtful in the light of one of the two pieces of news which Mrs. +Carbery, accompanied by her daughter Rose, conveyed to the Joyces' on a +bright September morning a short while after. Her son had come home with +it from the Town too late the night before. One of them was that Hugh +McInerney, who had been awaiting the assizes in Moynalone Jail, had died +of the fever there on last Friday. There was nothing very surprising in +this event, as Hugh's open-air life could have but ill acclimatised him +to the atmosphere of the unclean little jail; and it was not likely to +be very deeply deplored at Lisconnel, where he had not been known long, +nor, as we have seen, much to his advantage. + +As Mrs. Carbery sat in the three-cornered arm-chair, with the sun-dazzle +off a burnished mug on the dresser shimmering into her eyes, and making +her blink quaintly, she said, with rather severe solemnity, that "she +hoped the young fellow had had time to repint of his sins, or else it +was very apt to be a bad look-out for him, and he after comin' widin a +shavin' of takin' another man's life no time at all ago, so to +spake--ne'er a chance but it would be clear in everybody's +recollection." + +Mrs. Joyce, however, said: "Ah, sure maybe the crathur wasn't intindin' +any such great harm all the while, God be good to him. And, anyway, +where he's gone he'll find plinty ready to be spakin' up for him, and +puttin' the best face they can on the matter." + +"Ay will he," said old Biddy Ryan, who was calling too, "and bedad it's +one great differ there is, be all accounts, between that place and this. +For here if a misfort'nit body does aught amiss, the first notion the +rest of us have, God forgive us, is to be axin' what worser he was +manin', like as if it was some manner of riddle, that there's bound to +be an answer to, if one could find it." + +"'Deed, and I dunno if they haven't very far to look, ma'am," said Mrs. +Carbery, with dignity, "when a chap does his endeavours to take the head +off another man wid a rapin'-hook, ma'am." + +"And _I_ dunno, ma'am, for that matter," said old Biddy, also with +dignity, "if it's any such a great dale better to have one's mind took +up wid invintin' other people's bad intintions than if it was wid one's +own." + +"Ah, well! I wouldn't be thinkin' too bad of poor Hugh McInerney, at all +events," said Mrs. Joyce. "'Twas maybe a sort of accident, for he seemed +a dacint crathur afore that. Och now, to think it's on'y a few odd weeks +since he was creepin' about over our heads up there, mendin' th' ould +thatch! You'd whiles hear him hummin' away, talkin' to himself like some +sort of big bee--and in his grave to-day! But isn't it a lucky thing +that he's lavin' nobody belongin' to him to be breakin' their hearts +frettin' after him? Theresa, child dear, you've ne'er a stim of light to +be workin' in, sittin' there in the corner." + +But Theresa said she had light enough to blind her, and was only +winding a skein, and could see better to do that in the dark. So Mrs. +Carbery passed on to her second piece of news, which, though less +tragical than the first, was not likely to sound very cheerfully in the +ears of some among her audience. It ran that her son Ned was "after +seein' Denis O'Meara down beyant, and that he was doin' finely, next +door to himself again: and that the people in the Town did be sayin' he +was coortin' Mary Anne Neligan, the people's daughter that he was +lodgin' wid--a terrible fortin she was said to have--and that he'd be +very apt to be takin' her along wid him prisintly when his lave was up." +Mrs. Carbery supposed they were none of them ever likely to see him +again up at Lisconnel. And the rest of the neighbours, having heard her +tale, supposed so likewise, and said among themselves that Theresa Joyce +was to be pitied. + +Yet not many days after this, while the early autumn weather was still +soft-aired and mellow-lighted over our blue-misted bogland, where the +leaves and berries were brightening, and even the little frosty-grey +cups on the lichened boulders getting a scarlet thread at the rim, on +one clear, dew-dashed morning, who but Denis O'Meara himself should +come stepping into Lisconnel? The neighbours who saw him go by were glad +to notice that he looked as well as ever he did in his life, and he +greeted them all blithely though briefly, eluding every attempt to +entangle him in conversation, and making very straight for the Widow +Joyce's house, which was by these same observers considered to betoken a +healthy frame of mind. + +Only Mrs. Joyce and Mrs. Kilfoyle were in the little brown room when he +arrived, but they gave him a cordial welcome, and he took a seat from +which he could keep a watch on the door while they talked about +different things. One of these, naturally, was the melancholy end of +Denis's assailant--poor Hugh McInerney--and Mrs. Joyce said it was +little enough they'd have thought a while ago that it would be Denis +who'd come back. "But indeed," she said, "if anythin' had took you, we'd +ha' been in no hurry ever to set eyes on the other unlucky bosthoon." + +Denis said: "Faith, ma'am, I'd give six months' pay the thing had never +happint. Divil a bit of harm I believe there was in poor McInerney; and +I spoke to Dr. Hamilton to spake to Mr. Nugent and the other magistrates +for him; but they said, after what me cousin Joe let out about the +poteen at his place, the pólis would be wishful to keep him convanient +to thim for a while; and to be sure, they kep' him too long altogether. +I know, ma'am, young Rafferty and the rest had his shanty pulled down +before the pólis come up next day; but they thought they'd git somethin' +out of him. The little jackass ought to ha' held his tongue. It was a +pity, bedad. Hard lines it is on a man to be losin' his life, you may +say, along wid his temper, just be raison of a bit of a joke." + +Still as he looked out into the sunshine he could not help thinking that +he would have had a greater loss of his life than poor Hugh McInerney, +who, it was evident, would always have met with a cold reception from +everybody at the Joyces'. Then he said to Mrs. Joyce: "And how's +Theresa, ma'am?" + +Mrs. Joyce was in the middle of replying that she was grandly, and had +just run over to Mrs. Keogh on a message, when Theresa herself came in. + +Denis jumped up quickly, saying: "Ah, Theresa, it's a great while since +I've seen you." + +But Theresa only lifted her head without turning it, and walked straight +on as if nobody had accosted her. + +"Arrah, now, Theresa darlint, don't you see Denis O'Meara?" said her +mother, puzzled and rather dismayed. + +And then Theresa did turn and look at him. "Yis, I see him," she +said--and, indeed, she might as easily have overlooked the red flame in +a lantern as the tall scarlet lancer in her mother's little +misty-cornered room. "I see him," she said, "and I hate the sight of +him." And thereupon she turned again, and walked out of the door, +leaving a dead silence behind her. + +This was one of the very few harsh sayings that Theresa Joyce has +uttered in the course of her long life, and it came like a shock upon +her hearers. + +Mrs. Joyce at last said blankly: "What at all has took the child?" + +And Bessie Kilfoyle said to Denis, who stood dumbfounded: "But indeed +now, you may be sure there's not a many up here, at any rate, who do +that." + +But he replied: "If _she_ does, it's many enough for me, Mrs. Kilfoyle. +And I won't stop here to be drivin' her out of the house. So I'll say +good-bye to yous kindly, for I'll be off now to Dublin to-morra or next +day." + +"And in coorse," Mrs. Joyce remarked ruefully, after he had departed, +retreading his steps through the bright fresh morning with so +crestfallen a mien that all the neighbours knew things had not run +smoothly, "you couldn't raisonably expec' him to stay here to be hated +the sight of. And indeed, what wid one thing and another, it's none too +good thratement the poor lad's got up at Lisconnel, more's the pity." + +Theresa herself never had any explanation to offer of "why she would be +that cross wid poor Denis O'Meara." Her mother accounted for it by pique +at the Carberys' ill-timed gossip about his imaginary courtship of Mary +Anne Neligan; and Mrs. Kilfoyle was for a while inclined to the same +opinion, until one day by chance she espied in the little old tin box +which contained Theresa's treasures, a roll of bright yellow ribbon +wrapped up very carefully; and thenceforward she silently ceased to hope +that things might all come right yet, if Denis O'Meara came back again +on leave. + +So, although Mrs. Joyce may have drawn wrong inferences, the results +were much as she had foreseen. Theresa never married, and when her +mother died she went to live with her brother Mick at Laraghmena, where +she is living still, notwithstanding that it is so long since all this +happened--since the fine summer when Denis O'Meara was at Lisconnel, and +Hugh McInerney, who luckily left nobody to be breaking their hearts +fretting after him, died in Moynalone Jail. + +The yellow ribbon lies safely in her box, and with it a grimy bit of +paper, brought to her one day by a trusty hand, to which Hugh found out +a way of committing it "before he was took bad entirely." Theresa +herself has never deciphered its wild scrawls, being an unlettered +person, but its bearer read it over to her until she knew it by heart +every word. "For your own self the yella ribin is," the letter ran, "but +don't be wearin' it unless you like it. And I'm sorry the man got hit; +but I do be dhramin' most nights that it's you I'm after rapin' the +little black head off of; and I'd liefer lose me life than think I'd be +after hurtin' a hair of it. But the Divil was busy wid me that evenin'. +And I'm very apt never to get the chance to set fut again out on the big +bog. It 'ud do me heart good to see the sun goin' down in it a great way +off, for this is a quare small place. It's a long while. But sure, to +the end of all the days of me life," it said to her, like an echo +beaten back from the walls of the great abysm, "it's of yourself I'll be +thinkin' off away in contintmint at Lisconnel." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MR. POLYMATHERS + + +It was to an accidental circumstance that Lisconnel owed the prolonged +sojourn there of perhaps the most distinguished scholar who has ever +visited us. For when he arrived at O'Beirne's forge one misty June +evening, the night's lodging only was all he asked or desired. But in +those times, now some fifty years since, we had "a terrible dale of +sickness about in the country," and next morning the stranger was down +with the fever, which, although so mild a case that even Bridget +O'Beirne never gave him over more than twice in the same day, brought +his journey perforce to a halt. At the beginning he was very loth to +believe that he must relinquish his intention of reaching Dublin by a +certain date--the first Monday in July; however, having once recognised +the impossibility of doing so, he showed no haste to quit his quarters, +and his stay with the O'Beirnes lengthened into months as the summer +slipped away. At this time the forge was owned by Felix O'Beirne, +blacksmith, shebeener, and ex-whiteboy, and with him lived his orphan +grandsons, Daniel and Nicholas, his very old, ancient mother, who still +drew enjoyment in whiffs through the stem of her black dudeen, and his +elderly sister, Bridget, who had taken little pleasure in anything since +the redcoats shot her sweetheart in the War. The missing third +generation was represented occasionally when Mrs. Dooley, Felix's +married daughter, came on a visit. It was conjectured among them that +"the fancy the ould gintleman had for larnin' all manner to young +Nicholas continted him to stop." And this may have had something to do +with it, though less, probably, than the vaguer fact that he from the +first "took kindly" to the O'Beirnes, and they to him. His appearance +puzzled them a little. He was of a massive, large-boned frame, such as +nature seems to design for rough uses; but, as Felix remarked, "you +could aisy tell be ivery finger and thumb on him that hard work wasn't +the handle he'd took a hould of the world by." He wore a very long, grey +frieze coat, and a chimney-pot hat so old and tall that it looked as if +it must have grown slowly to its great height. When he took it off he +uncovered a shock of soft white hair, like the wig of a seeded +groundsel, about a face which was furrowed and wrinkled ruggedly enough, +in a different pattern somehow from what is commonly seen at Lisconnel, +where sun and wind have a large share in the process. His baggage +consisted of two bundles, very unequal in size and weight. The contents +of the smaller one were mainly a shirt and three socks, knotted loosely +in a blue cotton handkerchief; the other was done up carefully in +sacking, and he liked to have it under his eye. + +Of course the O'Beirnes' visitor was often talked about among the groups +gathered of an evening, much as they are nowadays, for gossip and poteen +within the broad-leaved forge doors, through which on dark nights the +fire still blinks as far across the bog as the amber of the sunset, or +the rising glow of the golden harvest moon. Even from Felix's first +report it appeared that the stranger was no ordinary person. + +"Won'erful fine discoorse he has out of him, anyway," he told the +neighbours a few nights after the arrival; "ivery now and agin he'll out +wid a word as grand like and big as his Riverence at Mass--goodness +forgive me for sayin' so. Sometimes we've been hardset to tell what he's +drivin' at. But that's the way it is wid thim words that has a power of +manin' in thim. They're apt to bother you a bit when you're used to +spakin plain." + +"Belike it's the fever in his head sets him talkin' oddly," said young +Barney Corcoran. "I mind me brother Joe when he was bad wid it would be +ravin' wild. Sorra the sinsible word there was out of him for the best +part of a week." + +This way of accounting for his guest's fine language rather affronted +Felix, and he consequently said, "Musha now, was there not? And how long +might yourself be under that descripshin of fever?" + +"Ah sure, what 'ud we do at all if poor Barney was took that way?" said +Peter Keogh, "and nobody able to tell was it ravin' he was, or settin' +up to be talkin' raisonable for any differ they could see." + +Barney cleared his throat disconcertedly, and the old man, recalling his +responsibilities as a host, and perhaps not admiring his sarcasm thus +elaborated, said conciliatingly, "Och, he'll do right enough if he niver +raves any worse than Mr. Polymathers. All that ails him is that we want +to git a bit used to his manner of spakin'." + +"Polymathers?" said Peter. + +"To be sure, Polymathers. Did you say it any better than I?" + +"Well, I nivir heard tell of anybody called that way before. It's a +quare she-he soundin' sort of name," said Peter. + +"Faix, then, there may be plinty quarer in it, we niver heard tell of, +if that was all," said Felix. "Anyhow, it's his name, and his people's +afore him. Himself tould me his father was the ouldest of all the +Polymatherses there was in the counthry he came out of--somewheres down +south, I think he said--and the head of the whole of thim forby." + +"Ay, he did so," said Dan. "Sez you to him, there was a dale of water +run down hill since the time there was O'Beirnes blacksmiths in this +part of the counthry; and your father was a one, sez you. And sez he to +you, he couldn't be any manner of manes purtind to be the aquil to what +_his_ father was. And sez you to him, what was he? And sez he, it was +one of the Polymatherses he was, and well known for his larnin' through +the len'th and breadth of the county Sligo. And a name it was, he sez, +any man might be proud of ownin'." + +"Be jabers, himself has the great consait of it, at all ivents," said +Peter. "But he might find people could be tellin' him there's Keoghs as +good as any Polymatherses iver was in it--ivery hair." + +The stranger's patronymic having thus been ascertained, it was desirable +to fix his calling, and, despite his disclaimer of inherited erudition, +several circumstances bespoke him a schoolmaster, even before the +question seemed settled by the first act of his convalescence being an +inquiry into the amount of book-learning which Dan and Nicholas had +amassed during their sixteen and fourteen years. This was not large, +though as much as could be expected, considering that in all Lisconnel +there were not just then, I believe, more than four volumes, one of +which being merely the index to a non-existent _Encyclopćdia_, can +scarcely rank as literature. The boys themselves, and their grandfather, +were deeply interested in the examination, and very anxious that it +should have a creditable result. For learning and the learned have at +all times been held in profound respect among us away on our bogland, +where the devotion to something afar springs perhaps the more abundantly +because so many things are remote. On this occasion Mr. Polymathers +opened his most sizable bundle, and it was seen to be filled with books, +not fewer, doubtless, than a score, in leather bindings, ragged and +battered, and brownly time-stained all over their margins, as if the +river of years had for them run no metaphor, but a russet bog-stream. +They comprised _Homer_, _Virgil_, _Livy_, and other ancients; likewise +two Latin lexicons, which looked extravagant until you observed how each +did but supplement the other's deficiencies, and this so imperfectly +that their owner was still liable to search in vain for words between MO +and NA. + +These, however, were evidently not the most prized portion of Mr. +Polymathers's library, though he displayed them with some complacency, +reading out here and there a sonorous "furrin" phrase, at which his +audience said, "More power," and "Your sowl to glory," and the like. It +was when he handled the shabbiest of the volumes, with broken backs and +edges all curling tatters, that his touch grew caressing. The +lookers-on, contrariwise, thought but poorly of them because they set +up, seemingly, to be illustrated works, and their pictures, mostly of +uninteresting round and three-cornered objects, struck Lisconnel art +critics as very feeble efforts. To be sure Mr. Polymathers called them +_dygrims_, but that was no help to the overtaxed imagination. Only young +Nicholas O'Beirne listened intently to the explanation which he gave of +one of them. Nicholas was a long, thin lad, with melancholy grey eyes +and a square forehead, whose capacity his grandfather had held in some +esteem, since it had been discovered, years ago, that "the spalpeen +could make out an account for four sets of shoes, and half a stone of +three-inch holdfasts, and a dozen of staples, and two gallon of the +crathur, and allow for a hundredweight of ould iron, all in his head, +and right to a farthin'." Now the melancholy eyes darkened and +brightened with excitement as Mr. Polymathers discoursed of right lines +and angles and circles, and expounded the mysterious signification of +certain Ah Bay Says. And he had thenceforward an unweariable pupil in +Nicholas, companied, albeit with less ardent zeal, and at a slower rate +of progress, by his elder brother, Dan. + +More general interest, however, continued to be taken in the stranger's +classical attainments. Everybody--the O'Beirnes themselves, their +neighbours in the cabin-row close by, now long since an untraceable +ruin, and the people of Lisconnel proper, a couple of miles further +on--felt uplifted by the residence among them of a man, who they boasted +would talk Latin to you as soon as look at you. But as we never enjoy +our own happiness fully until it has been looked at through other men's +envious eyes, they could not here remain content with simply possessing +this privilege, or even with dilating upon it to their less favoured +friends down below and down beyant. They longed to make a parade of it, +to give a demonstration of it. And the method of doing so which they +came to consider most desirable was the bringing about of a conversation +in Latin between Mr. Polymathers and Father Rooney, the Parish Priest. +For if that took place they could easily imagine his Reverence riding +home to report in the Town what a wonderful great scholar entirely they +had stopping above at Lisconnel. Moreover, the conversation itself would +be a rael fine thing to have the hearing of. Terence Kilfoyle, for +instance, said that it would be as good as a Play, which, as he had +never seen one, was to entertain unbounded expectations. And at last, +after they had wished the wish for some weeks, a prospect of its +fulfilment came into sight together with Father Rooney's cream-coloured +pony jogging along through the light of a fiery-zoned July sunset, in +which Mr. Polymathers was basking by the O'Beirnes' door. In those days +his Reverence was a youngish man, ruddy, and of a cheerful countenance, +a substantial load for his sturdy nag, and altogether, in his glossy +black cloth, a figure very different from their gaunt, sad-visaged, +shaggily-garbed old guest. He was at the time of Father Rooney's +approach seated on a two-legged, three-legged stool, propped +precariously against the ray-rosed cabin wall, and was teaching Dan and +Nicholas the twelfth proposition of the second book of Euclid. Dan had +not yet grasped it, but it all lay as clear as a sunbeam athwart +Nicholas's brain, and he was fidgeting like an impatient horse at the +slowness of his fellow. + +Several of the neighbours chanced to be about, for the forge saw a good +deal of company in those long empty days before the potato-digging could +begin. They all drew together into a small crowd, and closed in step by +step to watch the first meeting between these two notable persons, much +admiring the deftness with which old O'Beirne secured it by pronouncing +one of the pony's shoes in need of tightening, and the felicitous +opening he made by assuring his Reverence that "divil a bit need he be +mindin' the delay, because Mr. Polymathers there had enough _furrin +languages_ to keep thim all divarted, if the baste owned as many feet as +a forty-legs, wid the shoes droppin' off ivery pair of thim. That was to +say, in coorse, supposin' he got the chance of convarsin' a bit wid +somebody aquil to answerin' him back iligant, the way there wasn't e'er +a one of thim could make an offer at doin' no more than thim little +weevils of chirpin' chuckens." + +Yet the interview turned out disappointingly after all. If such a thing +had not been, of course, exceedingly improbable, one might have fancied +that each scholar stood in awe of the other's reputation, they steered +so clear of all recondite subjects; keeping to the merest commonplaces +about rain and potatoes and turf--which anybody else could have +discussed quite as knowledgably. In vain, whenever there was a promising +pause would the bystanders nudge one another, whispering, hopefully, +"Whist, boys--they'll be sayin' somethin' now." Only the plainest +English followed, and at last, when Father Rooney rode on, his parting +joke, which referred to the difficulty his pony would now find in the +way of becoming a barefooted pilgrim, left for a wonder solemnly +irresponsive faces behind it. + +Michael Ryan said, with a touch of resentment, "Ah, well, one couldn't +maybe expec' it of thim to be throublin' thimselves talkin' fine for the +pack of us, as ignorant as dirt, in the middle of th'ould bog." + +And his wife said, "'Deed, now, I wouldn't won'er meself if the raison +was his Riverence 'ud think bad of usin' his Latin words for anythin' +else on'y prayers and such. It might be somethin' the same as if he went +and took his grand vistments to go dig pitaties in; and that 'ud be a +great sin, God knows." + +But old Felix, who was, as we have seen, a rather touchy person, +construed this suggestion into an implied censure on his own wishes in +the matter, and he said, huffily-- + +"Sorra the talk of sin I see in it at all, ma'am. 'Tis a dale liker they +just couldn't get out wid it convanient offhand. The same way that I'd +aisy enough bate out a shoe on me anvil there, when it's bothered I'd be +if you axed me to make a one promiscuous here of a suddint on the +roadside." + +Mr. Polymathers himself meanwhile was perhaps dimly conscious that he +had disappointed hopes, and failed to rise duly to the occasion; and +this may have been why he slipped indoors, and fetched out a small book +he had never produced before, bound in a dingy greenish blue, with a +white paper label. + +"D'you know what that is, sir?" he questioned, rhetorically, handing it +to Felix O'Beirne. "It's the Calendar, let me tell you, of the College +of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, _juxta_ Dublin. There's a print of +the Front of the Buildings attached to the fly-leaf. I'm after pickin' +it up this spring at Moynalone. 'Twas new the year before last, and +comprises a dale of information relative to terms, examinations, fees, +and so forth." + +"Begor, then, it looks to be a wide house," said Felix, confining +himself to the picture as a comprehensible point. "It's apt to be an +oncommon fine place, sir, I should suppose." + +"You may say that, me man," said Mr. Polymathers, emphatically. "Not its +match in the kingdom of Ireland. The home of literature and the haunt +of science. And it's there I'll be, plase God, next October." + +"Musha, and will you be thravellin' that far--to Dublin?" said Felix. + +"Ay will I, and would have gone last month on'y for the fever delayin' +me till after the midsummer entrance. Me savin's amount to somethin' +over thirty pound, so I may venture on the step, and prisint meself at +the Michaelmas term. In short," said Mr. Polymathers, re-poising himself +upon his rickety stool, "I might describe myself as an unmatriculated +candidate undergraduate of the University of Dublin." + +"And what at all now would that be, sir, if I might be axin'?" said +Felix, humbly, after the awe-stricken pause which followed Mr. +Polymathers's proclamation of his style and title. + +"It's a necessary preliminary," said Mr. Polymathers, "to proceeding to +the Degree of _Baccalaureatus in Artibus_, or _In Artibus +Baccalaureatus_--the _ordo verborum_ is, I take it, immaterial, to judge +by the transposition of initials in the case of ----." + +"Faix, but it's the fine Latin you can be discoorsin' now, and his +Riverence half-ways home," said Felix reproachfully. + +Mr. Polymathers, glancing round a circle of deeply impressed faces, felt +that his prestige was restored, and even began to enjoy a foretaste of +the triumph, which had been one part of his dream through the long +laborious years. But he was puzzled how to bring the full grandeur of +his design clearly before this uninstructed audience, and after +reflecting for a while in quest of concise yet adequate definitions, he +launched out into an eloquent description of the ceremonial observed in +conferring degrees at Dublin University. It may be surmised that many of +the details were due to his own fondly brooding fancy. For not only did +the highest learning in the land crowd the Hall in their academic robes, +but the Lord Lieutenant himself took a prominent part in the +proceedings, which were enlivened by military music and thunderous +salutes. Mr. Polymathers nearly toppled off his tricky stool more than +once without noticing it in his excitement as he rehearsed these +splendid scenes, declaiming with great unction the formulas long since +learned by all his heart, especially _Ego, auctoritate mihi concessa_, +and the rest, until he came to his peroration: "And all this pomp and +ceremony, mind yous, to the honour and glory of science and fine +scholarship. It's a grand occasion, lads; it's an object any man might +be proud to give----" Here he pulled himself up, warned by an unusually +violent lurch that his theme was running away with him. But having by no +means worked off his enthusiasm, he expended some of it, as a schoolboy +might have done, in throwing a small bit of turf at a stately white hen, +who just then sailed across the dark doorway, like a little frigate +under the most crowded canvas. She immediately took flight with +floundering screeches, which drowned what the old man was muttering to +himself. However, it was only "_Admitto te--admitto te_." + +After these revelations Mr. Polymathers was looked up to more than ever, +as one not only endowed with rare gifts, but destined by their means to +scale heights of hardly realisable exaltation. "Be all accounts there +was no knowin' what he mightn't rise to be at Dublin College," the +neighbours said. They also often remarked that it was "a surprisin' +thing to see a great scholar like him spendin' his time over taichin' +thim two young O'Beirnes." If the speaker happened to be afflicted with +a twinge of envy about those educational advantages, he was apt to say +"thim two young bosthoons" or "gomerals." But Dan and Nicholas were +not, in fact, any such thing. Nicholas, indeed, quickly proved himself +possessed of what Mr. Polymathers called "a downright astonishin' +facility at the mathematics," far out-stripping Dan, not quite to Dan's +satisfaction, as he had always enjoyed the pre-eminence conferred by +superior physical strength and a practical turn of mind. So well pleased +was the old man with his eager pupil that he would have liked to do his +teaching, "nothing for reward," but his host's hospitality, and his own +ambition, would not permit this. Now and then he rather puzzled Nicholas +by an apologetic tone in answering questions about his University +career. And once at the end of a lesson he said, as if to himself: "May +goodness forgive me if I'm takin' what he'd have done better with. But +sure he's young--he's plenty of chances yet." However, as the time for +his departure drew on, all his misgivings, if such he had, seemed to +vanish away, and his thoughts became very apt to journey off blissfully +to Dublin in the middle of the most interesting problems. Nicholas had +to wait till they came back. + +Mr. Polymathers left Lisconnel on a fine autumn morning, when the air +was so still that the flashing and twinkling of the many dewdrops seemed +to make quite a stir in it. The sky was as clear as any one of them, and +in the golden light the wavering columns of blue smoke rose with curves +softly transparent. He started with a buoyant step, as well he might, +since he was setting out on the enterprise into which he had put all the +spirit of his youth. He felt some regret at parting from his Lisconnel +friends, but his plans and prospects were naturally very pre-occupying, +whereas they had the ampler leisure of the left-behind to deplore his +flitting, which seemed likely enough to be for good. Nearly four years, +he had explained, must elapse before the crowning height of the B. A. +Degree could be won, and it was only just possible that he might manage +to tramp back on a visit meanwhile, during some Long Vacation. This +doubtful chance was cold comfort for that ardent scholar Nicholas +O'Beirne, who grieved more than anybody else. Most ruefully did he help +Dan to carry the candidate undergraduate's library as far as the Town; +nor could he take more than a downcast pleasure in Mr. Polymathers's +farewell gift to him of the raggedest _Euclid_. And as he stood +watching the car out of sight, his eyes were as wistful as if a door +briefly opened on glimpses of radiant vistas had been inexorably barred +in his face. + +Yet after all Mr. Polymathers's absence was not to be measured by years +or months. One evening on the threshold of December, Lisconnel was lying +roofed over by a massy livid-black cloud, which came lumbering up and up +interminably, and which the weatherwise estimated to contain as much +snow as would smother the width of the world. The north wind moaned and +keened dismally under the toil of wafting on this portentous load, and +its breath was bitingly sharp, so that when the lads came in from the +forge, their grandfather said, "Ah, Dan, shut over the door, for there's +a blast sweepin' through it 'ud freeze ten rigiments as stiff as +staties." We usually take a large view of things at Lisconnel. Dan went +to carry out this order, but instead of doing so he suddenly shouted: +"Murdher alive! Here's Mr. Polymathers." + +Through the grey gloaming came a Mr. Polymathers, very different from +what he had been on that brilliant, hopeful morning only a few weeks +ago, when he had stepped lightly, and held his head up as if he were +looking a friendly fortune in the face. Now his feet stumbled and +dragged as he fared slowly against the wind's blustering, with his eyes +on the ground, and his movements seemingly guided more by the weight of +the bundle he carried than by his own will. Before he came within even +loud shouting distance, everybody felt a presentiment of disaster; but +he had not spoken a word to justify or discredit it by the time he got +indoors. + +"Musha, and so it's yourself, sir," old Felix then repeated, in a +congratulatory tone. "Ah, but it's a hardy evenin', and it's perished +you are, sir. Come in be the fire." + +"Ay, I'm back," Mr. Polymathers said slowly, after a hesitating pause, +as if the remark had been interpreted to him by some second person, "I +was bringin' the books, thinkin' the lad might use them--he's young +enough. But I'm not come to stop on you," he added, speaking faster, +"on'y just for this night. Early to-morra I must be off to Ardnacreagh, +and try for the taichin' there again. 'Twas on'y on account of bringin' +the books I came this way. I'll be on the road quite early." + +His insistence on this point made, somehow, a very melancholy +impression on Felix; but he replied jovially: "Is it to-morra? Bedad +then, sir, don't you wish you may slip off on us that soon, and we after +gettin' a hould of you agin? What fools we are. Not if you was as +slithery, ivery inch of you, as a wather-eel." + +The wraith of a relieved smile at this came over Mr. Polymathers's face; +still it looked so grey and withered, and his eyes were so sunken, and +his large, bony hands so shaky, that all with one consent refrained from +questions which they were agog to ask; and when Mrs. Keogh by and by +dropped in, and being an inquisitive and not very quick-witted person, +said, "Saints among us--it's Mr. Polymathers. And how's yourself, sir? +And are you bringing home the grand Degree?" though they all listened +eagerly for the reply, they wished she had held her tongue. + +"The divil a Degree, ma'am," said Mr. Polymathers, "and niver will." + +There was a short silence, and then he turned round on his stool--it was +the same from which he had made his boast in the summer sunset, but Dan +had meanwhile mended its broken leg with the handle of a worn-bladed +spade. "I've given up," he said to them. "I no longer entertain the +project of becomin' a graduate, or for the matter of that an +undergraduate of Dublin University; and if I'd done right, I'd niver +have taken up such an idea. I've put it out of me head. But it's been in +me mind a great while--a terrible long while." + +"Look you here, Mr. Polymathers, sir, are you after gittin' any bad +thratment from any people up in thim places?" said Felix, who always +liked better to lay a grievance on some human and possibly breakable +head than to believe it the work of the vengeance-baffling demon +bad-luck. + +"Not at all, not at all," said Mr. Polymathers, when the question +reached him. "I've nothin' to complain of. They're very respectable +people in Dublin, and it's a fine city. But me head's a bit giddy yet +wid the drivin' they have in the streets, that makes one stupid. I mind +there was a car tatterin' along, and I crossin' over the College Green, +had me down on the stones, on'y a dacint lad gript a hould of me, and +whirled me inside the College gates. There I was before I rightly knew +anythin' had happened me, and I after spendin' the best part of me life +gettin' to it. 'Twasn't the way I thought it 'ud be.... But the College +is as grand as any notion I had of it; on'y since I've seen it, 'tis +like a drame to me that ever I set fut in it, just a sort of drame.... +Great ancient places the squares are; I walked round the whole of them +before I found the Hall. A couple of chaps in uniform like came axin' me +me business, but I tould them fast enough that I was a candidate--ah, +goodness help me.... And the Hall's a spacious and splendid apartment. +On'y it was strange, now, to see it full of nothin' but young fellows, +scarce oulder than the two lads there. I might, sure enough, have known +the way it 'ud be, if I'd come to considher, but somehow it seemed to +put me out, as if I'd no call to be there at all. There was one of them +began pricin' me ould hat, and another of them tripped him up against a +black marble construction with a pair of angels atop of it, that there +is on the wall--sure they were just spalpeens. But I'll give you me +word, when they called me up to the examiner's table, there was a young +gintleman sittin' at it in his black gown and his cap wid the +tassel--bound to be one of the College Fellows, and ivery sort of a fine +scholar--and for all the age there was on him he might ha' been me son +or me grandson. + +"So he handed me over a little black _Virgil_ wid the page opened where +I was to exhibit me acquaintance wid the text. It was merely a bit of +an oration of Queen Dido's that I've known ivery line of these forty +years as well as I know me own name, and better. And what came over me +is more than I can tell, but the minute I took the book in me hand, it +seemed to me as if ivery atom of sinse and manin' slipped out of the +words, or out of me head--I couldn't say which, and I just stood starin' +at them and starin', till iverythin' else got whirlin' round about me, +fit to shake the panes out of the big windows, and the pictures off the +walls.... Belike himself persaived I was flusthered, for, 'Take your +time,' sez he; and after a while they stood steady enough. But, the Lord +be good to me--sorra a syllable of the sinse come back. And be that I +well knew it was all up wid me; and I was thinkin' me father's son had +no business to be standin' there makin' a show of meself in the middle +of Trinity College. So the lad in the cap said again, 'Take your time, +sir, take your time.' But I said to him, 'God help me, sir, I've taken +very nigh all I'll get, for I declare to you, lad, I'm over seventy +years of age. But as for your time, sir,' I said, 'I'll be wastin' no +more of it.' And wid that I put down the book, and out I wint. I mind +the sun in the square nearly dazzled the eyes out of me fool's head. I +niver seen it blazin' brighter--and there was a big bell somewhere +boomin' away, as if they'd set the heart of the world tollin'; it's +ringin' in me ears yet.... And a couple of days after that I quit out of +Dublin, and I've been trampin' back to this counthry, takin' me time, as +he said--there's no hurry now about anythin'. So that was the ind of me +University Degree." + +"I just wish I could git discoorsin' wid that young feller," said old +Felix, vindictively, "himself and his tassel in his cap." + +"Sure, man, 'twas no fault of his," said Mr. Polymathers, "and I can +live widout a Degree, if that's all. Me betters did before me. To tell +you the truth, I've thought often enough as I was comin' along now, that +I dunno how at all I'd have had the face to meet me poor father one of +these days, and I cocked up with a _Baccalaureatus in Artibus_, and he +wid not so much as a dacint stone over his grave to commemorate his +name, that was the most illusthrious Polymath in the county Sligo, wid +more larnin' in the tip of his ear than ever I got into me ould skull. +Never a hap'orth of good was I at anythin' except the trifle of +mathematics, but he was as great at the Classics.... I used to humbug +meself somewhiles lettin' on I hankered after it because it would ha' +gratified him maybe to hear of the event. But little I ever done to +plase him, God forgive me. Let alone goin' and makin' an ould fool of +meself up at Trinity College.... 'Twas a terrible upset to him when I +turned again the Priesthood, after he had the money saved up for the +seminary and all. Words about it we had, and the ind of it was he put it +all into me brother Ned's little farm. Ned had no more fancy for larnin' +than the bastes of the field. A trifle of it would ha' come in very +handy sometimes for buyin' me books; howane'er it was not to be.... And +the books there--I on'y brought them along to lave wid you for the +youngest lad--ay, Nicholas. He has a head on his shoulders for the +mathematics, I can tell you; he might do something yet, if he got his +chances. They're no use to me now, and I'd as lief be shut of the sight +of them. And to-morra I'll be off to Ardnacreagh." + +So the gaunt old man talked on, groping his way out of hesitating +pauses, and straying into dreamy meditations, as if he sometimes forgot +his story, and sometimes its hearers. They did not know what a +life-wreck it outlined, but they saw and surmised enough to make them +think of him as "the crathur," and speak to him with more deference +than if he had returned in a radiant glow of success, symbolised as some +of them had anticipated, by scarlet robes as splendid, at least, as +Father Rooney's at High Mass. And Felix O'Beirne took occasion of a +madly skirling gust to say, "Listen now to that, sir, and don't be +talkin' wild of thravellin' off to-morra. If I might be sayin' so, you'd +a dale better stay quiet where you are this minyit. And as for taichin', +sure it's proud and thankful the two boyos 'ud be for e'er a bit more. +There's Nicholas mopin' about like an ould hin that's lost her chuckens +iver since you quit." + +Mr. Polymathers did stop quiet--very quiet--but he taught the boys no +more. In fact, he did nothing except sit all day staring into the fire, +as if he had lost something in it. Once after Nicholas had sat looking +very hard at him for a long time with the ragged _Euclid_ ostentatiously +open at a crux, he seemed to rouse up, and putting out a hand for the +book, began an explanation. But it died away unfinished in an aimless +muttering, which both shocked and saddened Nicholas, and the experiment +was not repeated. Then towards Christmas time all the neighbours were +saying that Mr. Polymathers was greatly failed to what he had been. And +Bridget O'Beirne reported that you might as well be argufyin' wid a +scutty wren to swally down the full of the ducks' dish as persuadin' him +to take a raisonable bite and sup. Dr. Hamilton from the Dispensary, who +was consulted on the case, "consaited," Bridget told inquirers, "that he +might be after gettin' a sort of stroke like unbeknownst;" but her own +opinion was that "he had, so to spake, lost the knot off his thread, and +'twould be much if he didn't slip away out of it on them, afore they +seen e'er another green laif on the bushes." + +It was, at any rate, more than happened. One snowy afternoon, when he +had been busy for some time "scrawmin' a manner of letter," which +related, he said, to the disposition of his property, Mr. Polymathers +grew so much worse that Dan and Nicholas ran off for the Doctor and the +Priest, and before their arrival could possibly be expected, it became +evident that he could not wait to receive them. Bridget O'Beirne, +deploring the hap by his bed in the small room off the kitchen, thought +a few minutes before he went that she heard him murmuring something +coherent, and she called to little Rosy Corcoran, "Child alive--me +head's bothered--come in here and listen, can you make out at all what +he's sayin'?" + +Rosy came reluctantly and listened. "I think," she whispered, "it's some +sort of prayers like what his Riverence sez." + +"Ah, then, glory be to God for that itself," said Bridget, "there might +be a good chance for him after all." + +But she had been misinformed. The words Mr. Polymathers was muttering +over and over to himself were: _Admitto te--admitto te_. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +HONORIS CAUSA + + +The evening of the day after Mr. Polymathers died was a very wild +black-and-white one out of doors all round Lisconnel, yet, +notwithstanding the flakes in the air and under foot, the O'Beirnes had +received some company. Not at a wake, however the purpose of their +assembly was to discuss a serious business matter, upon which old Felix +O'Beirne wished for friendly counsel. Hence his contemporary, old Paddy +Ryan, had prodded little round craters in the snow with his thick stick +all along the good step of bleak road which lay between his house and +the forge, and with him had come on the same errand Terence Kilfoyle, +who, although of so much junior standing, was esteemed as a man of +notably shrewd sense and judgment. But then neither he nor the +neighbours knew how often he took and gave Bessie Kilfoyle's advice. +These two were present by express invitation, but another pair of +guests, the Dooleys, would never have been asked for the sake of their +opinion, which they were indeed encouraged to keep to themselves, and +appeared at this domestic crisis merely by virtue of family ties. Old +Felix had always thought little of his daughter Maggie's mental powers, +and less ever since her marriage with Peter Dooley, who kept a shop in +the Town, and could be described as "an ould gombeen man," if one wished +to regard him from an unfavourable point of view, which his +father-in-law not uncommonly did. He had been heard to say of Peter that +"the chap was that smooth-spoken you might think he was after swallyin' +a one of his own graisy dipts, on'y he'd liefer be chaitin' some poor +body over the sellin' of it"--a perhaps not inexcusable preference. As +for Peter, he contemplated humanity with a jovial cynicism, and rather +enjoyed the society of the old blacksmith, despite the gruff sarcasms +which sometimes made their womenkind turn the conversation +apprehensively. _He_ had been heard to say of Felix that "It was aisy +work runnin' down other people's business, and small blame to th' ould +man if he had a fancy for a light job now and agin, when he would be +tired poundin' th' ould iron at a profit you couldn't see to pick up +widout a strong pair of spectacles." Proximity had brought to the +consultation Mrs. Carbery and Tim O'Meara from adjacent doors; and they, +with old ancient Mrs. O'Beirne and her daughter and the two lads, formed +quite a large party about the fire. The business to be brought before +them was Mr. Polymathers's Will. + +Now, lest it should be thought that unseemly haste was displayed in +attending to this affair while Mr. Polymathers still lay in the little +next room, I must explain that for special reasons the nature of the +funeral arrangements depended upon the result of the conference; and how +deeply important such a point would be considered at Lisconnel I need +remind no one who has occasionally been perplexed by our propensity for +the pinching and scraping which takes toll of a life-long penury, that a +brief show of pomp may invest the last scene of all. This propensity is +not seldom misconstrued into the outcome of a mere personal vanity, +whereas it has its root in the worthier sentiment of veneration for our +Kind. Ould Pat Murphy, who has subsisted all his life upon an +insufficiency of pitaties, and inhabited a largish sty, never loses the +sense that he owes something better to himself in his character of a +human being, and he takes painful steps to ensure the ultimate discharge +of the debt. One of these days he who has hitherto come and gone in +unimposing guise shall be borne, on wheels if possible--but here I +mention grandeur never even dreamed of up at remote Lisconnel--in +unwonted state, certain to draw the gaze of every passer-by. But as if +with a fine touch of courtesy, he so times his assertion of dignity that +none of his fellows shall thereby be abashed nor envy-bitten. No ragged +wayfarer shall wish to change places with him as he passes solemnly +along, nor grudge him the unshared splendour of his sombre equipage; not +even if it display the crowning glory of woolly black plumes to waggle +over his head. Accordingly, when Pat has died on his humble bed, which +is as likely as not just earth tempered with straw, under his rifted +thatch, through which he may perhaps see the stars glimmer with nothing +except the smoke-haze and gathering mists between, he is conveyed thence +with whatever pomp and circumstance his savings permit, and all his +neighbours feel that the right thing has been done. + +It is true that Mr. Polymathers had given no sign of any such sentiment. +When discreetly sounded on the subject during his last days, he had +replied: "Ah! man, it's very immaterial," in a tone of indifference as +unmistakable as the phrase was ambiguous. And from this fact, coupled +with his written instructions, it might, one would have thought, safely +have been inferred that he desired no costly magnificence at his +obsequies. Yet the point was obscured in his late host's mind by a thick +cloud of doubts and scruples. + +Mr. Polymathers had died surprisingly rich, not less than twenty-five +pounds, seven shillings and threepence having been counted awestrickenly +out of his leathern pouch. The ground rents of all Lisconnel did not +reach to such a figure. It had been larger still before his disastrous +expedition to the University; but it had never undergone any diminution +so long as he abode under Felix O'Beirne's roof. On the first Saturday +after his convalescence he had inquired, pouch in hand: "And what might +be the amount of me pecuniary debt to you, sir?" And old O'Beirne had +replied: "And you spendin' your time puttin' the heighth of larnin' into +the two lads' heads! Bedad, sir, it's debt the other way round, +supposin' there was to be any talk about it." The same little scene, +dwindled at last into a mere form and ceremony, had taken place on +every succeeding Saturday. Not that Mr. Polymathers did not feel he had +grounds for more than merely formal demur. But he was then facing the +steep hill of his ambition, and had sometimes to stoop as he climbed. + +But now, when he had turned back baffled, and all his climbing was done, +old Felix had no engrossing object to blunt a sense of many scruples +that must be removed before he himself or his family could with honour +derive profit from the event; as they would do if Mr. Polymathers's +instructions were carried out. For by that document, which he had +finished drawing up only just in time, all his property was left +unreservedly to Nicholas O'Beirne, with the injunction that as little of +it as possible might be expended upon "the burying." Of course it was an +extraordinary thing that such a piece of good fortune should befall, +such a number of pounds accrue to, anybody at all; but apart from this +there seemed to be nothing very strange in the bequest. Everybody knew +that Mr. Polymathers had entertained "a great opinion entirely" of +Nicholas' abilities. Time and again he had said that the lad would be +heard of in the world if he got his chance of some good teaching. And he +once more expressed the same conviction, only at fuller length and in +finer language, in the composition which had been the last effort of his +wearied brain. "It would give me," he wrote, "the utmost satisfaction to +think that the legacy may eventually smooth his path to the attainment +of those University distinctions which have eluded my own grasp." And +almost his latest moment of consciousness had been pervaded by a faint +thrill of pleased pride at the turn of the sentence as he read it over. +This high style was not, however, maintained throughout, and the purport +could not be misunderstood. Furthermore, everybody knew that he had said +he had not a relation belonging to him in this world; and that being so, +it was natural enough for him to make a promising and favorite pupil his +heir. At first sight, therefore, no difficulties presented themselves; +but old Felix slept upon the matter, and by morning grave doubts had +risen in his mind. The gist of them was that "If they took and grabbed +the ould gintleman's bit of money, and he after dyin' all his lone up +among them there, wid ne'er a one of his own folks near him to see he +had his rights, it might look ugly enough agin them, and set some people +passin' remarks he'd be long sorry to have made on him, or any of his +name;" and that for the precluding of such animadversions it might +behove them to provide "a buryin'" not merely decent but "very +respectable whatever," and to expend the remainder of Mr. Polymathers's +personality upon a headstone for his grave, and Masses for his soul. To +set against these apprehensions were Mr. Polymathers's wishes and +Nicholas's interests; and the longer the old man balanced them in his +mind, the more perplexing became their tremulous poise. So at last, +goaded by the urgent necessity for a prompt decision, he turned to seek +it among his neighbours. He could not forbear a hope that their voices +might be convincingly in favour of giving Nicholas his chances; still +his strongest feeling was that it would be a relief to get the matter +settled one way or the other. + +Very different in its degree of intensity was the interest with which +his grandson Nicholas looked forward to the issue. The question to be +decided seemed to him of almost as vital importance as if it were: +Whether or no the sun should rise again next morning. For him at least, +it depended upon that whether his world should loom back again in a +dreary blankness, or waken lit with new and wondrous gleams. Nicholas's +thirst for knowledge and love of learning were much more essentially +part and parcel of him than his hands and eyes, and had so far found +little except dreams and desires to thrive upon. Even before the +memorable summer evening when the gaunt old man in the curious big hat +had asked for the night's lodging, which lengthened into a season's +sojourn, he had often wandered among visions of places where there were +as many books as anybody could read--a dozen maybe--and some people in +it with a power of book-learning--as much perhaps as his Reverence or +the Doctor--only neither priest nor quality, but just neighbours whom he +could question about anything that came into his head, as he used to +question his grandfather, and Paddy Ryan, and Terence Kilfoyle, until he +got tired of being asked, in reply: "Musha good gracious, and who could +be tellin' you that?" an answer which had repeatedly left him a +discouraged atom of bewilderment, symbolically environed by our +wide-spreading bog. Since Mr. Polymathers's visit, these visions had +grown clearer, but not under any rays of hope. His initiation into the +elements of mathematics had pointed out the road along which he should +travel, but had simultaneously revealed all its obstacles, +insurmountable for him solitary and unequipped. In those days his mind +was constantly fumbling at some insoluble problem with the sense of +frustration that one has who gropes vainly in the dark, well knowing how +a single unattainable match-flare would put what he is seeking into his +hands. And no brighter prospect seemed to lie before him anywhere in his +future. + +So when he suddenly learned that Mr. Polymathers had left all his +money--sums and sums--to be spent on "getting schooling for Nicholas +O'Beirne;" and when the sums and sums were actually counted out on the +table, he felt as if a door into enchanted regions had majestically +opened in a blank wall. That night he went to bed in a state of joyous +excitement, only dashed by some pangs of self-reproach for being unable +to feel more sorrow at the flickering out of his poor old teacher's dim +life. He had to frame excuses for himself by recollecting how his +great-aunt Bridget had said, "Ah, sure the crathur's better off, God +knows. What else 'ud he do, and the heart of him broke, but quit out of +it, if he got the chance? Ay, bedad, some people have the quare good +luck." + +And when he got up with his happiness still fresh and strange in the +morning, there was his grandfather declaring "he didn't know if they'd +have a right to touch the bit of money at all; it might be no thing to +go do; schoolin' or no schoolin', he wouldn't be givin' people any call +to say the O'Beirnes were after playin' a dirty thrick." At this +Nicholas's experience was like that of a desert traveller who should see +a mirage of palms and pools grow swiftly before his delighted eyes into +a substantial oasis, and then anon, or ever he could approach it, +shimmer back, with all its sheen and shade, into mocking illusion again. +For thus did it fare with his hopes as his grandfather talked of +renouncing Mr. Polymathers's bequest. Moreover, the grounds which the +old man alleged forbade his grandson, lothfully though he listened, to +utter a word of protest, and even made him half ashamed of his vehement +longing to do so. Nicholas had been an O'Beirne for but fourteen years, +yet he had already entered upon his inheritance of family pride. Only he +could not bring himself to believe that the honour of his house called +for so prodigious a sacrifice; and he could have urged a dozen arguments +against it, if some other person had been the legatee. As it was, all +that delicacy would permit him to do for himself was to give piteously +inadequate expression to his sentiments in casual remarks about the +grandeur of getting a bit of learning, and the difficulty of +understanding some things out of one's own head. Altogether that day was +the longest and the most anxious that he had ever spent. + +Dan also, though his fortunes were not involved to the same extent as +his younger brother's, was not easy in his mind. All day he had been +thinking rather badly of himself, and suspecting that other people +thought worse of him than he deserved, and the reflection was depressing +and irritating. The news of the legacy certainly had not given him +unmixed pleasure, as he felt that it ought to have done; but at the same +time he was aware that he neither grudged nor envied Nicholas his good +fortune, and that this unamiable frame of mind would nevertheless +probably be ascribed to him, if he betrayed any dissatisfaction or +disapproval. The truth was that he could not help feeling some +mortification at the way in which both Mr. Polymathers and his +grandfather assumed the forge to be his destiny and portion in life. Dan +did not by any means despise it: he took an interest in the work, and a +pride in the fact that farmers sent their horses thither from beyond the +Town, so well reputed was old Felix O'Beirne's shoeing. But it did not +follow that he wanted to be a blacksmith all his days. Even if he had +done so, he was sixteen, and consequently of an age to resent any +prescribed calling, especially since he knew that the selection here had +been made as the result of an unfavourable comparison of his abilities +with those of another person. "Dan is no fool, mind you," Mr. +Polymathers had said once. "But for intellect you need never name him on +the same day of the month as Nicholas," a verdict which fell with a +slight shock upon Dan, accustomed to the precedence given by two years' +seniority, superior strength, and a more practical turn of mind. What +was far more serious, however, Dan secretly cherished an ambition of his +own. It took the form of thinking that it would be a wonderfully fine +thing if he could ever get to learn the doctoring, and be able to drive +about on a car like Dr. Hamilton, with a name and a remedy for +everybody's ailment. A particularly fine thing it seemed to understand +the construction of bones and joints, a knowledge which would put it in +his power to prevent people from coming to such grief as, for instance, +poor Matt Haloran down at Duffclane, who must limp on a crooked leg to +the end of his days, because the man who pulled in his dislocated ankle +for him had made a botch of it, through not knowing rightly what he was +about. Dan had been much impressed, too, by several cases where a few +drops of brown stuff out of a bottle had put people to sleep when +various aches and pains had long hindered them from closing an eye, a +result which the neighbours were occasionally disposed to view with +mistrust, as rather probably wrought through the agency of "some quare +ould pishtrogues (charms)," but which to Dan's mind proved the +possession of a skill as enviable as it was beneficent. Beside it +hammering out horseshoes appeared a tedious and aimless pursuit, and he +sometimes thumped away in a very vague dream of one of these days +finding himself more congenially employed. Now, however, it was +perfectly clear to him that if Nicholas "took off wid himself to get +scholarship," his own portion must be to stick to the anvil. For +otherwise supposing his grandfather got past his work, or anything else +happened him, there would be nobody left to look after Dan's great-aunt, +who was not very old, and his great-grandmother, who was such a +wonderful age entirely that no one could say how much longer she mighn't +live. Even the wildest of dreams are not quite easy to scare away, and +it was this chiefly that marred his content with Mr. Polymathers's +testamentary dispositions. Still, when he heard his grandfather's +doubts, and saw his brother's downcast looks, he became almost as +anxious as Nicholas himself that the neighbours might talk away the old +man's scruples and allow the will to stand. + +Thus there were many eager hopes and fears lodged that evening in the +O'Beirnes' living-room, which was all throbbing with fire-light, as the +neighbours began to drop in talking out of the dark. People are apt to +speak loudly when they get their breath after a battle with snowy +blasts; and the sound of voices came strangely into the stillness close +by, where there was only a cold glimmer of candle-light, and nobody +conversing, unless we count old Bridget O'Beirne, who had slipped in to +repeat a few prayers, and say to herself with a sort of grudging +wistfulness that everybody else was getting away. Then she came back to +her world again, and mended the crumbling red-hot bank with sods out of +her apron, and shovelled up the snow-balls shaken off their visitors' +clogged brogues, that they might not melt into mud patches on the floor. + +To Dan and Nicholas, looking on from opposite corners, it seemed a long +while before anything to the purpose was said. Everybody had to comment +upon the snow, and Paddy Ryan's remark was that "if it kep' on at it +that-a-way, they'd be hard enough set to get through the dhrifts be the +day of the buryin'." This caused Mrs. Carbery to remember how she "had +been at a one up in the County Cavan, where the gate into the +buryin'-ground was all blocked up, so that the whole of them had to lep +over what would be be rights a ten-fut wall. And if they did, the half +of them plumped up to their necks in a soft place on the other side, and +came as near losin' their lives as could be thought. Bedad now, they +were comical to behould, goodness forgive her for sayin' so, all bawlin' +and flounderin' about like a flock of sheep stuck in a bog, on'y it was +a white bog and black sheep, as she minded Tom Ennis, that was a quare +codger, sayin' at the time." And this again started old O'Beirne upon +reminiscences of remarkable buryings which had come under his own +observation. + +"Comical it may have been," he said, "but I'll bet you me best brogues +ne'er a one of yous ever witnessed a quarer buryin' than a one I seen +down in the south some ould ages ago, when I was a slip of a lad. But +I'll maybe ha' tould you the story, ma'am--about the flood in the +Tullaroe River?" + +"Was that the time it riz up suddint and dhrownded the crathur that was +diggin' the grave?" said Mrs. Carbery. + +"Sure not at all: that happint up at Lough Gortragh, and this I'm +talkin' about was in the Tullaroe River, a dale souther of the Lough. +Outrageous it does be in the wet saisons. So one harvest day, when it +was flowin' over all before it, there was a walkin' funeral about +crossin' at the ford. The way of it was, they were after hangin' a lad +up at the jail. In those days it's very ready they were wid the hangin', +and in a hurry over it too sometimes. Howane'er the frinds of this lad +had got lave to be buryin' him dacint after he would be hanged; and me +poor father, and meself, and plinty of other people were follyin'. Till +they come to the ford, and when they seen the manner the wather was +runnin' wild, the bearers had a notion to be turnin' back; but they made +up their minds, and on they wint. And as sure as they did, one of the +lads must needs slip his fut, and they right in the middle of the river, +and down wid the whole lot of thim, like a stook of oats in a gale of +win'; 'twas twinty wonders e'er a man of thim ever got his feet under +him agin. Faix, now the yell every sowl let you might ha' heard +anywheres at all; for some of thim was thinkin' the misfort'nit body was +apt to be swep' away and mortally dhrowned to the back of bein' hung; +and some of thim wasn't thinkin' any such a thing. But as for the +coffin, I'll give you me word if it didn't take and set off wid itself +floatin' away bobbin' along atop of the wather as light now, as if it +was a lafe dhropped down from the boughs archin' over our heads--and +wasn't that cur'ous enough? And as quare as anythin' it was to behould +the people all peltin' along be the two wet banks of the river as hard +as they could dhrive, and thrippin' theirselves up over the roots of the +trees, and slitherin' into the pools, wid the coffin just skimmin' and +swimmin' away down the sthrame ahead of them, as aisy and plisant as if +it was a bit of a pookawn. You might ha' sworn there was ne'er a nothin' +in it, to look at it. And he they were after hangin' a fine big man, +'ud weigh every ounce of fourteen stone. I tould you it was a quare +thing. So where it would be sailin' to nobody could say; very belike out +into the bay below. But sure when it come where the river runs past th' +ould church, the strong current that was racin' under it just gave a +sort of lap round wid it, and washed it clane up on the flat stones at +the gate goin' into the buryin'-ground, and left it lyin' there, same as +if the lads had set it down off their shoulders. Bedad now it was a very +lucky thing it so happint there was none of the pólis or red coats +about, be raison of their gettin' notice the buryin' was somewhere +else--oncommon lucky." + +"It's as quare as the rest of it," said Peter Dooley, who had heard the +story before, "that nobody among them had had the wit to put a few +brickbats in it, or some good big lumps of heavy stones. Stones is +plinty, and chape enough." + +"They're things you haven't the sellin' of then, I'll go bail," said old +Felix. He spoke in resentment of the interruption, but Mr. Dooley took +the speech as a flattering tribute to his business capacity, and +acknowledged it with a good-humoured smirk. + +So Bridget might have spared herself the uneasiness which made her say +hurriedly to her brother: "If you was lookin' for Mr. Polymathers's bit +of writin', Felix, I left it lyin' convanient to you under the plate +there on the table." + +"Oh, ay, bedad, that's what's been botherin' me," said the old man, +reachin' for it, "I dunno rightly what to say to it. But sure any of +yous that like can be readin' it, and see what he sez for yourselves." + +Reading was not a question simply of liking with all members of the +company; but everybody could hold the paper and look wise, and if he +were none the more so afterwards, that may have been only because he +knew the contents of it beforehand. When it was Peter Dooley's turn he +examined the signature closely, and said, "But what name's this he's put +to it? 'John Campion' I see, but divil a sign of any Polymathers." + +"Ah, that was another thing was botherin' me, too," said old O'Beirne, +rather dejectedly, "a little while ago, when Dr. Hamilton was comin' to +see him. For th' ould gintleman tould him Campion was his name; and it +appairs Polymathers is some discripshin of thrade, and not rightly +called to anybody at all. So I was thinkin' he was maybe annoyed wid +our callin' him out of his name all the while; but he said all that +ailed it was it was a dale too good for him; and better plased he seemed +we would keep on wid it. Oh ay, 'John Campion's' right enough." + +"I niver heard of any such a thrade as polymatherin'," said his +son-in-law; "would it be anythin' in the pedlarin' line?" + +"Is it pedlarin'?" said old O'Beirne, "and he that took up wid larnin' +and litherature he couldn't ha' tould you the price of a pinny loaf. +Faix, man, if I was Maggie I'd just put a good dab of strong glue in +your place behind the counter down-below, and stick you standing steady +in it, for buyin' and sellin's all the notion you have in your head here +or there. Pedlarin', sez he." + +"Well, at all events," said Peter Dooley, unperturbed, "he's got +together a dacint little fortin one way or the other. Maybe he didn't +come by it any worser; but sure that's no great odds now. And plain +enough he sez the young chap there's to have it--that's all the one +thing wid yourself. But, anyhow, I dunno who could aisy conthrive to be +takin' it off you, and he lavin' no one belongin' to him. You have it +safe enough. Grab all you can, and keep a hould of it when you've got +it, sez I. But you're safe enough, no fear." + +Nicholas, watching his grandfather's face from his corner, would have +given ten years of his life to throttle his uncle's reassuring speech +midway. + +"There's no mistake, I should say, about what he was intendin'," said +Terence Kilfoyle, in whose hands the paper was by this time; "and who'd +be apt to know better than himself what he had in his mind so long as he +was right in his head." + +"And if he wasn't, it's little likely he'd be to ha' got that written. +Hard enough work it is, accordin' to what I can see, even when a body +has all his wits to the fore," said old Paddy Ryan, whose acquaintances +did as a rule get more out of breath over a letter than over a wrestling +match or the recapture of an active pig. + +"Mad people do be surprisin' cute some whiles, mind you," said Mrs. +Carbery. "There was a deminted body used to be up at our place--Daft +Jimmy they called him--and if you axed him the time of day he'd tell you +to the minyit, exacter than any clock that ever sthruck, and he belike +not widin a mile of e'er a one." + +"It seems a sight of money to be layin' out on larnin'," pursued old +Paddy; "I dunno where you'd be gettin' the vally of it that-a-way, +onless he was larnin' everythin' twyste over, same as you put two coats +of whitewash on a wall if you're after mixin' a drop more than you want. +You might do it then." + +His friends' arguments and illustrations had apparently a depressing +effect upon old Felix, and he said with impatience, "Weary on it, +man-alive! Sure there's no doubt about what he was manin', at all at +all. The question is, have we any call to be takin' him at his word, and +spendin' it away from aught 'ud do him a benefit--the buryin' and Masses +and such?" + +"That might be a diff'rint thing," said Mrs. Carbery. + +"I'd scarce think it," said Terence Kilfoyle, "considherin' he'll say no +more to make it so. The job's out of his hand, and 'ill stay the way he +left it." + +"He might ha' changed his mind afore now, for anythin' we can tell," +said Mrs. Carbery. + +"'Deed, then, he might so, the poor man, Heaven be his bed," said Mrs. +Dooley. + +"You could ax the priest about it," Tim O'Meara said diffidently, out of +the melancholy muteness which it was his habit to maintain. + +"That's as much as to say it should go for Masses," said old Felix, +clutching at any shred of definite opinion, "for it's on'y in the nathur +of things his Riverence 'ud be recommindin' thim." + +But Tim shrank away from the shadow of responsibility, protesting, "Och, +not at all, not at all. I wasn't as much as sayin' anythin'." + +The old man tossed up his chin disgustedly, and meditated gloomily +during a brief pause. + +"There's no denyin'," he said then, "that poor Mr. Polymathers had a +won'erful great opinion of himself over there." He nodded towards +Nicholas's corner, and used this periphrasis with a sense that he had +taken a precaution against perilously arousing the boy's vanity. "Times +and agin last summer he was sayin' to me the lad 'ud do credit to us yet +if he had his chances. A pity it 'ud be, he said, if he didn't iver git +to school, or maybe College itself. And gave him his books and all. But +sure, I dunno would that make it look any the better for us if we was to +be grabbin' his bit of money, and we the on'y people he had to see he +got fairity after he was gone. Ne'er a word have I agin schoolin' and +College if there would be no doubtin' over the matter; but there's some +things you can't stand too clear of, like the heels of a kickin' horse. +It might have a quare, bad apparance, rael mane; and long sorry I'd be +for that. What 'ud you say, now?" + +He looked slowly round the flickering room, but met with no response +from old or young; all silent, from his mother, asleep in her +elbow-chair by the hearth, to his grandson Nicholas, very wide awake, in +a nook beyond her. Then his eyes travelled across to the opposite +corner, and as they lit there upon his other grandson, he specialised +his question into, "What 'ud _you_ say, Dan?" + +Dan, thus abruptly called upon, was intensely conscious that two eyes +shining out of the shadow over against him had fixed him with an +unwavering gaze. And it is hard to say how he would have answered their +urging if at the same moment Mr. Dooley at his elbow had not been loudly +whispering to Mrs. Dooley-- + +"Colleges? Sure that's just talk he has be way of an excuse for keepin' +it. A great notion he has of spendin' it on Colleges. He knows better, +bedad." + +Mr. Dooley, who was rather like several sorts of rodent animals in the +face, wore a smile at his own penetration. + +"I dunno but it might look ugly," Dan suddenly said. + +He was staring straight before him, yet he knew somehow, as if by a +sixth sense, that the shining eyes opposite ceased their watch with an +angry flash; and he had scarcely spoken before he would have given +anything to call back his irrevocable speech. + +His grandfather's puzzled will closed on the opinion with a vice-like +grip, as if at a touch given to a powerful spring. Indecision was with +him an unwonted mood, from which it was an irresistible relief to +escape, even at some cost. And nobody who knew him could suppose that +his mind, once made up, would alter. + +"Begorrah, Dan, I believe it's true for you," he said. "'Twould be no +thing to go do, and divil a bit of me 'ill do it. Whatever's over from +the buryin' and bit of a grave-stone may go for Masses; sorra a penny of +it a one of the O'Beirnes 'ill touch." + +So Nicholas lost his chances, which seems a pity when one considers how, +for the sake of bringing them to him, old Mr. Polymathers, dazed and +enfeebled and hope-bereft, came tramping on that long, long journey, day +after weary day, under the scowling wintry sky, and against the +ruffling blasts, back again across the breadth of Ireland. The road was +all strewn for him with the wreckage of his shattered dream, and the one +gleam of consolation that lighted him on the way had been the thought +that his savings might now give a help to the lad up at Lisconnel. This +had often been in his mind when he set off, shivering in the bleak +morning, and when he stopped to shift his over-heavy bundle, and when he +roused himself painfully from the bewildering lethargies that fell upon +him. But he had reckoned without the pride of the O'Beirnes. + +It was a pity, too, that the affair should have led to an estrangement +between the two brothers, which set in as tacitly as a black frost, for +neither of them ever said a word to the other about Dan's intervention. +This silence left him in the thorny grip of misgivings as to the motives +with which Nicholas might be charging him. That he had done it on +purpose to spoil Nicholas's chances out of spite was one of these. And +although Dan knew very well that he had spoken from an altogether +different impulse, he was conscious of having had feelings which seemed +to give him a cruelly clear insight into the possible workings of +Nicholas's mind. "Consaitin' that it was because I was invyin' him, +that's what he's thinkin' agin me," he said to himself as the days went +by, and he perceived, or fancied, that Nicholas in his disconsolate +moping about had no other aim than to keep away from wherever Dan might +be. + +But Dan's unhappiness took an acuter phase in a fortnight or so, when +Nicholas began to resume his mathematical studies. There lies just +opposite the O'Beirnes' front door a low turf bank, gently sloping, and +mostly clothed with short, fine grass, but liable to be cut into brown +squares, if sods are wanted for roofing a shed, or for spreading a green +layer of scraws under new thatch. This had been done on a rather large +scale in the past autumn, and the boys had been in the habit of +utilising the smooth, bare patches as tablets whereon to trace with +pointed sticks, or any handy implements borrowed from the forge, the +figures and diagrams occurring in Mr. Polymathers's scientific lectures. +Nicholas now, albeit he had buried both teacher and hope, began once +more to draw his circles and triangles and polygons on the soft mould, +as it grew damply and darkly through the wearing snow coverlid. +Sometimes in the excitement of demonstrating involved relations between +AB's and BC's he would for a while forget his disappointment almost as +completely as he did the wet-winged winds that had been flapping and +wheeling about the house ever since the thaw set in. His obliviousness +could not, however, ensure him against the effects of cold shower-baths, +and before long his geometrical drawing was done to the accompaniment of +a hollow-sounding cough, which made Dan remember a time some years ago +when Nicholas had been so seriously ill with pleurisy that voices had +said at their door, "Ah, the crathur, he'll scarce last the night. Dr. +Hamilton has no opinion of him at all. 'Deed, now, his poor +grandfather's to be pitied, losin' such a fine young lad." And he also +remembered having occasionally heard his great-aunt say that Nicholas +took after his poor mother, and would never comb a grey head. Now, +therefore, the figure of Nicholas sitting out on the bank in a vibrating +mist of rain, with his feet in a puddle, and his hair flickering in damp +strands about his thin face, became for Dan an ominous and saddening +spectacle. + +But while he was ruefully contemplating it one day, a happy idea struck +him. He would get Nicholas some clean white paper to draw his _dygrims_ +on. "And then belike he'd be contint to sit in be the fire, instead of +to be catchin' his death scrawmin' out there in the mud under teems of +rain." Grand writing-paper was to be had at Isaac Tarpey's, down in +Ballybrosna, and Dan at this time happened to be in possession of a +whole shilling, which he dedicated more than willingly to the purchase. + +Isaac Tarpey presided over the Ballybrosna Post-office, which was in +some respects a singularly complete establishment, as not only was the +raw material for a letter kept in stock there, but the letter itself +could, for a consideration, be written on the premises by the postmaster +in person. It is true that Isaac did not supply more than the barest +necessaries of scribes, the bread and water, so to speak, of stationery, +the very plainest pens and paper and ink. He kept his ink in a single +moderate-sized jar, out of which he measured penn'orths and ha'p'orths +into the various receptacles brought by customers who came to demand "a +sup" or "a drain." On these sales his profits were certainly enormous, +not less than cent. per cent., but then the consumption of that article +was extremely small in Ballybrosna. It took a long while to reach the +sediment at the bottom of the jar, and Isaac's letter-writing, done at +the rate of thruppence a-piece, probably was a more lucrative branch of +his business, though the correspondence of the Town was not large enough +to put his services in frequent requisition. Partly on this account, and +partly because he was by nature a strong conservative, Mr. Tarpey set +his face sternly against the spread of education. He was distressed by +the appearance of any symptoms of it among the neighbouring youth, even +when it took the form of an inquiry for his limp paper and skewer-like +pens. In fact, the diffusion of penmanship was what he most seriously +deprecated and discountenanced. "The Lord knows," his main argument ran, +"the foolery them spalpeens 'ill be gabbin' permiscuis would sicken you, +widout givin' them the chance to be sittin' down aisy and invintin' it." +His wife once suggested that "the crathurs might be more sinsible like, +when they were takin' time to considher themselves." But Isaac said, +"Pigs may fly." + +At the time when Dan came for his paper the office was occupied by Norah +Fottrell, engaged in dictating a letter to her sweetheart, Stevie Flynn, +away in Manchester. The composition still looked discouragingly brief, +despite Isaac's big, flourishing hand, yet Norah's ideas had already +run so short that she was staring in quest of more up among the cobwebby +rafters over her head. + +"You might say," she said, after a pause, "that I hope he's gettin' his +health where he is." + +"I've said that twyste before," Isaac objected severely. + +"Och, murdher, have you?" said Norah, reverting to the rafters with a +distracted gaze. + +"Couldn't you tell him the price your father got for the last baste he +sould?" said Isaac. + +"Bedad, I might so," said Norah; "'twas on'y thirty shillin', but it 'ud +take up a good bit of room. And look-a, Mr. Tarpey, couldn't we lave the +rest of the page clane? As like as not the bosthoon wouldn't be +botherin' his head spellin' out the half of it." + +The adoption of this course expedited Norah's love-letter to a happy +close. But when Dan took her place at the counter Isaac assured him, not +without satisfaction, that "they were cliver and clane run out of all +their writin' paper, barrin' it might be a sort of butt-ind of loose +sheets left litterin' at the bottom of the drawer, and they that thick +wid dust you could be plantin' pitaties in them, forby gettin' mildewed +lyin' up in the damp so long." + +It was not so much compunction at Dan's disappointed countenance as an +irresistible hankering after a good bargain that ultimately led the +postmaster to sweep this uninviting remnant together, and fix upon it +the price of sixpence. The charge was exorbitant, considering the small +quantity and damaged state of the goods, yet Dan carried off his little +packet quite contentedly, announcing that he would step over again for +another sixpenn'orth next week, when, as Isaac reluctantly admitted, a +fresh supply of stationery would have arrived. + +As Dan left the office he passed an unknown gentleman, tall, with a +shrewd sallow face, dark, peaked beard, and alert grey eyes, who had +been leaning against the door while the bargain was struck. The stranger +was Mr. Alfred B. Willett, of New York, a wealthy engineer, who on his +way home from Europe had been visiting his friend Dr. Hamilton of +Ballybrosna. His curiosity now was roused by Dan's evident eagerness to +acquire materials for the drawing of diagrams, the pursuit striking him +as so strangely incongruous with the aspect of the brown-faced stalwart +ragged youth, that he stepped inside when the place was empty to make +inquiries on the subject. The post-master's information was to the +effect that "the O'Beirnes above at the forge had always had the name of +bein' very dacint respectable people up to then, and he'd never before +seen any of the young ones settin' themselves up to be askin' after such +things. He hoped it mightn't be a sign that the old man was goin' +foolish, and lettin' the lads get past his control. But sure enough we +must all of us put up wid growin' good for nothin' sometime, unless we +happint to ha' never been worth anythin' to begin wid. And he wished he +had a penny ped him for every one of that sort he'd met in the coorse of +his life." + +This cynical disquisition was not very enlightening. However next week +when Dan slipped over again for his second sixpenn'orth, Mr. Willett it +chanced was there too, having called to report on the excessive +thickness and other undesirable peculiarities of some ink lately +supplied to him. It had been, in fact, composed of "the sidimint" +artfully diluted with a drop of vinegar; but Isaac Tarpey said it was +"thick wid the stren'th was in it," and set about uncorking his fresh +jar with an affronted air, when his customer persisted in pointing out +that its adhesive properties were less valuable in ink than in glue. +Meanwhile Mr. Willett fell into a conversation with Dan, which ended in +his engaging the lad to accompany him as guide on a shooting expedition +next day. The arrangement turned out satisfactorily, and was repeated +more than once, with the consequence that Dan and the stranger talked +about many things in the course of several long tramps, until one +evening the latter, sitting on a stone wall after a steep pull uphill, +made Dan an offer which caused the most familiar objects to seem unreal, +because a marvellous dream was coming true among them. For Mr. Willett +proposed to take Dan home with him, and have him taught whatever he most +wished to learn. "You're a smart lad, Dan," he said, "and I reckon +you'll make more of that in the States than in this country." + +"Ah! the doctorin'," said Dan, turning as red as the young sorrel +leaves, and letting his darling wish slip out in his surprise as +involuntarily as he would have blinked at a flash of lightning. But next +moment he remembered Nicholas, and fell silent; Nicholas, who had not +looked him in the face since that snowy evening weeks ago. The dream +seemed to stop coming true. + +"There's no need to make up your mind in a hurry," said Mr. Willett, +"you can be thinking it over between this and Monday." + +Dan did think it over deeply that night and the next day and the day +after. He thought how fine, if rather fearful, it would be to go on such +a journey; and what a splendid thing to learn the doctoring business, +and some day come home again able to cure everybody of anything that +ailed them. "For out in the States, like enough, they had all manner of +contrivances the people over here had never taught Dr. Hamilton," whose +skill was occasionally baffled. He imagined the neighbours' surprise +when he came driving up on his car; if possible he would be driving a +little blue-roan mare like Farmer Finucane's Rosemary, with whom he had +made friends in the course of many shoeings. He thought he would be +sorry to miss seeing them all for so long; and yet it would certainly be +very pleasant, in a way, to get to a place where things were a bit +different sometimes, not like here where when you were getting up in the +morning you knew what was bound to be happening all day just as well as +you did when you were going to bed that night. And next he thought that +such days would be coming to Nicholas, while he himself was away seeing +and learning "all manner of everything;" and that if he had held his +tongue that time, maybe Nicholas would have got his chance with Mr. +Polymathers's money, instead of its all being spent away on nothing. And +he thought that it wasn't his fault, for what else could he say when he +was asked all of a minute, except the first thing that came into his +head? And he wondered how it would be if anything happened to his +grandfather. Nicholas wasn't over-strong, and too young altogether +besides. And then he thought again that Mr. Willett was cleverer than +anybody he had ever seen, and more good-natured; it was a pleasure to go +about with him; and people were great fools to give up their chances. +Maybe Nicholas might get another some day. And maybe Mr. Polymathers had +been mistaken in thinking that he was the one best worth teaching. + +All these things Dan thought, and the result of his cogitations was that +on the Monday he stole a sheaf of Nicholas's most complicated +cobweb-like diagrams from their hiding-place in the wall, and brought +them with him when he went by appointment to meet his patron off beyond +Knockfinny. And when Mr. Willett said to him: "Well, Dan, what about the +States and the doctoring?" he replied inconsequently by holding out the +sheets of paper with the explanation: "It's me brother, Nicholas, sir, +does be doin' them mostly out of his own head." + +Mr. Willett looked at them for some minutes with interested +ejaculations. "Upon my word," he then said, "if these were done out of +his own head, he must have about as much mathematics located in it by +nature as a spider." + +"Aren't they good for anythin' at all then, sir?" said Dan, not knowing +exactly what he hoped and feared. + +"Good? They're astonishing," said Mr. Willett. He asked some questions +about Nicholas's age, schooling, and so forth; after which he said: "You +must take me to see this brother of yours, Dan. I expect he'll have got +to come right along with us." + +But Dan stared round and round the spacious brown-purple floor they were +standing on, and after a far-off flight of wild fowl, and up at the sky, +where the clouds travel without let or hindrance, before he answered +hesitatingly: "The two of us couldn't ever both go, sir. How could we +be lavin' the forge and all on me ould grandfather? And Nicholas never +makes any great hand of the work." + +"Ah! is that the way the land lies?" said Mr. Willett, as if half +impatient, and half amused, but not best pleased. He looked hard at Dan, +and thought he saw how matters stood, "You've no mind to leave the old +grandfather and the rest of the concern, but you think it would be more +in the other lad's line." + +As a matter of fact Dan was at that particular moment feeling strongly +how easily he could have reconciled himself to the separation, and how +entirely it would be the making of him to do so. But he did not gainsay +Mr. Willett's statement. To himself he said, "He's a right to have his +chances; and the one of us is bound to stop in it"--a mode of expressing +his sentiments which showed that he had much need of culture; and aloud: +"Nicholas always had a powerful wish to be gettin' some larnin'; and I'm +a fool to him at the geomethry anyway." + +The upshot of it all was that when some six weeks later Mr. Alfred B. +Willett sailed for New York, Nicholas O'Beirne accompanied him, and Dan +O'Beirne remained at Lisconnel. It was on a gleamful April day that they +set out, with soft gusts roaming all around, as if they had come from +very far off, and were eagerly exploring the strange places, and many +light clouds flitting by swiftly above, as if they had a long journey +before them, and were in a joyous flurry over it. Dan spent the +slow-paced hours in the forge, where he hammered loud and long, and +seldom looked across the threshold. The pleasantest thought in his mind +was the remembrance of a short conversation which he had had with +Nicholas while they were tying up Mr. Polymathers's old books at the +kitchen-door just as the grey chink in the east filled with rose-light, +and the earliest breeze came over the bog waving the withered grasses. +Dan had said to Nicholas: "Sure I wouldn't be grudgin' you e'er a bit of +good luck, lad." And Nicholas had replied: "And never did." + +After Nicholas's departure many days bad and good rose on Lisconnel, but +few of them brought any tidings of the absent. Letters passed now and +then, laggard and uninstructive as such letters must be, and they grew +rarer and briefer as time went on. Perhaps a dozen years had gone by, +when Dan one day received simultaneously an American newspaper and a +parcel. The newspaper was marked with large blue chalk crosses at a +paragraph which related how the degree of D.Sc. had been conferred. +_Honoris Causâ_ upon Mr. Nicholas O'Beirne by the University of +Sarabraxville. And in the parcel, more astonishing still, was a +brown-covered book, lettered on the back: _A Treatise on Conic Sections, +by Nicholas O'Beirne_. By this time Dan had been left alone at the +forge; but he was courting Mary Ryan, Mick Ryan's daughter, so he +naturally conveyed to her this remarkable news. It produced a profound +impression. Old Paddy her grandfather was with difficulty brought to +realise the fact that "they were after makin' a doctor of young Nicholas +O'Beirne, him that went out to the States the year before the Famine." +And when he had got the idea into his head, it seemed to act like a +swivel-joint, and set him nodding to the tune of: "Well tub-be sure; +glory be to God; young Nicholas O'Beirne." + +"I wish to goodness he'd come over and cure Mick, poor man," said Mick's +wife. "For he hasn't been worth pickin' up off the road ever since he +was bad with the fever last year, and he might as well be dhrinkin' so +much ditch-wather as the ould stuff Dr. Carson's givin' him." + +"Ah but it's not the medical doctorin' Nicholas has gone to," said Dan, +the shadow of a shadow crossing his face, "there'd be diff'rint letters +for that." And he proceeded to read out the report of the degree +conferred _honoris causâ_ upon the distinguished young Irishman, Mr. +Nicholas O'Beirne, whose recent contributions to the study of the higher +mathematics had roused so much interest in scientific circles. + +"Ay, true for you, Dan," said Mary; "you don't hear them callin' Dr. +Carson an Honory-causy." + +Dan's shred of Latin had grown rustier than the oldest iron in his +stock, but was not yet utterly worn away. "The manin' of that," he +explained, "would be, _be raison of honour_, and I should suppose, +they've gave it to him for the sake of what all he's after doin'." + +"Bedad then, Dan," said Mrs. Mick, "some one had a right to be givin' +you an Honory-causy yourself, considherin' the cure you're after makin' +on Mr. Finucane's ould mare, and everybody of the opinion she'd never +stand on four feet again to the ages' ind." + +"Och blathers, ma'am," Dan said, modestly, "sure anybody wid the sight +of their eyes might aisy enough ha' seen what ailed the crathur. That +was no great comether. And look at what Nicholas is after doin'; he's +wrote a book, no less." + +The "Treatise on Conic Sections" created an even stronger sensation than +the news of the honorary degree, especially among those who had letters +enough to spell out the familiar name on the title-page. Dan's Mary was +not one of these scholars, but she found another page to admire, saying +that the circles "drew in and out of aich other like a lot of +soap-bubbles, had an oncommon tasty look, and so had all them weeny +corners, wid the long bames between, the moral of a chain-harrow, you +couldn't mistake it. Sure it's proud of it anybody might be." + +Probably Nicholas was very proud of this first heir of his invention, +diagrams, and all. Whether it ever had any successors seems doubtful; +certainly none of them arrived at his old home. But his Treatise is +still safely stowed away there in a corner of the dresser. Most likely +it is the only copy of "O'Beirne on Conic Sections" existing in Ireland; +and who would expect to find it lodged in a smoke-stained cabin on the +wild bogland between Duffclane and Lisconnel? + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +BOYS' WAGES + + +One leaden-roofed morning in the winter after his brother Nicholas had +gone to the States, young Dan O'Beirne was in rather low spirits, and +rather out of humour. It was not unnatural that such a mood should +occasionally overtake him, since he had reached apparently a straight +and monotonous tract of road, which would have looked interminable to +the eyes of seventeen had not his household companions been now all +declining folk, whose presence brought under his constant observation +the last stages of "a long journey in December gone." Half a century or +so of smithy work, even with some unlicensed doctoring and illicit +distilling thrown in, was not by any means the future that he would have +liked his oracle to predict for him. And though he forecast it +accurately enough without the intervention of any soothsaying, this no +more helped him to avoid it than if he had been an old-world tragical +hero, whose friends were seeking by vain devices to circumvent the +promulgated decrees of his destiny. Dan, indeed, took no steps of that +sort. For him, as for most of us, the skirts of circumstance were as the +meshes of the net in which Fate holds us, and his evil star was an +object of which it seemed very hard to get a good grip. I have always +wondered myself how people set about it. At any rate, Dan continued to +walk under his; that is to say, if it were really bad luck that kept him +at the forge. Upon this point there might be differences of opinion. +Terence Kilfoyle, for instance, who dropped in to escape from a +snow-shower in the course of that morning, would not, evidently, have +taken such a view. For when Dan said something grumblingly about +Lisconnel being "a slack sort of a place, where one didn't get much +chance of doin' anythin' at all;" he replied, "Bedad now, if I'd the +fine business you and your grandfather have to be puttin' me hand to, I +wouldn't call the Queen me aunt." + +In those times the district around our bogland was more thickly +inhabited than it is at present, and the blacksmith's jobs were +proportionately plentier. Nowadays the forge is liable to long spells +of silence, but Dan, who as young Dan has been superseded, philosophises +over them, and talks no more about chances. On this occasion his remarks +were overheard by his grandfather, perhaps because the old man had begun +to have thoughts of chances which made him sensitive to signs of +discontent in his assistant. And by and by when Terence had gone, he +said, "Terence said a very sinsible word; a lad might aisy get a worse +start in life, ay indeed he might so, if it was twyste as slack. But +anyhow there's them here that 'ud be hard set to make a shift for +themselves if the two of us was out of it; and I'm apt to be quittin' +before Biddy at all events." To which Dan replied, "Why what talk was +there of quittin'?" and the subject ceased out of the conversation. +During the subsequent silence Dan thought, among other things, that it +was "aisy for his grandfather to be talkin';" but in this he made a +mistake. For old O'Beirne remembered vividly that he had once had his +own restless ambitions, and his chances, too, of realising them, in +times when he did more stirring things than merely forge pike-heads. +Therefore he guessed what lent an unnecessary vehemence to his +grandson's hammering, and if he could have thought of any consolatory +remark, he would have made it. But it only occurred to him to say that +the days would soon be len'thenin' now, anyway; and even to himself this +seemed cold comfort. Dan replied, "Och, they're plinty long enough," and +sent a thick swarm of fiery bees flitting up the dark-throated chimney. + +That evening when Dan closed the broad-leaved forge doors, he shut +himself out into a world as black and white as moonlight on turf and +snow could make it. Though the morning's flutter of snow had left but a +meagre sprinkling on that great bogland, the moonbeams touching every +scattered flake, seemed to gather it all up widely in one stark spectral +gleam. Far away towards the horizon this dulled off into a shadowy zone +of mist, where the wind was muttering and moaning to itself, dimly heard +across the hushed floor of the night. Beyond that Dan was aware +wistfully of regions unknown, with all their possibilities fascinating +and mysterious. But he had small scope for speculation about what he +should find when he opened the house door fast by; and in fact he +discovered everything and everybody just as he could have foretold. The +fire-lit room was filled with the busy weaving of the web that ruddy +gleams and russet shadows never got finished, swiftly as they glanced, +and overhead the black spaces between the rafters gloomed down like +inlets of a starless sky. There sat his great-grandmother smoking her +dudeen in her nook by the hearth, and her big cloak--a very little of +wizened old woman to a great many heavy, dark-blue folds. There, too, +knitted her grey-haired daughter Bridget, who said, as she did every +evening, "Well, Dan, so you're come in," and would have not much more to +say for herself that night except the Rosary. And his grandfather, who +had come in just before him, was lighting his pipe in the opposite +chimney-corner. A year ago his brother Nicholas would have thrust a +head, all eyes and rumpled hair, into a patch of bright flickerings, to +pore over the tattered arithmetic-book; but by this time his absence had +become a matter of course. The only at all unusual feature was Joe +Denny, the blind fiddler, who had called in on his way home and had a +drop of poteen and a farrel of wholemeal cake. Yet Joe was indeed a +tolerably common incident, and his jokes altered not. He had begun his +parting one, which was to the effect that sorra a man in the counthry of +Connaught could see clearer than himself if the night was dark enough, +when Dan's arrival interrupted him, and made him declare, taking out his +fiddle, that 'twould be a poor case if the lad didn't get e'er a tune at +all. Dan was not much in the humour for tunes, but he said, "Ay, Joe, +give us a one, man-alive," and Joe struck up with twangle and squeak. + +He was playing-- + + "Over the hills and far away, + Over the hills and beyond the say, + Over the hills and a great way off, + And the wind it blew--" + +when a thudding knock on the door seemed to beat down the shriller +sounds and stop the sliding bow. Dan went to see who it was, and found +standing on the threshold a tall, lean old man in a long, ragged coat, +with a thick, knotted blackthorn in his hand. A few hard-frozen granules +pattered in at the opened door, which admitted a glimpse of the moon, +tarnished by a thin drift of scudding cloud. + +"God save all here," said the old man, who was a stranger. + +"Good-evenin' to you kindly, sir," responded old Felix from his fireside +corner; "and wudn't you be steppin' widin?" + +"I'm on'y axin' me way to the place below there--Ballybrosna beyond +Duffclane," said the old man; "it's the road I must be steppin', for I'm +more than a thrifle late." + +But he came slowly forward into the room as if lured by the fire, at +which he looked hungrily. He stooped and limped very much, and when he +took off his black caubeen, the sharp gleam of his white hair seemed to +comment coldly on those infirmities. + +"I'm widin a mile or so of it, or maybe less, by now, I should suppose," +he said. + +"Faix, then, it's the long mile," said the fiddler. "Put half a dozen to +it, and you'll be nearer; and bedad it's aisier work doin' that in your +head than on your feet. Be the same token I must be leggin' it, or +they'll consait I'm lost at our place." And he stepped out darkly into +the veiled moonlight. + +"Wirrasthrew and weary on it," the old man said to himself; and then to +the others, "Is it that far as he says?" + +"Ay is it, every inch," said old O'Beirne. "And too long a thramp for +you altogether, sir, if I might make so free." + +"For the matther of that," said the ragged old man, proudly, "I've +walked the double of it, and more, times and agin, widout so much as +considherin'. But your road's a bit heavy to-night, wid the snow--and +could." + +"That's the worst of the roads," said the little old woman, peering +suddenly out of her corner; "the longer you walk them, the longer +they'll grow on you, till you begin to think there's no ind to them. And +after that, the best conthrivance is to keep off of them clivir and +clane, the way I do. Then they're no len'th at all." + +"Ah, ma'am, but 'twouldn't be very handy if the young folk took to +thryin' that plan," the old man said. "_We_'re bound to keep steppin' +out." + +A short silence followed this remark, because the hearers felt uncertain +whether he meant the pronoun for a jest. To evade the difficulty, old +O'Beirne bade Dan fetch a mug for a drop of poteen, and meanwhile said +to the stranger: + +"Sit you down, sir, and take a taste of the fire. Where might you be +thravellin' from this day?" + +"I was livin' over at Innislone," said the old man, sitting down on a +creepy stool. + +"Musha, then, you didn't ever come that far all on ind--sure it's miles +untould." + +"'Twas the day afore yisterday I quit. Last night I slep' at Sallinbeg, +and this mornin' I met a man who loaned me a grand lift in his cart." + +"I used to know a man lived at Innislone," said old O'Beirne, "be the +name of Brian English. He come by here of an odd while after the stuff." + +"Ay, bedad, and a very dacint ould crathur he was. Meself's one of the +Dermodys--young Christie they call me--but ould Christie that was me +poor father's dead this while back. Thank you kindly, lad," the old man +said to Dan, who now handed him a little delft mug half full of whisky. +"Why, you're nigh as long a fellow as meself. Are you good at the +wrestlin'?" + +"Och, I'm no great things whatever," Dan replied with becoming modesty. + +"There's not many heavy weights in the parish 'ud care to stand up to +me," said this young Christie, holding the mug in a gaunt tremulous +hand. "Faix, it's noways forrard they've been about it since the time I +come near breakin' Rick Tighe's neck. I've noticed that. Begorrah, now, +ivery sowl thought I had him massacred," he said, with a transient gleam +of genuine complacency. "You might have heard tell of it, belike?" + +"It 'ud ha' happint before my recollections, sir, maybe," said Dan, +looking at him perplexedly, "if 'twas apt to ha' been a longish while +ago." + +"'Twasn't long to say," said the old man. He drank the spirits +lingeringly, in slow sips, and seemed to sit up straighter as he did so. +Then he set down the empty mug on the table, and said, "_Boys' wages_." + +But he had scarcely uttered the words when he perceived that he had +thought aloud irrelevantly, and made haste to cover the slip. "I'd +better be gettin' on wid meself," he said, rising, "Thank you, kindly. +That's an iligant fire you have." He looked at it regretfully, but +turned resolutely towards the door, still open, and framing the broad +dim whiteness out away to the bounding curtain of gloom. "It's a grand +thing," he said defiantly, "to have all the world before you." + +The sentiment was not accepted without qualification. + +"That depinds," said old O'Beirne. "Somewhiles I question wud you find +anythin' in it better than a warm corner and a pipe of 'baccy, if you +thramped the whole of it. And you might happen on a dale worse. What do +you say, mother?" + +She was knocking ashes out of her pipe-bowl against the wall, and nodded +in assent. + +"It's no place for people that can keep shut of it," she said. + +"If you've ne'er a chance of gettin' into it," said Dan, "I dunno what +great good it does you bein' there afore or behind." + +"Or if you knew there was nothin' left in it you wanted to be goin' +after," said his great-aunt, half to herself. + +"Well, whatever way you look at it," said the strange old man, "I've a +notion I've a right to be gettin' somethin' more out of it be now than +boys' wages. Ay, it's time I was. Boys' wages; the lyin' spalpeen." + +"If you axed me, sir," said old O'Beirne, "I'd say 'twas time somebody +else would be gettin' the wages. Isn't there any childer to be earnin' +for you? Haven't you e'er a son, that you need be thrampin' the counthry +that fashion, let alone talkin' about all the world, wild like?" + +"I've a son, troth have I, if that was all," said the old man, turning +away, angrily. + +"Then it's that much better off than me you are. The only one I had, he +took and died on me, himself, and his poor wife a couple of days after +him--God be good to them--when the lad there wasn't scarce the height of +that stool, and a less size on his brother, that's away now in the +States gettin' all manner of a fine edication. Very dacint poor childer +they always was, too; but it was a bad job." + +"He might ha' done worse agin you than that," said Christie Dermody, "be +the powers he might." He had retreated as far as the door, but now he +faced round, and stood on the edge of the thin snow, leaning his right +shoulder against the post, and looking in at the other old man by the +fire. "He might ha' fooled you for years and years, and made a +laughin'-stock of you wid everybody about the place--and me wid ne'er a +thought of any such a thing--he might so, and bad luck to him.... +'Foostherin' about and consaitin' to be doin' a fair day's work, when +he's the creep of a snail on him, and the stren'th of a rat.' That's +what I heard Tim Reilly sayin' and I goin' home on the Saturday night. +But if I come creepin' after him, the young baste, he'd maybe ha' ráison +to remimber it.... And himself and the wife lettin' on there was nothin' +like me; and he callin' me to come into his room--I heard him plain +enough all the while, no fear, but I wudn't be lettin' on. There's +ne'er a hap'orth ailin' him. Troth he may call till he's choked afore +iver I'll come next or nigh him. And sendin' the little girl slutherin' +to say her daddy wanted me. I tould her want might be his master. Sure +they're all the one pack, and the widest width there is in this world +I'll be keepin' between them and me. Shut of them I'll be for good and +all--and I'll make me fortin' yet, and no thanks to him. What talk have +they of ould men? Boys' wages. Good-night to you all." + +To those in the room it seemed as if he dropped away back into the wan +dusk behind him, and next moment they saw him in motion a few paces +distant, limping fast, and gesticulating as though he were still +carrying on his monologue. + +"That old crathur's asthray in his mind, I misdoubt," said old O'Beirne, +"and I wouldn't won'er if he was after gettin' bad thratement among his +own people." + +"Goodness pity him," said his sister Bridget. "It's a cruel perishin' +night, and snowin' thicker. Where'll he get to at all? And carryin' +nought but an old stick. We'd better ha' kep' him." + +"Sure we couldn't ha' stopped him anyhow," said the blacksmith, "no +more than one of them flustherin' blasts goin' by. When a body's took up +wid onraisonable notions, you might as well be hammerin' could iron as +offerin' to persuade him diff'rint. But he'll maybe turn in at the +Gallahers'." + +They watched him until the dark imprints of his receding steps in the +thin snow-sheet could no longer be distinguished, and then Dan closed +the door, shutting out the wide world and the fortune seeker. "Things is +quare and conthráry," he said to himself. + +Some two hours afterwards they were all sitting round the fire still. It +was nearly nine o'clock, which is late in Lisconnel, but they found it +hard to detach themselves from the cordial grasp of the warm glow. +Bridget, however, had put by her needles, and begun to tell her beads, +when another knock broke in upon them. + +"He's come back belike," said old O'Beirne; but when Dan opened the +door, the person who stood there, though likewise tall and gaunt and +ragged, had grizzled black hair, and was not more than middle-aged. His +face was hollow-cheeked and drawn, and his eyes glittered while he +shivered and panted. The night had grown wilder as the moon sank low, +and the snow went past the door like rapid wafts of ghostly smoke. This +newcomer stumbled into the room without ceremony, as if half blinded, +and said breathlessly-- + +"Did any of yous be chance see an ould man goin' this road to-day? An +ould ancient man, somethin' lame; be the name of Christie Dermody?" + +"Ay, sure enough, himself was in it not so long ago," said old O'Beirne. +"If it hadn't been you, 'twas very apt to ha' been him come back." + +In the man's face one trouble seemed to be relieved by another at the +tidings. + +"Glory be to goodness, then, that I've heard tell of him at last," he +said. "But God help the crathur, what's to become of him streelin' about +this freezin' night? The snow's as dhry as mail-dust. Perished he'll be. +Och, he's the terrible man to go do such a thing on us. What way did he +quit? It's me ould father, sir, that's over eighty years of age." + +"And is he after strayin' away on you?" said old O'Beirne. + +"Follyin' him since yisterday mornin' I am," said the other, "when it's +in me bed I should be be rights, for I'm that distroyed wid the could +on me chest I've scare a bit of breath in me body. But sure what matter +if I can come be the crathur agin. Is it that a-way he went, did you +notice?" + +"You're bound to wait till the flurry of the win's gone by," said old +O'Beirne, for his visitor pointed out into a shrieking whirl, shrilling +higher and fiercer. "Sorra a minyit you'll lose, for you couldn't stir a +step in that or see a stim. Sit you down a while. What was it set him +rovin'?" + +"Did he say anythin' agin us? Anythin' of bein' thrated bad?" + +"Well, I wouldn't say he seemed altogether satisfied in himself," said +old O'Beirne, remembering his suspicions. "Somethin' he said of bein' +made a fool of, and tould lies to----" + +"And gettin' boys' wages," said Dan. + +"Ay, ay, wirrasthrew, that was the very notion he had, goodness help us. +What will we do at all wid him? You see, sir, me father's a won'erful +proud-minded man; he is that. And a great big man, and as strong as ten +he was, ontil he got rael ould entirely. So it's cruel bad he thinks of +not bein' able for everythin' the way he used to be; and he won't let on +but he is, be no manner of manes he won't. 'Deed no, he sez he's as good +a man as ever he was in his life." + +"Belike now he's of the opinion the sun doesn't dhrop down out of the +sky of an evenin'," said little old Mrs. O'Beirne, with sarcasm. "What +does the ould body expec'?" + +"I dunno, ma'am, I dunno. Sure it's agin nathur and raison. There's +meself gettin' as grey as a badger, and noways that supple as I was. But +me father's a terrible cliver man. You'd niver get the better of an +argufyment wid him, for he wouldn't listen to a word you'd be sayin'. So +you see the way of it was, the two of us is workin' this great while on +Mr. Blake's lan', that's a dacint man enough; and it might be three year +ago, he sez to me one Saturday night--for be good luck 'twas me and not +me father he'd mostly be payin'--sez he to me, 'Look it here, Ned, it's +the last time I'll be givin' man's wages to your father, for bedad an +infant child 'ud do as much as he any day of the week. So I'll put him +on boys' wages,' he sez, 'that'ill be three shillin's, and every penny +as much as he's worth,' sez he. And sure I knew it was the truth he was +sayin', but 'twould break me father's heart. + +"So nought better could I do on'y to make out 'twas he would be gettin' +the man's wages, and meself the boy's. Diff'rint raisons I conthrived," +he said, with some natural pride in the details of his strategy, "but +mostly I let on 'twas because of me bein' such a fool about the horses +they couldn't trust me wid any except the ould ones. Anyway me father +was contint enough; faix, some whiles he seemed a bit set up like, +considherin' he had the pull over me, and he'd be sayin' what at all 'ud +we do without him, and I such an omadhawn. Niver a cross word we had +until last week I got laid up wid this mischancy could and the pain in +me chest, so sorra a fut could I go to me work; and I well knew the +whole thing 'ud come out, if he went when I didn't. Bedad I dhramed it +all the night asleep and awake, till I was fairly moidhered in me head." + +"Tub-be sure," said old O'Beirne, "that's the worst of lettin' on. If +anythin' goes crooked, it's like the bottom bursted out of a sack of +mail; you're carryin' about nothin' at all before you know what's +happint you." + +"Well, we done the best we could, me wife and me, to dispersuade him off +of goin' on Saturday. Bad wid the could too, we said he was; but och not +a fut of him but would go. So Barney McAuliffe was tellin' me wife, when +the men was payin' in the yard, me father he ups and says to Mr. Blake: + +"'Beg pardon, sir, but you're after givin' me no more than me son's +money, and it's meself was workin' this week, not him.' + +"And Mr. Blake sez, just goin' off in a hurry, 'What are you talkin' +about, man? Whethen now, you don't suppose I've been payin' you full +wages, that hasn't done a stroke of work worth namin' this half-dozen +year? That'ill have to contint you till Ned's back agin.' + +"And Barney sez my father had ne'er a word out of him, but just went +home dazed like. And me wife sez when he come in, he sits down on the +form be the door, and niver opens his lips. So she knew right well what +ailed him, and she said iverythin' she could think of--how it's +disthroyed we'd be on'y for him now I was laid up, and the won'erful man +he was, and this way and that way. But niver a word he heeded, nor near +the fire he wouldn't come, and had her heart-scalded seein' him sittin' +there in the draught of the door. And I meself was tired callin' him to +come in and spake to me, and I lyin' in bed, but next or nigh me he +niver come, not even for little Maggie that he always thought a hape +of. And the next mornin' if he wasn't quit out of it early, afore +anybody knew, in the bitter black frost, and a quare threatinin' of +snow. So then as soon as I heard tell, I up wid me and come after him. +Troth, I left the wife frettin' wild, the crathur, thinkin' I'd get me +death; but what else could I do? And now I must be steppin' on again. +Och no, thank you, lad, if I took a dhrop of spirits, I'd be choked wid +coughin'. But you might just set me on the right road." + +"I'll go along wid him," said Dan, aside to his grandfather, "and if I +can bring him, or the both of them, back here, I will. It's my belief +he's as bad as he can stick together." + +So Dan and old Dermody's son went out into the night. A lull in the wind +had come, and the light of the moon, hung near the horizon's rim, +flickered out dimly ever and anon as the edge of the drifting mist +lapped up wave-like and touched her. It was piercingly cold. Ned Dermody +leaned heavily on Dan as they walked, only till he fetched back his +breath, he said, but it was slow in coming. They had not gone many +hundred yards, yet vast tracts of solitude seemed to have folded round +them, before Dan caught sight of something that somehow startled and +shocked him--a group of boulders by the road, with a shadow under one of +them strangely like a human form. A few paces further on he became aware +that it really was a man--the old man--sitting huddled up under the big +glimmering stone. Thus far had he carried his forlorn quest after +Fortune, and mutiny against Fate. His snaggy stick lay at a little +distance, a black line on the snow, and the sight of that made Dan's +heart stumble. But Ned Dermody shouted out hoarsely and loud: "Be the +Lord it's himself," and, as Dan afterwards used to tell, "took a flyin' +lep at him, as if he'd a mind to ha' lep over the world." + +"Musha now, and is it there you would be sittin' to catch your death of +could?" he began, in a tone of gleeful reproach, shaking the old man by +the shoulder. "Goodness forgive me for sayin' so, but it's yourself's +the pernicious ould miscreant. Fine thrampin' over the counthry I've had +after you--forby givin' us the greatest fright altogether. Sure I give +you me word the whole of them at home was runnin' in and out of the +house on Sunday mornin' like so many scared rabbits about a bank. And +ne'er a man-jack of them, you persaive, had the wit to find out where +you was off to till meself riz out of me bed to go look. And now, +man-alive, git up wid yourself and come along, for it's mortal could +here, and there's tons' weight of snow this instiant minyit ready to +dhrop down on our heads. Come along. Sure it's niver disthressin' +yourself you'd be about ould Blake and his wages? Musha sure Norah and +meself was sayin' on'y on Saturday night that there wasn't many +stookawns like me had fathers to be bringin' them home shillin's every +week as regular as the clock, and givin' prisints to the childer, and +all manner. There's little Maggie frettin' woful to be missin' you out +of it. Don't be keepin' me standin' on me feet, there's a good man, for +it's quare and bad I've been, and the doctor was sayin' he couldn't tell +what ruination mightn't be on me if I didn't mind what I was at. And +here's the dacint lad waitin' to show us the road. We're just comin' +along this instant, boyo. Look-a-daddy, 'twas all a mistake, and we'll +settle it up next week, when we're both workin' agin. Very belike Mr. +Blake didn't rightly know what he was sayin'. Wake up and come along.... +Daddy darlint, don't you hear what I'm tellin' you? It's raisin' your +wages they'll be after Lent, I wouldn't won'er, raisin' them a shillin' +belike--rael grand it'ill be--God Almighty!" + +He stood up suddenly and looked towards Dan, but at neither him nor +anything else. The moon began to shine clearer in a chink between two +straight leaden bars, and the great white bog seemed to grow wider and +stiller under the strengthening light. The very wind had forsaken them, +and gone off keening into the far distance. It seemed to Dan that even a +flake fluttering down would have been some company, but not a single one +was in the air. He felt himself seized by a nameless panic, such as had +not come over him since he was a small child a dozen years ago. + +"What's the matter at all?" he said futilely to Ned Dermody, knowing +well enough. + +"Gone he is," said Ned, "the life was vexed out of him among us all. +He's gone. And it's follyin' him I'd liefer be, on'y for them crathurs +at home." + +But in another moment he came staggering against Dan, and clutched his +arm, saying wildly: "Ah, lend me a hand--for pity's sake--a hand for a +minyit. Don't let go of me." And he leant such a heavy dead weight on +him that all Dan could do was to let it slip down and down as softly as +might be, until the snowy earth took it from him. + +Ned had followed in spite of the crathurs at home. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +CON THE QUARE ONE + + +Among the unfamiliar faces that show themselves now and then at +Lisconnel, some make no second appearance, never coming our way again, +but passing out of our ken as utterly as if their route lay along a +tangent, or the branch of an hyperbola, or other such unreverting line. +We seldom, it is true, get proof positive, as in the case of the +Dermodys, father and son, that they will no more return. Generally their +doing so any day may be supposed possible as long as anybody remembers +to suppose it. But some come back at more or less regular intervals, +like periodic comets, so that if a certain time elapses without bringing +one of them, the neighbours say they wonder what's took him at all, +while some reappear erratically enough to preclude any calculations upon +the subject. Of this latter class was Con the Quare One, who, after his +first arrival, on a summer's evening, now more than a quarter of a +century since, became a rather frequent visitor, usually stopping for a +few days at least, before he resumed his travels. It was conjectured +that these were very extensive, though perhaps less so than Mad Bell's. +But it was even more difficult to obtain a satisfactory report of them +from him than from her. Mrs. M'Gurk said he was "so took up with his own +notions, that he mostly knew no better where he'd been, or what he'd +been doin', than a baste drivin' home from a fair; you might as soon be +axin' questions of one as the other; though when Con chose to give his +mind to it, he knew what he was about as well as anybody else. Sure if +you wanted to know which way he was after comin', as likely as not he'd +talk about nothin' on'y the sorts of clouds he'd been watchin' goin' by +over his head; and 'twould take a cliver body to tell from that what +road he might ha' had under his feet." This incommunicativeness made him +a disappointing guest sometimes by the firesides, where he was finding a +night's lodging; though he might eke out his conversation with a little +twangling on his fiddle, in which the melody would be quite as vague as +his narratives. As for his own earlier history, he never gave any clear +account of it, probably having none to give, and the neighbours' +speculations upon this point were somewhat wide of the mark, which was +not surprising, as what stray hints he did let fall could be very +deviously construed. The opinion most commonly received held that he had +"took and run off from home, and he but a gossoon, be raison of doin' +some quare bit of mischief, and had a mind yet to be keepin' out of his +people's way; though, like enough, they weren't throublin' their heads +about him be now;" a theory which was not entirely in accordance with +facts. + +Con was not, I believe, an especially quare one at his first start in +life, begun under the thatch of a little whitewashed cottage, dotted +down among grass-fields beside a clear, brown river, which kept his +mother busy exhorting him and his half-dozen brethren to not be falling +in and drowning themselves on her. Her days were haunted by +apprehensions of that catastrophe, which, however, was not included in +the plot of her life's drama. Con's chosen bugbear was the bridge which +bestrode the river close by, and beneath the arch of which he had once +happened to be while a cart passed overhead. For the lumbering rumble +had been an appalling experience, which he shuddered to repeat. Yet he +lacked the moral courage to rouse his elders' derision by an avowal, so +he followed, and did not let on, whenever their wading and dabbling +brought them into the hollow-sounding shade. Despite this daily anxiety, +Con spent his earliest years light-heartedly enough, with no stinting of +pitaties--none at least that reached the childer--and ample scope for +sports and pastimes. But when he was still very small, his grandmother, +lately widowed and on her way to a new abode, stopped a night with her +married daughter, and begged that she might bring home one of the +grandchildren with her, "just to take the could edge off her +lonesomeness," a request which could not well be refused. And Con seemed +the appropriate person to go, as the old woman considered that "the dark +head of hair he had on him was the moral of his poor grandfather's afore +it turned white." Therefore the swiftly running mysteriously murmuring +river flowed away out of his life, and with it vanished all the faces +and voices and comradeship that had made up his world. + +At first he fretted for them rather persistently, but after a time +adapted himself to circumstances, and contented himself with the +grass-bordered, hedge-muffled lane, which had become the scene of his +adventures, fraternizing with the reserved fawn-coloured goat and +demonstrative terrier, who alone took an intelligent interest in them. +For his grandmother was satisfied with the sense of having him "playin' +around handy," and could not be counted company. + +But after nearly a twelvemonth had passed, Con seemed one day to be +seized with a fresh fit of homesickness. It was a brilliant late summer +morning, yet to old Mrs. Quin's perplexity, he continued to sit on his +little stool, with his slice of griddle-cake half-crumbled in his lap, +and answered her suggestions that he should finish his breakfast, and +run out to play, by irrelevant requests for his own ould mammy. He +wanted her cruel bad, he said, and there was nothin' ailed him, and he +wouldn't like to look for blackberries along the hedge--or to throw +stones for Bran--or even to be given a whole ha'penny to go buy himself +a grand sugarstick down at the shop--he only wanted his mammy. Such was +his attitude and refrain all that day and the next. After which his +grandmother said to her neighbour, Judy Ahern, that she couldn't tell +what had come over the child, and he had her fairly distracted +listening to him. + +And Mrs. Ahern said: "Maybe he might be gettin' somethin'; there's a +terrible dale of sickness about. But he doesn't look very bad to say. +Arrah now, Con avic, why wouldn't you run out and play a bit this lovely +mornin'? Wantin' your mammy? Sure that's foolish talk, and she nobody +can tell how far away this minyit. It's just a notion you have.... +'Deed, ma'am, I dunno, but maybe you'd a right to let him home to her, +or else he might get frettin' and mopin' himself into the fever. He's a +poor little crathur; the face of him this instant isn't the width of a +ha'penny herrin'." + +"And he so continted," said Mrs. Quin, "until he took his fantigue. Rael +quare it is." + +"Most things do be quare and ugly these times," said Mrs. Ahern, +"Goodness help us all. There's poor Mrs. Duff thravellin' off to-morra, +to go stay wid her brother at Gortnakil. Very belike she'd take him +along; and he'd be aisy landed home, once he'd got that far." + +And on the morrow Con did actually set off with Mrs. Duff, feeling half +appeased and half compunctious, as people do when they get what they +have clamoured for; sorry a little to lose sight of Bran, staring +open-mouthed after him down the lane; and relieved through all by a +vague sense that he was going whither his heart-strings pulled. If he +had been a more experienced traveller, he might have noticed some signs +that things were, as Judy Ahern had said, out of joint. It was +harvest-time, and the weather was not wet, though dull and chilly, but +nobody was working in the fields. Nothing seemed to move in them, as +they lay deserted, except trails of a white mist that drifted low among +the furrows, where the potato-haulms looked strangely discoloured, +speckled and blackened, as if a shrivelling flame had run through them +all, charring and strewing pale ashes. The air was full of a peculiar +odour, heavy and acrid, the very life-breath of decay. The roads were +deserted too. For miles nobody would be met, and then a small stationary +crowd of people would appear, collected it would seem without any more +purpose than cattle huddled together in a storm, and as dumb as they, +not giving so much as a "fine mornin'" to the passer-by. Other crowds +they fell in with now and again, pacing slowly along, and these always +had a heavy burden carried among them, and sometimes women keening. +Once the car-horse shied violently at some dark, long thing, that was +stretched out by the footpath, and Mrs. Duff crossed herself and said, +"God be good to us," and the driver said without looking off his reins: +"He's lyin' there since yisterday, and I seen another above about the +four-roads, and I comin' past this mornin'." + +Con did not give much heed to these incidents; but one scene in his +journey impressed him strongly. It was at the small town where they +slept the night, and it happened while they waited in the broad main +street next morning for their car to pick them up, as Mrs. Duff +travelled by a rather disjointed system of lifts in vehicles that were +going her road. There were few people about, and Con was intensely +admiring a gaudy tea-chest in the window of the shop before which they +stood, when a great roar began to swell up round the corner, with a +lumbering of wheels heard fitfully through it. Presently a large crowd +came struggling into sight; a street full of men, women, and children, +surrounding a blue, red-wheeled cart, piled high with dusty-looking +white sacks. Half-a-dozen dark-uniformed policemen were trying to haul +on the horse, and keep between the cart and the crowd, whose shout +generally sounded like: "Divil a fut its to quit--divil a fut." It was a +crowd that looked as if it had somehow got more than its due share of +glittering eyes--in mistake, apparently, for other things. + +As the cart came crawling past where Mrs. Duff and Con stood, a furious +rush so tilted it over that the horse fell, breaking a shaft, and some +of the topmost sacks tumbled off, dropping with dull thuds, like dead +bodies, upon the damp cobblestone pavement. Con saw a little cloud of +white dust rise up over each as it dumped down, and melt away on the +air, making him wonder to himself: "Is it smokin' hot they are?" But in +another moment they were hidden for a while by a wild wave of the crowd, +which threw itself tumultuously upon them. One of the sacks burst, +spilling the soft flour in flakes, and round it the jostling and +writhing grew fiercest. The faces that got nearest to it looked hardly +the whiter for their smears and powdering. + +A young woman, all black eyes and elf locks, with a baby wrapped in her +shawl, crouching low and making a desperate long arm, grasped a covetous +handful, which spirted away wastefully between her clenched fingers. She +moistened some of this in a puddle as she knelt, and held the paste to +her baby's mouth. But its head was drooping wearily aside, and its lips +did not move when she touched them. "Ait it up, me heart's jewel," she +said; "ait it up, mother's little bird. 'Deed, then, but you're the +conthráry little toad. It's breakin' me heart you'll be roarin' when +I've ne'er a bit to give you, and sleepin' dead, when I've the chance to +feed you." She was beginning to shake it, but a young man who stood +behind her put his hand on her shoulder, saying: "Whisht, whisht, you +crathur, for God's sake. It's done wid wantin' and cryin', and a good +job for it too, the Lord knows." Then the girl shrieked again and again, +and the people about her said from one to the other: "It's her child's +starved on her." And an old man caught up the little body, and held it +high over his head, shouting, "Boys, boys--look yous at that. There's +the way Henderson's cartin' off the childer's bit of food to make his +fine fortin in England." And the crowd shouted back through a surge of +curses: "Divil a fut will he this day." + +A very little old woman seized hold of an outlying sack and tried to +lift it, a ludicrously impossible feat, at witnessing which a cripple +leaner than his crutches laughed boisterously, saying, "Och, good luck +to you, granny. You're makin' a great offer at it entirely. Is it often +you do be liftin' up the Hill of Howth? More power to your elbow." And +the crowd yelled with laughter too. + +At this moment there was a prodigious clatter of hoofs on the stones, +and round the corner whirled a squadron of hussars, all in their blue +and yellow like a flight of macaws, coming to the rescue of Mr. +Henderson's sacks. But Con saw scarcely more than the first confused +onset, for somebody snatched him up and hurried him into a dark passage. +The last sight he had of the fray was of a glossy black horse plunging +frantically back from a cloud of the flour flung into his face, and +rearing higher and higher, until he fell over with a terrific scrambling +crash. Con particularly noticed the white gloves of the rider, and +thought to himself, "He's been grabbin' the flour too." And the women +about him said, "Och, murdher, the baste--the man's apt to be kilt!" + +When Mrs. Duff and Con emerged again all was quiet in the street--two or +three women had even stolen back, and were scraping up the white +patches--and he was driven away on a car for what seemed to him a vast +length of time. But at last, as he peered listlessly out on glimpses of +the dreary, strange road caught between the shawled heads of two other +passengers, his eyes suddenly fell on something delightfully familiar. +It was a grey ruined mill which stood by the river, not many hundred +yards from his home. All at once he seemed to be set down in the middle +of his old life as if he had never left it, only with a charming +freshness superadded. A delicious feeling came over him as he watched +the clear, sky-glinting loops unwind themselves in the grass while the +car jogged along. There were the big stones over the edges of which the +brown water broke into dancing crests of crystal bubbles when the river +was full, and the deep pools under the hollow banks where they had seen +the trout that was the size of a young whale, and the twisted wild +cherry tree from beneath which the eddies sometimes twirled away bearing +fleets of frail, snowy petals. And Johnny and Katty and the rest might +all come into view paddling round any corner. When the car stopped at +the gap through which you got into the field just behind his cottage, he +was almost beside himself with joy, as his fellow-travellers, who were +less elated, lifted him down and handed him his bundle, and bade him +run straight in to his mother like an iligant child. + +He did run down the steep little footpath at the top of his speed, and +round the corner of the house, and in through the open door. The room +looked very dusk to him coming in from the mellow afternoon sunshine, +and the first thing he noticed was that the fire had gone out. The +hearth was a blackness sprinkled with white ashes, which made him think +of the flour spilt on the dark ground. Next he saw his mother sitting on +a stool by the hearth with her head leaned against the wall, and his +father's old caubeen hanging on its nail above, a very unusual sight at +that hour. Con rushed at her head-foremost, saying, "Och, mammy darlint, +I'm come home this long way, and they was fightin' wid all the soldiers +and spillin' the flour, and his horse rared up on his hind legs till he +fell off his feet. And where's daddy if he isn't workin'? And musha what +for is Nannie and Johnny in bed?" He pulled her shawl because she did +not look round at him, and immediately she dropped down prone on the +floor as heavily and helplessly as he had seen the white sacks fall. She +had in truth been dead for hours, but Con ran out screaming that he was +after killing his mammy, and nothing would persuade him otherwise. +Vainly the neighbours averred that "the crathur was starvin' herself +this great while to keep a bit for the childer, let alone her heart +bein' broke frettin' after her poor husband and little Pat, who were +took from her wid the fever, both of them the one day." Con's mind was +shut fast into the dreadful moment when he had pulled her shawl and she +had fallen down, and therein it abode, sorely afflicted, until a spell +of brain fever intervening let it loose into a region of vaguer and more +varied dreams. + +And when he had struggled through this illness, nobody well knew how or +why, he woke up to find his world swept very bare. Father, mother, and +all his brethren, except little Katty, were vanished out of it, and as +it came looming back to him thus depeopled, its aspect was immeasurably +desolate. Nor did his loss end here, for from this time dated the +springing up among his neighbours of a suspicion that he was not all +there, a suspicion which developed into an accepted article of belief, +the more readily, perhaps, because nobody remained for whom such a fact +would have had a personal bitterness, the old grandmother having slipped +away out of her lonesomeness before his recovery. It would not be easy +to explain how it was that Con grew up into that privileged and +disfranchised person who is spoken of as "a crathur," and whose +proceedings are more or less exempt from criticism. People often said of +him that he had plenty of sense _of his own_, and the remark was to some +extent explanatory, as a certain singularity in his way of viewing +things even more than an occasional inconsequence and flightiness in his +sayings and doings tended to establish the reputation for eccentricity +which followed him closely as a shadow, and set an impalpable barrier +between himself and his kind. As he advanced in life this was +strengthened by his increasing fondness for his own society, but he did +not take to his solitary wanderings until after his sister Katty married +young Peter Meehan and emigrated to New York. It was suggested to him +that he should accompany them, but he sat looking meditative for a +while, and then said, "How far might it be from this to the States?" + +"I dunno rightly," said his informant, "but a goodish step it's apt to +be, for people's better than a couple of weeks sailin' there, I'm +tould." + +Con meditated a little more before he put another question. "Would you +be widin hearin' out there of the folk talkin' foolish?" he inquired. + +"Why, tub-be sure, man, what 'ud hinder you that you wouldn't hear them +talkin' same as anywheres else?" + +"Bedad, then," said Con, "it seems a long way to be thravellin' to a +counthry as close as that. Sure, if you take out for a stravade over the +bog here, you'll be throubled wid nothin' the len'th of the day on'y the +curlew, or maybe a couple of saygulls skirlin'--raisonable enough. I'll +be apt to stay where I am." + +Con, who was a person of many moods, happened to be in an unusually +cynical one just then; however, he adhered to his resolution, and when +his sister had gone he adopted a life of long tramps. Somebody had given +him an old fiddle, and this he carried with him, though chiefly as a +sort of badge, as his performances were but feeble, and he could turn +his hand to many other things when he found it necessary to do so. His +rovings had gone on for several years before they led him to Lisconnel. +In those days he was a strange, small figure, who wore a coat too large +for him, and a hat set so far back on his head that its brim made a sort +of halo to frame his face, which had a curious way of looking fitfully +young and old, with a shining of violet blue eyes and a puckering of +fine-drawn wrinkles. A small boy and a little old ancient man would seem +to change places half a dozen times in the course of a single +conversation. Even his hair was a puzzle, regarded as an indication of +age, because its black had become streaked with white in such a fashion +that its apparent hue varied according to what came uppermost in +accidents of ruffling and smoothing. A neighbour once said of him that +he was the living moral of a little ould lepreehawn that they were after +making a couple of sizes too big by mistake; and my own impression is +that further opportunities for observing specimens of the race would be +likely to bear out this statement. + +The summer evening on which he was first seen at Lisconnel had followed +a very fine day. In the heart of its golden afternoon Mrs. O'Driscoll +trusted her youngest son Terence out on the bog with his brothers and +sisters and some other children, the eldest of whom, Johanna Harvey, the +Ryans' orphan niece, was credited with wit enough to keep the party out +of the holes. They wandered off rather more widely than usual, along the +foot of the hill, lured on by a sprinkling of dainty white mushrooms, +which they found, generally with yells, studded here and there. At last +they sat down on a bank to peel their delicate, pink-quilted buttons, +all of them except Terence, who was not yet of an age to have acquired a +taste for mushrooms. He had been carried most of the way, still he had +toddled further than he was accustomed to do, and his unwonted exertions +led him to curl himself up behind a sun-smitten rock and fall asleep +with a quietness which presently brought upon him the fate of out of +sight out of mind. After a while, however, Johanna did bethink herself +of him, and was just on the point of wondering aloud where little +Terence had gone to, when her cousin Thady turned her thoughts into a +different channel by suddenly saying, "What was there in it before the +beginnin' of everythin'?" + +Thady was a small, anxious-looking child, whose pale and peaky face his +mother often likened regretfully to a hap'orth of soap after a week's +washing. He had spent a surprisingly considerable part of his six years +in metaphysical speculations, and was always disposed to make a personal +grievance of the difficulties in which they constantly landed him. His +tone was now rather peremptory as he repeated, "What was there in it +before the beginnin' of everythin'?" + +"Sure, nothin' at all," said his elder brother Peter, to whom the answer +seemed quite simple and satisfactory. But Johanna looked as if she had +caught sight of some distant object which provoked hard staring. + +"Then what was there before the beginnin' of nothin'?" pursued Thady. + +"Dunno," said Peter, indifferently, "unless it was more nothin'." + +"Sure not at all; that wouldn't be the way of it," Johanna said, +dreamily, yet with decision. "If there was nothin' but nothin' in it, +there'd ha' been apt to not be e'er an anythin' ever. Where'd it ha' +come from? Don't be tellin' the child lies, Peter. Why, for one thing," +she said, her tone sharpening polemically and taking a touch of triumph, +"there was always God Almighty in it, and the Divil. Maybe that's what +you call nothin'." + +Peter evaded this point, saying, "Well, anyway, those times, if there +was just the two of them in it, and no harm to be doin', let alone any +good people to know the differ, it's on'y a quare sort of Divil he'd +get the chance of bein'. I wouldn't call him anythin' _much_." + +"He wouldn't be so very long, you may depind," Johanna pronounced. +"Musha, sure the Divil couldn't stay contint anywhile at all till he'd +take to some manner of ould mischief 'ud soon show you the sort of +crathur he was--it's his nathur. I should suppose the first thing he'd +go do 'ud be makin' all the sorts of hijjis roarin' great bastes and +snakes and riptiles that he could think of, and the disolit black wet +bogs wid the could win' over them fit to cut you in two when you're +sleepin' out at night," said Johanna, whose ten years of life had +brought her into some rough places before her adoption by her Aunt +Lizzie Ryan, "and the workhouses--bad luck to the whole of them--where +there's rats in the cocoa, and mad people frightenin' you, and the cross +matrons, and the pólis, and the say to dhrownd the fishin'-boats in, and +dirty ould naygurs that put dacint people out of their little +places----" + +"If it had been me," said Peter, "I'd ha' been very apt to just hit him +a crack on the head when I noticed what he was at, and bid him lave thim +sort of consthructions alone." + +"I dunno the rights of it entirely," Johanna admitted, "but it's a +cruel pity he ever got the chance to be carryin' on the way he's done." + +"Ah, sure it can't be helped now at all events," said Peter, who was for +the time being not inclined to quarrel seriously with the scheme of +things, as he basked on the warm grassy bank, where the wild bees were +humming in the thyme, happily remote from the grim House and the hungry +sea. + +"Belike it can't," said Johanna; "but 'twould be real grand if it could. +Suppose I was out on the hill there some fine evenin', and I not +thinkin' of anythin' in partic'lar, and all of a suddint I'd see a +great, big, ugly, black-lookin' baste of a feller, the size of forty, +skytin' away wid himself along the light of the sky over yonder, where +the sun was about goin' down, and his shadder the len'th of an awful +tall tree slippin' streelin' after him, till it was off over the edge of +the world like, and that same 'ud be just the Divil, that they were +after bundlin' out of it body and bones, the way he wouldn't get +meddlin' and makin' and annoyin' people any more. So wid that I'd take a +race home and be tellin' you all the iligant thing was after happenin'. +And in the middle of it who'd come landin' in but me father and mother, +and little Dan. And then, if it isn't the grand cup of tay I'd be +makin' her, ay begorra would I, and a sugarstick to stir it wid." + +Johanna's vision of the millennium was broken in upon querulously by +Thady. "Sure I know all about God Almighty and the Divil," he said +comprehensively, "I was on'y axin' what was in it before the beginnin' +of everythin', and you're not tellin' me that." + +"There's a dale of things little spalpeens like you wouldn't be tould +the rights of at all," said Peter, loftily, being rather annoyed at the +interruption. He would have liked to hear some further details about the +felicity to be inaugurated by that exquisite cup of tea. "Go on +romancin', Han." + +But Johanna, who felt that this assumption of superior knowledge was an +uncandid subterfuge, and yet had not magnanimity enough to disclaim it +on her own part, remained uneasily silent for a moment, and then only +said: "Sure it's time we was gettin' home." This they accordingly +proceeded to do, and had gone most of the distance before it occurred to +anybody that little Terence O'Driscoll was not with them. Then, after a +superficial and unproductive search among the scattered stones and +bushes, they thought it expedient to run back in a fright, and report +that the child had gone and got lost, unless by any odd chance he'd come +home along wid himself. + +Thus it was that when Terence wakened from his nap, he found himself +deserted, and thrown completely upon his own resources. As he had not +been quite three years in amassing these, they were on the whole but +scanty. In fact, he was helplessly unable to realise a world with +nothing in it except endlessly swelling up slopes of furzy grass, no +Molly nor Micky for him to trot after, and to carry him wherever they +were going, whenever he intimated the desirability of that step by +abruptly plumping down on the way. So he set off in a great hurry to +escape from such a wilderness. He still walked with a wobbling stagger, +and his long frock of whity-brown homespun kept on tripping him up, +which retarded his progress. But he was not at all long in mentally +reaching the precincts of a wild panic which rose up and seized him in a +grip never to be quite forgotten, though only a few desperate minutes +ensued before he stumped blindly against Con's legs. It was so +unutterable a relief to have come on somebody who could hear him roar, +that Terence ceased roaring immediately, and let Con pick him up +without demur. The appearance of Molly or Micky would, no doubt, have +been more satisfactory, but this stranger man might serve well enough at +a pinch to carry him home, which it was inconceivable that anybody of +such a size could be unable or unwilling to do. As for Con, the +inference he drew from Terence's dimensions was that his family and +friends were probably not far to seek; and he recognised the shrewdness +of the conjecture when he presently espied a shawled figure coming +swiftly towards him over the edge of a slope, with the amber of the +sunset glowing behind her, and her long shadow sliding on far below her, +as if it were in an even greater hurry than herself. + +Mrs. O'Driscoll's head was among the golden sunbeams, but her heart had +gone down to the very bottom of the blackest and deepest hole in the +bog. For towards that dreadful goal she had seen a small form toddling +ever since the other children came home alarmingly late with the news +that Terence had got lost on them, and they couldn't find a bit of him, +high ways or low ways. She was so overjoyed at her rescue that her +delighted gratitude cast a sort of glamour around Con, which never +wholly faded away. Ever after the appearance of his queer figure called +up in her mind a dim reminiscence of the moment when she had seen it for +the first time come into view, laden with what she well knew was Terence +sitting bolt upright in a manner that betokened him to have experienced +neither drowning nor any other disaster. + +As Con put the child into her arms, where it seemed to fit into a niche +specially designed for it, he said: "Sure now, ma'am, when I seen him +stumpin' along his lone, and he about the heighth of a sizable boholawn +(ragweed), sez I to meself there was apt to be somebody lookin' after +him. For bedad it seems to me mostwhiles the littler a thing is the more +people there'll be consaitin' they can't get on widout it; and that's +lucky, belike, or else it might aisy get lost entirely, like a +threepenny bit rowled away into a crack. But if you come to considher," +Con said, hurrying on lest his allusion to the coin should be construed +as a hint that he thought of payment for his services, "most people's +lookin' out for somebody, or else somebody's lookin' out for them. It's +on'y a few odd ones like meself that makes no differ here or there. I +won'er now is the raison that it's after losin' ourselves we are in a +manner--I've I've me notions about that. For first I think I dunno if +anythin's rightly lost that nobody's lookin' to find, and then I think I +dunno but you might as well say you couldn't find anythin' you weren't +after losin' and lookin' for, and that's not the truth be no manner of +manes." + +"And you after findin' the child," said Mrs. O'Driscoll. + +"Sure not at all, ma'am," said Con, modestly, deprecating not the +statement but the implied praise. "Small thanks to me for that, when the +woful bawls of it you might have heard a mile o' ground. You could as +aisy ha' missed a little clap of thunder, if a one was be chance comin' +tatterin' along between the furzes, wid the head of it bobbin' up now +and agin, and makin' all the noise it could conthrive. Troth it's the +quare bawls _I_ might be lettin' these times afore the rest of them 'ud +hear me, for if it's lost I am, I'm strayin' a terrible long while; +they're apt to disremimber they ever owned me. I do be thinkin', ma'am, +that if you forgit what you've lost, 'tis maybe all the one thing as if +you'd found it; and after that agin I do be thinkin' maybe 'twould be +liker losin' it twyste over. It's quare the diff'rint notions there is +about most things. And a good job too, or else what would you be +considherin' in your mind, when you was thrampin' around? 'Deed now if +you couldn't be supposin' they were this way and that way, and argufyin' +over them wid yourself in your own mind, 'twould be like as if you took +and swallied down a lump of 'baccy instead of chewin' it, and what sort +of benefit or plisure 'ud you git out of that?" + +This was Con's first bit of philosophising at Lisconnel, and it was not +his last by many, as the place became one of his favourite resorts. His +liking for it was perhaps partly due to the fact that its inhabitants +received him on more equal terms than were generally accorded to him +elsewhere; and this again may be largely attributed to the influence of +Mrs. O'Driscoll. For her grateful feelings towards the restorer of +Terence made her loth to recognise any deficiencies in him, and her +neighbours, soon perceiving that she seemed vexed if Con was spoken of +as cracked or crazy or "wantin' a corner," were ready enough to modify +their language, and even their judgment, in accordance with her view. +Still it was convenient to distinguish him from another resident Con, +about whom there were no very striking features. Therefore her little +Rose having been heard to say that she was "after seein' Con, not Con +Ryan, but the quare one," they caught up and applied the epithet, which +in Lisconnel is regarded as a safely colourless term, not likely to hurt +the most sensitive feelings. + +Con, on his part, formed the highest opinion of Mrs. O'Driscoll, and +often took counsel with her about perplexing points which had presented +themselves to him in the course of his meditations. In one practical +matter, however, he showed an obstinacy that did not further her in her +wish to uphold him on a footing with quite sensible people. This was his +fancy for adorning the band of his broad-brimmed caubeen with a garnish +of feathers and flowers. Mrs. O'Driscoll disapproved of the freak, +rightly judging that it often created irrevocable first impressions, and +fixed his standing at a glance. In this age and clime the Seven Sages +could hardly maintain among them a reverend aspect, under the frivolity +of a single flaunting blossom, much less the gaudy bunches and fantastic +plumes upon which Con recklessly ventured. So at last, having hinted and +remonstrated ineffectually, she contrived somehow to find time and stuff +among her laborious days and scanty stores, and fashioned for him a +round cloth cap of a severely plain design, which she thought would +give no scope for any unseemly appendages. Upon being presented with +this headgear, Con dutifully assumed it, and went about wearing it for a +day or two in a depressed frame of mind. Then he appeared in the morning +at the O'Driscolls', cheered, and crested with a remarkably long +gannet's feather stuck upright in the crown of his cap, through which he +had bored a hole to admit of the insertion. He was resolved to brazen +out the matter, so he presently took off his cap, and twirling it round +with an unconcerned air as he leaned against the door, said to Herself: +"Well, ma'am, what do you think of that?" + +"To tell you just the truth, Con," said Herself, whose countenance had +fallen as she saw the failure of her little plot, "I was thinkin' it +looked a dale better before you cocked that ould gazabo on top of it. +'Deed now it gives you the apparance of a head of cabbage that's +sproutin' up and goin' to seed. Sure you niver see the other lads +trapesin' about wid the like on them." + +Con, who seemed rather cast down by this criticism, was about to reply, +when young Ned Keogh took the cap out of his hand and affected to +examine it closely, saying: "Glory be to goodness, what sort of thing +is it at all at all? Bedad it's the won'erful conthrivance--ah, tub-be +sure; _I_ see what it is. He's about growin' a pair of wings for his wit +to fly away wid. But musha good gracious, he needn't ha' throubled +himself to be gettin' them that sizable. Somethin' the bigness of a +hedge-sparrer's, or maybe a weeny white butterfly's, 'ud ha' plinty +stren'th enough for the job, if that was all they had to do." Ned meant +no harm, but his witticisms did not fall in with Con's humour, so he +snatched back the cap and went off affronted, nor did he call at the +O'Driscolls' again for some weeks. + +The next time he came, however, Herself had espied him a bit down the +road, and was standing at the door to receive him with his discarded +caubeen in her hand. "You'd be better wearin' it, Con, after all," she +said, "for the eyes are scorched out of your head under the sun widout +e'er a scrap of brim." And as Con took it, he observed with glee that +she had fastened into the band a dove-coloured kittiwake's wing-feather, +a somewhat cherished possession of her own, which she used to keep over +her best picture on the wall. Thus did she seek to make amends for the +speech about the sprouting cabbage-head, which had been weighing +heavily upon her conscience. + +The kittiwake's feather had to weather rain and sunshine for many a year +in Con the Quare One's old caubeen; but it is now on a room-wall again, +the Kilfoyles' this time. Con brought it to Mrs. Kilfoyle one autumn +evening in the year Mrs. O'Driscoll died. It was much longer than usual +since he had wandered into Lisconnel, illness and one thing and another +having detained him in the North for the last twelvemonth and more--all +her blackest days of childless widowhood--so that this was his first +visit since the departure of his earliest friend. + +"Could you be keepin' it somewheres safe for me, ma'am?" he said, +showing the soft grey feather to Mrs. Kilfoyle, who was sitting by the +fire with her sons and her future daughter-in-law, and Ody Rafferty's +aunt, and the Widow M'Gurk. "I'll be wearin' it no more. 'Twas she +herself stuck it in for me, but sure I knew well enough all the while +she'd liefer I wouldn't be goin' about wid such things on me head, and +sorra a bit of me will agin." + +"Whethen now but yourself's the quare man, Con," said Ody Rafferty's +aunt, "to be takin' up wid that notion these times, when ne'er a differ +it'ill make to her. There might ha' been some sinse in it, if you'd done +it to plase her, but now you're more than a trifle too late wid that. A +day after the fair you are. Sure she'll never set eyes on you or your +old caubeen agin," she said, as if announcing some unthought-of +discovery of her own, "no matter what ould thrash you might take and +stick in it. You might be wearin' a young haystack on your head for +anythin' she could tell." + +"That may be or mayn't be," said Con. "But at all evints the next body +that goes there out of this countryside 'ill be very apt to bring her +word. Discoorsin' together they'll be of all the news, and as like as +not he--or it might be she--'ill say to her--'I seen Con the Quare One +goin' the road a while back, and he wid ne'er a thraneen of anythin' in +his hat, good or bad; the same way the other boys are; lookin' rael +dacint and sinsible.' Belike she might be axin' after me herself, and +that 'ud put it in the other body's head. Yourself it may be, Moggy. +Faix now, I wouldn't won'er a bit if it was, for there must be a +terrible great age on you these times. Sure you looked to be an ould, +ould woman the first day I ever beheld you, and that's better than a +dozen year ago." + +"Troth then there's plinty of oulder ould people than me, let me tell +you," protested Moggy, who was about ninety, "that you need be settlin' +I'm goin' anywheres next. Musha cock you up. And your own hair turned as +white as sheep's wool on a blackthorn bush." + +She seemed so much put out by Con's statement and inference that young +Thady Kilfoyle, always a good-natured lad, sought to soothe her. + +"Sure there's no settlin' any such a thing, and for the matter of goin', +the young people often enough get their turn as fast as anybody else. +It's meself," he said, "might be sooner than you bringin' news of yous +all, and Con's ould caubeen, and everythin' else to Heaven the way he +sez." + +"I dunno if you've any call to be talkin' that fashion," said the Widdy +M'Gurk, disapprovingly, "as if you could be walkin' permisc-yis into +Heaven widout wid your lave or by your lave. Maybe it isn't there any of +us'ill be bringin' our news." + +"Might you know of e'er a better place then, ma'am?" said Con. + +"Heard you ever the like of that?" said Ody Rafferty's aunt, not +unwillingly scandalised, "I should suppose nobody, unless it was a born +haythen, 'ud know of any place better than Heaven." + +"That's where she is then," said Con, stroking his feather. "For the +best place ever was is none too good for her, God knows well." + +"And thrue for you, man," said the Widdy M'Gurk. "But she's one thing, +and we're another. It's not settin' ourselves up we should be to have +the same chances." + +"Ah, well, sure maybe we're none of us too outrageous altogether," said +Mrs. Kilfoyle, looking hopefully round at her company. "And if they can +put up wid us at all at all, they will. We'll get there yet, plase God. +And anyway I'll be takin' good care of your feather, Con. Ay will I so; +same as if it was dropped out of an angel's wing." + +"So good-night to you kindly, ma'am," said he. "I'll be steppin' back to +Laraghmena. I on'y looked in on you to bring you that, and give you news +of Theresa. And I question will I ever set fut agin in Lisconnel." + +He did not, however, leave it quite immediately. A little later, when +Brian Kilfoyle was escorting Norah Finnegan home, they saw him sitting +on the bank near the O'Driscolls' roofless cabin. Its mud walls were +fast crumbling into ruin. Already the little window-square had lost its +straight outline, and would soon be as shapeless as any hole burrowed in +a bank. Con sat with his back turned to it until the dusk had muffled up +everything in dimness, and then he stole an armful of turf-sods from the +nearest stack, and groped his way in through the deserted door. The +shadows within were folded so heavily that he could scarcely more than +guess where the hearth had been. One of Con's peculiarities was a +strange horror of a fireless hearth. At the sight of its hoarily +sprinkled blackness he always felt as if he were standing on the verge +of some frightful revelation; a vague reminiscence, no doubt, from the +scene of his life's tragedy, all distinct memory of which had been +blurred away by his illness. Now he piled and crumbled his sods with +practised skill, and set them alight in well-chosen places. But he +stayed only for a minute or so, till the little fluttering flames had +fairly taken a hold, and were sending golden threads running along the +netted fibres. Then he groped his way out again, and returned to his +seat on the bank. Presently, as he watched, he saw a red light +beginning to flicker through window and door, and growing steadier and +stronger. When it was at its brightest, he got up and turned away. +"That's the very way it would be shinin'," he said, "and I comin' along +the road to see Herself and Himself and the childer--God be good to them +all, wherever they may be. And that's the notion of it I'll keep in me +mind." + +And Con the Quare One came no more to Lisconnel. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +MAD BELL + + +Not so very long before the sound of Con the Quare One's fiddle ceased +to enliven Lisconnel any more, Mad Bell's singing had begun to be heard +there occasionally, as it has been at intervals ever since she arrived +with her two housemates, Big Anne and the Dummy, and took up her abode +in the last of the cabins that you pass on the left hand, going towards +Sallinbeg. Perhaps Lisconnel should not reckon her among its residents, +so much of her time is spent on the tramp as an absentee. Still, she +sometimes has tarried with us for a long while, and she is understood to +have some property in the house-furniture, so it seems natural to +consider the place her home. + +From the first it appeared obvious to all that the dementedness which +characterised the little wizened yellow-faced woman was of a much more +pronounced type than Con the Quare One's. Any attempt to spare people's +feelings by ignoring the fact would have been very futile, and it was +therefore lucky that the three new-comers, Mad Bell herself included, +were quite content to accept the situation. The neighbours were at first +inclined to commiserate Big Anne, who was pronounced to be "a dacint, +sinsible, poor woman," for the oddities of her household, the +incalculable flightiness of Mad Bell, and the impenetrable silence of +the Dummy. But to their condoling remarks she was wont to reply in +effect--"Ah sure, ma'am, that's the way I'm used to them, the crathurs. +Why, if Mad Bell said anythin' over-sinsible, or poor Winnie said +anythin' at all, it's wond'rin' I'd be what was goin' to happin us +next." And Big Anne evidently looked upon this as an uncomfortable frame +of mind. At first, too, they speculated much about the circumstances +which had brought the curious trio together beneath one thatch, and +found it especially hard to conjecture how the daft little vagrant had +come into possession of sundry tables and chairs. All its members, +however, being incommunicative persons, no satisfactory elucidation of +these points was arrived at in Lisconnel. + +The coalescence of Big Anne's and the Dummy's fortunes is a simple +history enough. Anne Fannin, while yet a youngish woman, was left alone +in the world to do for herself in her little wayside cabin. Without a +dowry to recommend her rough-hewn features and large-boned ungainliness, +she never had any suitors, and she found it as much as she could +contrive to make out her single living by means of her "bit of poultry" +and her pig. Nevertheless, when her nearest neighbours--the +Golighers--died, leaving their daughter Winnie, "who had niver got her +speech, the crathur," to live on charity or the rates, what else was a +body to do except take her in? Anne would have put this question to you +with a sincere want of resource. So Winnie Goligher transferred to Anne +Fannin's house, herself and all her worldly goods, which consisted of +the clothes she had on, and a prayer-book, and a lame duck, and +thenceforward the two "got along the best way they could." + +Mad Bell's history has more complications in it. They began one pleasant +April day when she was only a slip of a lass, who had taken a little +place at the Hunts' farm near her home, for the purpose of saving up a +few pounds against her marriage with Richard McBirney. She had been +given an unexpected holiday, and was running home across the fresh, +spring-green grass-fields, thinking to take her people by surprise, when +she came to a hedge-gap whence you look down into a steep-banked lane. +And at the foot of the bank Richard McBirney was sitting with his arm +round her sister Lizzie's waist. + +To a dispassionate observer this transference of his attentions might +have seemed a matter of small moment. Most of their acquaintances, for +example, were just as well satisfied that he should court Eliza as +Isabella. But the sight turned all the current of her life awry. For it +set her off rushing away from it across the same sunny green fields, and +she never came home again. Nor ever again would she settle down quietly +anywhere. She had a strong, clear voice and a taste for music, and this +led her to take to singing ballads about the country at markets and +fairs. The harder she was thinking about fickle Richard McBirney, the +louder and shriller she sang. A very few years of such wandering +shrivelled up her plump "pig-beauty," so that in her little sallow, +weather-beaten face her own mother would scarcely have recognised pretty +Isabella Reid. Then, after a long spell of illness in a Union +infirmary, she began to grow noticeably odder and stranger in her looks +and ways; until at length the children shouted "Mad Bell" as she passed, +and that became her recognised style and title. + +Such, briefly, had been her experience of life, when one September +evening she came by chance to Big Anne and the Dummy's door. She had got +a very bad cold, and felt hardly able to drag herself along between the +berried hedges, and was so hoarse that she could with difficulty ask for +the night's lodging, which they granted without demur. Their times had +been unusually bad of late. In fact, their room was looking several +sizes larger than they were accustomed to see it, because they had sold +any articles of furniture for which "e'er a price at all" could be +obtained. But to whatever accommodation this bareness permitted they +made Mad Bell kindly welcome, the crathur being sick and crazy, and she +stayed with them for three or four days. By that time, finding herself +recovered, she resumed her journey, setting off early in the morning +with the abruptness and absence of circumlocution which, as a rule, +distinguished her proceedings. A friendly nod and grimace she made serve +for announcement of departure and leavetaking all in one. As her +hostesses watched her out of sight down the road, Big Anne said-- + +"Well, now, I never seen that quare little body in this counthry before, +and we're very apt to not set eyes on her agin. God be good to us all, +but the likes of her is to be pitied. She's worse off than the two of +us. But bedad, Winnie, if thim hins there don't prisintly take to layin' +a thrifle, it's in a tight houle we'll be ourselves. I dunno what's +bewitchin' them. And the sorra an ould stick have we left in it that man +or mortal 'ud give us the price of a pullet's egg for--and small blame +to him, unless he was as deminted as herself that's quittin'." + +Mad Bell's tramp that day was all along a sequence of lonesome winding +lanes, where few dwellings were dotted among the green and gold of the +fields. The bustle of the harvest, its reaping and binding, was over in +them, and they lay without stir or sound. In some of them the stooks +were still encamped, but some were smooth stubble, empty, except where a +flock of turkeys filled it with dark, bunchy shapes. She walked steadily +on the whole day without any adventure, but when the dew was beginning +to fall through the twilight she came to a short, shady reach of lane, +at the end of which stood, in a green nook, a small, prim white cottage +with two peaked windows and a door to match. That, at least, is how it +would under ordinary circumstances have presented itself to a passer-by. +Just then, however, nobody would have noticed anything about it except +the fact that out of the open door thick coils of woolly black smoke +were rolling and rolling, stabbed through every now and again by thrusts +of flame, which even in the lingering daylight gleamed strongly fierce +and red. The house was evidently on fire. As Mad Bell drew nearer, she +became aware of a wheaten-coloured terrier standing in front of it; and +when he saw her he began to bark vehemently. She was used to being +barked at, though not in this way, for howls were interspersed, and it +was clearly meant not for a menace but an appeal. No other live creature +was visible about the place, until she had come quite close to the +surging door, when a small gossoon jumped up out of the ditch on the +opposite side of the road and rushed across to her. + +"What 'ill I do at all, then?" he said, whimperingly, catching hold of +her shawl. "If them childer's burnt up widin there, Mr. Wogan 'ill be +in a fine way. It's for killin' the whole of us he'll be. And it wasn't +me set it afire. Sorra the match was I meddlin' wid, I could swear it. I +wasn't out of it any time, gettin' a few ripe berries to pacify them +childer, agin they would be wakin' and roarin', and when I come back, +there it is all a smother of smoke. Divil a thing else was I doin' on'y +mindin' them childer, and not meddlin' wid the matches, and goin' after +a couple of blackberries. And Mr. Wogan himself's away to +Ballymacartrican wid his boxes in the ass-cart. And all of them goin' to +quit out of it to-morra, if it wasn't for them childer bein' burnt up +inside--or maybe it's smothered they are. It's as unhandy as anythin'. +It went afire of itself. And he'll be ragin'." + +He bawled all this louder and louder in competition with the clamour of +the dog, who kept on jumping up at each alternately, and evidently +considered his remarks better entitled to a hearing. But Mad Bell merely +replied, "Whisht gabbin', and hould that," thrusting, as she spoke, her +little handkerchief bundle into his arms. And thereupon, making a sudden +dive, she vanished among the flame-sheathing smoke. + +Scarcely had she disappeared when an empty donkey-cart came round the +turn of the lane, led by a rather dejected-looking middle-aged man, +whose countenance, nevertheless, had for some time back been gradually +clearing up at every wind of the way that brought him nearer to this +particular point of view. But as he caught sight of the black smoke +drifting and rolling, his aspect of reasonable melancholy changed to one +of a despair that could not have been wilder if the reek of hell-mouth +had blown into his face. He dropped the bridle, and hurled himself down +the road like the distracted body that he well might be. For a +twelvemonth ago he had lost his wife and both his elder children in one +week, and his pair of two-year-old twins were now all that stood between +himself and world-wide desolation. At the front door his frantic rush +was met and baffled by a choking puff, which sent him fleeing round in +hopes that entrance might be more possible through the back; and on the +way he came face to face with the wrathful visages of his son and +daughter, whom Mad Bell was carrying in the disregardful manner that +betides a cumbrous load snatched up in a mortal hurry. She had escaped +by the back door. + +If the most radiant of guardian angels, in snowy plumes and golden +tresses, had restored his children to him with a befitting speech, poor +Matthew Wogan could not well have been more joyfully relieved from his +terror than he was when this odd little yellow-faced woman, with a red +handkerchief wisped round her head, and a singed grimness generally +pervading her, handed over to him Minnie and Tom, casually remarking, +"Bedad, it's the big heavy lumps they are." Minnie and Tom both were +crying and coughing loudly, because the smoke had got into their eyes +and throats, which they resented; and when their father returned with +them to the front of the house, this noise was swelled by the gleeful +yap-yapping of the terrier and the voices of a few other people who had +appeared upon the scene--a matronly looking woman and two or three +sun-burnt harvestmen. From Mrs. Massey's observations it could be +gathered that she had been minding the Wogan twins by deputy, and +further that she entertained the gloomiest views about the mental and +moral qualities of her son little Larry, who replied to her +animadversions with over-reaching protestations about matches and +theories of spontaneous combustion. While they wrangled in the +background, the young men inspected the conflagration, which proved to +be less extensive than it looked, though undoubtedly serious enough to +have soon put the sleeping children past waking, if rescue had not come. +A heap of blankets and other bedding, that smouldered and blazed near +the front door, was the source of the most stiffling smoke; and when it +had been subdued by many buckets of water, everybody began to drag what +bits of the furniture they could out of harm's way. There was not much, +because, as Wogan explained, he had sent "the marrow of it" to his +sister at Ballymacartrican; and the legs of the largest table were +charred so badly that it collapsed with a crash "the instiant minyit it +set its four feet on the ground," as Mrs. Massey said. However, there +were two smaller ones not much the worse, and three or four chairs, and +a couple of stools, and some pots and pans, and a small clothes-horse, +and a wagging clock, whose round white face glimmered through the dusk +like a fallen moon as it lay flat on the grass. All these things made a +little crowd on the plot of sward by the door. + +"And what will you be doin' wid them now?" said Mrs. Massey. "There's +my place below you'd be welcome to stand them in as long as you plase. +'Deed would you, sir. The dear knows I'm not throubled wid too many +sticks of furnitur'. That's a very handy-sized washin'-tub Larry's after +carryin' out for you. I was noticin' to-day ours has a lake in it this +long while back that dhrips over everythin'. I must get himself to thry +mend it." + +"That's a _lovely_ table," suddenly said Mad Bell, who had hitherto made +no remarks. "A rael grand one it is," she repeated, in a wistful sort of +way, smoothing the leaf fondly with her hand. + +"And very welcome you'd be to have it in a prisint, ma'am, if you've +e'er a fancy for it; ay, or for the matter of that to the whole lot of +them altogether," said Matthew Wogan, who, with his arms full of the +smoky twins, felt a weight of gratitude which he would gladly have +expressed in deeds. "Little vally there is on them--it's a small thing +after what you're after doin' for us. I wouldn't like to be payin' away +me bit of money from the childer, or else--But if I auctioned them +things off the way I was intindin' it's on'y a thrifle of a few +shillin's they'd be bringin' me. Welcome you are to them, ma'am." + +"Sure what use at all 'ud such a thing be to the likes of her?" put in +Mrs. Massey. "It's on'y annoyed you'd be, woman, wid tables and chairs. +And she thrampin' about, you may depind, wid ne'er a place to be +bringin' them to, if she had them twyste over, let alone any way of +movin' them. It's very convanient we are, just round the turn of the +road." + +"She might take the little cart and the ould ass along," said Matthew +Wogan, looking at his equipage, which was straying towards them +intermittently as the beast grazed the green border of the lane. +"They're no use to me now. Then there'd be nothin' delayin' her that she +couldn't be cleanin' out of it wid them right away--You needn't throuble +yourself to be liftin' the little stool, Mrs. Massey. What wid fire and +water, that'll be no place to sleep in," he said, pointing to the still +smoking door. "The Mahonys 'ud take us in for to-night, and to-morra +early we're off to me sister's and next day to Queenstown. 'Twill be a +grand thing for the childer to be settled near their uncle Tom, that's +doin' right well in New Jersey, in case anythin' happint me. So I'd as +lief be shut of all that collection, supposin' they'd be any benefit to +this crathur." + +"Saints bless us, but you're givin' away all before you, Mr. Wogan," +said Mrs. Massey, with a discomfited laugh. + +"Have you e'er a house you could be puttin' them in?" one of the +harvestmen asked of Mad Bell. + +"Ay, bedad," she said. And with that she picked up a chair, and dumped +it down into the cart, which had come to a halt at the door. + +This promptitude on her part seemed to settle the question. Without more +ado the rest of the salvage was loaded in, all except the handy-sized +washing-tub, which by means of an adroitly taken up position Mrs. Massey +contrived to have overlooked and left behind, when Mad Bell drove away +with her newly acquired property. + +On through the gloaming she drove, till the white dust flakes gathered +up by the wheels grew damp and fragrant with dew, and till the moonlight +was glimmering among the golden sheaves silverly, and till live embers +were fanned out of the ashes low in the east. The small hours had a +frosty chill, and old Ned's short steps were leisurely, and his halts +for refreshment frequent; still Mad Bell continued to sit with serene +patience. She was retracing her route of the day before, but at so much +slower a rate of progress that the sun had been up for more than an hour +when she stopped in front of Big Anne and the Dummy's little house. They +were disturbed at their breakfast by the sound of the arrival, and when +they came to the door, saw their visitor in the act of depositing a +second chair upon the ground beside the cart. + +"Whethen now and is it yourself back agin?" said Big Anne. "And what at +all have you got there?" + +"Inside they're goin'," said Mad Bell, pointing to the cart-load with an +elated air. "It's a dale handier to have some chairs and tables." + +This was a fact which Big Anne might well have admitted, considering +that she had just been squatting on her heels to eat her plate of +stirabout. However, she only continued her perplexed catechism: "Where +at all was you after bringin' them things from, and who might be ownin' +them?" + +"Out of a house burnin' down," said Mad Bell. + +"Och between us and harm. What house is it then? And how did it get +burnin'?" + +"Sure it's aisy enough settin' a house on fire," said Mad Bell with a +grin, which to Big Anne who at this time was not familiar with her +manners, looked rather sinisterly significant. "Flarin' up rael strong," +she said, pushing towards her, as if in confirmation of the statement, +the little wooden clothes-horse, whose rails were blackened and charred. + +"Aisy it may be," Big Anne said, looking aghast at it, "but dreadful +divilment it is to do such a thing, wid the misfort'nit people very apt +to lose their lives, let alone everythin' else." + +"There was nobody in it on'y the couple of fat little childer," said Mad +Bell. + +"The saints be among us all, woman," said Big Anne, "what sort of talk +have you? It's not streelin' about the counthry you are, wid them ould +sticks of furnitur', and lavin' the little childer in the house blazin' +up? The Lord pity the crathurs, what 'ud become of them if they was left +thataway? Burnt to cinders be now very belike." + +"Stufficated," said Mad Bell, with a complacent nod. + +Big Anne and the Dummy stared at one another in great horror. The Dummy +could express her feelings only by crossing herself and gasping; but +Big Anne spoke volubly: "May God forgive me for openin' me lips to the +likes of you. Och but you're the unnatural wicked woman to go do such a +thing, if you was twyste as cracked and crazy itself. Git along out of +this, yourself and your ould cart, afore the pólis comes after you. Och +the misfort'nit little crathurs. And don't be offerin' to darken our +doors agin wid the ojis sight of you." + +"Gimme a hand wid liftin' in them two tables," said Mad Bell. Whereupon +Big Anne whisked away from her, and banged the door in her face. + +Mad Bell, however, did not appear to be discouraged by this reception. +She finished unloading the cart of all except the tables, which she +found unwieldy single-handed. Then she unharnessed old Neddy, and went +and seated herself on the low wall beside the house. She was seemingly +quite content with the situation. But to the two women indoors it was a +dreadful experience. Their minds were firmly persuaded that the daft +little woman had designedly set fire to some dwelling, and made off with +what household gear she could lay hands on, leaving the hapless children +to perish amid the flames. It shocked and enraged them that their +premises should be infested by the presence of such a criminal, and that +her ill-gotten goods and chattels should be brought to their very +threshold, not to speak of her outrageous proposal to harbour them under +their roof. Big Anne declared that wid the legs of them chairs and +tables glimpsing through the door, as if they were on'y turned out to be +airin' a bit, she and the Dummy seemed as good as a pair of murderers. + +Every now and then they went to the door and peered out, and the +incendiary always greeted them with cheerful nods. On these occasions +Big Anne sometimes said: "Oh, very well, me good woman. Just you sit +brazenin' there till the patrol comes round this way, and then if I +don't give you in charge as sure as the sun's shinin' crooked over our +heads.--Begone out of that, and take them things out of litterin' about +our place." Or she would remark loudly to her companion: "Just stop a +minyit, Winnie, till I sling me ould shawl over me head, and run down to +the barracks. It's not very long they'll be puttin' her out of it, and +bundlin' her into jail, instead of to be sittin' there, wid ne'er a +spark of shame in her, annoyin' dacint people." But neither mode of +address produced any effect. The morning sunbeams still slanted down on +the small pile of furniture, and old Neddy went on munching the blades +off which they were drying the dew, and Mad Bell continued to sit upon +the wall, as if placidly waiting for events. + +Such was the posture of affairs until towards noon, when an outside-car +came trotting quickly down the lane. On one side of it sat a +black-whiskered man in his best clothes, with each hand tightly grasping +a small, fat, wrigglesome child. And the three were Matthew, Tom, and +Minnie Wogan. On catching sight of Mad Bell, he made the driver pull up. + +"Well, ma'am," he called to her, "so you're after gettin' home. Bedad +it's the fine long step you've took th'ould donkey; one while he'd be +doin' it. And you're about gettin' in the few things? Very welcome she +is to the whole of them," he continued to Big Anne, who had now emerged. +"And begorrah nobody else had a better right to any trifle might be +saved out of it. She'll ha' tould you, ma'am, the way the place was set +on fire on me last night--some little divil of a spalpeen playin' wid +matches it seems. But anyhow, there it was in blazes, and me galloppin' +home like a deminted cow, consaitin' these two imps of the mischief here +would be smotherin' inside it. And, troth, if herself over there hadn't +them fetched out safe into the yard, when it was as much as your life +was worth to put your head in at the door, for the stiflin' of the +smoke. I dunno how she conthrived it. Maybe the crathur isn't altogether +over sinsible," he said in a confidential tone; "but if she'd had all +the wit ever was thought of, she couldn't ha' done better be the +childer. So it's kindly welcome she is to the bits of furniture, and the +ould baste. And dhrivin' on we must be. Good mornin' to yous all." + +Mad Bell listened to this praise with the same equanimity as to Big +Anne's threats and reproaches. But when the car had trotted on, she came +up to her, saying just as before, "Gimme a hand wid liftin' in thim +tables;" and Matthew Wogan, jogging down the long lane, may have caught +the last glimpse of one of them as it vanished in at the doorway. + +Thus it was that Mad Bell came to be domiciled with Big Anne and the +Dummy in the pauses between her wanderings. The arrangement seemed +equitable in view of her substantial contribution to the plenishing of +the house. The donkey-cart, likewise, was found very serviceable, +enabling them to turn a penny occasionally by fetching and carrying. And +the coalition worked well upon the whole. But after a few years of such +prosperity that they were seldom without a bit of food in the house, and +sometimes had bacon on Sunday, things took a turn for the worse. Old Ned +died under the burden of his many years, and a sort of murrain among the +fowl cut off several promising pullets in the heyday of their youth. +Then arose difficulties about "rint," while their landlord, who was new +to the property, had a natural zeal for sweeping it clear of encumbering +tenants. And the end of it was that the three women transferred +themselves to Lisconnel, where they became not the least respected of +its inhabitants. + +But these particulars about their antecedents were never learned by the +neighbours there; and the joint ownership of the furniture still +presents itself as one of our unsolved problems. Another of them was +propounded somewhat later, when Mad Bell returned from an unusually long +ramble, during which she had crossed the Liffey by the spacious +O'Connell Bridge, and had heard the boom of the big College bell, and +with her wizened-lemon face had half-scared the smallest-sized children +in villages round about Dublin. For she was wearing an elaborately +fantastic piece of headgear, which moved everybody's curiosity so +strongly that it cannot have been for want of wondering if we failed to +find out how she had come thereby. Strangely incongruous it did +undoubtedly look; yet the stages by which it had descended from its +stand in the milliner's show-room and alighted upon the head of the +little wandering-witted tramp, were much fewer than might have been +supposed probable. + +One blustery March morning when Mrs. M'Bean was on her way along by the +low sea-wall to buy a bit of bacon at Donnelly's shop in Kilclone, the +east wind did her the shrewd turn of whisking off her hat and dropping +it into the water. It was a most shabby old black straw, rusty and +battered, and torn, yet Mrs. M'Bean, a labourer's wife, who had nothing +at all handsome about her, seemed to think it worth a serious risk. For +she mounted on the broad wall-top, and thence made so unwary a snatch +that she overbalanced herself and splashed headlong into the heaving +high-tide, where she would very soon have perished beneath the cold +olive-gray swell, had not the brothers Denny, fishing for bass hard by, +noticed the perilous accident, and pulled timely to the rescue. + +When they disembarked her, gasping and dripping, at the nearest +landing-place, she was understood to say, "Sure me heart's broke," a +remark which Police-sergeant Young, who formed one of the group gathered +by the disaster, considered sufficient grounds for marching her off to +the handiest J. P. on a charge of attempted suicide. Mrs. M'Bean +vehemently repelled the accusation. She explained that she had said her +heart was broke only "because she had lost her ould hat, and every +thread of a rag on her had been dhrenched and ruinated with the salt +water. How could she go for to do such a sin as destroy herself, she +urged, and she wid a houseful of little childer waitin' for her at home, +the crathurs?" Her arguments proved convincing, and the charge was +summarily dismissed, not without strictures upon Sergeant Young's +excessive zeal, by which he, recking nothing of Talleyrand's maxim, felt +himself puzzled and aggrieved. + +The incident, however, brought some more agreeable consequences to Mrs. +M'Bean, as the J. P.'s ladies, commiserating her half-drowned plight, +sent her that same evening a goodly bundle of cast-off clothes, over +which her eyes grew gleefully bright in her careworn face. At one of the +articles included they widened with almost awe. This was an enormous hat +made of white fluffy felt, with vast contorted brims, and great blue +velvet rosettes and streamers. Its fabric was very stout and +substantial, and withal quite new, for its original owner had speedily +found it so stiff and heavy that to wear it gave her a headache and a +crick in her neck. Mrs. M'Bean, for her part, could not entertain the +idea of carrying anything so sumptuous upon her grizzled head; and when +she tried it on her eldest daughter, it totally extinguished and nearly +smothered the child. So she stowed it away in a corner, where it +remained unseen for several weeks. + +But next month, on the afternoon of Easter Day, Mrs. M'Bean had two +visitors over from Ballyhoy: Annie Cassidy, elderly and rather grim, +with her young friend Nelly Walsh. + +"Nelly's bound to be havin' bad luck this year of her life," Annie +observed in the course of conversation, "for not a new stitch has she +put on her to-day, and it Easter. That's an unlucky thing, accordin' to +the sayin'." + +"Ne'er a bit am I afraid of me luck," averred Nelly, cheerful and +threadbare, not to say ragged. But Mrs. M'Bean was pricked by a sudden +thought up the ladder to the little attic aloft, whence she creaked down +again, bringing with her the great white hat. "There, Nelly," she said, +"just clap that on your head, and then nobody can pass the remark that +you didn't get the wear of somethin' new, any way." + +Nelly took the hat, which struck her nearly dumb with admiration, but as +she tried to catch a glimpse of it in the shred of looking-glass on the +wall, her delighted expression waxed so eloquent that Mrs. M'Bean was +impelled to say: "You're to keep it, girl alive, if you've e'er a fancy +for it. Sure it's fitter for you than the likes of me, that 'ud look a +quare old scarecrow if I offered to go about in such a thing." She had +not at first intended this generosity, her worldly goods being so few +that she could not lightly part with even a very unpromising possession. + +Nelly, on her side, could hardly believe in her high fortune, when, +after some polite demur, she found herself carrying off the splendid +hat. To wear it on an ordinary walk would have seemed profane, so she +held it under her old shawl all the way home to her cabin on the shore +at the foot of the Black Banks, a good step beyond Ballyhoy. But when +she reached the door, she could not forbear the pleasure of making her +entrance in the glory of her new adornment. Her reception was altogether +disappointing. For her mother's and grandmother's voices rose up shrill +and shriller, demanding what at all hijjis gazabo she'd got on her. +Billy, her eldest brother, said: "Musha, she's put a pair of blinkers on +her like an ould horse;" and Larry, his junior, remarked with terse +candour, "Och, the fright." More mortifying still, Joe Tierney, her +sweetheart, who had called to conclude arrangements about the morrow's +holiday, said in a disgusted tone: "Tare and ages! I hope to goodness, +Nelly, you're not intindin' to make that show of yourself at the circus +to-morra. Bedad, I niver seen such a conthrivance; you might as well be +walkin' alongside some sort of deminted musharoon." This rather aptly +described the effect of the huge white brim upon Nelly, who was small +and short of stature; but it hurt her feelings badly. + +The only upholder of the hat was Annie Cassidy, who is fond of +controverting the opinions of other people, and who despises men. She +said: "Don't be lettin' them put you out of consait with it, Nelly; it +suits you lovely. Sure if anyone doesn't think your app'arance is good +enough for them, you needn't throuble them wid your company. Circuses, +to my mind, is thrash--to be watchin' folks figurandyin' on a pack of +ould horses' backs. There's a lot of us goin' over to-morra to Rathbeg, +where they've merry-go-rounds you can ride in yourself, and all manner, +if you'd just step down to the Junction station and come along wid us on +the early train." + +"'Deed then I might," said Nelly; not that she had the least intention +of doing any such thing, but because, being somewhat of a belle, she was +unaccustomed to uncomplimentary criticisms and much affronted by them. +Furthermore, for the same reason, she escorted Annie home, and stayed so +long talking, that Joe before she returned had to go off about his +milking, which annoyed him a good deal. + +However, he had quite forgotten his vexation next morning, as he hurried +through his early tasks with a day's pleasuring before him. He worked at +the Kellys', whose land is bounded north and south by the Junction lane +and the sea; and as he walked about the fresh April fields he was in +view of Howth, dark pansy-purple against the eastern amber, confronting +the sweep of the Dublin mountains, outlined in wild hyacinth-coloured +mist, across the dancing silver of the bay. The calves had been fed so +expeditiously that Joe found he could spare time to stop at the starred +bank under the hedge and pick a bunch of primroses, some of which +Nelly's mother would proudly keep in a jam-pot on the window-stool, +while Nelly herself might like to wear a few at the circus, brightening +up her brown-striped shawl. + +But when he was compressing a thick sheaf of the cool soft stalks in one +hard hand, he chanced to look up, and saw what thrilled him with dismay. +Bobbing along over the jagged edge of the wall, a short way down the +lane went a gleaming white object, which he at once recognised as +Nelly's new hat. He ran aghast to look through the gate, and despite +intercepting road-curves and obstructive hedges, the hat it unmistakably +was, making for the Junction station. So Nelly, intending a serious +quarrel, had thrown him over and joined the Rathbeg party. A pleasure, +hoarded in anticipation for many a month, shrivelled into dead leaves +suddenly like fairy gold, as he perceived how certainly this must be the +case. + +His first angry impulse was a resort to Haskin's Public at Portbrendan, +where he might spend his spoilt holiday taking drinks and making bets in +the society of some cronies. What hindered him from immediately acting +upon it was a compunctious forecast of the concern which would prevail +in his family, if he absented himself contrary to expectation. "There's +me mother's never aisy," he reflected, "unless she's persuadin' herself +some of us are kilt on her." This made him resolve to postpone +Portbrendan till after breakfast, and he turned lothfully homewards. As +he passed along the Kellys' yard-wall, he relieved his feelings by +tossing his nosegay over it at the place where he heard the grunting of +their pigs, who on that occasion fared almost as delicately as Marvel's +rose-lined fawn. + +It was early still when he reached his cabin, one in the Walshes' row; +and he sat down listlessly on a bank, to wait for nothing in particular. +Presently Mrs. Walsh, senior, came by with a twinkling can of water. +"Och, there you are, Joe," she said: "Nelly's been lookin' out for you +this good while." + +"Whethen it's quare lookin' out she had," said Joe, "and she took off +wid herself to ould Annie Cassidy--bad manners to her for her +interfarin'." + +"What's the lad talkin' about at all?" said Mrs. Walsh, standing amazed; +"Nelly's widin there this instiant of time, readyin' herself up." + +"Maybe you'll tell me," said Joe, "that I didn't see her streelin' down +the Junction lane afore I was lavin' Kellys'." + +"And maybe _you_'ll tell _me_," said Nelly's grandmother, "that she +wasn't just now callin' to me they were wantin' wather. It's a fine bawl +she'd ha' had to let out of her, if I was to be hearin' her, and she up +beyond Kellys'." + +"There she was anyway," Joe said, doggedly. "Wouldn't I know that dad +fetched-lookin' ould new caubeen she's stuck on her a mile o' ground?" + +"You great gomeral," said Mrs. Walsh. "If that's all you might aisy +enough ha' seen the big hat goin' the road--but have you the notion it's +growin' on Nelly's head? Why, you omadhawn, you hadn't quit ten minyits +last night, and Nelly was just after gettin' back, when who should come +by but poor Mad Bell. Och now the raggedy objick the crathur was, wid +nothin' over her misfort'nit head but an ould wisp as full of houles as +a fishin'-net. So little Larry sez, jokin' like, 'Look here, Nelly,' +sez he, 'you'd a right to be lettin' Mad Bell have a loan of your grand +nappy hat to keep the sun out of her eyes.' But belike Nelly'd took a +turn agin the thing wid the way they'd all been makin' fun of it; for +sez she, 'Will you have it, Bell?' sez she, houldin' it out to her. And +if she did, Mad Bell grabbed it in her two hands--it's not often she'll +have a word for anybody--and no more talk about it, but cocked it on, +and tied it firm under her chin wid the sthramers, as tasty as you +plase. Musha good gracious, to see the len'th she drew the bow out on +aich side of her bit of a yeller face, and the nod she gave her ould +head when she'd got it done. So that's what's gone wid the hat. Goodness +guide us, if she wasn't the poor crazy-witted body she is, 'twould be a +sin to let her go makin' such a show of herself; but sure no one 'ud +think to mind anythin' the likes of the crathur might have on her, the +saints may pity her. Ay, bedad, them kind of quare consthructions do be +fit for nothin' unless Quality and mad people," old Mrs. Walsh +continued, without malice, soliloquising, as Joe had caught up the can, +and was hurrying it with prodigal splashes towards his sweetheart's +door. + +The circus, with its flaring lights and whirl of tinselled prancing +marvels, was so rapturous an experience to Nelly that she had not a +regret for her discarded hat, which at this time was moving on beneath a +soft dappled sky, between greening hedges, westward along quiet roads +and lanes. It found shelter for the night under the ley of a tall +hayrick near Santry, thus ending the first stage of Mad Bell's tramp +home to the wide brown bogland of Lisconnel. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A FLITTING + + +Among the latest of the strangers that have visited Lisconnel were some +who came at a time when the neighbours stood rather in need of +distraction. For the summer following Mrs. Kilfoyle's death was, between +one thing and another, a drearyish season with us. That little old woman +had left a great gap; and then there were many long spells of gloomy bad +weather, which seemed to beat people's troubles down upon them as the +damp drove the turf-reck back through their smoke-holes into the dark +rooms, where they could scarcely see how dense the blue haze was +growing. Stacey Doyne's marriage also had removed something young and +pleasant, and at times, when the thatch dripped without and within, +neighbours were apt to talk about her in tones of commiseration, and +say, "Sure, her poor mother's lost entirely." So that towards autumn +the diversion of some new residents' arrival happened opportunely +enough. It was made possible by the fact that Big Anne had given up her +holding and entered into partnership with the widow M'Gurk, thus leaving +her late abode empty for another tenant, who appeared much sooner than +any one might have anticipated from the aspect of the cabin. + +Except as a fresh topic of conversation, however, the strangers gave +small promise of proving an acquisition to the community. Lisconnel did +not like their appearance by any means, and further acquaintance failed +to modify unfavourable first impressions. These were mainly received in +the course of the day after their arrival, which took place on a night +too black for anything beyond a shadowy counting of heads, and a +perception that the bulk of the new-comers' household stuff had jogged +up on one donkey, and must therefore be small. A portion of Big Anne's +furniture had remained behind her in the cabin, owing to certain arrears +of rent. Her heart was scalded, she said, wid the prices she'd only get +for her early chuckens, and they the weight of the world, if you'd feel +them in your hand; and poor Mad Bell, that 'ud mostly bring home a few +odd shillin's wid her, was away since afore last Christmas, and might +never show her face there agin, the crathur; and the poor Dummy gone, +that was great at the knittin' if she got the chance--a bit of narration +which would look funny enough in anybody's rental. Mrs. Quigley, who +went to the door with the offer of a seed of fire, found it shut, and a +voice inside called, "as onmannerly as you plase," "No, we've got +matches;" whereupon another voice, further in the interior, quavered, +"Thank'ee kindly, ma'am." So she departed little wiser than she had +come. But daylight showed that the party consisted of an old man, and +his son, and his son's wife, and her sister, and three small children, +besides some cochin-china fowl, and a black cat with vividly green eyes. +This much was apparent on the surface. Also that the old man was frail, +bent, shrivelled, and civil spoken, that the son was "a big soft gomeral +of a fellow," that both the women were sandily flaxen-haired, with +broad, flat cheeks and light eyes, and that two of the children +resembled them, while the third--a girl a trifle older--was a +dark-haired, disconsolate-looking little thing, "wid her face," Mrs. +Brian said, "not the width of the palm of your hand, and the eyes of +her sunk in her head." As for the fowl, there could be no doubt that +their "onnathural, long, fluffety legs were fit to make a body's flesh +creep," and the cat looked "as like an ould divil as anythin' you ever +witnessed, sittin' blinkin' atop of the turf-stack." + +Other less self-evident facts came out by degrees--more slowly than +might have been expected, as the strangers were generally close and +chary of speech. They came from the north, where their affairs had not +prospered--in fact, they had been "sold up and put out of it," as the +young man divulged one day to Brian Kilfoyle. They were a somewhat +intricately connected family, by the name, predominantly, of Patman. The +sister-in-law was Tishy M'Crum, which seemed simple enough, but the two +light-haired boys were Greens, Mrs. Patman having been a widow, while +the little girl was the child of a wife whom Tom Patman had already +buried; for though he looked full young to have embarked upon matrimony +at all, this was his second venture. "And it's a quare comether she must +ha' been after puttin' on him," quoth Mrs. Quigley, "afore he took up +wid herself, that's as ugly as if she was bespoke, and half a dozen year +oulder than the young bosthoon, if she's a minyit." It is true that at +the time when Mrs. Quigley expressed this unflattering opinion she and +her neighbours had been exasperated by an impolite speech of Mrs. +Patman, who had said loudly in their hearing, "Well, for sartin if I'd +had a notion of the blamed little dog-hole he was bringin' us into, +sorra the sole of a fut 'ud I ha' set inside it;" and had then proceeded +to congratulate herself upon having prudently left "all her dacint bits +of furniture up above at her mother's, so that she needn't be bothered +wid cartin' them away out of a place that didn't look to have had ever +e'er a thing in it worth the throuble of movin', not if it stood there +until it dropped to pieces wid dirt." Mrs. Quigley rejoined (to Judy +Ryan) that "it would be a great pity if any people sted in a place that +wasn't good enough for them, supposin' all the while they was used to +anythin' a thraneen better--maybe they might, in coorse, and maybe they +mightn't. It was won'erful to hear the talk some folks had, and they wid +every ould stick they owned an aisy loadin' for Reilly's little ass." +But Judy Ryan, with a flight of sarcastic fancy, hoped that Mrs. Patman +and her family "were about goin' on a visit prisintly to the Lady +Lifftinant, because it was much if they'd find any place else where +there'd be grandeur accordin' to their high-up notions." + +Skirmishes such as this, however, were a symptom rather than a cause of +the Patmans' unpopularity. That sprang from several roots. For one +thing, both the women had harsh, scolding voices, and it was even +chances that if you passed within earshot of their cabin you would hear +them giving tongue. Their objurgations were, as a rule, addressed to the +young man or the old, the latter of whom soon grew into an object of +local compassion as "a harmless, dacint, poor crathur," while his son +came in for the frank-eyed looking-down-upon which is the portion of an +able-bodied man, shrew-ridden through sheer supineness and +"polthroonery." But what Lisconnel often said that it "thought badder +of" was the stepmotherly treatment which seemed to be the lot of the +little girl Katty. Of course the situation was one which, under the +circumstances, would have made people believe in such a state of things +upon the slenderest evidence. Still, even to unprejudiced eyes, it was +clear that Katty's rags were raggeder than those of her small +step-brothers, and that she crept about with the mien of a creature +which has conceived reasonable doubts respecting the reception it is +likely to meet in society. When the autumn weather began to grow wintry, +little Katty Patman, "perishin' about out there in the freezin' win'," +became a spectacle which was viewed with indignant sympathy from dark +doorways whence she received many an invitation to step in and be +warmin' herself. Her hostesses opined that she was fairly starved just +for a taste of the fire, and didn't believe she was ever let next or +nigh it in her own place. Often, too, the consideration that she had no +more flesh on her bones than a March chucken led to the bestowal of a +steaming potato or a piece of griddle-bread; but the result of this was +sometimes unsatisfactory to the giver, Katty being apt to dart away with +her refreshments, which she might presently be seen sharing among Bobby +and Stevie, for whom she entertained a strong and apparently +unreciprocated regard. + +"I wouldn't go for to be sayin' anythin' to set her agin them," Mrs. +Brian Kilfoyle remarked on some such occasion. "But, goodness forgive +me! I've no likin' for them two little brats. I'd misthrust them." + +"Ah, sure they've no sinse," said Biddy Ryan. "Where'd they git it? And +the biggest of them, I'd suppose, under four year ould." + +"Sinse!" said Mrs. Quigley. "Bedad, then, if sinse was all that ailed +them, the pair of them is as 'cute as a couple of young foxes. I mind +on'y a day or so after they'd been in it, I met the laste one on the +road, and I comin' home wid be chance a sugarstick in me basket. So, +just to be makin' friends like, I gave it a bit for itself, and a bit +for the other that I seen comin' along. Well, now, ma'am, if it had took +and ate up the both of the bits, I'd ha' thought ne'er a pin's point of +harm--'twould ha' been nathural enough to the size of it. But I give you +me word, when it seen it couldn't get the two of them swallied down +afore its brother come by, what did it go do but clap the one of them +into a crevice in the wall, and cover it under a blackberry laif. And +wid that down it squats, and begins sayin', 'Creely-crawly +snail--where's the creely-crawly snail I'm after huntin' out of its +houle?'--lettin' on to be lookin' for somethin' creepin' in the grass. +And a while after it come slinkin' back, when it thought nobody was +mindin', to poke the bit out of the wall where I was gatherin' +dandelions under the bank. So while it was fumblin' about, missin' the +right crevice, sez I, poppin' up, thinkin' to shame it, 'Maybe the +crawly snail's after aitin' it on you,' sez I. 'Och, yis; I seen it,' +sez the spalpeen, as brazen as brass. 'Gimme 'noder bit instid.' There's +a schemin' young rapscallion for you!" + +"They're too like their mother altogether to plase me," said Judy Ryan. +"The corners of their eyes do be as sharp as if they were cut out wid a +pair of scissors. Not that I'd mind if they'd e'er a sthrake of +good-nathur in them; but I misdoubt they have. The little girl, now, is +as diff'rint as day and night." + +"If _she_ takes after her father, she's a right to want the wit +powerful, misfort'nit little imp," said Mrs. Brian. "For if he isn't a +great stupid gomeral and an ass, just get me one. Why, if he was worth +the dust blowin' along the road, he'd purvint of his own child bein' put +upon." + +"Och, they have him _frighted_," said Mrs. Quigley, with scornful +emphasis. "They won't let him take an atom of notice of her, they're +that jealous. Sure, if he gets talkin' to her outside the house there, +one of them 'ill let a bawl and send him off to be carryin' in turf or +wather. I've seen it times and agin." + +"If he'd take and sling it about their ears some fine day he'd be doin' +right, and it might larn them to behave themselves," said Judy. + +"But the ould man would disgust you," pursued Mrs. Quigley, "wid the +romancin' he has out of him about his son Tom. You'd suppose, to listen +to him, that the omadhawn's aquil never stepped. He'll deive you wid it +till you're fairly bothered. Troth, he thinks the young fellow's doin' +somethin' out of the way if he just walks down the street, and expec's +everybody to stand watchin' him goin' along. It's surprisin' the foolery +there does be in people." + +"Och, murdher, women alive!" said Ody Rafferty, whose pipe went out at +this moment, "there's no contintin' yous at all. It's too cute they are, +and too foolish they are. Musha, very belike they're not so much off the +common if you'd a thrifle more exparience of them; there's nothin' to +match that for evenin' people. Bedad, now, there's some people _I_ know +so well that I can scarce tell the one from the other." + +Lisconnel, however, generally declined to fall in with Ody's +philosophical views, and the Patmans, whether suspected of excessive +cuteness or folly, remained persistently unpopular. There was only one +exception to this rule. The widow M'Gurk has a certain fibre of +perversity in her which sometimes twists itself round unlikely objects, +for no apparent reason save that they are left clear by her neighbours, +and this peculiarity renders her prone upon occasion to undertake the +part of Devil's Advocate. When, therefore, she had once delivered +herself of the opinion that the newcomers were "very dacint folks," she +did not feel called upon to abandon it because it stood alone. As +grounds for it she commonly alleged that they were "rael hard-workin' +and industhrious," which was obviously true enough, since Mrs. Patman +and her sister might constantly be seen tilling their little field with +an energy far beyond the capacity of its late tenant. Her neighbours' +unimpressed rejoinder, "Well, and supposin' they are itself?" did not in +the least disconcert the widdy, nor yet their absence of enthusiasm when +she stated that it was "a sight to behould Tishy M'Crum diggin' over a +bit of ground; she'd lift as much on her spade as any two strong men." +As for little Katty, "she'd never seen anybody doin' anythin' agin the +child; it might happen by nature to be one of those little _crowls_ of +childer that 'ud always look hungry-like and pinin', the crathurs, if +you were able to keep feedin' them wid the best as long as the sun was +in the sky." In short, something more than talk was usually needed to +put the widow M'Gurk out of conceit with any notion she had taken up. +Perhaps the comparative aloofness of her hillside cabin helped to +maintain the Patmans at their original high level in her estimation. At +any rate they had not sunk from it by the time that they had been nearly +three months in Lisconnel, and when Mrs. Patman and her sister were on +terms of the very glummest civility with all the other women in the +place. Even towards the widow M'Gurk they were tolerant rather than +expansive. She said "they had done right enough to not be leppin' down +people's throaths." + +One morning not long after Christmas, the widow, being bound on an +errand down below, called in at the Patmans' with a view to possible +commissions. Meal was wanted, and, while Tishy M'Crum stitched up a rent +in the bag, Mrs. M'Gurk noticed where little Katty, who had been "took +bad wid a could these three days," rustled uncomfortably among wisps of +rushes and rags in an obscure corner. Fever made her bold and +self-assertive, for she was wishing nothing less than that her daddy +would get her an orange--"An or'nge wid yeller peel round it"--Katty +laid stress upon this point--"like the one her mammy got her a long time +ago. And daddy'd be a good daddy and get her another now. And she'd keep +a bit for Bobby and Stevie and all of them--a big yeller or'nge." +Katty's eyes blazed with excitement as she reiterated these extravagant +desires. + +"She's got an oncommon fancy for a one," said her daddy, looking +wistfully from the child to his wife. + +"They have them down below," suggested the widow, "pence apiece." + +Mrs. Patman's hand was slipping towards her pocket. "If it was just for +wunst," she had begun, when Tishy tweaked her sleeve viciously and +interpolated a rapid whisper, "It wont _be_; there'll be no ind to it if +you begin humourin' them," so the sentence was badly dislocated. "She'll +do a dale better widout any such thrash," Mrs. Patman concluded, and +walked off to throw sods on the fire. + +Just then the widow became aware that old Joe Patman was grimacing at +her from a corner fast by in a way that might have startled her had she +not been familiar with such modes of beckoning. But when she obeyed his +summons, what she saw did astound her outright, for Joe was stooping low +over a leathern pouch which he had drawn from a wall-cranny, and which +seemed to contain marvellous depths of silver money, with here and there +a golden gleam among it, as he warily stirred it up, circling a hurried +forefinger. She had only the briefest glimpse ere he shoved back the +pouch and thrust a sixpence into her hand, muttering, "Git her the +orange--don't be lettin' on for your life." + +As she turned away with a reassuring nod, she perceived that Tishy +M'Crum was standing unexpectedly near, and looking towards them over the +top of the meal-bag. Tishy was bitting off a loose end of thread, which +gave her a determined and ferocious expression, but whether she could +have seen anything or not the widow felt uncertain. She thought not. + +About ten days after this Mrs. M'Gurk was roused at a very early hour by +a thumping on her door. When she opened it she found some difficulty in +recognising her visitor, as the dawn had scarcely done more than dim a +few stars far away in the east, which is an ineffective form of +illumination. "Whethen, now, Joe Patman, is it yourself?" she said, +peeringly. "And what's brought you out at all afore you can see a step +or a stim? Is the little girl took worse?" For Katty's illness still +continued, and had grown rather serious. + +"Sure, no," said the old man; "Katty's just pretty middlin'. But it's +waitin' I've been the len'th of the mornin', till 'twould turn broad +daylight, before I'd be disturbin' of you, ma'am, to tell you the quare +sort of a joke they're after playin' on me down yonder." + +"Saints above, man, what talk have you of jokin' at this hour of the day +or night?" said Mrs. M'Gurk, feeling the unseasonableness acutely as a +bitter gust came swooping up the slope and indiscriminatingly ruffled +the rime-dusted grass-tufts and her own grizzled locks. + +"Och, bejabbers, it's a great joke they have agin me whatever," said old +Patman, who was shivering much, with cold partly, and partly perhaps +with amusement. "You see the way of it was, last night, no great while +after we'd all gone asleep, I woke up suddint, like as if wid the crake +of a door or somethin', but, whatever it might be, 'twas slipped beyond +me hearin' afore I'd got a hould of me sinses rightly. So I listened a +goodish bit, and somehow everythin' seemed unnathural quiet, till I +heard Katty fidgettin', and I went over to see would she take a dhrink +of wather. The Lord presarve us and keep us, ma'am, if all the rest of +them hadn't quit--quit out of it they have, and left us cliver and +clane." + +"Ah, now, don't be romancin' man," said the widow, remonstrantly. "What +in the name of the nation 'ud bewitch any people to go rovin' out of +their house in the middle of the black night, wid the frost thick on the +ground?" + +"Quit they are," said the old man. "Tom's gone, and the wife, and every +man-jack of them. They've took the couple of chuckens I noticed Tishy +killin' of yisterday. Begorrah, I believe they've took Tib the cat, for +ne'er a sign of it I see about the place, that would mostly be sittin' +cocked up atop of the dresser. Goodness guide us, sorra a sowl there is +in the house but the two of us, me and the child, and she's rael bad. +It's a quare ould joke." + +"It 'ud be the joke of a set of ravin' mad people," said the widow. + +"But the best of it is," he went on, "do you mind, ma'am"--he looked +round him suspiciously and lowered his voice--"the leather pouch you +might ha' seen wid me the other day?" + +"Whoo!" said Mrs. M'Gurk, "are they after takin' that on you? Sure, man, +I thought you had it unbeknownst." + +"Aye, it's took," old Patman said, "but how she grabbed it I dunno, +onless, I was thinkin', be any chance you mentioned somethin' about it?" + +"Divil a bit of me did," the widow averred, with truth, which her hearer +accepted. "And how much might you have had in it at all?" + +"Troth, I couldn't be tellin' you," he said; "I never thought to count +it. 'Tis just for a pleasure to meself I keep it. This long while back +I've put ne'er a penny in it, but when we used to be livin' up at +Portnafoyle I'd slip in the odd shillin's now and agin, and sometimes +I'd think 'twould be handy for buryin' me, and other times I'd think I'd +give it to Tom as soon as I'd gathered a thrifle more, on'y some way the +thought of partin' wid it 'ud seem to go agin me, and since poor Tom +made a match with Martha M'Crum 'tis worse agin me it goes. 'Tis that +good-for-nought weasel of a slieveen Tishy's after conthrivin' it on me, +I well know, and bad luck to her," quoth the old man, with a sudden +spasm of resentment. "Tom 'ud never play such a thrick--I mane it wasn't +he invinted the joke; he doesn't throuble himself wid much jokin'; he's +too sinsible, and steady, and perspicuous, and oncommon set on me and +the child, all the while. There's no better son in Ireland. Och, but the +rest of them mane no harm wid it; they're just schemin' to dhrop in +prisintly and be risin' a laugh on me." + +Steps which were promptly taken to verify old Joe Patman's strange story +proved it to be correct in every particular. The only fresh fact which +investigations brought to light was the presence of a five-shilling +piece lying on the dresser, where Joe had overlooked it in the early +dusk. All the other inmates, chuckens and cat included, had disappeared, +and with them most of the few movables, the old man and the sick child +being left as forlorn fixtures. Lisconnel at large was neither slow nor +circumlocutory in forming and expressing its opinion as touching the +nature of the joke, a firm belief in which old Joe resolutely opposed to +his troubles as they thickened around him. For no tidings came from the +absentees, nor were any heard of them, while Katty's fever ran so high +that it seemed likely her grandfather would be at small further charges +on her account--a prospect which, however financially sound for a +capitalist of five shillings or under, none the less filled his soul +with grief. Then, one night, when Katty was at her worst, a great gale +came rushing and roaring across the bog, and when the day broke it +discovered the Patmans' brown thatch-slope interrupted by a gaping +crevasse, over which a quick-plashing rain-sheet quivered. + +The widow M'Gurk had less spare room than heretofore at her disposal now +that she harboured a co-tenant, with a slight accession of tables and +chairs. Yet she made out a dry corner for the child and her grandfather, +who accepted these quarters in preference to any others, because the +widow, whatever may have been her private views, was prevented by a +mixture of contrariness and magnanimity from joining in the general +denunciation of her former allies, compromising as were the +circumstances under which they had elected to take their departure. In +her society, therefore, he was not obliged to overhear trenchant +criticisms upon his Tom's behaviour, and could dilate, at least +uncontradicted, upon those gifts and graces in the young man, which +recent events had certainly placed in some need of exposition. + +Other disquieting voices there were, however, which he could not dodge, +and they spoke louder every day. For his five shillings were melting, +dwindling--had vanished; and Lisconnel, with the best will in the world, +could ill brook a burden of two incapables more laid upon its winter +penury. No word on the subject had reached the old man's outer ears; but +as Katty struggled slowly and fractiously towards convalescence, it +became clearer in his mind that unless something happened, she must, +when well enough to be moved, seek change of air away at the big House. +Perhaps this prospect was now more constantly before him than even the +thought of Tom's filial virtues, as he sat drearily on the bank by the +widow M'Gurk's door. He might often be seen to shake his head +despondently, and then he was probably saying to himself: "Belike he +thought bad of me, keepin' the bit of money unbeknownst." + +By that time he had abandoned the joke theory, and fixed his hopes upon +the arrival of a letter to explain the mysterious nocturnal flitting, +and say whither they had betaken themselves after passing through +Duffclane, the furthest point to which the detective forces of the +district had tracked the party. Young Dan O'Beirne, whose work brought +him daily up from down below to the forge a long way on the road toward +Lisconnel, had safely promised to convey this letter so far whenever it +came; and on many a day the neighbours nodded commiseratingly to one +another as they saw "the ould crathur, goodness may pity him, settin' +off wid himself" in quest of it. The prompt January dusk would have +already fallen before he struggled up the Knockawn, to be greeted by the +widow in the tone of marked congratulation which our friends sometimes +adopt when all reason for it is conspicuously absent: "Well, man alive, +there wouldn't be ere a letter in it this day anyway." + +"Och tub-be sure, not at all," he would answer cheerfully, "I wouldn't +look to there bein' e'er a one sooner than to-morra. I hadn't the notion +of expectin' a letter whatever. 'Twas just for the enjoyment of the bit +of a walk I went." + +"Why tub-be sure it was. But be comin' in, man, for you're fit to dhrop, +and be gettin' your ould brogues dhried. Och man, you're dhrownded +entirely; 'tis a mighty soft evenin' it's turnin' out." + +"And here's Katty lookin' out for you this great while," Big Anne would +say, "she's finely this evenin', glory be to goodness." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +A RETURN. + + +Affairs were much in this posture, when the widow M'Gurk was one day +perplexed by the occurrence of two small incidents. In the first place, +as she was starting on an expedition to the Town she saw at a little +distance something run across the road which looked uncommonly like the +Patmans' black cat Tib. Lisconnel owns no other cats for which she might +have mistaken it; still, as she was puzzled to think how the creature +should have hidden itself away for more than a fortnight, she concluded +that she had been deceived by some fluttering bird or glancing shadow. +In the next place, she happened in the Town upon one Larry Donnelly, who +in the course of conversation remarked: "So you've that young Patman +back wid yous agin. What took him to be leggin' off wid himself that +way?" + +"And what put that in your head at all?" said the widow. "Light nor +sight we've seen of him, or a one of them, or likely to. It's off out of +the counthry he is belike, and he after robbin' his ould father, that's +niver done talkin' foolish about him, and lavin' his innicent child to +go starvin' into the Union--bad luck to him." She found a free +expression of her sentiments rather refreshing after the restrictions +under which she was placed at home. + +"Well now," said Donnelly, "I'd ha' bet me best brogues I seen that chap +a couple of nights ago streelin' along the road down about our place; +but 'twas darkish enough, and I might aisy be mistook." + +The widow pondered much over this statement on her homeward way, but had +the forbearance to say nothing about it. She was still undecided whether +or no she would communicate it to anybody, when, next morning, on her +way for a can of water, she saw the black cat, unmistakable this time, +run across the road, and, as on the day before, make off over the bog +towards the little river. Widow M'Gurk stood staring after it for a few +minutes, and came to a resolution. Then she looked about her, and was +aware of Andy Sheridan's head leaning against his doorpost. Of Andy her +opinion was, as we have seen, rather low, but she could descry no other +person available for her purpose, so she called to him: "Andy, lad, I'm +goin' after me two pullets that's strayed on me; come and be givin' me a +hand." Andy lounged over to her goodnaturedly, and they turned into the +bog, where Ody Rafferty presently joined them. The widow thought her +fowl might be among the broken ground, where the stream runs at the back +of the Knockawn, and the three went in that direction. It was a mild +soft grey morning, and they met with neither stir nor sound, till they +came abruptly upon a grassy hollow, shut in by furzy banks, and fronted +by the running water, and then the widow, who alone had been expecting +the unexpected, uttered a suppressed screech, and said: "Och, boys dear, +goodness gracious guide us!" + +What they saw was the figure of a man in a long great-coat, "crooched +all of a hape" under the bank. Near him were ranged in a row half a +dozen oranges, strikin' up a wonderful golden glow. A small grimy scrap +of paper was spread out near them, covered with several piles of +shillings and pennies, and a silver thimble. Beside these Tib the black +cat sat severely tucked up, apparently dissatisfied, and irked by the +situation. At the widow's exclamation the man raised his head, and was +seen to be Tom Patman, looking haggard and dazed, and as hollow-eyed as +little Katty herself. Widow M'Gurk and Ody and Andy stood in a line +facing him. + +"Whethen now, Tom Patman," said Ody, "and what might _you_ be doin' wid +yourself?" + +"I'm sittin' here," said Tom. + +"Och musha, tell us somethin' we don't know then. Sittin' there you are, +sure enough, but what the mischief are you after, might I politefully +ax? or what you mane _by_ it at all at all?" + +"I'm sittin' here," said Tom again, "and starvin' I am; and sittin' and +starvin' I'll be morebetoken till the ind of me ould life. Sure what +else 'ud I be doin', and meself to thank for it, wid niver a sowl left +belongin' me in the mortal world, nor a place to be goin' to?" + +"Well tub-be sure," said Mrs. M'Gurk, "if that talk doesn't bate all +that iver I heard! And himself after trapesin' off as permisc-yis as an +ould hin that won't sit on her eggs, and lavin' his own flesh and blood +behind him as if they were the dust on the road. And then he ups and +gives chat about niver a sowl bein' left him." + +"'Twas Tishy--bad cess to her," said Tom. "Och, but it's the +mischievious ould divil-skins is Tishy M'Crum, and it's herself stirred +up Martha, that wouldn't be too bad altogether if she'd be let alone, +till the two of them had me torminted wid tellin' me th' ould man had +pots of money he'd niver spend as long as he had us to be livin' on; and +that we'd all do a dale better if some of us slipped away aisy widout +risin' a row, and left him for a bit, while we'd be sellin' Martha's +things, and seein' about gettin' into a dacint little place, instid of +the whole of us to be starvin' alive up at Lisconnel, that's nothin' +more than a bog bewitched; and he after lettin' us be sold up, they +said, and all the while ownin' mints of money, so that we'd no call to +be overly partic'lar about lavin' him to make a shift along wid the +child, if 'twas a convanience; on'y he'd be risin' a quare whillabaloo, +if he knew we were goin' off anywheres. Troth, I couldn't tell you all +the gabbin' they had day and night--and showin' me the place he kep' his +bag hidden in, and this way and that way. Och bedad themselves 'ud +persuade the hair on your head it grew wrong side out, if they'd a mind +to it." + +"They might so," said Ody, "supposin' I was great gomeral enough to be +mindin' a word they'd say, or the likes of them." In his subsequent +reports of the interview, Ody always alleged that he had replied: "Aye, +very belike, supposin' it grew on the head of an ass," which was +certainly neater. But Ody Rafferty's repartees, like those of other +people, are occasionally belated in this way. + +"So the ind of it was," Tom went on, "nothin' else 'ud suit them except +gettin' all readied up for us to be slinkin' out in the evenin' late. +Faith, I'd twenty minds in me heart agin quittin' little Katty, and she +that bad. Howane'er they swore black and white that me father'd be +spendin' all manner of money on her when he got us out of it, and we +were to be writin' for them to come after us as soon as we were settled, +and iverythin' agreeable--so I went along. But if I did, ma'am, sure +when they'd got the bits of furniture sold, the on'y notion they had was +to be settin' off to make fortins in the States, and ne'er a word about +Katty and th' ould man. Och they had me disthracted; outrageous they +were; and that ould thief of the world, Tishy, allowin' me sorra a +penny, so as I mightn't ha' been bound to stop wheriver they was. But +one day they thought they had me asleep in the room-corner, and the two +of them was colloguin' away at the table, so all of suddint Tishy whips +out me poor father's bag, that I knew the look of right well, when he +used to keep his 'baccy in it, and down she slaps it, and it jinglin' +wid money. 'What's that for you?' sez she, and: 'The laws bless us,' sez +Martha, 'is it after takin' that you are? And what's to become of them +crathurs up at Lisconnel?' 'Och blathers,' sez Tishy, 'you needn't be +lettin' on you didn't well know all this while I had it. Sure th'ould +one might ha' plinty more hidden away on us. Anyway, I left them +somethin' to get along wid,' sez she." + +"The five shillin's," said the widow. "Och but that one's a caution." + +"Rael hard-workin' and industhrious she is," observed Andy. + +Tom resumed his narrative: "'Them two'll do as well inside as out,' sez +Tishy. 'I'll just be countin' the bit of silver,' sez she. But bedad I +was fairly past me patience, and up I leps, and I grabbed a hould of the +little bag. Och it's a quare fright I gave them that time, and they not +thinkin' I was mindin', rael terrified they were," said Tom, sitting up +more erect, and recalling this rare experience with evident complacency. +"And 'Lave that, you omadhawn,' sez Tishy, wid the look of a divil on +her,' what foolery are you at now?' 'You thievin' miscreant,' sez I to +her, 'it's shankin' off to the pólis I'll be, and layin' a heavy charge +agin you for robbin' and stealin', and you after lavin' the innicent +child there and th' ould man to starve widout a penny to their names,' +sez I. 'Faugh!' sez she, 'for that matter the fever's liker to have took +her off agin now wid no throuble to be starvin', and maybe a good job +too for iverybody.' And 'Be this and be that,' sez I, 'if I thought +there was e'er a fear of it, 'tis wringin' your ugly neck round I'd be +this instiant.' 'Let go of that bag,' sez she, sweepin' up some of the +shillin's that was spilt. 'The pólis,' sez I, 'and a heavy charge, if +there's another word out of your hijjis head.' 'I vow and declare,' sez +Martha, 'I believe 'twould be the chapest thing we could do wid him, to +let him take it and go. Sure he'd be divil a ha'porth more use for an +immigrant than the ould cat there I was ape enough to bring along to +pacify the childer.' So then Tishy gave some more impidence, but the +last ind of it was we come to an agreement that I'd take the note and +the silver, and they'd keep what bits of gould was in it, and they'd go +off wid themselves wheriver they plased at all, and I'd thramp straight +back here to be lookin' after the child and th' ould man. Ay, bedad, we +settled it up civil enough. And afore I went Martha handed me out th' +ould thimble, and bid me bring it to Katty. ''Twas her mother's,' sez +she, 'I was keepin' for her; and thick it is wid houles be the same +token; but don't say I'd be robbin' it off her.' And they tould me to +take Tib along, or else they'd be lavin' her to run wild; so I put her +in the basket. Begorrah, I believe Bobby had a notion to be comin' wid +me and the cat, for he was lettin' sorrowful bawls the last thing I +heard of him. + +"So away I come wid the best of me haste; och I knocked the quare +walkin' out of meself entirely. And I stopped at the last big place I +was passin' to get Katty the oranges. And I was thrampin' it all the +night after, till just when there was a sthrake of the mornin' over the +bog, I come into Lisconnel. But och wirra wirra--the roof's off of the +house--och the look of the black houle wid the rafters stickin' thro' +it, and ne'er a breath of smoke, till me heart was sick watchin' to see +might there be an odd one; and the door clap-clappin'. Sure be that I +well knew the child was dead, and me father quit out of it, or maybe +buried himself, and I after lavin' them dyin' and starvin'. So for +'fraid somebody'd be comin' out and tellin' me, off I run away into the +bog, till I was treadin' here in the could wather. And then I tumbled +th' ould cat out of the basket, that was scrawmin' and yowlin' disp'rit, +and I took and slung the basket into the sthrame--there's the handle +among them rushes--and down I sat under the bank. I dunno how many +nights and days it is at all--but here I'll stop; niver a fut I'll stir +to be lookin' for bite or sup, or lettin' on I'm in it--and anybody may +take the bit of money and welcome; I'd as lief be pickin' up the dirt on +the road--for I'll just give me life a chance to ind out of the world's +misery and disolation." + +"Now, may goodness forgive you," said the widow M'Gurk, "it's a poor +case to want the wit. Troth, and yourself's the quare ould +child-desertin', mane-spirited, aisy-frighted slieveen of a young +bosthoon; but what sort of a conthrivance is it you have on you at all +at all be way of a head that you couldn't have the sinse to considher +the roof blowin' off a body's house 'ud be raison enough for them to be +quittin' out of it, and no signs of dyin' in the matter? D'you think the +win' was apt to be waitin' till there happened to be nobody widin, afore +it got scatterin' the thatch? God help us all, you've little to do to be +squattin' there talkin' about disolations and miseries, wid the two of +them this instiant minyit sittin' be the fire up at my place, and sorra +a hand's turn ailin' them, forby Katty's a thrifle conthráry now and +agin, thro' not bein' entirely strong yet." + +"And bedad at that hearin'," reports of the occurrence used to proceed +from this point, "the lep he gathered himself up wid, and the rate he +legged it off--musha, he was over the hill while we were pickin' up his +things for him. And as for th' ould cat that he tripped over, it rowled +three perch of ground before it got a hould of its four feet." + +"Sure we were sittin' there as quite as could be consaived"--the +conclusion of this precipitate rush was thus recounted--"when all of a +suddint we couldn't tell what come bouncin' in at the door, as if it had +been shot out of the inds of the earth, and had us all jumpin' up and +screechin', till we seen it was on'y Tom Patman, and he in such a takin' +you might suppose he thought somethin' 'ud swally up ould Joe and the +child on him before he could get at them." + +Lisconnel's opinion was divided as to whether Tom would actually have +stayed and starved in his hiding-place had he not been discovered. Mrs. +M'Gurk thought it likely enough. "The cat goin' back and for'ards that +way," she said, "gave her an idee there was somethin' amiss in it, and +that was why she took Andy along. 'Deed and she got a quare turn when +first she spied the chap croochin' under the bank--she couldn't tell but +he might ha' been a corp." + +Brian Kilfoyle's view was: "Divil a much! Sure if he'd had e'er a notion +to be doin' anythin' agin himself, there was plinty of deep bog-houles +handy for him to sling himself into, and have done wid it." Whereupon +Mrs. Sheridan crossed herself and said deprecatingly: "Ah, sure, belike +the crathur wouldn't have the wickedness in him to go do such a thing." +Her husband didn't know but he might. "Them soft sort of fellers 'ud +sometimes stick to anythin' they took into their heads, the same as a +dab of morthar agin a wall." And Ody Rafferty supposed the fact of the +matter was, "that if be any odd chance they got a notion of their own, +they mistook it for somebody else's." + +On one point, however, the neighbours, Mrs. M'Gurk not excepted, were +practically unanimous, the utter flagitiousness, namely, of Tishy +M'Crum. There was a tendency to begrudge her the trivial merit of having +voluntarily left behind her the five-shilling piece. For this marred +that perfect symmetry of iniquity which is so pleasant to the eye when +displayed by people of whom we "have no opinion." Only Mrs. Brian said +it was a mercy she had that much good nature in her itself. But even she +added that the fewer of them kind of folks she saw comin' about the +place, the better she'd be pleased, and she hoped they'd got shut of +them for good and all. + +This aspiration seemed the more likely to be fulfilled, when within a +week or so the Patmans heard from the family of Tom's first wife, who +held out prospects of work for himself, and a home for Katty and his +father--a proposal which was gladly accepted. Their departure left as +the single trace of their sojourn in Lisconnel, Tib the cat, which +remained behind, a somewhat unwelcome bequest to the widow M'Gurk. +Indeed, I fear the creature became a source of some annoyance to her, +because Andy Sheridan contracted a habit of addressing it by the name of +Tishy, and bestowing upon it the same laudatory epithets with which the +widow had been wont to justify her admiration for the energetic sisters. + +It was on a hushed February morning that the Patmans finally departed. +The smell of spring was in the air, and filmy silvery mist had begun to +float off the dark bogland in vanishing wreaths, soft and dim as the +frail sloe-blossom, already stolen out over the writhen black branches +up on the ridge. A jewel had been left in the heart of every groundling +trefoil and clover-leaf, and the long rays that twinkled to them were +still just tinged with rose. Here and there a flake of gold seemed to +have lit upon the clump of sombre green furze-bushes, by which +neighbours in a small knot stood watching the three generations of +Patmans dwindle away down the road with its narrow dewy grass-border, +threading the vast sweep of sky-rimmed brown. Father and son walked, +while little Katty bobbed along, balanced in a swaying donkey-pannier. +The widow M'Gurk, who felt a good deal of concern about the destiny of +her late lodgers, hoped "they were goin' to dacint people, for there +wasn't as much sinse among the three of them as you'd put on a fourpenny +bit." And Mrs. Quigley thought "'twould be hard to say which the young +man or ould one was the foolishest; for the blathers ould Joe talked +about Tom, and the gaby Tom made of himself over the child, now that he +had his own way wid her, was past belief." + +"And I can tell you," said Ody Rafferty, "there's folks goin' about that +you'll want all the wits you iver had, and maybe a thrifle tacked on, to +get the better of rightly." + +"Augh, I question will they iver do any great things, goodness help +them," said Mrs. Sheridan. "'Twill be much if he keeps them outside the +House." + +"Well, anyway," said Biddy Ryan, "I'd liefer be in their coats, for +fortin or no fortin, than like them two ugly-tempered women, settin' off +to the dear knows where, after robbin' and plunderin' all before them." + +"Thrue for you, then, Biddy," said Mrs. Brian, turning away from her +wide outlook, "we're none so badly off, when we're stoppin' where we +are, instid of streelin' about wid the notion of such black villinies +in our minds. For sure enough," she said, as she faced round towards the +grey-peaked end-walls, and smoke-plumed thatch of Lisconnel, "the +world's a quare place to get thravellin' thro', take it as you will." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +GOOD LUCK + + +Although Laraghmena is no great distance from Lisconnel as the crow +flies, but little intercourse takes place between the two hamlets. For +the crow's flight would be over a rugged mountain ridge, sinking into a +trackless expanse of bog, which often spreads rough and wet walking +before wayfarers who have to experience it at closer quarters than those +who merely throw down a flapping shadow as they pass. And round by the +road is a good long tramp, not to be lightly undertaken. So it does not +happen half a dozen times in the year, perhaps, that anybody comes from +thence to Lisconnel, and our visits thither are fewer still. The +neighbours say that the people up there do be very poor entirely, and +are wont to use a commiserating tone when speaking of them. But their +knowledge of the locality and its inhabitants is by no means intimate, +and would be even less so, were it not that Theresa Joyce and her +brother Mick, the remnant of Mrs. Kilfoyle's family, are now living +there, which makes a connecting link. + +Laraghmena is scattered rather wildly over the slopes of a grey mountain +that shoulders the sea at the point where its foam comes nearest to +Lisconnel. Some of the cabins stand so low along the shore that the +shingle knocks clatteringly at their doors when the tide is full and +rough; and other some are perched so high up on the hillside that they +constantly disappear from view behind a curtain of the pale mists which +haunt its summit, creeping to and fro. When one of these little white +dwellings, with its field-fleck beside it, emerges from the clouds, you +feel as if the slightly improbable had happened, since at such a height +you would have expected nothing but the appropriate rocks and swampy +patches. There was once a French princess who would no doubt have +wondered why on earth any people should choose to live and farm in such +unchancy places. Rather than that she would have ploughed herself up a +little bit of the rich green land which spreads in broad tracts round +about, with sometimes sheep nibbling over it, and here and there a few +deer. But the views of this young lady are represented as having been so +far in advance of her age that she seems hardly possible as an +historical personage, and withdraws into the myth-mists. To that region +certainly belongs the ancient chronicle in which we read how the Irish +Nemedians, revolting against the intolerable deal of cream and butter +and wheaten meal exacted from them by their oppressors, the Fomorians, +those ferocious African pirates, emigrated to Hellas, in hope of better +things, but were at last driven back home to escape the heavier yoke of +the Athenians, who compelled them to: "Dig clay in the valleys, and +carry it in leathern bags to the top of the highest mountains, and the +most craggy rocks, in order to form a soil upon those barren places, and +make them fruitful, and able to bear corn." That history should repeat +itself is, of course, to be recognised as merely a commonplace fact; but +a myth reproducing itself in the shape of events happening visibly +before our eyes, is a rarer phenomenon. And it seems to be occurring +whenever a string of Laraghmenians come plodding up their winding +mountain-path under the burden of heavy creels filled with earth, or +oftener with slippery brown sea-wrack and leathery weed. For it is in +this way that whatever scanty foothold their starveling crops may find, +has been fashioned and maintained in the stony little fields. Year by +year, as the blustery days of late autumn darken into winter, the +steep-ledged path is wetted all along with sea-water, and bestrewn with +dark trails and tough tawny pods out of the dripping creels, until it +grows as sharply ocean-odorous as the beach, while the many bare feet +are continually toiling slowly up and quickly pattering down it. Yet +their efforts are rewarded by only meagre and stunted growths; so +intractable is the material upon which they are expended. Micky Joyce +has been heard to declare, as he took a despondent bird's-eye view of +his holding, that "you might as well be thryin' to raise crops in the +crevices of the stone walls." + +However, as we were just now shown, these dwellers at Laraghmena have +another resource to fall back upon. In fact, they have nothing less than +the wide sea as a supplement to their bit of land. The queer small boats +hauled up on the strand, and the dark-brown net festooning the rafters, +betoken that, as does also the bit of salt-fish hung against the wall, +pallid and juiceless, a shadowy, wraith-like looking viand. But the +bounty of the sea has limits; it does not yield up its stores for +nothing, but takes as well as gives. And it helps itself sometimes on a +liberal scale. Some years ago, for instance, it took poor Thady Joyce +and several of his companions, who had gone off in a couple of luggers +after the herrings. The event is remembered with awe at Laraghmena, +because in that wild March gloaming Con the Quare One had met Thady +himself face to face stepping up the winding path, and had given him +good evening, and asked him how he had got all dripping wet, just at the +very time when the unlucky lad must have been lying drowned miles and +miles from there, among the surges of Galway Bay. Other such toll has +often been levied since then; for the curraghs and pookawns in which +Laraghmena goes to sea are frail craft to cope with the billows come +rolling, maybe, from the fogbanks of Newfoundland, and blasts that have +cooled their breath among hills of ice before they sweep across the +Atlantic. Now and then a boat comes to grief even on the short voyage +made for the purpose of cutting wrack from the shelves of the black-reef +that lies a bit off the shore. So, on the whole, the inhabitants of +Laraghmena may be considered to pay dearly for their supplies of fish +and seaweed; and we at Lisconnel, though we live beyond reach of such +things, and have few substitutes for them, are not far wrong in speaking +of the people up there as "rael poor entirely." + +Yet they themselves would not by any means have it supposed that they +"think bad," as they call it, of their fortunes and habitation. On the +contrary, whatever their private opinion may be, they are disposed to +uphold the merits of the place in public, and to prove themselves sudden +and quick in resentment of any outsiders' disparaging criticism. The +most deadly insult that can be offered to a Laraghmenian as such, is an +allusion to the libellous report which has somehow become current to the +effect that his Riverence at Drumroe, the nearest parish, always sends +over a special messenger on Saturday night to remind them of the +morrow's Mass; the innuendo being that Laraghmena's out-of-the-way +situation, and general want of culture, preclude its inhabitants from +knowing the day of the week. This is why an innocent-seeming remark such +as, "Well, boys, it's Tuesday this mornin'," has been known to set +blackthorns whirling wildly. + +Something of the sort occurred at Sallenmore fair, one day in last +September, when Matt Doyne and Andy Sheridan from Lisconnel fell in with +their acquaintances, Larry Sullivan and Felix Morrough, from Laraghmena. +After they had fought as long as seemed good to them, they exchanged +what news they had. The most important piece was that Larry and Felix +were presently setting off to the States. They were rather urgent in +advising the other two lads to join their party; but Andy said that +everything would go to sticks at home if he was out of it, and Matt +averred that his mother would be of the opinion she was lost and kilt +entirely, if he so much as mentioned any such an idea. "And herself wid +your brother Terence at home to be keepin' her company," objected Felix. +"Sure there's me mother wid ne'er another crathur in the world, you may +say, but meself, and she's never done this last six months persuadin' me +to go along." + +"Then it's the quare woman she must be, bedad," said Matt, "unless it's +yourself's the quare bosthoon on her entirely, and maybe that's liker;" +a rejoinder which brought on a renewal of hostilities. + +Just at this time a spell of fine weather, very bright and serene, had +been brooding over Lisconnel. It was the early spring of autumn, when +leaves and berries here and there were taking a blossom-like vividness; +the frost-touched brier-sprays seemed to have found and dipped in the +same red that had dyed the young buds and shoots of April. The air was +so still that the seeded dandelions stood day after day with their fairy +globes unbereft of a single downy dart, like little puffs of vapour +among the grasses. A soft mist rounded off all the bogland, holding in a +drowse the sunbeams that steeped it, and letting them waken to their +full golden glory at the very heart of noon. But one morning the haze +began to thicken and darken on the horizon, as if wafts of murky smoke +were blown through it, and towards evening massy shapes of black clouds +came slowly lifting themselves up, some with outlines curved like bosky +clumps of wood, some ruggedly ledged and angled like a drift of begrimed +icebergs. By sunset the far west was all a sullen gloom veined with +lurid, tawny streaks, and mottled with deeper stains. Old Peter +Sheridan, who is reputed to have "a great eye for the weather," turned +it forebodingly upon the prospect, and said the sky was "the moral for +all the world of the back of an ould brindled bull, and he'd never +known any good come of that manner of apparance." + +And true for him. Before sunrise next morning Lisconnel was roused by +the réveille of a crashing thunder-peal, which preluded a violent storm. +It is seldom that one booms and rattles so loudly over our bogland, or +glares with so fierce a flame. Brian Kilfoyle, taking a rapid +observation through his door, said, "Be the powers of smoke, I never +seen the aquil of that. You might think they was after whitewashin' the +whole place wid blindin' fire. Here's out of it, sez I." And he +retreated blinking to his dark corner. At the height of it, even Andy +Sheridan, who is probably our freest thinker, felt secretly relieved to +know that his stepmother and his sisters were saying their prayers. The +arrangement seemed to give him a sense of security without claiming any +concessions from his superior strength of mind. But in the end the +perilous clouds rolled away growling and gleaming towards the mountains +and the sea, leaving only one victim behind--the Quigley's little goat, +who had been struck dead by a lightning flash, to the sorrow of her +owners, and the awe of all Lisconnel in contemplation of the black and +white body stretched out still on her wide grazing-ground. + +The storm, however, seemed to have broken up the fair weather, and the +days that followed it were blustery and rainy. On the next of them Larry +Sullivan and Felix Morrough were seen passing through Lisconnel, +evidently equipped for a journey. Larry, who had parted from no near +friends, was apparently in good spirits; but Felix looked so much cast +down that his contemporaries refrained from any references to the days +of the week, and the pair went on their way unmolested amongst the +lengthening shadows. They reported the storm to have been terrific +altogether up at Laraghmena. The Widdy Bourke's thatch was set in a +blaze, "and it was a livin' miracle that the whole of them wasn't +frizzled up like a pan of fryin' herrin's." + +It may have been ten days or so after this that a good many of the +neighbours had dropped in one evening at Mrs. Doyne's. She had been +ailing of late, and old Dan O'Beirne had stepped up from the forge to +prescribe for her, and cheer her with accounts of how finely young Dan +and her daughter Stacey were getting on at their place down below in +Duffclane. The rest of the party had assembled merely for company and +conversation. It included members of nearly all our families--Kilfoyles +and Quigleys and Ryans and Raffertys and the Widdy M'Gurk and Big Anne. +Presently Judy Ryan, who was looking out of the door, had an +announcement to make. + +"Whethen now, and who might yous be when you're at home? There's two +women comin' along the road from Sallinbeg ways, I dunno the looks of at +all, I should say; but the rain's mistin' thick between me and them. +Carryin' bundles they are. If they're not any of the Tinkers we're right +enough. One of them's a little ould body, and the other's a good size +bigger. Strangers they are. Och, mercy on me, have I eyes in me head at +all? How strange she is! Sure it's Theresa Joyce herself. But we haven't +seen her this great while, and who she has along wid her I couldn't be +tellin' you. A feeble sort of crathur she looks to be, accordin' to the +way she's foostherin' along." + +When these two travellers arrived at the Doynes' door, nobody failed to +recognise Theresa Joyce, notwithstanding the estrangement of a long +absence; and she hastened to introduce her unknown companion, who kept a +tight clutch on her arm, as if afraid to let go, and looked at nobody's +face, but seemed to listen from one to the other. She was, it appeared, +the widow Morrough from Laraghmena, who had been struck blind by the +lightning in the great storm Friday was a week--the sight of her eyes +clean destroyed with one flash as she was throwing a bit of food to the +fowl at her door. And the last child she had belonging to her set off +the next morning to the States. And now she herself was going into the +Union down at Moynalone, for what else could she be doing, that couldn't +see her hand before her face? So Theresa was bringing her down, and they +thought they might have got as far as Duffclane against night; but the +creature wasn't well used yet to walking in the dark, so they were slow +coming, and they'd hardly do it. + +Such was the outline of Mrs. Morrough's history up to date, and its +rehearsal had at once the effect of arousing a sympathetic bustle about +her, which did not subside until she sat a wet and wayworn guest, in the +most comfortable hearth-corner, and had been provided with a cup of the +tea that Mrs. Doyne had made herself in her character of an invalid. She +now sat on one side of the blind woman, and stirred her tea for her, and +on the other Dan O'Beirne shook his head in regretful confirmation of +the opinion pronounced by the Drumroe doctor, which was reported to be +that mortal man couldn't do her a thraneen of good. Meanwhile Theresa +Joyce, who was likewise bedrenched and weary, found a seat in the +opposite corner, where her nearest neighbours were Ody Rafferty, and her +niece-in-law, Mrs. Brian Kilfoyle, with her daughter Rose. + +"Well, Theresa, it's the long while since you've stepped over to see +us," Ody said, starting the conversation, "and it's the soft evenin' +you've chose to be comin'. Your shawl's dhreeped. Take it off, and I'll +give it a shake above the fire. Bedad, Theresa, the two of us has been +wearin' the dusty male-bags on our heads since the time I seen you +first. As black as a sloe you was; but now it's liker the blossom it's +turned." + +"And time for it," said Theresa. "Sure I'm over sivinty year of age now, +any way, every day of it--and the long days there was among them, God +knows." + +"But wid all that, ne'er a one of them was long enough for you to be +findin' a man to your mind in it," said Ody. "And I declare to goodness +I dunno but maybe it's the very sinsible woman you were for that same. +Sure meself was a great while afore ever I thought of axin' Biddy, and +for anythin' I can tell I might ha' done better if I'd held me tongue a +bit longer and then said nothin', as the sayin' is. I was ould enough to +know me own mind any way. But, musha, for that matter, Rose there 'ill +prisintly be settin' up to think she's ould enough to know hers, and +it's twinty chances if she has as much wit as you." + +"And why would she," said Theresa, "or anybody be wishin' it to her? Oh, +let that alone. There's a dale of diff'rint sorts of wit, and no raison +why one of them shouldn't be as good as another. Look at her +grandmother, me sister Bessy, it's plinty of paice and comfort she had +wid her marryin'." + +This was quite true, as although she had been rather early widowed, and +her only daughter had married an emigrant, her son and his wife had +taken such care of her, and made so much of her, that the neighbours had +never thought of calling her the widdy, a title reserved for a woman +left struggling alone; and she had remained Mrs. Kilfoyle to the end of +her days. + +"And look at the poor crathur there, what she's come to," said Ody, +instancing the tragical figure of the widow Morrough. + +"Ah, the saints may pity her," said Theresa. "But the likes of such bad +luck happins few people married or single, thank God." + +"It's a quare unnathural young villin her son must be," said Mrs. Brian, +"to skyte off and lave her that-a-way. Sorra the bit he can be good +for." + +"'Deed, now, Norah woman, that's the very notion is disthressin' me," +said Theresa, "for I dunno but it's after usin' him ill, I am. You see +the way of it was the poor sowl--poor Mrs. Morrough--had the great dread +of the say upon her, be raison of her husband and her father gettin' +dhrowned at the fishin', so she'd always the fear in her mind of the +same thing happ'nin' her couple of boys. Howane'er, the eldest of them +went off to California a good few years back, and was doin' pretty +middlin' well out there the last she heard of him, but that's a long +while ago now; about gettin' married he was. But Felix, the lad she had +at home wid her until the other day, often enough he was bound to be on +the wather, after the fish and the sayweed, if he was to get his livin' +at all. And disthracted she was seem' him goin' out in their ould boat, +that's laiks enough in her to sink the biggest ship ever set sail, and +herself wid scarce the width to hould a sizable flounder. Sez I to Felix +one wild evenin', when we was argufyin' wid him, that sure the little +loadin' he could be puttin' in her 'ud never be worth losin' his life +for. But sez he to me, the bit of food they'd put in their mouths was +littler agin, and yet they might be losin' their lives for want of it. +And ne'er a word had I to say to that. But one night last winter he was +as nearly lost as anythin' in a squall, and after that his mother would +be tormintin' herself worse than she was before. So she set her heart +entirely on gettin' him to take off to the States, and be out of the way +of fishin' and dhrowndin'. She'd ha' gone wid him herself, on'y they +said she was too ould, and spoilin' his chances she'd be. A long while +it was before he'd hear any talk of it. The whole summer she was +persuadin' him; but at last he made up his mind he would. 'Twas no +notion of his own to be lavin' her, I'll say that for him." + +"Whethen now, but that was as curious a plan as ever I heard tell of for +keepin' a person from dhrowndin'," said Ody; "to be sendin' him off over +the rowlin' says, sailin' goodness can tell you how many hunderds and +tousands of miles. What was she dhramin' of at all at all to go do such +a thing?" + +"Ah, but sure it's a diff'rint sort of sailin'," said Theresa. "Why, +they say one of them big stamers 'ud carry a couple of our little boats +along wid her, and you'd scarce notice she had them on board. Terrible +safe they must be if they're that size." + +"And morebetoken," said Mrs. Brian, "there's such a sight of ships +comin' and goin' between this and the States, wouldn't you think that +agin now they'd ha' got a kind of track line, crossin' over, as if it +was a manner of road they was follyin' that nothin's apt to happen them +on, and not sthrayin' about permisc-yis in the storms?" + +"_Thrack?_" said Ody, shrilly. "Bedad, then, its the quare thrack, and +the quare places it brings them into. D'you know that, for one thing, +they go slap through the Bay of Bisky?"' + +"And is that an ugly bay?" said Mrs. Brian. + +"You may call it that. I wouldn't be sayin' so to herself over there," +said Ody, with much careful mystery. "For it might be on'y discouragin' +the crathur worse than she is already. But it's the place where the +Seven Oceans of the World meet. Ay, indeed, ma'am--but don't be lettin' +on to her. I was spakin' to a man who had a brother went through it, and +he said the ragin' and tearin' of them all flowin' together 'ud terrify +the sinses out of King Solomon. They had the great big stamer he was in +whirlin' round and round and round, the same as if it was a float on one +of its own paddlewheels, he couldn't tell how many days and nights. +Thracks, how are you. It's a very ready one there is in it to the bottom +of the say." + +"Still a good few people gets through it safe enough," said Theresa, +"ay, and comes back through it of an odd while." + +"But how many's lost in it that you never hear tell of?" said Ody. "And +besides that, the man I was talkin' to tould me his brother was never +right in his head after the tossin' he got. It's a poor case to be +landin' ravin' mad in a sthrange counthry, supposin' you get there +itself. But me own notion is that if people's well off, they've a right +to stop where they are, and if they're misfort'nit, they've a chance any +way of better bad luck stayin' at home." + +Ody stated his own notion authoritatively, and Theresa looked depressed +by the dilemma in which it seemed to place the emigrant. + +"'Deed, now, maybe it's a bad turn I'm after doin' the two of them," she +said; "but poor Mrs. Morrough, many a time she sez to me it 'ud be the +greatest comfort to her at all to get quit of the fear she was in +continyal wheniver he went out wid the ould boat. Sure she might be a +bit lonesome, she'd say, but after all what great company was he to her +when half the time she would be drowndin' him under the rowl of the say, +like his poor father and grandfather? And wid the most he could do it's +hard set he was to make what 'ud keep him. So she'd planned she'd be +able to conthrive well enough wid her hins and her spriggin' work, till +Felix could be sendin' her over a thrifle. A very cliver woman she was +at the spriggin'; the handkercher corners she'd work was rael iligant. +Pence a-piece she got for them, and I've known her finish a dozen in +three days. + +"Och, but I got a turn on the Friday mornin' when I stepped down to her +place to see what way they were after the storm, and there she was +sittin' crouched up in a corner, and screechin' to me to know who was +comin' in, and I standin' before her eyes in the middle of a sun-bame. +And 'Glory be to God,' sez she, 'that it's yourself, for you'll have the +sinse to give me a hand wid endeavourin' to keep the knowledge of what's +after happenin' me from Felix, the way he won't be purvinted of goin' +to-morra. Sorra a fut would he if he knew aught ailed me; and then sure +he might stay at home for good and all; and dhrownded he'll be, and +meself'ill go deminted.' And sure I thought it was maybe no thing to be +doin', and so I said to her. But it seemed the heart of her was to be +broke altogether if anythin' 'ud hinder him gettin' out of it. And then +I was mindin' the father and grandfather of him, the way they went, and +me brother, poor Thady, and I couldn't tell but I might ha' raison to +think bad of biddin' him stay; and if he did, sure perhaps he couldn't +be keepin' her at all, and she so helpless; it's better able he might be +to help her out in the States. And sorry I'd ha' been to disappoint the +crathur of the first wish she'd took a thought of sittin' in the dark of +her misfortin. So the ind of it was I settled I'd stop wid her for that +day, and thry could we let on there was nothin' amiss when Felix come +in, that was out somewhere since early in the mornin' before the storm +began. + +"But 'deed now it was the quare conthrivin' we had after he'd come home. +And where'd he been but off down to Drumroe gettin' her an iligant big +taypot for a keepsake? So the sorra a stim of it, in coorse, could she +see; and I done me best biddin' her look at the grand gilt handle, and +the wrathe of pink roses on it, and she'd say the same thing after me; +but sure its noways very aisy to fall into an admiration of a taypot +you've never set eyes on; and I misdoubt the poor lad thought she wasn't +so much plased with it as he expected. And then he'd be walkin' in and +out, and axin' for this and that he was to put in his bundle; and she +could on'y be tellin' him where to look for them, instid of readyin' +them up for him herself. And the pair of socks she'd promised him she +couldn't get to finish--rael fretted she was wid it all. Howsome'er one +way or the other we made a shift, till poor Felix went off in the grey +of the mornin' wid ne'er a notion of anythin'. Sez he to her: 'You'll be +seem' me steppin' in agin one of these days;' and sez she: 'Ay will +I--as sure as I'll see the sun shinin';' so he consaited she was well +enough contint--but the two of them was thinkin' diff'rint things. + +"Ne'er a word of it we said to anybody before Felix was gone, or else +somebody 'ud ha' been safe to ha' tould him, for there's plinty of +people couldn't be goin' about widout tellin' everythin' they hear any +more than a wasp could fly widout buzzin' its wings. And then we got the +docther to her, but he couldn't do e'er a hand's turn. Sure what could +anybody do agin the lightnin', that's a sort of miracle, you may say, +unless it was wid another one?" + +"And I dunno has people any call to be settin' themselves up to thry do +them," said Mrs. Brian. "We'd better lave the like to Them that +understands the nathur of such things." + +"Ah, I should suppose we'd a right to be thryin' whativer we get the +chance to," said Theresa, "and that's little enough, the Lord knows. +Plinty of things there is kep' up out of the raich of our meddlin' wid +them." + +"Ay bedad, or else it's the quare regulatin' we'd be givin' them now and +agin--we would so," said Ody, regretfully. "Och, but there's an odd few +good jobs I'd give more than a thrifle to be puttin' me hand to this +minyit if I could get a hould of them." + +"And that's the way it is, I'm afeared, wid the lightnin'-blindin'," +said Theresa. "Howane'er, up at Laraghmena we'd ha' done the best we +could for her, if she'd ha' been contint to ha' sted there; we'd ha' +conthrived among us all to keep her well enough. But not a bit of her +would for all we could do or say. She wouldn't be a burden on the +neighbours she said. You see she's proud in her mind, the crathur, +that's what it is, goodness help her." + +"And when a body has that sort of a notion," said Ody, "you might as +aisy crack an egg ind-ways as get it out of their head." + +"So that's the way of it," said Theresa. "But if you could be tellin' me +whether it's wrong I done or right, you know more than meself. Felix 'ud +be for killin' me if he knew, that's sartin, and small blame to him I +was thinkin' part of the while comin' along. For bad work there's apt to +ha' been, sure enough, in anythin' that inds in landin' a body in the +Union." + +The blind woman in her corner across the hearth seemed to have caught +the last word, for she abruptly said, "Ay, ay, it's there I'm goin', and +the first of the Morroughs iver wint on the rates, or the Conroys +aither. But I'm not takin' their name along wid me; troth no; sorra the +Ellen Morrough 'ill they find in it." + +"Sure not at all, woman dear," said Theresa. "Why, Mrs. Doyne, it's +great work the two of us had this day comin' along the road, plannin' a +fine name for Mrs. Morrough to have in the Union', for she sez it's none +any dacint poor people own she'll be bringin' into it. So we've settled +she's to be Mrs. Skeffington Yelverton. That's an iligant soundin' one, +isn't it, ma'am?" + +Everybody expressed admiration, and a forlorn glimmer of complacency at +the arrangement passed over even the sorrowful countenance of Mrs. +Skeffington Yelverton herself, as she sat in her ragged old wisp of a +shawl. She was holding under it her grand new delft teapot, whose +beauties she should never see; though by this time much fingering had +made her familiar with the outlines of its raised pink-rose wreath. Then +Theresa Joyce said, "We ought to be steppin' on wid ourselves, if we're +to get to Duffclane before dark. The evenin's took up a bit. I see the +sky there turnin' like goulden glass agin the windy-pane." But the +neighbours protested against their setting forward again; and it was +agreed that they should sleep the night at the Kilfoyles'. + +When this point had been decided, Mrs. Morrough said, "Would that be +the say--the rustlin' I hear outside there?" + +Upon this people looked ruefully at her and at each other, as if the +question had given them a glimpse into the darkness in which she was +sitting. + +"Ah, no, ma'am," said Mrs. Doyne, "that's on'y the sedge-laves in the +win' round the big pool just back of the house. Few days of the year +there is, summer or winter, but they'll be shoosh-sooin' that way. A +dhrary sort of noise it is to my mind. I do be tired listenin' to it in +the night sometimes." + +"Sure there's ne'er a dhrop of say-wather nearer us, ma'am, than the +place you're after quittin' out of," said Judy Ryan, "it's the quare +whillaloo it 'ud have to be risin' before we'd hear it that far." + +"Well, well," said the blind woman, "yous are the very lucky people, I'm +thinkin', all of yous, that see the shinin' of the sun, and live beyond +the sound of the say." + +Her remark was followed by a short silence, during which her hearers +were, perhaps, questing for consolatory rejoinders rather than +congratulating themselves upon their own luckiness. It was Big Anne who +broke the pause, saying, with the best intentions, "Ah, sure, ma'am +dear, plase God, _you_ won't be so, and _we_ won't be so;" a sentiment +which apparently did not meet with the approval of Ody Rafferty, as he +frowned bushily at her and said in a testy undertone, "Musha, good +gracious, woman, what talk have you out of you at all?" + +Just at this moment sounds, the nature of which could not easily be +mistaken, rose up close by--shouts and laughter and thumps and trampling +of feet. People who ran quickly to the door were in time to see a knot +of youths fall confusedly out of the house over the way--the +Quigleys'--obviously, to judge by their subsequent proceedings, for the +purpose of continuing a scuffle with ampler elbow room. But it was only +for a very brief space that their wrestling and skirmishing among the +puddles held anybody's attention. That was speedily diverted to the far +more extraordinary and astonishing behaviour of their visitor, Mrs. +Morrough. For she suddenly sprang up off her chair, exclaiming, "Saints +above--it's Paddy--that's Paddy's voice--him that I haven't set eyes on +for nine year next Easter--and there's Felix yellin' too! The both of +them's come back, glory be to God!" And so saying out of the house she +ran, and across the road as straight as a dart, she who not an hour +before had been led gropingly in, and would have put her foot among the +glowing hearth-sods, if her guides had not pulled her away. + +The neighbours could at first look on in only mute amazement, but in any +case the two boys and she were for some time so intricately entangled +that any attempt to elicit any explanation would have been futile. When +at last questions and answers were possible, no very lucid account of +the matter was forthcoming. To the many voices that demanded: "Is it +seein' you are, woman alive? Is it seein' you are?" all Mrs. Morrough +could answer was: "Ay, bedad am I, and as well as iver I done in me +life--praise be to goodness. Sure I dunno what way it was, but me sight +came back to me all of a flash, the same as it went, just the very +minyit I was hearin' the lads shoutin'. Och, Paddy, avic, but you're the +grand man grown; and Felix, och now, to be seein' you agin, and +everythin' else as clear as clear. It's meself's the lucky woman this +day--glory be to God and Mary." + +In short, the marvellous restoration of her sight is to this day a +miracle, very freshly in remembrance at Lisconnel and Laraghmena, where +the inhabitants know little about paralysed optic nerves, and might +perhaps continue to wonder none the less even if they knew more. Beside +it the unexpected reappearance of the two young Morroughs seemed almost +a commonplace incident, though Paddy's fine new suit and gold +watch-chain were, indeed, very exceptional things at Lisconnel. His +story ran that he had prospered highly of late out in California, having +made enough to set him up grandly on a good bit of land in the old +country, and give Felix a fair start, and keep the old mother in comfort +all the rest of her life. With which objects in view they had landed at +Queenstown, he and his wife, a girl belonging to very respectable, +decent people in the county Wicklow. "So next mornin', walkin' along the +Quay, who should I see but me gintleman there, and another chap along +with him, and both of them lookin' as wild as if they'd been caught. And +says I to Sally, 'You bet, that's Felix from our place at home;' and +right I was, and just slick in time to stop him goin' on board." Paddy +had then left his wife with her family in Wicklow, where he had seen a +promising farm; and he and Felix were now on their way to fetch their +mother thither. + +"And it's in the quare consternation you'd ha' been," said Theresa +Joyce, "if you'd landed up at Laraghmena, and found her quit out of it +the way she was." + +"And that would ha' happint us," said Felix, "if it hadn't been for +young Dan Ryan in there just now passin' the remark that we couldn't +expec' Father Martin to be sendin' us notices all the way to the County +Cork, and supposin' I'd very belike missed the right day for the stamer +be raison of it. For if we hadn't got fightin' and tumblin' out of the +house, you might aisy ha' gone along wid yourselves, and niver known we +were in the place at all. 'Twas great luck entirely." + +Fortune, in truth, had seemingly taken Mrs. Morrough and her affairs +into the highest favour. Even the luck-insurance of a trivial loss was +not wanting to her, as in her hasty exit she had dropped her new teapot, +which broke into many pieces on Mrs. Doyne's floor. So that, as has been +said, she never beheld it in its beauty. But the very skies had cleared +above her head, swept by a waft of wind that scattered the clouds faster +and further than a drift of withered leaves, and the sinking sun +broadened in splendour before the eyes that had lost sight of him +through ten interminable days. The wet stones on the road glistened like +jewels, and the shallowest pools between them held unfathomed deeps of +blue, when the Morroughs set off for Laraghmena, where they intended to +sleep the night, and bid their friends farewell. "And if it's themselves +won't be in the fine astonishment when they set eyes upon you, woman +dear!" said Theresa Joyce, "for if you'd been twenty year away +thravellin' the world crooked and straight, you couldn't ha' come back a +diff'rinter crathur from what you were, and we settin' out this woeful +mornin'. Little notion you had what was comin' to you, and it all the +while runnin' up your road, so to spake, like the sun racin' the shadows +on a windy day. 'Deed now, I'd be goin' along wid you to hear what +they'll say to it, but I'm ould you see, and ivery step I've thramped I +have the feel of in ivery bone of me body; so I'll stop this night up at +Brian's." + +"And bedad, ma'am, it's well off you are, if you've the feel of nothin' +worse in them," said the querulous voice of old Peter Sheridan, whose +acquaintances describe him as being "terrible gathered up with the +rheumatism this great while," so great, in fact, that everybody except +himself has by this time become accustomed to his condition. + +For the most part, however, they were rather pleased faces that watched +the three strangers out of sight, the last long beams from the sunset +making blink the eyes of nearly all Lisconnel. The west dispread its +fiery golden bloom wider every moment as the swelling scarlet disc +wheeled lower, burning with orbed flame a hollow path through the +kindled haze. One laggard cloud, a great, soft nest of snow, drifted +into the heart of it, and out of it again, flushed and glistering, and +sailed on, a radiant shape, to meet and eclipse the misty white +ghost-moon, faint and dim in the east. Far away over the level bog the +light was stealing about in streams like water spilt on a floor. + +"Well now, I declare," said Mrs. Brian, "it does one's heart good to see +a bit of luck like that happenin' to a body." + +"Ay, does it," said Judy Ryan, "the crathur to be gettin' back her sight +just in the right minyit of time to see her son comin' home to her. Sure +now one might take a plisure in plannin' such a thing, if one had the +managin' of them." + +"Ah, dear, but I wish somebody 'ud be conthrivin' a bit of good luck for +us then," said Mrs. Quigley. + +"Maybe there's plinty more where that's comin' from," suggested Brian +Kilfoyle, hopefully. + +"It's apt to stay there, then," quoth Mrs. Quigley, "for any signs I can +see." + +"Ay, ma'am, that's me own notion," said Peter Sheridan, bitterly; "I'm +thinkin' we'll have to be goin' there, wheriver it is, and lookin' after +it for ourselves, if it's good luck we're a-wantin'." + +"And I dunno what better we could be doin'," said Theresa Joyce, "than +goin' where it is, when we get the chance. Ah, there's the last of the +sun," she said, as a quivering red shaft shot up suddenly, and trembled +away into nothing on the air. "Ay, for sure, he goes down a great way +off out on the bog; the crathur 'ud ha' been plased to see it. 'Deed no, +I dunno anythin' better we could be doin' than goin' after our good +luck." + +So all through that gathering twilight Mrs. Morrough and her two sons +were journeying away with their high fortune to Laraghmena. They were +still on the road long after the clear moon had filled the air with +shimmering silver, and sent their shadows stretching darkly far over the +frosted grass. But Lisconnel had gone to seek, for the time being, its +good luck in the land of dreams. + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +This book contains inconsistent use of "'ill" contracted with the +previous word. See Page 29: "The lads 'ill be" and Page 87: "the +Union'ill be shut." These have been left as in the original. + +There are also some inconsistent spellings in the dialect that have been +left alone. For instance, iligant and illigant. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Strangers at Lisconnel, by Barlow Jane + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRANGERS AT LISCONNEL *** + +***** This file should be named 18957-8.txt or 18957-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/9/5/18957/ + +Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Ted Garvin and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/18957-8.zip b/18957-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..317ce78 --- /dev/null +++ b/18957-8.zip diff --git a/18957-h.zip b/18957-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1c058be --- /dev/null +++ b/18957-h.zip diff --git a/18957-h/18957-h.htm b/18957-h/18957-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b1f38f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/18957-h/18957-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7925 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Strangers At Lisconnel, by Jane Barlow. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + a {text-decoration: none;} + + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .padtop {margin-top: 3em;} + .tl {text-align: left; font-size: 90%;} + .tar {text-align: right; vertical-align: bottom;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Strangers at Lisconnel, by Barlow Jane + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Strangers at Lisconnel + +Author: Barlow Jane + +Release Date: July 31, 2006 [EBook #18957] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRANGERS AT LISCONNEL *** + + + + +Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Ted Garvin and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<h1>STRANGERS AT LISCONNEL</h1> + +<h2><i>A SECOND SERIES OF IRISH IDYLLS</i></h2> + +<h4 class="padtop">BY</h4> + +<h2>JANE BARLOW</h2> + +<p style="font-weight: bold; margin-top: 3em;" class="center">NEW YORK<br /> +DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY<br /> +1895<br /> +<br /><br /> +<i>Copyright, 1895</i>,<br /> +by<br /> +<span class="smcap">Dodd, Mead and Company.</span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="center">TO<br /> +<br /> +M. L. B.<br /> +<br /> +Is fada mé beo do dhiaigh.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<table summary="contents" style="width: 50%; padding: 1em;"><tbody> +<tr> +<td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER I.</td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tl">OUT OF THE WAY</td> <td class="tar"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> +</tr><tr> + +<td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER II.</td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tl">JERRY DUNNE'S BASKET</td> <td class="tar"><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td> +</tr><tr> + +<td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER III.</td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tl">MRS. KILFOYLE'S CLOAK</td> <td class="tar"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td> +</tr><tr> + +<td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER IV.</td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tl">A GOOD TURN</td> <td class="tar"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td> +</tr><tr> + +<td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER V.</td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tl">FORECASTS</td> <td class="tar"><a href="#Page_80">80</a></td> +</tr><tr> + +<td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER VI.</td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tl">A FAIRING</td> <td class="tar"><a href="#Page_112">112</a></td> +</tr><tr> + +<td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER VII.</td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tl">MR. POLYMATHERS</td> <td class="tar"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td> +</tr><tr> + +<td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER VIII.</td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tl">HONORIS CAUSA</td> <td class="tar"><a href="#Page_168">168</a></td> +</tr><tr> + +<td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER IX.</td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tl">BOYS' WAGES</td> <td class="tar"><a href="#Page_211">211</a></td> +</tr><tr> + +<td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER X.</td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tl">CON THE QUARE ONE</td> <td class="tar"><a href="#Page_235">235</a></td> +</tr><tr> + +<td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER XI.</td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tl">MAD BELL</td> <td class="tar"><a href="#Page_271">271</a></td> +</tr><tr> + +<td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER XII.</td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tl">A FLITTING</td> <td class="tar"><a href="#Page_303">303</a></td> +</tr><tr> + +<td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER XIII.</td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tl">A RETURN</td> <td class="tar"><a href="#Page_324">324</a></td> +</tr><tr> + +<td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER XIV.</td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tl">GOOD LUCK</td> <td class="tar"><a href="#Page_340">340</a></td> +</tr> +</tbody></table> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>OUT OF THE WAY</h3> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<p>To Lisconnel, our very small hamlet in the middle of a wide bogland, the +days that break over the dim blue hill-line, faint and far off, seldom +bring a stranger's face; but then they seldom take a familiar one away, +beyond reach, at any rate of return before nightfall. In fact, there are +few places amid this mortal change to which we may come back after any +reasonable interval with more confidence of finding things just as we +left them, due allowance being made for the inevitable fingering of +Time. We shall find some old people who have aged under it, and some +who, as certain philosophers would hold, have grown younger again. The +latter may be seen just beginning, perhaps, to sit up stiff on a woman's +arm, or starting for a trial crawl over mother earth; and of them we +remark that there is another little Ryan or Quigley; while the former<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> +stay sunning themselves so inertly, or totter about so shakily, that we +notice at once how much old Sheridan, or the Widow Joyce, has failed +since last year. These babies and grandparents often associate a good +deal with one another at the stage when the old body is still capable of +"keepin' an eye on the child," and the child still resorts to all fours +if it wants to get up its highest speed. But this companionship does not +last long in any given case. Very soon the expanding and the contracting +sphere cease to touch closely. On the one hand, the world widens into +more spacious tracts for nimbler and bolder ranging over with all manner +of remarkable things growing and living upon it, to be gathered and +captured, or at least sought and chased, among pools, and hillocks and +swampy places. On the other, it shrinks to within the limits of a few +dwindling furlongs and perches, traversed ever more feebly, until at +length even the nearest stone, on which the warm rays can be basked in, +seems to have moved too far off, and the flicker-haunted nook by the +hearth-fire becomes the end of the whole day's journey.</p> + +<p>Thus the generations, as they succeed one another, wave-like preserve a +well-marked rhythm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> in their coming and going—play, work, rest—not to +be interrupted by anything less peremptory than death or disablement. +This wag-by-the-wall swings and swings its bobbed pendulum without +pause, but one swing is much like the other, and their background never +varies. Little Pat out stravading of a fine morning on the great +brown-wigged bog, and, it may be hoped, enjoying himself thoroughly, is +taking the same first steps in life as young Pat his father, now busy +cutting turf-sods, and old Pat, his grandfather, idly watching them +burn, with a pipe, if in luck, to keep alight. And the Lisconnel folk, +therefore, because the changes wrought by human agency come to them in +unimposing forms, are strongly impressed by the vast natural +vicissitudes of things which rule their destinies. The melting of season +into season, and year into year, the leaf-like withering and drifting +away of the old from among the fresh springing growths, are ever before +their eyes, and the contemplation steeps them in a sense of the +transitoriness of things good and bad. Even the black soil they tread on +may next year flutter up into a vanishing blue column through a +smoke-hole in somebody's thatch. They carry this sense with a light and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> +heavy heart. In like manner they make the very most of all unusual +events. They find materials for half-an-hour's talk in the passage by +their doors of one of those rarely coming strangers, who do appear from +time to time, as frequently, indeed, as anybody would expect, having +surveyed the thoroughfare that links us with humanity. For if we follow +it southward, where, like the unvanishing wake of some vessel, it +streaks the level plain, that is lonely as a wide water, but stiller, we +pass by Dan O'Beirne's forge, now neighbourless, and through humble +Duffclane, and on to Ballybrosna, our Town; but we must go many a mile +further to reach anything upon which you would bestow that title. Or, if +we turn northward, we only find it seaming another ample fold of +bogland, outspread far and far beyond Lisconnel before a grey hill-range +begins to rise in slow undulations, crested with furze and broom. Here +we smell turf-smoke again, and see a cabin-row that is Sallinbeg, and +hence the road strikes north-westward in among the mountains, where a +few mottled-faced sheep peer down over it from their smooth green walks, +but do not care to trust their black velvet legs upon it. And then, by +the time that the air has become sea-scented<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>, the road climbs to the +top of a hill, and stops there abruptly, as if it had been travelling +all the while merely to look at the view. The truth is that the funds +for its construction would go no further, and, in consequence, wayfarers +coming along by the shore still have to tread out a path for themselves +across a gap of moorland, if they are bound for Lisconnel.</p> + +<p>You may perceive, therefore, that Lisconnel lies out of the way, on the +route to no places of importance, and as its own ten or a dozen little +houses are, I fear, collectively altogether insignificant, it has small +reason to expect many visitors. The Widow M'Gurk said one day that you +might as well be living at the bottom of the boghole for any company you +got the chance of seeing; but this was an exaggeration. She was vexed +when she made the remark, because Mrs. Dooley, old Dan O'Beirne's +married daughter, then staying at the forge, had promised to come and +inspect a pair of marketable chickens, in anticipation of which Mrs. +M'Gurk had wetted a cup of tea and used up her last handful of wholemeal +for a cake, that Mrs. Dooley, who was in rather affluent circumstances, +might not think them "too poorly off altogether." But, after all, the +hours had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> slipped blankly by, and nobody had arrived. So the widow had +ruefully put her teapot to sit on the hob until himself came in—for, +properly speaking, she was at this time not yet a widow—and had stepped +down her tussocky slope with her double disappointment to Mrs. Kilfoyle.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Kilfoyle was knitting at her door and not looking out over the bog, +where the flushed light of the sunset drowsed on the black sod in an +almost tangible fire-film. Against it the poppies stood up dark and +opaque, but the large white daisies had caught the wraith of the glow on +their glimmering discs. She had been thinking how not so long ago her +son Thady used to come whistling home to her across the bog when the +shadows stretched their longest. The sunset still came punctually every +evening, but had grown wonderfully lonesome since the kick of a +cross-tempered cart-horse had silenced his whistling and stopped his +home-coming for ever. Thady's whistling had been indifferent, considered +as music, yet it had sounded pleasant in her ears, and Mrs. M'Gurk's +trouble seemed to her not very serious. However, she replied to her +complaint: "Ah, sure, woman dear, like enough she might be here +to-morra."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And if she is, she'll be very apt to not get e'er a chuck or a chucken +off of me—not the feather of a one," said Mrs. M'Gurk, resentfully, +"plenty of other things I have to do besides wastin' me time waitin' for +people that don't know their own minds from one minyit to the next, and +makin' a fool of meself star-gazin' along the road, and ne'er a fut +stirrin' on it no more than if it was desolit wildernesses."</p> + +<p>She would not for the world have alluded to her expenditure of more +material resources, and accordingly had to explain her vexation by +putting a fictitious value upon her time, which, in reality, was just +then drearily superabundant.</p> + +<p>"Sure," suggested Mrs. Kilfoyle, "the poor woman maybe was kep' at home +some way, and she wid ivery intintion to be comin'. I declare, now, +you'd whiles think things knew what you was manin' in your mind, and riz +themselves up agin it a' purpose to prevint you, they happen that +conthráry."</p> + +<p>As Mrs. M'Gurk's experience did not dispose her to gainsay this +proposition, and she was nevertheless disinclined to be mollified by it, +she likewise had recourse to generalities, and said:</p> + +<p>"'Deed then it's welcome anybody is to stop<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> away if they're wishful, +hindered or no. Long sorry I'd be to have people disthressin' themselves +streelin' after <i>me</i>." And she added, rather inconsistently, the remark +already mentioned: "But the likes of this place I never witnessed. You +might as well be livin' at the bottom of the blackest ould boghoule +there, for e'er a chance you have to be seein' a bit of company."</p> + +<p>"And it's yourself 'ud make the fine sizeable waterask, ma'am," a +high-pitched voice said suddenly from within doors, causing Mrs. M'Gurk +to start and peer into the dark opening behind her, somewhat taken aback +at finding that she had had an unsuspected audience, which is always +more or less of a shock. The first object she descried through the hazy +dusk was the figure of the old woman known to Lisconnel as Ody +Rafferty's aunt, but in fact so related to his father, sitting with her +short black dudeen by the delicate pink and white embers, for the +evening was warm and the fire low. Ody himself was leaning against the +wall, critically examining Brian Kilfoyle's blackthorn, and forming a +poor opinion of it with considerable satisfaction. Not that he bore +Brian any ill-will, but because this is his method of attaining to +contentment with his own possessions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Whethen now and is it yourself that's in it, Ody Rafferty?" said Mrs. +M'Gurk, as she recognised him. "And what talk have you out of you about +waterasks? You're the great man, bedad."</p> + +<p>"Me aunt's lookin' in on Mrs. Kilfoyle, ma'am," said Ody, "be raison of +Brian bein' off to the Town. And right enough you and me knows what's +took him there; and so does Norah Finegan. Och, good luck to the pair of +thim."</p> + +<p>"Coortin'," said his aunt, who preferred to put things briefly and +clearly. "But I was tellin' Mrs. Kilfoyle to not be frettin', for sure +God is good, and they'll be apt to keep her in it all's one."</p> + +<p>"Goodness may pity you, woman," said Mrs. M'Gurk. "Brian 'ud as lief +take and bring home a she <i>hyenna</i>, and it ravin' mad, as anybody 'ud +look crooked at his mother, I very well know."</p> + +<p>"Norah's a rael dacint little slip of a girl," Mrs. Kilfoyle said +tranquilly, considering that her son's character needed no certificate. +But the old woman only grunted doubtfully, and said: "Och, is she?" For +she had been a superfluous aunt so long that she found it hard to +believe in anything better than toleration.</p> + +<p>"Talkin' of company," said Ody, to change the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> subject—which his aunt's +remarks often disposed people to do—"Mad Bell's just after shankin' +back wid herself; she's below colloguin' wid Big Anne. It's a fine long +tramp she's took this time; so if she was in the humour she'd a right to +ha' plinty to be tellin' us."</p> + +<p>"Well, now, I'm glad the crathur's home," said Mrs. Kilfoyle. "It's +lonesome in a manner to think of the little ould bein' rovin' about the +world like a wisp of hay gathered up on the win'; for all, tubbe sure, +it's her own fancy starts her off."</p> + +<p>"I won'er where to she wint this time," said Mrs. M'Gurk.</p> + +<p>"You might as well," said Ody, "be won'erin' where a one of thim +saygulls goes, when it gives a flourish of its ould flippers and away +wid itself head foremost—barrin', in coorse, that Mad Bell's bound to +keep on the dhry land at all ivents. But from Sallinbeg ways she come +this evenin', singin' 'Garry Owen' most powerful—I know that much."</p> + +<p>"Ah, then she might be chance ha' been as far as Laraghmena, and ha' +seen a sight of me brother Mick and Theresa," Mrs. Kilfoyle said, with +wistful interest. For at Lisconnel we still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> look not a little to the +reports brought by stray travellers for news of absent friends, much as +we did before the days of penny posts and mail trains. And our +geographical lore is vague enough to impede us but slightly in our hopes +of obtaining information from any quarter. Only the probability seems to +be increased if the newcomer arrives from the direction in which our +friend departed.</p> + +<p>"Sure she might so," said Ody. "But niver a tell she'll tell onless she +happens to take the notion in the quare ould head of her. It's just be +the road of humouring her now and agin, and piecin' her odd stories +together, you git e'er a discovery, so to spake, of the places she's +after bein' in."</p> + +<p>The scenes of Mad Bell's wanderings did indeed reveal themselves to her +neighbours confusedly and dispersedly in her fitful and capricious +narrative, like glimpses of a landscape caught through a shifting mist. +As this sometimes distorts the objects that loom within it, so Mad +Bell's statements were occasionally misleading. Once, for example, she +threw the Quigley family into most distracted concern by her accounts of +the terrific "shootin' and murdherin' and massacreein'" she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> had seen in +progress down away at Glasgannon, where Joe Quigley had taken service +with a strong farmer; these disturbances being in reality nothing more +than a muster of the county militia.</p> + +<p>"But I can tell you how she thravelled a good step of the way home," Ody +now continued, "for she tould me herself. The Tinkers gave her a lift in +their ould cart. Somewheres beyant Rosbride she met wid them; glory be +to goodness 'twasn't any nearer here they were, the ould thieves of sin. +Howane'er, <i>Mrs. M'Gurk</i> belike 'ud be wishful to see thim comin' along. +Fine company they'd be for anybody begorrah. Troth, it's the quare ugly +boghoule she'd find the aquil of thim at the bottom of."</p> + +<p>Mrs. M'Gurk, however, said protestingly, "Och, wirrasthrew, man, don't +be talkin' of the Tinkers. They'd a right to not be let set fut widin +tin mile of any dacint place. Thim or the likes of any such rogues."</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Kilfoyle said, "I'd liefer than a great deal they kep' out of +it. Ne'er a one of the lot of them I ever beheld but had the eyes +rowlin' in his head wid villiny. And the childer, goodness help them, do +be worse than the grown people."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> + +<p>And Ody Rafferty's aunt said, "Bad cess to the whole of them."</p> + +<p>For in Lisconnel nobody has a good word to say of the Tinkers.</p> + +<p>The tribe and their many delinquencies have even supplied us with a bit +of the proverbial philosophy in which not a little of our local history +is epitomised. The saying, "As pat as thievin' to a tinker" is probably +quoted among us as frequently as any other, except, perhaps, one which +refers to Jerry Dunne's basket. This latter had its origin in a certain +event, not like the former in the long-accumulating observation of +habits and propensities, and to explain it therefore is to write a +chapter of our chronicles. Moreover, the event in question is otherwise +not unimportant from a sociological point of view, because it is very +likely to have been the first morning call ever made at Lisconnel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>JERRY DUNNE'S BASKET</h3> + + +<p>So it is worth while to tell the reason why people at Lisconnel +sometimes respond with irony to a question: "What have I got? Sure, all +that Jerry Dunne had in his basket." The saying is of respectable +antiquity, for it originated while Bessy Joyce, who died a year or so +back, at "a great ould age entirely," was still but a slip of a girl. In +those days her mother used often to say regretfully that she didn't know +when she was well off, like Rody O'Rourke's pigs, quoting a proverb of +obscurer antecedents. When she did so she was generally thinking of the +fine little farm in the county Clare, which they had not long since +exchanged for the poor tiny holding away in the heart of the black bog; +and of how, among the green fields, and thriving beasts, and other good +things of Clonmena, she had allowed her content to be marred by such a +detail as her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> Bessy's refusal to favour the suit of Jerry Dunne.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Joyce eagerly desired a brilliant alliance for Bessy, who was +rather an important daughter, being the only grown-up girl, and a very +pretty one, among a troop of younger brethren; so it seemed contrary +enough that she wouldn't look the same side of the road as young Jerry, +who was farming prosperously on his own account, and whose family were +old friends and neighbours, and real respectable people, including a +first cousin nothing less than a parish priest. Yet Bessy ran away and +hid herself in as ingeniously unlikely places as a strayed calf whenever +she heard of his approach, and if brought by chance into his society +became most discouragingly deaf and dumb.</p> + +<p>It is true that at the time I speak of Bessy's prospects fully entitled +her to as opulent a match, and no one apparently foresaw how speedily +they would be overcast by her father's improvidence. But Andy Joyce had +an ill-advised predilection for seeing things what he called "dacint and +proper" about him, and it led him into several imprudent acts. For +instance, he built some highly superior sheds in the bawn, to the +bettering, no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> doubt, of his cattle's condition, but very little to his +own purpose, which he would indeed have served more advantageously by +spending the money they cost him at Moriarty's shebeen. Nor was he left +without due warning of the consequences likely to result from such +courses. The abrupt raising of his rent by fifty per cent, was a broad +hint which most men would have taken; and it did keep Andy quiet, +ruefully, for a season or two. Then, however, having again saved up a +trifle, he could not resist the temptation to drain the swampy corner of +the farthest river-field, which was as kind a bit of land as you could +wish, only for the water lying on it, and in which he afterwards raised +himself a remarkably fine crop of white oats. The sight of them "done +his heart good," he said, exultantly, nothing recking that it was the +last touch of farmer's pride he would ever feel. Yet on the next +quarter-day the Joyces received notice to quit, and their landlord +determined to keep the vacated holding in his own hands; those new sheds +were just the thing for his young stock. Andy, in fact, had done his +best to improve himself off the face of the earth, and he should +therefore have been thankful to retain a foothold, even in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +loose-jointed, rush-roofed cabin away at stony Lisconnel. Whether +thankful or no, there, at any rate, he presently found himself +established with all his family, and the meagre remnant of his hastily +sold-off gear, and the black doors of the "house" seeming to loom ahead +whenever he looked into the murky future.</p> + +<p>The first weeks and months of their new adversity passed slowly and +heavily for the transplanted household, more especially for Andy and his +wife, who had outgrown a love of paddling in bogholes, and had acquired +a habit of wondering "what at all 'ud become of the childer, the +crathurs." One shrill-blasted March morning Andy trudged off to the fair +down below at Duffclane—not that he had any business to transact there, +unless we reckon as such a desire to gain a respite from regretful +boredom. He but partially succeeded in doing this, and returned at dusk +so fagged and dispirited that he had not energy to relate his scraps of +news until he was half through his plate of stirabout. Then he observed +"I seen a couple of boys from home in it."</p> + +<p>"Whethen now, to think of that," said Mrs. Joyce with mournful interest, +"which of them was it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The one of them was Terence Kilfoyle," said Andy.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Joyce's interest flagged, for young Kilfoyle was merely a +good-looking lad with the name of being rather wild. "Ah sure <i>he</i> might +as well be in one place as another," she said indifferently. "Bessy, +honey, as you're done, just throw the scraps to the white hin where +she's sittin'."</p> + +<p>"He sez he's thinkin' to settle hereabouts," said Andy; "I tould him +he'd a right to go thry his fortin somewhere outlandish, but he didn't +seem to fancy the idee, and small blame to him. A man's bound to get his +heart broke one way or the other anywheres, as far as I can see. I met +Jerry Dunne too."</p> + +<p>"Och and did you indeed?" said Mrs. Joyce, kindling into eagerness +again.</p> + +<p>Jerry had been absent from Clonmena at the time of their flitting, and +they had heard nothing of him since; but she still cherished a flicker +of hope in his connection, which the tidings of his appearance in the +neighbourhood fanned and fed.</p> + +<p>"And he's quit out of it himself," Andy continued, "for the ould uncle +of his he's been stoppin' wid this while back at Duffclane's after dyin' +and lavin' him a fine farm and a hantle of money, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> I dunno what all +besides. So it's there he's goin' to live, and he's gave up the ould +place at Clonmena, as well he may, and no loss to him on it, for he sez +himself he niver spent a pinny over it beyont what he'd be druv to, if +he wanted to get e'er a crop out of it at all, and keep things together +in any fashion: he wasn't such a fool." Andy hesitated, as if on the +brink of a painful theme, and resumed with an effort: "He's bought +Magpie and the two two-year-olds off of Peter Martin. Chape enough he +got them, too, though he had to give ten shillin's a head more for them +than Martin ped me."</p> + +<p>"Mavrone, but some people have the luck," said Mrs. Joyce.</p> + +<p>"And Jerry bid me tell you," said Andy, the memory of his lost cattle +still saddening his tone, "that he might be steppin' up here to see you +to-morra or next day."</p> + +<p>At this Mrs. Joyce's face suddenly brightened, as if she had been +summoned to share Jerry Dunne's good luck. She felt almost as if that +had actually happened. For his visit could surely signify nothing else +than that he meant to continue his suit; and under the circumstances, +Bessy's misliking was a piece of folly not to be taken into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> account. +Besides that, the girl, she thought, looked quite heartened up by the +news. So she replied to her husband: "'Deed then, he'll be very +welcome," and the sparkle was in her eyes all the rest of the evening.</p> + +<p>On the morrow, which was a bright morning with a far-off pale blue sky, +Mrs. Joyce hurried over her readying-up, that she might be prepared for +her possible visitor. She put on her best clothes, and as her wardrobe +had not yet fallen to a level with her fortune, she was able to array +herself in a strong steel-grey mohair gown, a black silk apron with +three rows of velvet ribbon on it besides the binding, a fine small +woollen shawl of very brilliant scarlet and black plaid, with a pinkish +cornelian brooch to pin it at the throat, all surmounted by a snowy +high-caul cap, in those days not yet out of date at Lisconnel, where +fashions lag somewhat. She noticed, well-pleased, Bessy's willingness to +fall in with the suggestion that she should re-arrange her hair and +change her gown after the morning's work was done; and the inference +drawn grew stronger, when, for the first time since their troubles, the +girl began to sing "Moll Dhuv in Glanna" while she coiled up her long +tresses.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> + +<p>All that forenoon Mrs. Joyce had happy dreams about the mending of the +family fortunes, which would be effected by Bessy's marriage with Jerry +Dunne. When her neighbour, Mrs. Ryan, looked in, she could not forbear +mentioning the expected call, and was further elated because Mrs. Ryan +at once remarked: "Sure, 'twill be Bessy he's after," though she +herself, of course, disclaimed the idea, saying: "Och musha, ma'am, not +at all." The Ryans were tenants who had also been put out of Clonmena, +and they occupied a cabin adjoining the Joyces', these two dwellings, +backed by the slopes of the Knockawn, forming the nucleus of Lisconnel.</p> + +<p>About noon, Paddy, the eldest boy, approached at a hand gallop, +bestriding a donkey which belonged to the gang of men who were still +working on the unfinished road. As soon as the beast reached the +open-work stone wall of the potato-field it resolutely scraped its rider +off, a thing it had been vainly wishing to do all along the fenceless +track. Paddy, however, alighted unconcerned among the clattering stones, +and ran on with his tidings. These were to the effect that he was "after +seein' Jerry Dunne shankin' up from Duffclane ways, a goodish bit below +the indin' of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> road, and he wid a great big basket carryin', fit to +hould a young turf-stack."</p> + +<p>The intelligence created an agreeable excitement, which was undoubtedly +heightened by the fact of the basket. "Very belike," said Mrs. Ryan, +"he's bringin' somethin' to you, or it might be Bessy." And while Mrs. +Joyce rejoined deprecatingly: "Ah sure, woman alive, what would the poor +lad be troublin' himself to bring us all this way?" she was really +answering her own question with a dozen flattering conjectures. The +basket must certainly contain <i>something</i>, and there were so few by any +means probable things that would not at this pinch have come acceptably +to the Joyces' household, where the heavy pitaty sack grew light with +such alarming rapidity, and the little hoard of corn dwindled, and the +childer's appetites seemed to wax larger day by day. She had not quite +made up her mind, when Jerry arrived, whether she would wish for a bit +of bacon—poor Andy missed an odd taste of it so bad—or for another +couple of hens, which would be uncommonly useful now that her own few +had all left off laying.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ryan having discreetly withdrawn, Mrs. Joyce stood alone in her +dark doorway to receive her guest, and, through all her flutter of hope, +she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> felt a bitter twinge of housewifely chagrin at being discovered in +such miserable quarters. The black earth flooring at her threshold +gritted hatefully under her feet, and the gusts whistling through the +many chinks of her rough walls seemed to skirl derisively. She was +nevertheless resolved to put the best possible face upon the situation.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mrs. Joyce, ma'am, and how's yourself this long while?" said +Jerry Dunne, coming up. "Bedad I'm glad to see you so finely, and it's +an iligant place you've got up here."</p> + +<p>"Ah, it's not too bad whatever," said Mrs. Joyce, "on'y 'twas a great +upset on us turnin' out of the ould house at home. Himself had a right +to ha' left things the way he found them, and then it mightn't iver ha' +happened him. But sure, poor man, he niver thought he'd be ruinatin' us +wid his conthrivances. It's God's will. Be steppin' inside to the fire, +Jerry lad; there's a thin feel yet in the win'."</p> + +<p>Jerry, stepping inside, deposited his basket, which did not appear to be +very heavy, rather disregardfully by him on the floor. Mrs. Joyce would +not allow herself to glance in its direction. It struck her that the +young man seemed awkward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> and flustered, and she considered this a +favourable symptom.</p> + +<p>"And what way's Mr. Joyce?" said Jerry. "He was lookin' grand whin I +seen him yisterday."</p> + +<p>"'Deed, he gits his health middlin' well enough, glory be to goodness," +she said; "somewhiles he'll be frettin' a bit, thinkin' of diff'rent +things, and when I tell him he'd better lave botherin' his head wid +them, he sez he might as aisy bid a blast of win' to not be blowin' +through a houle. Och, Andy's a quare man. He's out and about now +somewheres on the farm."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Joyce put a spaciousness into her tone wholly disproportionate to +their screed of tussocks and boulders; and then paused, hoping that the +next inquiry might relate to Bessy.</p> + +<p>But what young Jerry said was, "You've got a great run, anyway, for the +fowls."</p> + +<p>The irrelevance of the remark disappointed Mrs. Joyce, and she replied a +little tartly: "A great run you may call it, for begorrah our hearts is +broke huntin' after the crathurs, and they strayin' off wid themselves +over the width of the bog there, till you've as much chance of catchin' +them as the sparks flyin' up the chimney."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's unhandy, now," said Jerry. He sat for some moments reflectively +ruffling up his flaxen hair with both hands, and then he said, "Have you +the big white hin yit that you got from me a while ago?"</p> + +<p>"We have so bedad," said Mrs. Joyce, not loth to enlarge upon this +subject. "Sure we made a shift to bring a few of the best chickens we +had along wid us, and sorry we'd ha' been to lose her, and she a +won'erful layer, and after you a-givin' her to us in a prisint that +way."</p> + +<p>"There was some talk that time," said Jerry, "about me and Bessy."</p> + +<p>"Ay, true for you, there was," said Mrs. Joyce, in eager assent, "plinty +of talk." She would have added more, but he was evidently in a hurry to +speak again.</p> + +<p>"Well, there's none now," he said. "Things is diff'rent altogether. If +I'd ha' known, I'd ha' kep' the hin. The fact of the matter is I'm about +gettin' married to Sally Coghlan, that's me poor uncle's wife's niece. +He's after leavin' her what he had saved up. She's a fine figure of a +girl as iver you saw, and as good as gould, and the bit of lan' and the +bit of money had a right to go the one way. So I was thinkin', Mrs. +Joyce, I might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> as well be takin' home the ould him wid me—things bein' +diff'rent now, and no talk of Bessy. Sally has a great wish for a white +hin, and we've ne'er a one of that sort at our place. I've brought a wad +of hay in the basket meself, for 'fraid yous might be short of it up +here." Jerry gave a kick to the basket, which betrayed the flimsy nature +of its contents by rolling over with a wobble on its side.</p> + +<p>At this critical moment Mrs. Joyce's pride rallied loyally to the rescue +of her dignity and self-respect, proving as effectual as the ice-film +which keeps the bleakest pool unruffled by the wildest storm wing. With +the knell of all her hope clanging harshly in her ears, she smiled +serenely, and said gaily: "Ay bedad, himself was tellin' us somethin' +about it last night. Sure, I'm rael glad to hear tell of your good luck, +and I wish you joy of it. And will you be gettin' married agin +Shrovetide? Och, that's grand. But the white hin now—the on'y thing is +the crathur's been sittin' on a clutch of eggs since Monday week. So +what are we to do at all?"</p> + +<p>"There's hapes of room for the whole of them in the basket, for that +matter," Jerry suggested promptly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ah, sure, it's distroyed they'd be, jogglin' along, and the crathur +herself 'ud go distracted entirely; sorra a bit of good you'd get of +her. But look here, Mr. Dunne, I've got another out there as like her as +if the both of them had come out of the one egg, and you could be takin' +that instid. It's a lucky thing I didn't set her to sit the way I was +intendin'; on'y I niver could get a clutch gathered for her, be raison +of the lads aitin' up the eggs on me. Sure, I can't keep them from the +little bosthoons when they be hungry."</p> + +<p>"'Twould be all the same thing to me, in coorse, supposin' she was +equally so good," Jerry admitted with caution.</p> + +<p>"Ivery feather she is," said Mrs. Joyce. "I seen her runnin' about there +just this minute; you can be lookin' at her yourself."</p> + +<p>She went towards the door as she spoke, and was somewhat taken aback to +perceive her husband leaning against the wall close outside. How much of +the discussion he might have heard, she could not tell. The white hen +also appeared within easy reach, daintily resplendent under the sunshine +on a background of black turf. And Mrs. Ryan, standing darkly framed in +her doorway, was very certain to be an interested observer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> of events. +For the moment Mrs. Joyce's uppermost anxiety was to avoid any betrayal +of discomfiture, and she accordingly said in a loud and cheerful tone:</p> + +<p>"Och, and are you there, Andy? Jerry Dunne's wishful for the loan of a +clockin' hin, so I'm about catchin' him the young white one to take home +wid him."</p> + +<p>But, to her intense disgust, Jerry, who had followed her with his +basket, said remonstrantly: "Whethen now, Mrs. Joyce, the way I +understand the matter there's no talk in it of borryin' at all. I'm on'y +takin' her back instid of the ould one, and I question would any +raisonable body stand me out I don't own her be rights. It's an unjust +thing to be spakin' of loans."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Joyce was so dumbfounded by this rebuff that she could only hide +her confusion by displaying an exaggerated activity in the capture of +the hen.</p> + +<p>Her husband, however, said blandly, "Och, don't make yourself onaisy, +man. Loan or no loan, you needn't be under any apperhinsion we'll be +comin' after her wid a basket. Divil a much. Stir yourself, Kitty, and +be clappin' her in under the lid. He's in a hurry to get home to his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +sweetheart wid the iligant prisint he's after pickin' up for her. Ay, +that's right, woman alive; give a tie to the bit of string, and then +there's nothin' to be delayin' him."</p> + +<p>After this everybody said good-bye with much politeness and affability, +though withal a certain air of despatch, as if they were conscious of +handling rather perishable goods. And when Jerry was beyond earshot, +Andy, looking after him, remarked, "I niver liked a bone in that +fellow's skin. Himself and his ould basket. The lads 'ill be prisintly +comin' in to their dinners."</p> + +<p>"D'you know where Bessy is?" said Mrs. Joyce, her heart sinking still +lower at the thought of the disappointment, which she had presumably +been helping to prepare for her daughter.</p> + +<p>"When I seen her a while back, she was out there wid the childer, +discoorsin' to Terence Kilfoyle," Andy said contentedly.</p> + +<p>"Musha, good gracious, Terence Kilfoyle, and what's <i>he</i> come after?" +she said in a bitter tone.</p> + +<p>"He stepped up wid a couple of pounds of fresh butter and a dozen of +eggs. He said he minded Bessy havin' a fancy for duck-eggs, and he +thought we mightn't happen to have e'er a one up here. She seemed as +pleased as anythin'.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> But if you ax <i>me</i>, Kitty," he said with a +twinkle, "I've a notion he's come after somethin' more than our ould +hin."</p> + +<p>"He's a great young rogue," said Mrs. Joyce. Yet there was an accent of +relief in her voice, and on her face a reflection of her husband's +smile.</p> + +<p>And Jerry Dunne's basket still occupies its niche in the stores of our +proverbial philosophy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>MRS. KILFOYLE'S CLOAK</h3> + + +<p>The opprobrious proverb already mentioned is not the only permanent mark +of unpopularity that the Tinkers have earned for themselves at +Lisconnel. Their very name has become a term of reproach among us, so +that "an ould tinker" is recognised as an appropriate epithet for any +troublesome beast or disagreeable neighbour. If they were not +case-hardened by long experience, they would surely be mortified +sometimes at the reception with which they meet almost wherever they go. +The approach of the two queer vehicles in which they now generally +travel is watched by displeased eyes all over our countryside, and they +are so to speak lighted on their way by the gleam of suspicious or +resentful glances. And it must be admitted that their evil reputation +has not been bestowed upon them gratuitously. According to Ody Rafferty, +"The like of such a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> clanjamfry of thievin' drunken miscreants, you +wouldn't aisy get together, if you had a spring-trap set for them at the +Ould Fellow's front door for a month of Sundays. And if himself didn't +do a hard day's work the time he was consthructin' them, he niver done +one in his life, and that's a fac'." But Ody is apt to be particularly +severe in his strictures upon the Tinkers, because he feels an +aggravated form of rivalry existing between him and them. For the +wiliness which is understood to be Ody's forte also pre-eminently +characterises many of the Tinkers' nefarious proceedings, and this makes +it seem to him that they not only set their wits against his, but throw +discredit upon his favourite quality by the glaring moral defects which +they exhibit in conjunction with it. One's pleasure in being described +admiringly as "the ould boyo that's in it," is much diminished when one +hears the same thing said bitterly of some slieveen who has filched a +poor body's meal bag, or run off with a lone widdy woman's fowl.</p> + +<p>Still, although the Tinkers' name has become a by-word among us through +a long series of petty offences rather than any one flagrant crime, +there is a notable misdeed on record against them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> which has never been +forgotten in the lapse of many years. It was perpetrated soon after the +death of Mrs. Kilfoyle's mother, the Widow Joyce, an event which is but +dimly recollected now at Lisconnel, as nearly half a century has gone +by. She did not very long survive her husband, and he had left his roots +behind in his little place at Clonmena, where, as we know, he had farmed +not wisely, but too well, and had been put out of it for his pains to +expend his energy upon our oozy black sods and stark-white boulders. But +instead he moped about fretting for his fair green fields and few +proudly-cherished beasts—especially the little old Kerry cow. And at +his funeral the neighbours said: "Ah bedad, poor man, God help him, he +niver held up his head agin from that good day to this."</p> + +<p>When Mrs. Joyce felt that it behoved her to settle her affairs, she +found that the most important possession she had to dispose of was her +large cloak. She had acquired it at the prosperous time of her marriage, +and it was a very superior specimen of its kind, its dark-blue cloth +being superfine, and its ample capes and capacious hood being +double-lined and quilted, and stitched in a way which I cannot pretend +to describe, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> which made it a most substantial and handsome garment. +If Mrs. Joyce had been left entirely to her own choice in the matter, I +think she would have bequeathed it to her younger daughter Theresa, +notwithstanding that custom clearly designated Bessy Kilfoyle, the +eldest of the family, as the heiress. For she said to herself that poor +Bessy had her husband and childer to consowl her, any way, but little +Theresa, the crathur, had ne'er such a thing at all, and wouldn't have, +not she, God love her. "And the back of me hand to some I could name." +It seemed to her that to leave the child the cloak would be almost like +keeping a warm wing spread over her in the cold wide world; and there +was no fear that Bessy would take it amiss.</p> + +<p>But Theresa herself protested strongly against such a disposition, +urging for one thing that sure she'd be lost in it entirely if ever she +put it on, a not unfounded objection, as Theresa was several sizes +smaller than Bessy, and even she fell far short of her mother in stature +and portliness. Theresa also said confidently with a sinking heart: "But +sure, anyhow, mother jewel, what matter about it? 'Twill be all gone to +houles and flitters and thraneens, and so it will, plase goodness, +afore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> there's any talk of anybody else wearin' it except your own ould +self." And she expressed much the same conviction one day to her +next-door neighbour, old Biddy Ryan, to whom she had run in for the loan +of a sup of sour milk, which Mrs. Joyce fancied. To Biddy's sincere +regret she could offer Theresa barely a skimpy noggin of milk, and only +a meagre shred of encouragement; and by way of eking out the latter with +its sorry substitute consolation, she said as she tilted the jug +perpendicularly to extract its last drop:</p> + +<p>"Well, sure, me dear, I do be sayin' me prayers for her every sun goes +over our heads that she might be left wid you this great while yet; +'deed I do so. But ah, acushla, if we could be keepin' people +that-a-way, would there be e'er a funeral iver goin' black on the road +at all at all? I'm thinkin' there's scarce a one livin', and he as ould +and foolish and little-good-for as you plase, but some crathur'ill be +grudgin' him to his grave, that's himself may be all the while wishin' +he was in it. Or, morebetoken, how can we tell what quare ugly misfortin +thim that's took is took out of the road of, that we should be as good +as biddin' thim stay till it comes to ruinate them? So it's prayin' away +I am, honey," said old Biddy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> whom Theresa could not help hating heart +sickly. "But like enough the Lord might know better than to be mindin' a +word I say."</p> + +<p>And it seemed that He did; at any way the day soon came when the heavy +blue cloak passed into Mrs. Kilfoyle's possession.</p> + +<p>At that time it was clear, still autumn weather, with just a sprinkle of +frost, white on the wayside grass, like the wraith of belated moonlight, +when the sun rose, and shimmering into rainbow stars by noon. But about +a month later the winter swooped suddenly on Lisconnel: with wild winds +and cold rain that made crystal-silver streaks down the purple of the +great mountain-heads peering in over our bogland.</p> + +<p>So one perishing Saturday Mrs. Kilfoyle made up her mind that she would +wear her warm legacy on the bleak walk to Mass next morning, and +reaching it down from where it was stowed away among the rafters wrapped +in an old sack, she shook it respectfully out of its straight-creased +folds. As she did so she noticed that the binding of the hood had ripped +in one place, and that the lining was fraying out, a mishap which should +be promptly remedied before it spread any further. She was not a very +expert needlewoman, and she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> thought she had better run over the way to +consult Mrs. O'Driscoll, then a young matron, esteemed the handiest and +most helpful person in Lisconnel.</p> + +<p>"It's the nathur of her to be settin' things straight wherever she +goes," Mrs. Kilfoyle said to herself as she stood in her doorway waiting +for the rain to clear off, and looking across the road to the sodden +roof which sheltered her neighbour's head. It has long been lying low, +vanquished by a trouble which even she could not set to rights, and some +of the older people say that things have gone a little crookeder in +Lisconnel ever since.</p> + +<p>The shower was a vicious one, with the sting of sleet and hail in its +drops, pelted about by gusts that ruffled up the puddles into ripples, +all set on end, like the feathers of a frightened hen. The hens +themselves stood disconsolately sheltering under the bank, mostly on one +leg, as if they preferred to keep up the slightest possible connection +with such a very damp and disagreeable earth. You could not see far in +any direction for the fluttering sheets of mist, and a stranger who had +been coming along the road from Duffclane, stepped out of them abruptly +quite close, to Mrs. Kilfoyle's door, before she knew that there was +anybody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> near. He was a tall, elderly man, gaunt and grizzled, very +ragged, and so miserable-looking that Mrs. Kilfoyle could have felt +nothing but compassion for him had he not carried over his shoulder a +bunch of shiny cans, which was to her mind as satisfactory a passport as +a ticket-of-leave. For although these were yet rather early days at +Lisconnel, the Tinkers had already begun to establish their reputation. +So when he stopped in front of her and said: "Good-day, ma'am," she only +replied distantly, "It's a hardy mornin'," and hoped he would move on. +But he said: "It's cruel could, ma'am," and continued to stand looking +at her with wide and woful eyes, in which she conjectured—erroneously +as it happened—hunger for warmth or food. Under these circumstances +what could be done by a woman who was conscious of owning a +redly-glowing hearth with a big black pot, fairly well filled, clucking +and bobbing upon it? To possess such wealth as this, and think seriously +of withholding a share from anybody who urges the incontestable claim of +wanting it, is a mood altogether foreign to Lisconnel, where the +responsibilities of property are, no doubt, very imperfectly understood. +Accordingly Mrs. Kilfoyle said to the tattered tramp:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> "Ah, thin, step +inside and have a couple of hot pitaties." And when he accepted the +invitation without much alacrity, as if he had something else on his +mind, she picked for him out of the steam two of the biggest potatoes, +whose earth-coloured skins, cracking, showed a fair flouriness within; +and she shook a little heap of salt, the only relish she had, on to the +chipped white plate as she handed it to him, saying, "Sit you down be +the fire there, and git a taste of the heat."</p> + +<p>Then she lifted her old shawl over her head, and ran out to see where at +all Brian and Thady were gettin' their deaths on her under the pours of +rain; and as she passed the Keoghs' adjacent door—which was afterwards +the Sheridan's, whence their Larry departed so reluctantly—young Mrs. +Keogh called her to come in and look at "the child," who being a new and +unique possession was liable to develop alarmingly strange symptoms, and +had now "woke up wid his head that hot, you might as well put your hand +on the hob of the grate." Mrs. Kilfoyle stayed only long enough to +suggest, as a possible remedy, a drop of two-milk whey. "But ah sure, +woman dear, where at all 'ud we come by that, wid the crathur of a goat +scarce wettin' the bottom of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> pan?" and to draw reassuring omens +from the avidity with which the invalid grabbed at a sugared crust. In +fact, she was less than five minutes out of her house; but when she +returned to it, she found it empty. First she noted with a moderate +thrill of surprise that her visitor had gone away leaving his potatoes +untouched, and next, with a rough shock of dismay, that her cloak no +longer lay on the window seat where she had left it. From that moment +she never felt any real doubts about what had befallen her, though for +some time she kept on trying to conjure them up, and searched wildly +round and round and round her little room, like a distracted bee strayed +into a hollow furze-bush, before she sped over to Mrs. O'Driscoll with +the news of her loss.</p> + +<p>It spread rapidly through Lisconnel, and brought the neighbours together +exclaiming and condoling, though not in great force, as there was a fair +going on down beyant, which nearly all the men and some of the women had +attended. This was accounted cruel unlucky, as it left the place without +any one able-bodied and active enough to go in pursuit of the thief. A +prompt start might have overtaken him, especially as he was said to be +"a thrifle lame-futted," though Mrs. M'Gurk,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> who had seen him come down +the hill, opined that "'twasn't the sort of lameness 'ud hinder the +miscreant of steppin' out, on'y a quare manner of flourish he had in a +one of his knees, as if he was gatherin' himself up to make an offer at +a grasshopper's lep, and then thinkin' better of it."</p> + +<p>Little Thady Kilfoyle reported that he had met the strange man a bit +down the road, "leggin' it along at a great rate, wid a black rowl of +somethin' under his arm that he looked to be crumplin' up as small as he +could"—the word "crumpling" went acutely to Mrs. Kilfoyle's heart—and +some long-sighted people declared that they could still catch glimpses +of a receding figure through the hovering fog on the way towards +Sallinbeg.</p> + +<p>"I'd think he'd be beyant seein' afore now," said Mrs. Kilfoyle, who +stood in the rain, the disconsolate centre of the group about her door; +all women and children except old Johnny Keogh, who was so bothered and +deaf, that he grasped new situations slowly and feebly, and had now an +impression of somebody's house being on fire. "He must ha' took off wid +himself the instiant me back was turned, for ne'er a crumb had he +touched of the pitaties."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Maybe he'd that much shame in him," said Mrs. O'Driscoll.</p> + +<p>"They'd a right to ha' choked him, troth and they had," said Ody +Rafferty's aunt.</p> + +<p>"Is it chokin'?" said young Mrs. M'Gurk, bitterly. "Sure the bigger +thief a body is the more he'll thrive on whatever he gits—you might +think villiny was as good as butter to people's pitaties—you might so. +Shame how are you? Liker he'd ate all he could swally in the last place +he got the chance of layin' his hands on anythin'."</p> + +<p>"Och, woman alive, but it's the fool you were to let him out of your +sight," said Ody Rafferty's aunt. "If it had been me, I'd niver ha' took +me eyes off him, for the look of him on'y goin' by made me flesh creep +upon me bones."</p> + +<p>"'Deed was I," said Mrs. Kilfoyle, sorrowfully, "a fine fool. And vexed +she'd be, real vexed, if she guessed the way it was gone on us, for the +dear knows what dirty ould rapscallions 'ill get the wearin' of it now. +Rael vexed she'd be."</p> + +<p>This speculation was more saddening than the actual loss of the cloak, +though that bereft her wardrobe of far and away its most valuable +property, which should have descended as an heirloom to her little +Katty, who, however, being at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> present but three months old, lay +sleeping happily unaware of the cloud that had come over her prospects.</p> + +<p>"I wish to goodness a couple of the lads 'ud step home wid themselves +this minit of time," said Mrs. M'Gurk. "They'd come up wid him yet, and +take it off of him ready enough. And smash his ugly head for him if he +would be givin' them any impidence."</p> + +<p>"Aye, and 'twould be a rael charity—the mane baste—or sling him in one +of the boghoules," said the elder Mrs. Keogh, a mild-looking little old +woman. "I'd liefer than nine nine-pennies see thim comin' along. But I'm +afeard it's early for thim yet."</p> + +<p>Everybody's eyes turned, as she spoke, towards the ridge of the +Knockawn, though with no particular expectation of seeing what they +wished upon it. But, behold, just at that moment three figures, blurred +among the grey rain-mists, looming into view.</p> + +<p>"Be the powers," said Mrs. M'Gurk, jubilantly, "it's Ody Rafferty +himself. To your sowls! Now you've a great good chance, ma'am, to be +gettin' it back. He's the boy 'ill leg it over all before him"—for in +those days Ody was lithe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> and limber—"and it's hard-set the thievin' +Turk 'ill be to get the better of him at a racin' match—Hi—Och." She +had begun to hail him with a call eager and shrill, which broke off in a +strangled croak, like a young cock's unsuccessful effort. "Och, murdher, +murdher, murdher," she said to the bystanders, in a disgusted undertone. +"I'll give you me misfort'nit word thim other two is the pólis."</p> + +<p>Now it might seem on the face of things that the arrival of those two +active and stalwart civil servants would have been welcomed as happening +just in the nick of time; yet it argues an alien ignorance to suppose +such a view of the matter by any means possible. The men in invisible +green tunics belonged completely to the category of pitaty-blights, +rint-warnin's, fevers, and the like devastators of life, that dog a man +more or less all through it, but close in on him, a pitiful quarry, when +the bad seasons come and the childer and the old crathurs are starvin' +wid the hunger, and his own heart is broke; therefore to accept +assistance from them in their official capacity would have been a +proceeding most reprehensibly unnatural. To put a private quarrel or +injury into the hands of the peelers were a disloyal making<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> of terms +with the public foe; a condoning of great permanent wrongs for the sake +of a trivial temporary convenience. Lisconnel has never been skilled in +the profitable and ignoble art of utilising its enemies. Not that +anybody was more than vaguely conscious of these sentiments, much less +attempted to express them in set terms. When a policeman appeared there +in an inquiring mood, what people said among themselves was: "Musha cock +him up. I hope he'll get his health till I would be tellin' him," or +words to that effect; while in reply to his questions they made +statements superficially so clear and simple, and essentially so +bewilderingly involved, that the longest experience could do little more +for a constable than teach him the futility of wasting his time in +attempts to disentangle them.</p> + +<p>Thus it was that when Mrs. Kilfoyle saw who Ody's companions were, she +bade a regretful adieu to her hopes of recovering her stolen property. +For how could she set him on the Tinker's felonious track without +apprising them likewise? You might as well try to huroosh one chicken +off a rafter and not scare the couple that were huddled beside it. The +impossibility became more obvious presently as the constables striding +quickly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> down to where the group of women stood in the rain and wind +with fluttering shawls and flapping cap-borders, said briskly, "Good-day +to you all. Did any of yous happen to see e'er a one of them tinkerin' +people goin' by here this mornin'?"</p> + +<p>It was a moment of strong temptation to everybody, but especially to +Mrs. Kilfoyle, who had in her mind that vivid picture of her precious +cloak receding from her along the wet road, recklessly wisped up in the +grasp of as thankless a thievin' black-hearted slieveen as ever stepped, +and not yet, perhaps, utterly out of reach, though every fleeting +instant carried it nearer to that hopeless point. However, she and her +neighbours stood the test unshaken. Mrs. Ryan rolled her eyes +deliberatively, and said to Mrs. M'Gurk, "The saints bless us, was it +yisterday or the day before, me dear, you said you seen a couple of them +below near ould O'Beirne's?"</p> + +<p>And Mrs. M'Gurk replied, "Ah, sure, not at all, ma'am, glory be to +goodness. I couldn't ha' tould you such a thing, for I wasn't next or +nigh the place. Would it ha' been Ody Rafferty's aunt? She was below +there fetchin' up a bag of male, and bedad she came home that dhreeped, +the crathur, you might ha' thought she'd been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> after fishin' it up out +of the botthom of one of thim boghoules."</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Kilfoyle heroically hustled her Thady into the house as she saw +him on the brink of beginning loudly to relate his encounter with the +strange man, and desired him to whisht and stay where he was in a manner +so sternly repressive that he actually remained there as if he had been +a pebble dropped into a pool, and not, as usual, a cork to bob up again +immediately.</p> + +<p>Then Mrs. M'Gurk made a bold stroke, designed to shake off the hampering +presence of the professionals, and enable Ody's amateur services to be +utilised while there was yet time.</p> + +<p>"I declare," she said, "now that I think of it, I seen a feller crossin' +the ridge along there a while ago, like as if he was comin' from +Sallinbeg ways, and accordin' to the apparence of him I wouldn't won'er +if he <i>was</i> a one of thim tinker crathurs—carryin' a big clump of cans +he was, at any rate—I noticed the shine of thim. And he couldn't ha' +got any great way yet to spake of, supposin' there was anybody lookin' +to folly after him."</p> + +<p>But Constable Black crushed her hopes as he replied, "Ah, it's nobody +comin' <i>from</i> Sallinbeg that we've anything to say to. There's after +bein'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> a robbery last night down below at Jerry Dunne's—a shawl as good +as new took, that his wife's ragin' over frantic, along wid a sight of +fowl and other things. And the Tinkers that was settled this long while +in the boreen at the back of his haggard is quit out of it afore +daylight this mornin', every rogue of them. So we'd have more than a +notion where the property's went to if we could tell the road they've +took. We thought like enough some of them might ha' come this way."</p> + +<p>Now Mr. Jerry Dunne was not a popular person in Lisconnel, where he has +even become, as we have seen, proverbial for what we call "ould +naygurliness." So there was a general tendency to say, "The divil's cure +to him," and listen complacently to any details their visitors could +impart. For in his private capacity a policeman, provided that he be +otherwise "a dacint lad," which, to do him justice, is commonly the +case, may join, with a few unobtrusive restrictions, in our neighbourly +gossips; the rule, in fact, being—Free admission except on business.</p> + +<p>Only Mrs. Kilfoyle was so much cast down by her misfortune that she +could not raise herself to the level of an interest in the affairs of +her thrifty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> suitor, and the babble of voices relating and commenting +sounded as meaningless as the patter of the drops which jumped like +little fishes in the large puddle at their feet. It had spread +considerably before Constable Black said to his comrade—</p> + +<p>"Well, Daly, we'd better be steppin' home wid ourselves as wise as we +come, as the man said when he'd axed his road of the ould black horse in +the dark lane. There's no good goin' further, for the whole gang of +them's scattered over the counthry agin now like a seedin' thistle in a +high win'."</p> + +<p>"Ay bedad," said Constable Daly, "and be the same token, this win' ud +skin a tanned elephant. It's on'y bogged and drenched we'd git. Look at +what's comin' up over there. That rain's snow on the hills, every could +drop of it; I seen Ben Bawn this mornin' as white as the top of a +musharoon, and it's thickenin' wid sleet here this minute, and so it +is."</p> + +<p>The landscape did indeed frown upon further explorations. In quarters +where the rain had abated it seemed as if the mists had curdled on the +breath of the bitter air, and they lay floating in long white bars and +reefs low on the track of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> their own shadow, which threw down upon the +sombre bogland deeper stains of gloom. Here and there one caught on the +crest of some grey-bouldered knoll, and was teazed into fleecy threads +that trailed melting instead of tangling. But towards the north the +horizon was all blank, with one vast, smooth slant of slate colour, like +a pent-house roof, which had a sliding motion onwards.</p> + +<p>Ody Rafferty pointed to it and said, "Troth, it's teemin' powerful this +instiant up there in the mountains. 'Twill be much if you land home +afore it's atop of you; for 'twould be the most I could do myself."</p> + +<p>And as the constables departed hastily, most people forgot the stolen +cloak for a while to wonder whether their friends would escape being +entirely drownded on the way back from the fair.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Kilfoyle, however, still stood in deep dejection at her door, and +said, "Och, but she was the great fool to go let the likes of him set +fut widin her house."</p> + +<p>To console her Mrs. O'Driscoll said, "Ah, sure, sorra a fool were you, +woman dear; how would you know the villiny of him? And if you'd turned +the man away widout givin' him e'er a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> bit, it's bad you'd be thinkin' +of it all the day after."</p> + +<p>And to improve the occasion for her juniors, old Mrs. Keogh added, "Ay, +and morebetoken you'd ha' been committin' a sin."</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Kilfoyle replied with much candour, "'Deed, then, I'd a dale +liefer be after committin' a sin, or a dozen sins, than to have me poor +mother's good cloak thieved away on me, and walkin' wild about the +world."</p> + +<p>As it happened the fate of Mrs. Kilfoyle's cloak was very different from +her forecast. But I do not think that a knowledge of it would have been +consolatory to her by any means. If she had heard of it, she would +probably have said, "The cross of Christ upon us. God be good to the +misfort'nit crathur." For she was not of at all an implacable temper, +and would, under the circumstances, have condoned even the injury that +obliged her to appear at Mass with a flannel petticoat over her head +until the end of her days. Yet she did hold the Tinkers in a perhaps +somewhat too unqualified reprobation. For there are tinkers and tinkers. +Some of them, indeed, are stout and sturdy thieves, veritable birds of +prey, whose rapacity is continually questing for plunder<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>. But some of +them have merely the magpies' and jackdaws' thievish propensity for +picking up what lies temptingly in their way. And some few are so honest +that they pass by as harmlessly as a wedge of high-flying wild duck. And +I have heard it said that to places like Lisconnel their pickings and +stealings have at worst never been so serious a matter as those of +another flock, finer of feather, but not less predacious in their +habits, who roosted, for the most part, a long way off, and made their +collections by deputy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>A GOOD TURN</h3> + + +<p>Along the road to Sallinbeg little seemed to be abroad besides foul +weather, but there was a great deal of that. The gusts that came +flapping wide-winged over the bog met the wayfarer with a furious hurtle +and grapple, as if for want of better sport they had concentrated all +their forces upon his sole repulse; and the drops they dashed into his +blinded eyes and against his benumbed hands were as icy as they could be +without ceasing to be wet. Their combined assaults were calculated +feelingly to persuade a man of his uninfluential position in the scheme +of things—his voice in this matter was so tyrannically howled down—or, +if of less philosophic mind, to bring home to him the special +disadvantages of going half-starved and clad in threadbare tatters. This +was the plight of Thady Quinlan as, leaving Lisconnel, soon lapt out of +sight behind him amid the grey<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> web of the rain-mists, he tramped +haltingly away, with Mrs. Kilfoyle's cloak bundled under his arm, and +the dread of pursuit on his mind, and in his heart a great remorse, the +object of which you are perhaps guessing wrongly. But he had also a hope +and a purpose, and is therefore not wholly to be pitied, although the +one did wane until the other looked impossible, as mile after mile +unrolled its drenched and dreary length without bringing him apparently +nearer to his goal.</p> + +<p>All the while, however, he was slowly gaining upon a traveller, who had +taken the same road a few hours earlier, hopelessly and aimlessly, and +even more inadequately equipped than he. It was his sister Judy Quinlan, +from whom he had parted on the worst of terms about three o'clock that +morning. The fact is that the Tinkers' raid upon Jerry Dunne's premises, +although carried out with unusual success, had led, not at all +unusually, to complications when it was time to divide the spoil. Over +Mrs. Dunne's second-best shawl it was that the difficulty arose. Mrs. +Dunne, despite her husband's thrifty turn, owned many shawls, few of +them inferior enough to be worn at all frequently, and she had pinned on +this one three times only during the half-dozen years of her +proprietresship<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>. So it was certainly bitter bad luck that she should by +chance have worn it to Confession on Friday, and got it soaked coming +home, and hung it up in the passage by the back door to dry slowly, +"instead of to be all cockled into gathers wid the heat of the fire +blazin' on it, you stookawn," as she explained with exasperation to +Ellen Roe, her servant-girl, who had officiously suggested the kitchen +hearth. For this precaution proved tragically self-defeating, and put +its object into the very hands of Thady Quinlan and Joe Smith, when, +under cover of the wild, wet night, they forced the feeble lock, and +made a clean sweep of all portable property that lay within easy reach. +The shawl formed the most valuable prize. It was very admirable, indeed, +being of a dappled fawn colour, with an arabesque border of shaded +chocolate and amber; but in the eyes of its new owners its greatest +charm was its weight and thickness. Judy Quinlan declared, pinching a +fold fondly between a finger and thumb, that just the feel of it done +your heart good. Her own shawl was really only a ragged cotton +table-cover, and had, as she often remarked, "no more warmth in it than +an ould dish-clout." I should observe, to make the situation clear, that +the Tinkers' confraternity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> at this time consisted of Thady Quinlan and +his sister Judy, and their married sister Maggie Smith, with her +husband, and his brother, and his father, and three or four children. +Hence it is obvious that in any dispute which might arise between Judy +and Maggie, the latter was likely to have numbers preponderantly upon +her side. And this was what now actually took place, the place being the +driest end of the un-roofed cabin in Dunne's boreen, where the Tinkers +had for some time past made their camp.</p> + +<p>The screed of thatch still adhering to the wall sheltered their fire of +purloined sods, and it burned steadily and strongly between the blasts +which made its red flame duck and sweel, and sent the white ash-flakes +fluttering. So there was light enough to show how covetous gleams from +the sisters' eyes flashed together on the shawl, of which each held a +corner. And no great wisdom was needed to forecast a storm. Mrs. Smith's +shawl was undeniably better than Judy's by many degrees but she had not +the magnanimity to consider this, even so far as to propose that Judy +should at any rate enjoy the reversion of her own. On the contrary, she +had rapidly planned its division between her two little ragged girls. +Judy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> for her part, had set her heart desperately upon the acquisition, +and she deemed it her best policy to say in a tone studiously +matter-of-course:</p> + +<p>"Faix, now, it's glad enough I'll be to get shut of this ould wad that's +on me. Every breath of win' goes thro' it as ready as if it was a +crevice in a wall, fit to freeze you into mortar."</p> + +<p>A very vain device, for her sister promptly rejoined with a sarcastic +laugh and a tightened grip: "Musha moyah, how bad you are entirely. +Don't you wish you may?" which intimated plainly that the shawl was not +to be had uncontested.</p> + +<p>At this crisis Judy had fully expected to be backed up by Thady; but he +naturally taking a more dispassionate view of the matter, recognised +with reluctance the futility of pitting himself singly against three +opponents, two of them better men than he, who was "no great things at +all, let alone havin' one knee quare." Therefore he turned his back upon +the controversy, and feigned unconsciousness of it, instead of bouncing +up and saying with appropriate action, "And I'd like to know who at +all's got a better right to it than herself has?"</p> + +<p>His defection aggrieved her so bitterly, that the fiercest of her wrath +turned upon him; and after a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> wrangle wherein all the parties concerned +had made liberal use of those "aculeate and proper" words against which +the wary Bacon warns his quarrelling readers, she flounced away into the +darkness of the small hours of the stormy December morning, loudly +avowing her determination never to see a sight of the ugly, dirty, +mane-spirited poltroon, or open her lips to him as long as she had an +eye or a tongue in her head. Jeering laughter followed her exit on a +skirl of sleet-fledged wind.</p> + +<p>She seethed over her anger for many a long mile, to such fierceness was +its flame fed by disappointment and more potent jealousy. For had not +Thady, the only person she cared much about in all the world, turned +against her and sided with Maggie, "who was always a greedy grabbin' +little toad ever since she stood the height of a creepy stool?" It was +an hour or so before daybreak when she sat down to rest under an immense +bulging boulder that loomed dimly on her beside the road a little way +beyond Lisconnel. Then she began to look backwards and forwards. Far +back to the time when her father kept a little shop in Bantry, before he +was stone broke one bad year and took to carrying the remnant of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +stock-in-trade about in a basket as a higgler, which eventually led +other members of his family to wander, less reputably, for their +livelihoods. She remembered that even in those days Thady was always her +ally, and had lamed himself for life by a fall on the road when running +to rescue her from the Hutchinsons' wicked mastiff, who had knocked her +down near their gate, and was standing over her with a growl and a grin +of which she still sometimes dreamed. And again she remembered how once +she had been laid up for a long while with the fever, and had crept out +of the Union infirmary to find that her relations, supposing her dead, +had all "tuk off wid thimselves to the States," and was keening like one +demented over her desertion outside McNeight's public, when what should +come familiarly round the corner but Thady himself, who had stopped +behind, foregoing his assisted passage, because the divil a fut of him +would stir out of it so long as there might be e'er a chance at all of +Judy coming back. Whereupon it recurred vividly to her mind how she had +just called him, among other things, "a great dirty, good-for-nothin' +hulk of a poltroon," and had expressed a hope that she might never again +see sign nor sight of any such a hijjis baste hobblin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> anywheres on her +road; to which he had rejoined that she might go to blazes and welcome +for anythin' <i>he</i> had to say agin it, and that bedad a crosser-tempered +ould weasel of a wizened-up ould witch wouldn't be apt to land there in +a hurry. At last, being very tired, she escaped for a while from these +fluctuations of wrath and ruth into a nook of sleep, but the bitter cold +routed her out of it soon after sunrise, and she took the road again, +cramped and numbed, in the teeth of the gusty showers that were still +stalking over the bogland.</p> + +<p>As she went, the hills beyond Sallinbeg rose up frowning before her +through rifts in the cold white fleece trailed and knotted about their +front of harsh purple gloom, on which the streaks and patches of ravines +and fences and fields, with here and there a cabin gleaming, began by +degrees to be traced dimly as if a fragment of the countryside were +reflected on a dark thunder-cloud. But she was now thinking more about +her journey's end than about anything she saw on the way thither—the +bleak many-windowed workhouse at Moynalone that she well knew must be +presently her fate. Since she had thrown herself on her own resources, +three ha'pence was all she could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> command for ransom from the durance +into which self-preservation assuredly would not forbear to betray her. +Experience gave a dreary definiteness to anticipation. Once again she +would morning by morning awaken in the grim whitewashed ward to all the +old hardness and roughness of existence with a tyrannous restraint and +monotony superadded. She said to herself, it is true, that she might as +well be in one place as another, since she would not have Thady to go +along with anymore—the black-hearted, thievin' miscreant—and if she +had as much wit in her as an ould water-rat, she'd just creep away into +some dry ditch, and be done with the whole of it. Still, as she did come +short of that wisdom, the alternative continued to lie across her path, +a murky shadow, which she could by no means evade nor disperse.</p> + +<p>The invisible sun was low when Judy came to a place where the road +forks, sending one branch to creep across the level bogland towards +Sallinbeg, and one to climb up among the first tilted slopes of the +mountains. Here the Rosbride river comes jostling its way down a rocky +ravine spanned at the mouth by a bridge, past which the swift, brown +stream darts along in a more spacious and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> smoother channel, bound for +Rosbride Bay. Judy stood for a while and looked down over the parapet at +the swirls of creamy foam that swept under the arch. Then she took out +of her pocket a battered-looking heel of a loaf, and began to munch it. +But before she had half finished it, she tossed the crust away into the +river, being too heartsick to go on eating once the rage of hunger was +subdued. She wished sincerely that she dared fling herself after it, but +she was far too much cowed by cold and weariness to muster the courage +for such a resolve. Perhaps there was not under Irish skies that +December day, a more miserable woman than Judy Quinlan as she stood all +alone in the world on Rosbride bridge, while a black mountain rampart +lifted itself slowly against the shrouded west, and the dusk thickened +on the long, shelterless road, whence eager blasts whistled a summons to +her, nearer and nearer, till they fluttered her rags, and keened about +her ears, and chilled her to the bone.</p> + +<p>Suddenly something heavy and soft seemed to grasp her by the shoulders, +and thence fall around her in long, wide folds, covering her from head +to foot, much as if a small tent had been blown down on her. Of course +she screamed shrilly, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> almost in the same breath she saw that Thady +was at her elbow. He had for some little time been stalking her warily, +with the great coat expanded ready to throw over her, and having done +so, was now holding it on with a rough hug. The joy with which he had at +last caught sight of the forlorn, bedraggled figure had overflowed +irrepressibly into this joke, and its successful accomplishment put the +finishing touch to his happiness. As for Judy, if the sun had leaped up +again in a fiery flurry, till the hills and the plain and the river were +all flooded with flushed light, gleaming and glowing, it would have but +dimly symbolised the transfiguration of her world. In the twinkling of +an eye her stark despair was changed into rapturous relief, a miracle +which just at first made the marvellous cloak seem almost a matter of +course. Any good thing might naturally be expected to befall her since +Thady was not estranged and lost to her after all. "Whethen now, and is +it yourself come streelin' along?" she said. "You tuk your time, bedad. +I'm here this half-hour."</p> + +<p>"Sure, I stopped till I would get a thrifle of things together," said +Thady. "And what d'you call that for an ould flitterjig?"</p> + +<p>"It's not too bad," said Judy, stroking down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> the cape with caressing +fingers. "A grand weight there's in it, to be sure. But where at all did +you come by it? You're not after gettin' it off of thim thievin' +rapscallions of Smiths, anyway?"</p> + +<p>"Thim or the likes of thim—sure not at all," said Thady, loftily. +"'Twas in a house away down below there at Lisconnel. A young woman bid +me step in to ait a pitaty, and, tellin' you the truth, I'd no fancy to +be delayin', for I'd a mistrust in me mind that the pólis was follyin'. +The notion I had was to ax her had she seen you goin' by, on'y I wasn't +wishful to be lettin' on I was anythin' to you, in case they come along. +So I thought she might be chance pass the remark herself. But out she +ran, and the first thing I noticed was this consarn lyin' convanient to +me hand in the windy. And wid that I whipped it up and made off. For +anythin' I could tell, I might ha' met me fine gintleman full tilt at +the door; and begorrah, it's as heavy to carry as a pair of fat geese. +Howane'er, I knew it's distressed you were entirely for the want of such +a thing, and bejabers, you've got it now."</p> + +<p>"Troth have I," said Judy, delightedly groping her way about her new +garment. "Rael dacint it was of you to be bringin' it to me, for +perished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> and lost I did be, and that's no lie. Och but it's the grand +one. Look at the hood there is to it. Sure it's as good as a little +house of your own. You might be out under buckets of wet in it, and +ne'er a tint you'd git whatever."</p> + +<p>"Ay, or, for that matter, takin' a rowl through the river there, and +sorra the harm it 'ud do you wid that on," said Thady, with pride. "But +we'd better be quittin' out o' this," he added, with a shrug and a +shiver, "for the win's tarrible, and there's a shower comin' up on us +yonder as thick as thatch. I was thinkin' you'd maybe had thrampin' +enough for this day. 'Twill be as dark prisintly as the inside of a cow, +and we'd see daylight agin before we come to Moynalone. So we might put +the night over under th'ould bridge. There's a good dry strip along the +one side of it, and the way the rain's dhrivin' we'd git a grand +shelter."</p> + +<p>Judy readily agreed, and they descended the little stony footpath which +led down to the river. Beneath the arch, where Thady's booted steps +reverberated hollowly, they found, as he had said, a broadish strip of +dry ground, for the bridge had allowed the stream ample measure in its +stride. The little platform was bordered by a scattering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> of stones and +boulders, amongst which the shallow water gurgled. It seemed to Thady +and Judy that their quarters would be very tolerable; but they soon made +a discovery which promised luxury indeed. This was a dead branch, which +lay at one end of the arch, having evidently been floated down the +current, and perhaps hauled out of the water by some thrifty body, who, +however, had made no further use of it. Long ago that must have been, +for it was dried and bleached till it glimmered through the dusk like an +intricate white skeleton. Better fuel no one could desire. Thady made +for it at once with knife and matchbox, and in a few minutes crackling +flames were crunching up the twigs and gnawing at a log. The red light +washed flickering over the wet walls, and was caught on the glancing of +the water as it fled by, rapid and dark. Blue smoke trailed up lazily +against the frame of the arch, blurring gleams of tossed foam as it +melted out into the mist.</p> + +<p>But a fire naturally suggested food, and Judy said ruefully, after +feeling in her empty pocket: "It's starved wid the hunger you'll be, +Thady, and the sorra a taste of anythin' have I in the world. 'Deed now, +if I'd on'y known the way it 'ud be, and I passin' thim houses below in +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> boreen a while ago! I seen where there was a big cake of +griddle-bread coolin' itself, laned agin the windy-ledge, and man nor +mortal near it. I might ha' raiched it down as aisy as puttin' me fut to +the ground. But sure I was that knocked about wid one thing and another, +I thought I wouldn't be bothered wid it, so I just left it where it was, +I did so—may God forgive me," she said, with unfeigned contrition.</p> + +<p>Thady, however, did not seem to share in her regrets. He was lifting his +cluster of cans off his shoulders, and extracting from one of them a +bundle tied up in a red handkerchief. "Is it starved you'd have us?" he +said as he untied the first corner. "Starved! How are you?" And he +continued to repeat: "Is it starvin' she said?" while he was undoing the +several knots. When they were all unfastened, the handkerchief was seen +to hold a number of eggs and a fair supply of broken bread. Thady might +well scout the possibility of famishing. "That's somethin' like," he +said, as he saw Judy surveying his stores, "and I've a shillin' +somewheres besides."</p> + +<p>"Glory be!" said Judy, looking as if she could scarcely realise a world +with which they were so much beforehand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And we'll be givin' them a boil in a one of the little saucepans," said +Thady. "Raw eggs do be ugly could brashes, and we've plinty of wather +handy—lashins and lavins of dhrink runnin' on tap there, so to spake."</p> + +<p>Supper was accordingly prepared on these simple lines with much success. +They boiled many eggs and ate them, using their scraps of bread for +plates—an expedient not unknown at far earlier banquets—and they +scooped up water to drink out of the palms of their hands—also in an +old-fashioned manner. But when they had finished Thady gave a +comparatively modern touch to the entertainment by lighting his pipe. He +occupied the nearest place to the fire, in consideration for the +scarecrow-like raggedness of his garments, which now began to weigh upon +Judy's mind amid the comfort of her magnificent wrap.</p> + +<p>"Froze stiff you'll be in thim ould tatters, man alive," she said +despondently. "Sure, you might as well be slingin' yourself round wid +the ould wisps of spiders' webs up over your head for any substance +there is in thim. I won'er, now, could I conthrive to reive the top-cape +off of this. 'Twould be as good that way as a cloak apiece for the two +of us."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thady, however, said decidedly: "Blathers, not <i>at all</i>. Is it +destroyin' it you'd be after? I'm plinty warm enough." And he rolled the +big red handkerchief which had held the eggs into many folds about his +neck, tucking it down under his coat-collar all round. "There was a +surprisin' hate in it," he said.</p> + +<p>By this time the dusk far and near had gloomed into darkness—the black +beetle had scared away the grey moth. As Thady and Judy sat with their +backs to the curving wall, they caught only fitful glimpses of the +opposite one when any long-fronded flickers of the fire-light waved +across and touched it. More often they fell short, and made quivering +circles shine where they struck the broken water in the mid-stream. +Without, beyond either arch, nothing was distinguishable except glimmers +of white foam shaken and tossing. On the left, looking up the river, it +seemed as if many spectral hands, borne nearer and nearer, came waving +and beckoning out of the night, to pass by and away down the river, +still beckoning and waving, carried further and further, on into the +night again. Every now and then a waft of the wind sighed in on them +along with the river, puffing about the flame and smoke, and blowing +ice-cold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> in their faces. When it had passed Thady always inquired: "Is +it warm at all, Jude?" and she always answered, drawing "its" folds +together with ostentatious satisfaction: "Och scaldin'."</p> + +<p>But between whiles there was little conversation to interrupt the +monologue of the river, which seemed to find itself many voices under +the bridge. The one unceasing rustle of the main stream was frayed along +its margin into a myriad finer noises of murmuring and plashing, as the +massed foliage on a bough dwindles at its edges into more delicate +traceries of distinct sprays and leaves. Round some stones the water +whispered mysteriously, coiling in and out of gurgling recesses, and +against others it broke with a clear chiming tinkle as if elfin anvils +rang; here it droned on with a bee's hum soft and steady, and here it +chuckled and chirped, bubbling up in sudden little rapids and cascades. +At Judy's feet was a thin flat stone, which rested loosely on the top of +another, and flap-flapped, bobbing up and down as the ripple rose and +fell. Sitting idle in the firelight, warmed and fed to unwonted +contentment, Judy watched it half drowsily for a while. Presently she +said:</p> + +<p>"That's the very way the lid of our ould kettle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> would be goin' at home +when it was on the boil, and me poor mother 'ud bid us keep an eye on +it—like enough to keep us out of divilmint. Och, but that was a cosy +little room of a could night. D'you mind it, Thady?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, sure," said Thady, "but it's one while ago."</p> + +<p>"It is that. A matter of thirty year and more, anyway, since we owned +the little shop. Sure now I remimber the day they shut it up, and put us +out of it, as plain as if it was on'y this mornin'. Grand we that was +childer thought it, because of somebody givin' us the ind of an ould jar +of sweets out of the windy to pacify us. Bedad the fightin' we had over +it was fit to ha' raised the town. But I grabbed meself a biggish lump +of peppermint twist, and would be slinkin' behind me mother to finish +it, and she talkin' at the door to ould Mrs. McClenaghan, and I heard +her sayin' her heart was broke. So I got wond'rin' to myself if the +raison was maybe that we'd ate it all on her. Och, but it's the quare +foolishness people does be remimberin'!"</p> + +<p>"Belike the raison of that is because it's as plinty as anythin' else +wid thim," said Thady, cynically, "or maybe a trifle plintier."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sure we was on'y brats thim times," said Judy, apologetically. "For +anythin' we could tell we might as well be streelin' about under the +width of the sky like a string of wild duck, as stoppin' at home wid a +roof over our misfort'nit heads. Ould Mrs. McClenaghan next door had a +cloak the same pattern as this," Judy continued, selecting her memories +with better judgment. "But 'twas all tatters at the bottom, not worth a +bawbee to mine."</p> + +<p>And Thady said with interest: "Had she now?"</p> + +<p>"And as for me ould shawl," Judy went on, "it's been a scandal and a +caution this last three or four year; droppin' in bits it is, and small +blame to it. I wish I'd a penny for every mile I've tramped in it. Do +you remimber the joke me mother had about it's bein' a conthráry thing +that people thravellin' 'ud always begin a mile at the wrong ind? She'd +be talkin' that way to hearten up me father; but as often as not he'd +on'y let a roar at her to whisht, he was that discouraged. 'Twas a great +wish he had, poor man, to git her back settled in a little place of her +own before he was took. But 'twas in the big barracks of a Union at +Monaghan——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, it's all one to the two of thim now anyway," said Thady, finding +that Judy's reminiscences of their family history did not tend to +enliven his meditations over his pipe.</p> + +<p>"Ah sure, everythin' will be all one to the whole of us, plase God, one +of these days," said Judy, who in her present mood could not easily have +realised the keen contentions and scorching jealousies of the night +before; "and when we get done with the thrampin', 'twill make little +enough differ whether it's one mile we wint or twinty hunderd. On'y I'd +liefer than a good dale thim two had had better luck wid it all. Cruel +put about they were many a time, and wantin' the bit to keep the life in +thim, and it just fretted out of thim in the ind I'm thinkin'. The +thought of it comes agin a body when one's sittin' warm and snug," Judy +said, gazing remorsefully round her shadowy, gusty lodging, and then +into the flames, lighting up a bare earth-patch, and down at the dark +folds that fell about her as she crouched on it. She seemed sunk into a +reverie. But after a while she looked up and said without apparent +relevance: "Heaven be her bed this night, the cratur. Thady, you +heathen, we'd a right to be sayin' the Rosary before we git too stupid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +altogether. The eyes of you are droppin' into your head wid sleep this +minnit."</p> + +<p>"And me just after lightin' me pipe," remonstrated Thady.</p> + +<p>"Ah thin, hurry up and finish it," said Judy, betraying by this +injunction an invincible ignorance touching a man's sentiments towards +his last screw of tobacco, "or else I'll be off sound. It's the fine +warmth makes me sleepy. Sure wid this on me sorra a breath of could gits +next or nigh me to be keepin' me awake."</p> + +<p>"Och thin, wait till it's out," said Thady.</p> + +<p>"I will so," said Judy. "Sling another stick on the fire, lad, the way +you won't be perished sittin' there in thim woful ould rags. I've plinty +of prayers I might be sayin' till you're ready."</p> + +<p>But in a little while, Thady, lingering over his pipe, became aware, +somewhat to his relief, that she had gone fast asleep, muffled up to the +chin in her cloak, with her head leaning back against the stone wall. He +sat and looked at her for some moments with an expression partly +complacent and partly compunctious. "Bedad now the crathur was bein' +perished alive before I brought that to her," he said to himself. "Very +apt she was to be gettin' her death. 'Twas great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> luck I had entirely to +pick it up. It's the hard life the likes of her has whatever thrampin' +around. Ay, glory be to God, 'twas the best good turn iver I done her."</p> + +<p>Just at the time when Thady the Tinker was making these reflections +while the firelight flickered and the waters fleeted under Rosbride +bridge, some mile or so higher up the stream, where the long mountain +slopes are folded closer and steeper about it, a great turmoil had +arisen in a deep hollow among walls of the bare rock. Down one face of +these, a huge glistering slab, the river had for certain thousands of +years been taking a foamy leap; but to-night it happened that the rains, +beating for many days on the mountains, had eaten away the clay setting +which cemented a ponderous lump of rock into a niche immediately over +the fall, and the mass had now crashed down into the channel on the very +verge, blocking all the waterway. This, however, was a door hard to keep +shut, when every affluent rill and runnel out on the broad mountain +shoulders went darting swift and white, so that every minute swelled the +forces gathering pent in the barred passage. As the bridled torrent +seethed and climbed, hissing, behind that barrier, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> great stone +tottered and swayed, and before the first foam-crest could overpeer it, +yielded to the weight of waters leaned against it, and rocks and flood, +thunderously roaring, rushed down together.</p> + +<p>The sound of it, dulled into a moan, came through Rosbride bridge, and +Thady, who had grown very drowsy, thought to himself that the wind was +getting up, and that they couldn't have done better than stop where they +were, instead of to be setting off tramping on such a dirty wild night. +God knew where they might have got to.</p> + +<p>The flood that broke away, with wave tumbled over wave, out of the +whirling pool, had not far to race down its stony stairs before it +reached a place with a turbulent floor, where the white mouths of other +two streams foamed into it through rock-rifts, loud-throated on either +hand. Thenceforward the water which had threaded the large boulders in +heavy strands coiled like monstrous braids of snaky locks, rose up and +drew together above their tallest heads into a single obliterating fold, +as it slid on smoothly with only now and then a quiver puckering its +surface, as if it had rolled over some live creature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> that writhed. Its +mounded solidity made its rapid motion look strange and terrible. Where +circles of thin froth swam round on it slowly, it was as black and white +as a bit of the bog in a snowstorm or under a drift of summer daisies. +At the turn of the ravine's last winding above the bridge, it plucked +away as it passed a small company of fir-trees, that long had dropped +their cones and needles into the river from a coign of vantage on a +jutting crag, and a minute after, anybody who had looked up from beneath +the arch would have seen the glimmering points of foam extinguished like +lights, further and nearer, lost amid the shadowy onsweeping of +something that set all the darkness astir as if it were one vast wing +unfurling. And then for a moment, in the narrow space lit by the fading +fire, he would have known that he was cut off from the world by chaos, +which poised towards him a formless surging front, and stooped and fell. +But as it happened nobody was keeping a watch there.</p> + +<p>What wakened Thady was the clang of his cluster of tinware, which the +wave dashed against the wall behind him. But before he knew this, it had +gathered him up and swung him across<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> with it over to the other side of +the arch. There he caught hold of a twisted ivy-tod and a bough of +mountain-ash, whence he dropped on the bank, and crawled up it out of +reach, commenting in forcible language upon the occurrence, by which he +was still astoundedly bewildered.</p> + +<p>Judy, who was aroused in like manner, had her chance too. For a branch +of the same tree crooked a friendly arm towards her as she was borne +past, and she would have grasped it only that the weight of her heavy +cloth cloak dragged her down. So that instead of returning to dry land +for many a long day's tramp, she went out to sea in company with sundry +wrenched-off boughs, and mats of heather, and bundles of withered +bracken, and other such waifs and strays, none of which were ever again +heard tidings of any more than they were inquired after in the lonely +places they had left. Only for some stormy days the wrecked and sodden +banks of the Rosbride river were haunted by a forlorn-looking object of +a lame tramp, who sought vainly what his despair hoped to find. As he +roamed about in it, he had just one spell of consolation, which he was +often muttering over to himself. It was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> something he called, "The best +turn, anyway, I iver done the crathur in her life. Little enough, God +knows, little enough, but the best good turn."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>FORECASTS</h3> + + +<p>When Mrs. Joyce used in her last days to predict regretfully that her +youngest daughter would never marry, she said a bold word, for at this +time still Theresa's years fell short of twenty, and she was generally +recognised as the prettiest girl to be seen at Mass in the small, ugly +chapel down beyant near Ballybrosna. Some people, it is true, said that +she was "just a fairy of a crathur, and too little for anythin'," and +she was, no doubt, diminutive in size. Nor had she any brilliancy of +colouring to make amends in a humming-bird's fashion for the +insignificance of her proportions, resembling rather, with her dark eyes +and hair, one of those filmy white blossoms which look the paler and +frailer for their knots of ebon stamens, or the delicate moth who shows +fine black pencillings among his pearly down. Still, nobody denied that +she had "an uncommon purty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> face of her own," and the neighbours, +moreover, always found her "plisant and frindly and gay enough," when +they found her at all. But they remarked among themselves that one +seldom seen e'er a sight of Therasa Joyce these times anywheres about. +They supposed she was took up wid lookin' after her mother, who wasn't +gettin' her health over well this good while back. I think myself that +Theresa's invisibility could be only in part accounted for thus, as the +explanation does not cover the fact that to slip the wrong side of the +dyke, or turn aside among screening hillocks and hollows when she +noticed the approach of her acquaintances, was the course she always +adopted if she could achieve it without hurting anybody's feelings. +Theresa much disliked doing this, as a rule, though she broke it on one +occasion in a way that surprised and puzzled those who knew her best.</p> + +<p>But whether Mrs. Joyce forecast the future rightly or wrongly, she had +certainly an erroneous impression on her mind when, as often happened, +she wound up her disconsolate musings by saying resentfully, "And the +back of me hand to some I could name." If she had proceeded to do so, +she would probably have mentioned persons who had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> done nothing to bring +about the result she was deploring, and she never thought of connecting +it with the events which had accompanied Ody Rafferty's flitting from +the Three Mile Farm more than a twelvemonth before Denis O'Meara came to +the place.</p> + +<p>Until Ody took up his abode at Lisconnel he had always lived with his +father, who farmed a remote bit of land out towards Lough Glenglas. It +was a holding which had been wrested from the grip of a surrounding bog +by earlier generations of Raffertys, who were a strenuous race; but in +Ody's father's time their energies had taken a turn not conducive to +reclamation, or even to the maintenance of what was already won. All +Ody's many elder brethren—sisters there were none—had run wild, and +ended by running it so far afield that the narrow, whitewashed house, +lonesome and bleak, saw them no more. Its mistress also died, failing, +perhaps, other means of exit—running wild being in her case +impracticable—and finding life impossibly dreary without Ned, the +least-good-for of her sons; and the household was thus reduced to old +Michael Rafferty, and his aunt, and little Ody. These domestic changes, +in conjunction with other untoward chances, sadly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> hindered farming +operations, and nature made prompt use of the pause. Season by season +the patch of tilled ground seemed to shrink at the wish of the greedy +black land that girdled it about. The outlying fields grew first garish +with golden ragweed and scarlet poppies, and then dull green again with +the brown-knotted rushes and sombre sedge, and all other marish growths, +until the re-annexation was complete, and they once more were +homogeneous part and parcel of the conquering bog. Old Michael used to +trudge heavily round his dwindling territories, which were haunted by +memories of better days. There had been a time when they had actually +"kep' a pair of plough-horses." I believe that he would have fretted his +heart out much sooner than he did if it had not been for Ody, his only +remaining son, "whose aquils," his aunt Moggy sometimes remarked rather +bitterly, "he consaited you wouldn't find plintier in the world than an +apple sittin' on a sloe-bush." As the boy grew up the old man's pride +and pleasure in him were tempered by apprehensions lest he should "take +off wid himself like the other lads." However, Ody never did this nor +anything worse than wax somewhat over-confident and self-opiniated; and +a year<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> or so before his father's death he became associated with Felix +O'Beirne in the management of an illicit still off away in the bog, +which gave him an object in life, and had a sobering and settling effect +upon him.</p> + +<p>He was not more than twenty when his father suddenly died one early +spring morning, and he found himself left responsible for a few acres +well cropped with weeds, and sundry arrears of rent to be extracted from +their produce. Whereupon he resolved to abandon the struggle, and set up +on a less ambitious footing in one of the cabins at Lisconnel. So he got +ready for the move by selling off his little bit of live stock, all +except Rory, the old black pony, who had a very large head and a white +face like a grotesque mask, and with whom he would not have parted on +the most tempting terms. As for his great-aunt Moggy, when she heard of +this arrangement, she resigned herself to her fate, which was obviously +the Union away at Moynalone. What else should become of her, since she +was past field-work, and nobody could expect Ody now to be bothered with +keeping her idle, and he with scarce a penny to his name after settling +with Mr. Nugent. "Ody," she reflected, "didn't mind a thraneen what way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +he had things in the house, and didn't care to be keepin' fowls, so what +good 'ud he get out of her at all?" Moggy was a dull and rather +cross-tempered old person, who had grown up in souring shade, and never +had a life of her own to live, nor yet a faculty for slipping smoothly +into other people's. Her slight intercourse with Ody had hitherto +chiefly consisted of quarrels. In fact, only the day before his father's +death, they had fallen out abusively about the broiling of some bacon, +and this seemed to make her destination all the more inevitable. +Therefore Moggy likewise set about her few dismal preparations, +oppressed by a stunned sense that the black hour she had been dreading +most of her life was now just going to strike.</p> + +<p>On the morning of the day Ody was to flit she held a sort of carouse at +her solitary breakfast over the remnant of a pound of tea which she had +saved after the wake. Tea was ten prices fifty years ago, and a very +rare luxury at the Three Mile Farm. As she poured it strong and black +out of the badly broken teapot, the whole one being packed up, she +thought that was the last time she'd ever have the chance again in this +world to be wetting herself a cup of tea, and she thickened it +recklessly with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> lumps of damp brown sugar, and swung it round in her +cracked saucer to cool, and tried hard to enjoy it. She was still +lingering over it when Ody came into the kitchen, which caused her, poor +soul, instinctively to thrust away the betraying teapot out of sight on +the black hob.</p> + +<p>"What way was you intindin' to go, then, aunt?" said Ody.</p> + +<p>"To Moynalone?" she said, turning to face her future with a deep sinking +of heart. "Sure, I suppose it's trampin' over I'll be."</p> + +<p>"And I won'er how long you think to be doin' it," said Ody—"a matter of +ten mile?"</p> + +<p>"Where's the hurry at all, supposin'?" said his aunt, desperately.</p> + +<p>"Blathers!" said Ody, "there's room in the cart waitin' ready. You'd be +better bundlin' yourself into it than to be sittin' here all the mornin' +delayin' us."</p> + +<p>"'Deed, then, beggars drive as chape as they walk," she said, "and I +might as well be gettin' the lift as far as you can take me."</p> + +<p>The old white-faced pony preferred to pace slowly on the long bog-road, +and, as Ody always respected his whims, the journey barely ended with +the March daylight. The old, sad-visaged woman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> sat all the while under +her muffling shawl in silent apathy undisturbed, and as during the +latter stages of the drive a blinking drowsiness co-operated with her +want of interest in the scenes through which she jogged, she naturally +looked around her in bewilderment when roused by the jerk of the +stopping cart. She expected to find herself in the streets of Moynalone, +drawn up, probably, at the door of the big Union workhouse. But, instead +of its long rows of casements staring down blankly on her, she saw only +the one mole's-eye window of a tiny whitewashed cabin peering at her +from beneath its thatched eaves, and all about it the great lonely bog +spreading away with never a trace of any town.</p> + +<p>"Och, wirrasthrew, man, what are you after doin' on me?" she said, +beginning to bewail herself querulously. "Sure you haven't brought me to +any place at all. Every hour of the black night it'ill be afore ever +I'll get there now, and the Union'ill be shut, and what's to become of +me then I dunno. You'd a right to ha' tould me——"</p> + +<p>"Blathers!" said her nephew, "git down out of that wid your yawpin'. +D'you want the folk here to think you're a sackful of ould hins? And go +in and be seein' after a bit of fire; it's late enough<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> to be sure. What +fool's talk have you about the Union, and bad luck to it? You'll find +the things for the supper in the inside of the ould churn. Union, +moyah!"</p> + +<p>And old Moggy, alighting with cramped limbs, entered her home at +Lisconnel, feeling blissfully as if she had been <i>unpacked</i> out of a +most horrible nightmare.</p> + +<p>Ody was probably actuated by several unassorted motives in dealing thus +with his superfluous old great-aunt. Pride and pity and perversity and +generosity—all had, no doubt, some influence upon his conduct, while +long use and wont had unawares given her the same sort of hold upon his +affections that was possessed in a much higher degree by Rory, the pony, +whose humours were of course easier to put up with than human foibles. +But the old woman measured his magnanimity by the immensity of the +benefit which it had conferred upon her, and with a strong revulsion of +feeling she formed an opinion of his virtues and talents as exalted +quite as that which she had often secretly jibed at in his father. +Accordingly she sang his praises unweariedly among their new neighbours, +and, as Ody was vain enough not to dislike the echoes which reached him, +he soon began to look<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> upon her with more complacency, so that they +agreed much better than heretofore. She found no small solace, too, +after her long cronyless isolation up at the Three Mile Farm, in the +company of Mrs. Joyce, and Mrs. Keogh, and the other Lisconnel dames. In +short, a kind of Indian summer of content seemed to be setting in for +her. Moggy's mind, however, was of the self-tormenting type, and soon +devised means of marring it. They took the form of apprehensions that +Ody would presently get married, and that thereupon "the wife would put +her out of it." If she had only known, Ody was at this time, as for many +years ensuing, far too much taken up with himself, and Rory, and "the +little consarn away in the bog," to entertain any such project; but as +it was she felt that the event, with all its direful consequences, +perpetually hung over her, and might at any moment bring her new +prosperity to a miserable end. Her impending great-niece-in-law was a +vaguely appalling spectre, who threatened to take the roof from over her +head, and the bit out of her mouth, and turn her adrift to founder +hopelessly on the workhouse doorsteps. But it was not until more than a +year after their settlement at Lisconnel that she endued her bogey with +one definite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> form, by making up her mind that Ody "was thinkin' of +Theresa Joyce."</p> + +<p>Her reason was that she had one fine evening seen him carrying Theresa's +water-pail for her down the hill, an ordinary act of courtesy enough, +but the sight of which suddenly darkened the world before her foolish +old eyes more dismally than if the golden fleece of the summer sunset +had been smothered under the blackest pall ever woven in cloud-looms. +"Fine colloguin' they're havin' together," she said to herself as she +watched them and their long shadows down the slope, "and he sloppin' the +half of it over the edge instead of mindin' what he's doin'. It's +throwin' me out on the side of the road she'll be." In reality Theresa +was wondering why there would be, a quare black sidimint like, in the +water on some days and not on others; and Ody was explaining the +phenomenon confidently and erroneously on an extemporised theory of his +own. But to old Moggy's fears it seemed quite possible that they might +be fixing the wedding-day. For Theresa Joyce herself she had no manner +of misliking at all, considering her to be "a very dacint plisant-spoken +little girl," but Mrs. Ody Rafferty seemed none the less certain to +evict her without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> remorse. And Ody's aunt retired to rest that night in +a despondent mood.</p> + +<p>It was just about this time that Denis O'Meara came to stay at Lisconnel +on sick leave. The O'Mearas lived in one of the three cabins which used +to stand near the O'Beirne's forge, but which the great Famine and Fever +year left tenantless for ever after. Their household consisted of the +two infirm old people with their melancholy middle-aged son Tim, and +their sickly grandson, little Joe Egan, who was Denis's cousin. Now +Denis had been wounded in a battle somewhere out in India, and had been +promoted sergeant—"and he but a young boyo so to spake"—and owned four +medals, and stood six foot three in his stockings, and was as fine a +figure of a man as you could wish to see, let alone his gorgeous scarlet +uniform, which was a sight to behold; so if he was not a hero, get me +one, as we say in Lisconnel. But Lisconnel was quite satisfied with him +in that worshipful character, and found it very easy to adopt the +appropriate attitude towards him. For Denis was good-natured and +cheerful and never conceited at all, nor vain when there was anything +more to the purpose for him to be; qualities which have an irresistible +fascination in distinguished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> personages and make their followers' duty +a pleasure. It was wonderful how his sojourn enlivened everybody, even +his mournful little old grandmother, whose gratification expressed +itself chiefly in regrets that his poor father and mother had not lived +to see the illigant man he'd grown. When she said this to the younger +matrons of Lisconnel, they thought that the crathurs' fate was +commiserable indeed, and earnestly hoped that they themselves would be +spared, plase God, to witness the splendid careers that lay before their +own Denises at present playing among the puddles. But the older ones had +to content themselves with the knowledge that if they had only just so +happened to get the same chances, their own lads would have done the +very same things; a fact which seemed to give them a sort of +hypothetical proprietorship in Denis's glory. His presence brightened up +society as a tall poppy brightens up all a sombre potato-plot, and his +conversation brought strange lands and extraordinary events within one +remove—a single pair of eyes and ears—of everybody's experience. For +many years after "the summer we had Denis O'Meara up here" made a vivid +time-mark in our annals; and I fancy that the stories of some of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> his +exploits, with their outlines looming large through a mythical +mistiness, still float in our atmosphere. There is at least one legend +relating how a soldier out in the East cut off a mad elephant's head at +a stroke of his sabre, with the hero of which Denis O'Meara could +probably be identified. Altogether he was so exceptionally brilliant a +figure both in himself and in his fortunes, that the interest which he +excited had no element of envy in it, as might have been the case had +emulation seemed less utterly beyond everybody's reach.</p> + +<p>Next to his cousin, Joe Egan, a stunted, starved-looking sprissawn of a +lad, perhaps the most appreciative of his admirers was big Hugh +McInerney, whom people were apt to call an omadhawn. He also was, +comparatively speaking, a stranger at Lisconnel, having come there only +that spring to give John O'Driscoll a hand with the building of his mud +cabin, after which he stayed about doing what odd jobs offered at that +slack season of the year. Now and then he tramped on distillery business +for Felix O'Beirne, and generally acquitted himself in a manner which +appeared worthy of contempt to young Ody Rafferty, who was his companion +on these expeditions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>. Ody expressed his opinion in unqualified terms, +saying, "Sure it 'ud disgust you to see him moonin' along like an ould +donkey strayed out of a fair." But his senior partner, rather to his +annoyance, persisted in replying, "But, mind you, the chap's no fool." +He had nobody belonging to him at Ballybrosna, whence he came, and some +people said that he had been a workhouse child.</p> + +<p>At the time of Denis O'Meara's arrival, he was darning the widow Joyce's +thatch for her, and "not killin' himself ever the job," as people said, +when they reckoned how many days he had been visible crawling about on +the top of her little house, a conspicuous position in which he looked, +Mrs. Con Ryan remarked, "a quarer great gawk than he did on dry lan'." +He was occupied thus on the first afternoon that Denis walked up there +with some of the other lads, and while they talked to Mrs. Joyce and +Theresa underneath, the thatcher took a leisurely and critical survey of +the scarlet and golden newcomer, from his wonderfully polished boots to +his sleek dark head and fierce moustache. The verdict he pronounced to +himself with unfeigned satisfaction was, "Grandeur's no name for him." +Hugh himself, of large<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> and lumbering frame, had a shag of reddish +flaxen hair, which made thatch-like eaves above his small, light-blue +eyes and high burnt-brick-coloured cheek-bones. He wore whitey-brown +rags. After the rest had gone on and in, he slithered down to the ground +and told Theresa, who was still standing by the door, that she didn't +look the size of a bit of a lady-bird beside the soldier fellow. If +anybody else had made this personal remark, Theresa might have been a +little hurt by it, as she wished herself of more imposing stature; but +sure nobody minded poor Hugh McInerney; at any rate she said, "Aye, he's +a terrible big man, isn't he? Apt to knock the head off himself he'd be +if he was offerin' to come in at our door."</p> + +<p>However, on the very next day Denis contrived to accomplish that feat +without any such accident when he called in at the Joyces' to ask was +his grandmother there—which she was not, nor indeed likely to be. +Failing to find the old woman, he postponed his quest for the present +and stayed talking to Theresa, who, as it happened, was at home; and +then he stopped again outside to help Hugh McInerney by handing him up +some rolls of green-sodded scraws and slippery bundles of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> rushes. His +long reach made him serviceable here, though his left arm was still +partially disabled by the sabre-cut that had invalided him. The gleam of +the red coat at the Joyces' door had apparently as fascinating an effect +upon Lisconnel as if the place had been inhabited by a population that +bellowed and gobbled its greetings instead of saying, "How's yourself, +lad?" and "It's a grand day, thank God," as it came sauntering up +dispersedly from various quarters. Before many minutes had passed quite +a numerous group were collected, for in these long midsummer days there +is little to be done up here except save the turf, a business which fine +weather makes short work of. In the weeks before the potato-digging, +employment becomes as scarce as the pitaties themselves, and the hours +hang limp and flaccid between the meals which punctuate them with a +plateful of coarse-grained gruel. Therefore to Christy Sheridan and +Terence Kilfoyle, with half a dozen of their neighbours, the sight of +their distinguished visitor was an oasis in a very arid desert, and they +made towards it thirstily.</p> + +<p>By and by the group drifted away from the road before the Joyces' house +into the rough<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> sward behind it; rather literally drifted, as the cause +of the move was the wind, a strong soft west wind which had been blowing +over the bog all the morning in great wide gusts. They seemed to lean +hard against whatever they met, and made standing still an effort, and +devastated conversation by carrying off important fragments of it +uncaught, no matter how loudly one bawled. But the big boulders and +furze-clumps strewn about in a slight depression close by offered seats +and shelter opportunely; so amongst them presently appeared Denis +O'Meara's scarlet tunic, and Theresa Joyce's brown-striped shawl, and +Mrs. Ryan's white-frilled flapping cap, which she said was bein' +fluttered to destruction off her ould head, and Hugh McInerney's +many-rifted caubeen, for he declared that until the flurry of the blast +went down a bit you might as well be lettin' on to thatch the sails +whirlin' of a win'mill. And the rest of the company following suit might +be described in terms of their attire as for the most part sad-coloured +and dilapidated. It was just such a gathering as may be sitting to sun +themselves at Lisconnel this day—if it happens to be a fine summer +one—but with a touch of brilliance, both for eye and ear, added by the +young soldier's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> presence. They had, however, but fitful gleams to bask +in, for the sky was all feathered over with little silver-white plumes, +which the wind kept ruffling by so fast that the light flickered in and +out continually, as if it had come through a canopy of large slowly +waving leaves. Still, they gossiped beneath it with much satisfaction, +and catechised Denis about his adventures, and told him all the news of +the countryside; and there seemed to be no particular reason why they +should not go on doing so indefinitely. What in the end broke up the +assembly was a slight mishap that befell Theresa Joyce.</p> + +<p>It cannot be denied that Theresa was rather vain about her long black +hair, which she had only of late begun to put up in thick silken coils. +Her mother said you had to take your two hands to a one of them, like as +if you were twisting a big <i>suggawn</i> (hay-rope); and they looked almost +too heavy for her small head, no matter how closely they were wound +about it. A rippling wave, moreover, ran through these tresses, which +were exceedingly soft and fine; so her vanity was perhaps excusable. At +any rate, it led her to fashion herself a small knot of cherry-coloured +ribbon made of a bit that had trimmed the sleeve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> of her mother's purple +merino gown. It was a <i>very</i> small knot, because most of the bit had got +mildewed lying up, before Theresa grew to concern herself about such +things. But it looked as bright in her hair as a ruddy berry on a dark +foliaged creeper, and she wore it with a pleasure, which was destined to +be brief. For as she sat knitting with the quietly creeping fingers of +an expert in that art, a vagrant gust maliciously whisked off her little +gawd, and tossing it contumeliously on the ground, as if it were not +worth carrying, began to puff it along, skimming over the heather and +tussocks. Denis O'Meara all but rescued it for her, only that Hugh +McInerney—the omadhawn—starting forward at the same time, blundered up +against him, and tumbled with him into a furze-bush. And before they +picked themselves up, the cherry-coloured knot had met its fate in the +shape of the Ryans' black and white kid. She was tethered close by, and +had been apparently absorbed in scratching her forehead with her left +hind foot in a way that said much for the limberness of her youthful +joints. But as the bit of ribbon flirted past her she made a rapid +snatch, and swallowed it at a gulp. Mrs. Ryan stood dismayed at possible +serious consequences<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> to the kid, and Theresa at the certain loss of her +scrap of finery; and everybody else was saying to Hugh McInerney: "Och, +you great omadhawn, why couldn't you keep yourself aisy? He had it safe +enough on'y for you gettin' under his feet"—everybody, that is, except +Denis O'Meara, who said: "Sure now the both of us wasn't mindin' rightly +where we was chargin' to; and the raison of that belike was the nayther +of us thinkin' so much of what we was runnin' after, as of who we was +runnin' for—and small blame to us bedad."</p> + +<p>But Hugh's self-esteem was not restored by the good-natured excuse. He +said: "Truth it is, I'd a right to ha' sted quiet. For the on'y notion I +had was puttin' meself for'ard to be gettin' a hould of it before any of +the others." And he walked off crestfallen to resume his perch on the +thatch.</p> + +<p>As for Theresa, she ignored Denis's pretty speech, and said 'deed now +she remembered her mother had bid her step up and see what way Ody +Rafferty's aunt was that morning. And she, too, withdrew from the group +to make this visit of inquiry.</p> + +<p>As she passed on her way under the place<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> where Hugh was thatching, he +dropped a small handful of rushes on her head to call her attention, and +when she looked up she saw his red-brick-hued face in a wild +tow-coloured halo peering down at her from over the eaves. "I am sorry I +lost it on you," he said.</p> + +<p>"Ah, no matter about it; and it wasn't your fau't more than another's," +said Theresa.</p> + +<p>"You'd ha' had it now," said Hugh, "if it wasn't for the little goat +gettin' the chance to ait it while himself was tumblin' over me. But I'd +as lief have your hair the way it is now. It is the blackest ever I +seen. One might think you'd gathered it out of the middles of them red +poppies there. Stick a couple of them in it, if you want anythin'; but +to my mind it's better widout. On'y if you've the fancy to be tyin' the +bit of red string through it, I'm sorry it was ate."</p> + +<p>Hugh's head drew back, and disappeared from her view; but next moment +she heard him say mournfully: "What am I after doin'? Puttin' me fut +that far down a houle it's caught fast between a couple of rafters. +Firrm it is, begorrah. If I don't mind what I'm at, it's pullin' the +half of their house down, and wranchin' me ankle I'll be before I free +meself." And she saw him struggling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> cautiously on the roof all the +while she was ascending the slope to Ody Rafferty's door, within which +his aunt was at present a prisoner.</p> + +<p>A reluctant and repining one she was, having been seized with a bad +attack of lumbago at a time when she felt particularly anxious to keep a +vigilant eye upon what occurred in her neighbourhood, instead of being +left dependent upon hearsay for a knowledge of anything happening +outside her four draughty walls. Many a care-infested hour she fretted +away between them. For how could she tell with what insidious steps the +calamity to ensue from Ody's courtship of Theresa Joyce might all the +while be stealing on her? She dared not confide her fears to any +neighbour, nor would she have put much faith in the report of +observation unwhetted thereby; and she lived in daily dread of hearing +the news announced as no mere conjecture or rumour, but a very hard +fact. As the days wore on the idea took possession of her more and more +completely, but she could only wreak her helpless ill-humour by doing +foolish and futile things, such as dilating to Ody upon the imprudence +of getting married, and the undesirable qualities of black-looking slips +of colleens—a simple and ingenious expedient for putting him out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> +conceit with all and any of them; while she assumed towards Theresa a +demeanor so glum and repellent that the girl could not attribute it +entirely to the irritability caused by rheumatic twinges, and from one +of her charitably intentioned visits returned with a disconcerted +expression, and a resolve, which she kept, to pay no more. But in fact +Ody was during these weeks even more than usually engrossed by the +affairs of the inobtrusive little manufactory, which he and Felix +O'Beirne superintended away in a retired part of the bog; and not they +alone, but Lisconnel collectively, had been going through some +excitement on this account. This was occasioned by the livelier interest +which the police had recently manifested in that branch of home +industry, stimulated by admonitions from their authorities to the effect +that the hunting down of illicit stills, and confiscation of the +produce, might with advantage be carried on more energetically. Hence +had resulted several appearances in Lisconnel of the constabulary from +Ballybrosna and other stations, and when these occurred Ody was in his +element of wiles and stratagems. More than once he enjoyed the moment of +their visitors' departure on a wild-goose chase, "consaitin' they've got +us be the hind leg<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> this time for sartin;" and long did he chuckle over +the evening when they came and "sat discoorsin' as plisint and aisy as a +rabbit in its houle," by a hearth where there was "enough of the stuff +to float the lot of them lyin' widin six inches of their shiny brogues." +It was, however, thought expedient to guard against a repetition of this +perilous entertainment, and the contraband crocks were transferred to a +still more secluded hiding-place in the queer tiny sod-and-stone shanty +with Hugh McInerney, who had displayed unexpected strategical ability +and presence of mind under late emergencies, now knocked up for himself +in a hollow behind the hill. So old Moggy's fears might have been better +employed. Then about this time, too, a thrill was caused by the +mysterious horseman, who visited the O'Beirnes' forge one night, and got +old Felix to break open for him an immensely strong, small iron box +which he carried. The same box being found next morning lying empty in +the little Lisconnel stream, beside which the horse, "a grand big roan," +was quietly grazing, while his rider was nowhere, nor was ever after +anywhere, to be seen; an incident which gave scope for infinite +speculation at Lisconnel.</p> + +<p>All these things happened before Ody's aunt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> got about again. By that +time it was well on in August, and the season having been hot and dry, +Lisconnel's oat-patches were already reflecting as if in a mirror, +tarnished somewhat and rusted, the broad golden blaze that had looked +down on them so steadily, and people had begun to think about reaping. +The Ryans' field, indeed, was so ripe by the day of Ballybrosna Big +Fair, that Paddy Ryan commissioned Hugh McInerney to bring him back a +reaping-hook from it. Hugh was going to attend it on business of his +own, and Ody Rafferty had some bulkier commissions to execute in behalf +of his neighbours. But he encountered some difficulties in getting under +way, due to the inopportune devices of old Rory, whom he proposed to +bring with him. Ody had been careful not to put on his best clothes +until he had caught the beast, because, as he remarked, "He well knew +the crathur 'ud be off wid himself hidin' in the unhandiest place the +divil 'ud put in his mind, if he noticed e'er a dacint stitch on him." +Yet despite this precaution, when his master went to look for him after +breakfast, no black pony was in sight.</p> + +<p>"And he that'll be foosterin' everywhere under your feet other whiles, +he's that fond of company,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> said Ody's aunt, who hobbled out of doors +for the first time to assist in the search. "Belike he's seen you +rubbin' up your brogues, and be raison of that he's took off wid +himself. Bedad, now the big ould head of him is as full of desate as it +can hould."</p> + +<p>"He's a notorious schemer, God forgive him," Ody said, rather sadly, for +it went against the grain with him to admit defects in Rory.</p> + +<p>But his scheming bade fair to prove successful, as Ody after long +hunting stood baffled at the door, with his expedition seemingly +frustrated, when Hugh McInerney passing by reported that he "was after +seein' the baste lanin' gathered up close agin the back of the big stone +above there, wid a continted grin on the ould gob of him that 'ud +frighten you wid the villiny was in it." Whereupon the two young men +went to dislodge him from his fool's paradise, and the three started +together without further delay.</p> + +<p>Till a short way down the road they met old Felix O'Beirne, and with him +Denis O'Meara, at whose heels followed Joe Egan, ragged and small, his +habit being to dog his splendid cousin so persistently that old Mrs. +Byers next door said she wondered "the young chap didn't of an odd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> +while take him be the two shoulders and sling him over the dyke."</p> + +<p>"So you're off to the fair," said old O'Beirne. "And is it sellin' the +pony you'd be at last? Sure, now, he'll be the pick of the market, +that's sartin."</p> + +<p>"Ah, they'll niver give me me price for him, the naygurs," said Ody.</p> + +<p>"Our Captin-Commandin' here had a right to take him off of you for a +throoper," said old O'Beirne, "and, faix, there wouldn't be his aquil in +the len'th and breadth of the army. What 'ud you offer for him, lad? +Look at the size of the head he has on him, and the onnathural white +face of him that's fit to scare a rigimint before it, if there was +nothin' else."</p> + +<p>"Is it broke bankrupt you'd have me then?" said Denis, "settin' up to be +buyin' meself mounts of that expinsive discripshin?"</p> + +<p>"Musha, good gracious, man, promise him the first thruppinny-bit you +meet floatin' down the river on a grindstone, and you'll be buyin' every +hair in his tail," said the old man. "But come along and don't be +delayin' thim. They're goin' after fairin's for their sweethearts, the +way you'd be yourself if you worn't too great a naygur. Or,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> maybe, +there isn't anythin' good enough for her to be had in Ballybrosna—is +that the raison of it?"</p> + +<p>Little Joe was beginning to say in a resentful shout: "Naygur +yourself—he and I are goin' to get——" But Denis pulled him on +jocularly by the collar, and the parties went their several ways.</p> + +<p>Ody then said: "Sweethearts is it? He's the quare ould man for talkin'. +Glory be to the great goodness, I'm throubled wid ne'er a one. 'Here's +out of it,' sez I. 'Onnathural,' sez he, musha cock him up, and himself +shoein' ould garrons all the days of his life. Hi along, Rory, jewel!"</p> + +<p>But Hugh said, meditatively, and more than half to himself, which was +rather a habit of his: "Well, now, for the matter of the fairin', it's +just the best len'th of ribbon I can get thim to give me for a shillin'. +Yella it's to be. I wasn't long aither plannin' a way to find out the +colour she'd like. Sure, I gave her a bunch of flowers wid poppies in +it, and daisies, and furze-blossom, and foxglove, and forgit-me-not, and +midowsweet, and sez I to her, which of thim was the finest coloured. +And, sez she, the furze-blossom was, be raison of it bein' the bright +gould all over, that the others<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> had mostly only a spark of somewheres +inside. So it's to be yella. Tellin' you the truth, I'd liefer she +wouldn't be wearin' e'er such a thing at all, anyways not in her hair, +that's a sight purtier just in the big black twists. But, sure, it's the +fancy she has, and morebetoken, I think bad of me lettin' the little +goat swally the weeny bit she had on her. Ay bedad, I'd a right to be +bringin' it to her; and, at all evints, I'd be doin' a foolish thing to +come home widout it, and me not gettin' the bit of fat bacon these six +weeks next Saturday to make up the price. I won'er now what len'th +they'd give you for one shillin'?"</p> + +<p>But Ody, who had not been listening, only said, oracularly: "Och! that's +accordin'," which did not materially assist Hugh's speculations.</p> + +<p>Yellow ribbons were not plentiful at Ballybrosna fair, and Hugh +McInerney had to ask for them vainly at several stalls before he came to +an old-clothes cart, where the proprietress, being hot and cross, took +him aback by replying: "And who ever heard tell of sellin' ribbons be +the len'th, you quare-lookin' stookawn?"</p> + +<p>"Sure it's meself couldn't say but you might; I niver had any call to be +buyin' such a thing before. But a bit that one shillin' 'ud be the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> +price of is what I'm wishful to be gettin', if it was yella—and beggin' +your pardon, ma'am," Hugh answered with a glib meekness, which mollified +the old woman as much as his not undesigned mention of his shilling.</p> + +<p>So she said, "'Deed, now, I believe I've a splindid yella bit +somewheres, a trifle creased in the folds, that I could make you a +prisint of for a shillin'." And she rummaged, and unrolled before him +interminable coils of vivid dandelion-hued ribbon. "The grand colour of +it couldn't be bet," she said, "in Ireland. You could see it a mile off, +and you wouldn't get the match of it in Dublin under half-a-crown. If +she wouldn't be plased wid that, you've got an odd one to satisfy."</p> + +<p>Ody with Rory came by as she was wrapping it up in paper, and Hugh, +pointing to his purchase with a melancholy air, said, in an aggrieved +tone: "It's a <i>terrible</i> quantity they're about givin' me—yards and +yards—enough to rope round a haystack; and it's an ojis colour. Troth, +now, if she takes the notion to be stickin' the whole of it on top of +the little black head of her, it's an objec' she'll make of herself, she +will so. It's a pity. I'd liefer there hadn't been the half of it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What for then are you gettin' more than enough of whatever it is?" Ody +asked not unreasonably. "Supposin' you wanted any such thrash at all at +all."</p> + +<p>"Ah, sure, I settled in me own mind to be spendin' me shillin' on it, +and that's the way it is," Hugh said resignedly. "Maybe she'll have more +wit, the bit of a crathur; she might never put it on. So now I've on'y +to see after Paddy Ryan's rapin'-hook, and then I'm done. And is it +carryin' them two bags all the way home you'd be? Sure there's plinty of +room for them on the baste."</p> + +<p>"Ay, is there?" said Ody. "But the fac' is Rory's in none too good a +temper this minyit, goodness help him, and he'll be apt to thravel more +contint, the crathur, if he sees he's not the on'y body wid a loadin'."</p> + +<p>"Rax me over the one of them," said Hugh, "I've nought barrin' the bit +of ribbon, and the rapin'-hook 'ill be nothin' to me at all."</p> + +<p>And in this way they plodded back to Lisconnel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>A FAIRING</h3> + + +<p>Up at Lisconnel, meanwhile, as the idle hours loitered by, Ody +Rafferty's aunt grew tired of her solitary housekeeping, and late in the +afternoon she made her way down as far as the Joyces'. Here a number of +the neighbours were sitting about in almost the same place where Theresa +had sustained the loss of her cherry-coloured knot. But to-day there +were no rough breezes stirring to bring about such disasters by their +unmannerly pranks. The sun-steeped air was so still that the thick +bushes stood as steady as the boulders, and even the rushes nodded +slightly and stiffly. As the old woman hobbled down the slope she saw +Denis O'Meara's scarlet uniform gleaming martially against a background +of dark broom and hoary rock. Its wearer was, however, very peacefully +employed in pulling the silky floss off the heads of the bog-cotton, +which lay in a great heap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> before him on a flat-topped boulder, with a +big bunch of many-hued wild flowers beside it. Theresa Joyce, who sat +opposite to him, was pulling bog-cotton too, though less diligently, for +it might have been noticed that she often looked off her work, and +towards the scrap of road that lay within her ken. Joe Egan was at his +cousin's elbow, and a few other lads and lasses made a rough circle. But +old Mrs. Joyce, and old Mrs. Ryan, and old Paddy Ryan, and old Felix +O'Beirne had established themselves on a low grassy bank at a little +distance. It was kept so closely cropped by the Ryans' goat that its +dandelions grew dwarfed and stalkless, and were set flat in the fine +sward like mock suns. All this day the real sun had shone on it so +strongly that the air was aromatic with the odour of its dim-blossomed +herbs, and to touch it was like laying your hand on the warm side of +some sleek-coated beast. Old Paddy said you might think you were sitting +on the back of an ould cow, but his wife rejoined that "you'd have to go +far enough from Lisconnel, worse luck, before you'd get the chance of +doin' such a thing." And she shook her head over the reflection so +regretfully that a matter-of-fact person might have inferred her to have +been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> formerly much in the habit of enjoying seats on the backs of cows.</p> + +<p>These elders, from where they sat, commanded a comprehensive view of the +crops of Lisconnel, its potatoes and oats, green and gold, meshed in +their grey stone fences, and flecked with obstructive boulders and +laboured cairns. In the middle of the Ryans' neighbouring field there is +a block of quartzite, as big as a small turf-stack, which gleamed +exceedingly white from amongst the deep muffling greenery of the +potato-plants. Mrs. Joyce had been praising their thriving aspect to old +Paddy, who, however, was disposed to express a gloomy view of them.</p> + +<p>"It's too rank they're growin' altogether," he said; "ne'er a big crop +you'll get under that heigth of haulms. 'Heavy thatchin' and light +liftin',' as the sayin' is."</p> + +<p>To Felix O'Beirne the smooth leafy surface recalled a far-off incident +of the War, when the dense foliage of a certain potato-field had +permitted the execution of a curious military manœuvre. It was one of +old O'Beirne's favourite stories, and he often related it at full +length, but to-day it was cut short by the arrival of Ody Rafferty's +aunt, whom Mrs. Joyce and Mrs. Ryan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> were prompt to greet, making room +for her between them on the bank with an alacrity which somehow conveyed +an impression of uneasiness lest she should establish herself elsewhere.</p> + +<p>Presently she said: "And what at all is Theresa busy wid over +yonder—and young O'Meara? Is it bogberries they're after pullin'?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Joyce said: "No, ma'am, it isn't bogberries;" and left further +explanations to Mrs. Ryan, with the air of one who refrains from +self-glorification, but counts upon its being done for her, more +gracefully, by deputy.</p> + +<p>"Sure wasn't he out on the bog the len'th of the day, since early this +mornin', he and little Joe, gadrin' her the bog-cotton?" said Mrs. Ryan. +"The full of a pitaty-creel he brought her. They have it there in a +hape."</p> + +<p>"'Twas because he heard her sayin' last night she wished she had a good +bit of it to stuff the pillow she's makin' me," put in Mrs. Joyce. "Off +he went after it the first thing this mornin'."</p> + +<p>"Whethen now, is that the way of the win'?" said Ody Rafferty's aunt, +with a pleased smile, striking out unfamiliar paths among her wrinkles. +"Troth, but I'm rael glad to hear it. Bedad, it's a grand thing for +little Theresa."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He's a very dacint poor lad," Mrs. Joyce said, looking over with pride +at the handsome young sergeant, and thinking that Ody Rafferty's aunt +must have some good nature in her after all, since she was so evidently +glad of their good luck.</p> + +<p>"'Deed but there's not a finer young man in the kingdom of Connaught +this day," said Mrs. Ryan, who could, of course, be frankly laudatory. +"And wid everybody's good word, high and low, and drawin' grand pay, and +the colonel in his rigimint ready to do a turn for him any time, and a +rael steady kind-hearted lad to the back of that. But sure he's after as +nice a little girl as he'd ha' found anywheres, wid all his thravellin', +and as good as gould. He'll be very apt to be spakin' out to her +prisintly, for it's gettin' near his lave's ind, and what for would they +be waitin'? But to my mind it's as good as made up after what he's done +to-day."</p> + +<p>In a little while after this Ody Rafferty's aunt slipped away, and set +off hobbling along the road towards Duffclane. She wanted to intercept +her grand-nephew on his way home and tell him this news. For all day she +had been haunted by an apprehension that Ody meant to return with a +fairing for Theresa, the presentation of which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> might bring about a +crisis in his courtship very disastrous from her own point of view. Old +Moggy surveyed her world rather steadily at all times from that +particular outlook, finding in her solitary superfluousness little to +deflect her gaze. The disappointment which, on her own theory, these +tidings would bring to Ody did not do so now, and she put her best foot +foremost, animated by the pleasure of telling some new thing, one, +moreover, that threw a reassuring light upon her situation. With even +her amended opinion of the lad she could hardly imagine that he would +have a chance against magnificent Denis O'Meara, whom nobody would have +ever expected to look for a wife in poor little Lisconnel—but you never +could tell, and she felt that it still behoved her to be on her guard +against all possible perils. Therefore she at present thought it +expedient to waylay Ody, and let him know that if he had any notion of +Theresa Joyce, he was a day after the fair.</p> + +<p>Hobbling on bent and breathless, wrapped in her rusty black shawl, with +her shadow flitting far out over the level bog amid the slanted beams, +she looked a not inappropriate messenger of woe, symbolically impotent +and insignificant; a little dark speck in the wide westering light; a +feeble<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> stir of life creeping on the verge of a vast silent solitude; +and full, withal, of baseless fears and futile plots, concerning the +withered shred of existence that remained to her. She was just in the +nick of time, she said to herself, when she saw the trio presently +coming over the top of the hill. Ody was pointing out conciliatingly to +the morose Rory how they'd be at home now nearly in the time he'd be +waggin' his tail; and Hugh McInerney was resolving that he would go on +straight to his own place, and defer the presentation of the ugly yellow +ribbon until to-morrow. All three were hot and fagged and dusty.</p> + +<p>"Well, lad, and what's the best good news wid you?" Ody's aunt said to +him, as they met.</p> + +<p>"Little enough," said Ody.</p> + +<p>"And you comin' out of a fair?" she said. "Bedad now, we make a better +offer at it ourselves up here for the matter of news."</p> + +<p>"What's that at all?" said Ody.</p> + +<p>"Sure amn't I just after hearin' tell of a grand weddin' there's goin' +to be prisintly?" said his aunt, "and that doesn't happen every day of +the year."</p> + +<p>"Och, a weddin'," said Ody. "I was thinkin' maybe there was somethin' +quare at our little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> place beyant yonder. But as long as it's nothin' +worser than weddin's you're hearin' tell of, I'm contint, if you +listened the two ears off your head."</p> + +<p>"It's Denis O'Meara and Theresa Joyce has made a match of it," said his +aunt, conscious that she was slightly overstating facts; "settled up it +is on'y this evenin'. And the weddin's bound to be before his lave's +out—so there's for you."</p> + +<p>"Sure good luck to the both of thim," said Ody, "Theresa Joyce is a +plisant little bein', I'll say that for her, and divil a bit of harm +there is in O'Meara aither. A fine chap he is for a sodger; not that +they're any great things as far as I can see—just pólis a thrifle +smartened up."</p> + +<p>Ody's thoughts were for the moment running on the police, a couple of +whom he had lately espied at a short distance coming across the bog.</p> + +<p>"Well, if you wanted to see the two of thim," said his aunt, raising her +voice as he began to drive Rory on, "there they are, just at the back of +her place, sortin' the stuff he's after gettin' her on the bog. He +brought her the full of the pitaty-creel. Her mother's as plased over it +as anythin', and sot up too, aye is she bedad."</p> + +<p>The old woman was for the time being almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> as much disappointed as +relieved by the equanimity with which Ody had received her tidings; yet +if she had but known, they had not failed to produce a strong sensation. +Only she never thought of considering how they might affect that quare +big gawk Hugh McInerney. What did occur to her in his connection as he +begun to trudge alongside her after the pony, was that "he was as ugly +as if he had been bespoke." For Hugh's long tramp under the sultry sun +had scorched him a deeper and more uniform red brick than usual, and his +shock of tow-coloured hair jutting from beneath an unnoticeable round +cap, looked more than ever like thatch over his blinking blue eyes. When +they had gone a few yards in silence he suddenly said musingly—</p> + +<p>"I dunno why he wouldn't have as good a right to be bringin' her +anythin' she had a fancy for off the bog in a pitaty-creel, as me to be +buyin' her len'ths of hijis-coloured ribbons to make a show of herself +wid. But all the same, I'd as lief he'd let it alone. For some raison or +other I've the wish in me mind I was slingin' the whole of it into one +of thim bog-houles out there—and that 'ud be no thing to go do on +her.... And that was a quare story the ould woman had about thim<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> +gettin' married. Somebody was apt to be makin' a fool of her. Who was it +would be tellin' her I won'er?"</p> + +<p>But old Moggy partly overheard and said: "Thim that knew what they was +talkin' about, supposin' it's any affair of yours."</p> + +<p>So he did the rest of his meditating inaudibly. He said to himself that +he was steppin' home straight—continuing the while to walk in quite the +opposite direction—and that he wouldn't be goin' to the Joyces' place +to-night at all; what 'ud bring him there, and it gettin' so late? But +of course he went there, as surely as a swimming bubble goes over the +cataract's smooth lip, or a fascinated little bird down the snake's +throat.</p> + +<p>For the sensation which he had begun to experience, and which was a +strong one, and strange to him, was nothing less than jealousy. He was +jealous of that pitaty-creel.</p> + +<p>When he came to the place Ody's aunt had told of, he found a group of +young Joyces and Ryans and others gathered among the boulders and bushes +in a circle of which the heap of bog-cotton formed the centre; and a +glance having showed him that it included Denis and Theresa, he sat down +facing them, and said to himself:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> + +<p>"If I'd known, now, it was bog-cotton she was wantin', I could ha' been +gadrin' her plinty last night after I come home. There's a gran' big +moon these times, wid lashin's and lavin's of light to be gettin' thim +kind of glimmerin' things by. I seen a black place below between the +sthrame of wather and the roadside all waved over white wid it, like as +if it was a fall of snow thryin' could it flutter off away wid itself +agin out of the world. I'd have got her enough to fill a six-fut sack. +What for didn't the crathur tell me?"</p> + +<p>Pursuing these and other such reflections Hugh's attention, which at all +times had a long tether, strayed far afield. He did not hear Denis +O'Meara inquire of him twice whether Ody Rafferty had got his fine price +for the old pony; not yet Peter Ryan rejoin after an interval that he +supposed it was such a big one, anyway, Hugh McInerney couldn't get it +out of his mouth—that was sizable enough. No doubt it was this symptom +of absentmindedness that emboldened Thady Joyce to set about twitching +out of Hugh's pocket the flimsy paper parcel seen protruding from it, a +feat which he achieved undetected, while his surrounding accomplices +nudged one another and whispered: "Och he has it now—whoo-oo he'll do +it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thady conveyed what he had filched to Molly and Nelly Ryan, who +manipulated it for some time amid much giggling; and then Nelly, with +dexterous audacity pinned their handiwork on to the cap of her neighbour +Denis O'Meara, who sat all unawares. Thus it came to pass that when Hugh +was at last roused to a vague sense of tittering all round him, which +reached him much as the clacking chirp of sparrows gets meaninglessly +into our frayed morning dreams, and looking up out of his reverie, +stared about him for an explanation, the first thing his eyes lit on was +Denis's smart cap surmounted by a mass of gaudy yellow ribbon in immense +bows and loops and streamers, flapping and waggling absurdly at every +movement made by their unsuspecting wearer. And the spectacle caught his +breath, and dazzled his sight with a sudden scorching blast of wrath. +For it seemed to him that Denis was not making merely a mock of him and +his fairing, which he thought intrinsically of small amount, but through +it of Theresa herself and her foolish little fancies. And there sat +Theresa looking on, with a quick pink flush, and shining eyes, and a +quiver about her mouth. The next moment Hugh had hurled at the bedizened +cap what he happened to be holding in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> his hand. And this was Paddy +Ryan's new reaping-hook.</p> + +<p>Thereupon followed a terrible confusion and clamour, which seemed to +fill at a sweep all the spacious drowsy light of the sunsetting. For the +missile had gone surely to its mark, and had not simply knocked off +Denis's cap, but made a shocking gash in his temple, so that there were +only too sufficient reasons for the rising shrieks of "Holy Virgin, he's +murdhered—he's kilt!" Amid all the turmoil, with Denis fallen on the +ground, and Hugh standing staring, and everybody else rushing through +other like crows in a storm, one person alone appeared to act with a +definite purpose, and that was little Joe Egan. The event had made him +like one possessed with rage and despair. To Joe, weakly and timorous +and not over-wise, his valiant, handsome, good-natured soldier cousin +had come as the most splendid apparition that had shined upon him in the +dim course of his fifteen years; and he had spent the past three months +in adoring it very devoutly. So that now to see him laid low suddenly in +this savage fashion was a sight that might well cause a burning thirst +for vengeance upon the miscreant who had dealt the stroke. Joe generally +had to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> get his revenges wreaked by deputy; and now, as he darted away, +his intention was to find the pólis somewhere, and bring them to take up +"that great bastely murdherin' divil, Hugh McInerney," and if by any +means possible get him hung. He attained his object sooner than might +have been expected, as not far down the road a pair of constables were +run into by a small tatterdemalion figure, who, choking and stammering +and writhing in an ague fit of fury, proceeded to inform them that "Big +Hugh McInerney was just after murdherin' Denis O'Meara up above +there—takin' the head off him wid a rapin'-hook," and, further, that +"if they looked in the dirty thief's little place at the fut of the +hill, they'd find that every other stone in the walls of it was nothin' +else but a crock of poteen."</p> + +<p>This was the cause of the police's prompt arrival on the scene, where +nobody resented Joe's action. Denis's injury, though so grave, happily +did not seem to be mortal, in fact, on this occasion young Dan O'Beirne, +albeit scarcely more than a spalpeen, displayed a handiness and resource +about bandaging and other remedies, which foreshadowed his future +reputation throughout the district for knowledgableness in surgery and +medicine. Hugh McInerney was, of course, at once arrested, without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> any +resistance on his part, or any sympathy from the indignant neighbours. +He appeared to be what old Will Sheridan termed, "fallen into a serious +consternation," and was heard to make only one remark. It was when +people were saying that Theresa Joyce had took a wakeness, and her +brothers had carried her indoors. "Och, the crathur," he said, "and it +might aisy have hit her, very aisy. Miself's the quare divil."</p> + +<p>Once the police and their prisoner had gone, Denis having been brought +into the Ryans' house, a deep and melancholy hush settled down upon +Lisconnel, as if a murky wing had flapped out its brief flare of +excitement. The whole thing had happened so quickly that the rich light +from the west was still bronzing the edges of the flat-ledged furze +boughs, and rosing their white stems, when the little hollow behind the +Joyces' house rested quiet and deserted, with no traces left of the +company lately there assembled, except a litter of silky white +bog-cotton tufts, soon to be swept away by the breeze, and the unchancy +yellow ribbon, which had been torn out of Denis's cap, and lay coiling +among the rough grass, whence, as the dusk thickened, it glinted like +the wraith of a lost sunbeam or a ray from an evil star.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> + +<p>But that night fell very dark, with a moon so closely veiled that the +flaggers and bulrushes waving their swords and spears fast by, dwindled +into mere rustlings and murmurs—the air was full of them. At the +dimmest hour anybody who had stolen out of a neighbouring door, and +passed between the faintly glimmering white boulders, as if in search of +something lost there, might have seemed only one of the whispering +shadows. And these might have begun so say, "Sorra aught can I do at +all, at all. And ne'er a soul is there to spake a word—all of thim agin +him, and it no fau't of his, when he would be torminted that way. They'd +no call to go play such a thrick on him, and he didn't mane it a' +purpose, I very well know; but the other chap was intindin' to annoy +him, sittin' there wid a great ugly grin on his face. I wish he'd never +come next or nigh Lisconnel." But be that as it may, when the next +morning's light twinkled among the dewy blades, the yellow ribbon had +disappeared.</p> + +<p>After this the days seemed to drag heavily at Lisconnel, where a dulness +and flatness had come over society. Dr. Hamilton had carried off Denis +O'Meara to Ballybrosna, and there was nothing to fill up the blank he +left except speculations about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> his chances of recovery, and censures +upon Hugh McInerney, monotonously unanimous. In his favour, indeed, no +one seemingly had a word to say. People declared that "they'd never have +thought he'd take and do such a thing, for though he might ha' been a +quare sort of bosthoon, he was always dacint and paiceable." But +cancelled praise is the bitterest of blame; and they added that "it was +rael outrageous of him to go do murdher on the likes of Denis O'Meara, +and no credit to Lisconnel for it to be happenin' him there. Iligant +charácters it 'ud be givin' them if he wint back to the rigimint wid his +eyes slashed out of his head, as much as to say he hadn't a fair chance +among us unless he'd come wid his side-arms."</p> + +<p>The neighbours were of opinion, too, that "it was no wonder little +Theresa Joyce had got a bit moped and quiet, after her sweetheart bein' +as good as destroyed before her eyes, and it hard to say if she'd ever +see a sight of him again."</p> + +<p>"It was a misfort'nit thing," Mrs. Con Ryan remarked one day, when the +subject was under discussion, "that young O'Meara hadn't actually spoke +out before it happint thim. 'Twould ha' made her a dale aisier in her +mind now, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> wouldn't won'er. Because the way the matter stands, he +might take up wid some diff'rint notion, and just be off wid himself +like a cloud blown out of the sky, and she couldn't be sayin' a word, if +she was ever so sure of what he was intindin'."</p> + +<p>Young Mrs. Keogh, to whom she made the observation, refused to entertain +this view, and replied, "Sorra a fear is there of that. It was aisy to +see he'd ha' gone to the Well of the World's End after her, let alone +steppin' up from the Town, if he's spared to get his health. Ay, he'll +be comin' back for her one of these fine days, sure enough, plase God."</p> + +<p>But the fulfilment of her confident prediction looked several degrees +more doubtful in the light of one of the two pieces of news which Mrs. +Carbery, accompanied by her daughter Rose, conveyed to the Joyces' on a +bright September morning a short while after. Her son had come home with +it from the Town too late the night before. One of them was that Hugh +McInerney, who had been awaiting the assizes in Moynalone Jail, had died +of the fever there on last Friday. There was nothing very surprising in +this event, as Hugh's open-air life could have but ill acclimatised<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> him +to the atmosphere of the unclean little jail; and it was not likely to +be very deeply deplored at Lisconnel, where he had not been known long, +nor, as we have seen, much to his advantage.</p> + +<p>As Mrs. Carbery sat in the three-cornered arm-chair, with the sun-dazzle +off a burnished mug on the dresser shimmering into her eyes, and making +her blink quaintly, she said, with rather severe solemnity, that "she +hoped the young fellow had had time to repint of his sins, or else it +was very apt to be a bad look-out for him, and he after comin' widin a +shavin' of takin' another man's life no time at all ago, so to +spake—ne'er a chance but it would be clear in everybody's +recollection."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Joyce, however, said: "Ah, sure maybe the crathur wasn't intindin' +any such great harm all the while, God be good to him. And, anyway, +where he's gone he'll find plinty ready to be spakin' up for him, and +puttin' the best face they can on the matter."</p> + +<p>"Ay will he," said old Biddy Ryan, who was calling too, "and bedad it's +one great differ there is, be all accounts, between that place and this. +For here if a misfort'nit body does aught amiss, the first notion the +rest of us have, God forgive us,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> is to be axin' what worser he was +manin', like as if it was some manner of riddle, that there's bound to +be an answer to, if one could find it."</p> + +<p>"'Deed, and I dunno if they haven't very far to look, ma'am," said Mrs. +Carbery, with dignity, "when a chap does his endeavours to take the head +off another man wid a rapin'-hook, ma'am."</p> + +<p>"And <i>I</i> dunno, ma'am, for that matter," said old Biddy, also with +dignity, "if it's any such a great dale better to have one's mind took +up wid invintin' other people's bad intintions than if it was wid one's +own."</p> + +<p>"Ah, well! I wouldn't be thinkin' too bad of poor Hugh McInerney, at all +events," said Mrs. Joyce. "'Twas maybe a sort of accident, for he seemed +a dacint crathur afore that. Och now, to think it's on'y a few odd weeks +since he was creepin' about over our heads up there, mendin' th' ould +thatch! You'd whiles hear him hummin' away, talkin' to himself like some +sort of big bee—and in his grave to-day! But isn't it a lucky thing +that he's lavin' nobody belongin' to him to be breakin' their hearts +frettin' after him? Theresa, child dear, you've ne'er a stim of light to +be workin' in, sittin' there in the corner."</p> + +<p>But Theresa said she had light enough to blind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> her, and was only +winding a skein, and could see better to do that in the dark. So Mrs. +Carbery passed on to her second piece of news, which, though less +tragical than the first, was not likely to sound very cheerfully in the +ears of some among her audience. It ran that her son Ned was "after +seein' Denis O'Meara down beyant, and that he was doin' finely, next +door to himself again: and that the people in the Town did be sayin' he +was coortin' Mary Anne Neligan, the people's daughter that he was +lodgin' wid—a terrible fortin she was said to have—and that he'd be +very apt to be takin' her along wid him prisintly when his lave was up." +Mrs. Carbery supposed they were none of them ever likely to see him +again up at Lisconnel. And the rest of the neighbours, having heard her +tale, supposed so likewise, and said among themselves that Theresa Joyce +was to be pitied.</p> + +<p>Yet not many days after this, while the early autumn weather was still +soft-aired and mellow-lighted over our blue-misted bogland, where the +leaves and berries were brightening, and even the little frosty-grey +cups on the lichened boulders getting a scarlet thread at the rim, on +one clear, dew-dashed morning, who but Denis O'Meara<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> himself should +come stepping into Lisconnel? The neighbours who saw him go by were glad +to notice that he looked as well as ever he did in his life, and he +greeted them all blithely though briefly, eluding every attempt to +entangle him in conversation, and making very straight for the Widow +Joyce's house, which was by these same observers considered to betoken a +healthy frame of mind.</p> + +<p>Only Mrs. Joyce and Mrs. Kilfoyle were in the little brown room when he +arrived, but they gave him a cordial welcome, and he took a seat from +which he could keep a watch on the door while they talked about +different things. One of these, naturally, was the melancholy end of +Denis's assailant—poor Hugh McInerney—and Mrs. Joyce said it was +little enough they'd have thought a while ago that it would be Denis +who'd come back. "But indeed," she said, "if anythin' had took you, we'd +ha' been in no hurry ever to set eyes on the other unlucky bosthoon."</p> + +<p>Denis said: "Faith, ma'am, I'd give six months' pay the thing had never +happint. Divil a bit of harm I believe there was in poor McInerney; and +I spoke to Dr. Hamilton to spake to Mr. Nugent and the other magistrates +for him; but they said, after what me cousin Joe let out about the +poteen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> at his place, the pólis would be wishful to keep him convanient +to thim for a while; and to be sure, they kep' him too long altogether. +I know, ma'am, young Rafferty and the rest had his shanty pulled down +before the pólis come up next day; but they thought they'd git somethin' +out of him. The little jackass ought to ha' held his tongue. It was a +pity, bedad. Hard lines it is on a man to be losin' his life, you may +say, along wid his temper, just be raison of a bit of a joke."</p> + +<p>Still as he looked out into the sunshine he could not help thinking that +he would have had a greater loss of his life than poor Hugh McInerney, +who, it was evident, would always have met with a cold reception from +everybody at the Joyces'. Then he said to Mrs. Joyce: "And how's +Theresa, ma'am?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Joyce was in the middle of replying that she was grandly, and had +just run over to Mrs. Keogh on a message, when Theresa herself came in.</p> + +<p>Denis jumped up quickly, saying: "Ah, Theresa, it's a great while since +I've seen you."</p> + +<p>But Theresa only lifted her head without turning it, and walked straight +on as if nobody had accosted her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Arrah, now, Theresa darlint, don't you see Denis O'Meara?" said her +mother, puzzled and rather dismayed.</p> + +<p>And then Theresa did turn and look at him. "Yis, I see him," she +said—and, indeed, she might as easily have overlooked the red flame in +a lantern as the tall scarlet lancer in her mother's little +misty-cornered room. "I see him," she said, "and I hate the sight of +him." And thereupon she turned again, and walked out of the door, +leaving a dead silence behind her.</p> + +<p>This was one of the very few harsh sayings that Theresa Joyce has +uttered in the course of her long life, and it came like a shock upon +her hearers.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Joyce at last said blankly: "What at all has took the child?"</p> + +<p>And Bessie Kilfoyle said to Denis, who stood dumbfounded: "But indeed +now, you may be sure there's not a many up here, at any rate, who do +that."</p> + +<p>But he replied: "If <i>she</i> does, it's many enough for me, Mrs. Kilfoyle. +And I won't stop here to be drivin' her out of the house. So I'll say +good-bye to yous kindly, for I'll be off now to Dublin to-morra or next +day."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And in coorse," Mrs. Joyce remarked ruefully, after he had departed, +retreading his steps through the bright fresh morning with so +crestfallen a mien that all the neighbours knew things had not run +smoothly, "you couldn't raisonably expec' him to stay here to be hated +the sight of. And indeed, what wid one thing and another, it's none too +good thratement the poor lad's got up at Lisconnel, more's the pity."</p> + +<p>Theresa herself never had any explanation to offer of "why she would be +that cross wid poor Denis O'Meara." Her mother accounted for it by pique +at the Carberys' ill-timed gossip about his imaginary courtship of Mary +Anne Neligan; and Mrs. Kilfoyle was for a while inclined to the same +opinion, until one day by chance she espied in the little old tin box +which contained Theresa's treasures, a roll of bright yellow ribbon +wrapped up very carefully; and thenceforward she silently ceased to hope +that things might all come right yet, if Denis O'Meara came back again +on leave.</p> + +<p>So, although Mrs. Joyce may have drawn wrong inferences, the results +were much as she had foreseen. Theresa never married, and when her +mother died she went to live with her brother<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> Mick at Laraghmena, where +she is living still, notwithstanding that it is so long since all this +happened—since the fine summer when Denis O'Meara was at Lisconnel, and +Hugh McInerney, who luckily left nobody to be breaking their hearts +fretting after him, died in Moynalone Jail.</p> + +<p>The yellow ribbon lies safely in her box, and with it a grimy bit of +paper, brought to her one day by a trusty hand, to which Hugh found out +a way of committing it "before he was took bad entirely." Theresa +herself has never deciphered its wild scrawls, being an unlettered +person, but its bearer read it over to her until she knew it by heart +every word. "For your own self the yella ribin is," the letter ran, "but +don't be wearin' it unless you like it. And I'm sorry the man got hit; +but I do be dhramin' most nights that it's you I'm after rapin' the +little black head off of; and I'd liefer lose me life than think I'd be +after hurtin' a hair of it. But the Divil was busy wid me that evenin'. +And I'm very apt never to get the chance to set fut again out on the big +bog. It 'ud do me heart good to see the sun goin' down in it a great way +off, for this is a quare small place. It's a long while. But sure, to +the end of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> all the days of me life," it said to her, like an echo +beaten back from the walls of the great abysm, "it's of yourself I'll be +thinkin' off away in contintmint at Lisconnel."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>MR. POLYMATHERS</h3> + + +<p>It was to an accidental circumstance that Lisconnel owed the prolonged +sojourn there of perhaps the most distinguished scholar who has ever +visited us. For when he arrived at O'Beirne's forge one misty June +evening, the night's lodging only was all he asked or desired. But in +those times, now some fifty years since, we had "a terrible dale of +sickness about in the country," and next morning the stranger was down +with the fever, which, although so mild a case that even Bridget +O'Beirne never gave him over more than twice in the same day, brought +his journey perforce to a halt. At the beginning he was very loth to +believe that he must relinquish his intention of reaching Dublin by a +certain date—the first Monday in July; however, having once recognised +the impossibility of doing so, he showed no haste to quit his quarters, +and his stay with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> O'Beirnes lengthened into months as the summer +slipped away. At this time the forge was owned by Felix O'Beirne, +blacksmith, shebeener, and ex-whiteboy, and with him lived his orphan +grandsons, Daniel and Nicholas, his very old, ancient mother, who still +drew enjoyment in whiffs through the stem of her black dudeen, and his +elderly sister, Bridget, who had taken little pleasure in anything since +the redcoats shot her sweetheart in the War. The missing third +generation was represented occasionally when Mrs. Dooley, Felix's +married daughter, came on a visit. It was conjectured among them that +"the fancy the ould gintleman had for larnin' all manner to young +Nicholas continted him to stop." And this may have had something to do +with it, though less, probably, than the vaguer fact that he from the +first "took kindly" to the O'Beirnes, and they to him. His appearance +puzzled them a little. He was of a massive, large-boned frame, such as +nature seems to design for rough uses; but, as Felix remarked, "you +could aisy tell be ivery finger and thumb on him that hard work wasn't +the handle he'd took a hould of the world by." He wore a very long, grey +frieze coat, and a chimney-pot hat so old and tall that it looked as if +it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> must have grown slowly to its great height. When he took it off he +uncovered a shock of soft white hair, like the wig of a seeded +groundsel, about a face which was furrowed and wrinkled ruggedly enough, +in a different pattern somehow from what is commonly seen at Lisconnel, +where sun and wind have a large share in the process. His baggage +consisted of two bundles, very unequal in size and weight. The contents +of the smaller one were mainly a shirt and three socks, knotted loosely +in a blue cotton handkerchief; the other was done up carefully in +sacking, and he liked to have it under his eye.</p> + +<p>Of course the O'Beirnes' visitor was often talked about among the groups +gathered of an evening, much as they are nowadays, for gossip and poteen +within the broad-leaved forge doors, through which on dark nights the +fire still blinks as far across the bog as the amber of the sunset, or +the rising glow of the golden harvest moon. Even from Felix's first +report it appeared that the stranger was no ordinary person.</p> + +<p>"Won'erful fine discoorse he has out of him, anyway," he told the +neighbours a few nights after the arrival; "ivery now and agin he'll out +wid a word as grand like and big as his Riverence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> at Mass—goodness +forgive me for sayin' so. Sometimes we've been hardset to tell what he's +drivin' at. But that's the way it is wid thim words that has a power of +manin' in thim. They're apt to bother you a bit when you're used to +spakin plain."</p> + +<p>"Belike it's the fever in his head sets him talkin' oddly," said young +Barney Corcoran. "I mind me brother Joe when he was bad wid it would be +ravin' wild. Sorra the sinsible word there was out of him for the best +part of a week."</p> + +<p>This way of accounting for his guest's fine language rather affronted +Felix, and he consequently said, "Musha now, was there not? And how long +might yourself be under that descripshin of fever?"</p> + +<p>"Ah sure, what 'ud we do at all if poor Barney was took that way?" said +Peter Keogh, "and nobody able to tell was it ravin' he was, or settin' +up to be talkin' raisonable for any differ they could see."</p> + +<p>Barney cleared his throat disconcertedly, and the old man, recalling his +responsibilities as a host, and perhaps not admiring his sarcasm thus +elaborated, said conciliatingly, "Och, he'll do right enough if he niver +raves any worse than Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> Polymathers. All that ails him is that we want +to git a bit used to his manner of spakin'."</p> + +<p>"Polymathers?" said Peter.</p> + +<p>"To be sure, Polymathers. Did you say it any better than I?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I nivir heard tell of anybody called that way before. It's a +quare she-he soundin' sort of name," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"Faix, then, there may be plinty quarer in it, we niver heard tell of, +if that was all," said Felix. "Anyhow, it's his name, and his people's +afore him. Himself tould me his father was the ouldest of all the +Polymatherses there was in the counthry he came out of—somewheres down +south, I think he said—and the head of the whole of thim forby."</p> + +<p>"Ay, he did so," said Dan. "Sez you to him, there was a dale of water +run down hill since the time there was O'Beirnes blacksmiths in this +part of the counthry; and your father was a one, sez you. And sez he to +you, he couldn't be any manner of manes purtind to be the aquil to what +<i>his</i> father was. And sez you to him, what was he? And sez he, it was +one of the Polymatherses he was, and well known for his larnin' through +the len'th and breadth of the county Sligo. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> a name it was, he sez, +any man might be proud of ownin'."</p> + +<p>"Be jabers, himself has the great consait of it, at all ivents," said +Peter. "But he might find people could be tellin' him there's Keoghs as +good as any Polymatherses iver was in it—ivery hair."</p> + +<p>The stranger's patronymic having thus been ascertained, it was desirable +to fix his calling, and, despite his disclaimer of inherited erudition, +several circumstances bespoke him a schoolmaster, even before the +question seemed settled by the first act of his convalescence being an +inquiry into the amount of book-learning which Dan and Nicholas had +amassed during their sixteen and fourteen years. This was not large, +though as much as could be expected, considering that in all Lisconnel +there were not just then, I believe, more than four volumes, one of +which being merely the index to a non-existent <i>Encyclopædia</i>, can +scarcely rank as literature. The boys themselves, and their grandfather, +were deeply interested in the examination, and very anxious that it +should have a creditable result. For learning and the learned have at +all times been held in profound respect among us away on our bogland<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>, +where the devotion to something afar springs perhaps the more abundantly +because so many things are remote. On this occasion Mr. Polymathers +opened his most sizable bundle, and it was seen to be filled with books, +not fewer, doubtless, than a score, in leather bindings, ragged and +battered, and brownly time-stained all over their margins, as if the +river of years had for them run no metaphor, but a russet bog-stream. +They comprised <i>Homer</i>, <i>Virgil</i>, <i>Livy</i>, and other ancients; likewise +two Latin lexicons, which looked extravagant until you observed how each +did but supplement the other's deficiencies, and this so imperfectly +that their owner was still liable to search in vain for words between <span class="smcap">Mo</span> +and <span class="smcap">Na</span>.</p> + +<p>These, however, were evidently not the most prized portion of Mr. +Polymathers's library, though he displayed them with some complacency, +reading out here and there a sonorous "furrin" phrase, at which his +audience said, "More power," and "Your sowl to glory," and the like. It +was when he handled the shabbiest of the volumes, with broken backs and +edges all curling tatters, that his touch grew caressing. The +lookers-on, contrariwise, thought but poorly of them because they set +up, seemingly, to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> illustrated works, and their pictures, mostly of +uninteresting round and three-cornered objects, struck Lisconnel art +critics as very feeble efforts. To be sure Mr. Polymathers called them +<i>dygrims</i>, but that was no help to the overtaxed imagination. Only young +Nicholas O'Beirne listened intently to the explanation which he gave of +one of them. Nicholas was a long, thin lad, with melancholy grey eyes +and a square forehead, whose capacity his grandfather had held in some +esteem, since it had been discovered, years ago, that "the spalpeen +could make out an account for four sets of shoes, and half a stone of +three-inch holdfasts, and a dozen of staples, and two gallon of the +crathur, and allow for a hundredweight of ould iron, all in his head, +and right to a farthin'." Now the melancholy eyes darkened and +brightened with excitement as Mr. Polymathers discoursed of right lines +and angles and circles, and expounded the mysterious signification of +certain Ah Bay Says. And he had thenceforward an unweariable pupil in +Nicholas, companied, albeit with less ardent zeal, and at a slower rate +of progress, by his elder brother, Dan.</p> + +<p>More general interest, however, continued to be taken in the stranger's +classical attainments.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> Everybody—the O'Beirnes themselves, their +neighbours in the cabin-row close by, now long since an untraceable +ruin, and the people of Lisconnel proper, a couple of miles further +on—felt uplifted by the residence among them of a man, who they boasted +would talk Latin to you as soon as look at you. But as we never enjoy +our own happiness fully until it has been looked at through other men's +envious eyes, they could not here remain content with simply possessing +this privilege, or even with dilating upon it to their less favoured +friends down below and down beyant. They longed to make a parade of it, +to give a demonstration of it. And the method of doing so which they +came to consider most desirable was the bringing about of a conversation +in Latin between Mr. Polymathers and Father Rooney, the Parish Priest. +For if that took place they could easily imagine his Reverence riding +home to report in the Town what a wonderful great scholar entirely they +had stopping above at Lisconnel. Moreover, the conversation itself would +be a rael fine thing to have the hearing of. Terence Kilfoyle, for +instance, said that it would be as good as a Play, which, as he had +never seen one, was to entertain unbounded expectations.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> And at last, +after they had wished the wish for some weeks, a prospect of its +fulfilment came into sight together with Father Rooney's cream-coloured +pony jogging along through the light of a fiery-zoned July sunset, in +which Mr. Polymathers was basking by the O'Beirnes' door. In those days +his Reverence was a youngish man, ruddy, and of a cheerful countenance, +a substantial load for his sturdy nag, and altogether, in his glossy +black cloth, a figure very different from their gaunt, sad-visaged, +shaggily-garbed old guest. He was at the time of Father Rooney's +approach seated on a two-legged, three-legged stool, propped +precariously against the ray-rosed cabin wall, and was teaching Dan and +Nicholas the twelfth proposition of the second book of Euclid. Dan had +not yet grasped it, but it all lay as clear as a sunbeam athwart +Nicholas's brain, and he was fidgeting like an impatient horse at the +slowness of his fellow.</p> + +<p>Several of the neighbours chanced to be about, for the forge saw a good +deal of company in those long empty days before the potato-digging could +begin. They all drew together into a small crowd, and closed in step by +step to watch the first meeting between these two notable persons,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> much +admiring the deftness with which old O'Beirne secured it by pronouncing +one of the pony's shoes in need of tightening, and the felicitous +opening he made by assuring his Reverence that "divil a bit need he be +mindin' the delay, because Mr. Polymathers there had enough <i>furrin +languages</i> to keep thim all divarted, if the baste owned as many feet as +a forty-legs, wid the shoes droppin' off ivery pair of thim. That was to +say, in coorse, supposin' he got the chance of convarsin' a bit wid +somebody aquil to answerin' him back iligant, the way there wasn't e'er +a one of thim could make an offer at doin' no more than thim little +weevils of chirpin' chuckens."</p> + +<p>Yet the interview turned out disappointingly after all. If such a thing +had not been, of course, exceedingly improbable, one might have fancied +that each scholar stood in awe of the other's reputation, they steered +so clear of all recondite subjects; keeping to the merest commonplaces +about rain and potatoes and turf—which anybody else could have +discussed quite as knowledgably. In vain, whenever there was a promising +pause would the bystanders nudge one another, whispering, hopefully, +"Whist, boys—they'll be sayin' somethin' now." Only the plainest +English followed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>, and at last, when Father Rooney rode on, his parting +joke, which referred to the difficulty his pony would now find in the +way of becoming a barefooted pilgrim, left for a wonder solemnly +irresponsive faces behind it.</p> + +<p>Michael Ryan said, with a touch of resentment, "Ah, well, one couldn't +maybe expec' it of thim to be throublin' thimselves talkin' fine for the +pack of us, as ignorant as dirt, in the middle of th'ould bog."</p> + +<p>And his wife said, "'Deed, now, I wouldn't won'er meself if the raison +was his Riverence 'ud think bad of usin' his Latin words for anythin' +else on'y prayers and such. It might be somethin' the same as if he went +and took his grand vistments to go dig pitaties in; and that 'ud be a +great sin, God knows."</p> + +<p>But old Felix, who was, as we have seen, a rather touchy person, +construed this suggestion into an implied censure on his own wishes in +the matter, and he said, huffily—</p> + +<p>"Sorra the talk of sin I see in it at all, ma'am. 'Tis a dale liker they +just couldn't get out wid it convanient offhand. The same way that I'd +aisy enough bate out a shoe on me anvil there, when it's bothered I'd be +if you axed me to make a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> one promiscuous here of a suddint on the +roadside."</p> + +<p>Mr. Polymathers himself meanwhile was perhaps dimly conscious that he +had disappointed hopes, and failed to rise duly to the occasion; and +this may have been why he slipped indoors, and fetched out a small book +he had never produced before, bound in a dingy greenish blue, with a +white paper label.</p> + +<p>"D'you know what that is, sir?" he questioned, rhetorically, handing it +to Felix O'Beirne. "It's the Calendar, let me tell you, of the College +of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, <i>juxta</i> Dublin. There's a print of +the Front of the Buildings attached to the fly-leaf. I'm after pickin' +it up this spring at Moynalone. 'Twas new the year before last, and +comprises a dale of information relative to terms, examinations, fees, +and so forth."</p> + +<p>"Begor, then, it looks to be a wide house," said Felix, confining +himself to the picture as a comprehensible point. "It's apt to be an +oncommon fine place, sir, I should suppose."</p> + +<p>"You may say that, me man," said Mr. Polymathers, emphatically. "Not its +match in the kingdom of Ireland. The home of literature and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> the haunt +of science. And it's there I'll be, plase God, next October."</p> + +<p>"Musha, and will you be thravellin' that far—to Dublin?" said Felix.</p> + +<p>"Ay will I, and would have gone last month on'y for the fever delayin' +me till after the midsummer entrance. Me savin's amount to somethin' +over thirty pound, so I may venture on the step, and prisint meself at +the Michaelmas term. In short," said Mr. Polymathers, re-poising himself +upon his rickety stool, "I might describe myself as an unmatriculated +candidate undergraduate of the University of Dublin."</p> + +<p>"And what at all now would that be, sir, if I might be axin'?" said +Felix, humbly, after the awe-stricken pause which followed Mr. +Polymathers's proclamation of his style and title.</p> + +<p>"It's a necessary preliminary," said Mr. Polymathers, "to proceeding to +the Degree of <i>Baccalaureatus in Artibus</i>, or <i>In Artibus +Baccalaureatus</i>—the <i>ordo verborum</i> is, I take it, immaterial, to judge +by the transposition of initials in the case of ——."</p> + +<p>"Faix, but it's the fine Latin you can be discoorsin' now, and his +Riverence half-ways home," said Felix reproachfully.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. Polymathers, glancing round a circle of deeply impressed faces, felt +that his prestige was restored, and even began to enjoy a foretaste of +the triumph, which had been one part of his dream through the long +laborious years. But he was puzzled how to bring the full grandeur of +his design clearly before this uninstructed audience, and after +reflecting for a while in quest of concise yet adequate definitions, he +launched out into an eloquent description of the ceremonial observed in +conferring degrees at Dublin University. It may be surmised that many of +the details were due to his own fondly brooding fancy. For not only did +the highest learning in the land crowd the Hall in their academic robes, +but the Lord Lieutenant himself took a prominent part in the +proceedings, which were enlivened by military music and thunderous +salutes. Mr. Polymathers nearly toppled off his tricky stool more than +once without noticing it in his excitement as he rehearsed these +splendid scenes, declaiming with great unction the formulas long since +learned by all his heart, especially <i>Ego, auctoritate mihi concessa</i>, +and the rest, until he came to his peroration: "And all this pomp and +ceremony, mind yous, to the honour and glory of science and fine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> +scholarship. It's a grand occasion, lads; it's an object any man might +be proud to give——" Here he pulled himself up, warned by an unusually +violent lurch that his theme was running away with him. But having by no +means worked off his enthusiasm, he expended some of it, as a schoolboy +might have done, in throwing a small bit of turf at a stately white hen, +who just then sailed across the dark doorway, like a little frigate +under the most crowded canvas. She immediately took flight with +floundering screeches, which drowned what the old man was muttering to +himself. However, it was only "<i>Admitto te—admitto te</i>."</p> + +<p>After these revelations Mr. Polymathers was looked up to more than ever, +as one not only endowed with rare gifts, but destined by their means to +scale heights of hardly realisable exaltation. "Be all accounts there +was no knowin' what he mightn't rise to be at Dublin College," the +neighbours said. They also often remarked that it was "a surprisin' +thing to see a great scholar like him spendin' his time over taichin' +thim two young O'Beirnes." If the speaker happened to be afflicted with +a twinge of envy about those educational advantages, he was apt to say +"thim<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> two young bosthoons" or "gomerals." But Dan and Nicholas were +not, in fact, any such thing. Nicholas, indeed, quickly proved himself +possessed of what Mr. Polymathers called "a downright astonishin' +facility at the mathematics," far out-stripping Dan, not quite to Dan's +satisfaction, as he had always enjoyed the pre-eminence conferred by +superior physical strength and a practical turn of mind. So well pleased +was the old man with his eager pupil that he would have liked to do his +teaching, "nothing for reward," but his host's hospitality, and his own +ambition, would not permit this. Now and then he rather puzzled Nicholas +by an apologetic tone in answering questions about his University +career. And once at the end of a lesson he said, as if to himself: "May +goodness forgive me if I'm takin' what he'd have done better with. But +sure he's young—he's plenty of chances yet." However, as the time for +his departure drew on, all his misgivings, if such he had, seemed to +vanish away, and his thoughts became very apt to journey off blissfully +to Dublin in the middle of the most interesting problems. Nicholas had +to wait till they came back.</p> + +<p>Mr. Polymathers left Lisconnel on a fine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> autumn morning, when the air +was so still that the flashing and twinkling of the many dewdrops seemed +to make quite a stir in it. The sky was as clear as any one of them, and +in the golden light the wavering columns of blue smoke rose with curves +softly transparent. He started with a buoyant step, as well he might, +since he was setting out on the enterprise into which he had put all the +spirit of his youth. He felt some regret at parting from his Lisconnel +friends, but his plans and prospects were naturally very pre-occupying, +whereas they had the ampler leisure of the left-behind to deplore his +flitting, which seemed likely enough to be for good. Nearly four years, +he had explained, must elapse before the crowning height of the B. A. +Degree could be won, and it was only just possible that he might manage +to tramp back on a visit meanwhile, during some Long Vacation. This +doubtful chance was cold comfort for that ardent scholar Nicholas +O'Beirne, who grieved more than anybody else. Most ruefully did he help +Dan to carry the candidate undergraduate's library as far as the Town; +nor could he take more than a downcast pleasure in Mr. Polymathers's +farewell gift to him of the raggedest <i>Euclid</i>. And as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> stood +watching the car out of sight, his eyes were as wistful as if a door +briefly opened on glimpses of radiant vistas had been inexorably barred +in his face.</p> + +<p>Yet after all Mr. Polymathers's absence was not to be measured by years +or months. One evening on the threshold of December, Lisconnel was lying +roofed over by a massy livid-black cloud, which came lumbering up and up +interminably, and which the weatherwise estimated to contain as much +snow as would smother the width of the world. The north wind moaned and +keened dismally under the toil of wafting on this portentous load, and +its breath was bitingly sharp, so that when the lads came in from the +forge, their grandfather said, "Ah, Dan, shut over the door, for there's +a blast sweepin' through it 'ud freeze ten rigiments as stiff as +staties." We usually take a large view of things at Lisconnel. Dan went +to carry out this order, but instead of doing so he suddenly shouted: +"Murdher alive! Here's Mr. Polymathers."</p> + +<p>Through the grey gloaming came a Mr. Polymathers, very different from +what he had been on that brilliant, hopeful morning only a few weeks +ago, when he had stepped lightly, and held his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> head up as if he were +looking a friendly fortune in the face. Now his feet stumbled and +dragged as he fared slowly against the wind's blustering, with his eyes +on the ground, and his movements seemingly guided more by the weight of +the bundle he carried than by his own will. Before he came within even +loud shouting distance, everybody felt a presentiment of disaster; but +he had not spoken a word to justify or discredit it by the time he got +indoors.</p> + +<p>"Musha, and so it's yourself, sir," old Felix then repeated, in a +congratulatory tone. "Ah, but it's a hardy evenin', and it's perished +you are, sir. Come in be the fire."</p> + +<p>"Ay, I'm back," Mr. Polymathers said slowly, after a hesitating pause, +as if the remark had been interpreted to him by some second person, "I +was bringin' the books, thinkin' the lad might use them—he's young +enough. But I'm not come to stop on you," he added, speaking faster, +"on'y just for this night. Early to-morra I must be off to Ardnacreagh, +and try for the taichin' there again. 'Twas on'y on account of bringin' +the books I came this way. I'll be on the road quite early."</p> + +<p>His insistence on this point made, somehow,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> a very melancholy +impression on Felix; but he replied jovially: "Is it to-morra? Bedad +then, sir, don't you wish you may slip off on us that soon, and we after +gettin' a hould of you agin? What fools we are. Not if you was as +slithery, ivery inch of you, as a wather-eel."</p> + +<p>The wraith of a relieved smile at this came over Mr. Polymathers's face; +still it looked so grey and withered, and his eyes were so sunken, and +his large, bony hands so shaky, that all with one consent refrained from +questions which they were agog to ask; and when Mrs. Keogh by and by +dropped in, and being an inquisitive and not very quick-witted person, +said, "Saints among us—it's Mr. Polymathers. And how's yourself, sir? +And are you bringing home the grand Degree?" though they all listened +eagerly for the reply, they wished she had held her tongue.</p> + +<p>"The divil a Degree, ma'am," said Mr. Polymathers, "and niver will."</p> + +<p>There was a short silence, and then he turned round on his stool—it was +the same from which he had made his boast in the summer sunset, but Dan +had meanwhile mended its broken leg with the handle of a worn-bladed +spade. "I've given up," he said to them. "I no longer entertain the +project<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> of becomin' a graduate, or for the matter of that an +undergraduate of Dublin University; and if I'd done right, I'd niver +have taken up such an idea. I've put it out of me head. But it's been in +me mind a great while—a terrible long while."</p> + +<p>"Look you here, Mr. Polymathers, sir, are you after gittin' any bad +thratment from any people up in thim places?" said Felix, who always +liked better to lay a grievance on some human and possibly breakable +head than to believe it the work of the vengeance-baffling demon +bad-luck.</p> + +<p>"Not at all, not at all," said Mr. Polymathers, when the question +reached him. "I've nothin' to complain of. They're very respectable +people in Dublin, and it's a fine city. But me head's a bit giddy yet +wid the drivin' they have in the streets, that makes one stupid. I mind +there was a car tatterin' along, and I crossin' over the College Green, +had me down on the stones, on'y a dacint lad gript a hould of me, and +whirled me inside the College gates. There I was before I rightly knew +anythin' had happened me, and I after spendin' the best part of me life +gettin' to it. 'Twasn't the way I thought it 'ud be.... But the College +is as grand as any notion I had of it; on'y since I've seen it, 'tis +like a drame to me that ever I set fut<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> in it, just a sort of drame.... +Great ancient places the squares are; I walked round the whole of them +before I found the Hall. A couple of chaps in uniform like came axin' me +me business, but I tould them fast enough that I was a candidate—ah, +goodness help me.... And the Hall's a spacious and splendid apartment. +On'y it was strange, now, to see it full of nothin' but young fellows, +scarce oulder than the two lads there. I might, sure enough, have known +the way it 'ud be, if I'd come to considher, but somehow it seemed to +put me out, as if I'd no call to be there at all. There was one of them +began pricin' me ould hat, and another of them tripped him up against a +black marble construction with a pair of angels atop of it, that there +is on the wall—sure they were just spalpeens. But I'll give you me +word, when they called me up to the examiner's table, there was a young +gintleman sittin' at it in his black gown and his cap wid the +tassel—bound to be one of the College Fellows, and ivery sort of a fine +scholar—and for all the age there was on him he might ha' been me son +or me grandson.</p> + +<p>"So he handed me over a little black <i>Virgil</i> wid the page opened where +I was to exhibit me acquaintance wid the text. It was merely a bit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> of +an oration of Queen Dido's that I've known ivery line of these forty +years as well as I know me own name, and better. And what came over me +is more than I can tell, but the minute I took the book in me hand, it +seemed to me as if ivery atom of sinse and manin' slipped out of the +words, or out of me head—I couldn't say which, and I just stood starin' +at them and starin', till iverythin' else got whirlin' round about me, +fit to shake the panes out of the big windows, and the pictures off the +walls.... Belike himself persaived I was flusthered, for, 'Take your +time,' sez he; and after a while they stood steady enough. But, the Lord +be good to me—sorra a syllable of the sinse come back. And be that I +well knew it was all up wid me; and I was thinkin' me father's son had +no business to be standin' there makin' a show of meself in the middle +of Trinity College. So the lad in the cap said again, 'Take your time, +sir, take your time.' But I said to him, 'God help me, sir, I've taken +very nigh all I'll get, for I declare to you, lad, I'm over seventy +years of age. But as for your time, sir,' I said, 'I'll be wastin' no +more of it.' And wid that I put down the book, and out I wint. I mind +the sun in the square nearly dazzled the eyes out of me fool's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> head. I +niver seen it blazin' brighter—and there was a big bell somewhere +boomin' away, as if they'd set the heart of the world tollin'; it's +ringin' in me ears yet.... And a couple of days after that I quit out of +Dublin, and I've been trampin' back to this counthry, takin' me time, as +he said—there's no hurry now about anythin'. So that was the ind of me +University Degree."</p> + +<p>"I just wish I could git discoorsin' wid that young feller," said old +Felix, vindictively, "himself and his tassel in his cap."</p> + +<p>"Sure, man, 'twas no fault of his," said Mr. Polymathers, "and I can +live widout a Degree, if that's all. Me betters did before me. To tell +you the truth, I've thought often enough as I was comin' along now, that +I dunno how at all I'd have had the face to meet me poor father one of +these days, and I cocked up with a <i>Baccalaureatus in Artibus</i>, and he +wid not so much as a dacint stone over his grave to commemorate his +name, that was the most illusthrious Polymath in the county Sligo, wid +more larnin' in the tip of his ear than ever I got into me ould skull. +Never a hap'orth of good was I at anythin' except the trifle of +mathematics, but he was as great at the Classics.... I used to humbug +meself somewhiles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> lettin' on I hankered after it because it would ha' +gratified him maybe to hear of the event. But little I ever done to +plase him, God forgive me. Let alone goin' and makin' an ould fool of +meself up at Trinity College.... 'Twas a terrible upset to him when I +turned again the Priesthood, after he had the money saved up for the +seminary and all. Words about it we had, and the ind of it was he put it +all into me brother Ned's little farm. Ned had no more fancy for larnin' +than the bastes of the field. A trifle of it would ha' come in very +handy sometimes for buyin' me books; howane'er it was not to be.... And +the books there—I on'y brought them along to lave wid you for the +youngest lad—ay, Nicholas. He has a head on his shoulders for the +mathematics, I can tell you; he might do something yet, if he got his +chances. They're no use to me now, and I'd as lief be shut of the sight +of them. And to-morra I'll be off to Ardnacreagh."</p> + +<p>So the gaunt old man talked on, groping his way out of hesitating +pauses, and straying into dreamy meditations, as if he sometimes forgot +his story, and sometimes its hearers. They did not know what a +life-wreck it outlined, but they saw and surmised enough to make them +think of him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> as "the crathur," and speak to him with more deference +than if he had returned in a radiant glow of success, symbolised as some +of them had anticipated, by scarlet robes as splendid, at least, as +Father Rooney's at High Mass. And Felix O'Beirne took occasion of a +madly skirling gust to say, "Listen now to that, sir, and don't be +talkin' wild of thravellin' off to-morra. If I might be sayin' so, you'd +a dale better stay quiet where you are this minyit. And as for taichin', +sure it's proud and thankful the two boyos 'ud be for e'er a bit more. +There's Nicholas mopin' about like an ould hin that's lost her chuckens +iver since you quit."</p> + +<p>Mr. Polymathers did stop quiet—very quiet—but he taught the boys no +more. In fact, he did nothing except sit all day staring into the fire, +as if he had lost something in it. Once after Nicholas had sat looking +very hard at him for a long time with the ragged <i>Euclid</i> ostentatiously +open at a crux, he seemed to rouse up, and putting out a hand for the +book, began an explanation. But it died away unfinished in an aimless +muttering, which both shocked and saddened Nicholas, and the experiment +was not repeated. Then towards Christmas time all the neighbours were +saying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> that Mr. Polymathers was greatly failed to what he had been. And +Bridget O'Beirne reported that you might as well be argufyin' wid a +scutty wren to swally down the full of the ducks' dish as persuadin' him +to take a raisonable bite and sup. Dr. Hamilton from the Dispensary, who +was consulted on the case, "consaited," Bridget told inquirers, "that he +might be after gettin' a sort of stroke like unbeknownst;" but her own +opinion was that "he had, so to spake, lost the knot off his thread, and +'twould be much if he didn't slip away out of it on them, afore they +seen e'er another green laif on the bushes."</p> + +<p>It was, at any rate, more than happened. One snowy afternoon, when he +had been busy for some time "scrawmin' a manner of letter," which +related, he said, to the disposition of his property, Mr. Polymathers +grew so much worse that Dan and Nicholas ran off for the Doctor and the +Priest, and before their arrival could possibly be expected, it became +evident that he could not wait to receive them. Bridget O'Beirne, +deploring the hap by his bed in the small room off the kitchen, thought +a few minutes before he went that she heard him murmuring something +coherent, and she called to little Rosy Corcoran,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> "Child alive—me +head's bothered—come in here and listen, can you make out at all what +he's sayin'?"</p> + +<p>Rosy came reluctantly and listened. "I think," she whispered, "it's some +sort of prayers like what his Riverence sez."</p> + +<p>"Ah, then, glory be to God for that itself," said Bridget, "there might +be a good chance for him after all."</p> + +<p>But she had been misinformed. The words Mr. Polymathers was muttering +over and over to himself were: <i>Admitto te—admitto te</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>HONORIS CAUSA</h3> + + +<p>The evening of the day after Mr. Polymathers died was a very wild +black-and-white one out of doors all round Lisconnel, yet, +notwithstanding the flakes in the air and under foot, the O'Beirnes had +received some company. Not at a wake, however the purpose of their +assembly was to discuss a serious business matter, upon which old Felix +O'Beirne wished for friendly counsel. Hence his contemporary, old Paddy +Ryan, had prodded little round craters in the snow with his thick stick +all along the good step of bleak road which lay between his house and +the forge, and with him had come on the same errand Terence Kilfoyle, +who, although of so much junior standing, was esteemed as a man of +notably shrewd sense and judgment. But then neither he nor the +neighbours knew how often he took and gave Bessie Kilfoyle's advice. +These two were present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> by express invitation, but another pair of +guests, the Dooleys, would never have been asked for the sake of their +opinion, which they were indeed encouraged to keep to themselves, and +appeared at this domestic crisis merely by virtue of family ties. Old +Felix had always thought little of his daughter Maggie's mental powers, +and less ever since her marriage with Peter Dooley, who kept a shop in +the Town, and could be described as "an ould gombeen man," if one wished +to regard him from an unfavourable point of view, which his +father-in-law not uncommonly did. He had been heard to say of Peter that +"the chap was that smooth-spoken you might think he was after swallyin' +a one of his own graisy dipts, on'y he'd liefer be chaitin' some poor +body over the sellin' of it"—a perhaps not inexcusable preference. As +for Peter, he contemplated humanity with a jovial cynicism, and rather +enjoyed the society of the old blacksmith, despite the gruff sarcasms +which sometimes made their womenkind turn the conversation +apprehensively. <i>He</i> had been heard to say of Felix that "It was aisy +work runnin' down other people's business, and small blame to th' ould +man if he had a fancy for a light job now and agin, when he would be +tired poundin' th' ould<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> iron at a profit you couldn't see to pick up +widout a strong pair of spectacles." Proximity had brought to the +consultation Mrs. Carbery and Tim O'Meara from adjacent doors; and they, +with old ancient Mrs. O'Beirne and her daughter and the two lads, formed +quite a large party about the fire. The business to be brought before +them was Mr. Polymathers's Will.</p> + +<p>Now, lest it should be thought that unseemly haste was displayed in +attending to this affair while Mr. Polymathers still lay in the little +next room, I must explain that for special reasons the nature of the +funeral arrangements depended upon the result of the conference; and how +deeply important such a point would be considered at Lisconnel I need +remind no one who has occasionally been perplexed by our propensity for +the pinching and scraping which takes toll of a life-long penury, that a +brief show of pomp may invest the last scene of all. This propensity is +not seldom misconstrued into the outcome of a mere personal vanity, +whereas it has its root in the worthier sentiment of veneration for our +Kind. Ould Pat Murphy, who has subsisted all his life upon an +insufficiency of pitaties, and inhabited a largish sty, never loses the +sense that he owes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> something better to himself in his character of a +human being, and he takes painful steps to ensure the ultimate discharge +of the debt. One of these days he who has hitherto come and gone in +unimposing guise shall be borne, on wheels if possible—but here I +mention grandeur never even dreamed of up at remote Lisconnel—in +unwonted state, certain to draw the gaze of every passer-by. But as if +with a fine touch of courtesy, he so times his assertion of dignity that +none of his fellows shall thereby be abashed nor envy-bitten. No ragged +wayfarer shall wish to change places with him as he passes solemnly +along, nor grudge him the unshared splendour of his sombre equipage; not +even if it display the crowning glory of woolly black plumes to waggle +over his head. Accordingly, when Pat has died on his humble bed, which +is as likely as not just earth tempered with straw, under his rifted +thatch, through which he may perhaps see the stars glimmer with nothing +except the smoke-haze and gathering mists between, he is conveyed thence +with whatever pomp and circumstance his savings permit, and all his +neighbours feel that the right thing has been done.</p> + +<p>It is true that Mr. Polymathers had given no sign of any such sentiment. +When discreetly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> sounded on the subject during his last days, he had +replied: "Ah! man, it's very immaterial," in a tone of indifference as +unmistakable as the phrase was ambiguous. And from this fact, coupled +with his written instructions, it might, one would have thought, safely +have been inferred that he desired no costly magnificence at his +obsequies. Yet the point was obscured in his late host's mind by a thick +cloud of doubts and scruples.</p> + +<p>Mr. Polymathers had died surprisingly rich, not less than twenty-five +pounds, seven shillings and threepence having been counted awestrickenly +out of his leathern pouch. The ground rents of all Lisconnel did not +reach to such a figure. It had been larger still before his disastrous +expedition to the University; but it had never undergone any diminution +so long as he abode under Felix O'Beirne's roof. On the first Saturday +after his convalescence he had inquired, pouch in hand: "And what might +be the amount of me pecuniary debt to you, sir?" And old O'Beirne had +replied: "And you spendin' your time puttin' the heighth of larnin' into +the two lads' heads! Bedad, sir, it's debt the other way round, +supposin' there was to be any talk about it." The same little scene, +dwindled at last into a mere form and ceremony,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> had taken place on +every succeeding Saturday. Not that Mr. Polymathers did not feel he had +grounds for more than merely formal demur. But he was then facing the +steep hill of his ambition, and had sometimes to stoop as he climbed.</p> + +<p>But now, when he had turned back baffled, and all his climbing was done, +old Felix had no engrossing object to blunt a sense of many scruples +that must be removed before he himself or his family could with honour +derive profit from the event; as they would do if Mr. Polymathers's +instructions were carried out. For by that document, which he had +finished drawing up only just in time, all his property was left +unreservedly to Nicholas O'Beirne, with the injunction that as little of +it as possible might be expended upon "the burying." Of course it was an +extraordinary thing that such a piece of good fortune should befall, +such a number of pounds accrue to, anybody at all; but apart from this +there seemed to be nothing very strange in the bequest. Everybody knew +that Mr. Polymathers had entertained "a great opinion entirely" of +Nicholas' abilities. Time and again he had said that the lad would be +heard of in the world if he got his chance of some good teaching. And he +once more expressed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> the same conviction, only at fuller length and in +finer language, in the composition which had been the last effort of his +wearied brain. "It would give me," he wrote, "the utmost satisfaction to +think that the legacy may eventually smooth his path to the attainment +of those University distinctions which have eluded my own grasp." And +almost his latest moment of consciousness had been pervaded by a faint +thrill of pleased pride at the turn of the sentence as he read it over. +This high style was not, however, maintained throughout, and the purport +could not be misunderstood. Furthermore, everybody knew that he had said +he had not a relation belonging to him in this world; and that being so, +it was natural enough for him to make a promising and favorite pupil his +heir. At first sight, therefore, no difficulties presented themselves; +but old Felix slept upon the matter, and by morning grave doubts had +risen in his mind. The gist of them was that "If they took and grabbed +the ould gintleman's bit of money, and he after dyin' all his lone up +among them there, wid ne'er a one of his own folks near him to see he +had his rights, it might look ugly enough agin them, and set some people +passin' remarks he'd be long sorry to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> made on him, or any of his +name;" and that for the precluding of such animadversions it might +behove them to provide "a buryin'" not merely decent but "very +respectable whatever," and to expend the remainder of Mr. Polymathers's +personality upon a headstone for his grave, and Masses for his soul. To +set against these apprehensions were Mr. Polymathers's wishes and +Nicholas's interests; and the longer the old man balanced them in his +mind, the more perplexing became their tremulous poise. So at last, +goaded by the urgent necessity for a prompt decision, he turned to seek +it among his neighbours. He could not forbear a hope that their voices +might be convincingly in favour of giving Nicholas his chances; still +his strongest feeling was that it would be a relief to get the matter +settled one way or the other.</p> + +<p>Very different in its degree of intensity was the interest with which +his grandson Nicholas looked forward to the issue. The question to be +decided seemed to him of almost as vital importance as if it were: +Whether or no the sun should rise again next morning. For him at least, +it depended upon that whether his world should loom back again in a +dreary blankness, or waken lit with new and wondrous gleams. Nicholas's +thirst for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> knowledge and love of learning were much more essentially +part and parcel of him than his hands and eyes, and had so far found +little except dreams and desires to thrive upon. Even before the +memorable summer evening when the gaunt old man in the curious big hat +had asked for the night's lodging, which lengthened into a season's +sojourn, he had often wandered among visions of places where there were +as many books as anybody could read—a dozen maybe—and some people in +it with a power of book-learning—as much perhaps as his Reverence or +the Doctor—only neither priest nor quality, but just neighbours whom he +could question about anything that came into his head, as he used to +question his grandfather, and Paddy Ryan, and Terence Kilfoyle, until he +got tired of being asked, in reply: "Musha good gracious, and who could +be tellin' you that?" an answer which had repeatedly left him a +discouraged atom of bewilderment, symbolically environed by our +wide-spreading bog. Since Mr. Polymathers's visit, these visions had +grown clearer, but not under any rays of hope. His initiation into the +elements of mathematics had pointed out the road along which he should +travel, but had simultaneously revealed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> all its obstacles, +insurmountable for him solitary and unequipped. In those days his mind +was constantly fumbling at some insoluble problem with the sense of +frustration that one has who gropes vainly in the dark, well knowing how +a single unattainable match-flare would put what he is seeking into his +hands. And no brighter prospect seemed to lie before him anywhere in his +future.</p> + +<p>So when he suddenly learned that Mr. Polymathers had left all his +money—sums and sums—to be spent on "getting schooling for Nicholas +O'Beirne;" and when the sums and sums were actually counted out on the +table, he felt as if a door into enchanted regions had majestically +opened in a blank wall. That night he went to bed in a state of joyous +excitement, only dashed by some pangs of self-reproach for being unable +to feel more sorrow at the flickering out of his poor old teacher's dim +life. He had to frame excuses for himself by recollecting how his +great-aunt Bridget had said, "Ah, sure the crathur's better off, God +knows. What else 'ud he do, and the heart of him broke, but quit out of +it, if he got the chance? Ay, bedad, some people have the quare good +luck."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p> + +<p>And when he got up with his happiness still fresh and strange in the +morning, there was his grandfather declaring "he didn't know if they'd +have a right to touch the bit of money at all; it might be no thing to +go do; schoolin' or no schoolin', he wouldn't be givin' people any call +to say the O'Beirnes were after playin' a dirty thrick." At this +Nicholas's experience was like that of a desert traveller who should see +a mirage of palms and pools grow swiftly before his delighted eyes into +a substantial oasis, and then anon, or ever he could approach it, +shimmer back, with all its sheen and shade, into mocking illusion again. +For thus did it fare with his hopes as his grandfather talked of +renouncing Mr. Polymathers's bequest. Moreover, the grounds which the +old man alleged forbade his grandson, lothfully though he listened, to +utter a word of protest, and even made him half ashamed of his vehement +longing to do so. Nicholas had been an O'Beirne for but fourteen years, +yet he had already entered upon his inheritance of family pride. Only he +could not bring himself to believe that the honour of his house called +for so prodigious a sacrifice; and he could have urged a dozen arguments +against it, if some other person<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> had been the legatee. As it was, all +that delicacy would permit him to do for himself was to give piteously +inadequate expression to his sentiments in casual remarks about the +grandeur of getting a bit of learning, and the difficulty of +understanding some things out of one's own head. Altogether that day was +the longest and the most anxious that he had ever spent.</p> + +<p>Dan also, though his fortunes were not involved to the same extent as +his younger brother's, was not easy in his mind. All day he had been +thinking rather badly of himself, and suspecting that other people +thought worse of him than he deserved, and the reflection was depressing +and irritating. The news of the legacy certainly had not given him +unmixed pleasure, as he felt that it ought to have done; but at the same +time he was aware that he neither grudged nor envied Nicholas his good +fortune, and that this unamiable frame of mind would nevertheless +probably be ascribed to him, if he betrayed any dissatisfaction or +disapproval. The truth was that he could not help feeling some +mortification at the way in which both Mr. Polymathers and his +grandfather assumed the forge to be his destiny and portion in life. Dan +did not by any means<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> despise it: he took an interest in the work, and a +pride in the fact that farmers sent their horses thither from beyond the +Town, so well reputed was old Felix O'Beirne's shoeing. But it did not +follow that he wanted to be a blacksmith all his days. Even if he had +done so, he was sixteen, and consequently of an age to resent any +prescribed calling, especially since he knew that the selection here had +been made as the result of an unfavourable comparison of his abilities +with those of another person. "Dan is no fool, mind you," Mr. +Polymathers had said once. "But for intellect you need never name him on +the same day of the month as Nicholas," a verdict which fell with a +slight shock upon Dan, accustomed to the precedence given by two years' +seniority, superior strength, and a more practical turn of mind. What +was far more serious, however, Dan secretly cherished an ambition of his +own. It took the form of thinking that it would be a wonderfully fine +thing if he could ever get to learn the doctoring, and be able to drive +about on a car like Dr. Hamilton, with a name and a remedy for +everybody's ailment. A particularly fine thing it seemed to understand +the construction of bones and joints, a knowledge which would put it in +his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> power to prevent people from coming to such grief as, for instance, +poor Matt Haloran down at Duffclane, who must limp on a crooked leg to +the end of his days, because the man who pulled in his dislocated ankle +for him had made a botch of it, through not knowing rightly what he was +about. Dan had been much impressed, too, by several cases where a few +drops of brown stuff out of a bottle had put people to sleep when +various aches and pains had long hindered them from closing an eye, a +result which the neighbours were occasionally disposed to view with +mistrust, as rather probably wrought through the agency of "some quare +ould pishtrogues (charms)," but which to Dan's mind proved the +possession of a skill as enviable as it was beneficent. Beside it +hammering out horseshoes appeared a tedious and aimless pursuit, and he +sometimes thumped away in a very vague dream of one of these days +finding himself more congenially employed. Now, however, it was +perfectly clear to him that if Nicholas "took off wid himself to get +scholarship," his own portion must be to stick to the anvil. For +otherwise supposing his grandfather got past his work, or anything else +happened him, there would be nobody left to look after Dan's great-aunt, +who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> was not very old, and his great-grandmother, who was such a +wonderful age entirely that no one could say how much longer she mighn't +live. Even the wildest of dreams are not quite easy to scare away, and +it was this chiefly that marred his content with Mr. Polymathers's +testamentary dispositions. Still, when he heard his grandfather's +doubts, and saw his brother's downcast looks, he became almost as +anxious as Nicholas himself that the neighbours might talk away the old +man's scruples and allow the will to stand.</p> + +<p>Thus there were many eager hopes and fears lodged that evening in the +O'Beirnes' living-room, which was all throbbing with fire-light, as the +neighbours began to drop in talking out of the dark. People are apt to +speak loudly when they get their breath after a battle with snowy +blasts; and the sound of voices came strangely into the stillness close +by, where there was only a cold glimmer of candle-light, and nobody +conversing, unless we count old Bridget O'Beirne, who had slipped in to +repeat a few prayers, and say to herself with a sort of grudging +wistfulness that everybody else was getting away. Then she came back to +her world again, and mended the crumbling red-hot bank with sods out of +her apron,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> and shovelled up the snow-balls shaken off their visitors' +clogged brogues, that they might not melt into mud patches on the floor.</p> + +<p>To Dan and Nicholas, looking on from opposite corners, it seemed a long +while before anything to the purpose was said. Everybody had to comment +upon the snow, and Paddy Ryan's remark was that "if it kep' on at it +that-a-way, they'd be hard enough set to get through the dhrifts be the +day of the buryin'." This caused Mrs. Carbery to remember how she "had +been at a one up in the County Cavan, where the gate into the +buryin'-ground was all blocked up, so that the whole of them had to lep +over what would be be rights a ten-fut wall. And if they did, the half +of them plumped up to their necks in a soft place on the other side, and +came as near losin' their lives as could be thought. Bedad now, they +were comical to behould, goodness forgive her for sayin' so, all bawlin' +and flounderin' about like a flock of sheep stuck in a bog, on'y it was +a white bog and black sheep, as she minded Tom Ennis, that was a quare +codger, sayin' at the time." And this again started old O'Beirne upon +reminiscences of remarkable buryings which had come under his own +observation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Comical it may have been," he said, "but I'll bet you me best brogues +ne'er a one of yous ever witnessed a quarer buryin' than a one I seen +down in the south some ould ages ago, when I was a slip of a lad. But +I'll maybe ha' tould you the story, ma'am—about the flood in the +Tullaroe River?"</p> + +<p>"Was that the time it riz up suddint and dhrownded the crathur that was +diggin' the grave?" said Mrs. Carbery.</p> + +<p>"Sure not at all: that happint up at Lough Gortragh, and this I'm +talkin' about was in the Tullaroe River, a dale souther of the Lough. +Outrageous it does be in the wet saisons. So one harvest day, when it +was flowin' over all before it, there was a walkin' funeral about +crossin' at the ford. The way of it was, they were after hangin' a lad +up at the jail. In those days it's very ready they were wid the hangin', +and in a hurry over it too sometimes. Howane'er the frinds of this lad +had got lave to be buryin' him dacint after he would be hanged; and me +poor father, and meself, and plinty of other people were follyin'. Till +they come to the ford, and when they seen the manner the wather was +runnin' wild, the bearers had a notion to be turnin' back; but they made +up their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> minds, and on they wint. And as sure as they did, one of the +lads must needs slip his fut, and they right in the middle of the river, +and down wid the whole lot of thim, like a stook of oats in a gale of +win'; 'twas twinty wonders e'er a man of thim ever got his feet under +him agin. Faix, now the yell every sowl let you might ha' heard +anywheres at all; for some of thim was thinkin' the misfort'nit body was +apt to be swep' away and mortally dhrowned to the back of bein' hung; +and some of thim wasn't thinkin' any such a thing. But as for the +coffin, I'll give you me word if it didn't take and set off wid itself +floatin' away bobbin' along atop of the wather as light now, as if it +was a lafe dhropped down from the boughs archin' over our heads—and +wasn't that cur'ous enough? And as quare as anythin' it was to behould +the people all peltin' along be the two wet banks of the river as hard +as they could dhrive, and thrippin' theirselves up over the roots of the +trees, and slitherin' into the pools, wid the coffin just skimmin' and +swimmin' away down the sthrame ahead of them, as aisy and plisant as if +it was a bit of a pookawn. You might ha' sworn there was ne'er a nothin' +in it, to look at it. And he they were after hangin' a fine big man, +'ud<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> weigh every ounce of fourteen stone. I tould you it was a quare +thing. So where it would be sailin' to nobody could say; very belike out +into the bay below. But sure when it come where the river runs past th' +ould church, the strong current that was racin' under it just gave a +sort of lap round wid it, and washed it clane up on the flat stones at +the gate goin' into the buryin'-ground, and left it lyin' there, same as +if the lads had set it down off their shoulders. Bedad now it was a very +lucky thing it so happint there was none of the pólis or red coats +about, be raison of their gettin' notice the buryin' was somewhere +else—oncommon lucky."</p> + +<p>"It's as quare as the rest of it," said Peter Dooley, who had heard the +story before, "that nobody among them had had the wit to put a few +brickbats in it, or some good big lumps of heavy stones. Stones is +plinty, and chape enough."</p> + +<p>"They're things you haven't the sellin' of then, I'll go bail," said old +Felix. He spoke in resentment of the interruption, but Mr. Dooley took +the speech as a flattering tribute to his business capacity, and +acknowledged it with a good-humoured smirk.</p> + +<p>So Bridget might have spared herself the uneasiness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> which made her say +hurriedly to her brother: "If you was lookin' for Mr. Polymathers's bit +of writin', Felix, I left it lyin' convanient to you under the plate +there on the table."</p> + +<p>"Oh, ay, bedad, that's what's been botherin' me," said the old man, +reachin' for it, "I dunno rightly what to say to it. But sure any of +yous that like can be readin' it, and see what he sez for yourselves."</p> + +<p>Reading was not a question simply of liking with all members of the +company; but everybody could hold the paper and look wise, and if he +were none the more so afterwards, that may have been only because he +knew the contents of it beforehand. When it was Peter Dooley's turn he +examined the signature closely, and said, "But what name's this he's put +to it? 'John Campion' I see, but divil a sign of any Polymathers."</p> + +<p>"Ah, that was another thing was botherin' me, too," said old O'Beirne, +rather dejectedly, "a little while ago, when Dr. Hamilton was comin' to +see him. For th' ould gintleman tould him Campion was his name; and it +appairs Polymathers is some discripshin of thrade, and not rightly +called to anybody at all. So I was thinkin' he was maybe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> annoyed wid +our callin' him out of his name all the while; but he said all that +ailed it was it was a dale too good for him; and better plased he seemed +we would keep on wid it. Oh ay, 'John Campion's' right enough."</p> + +<p>"I niver heard of any such a thrade as polymatherin'," said his +son-in-law; "would it be anythin' in the pedlarin' line?"</p> + +<p>"Is it pedlarin'?" said old O'Beirne, "and he that took up wid larnin' +and litherature he couldn't ha' tould you the price of a pinny loaf. +Faix, man, if I was Maggie I'd just put a good dab of strong glue in +your place behind the counter down-below, and stick you standing steady +in it, for buyin' and sellin's all the notion you have in your head here +or there. Pedlarin', sez he."</p> + +<p>"Well, at all events," said Peter Dooley, unperturbed, "he's got +together a dacint little fortin one way or the other. Maybe he didn't +come by it any worser; but sure that's no great odds now. And plain +enough he sez the young chap there's to have it—that's all the one +thing wid yourself. But, anyhow, I dunno who could aisy conthrive to be +takin' it off you, and he lavin' no one belongin' to him. You have it +safe enough. Grab all you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> can, and keep a hould of it when you've got +it, sez I. But you're safe enough, no fear."</p> + +<p>Nicholas, watching his grandfather's face from his corner, would have +given ten years of his life to throttle his uncle's reassuring speech +midway.</p> + +<p>"There's no mistake, I should say, about what he was intendin'," said +Terence Kilfoyle, in whose hands the paper was by this time; "and who'd +be apt to know better than himself what he had in his mind so long as he +was right in his head."</p> + +<p>"And if he wasn't, it's little likely he'd be to ha' got that written. +Hard enough work it is, accordin' to what I can see, even when a body +has all his wits to the fore," said old Paddy Ryan, whose acquaintances +did as a rule get more out of breath over a letter than over a wrestling +match or the recapture of an active pig.</p> + +<p>"Mad people do be surprisin' cute some whiles, mind you," said Mrs. +Carbery. "There was a deminted body used to be up at our place—Daft +Jimmy they called him—and if you axed him the time of day he'd tell you +to the minyit, exacter than any clock that ever sthruck, and he belike +not widin a mile of e'er a one."</p> + +<p>"It seems a sight of money to be layin' out on larnin'," pursued old +Paddy; "I dunno where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> you'd be gettin' the vally of it that-a-way, +onless he was larnin' everythin' twyste over, same as you put two coats +of whitewash on a wall if you're after mixin' a drop more than you want. +You might do it then."</p> + +<p>His friends' arguments and illustrations had apparently a depressing +effect upon old Felix, and he said with impatience, "Weary on it, +man-alive! Sure there's no doubt about what he was manin', at all at +all. The question is, have we any call to be takin' him at his word, and +spendin' it away from aught 'ud do him a benefit—the buryin' and Masses +and such?"</p> + +<p>"That might be a diff'rint thing," said Mrs. Carbery.</p> + +<p>"I'd scarce think it," said Terence Kilfoyle, "considherin' he'll say no +more to make it so. The job's out of his hand, and 'ill stay the way he +left it."</p> + +<p>"He might ha' changed his mind afore now, for anythin' we can tell," +said Mrs. Carbery.</p> + +<p>"'Deed, then, he might so, the poor man, Heaven be his bed," said Mrs. +Dooley.</p> + +<p>"You could ax the priest about it," Tim O'Meara said diffidently, out of +the melancholy muteness which it was his habit to maintain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's as much as to say it should go for Masses," said old Felix, +clutching at any shred of definite opinion, "for it's on'y in the nathur +of things his Riverence 'ud be recommindin' thim."</p> + +<p>But Tim shrank away from the shadow of responsibility, protesting, "Och, +not at all, not at all. I wasn't as much as sayin' anythin'."</p> + +<p>The old man tossed up his chin disgustedly, and meditated gloomily +during a brief pause.</p> + +<p>"There's no denyin'," he said then, "that poor Mr. Polymathers had a +won'erful great opinion of himself over there." He nodded towards +Nicholas's corner, and used this periphrasis with a sense that he had +taken a precaution against perilously arousing the boy's vanity. "Times +and agin last summer he was sayin' to me the lad 'ud do credit to us yet +if he had his chances. A pity it 'ud be, he said, if he didn't iver git +to school, or maybe College itself. And gave him his books and all. But +sure, I dunno would that make it look any the better for us if we was to +be grabbin' his bit of money, and we the on'y people he had to see he +got fairity after he was gone. Ne'er a word have I agin schoolin' and +College if there would be no doubtin' over the matter; but there's some +things you can't stand too clear of,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> like the heels of a kickin' horse. +It might have a quare, bad apparance, rael mane; and long sorry I'd be +for that. What 'ud you say, now?"</p> + +<p>He looked slowly round the flickering room, but met with no response +from old or young; all silent, from his mother, asleep in her +elbow-chair by the hearth, to his grandson Nicholas, very wide awake, in +a nook beyond her. Then his eyes travelled across to the opposite +corner, and as they lit there upon his other grandson, he specialised +his question into, "What 'ud <i>you</i> say, Dan?"</p> + +<p>Dan, thus abruptly called upon, was intensely conscious that two eyes +shining out of the shadow over against him had fixed him with an +unwavering gaze. And it is hard to say how he would have answered their +urging if at the same moment Mr. Dooley at his elbow had not been loudly +whispering to Mrs. Dooley—</p> + +<p>"Colleges? Sure that's just talk he has be way of an excuse for keepin' +it. A great notion he has of spendin' it on Colleges. He knows better, +bedad."</p> + +<p>Mr. Dooley, who was rather like several sorts of rodent animals in the +face, wore a smile at his own penetration.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I dunno but it might look ugly," Dan suddenly said.</p> + +<p>He was staring straight before him, yet he knew somehow, as if by a +sixth sense, that the shining eyes opposite ceased their watch with an +angry flash; and he had scarcely spoken before he would have given +anything to call back his irrevocable speech.</p> + +<p>His grandfather's puzzled will closed on the opinion with a vice-like +grip, as if at a touch given to a powerful spring. Indecision was with +him an unwonted mood, from which it was an irresistible relief to +escape, even at some cost. And nobody who knew him could suppose that +his mind, once made up, would alter.</p> + +<p>"Begorrah, Dan, I believe it's true for you," he said. "'Twould be no +thing to go do, and divil a bit of me 'ill do it. Whatever's over from +the buryin' and bit of a grave-stone may go for Masses; sorra a penny of +it a one of the O'Beirnes 'ill touch."</p> + +<p>So Nicholas lost his chances, which seems a pity when one considers how, +for the sake of bringing them to him, old Mr. Polymathers, dazed and +enfeebled and hope-bereft, came tramping on that long, long journey, day +after weary day, under the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> scowling wintry sky, and against the +ruffling blasts, back again across the breadth of Ireland. The road was +all strewn for him with the wreckage of his shattered dream, and the one +gleam of consolation that lighted him on the way had been the thought +that his savings might now give a help to the lad up at Lisconnel. This +had often been in his mind when he set off, shivering in the bleak +morning, and when he stopped to shift his over-heavy bundle, and when he +roused himself painfully from the bewildering lethargies that fell upon +him. But he had reckoned without the pride of the O'Beirnes.</p> + +<p>It was a pity, too, that the affair should have led to an estrangement +between the two brothers, which set in as tacitly as a black frost, for +neither of them ever said a word to the other about Dan's intervention. +This silence left him in the thorny grip of misgivings as to the motives +with which Nicholas might be charging him. That he had done it on +purpose to spoil Nicholas's chances out of spite was one of these. And +although Dan knew very well that he had spoken from an altogether +different impulse, he was conscious of having had feelings which seemed +to give him a cruelly clear insight into the possible workings of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> +Nicholas's mind. "Consaitin' that it was because I was invyin' him, +that's what he's thinkin' agin me," he said to himself as the days went +by, and he perceived, or fancied, that Nicholas in his disconsolate +moping about had no other aim than to keep away from wherever Dan might +be.</p> + +<p>But Dan's unhappiness took an acuter phase in a fortnight or so, when +Nicholas began to resume his mathematical studies. There lies just +opposite the O'Beirnes' front door a low turf bank, gently sloping, and +mostly clothed with short, fine grass, but liable to be cut into brown +squares, if sods are wanted for roofing a shed, or for spreading a green +layer of scraws under new thatch. This had been done on a rather large +scale in the past autumn, and the boys had been in the habit of +utilising the smooth, bare patches as tablets whereon to trace with +pointed sticks, or any handy implements borrowed from the forge, the +figures and diagrams occurring in Mr. Polymathers's scientific lectures. +Nicholas now, albeit he had buried both teacher and hope, began once +more to draw his circles and triangles and polygons on the soft mould, +as it grew damply and darkly through the wearing snow coverlid. +Sometimes in the excitement of demonstrating involved relations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> between +AB's and BC's he would for a while forget his disappointment almost as +completely as he did the wet-winged winds that had been flapping and +wheeling about the house ever since the thaw set in. His obliviousness +could not, however, ensure him against the effects of cold shower-baths, +and before long his geometrical drawing was done to the accompaniment of +a hollow-sounding cough, which made Dan remember a time some years ago +when Nicholas had been so seriously ill with pleurisy that voices had +said at their door, "Ah, the crathur, he'll scarce last the night. Dr. +Hamilton has no opinion of him at all. 'Deed, now, his poor +grandfather's to be pitied, losin' such a fine young lad." And he also +remembered having occasionally heard his great-aunt say that Nicholas +took after his poor mother, and would never comb a grey head. Now, +therefore, the figure of Nicholas sitting out on the bank in a vibrating +mist of rain, with his feet in a puddle, and his hair flickering in damp +strands about his thin face, became for Dan an ominous and saddening +spectacle.</p> + +<p>But while he was ruefully contemplating it one day, a happy idea struck +him. He would get Nicholas some clean white paper to draw his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> <i>dygrims</i> +on. "And then belike he'd be contint to sit in be the fire, instead of +to be catchin' his death scrawmin' out there in the mud under teems of +rain." Grand writing-paper was to be had at Isaac Tarpey's, down in +Ballybrosna, and Dan at this time happened to be in possession of a +whole shilling, which he dedicated more than willingly to the purchase.</p> + +<p>Isaac Tarpey presided over the Ballybrosna Post-office, which was in +some respects a singularly complete establishment, as not only was the +raw material for a letter kept in stock there, but the letter itself +could, for a consideration, be written on the premises by the postmaster +in person. It is true that Isaac did not supply more than the barest +necessaries of scribes, the bread and water, so to speak, of stationery, +the very plainest pens and paper and ink. He kept his ink in a single +moderate-sized jar, out of which he measured penn'orths and ha'p'orths +into the various receptacles brought by customers who came to demand "a +sup" or "a drain." On these sales his profits were certainly enormous, +not less than cent. per cent., but then the consumption of that article +was extremely small in Ballybrosna. It took a long while to reach the +sediment at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> bottom of the jar, and Isaac's letter-writing, done at +the rate of thruppence a-piece, probably was a more lucrative branch of +his business, though the correspondence of the Town was not large enough +to put his services in frequent requisition. Partly on this account, and +partly because he was by nature a strong conservative, Mr. Tarpey set +his face sternly against the spread of education. He was distressed by +the appearance of any symptoms of it among the neighbouring youth, even +when it took the form of an inquiry for his limp paper and skewer-like +pens. In fact, the diffusion of penmanship was what he most seriously +deprecated and discountenanced. "The Lord knows," his main argument ran, +"the foolery them spalpeens 'ill be gabbin' permiscuis would sicken you, +widout givin' them the chance to be sittin' down aisy and invintin' it." +His wife once suggested that "the crathurs might be more sinsible like, +when they were takin' time to considher themselves." But Isaac said, +"Pigs may fly."</p> + +<p>At the time when Dan came for his paper the office was occupied by Norah +Fottrell, engaged in dictating a letter to her sweetheart, Stevie Flynn, +away in Manchester. The composition still looked discouragingly brief, +despite Isaac's big, flourishing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> hand, yet Norah's ideas had already +run so short that she was staring in quest of more up among the cobwebby +rafters over her head.</p> + +<p>"You might say," she said, after a pause, "that I hope he's gettin' his +health where he is."</p> + +<p>"I've said that twyste before," Isaac objected severely.</p> + +<p>"Och, murdher, have you?" said Norah, reverting to the rafters with a +distracted gaze.</p> + +<p>"Couldn't you tell him the price your father got for the last baste he +sould?" said Isaac.</p> + +<p>"Bedad, I might so," said Norah; "'twas on'y thirty shillin', but it 'ud +take up a good bit of room. And look-a, Mr. Tarpey, couldn't we lave the +rest of the page clane? As like as not the bosthoon wouldn't be +botherin' his head spellin' out the half of it."</p> + +<p>The adoption of this course expedited Norah's love-letter to a happy +close. But when Dan took her place at the counter Isaac assured him, not +without satisfaction, that "they were cliver and clane run out of all +their writin' paper, barrin' it might be a sort of butt-ind of loose +sheets left litterin' at the bottom of the drawer, and they that thick +wid dust you could be plantin' pitaties in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> them, forby gettin' mildewed +lyin' up in the damp so long."</p> + +<p>It was not so much compunction at Dan's disappointed countenance as an +irresistible hankering after a good bargain that ultimately led the +postmaster to sweep this uninviting remnant together, and fix upon it +the price of sixpence. The charge was exorbitant, considering the small +quantity and damaged state of the goods, yet Dan carried off his little +packet quite contentedly, announcing that he would step over again for +another sixpenn'orth next week, when, as Isaac reluctantly admitted, a +fresh supply of stationery would have arrived.</p> + +<p>As Dan left the office he passed an unknown gentleman, tall, with a +shrewd sallow face, dark, peaked beard, and alert grey eyes, who had +been leaning against the door while the bargain was struck. The stranger +was Mr. Alfred B. Willett, of New York, a wealthy engineer, who on his +way home from Europe had been visiting his friend Dr. Hamilton of +Ballybrosna. His curiosity now was roused by Dan's evident eagerness to +acquire materials for the drawing of diagrams, the pursuit striking him +as so strangely incongruous with the aspect of the brown-faced stalwart +ragged youth,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> that he stepped inside when the place was empty to make +inquiries on the subject. The post-master's information was to the +effect that "the O'Beirnes above at the forge had always had the name of +bein' very dacint respectable people up to then, and he'd never before +seen any of the young ones settin' themselves up to be askin' after such +things. He hoped it mightn't be a sign that the old man was goin' +foolish, and lettin' the lads get past his control. But sure enough we +must all of us put up wid growin' good for nothin' sometime, unless we +happint to ha' never been worth anythin' to begin wid. And he wished he +had a penny ped him for every one of that sort he'd met in the coorse of +his life."</p> + +<p>This cynical disquisition was not very enlightening. However next week +when Dan slipped over again for his second sixpenn'orth, Mr. Willett it +chanced was there too, having called to report on the excessive +thickness and other undesirable peculiarities of some ink lately +supplied to him. It had been, in fact, composed of "the sidimint" +artfully diluted with a drop of vinegar; but Isaac Tarpey said it was +"thick wid the stren'th was in it," and set about uncorking his fresh +jar with an affronted air, when his customer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> persisted in pointing out +that its adhesive properties were less valuable in ink than in glue. +Meanwhile Mr. Willett fell into a conversation with Dan, which ended in +his engaging the lad to accompany him as guide on a shooting expedition +next day. The arrangement turned out satisfactorily, and was repeated +more than once, with the consequence that Dan and the stranger talked +about many things in the course of several long tramps, until one +evening the latter, sitting on a stone wall after a steep pull uphill, +made Dan an offer which caused the most familiar objects to seem unreal, +because a marvellous dream was coming true among them. For Mr. Willett +proposed to take Dan home with him, and have him taught whatever he most +wished to learn. "You're a smart lad, Dan," he said, "and I reckon +you'll make more of that in the States than in this country."</p> + +<p>"Ah! the doctorin'," said Dan, turning as red as the young sorrel +leaves, and letting his darling wish slip out in his surprise as +involuntarily as he would have blinked at a flash of lightning. But next +moment he remembered Nicholas, and fell silent; Nicholas, who had not +looked him in the face since that snowy evening<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> weeks ago. The dream +seemed to stop coming true.</p> + +<p>"There's no need to make up your mind in a hurry," said Mr. Willett, +"you can be thinking it over between this and Monday."</p> + +<p>Dan did think it over deeply that night and the next day and the day +after. He thought how fine, if rather fearful, it would be to go on such +a journey; and what a splendid thing to learn the doctoring business, +and some day come home again able to cure everybody of anything that +ailed them. "For out in the States, like enough, they had all manner of +contrivances the people over here had never taught Dr. Hamilton," whose +skill was occasionally baffled. He imagined the neighbours' surprise +when he came driving up on his car; if possible he would be driving a +little blue-roan mare like Farmer Finucane's Rosemary, with whom he had +made friends in the course of many shoeings. He thought he would be +sorry to miss seeing them all for so long; and yet it would certainly be +very pleasant, in a way, to get to a place where things were a bit +different sometimes, not like here where when you were getting up in the +morning you knew what was bound to be happening all day just as well as +you did when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> you were going to bed that night. And next he thought that +such days would be coming to Nicholas, while he himself was away seeing +and learning "all manner of everything;" and that if he had held his +tongue that time, maybe Nicholas would have got his chance with Mr. +Polymathers's money, instead of its all being spent away on nothing. And +he thought that it wasn't his fault, for what else could he say when he +was asked all of a minute, except the first thing that came into his +head? And he wondered how it would be if anything happened to his +grandfather. Nicholas wasn't over-strong, and too young altogether +besides. And then he thought again that Mr. Willett was cleverer than +anybody he had ever seen, and more good-natured; it was a pleasure to go +about with him; and people were great fools to give up their chances. +Maybe Nicholas might get another some day. And maybe Mr. Polymathers had +been mistaken in thinking that he was the one best worth teaching.</p> + +<p>All these things Dan thought, and the result of his cogitations was that +on the Monday he stole a sheaf of Nicholas's most complicated +cobweb-like diagrams from their hiding-place in the wall, and brought +them with him when he went by appointment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> to meet his patron off beyond +Knockfinny. And when Mr. Willett said to him: "Well, Dan, what about the +States and the doctoring?" he replied inconsequently by holding out the +sheets of paper with the explanation: "It's me brother, Nicholas, sir, +does be doin' them mostly out of his own head."</p> + +<p>Mr. Willett looked at them for some minutes with interested +ejaculations. "Upon my word," he then said, "if these were done out of +his own head, he must have about as much mathematics located in it by +nature as a spider."</p> + +<p>"Aren't they good for anythin' at all then, sir?" said Dan, not knowing +exactly what he hoped and feared.</p> + +<p>"Good? They're astonishing," said Mr. Willett. He asked some questions +about Nicholas's age, schooling, and so forth; after which he said: "You +must take me to see this brother of yours, Dan. I expect he'll have got +to come right along with us."</p> + +<p>But Dan stared round and round the spacious brown-purple floor they were +standing on, and after a far-off flight of wild fowl, and up at the sky, +where the clouds travel without let or hindrance, before he answered +hesitatingly: "The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> two of us couldn't ever both go, sir. How could we +be lavin' the forge and all on me ould grandfather? And Nicholas never +makes any great hand of the work."</p> + +<p>"Ah! is that the way the land lies?" said Mr. Willett, as if half +impatient, and half amused, but not best pleased. He looked hard at Dan, +and thought he saw how matters stood, "You've no mind to leave the old +grandfather and the rest of the concern, but you think it would be more +in the other lad's line."</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact Dan was at that particular moment feeling strongly +how easily he could have reconciled himself to the separation, and how +entirely it would be the making of him to do so. But he did not gainsay +Mr. Willett's statement. To himself he said, "He's a right to have his +chances; and the one of us is bound to stop in it"—a mode of expressing +his sentiments which showed that he had much need of culture; and aloud: +"Nicholas always had a powerful wish to be gettin' some larnin'; and I'm +a fool to him at the geomethry anyway."</p> + +<p>The upshot of it all was that when some six weeks later Mr. Alfred B. +Willett sailed for New York, Nicholas O'Beirne accompanied him, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> Dan +O'Beirne remained at Lisconnel. It was on a gleamful April day that they +set out, with soft gusts roaming all around, as if they had come from +very far off, and were eagerly exploring the strange places, and many +light clouds flitting by swiftly above, as if they had a long journey +before them, and were in a joyous flurry over it. Dan spent the +slow-paced hours in the forge, where he hammered loud and long, and +seldom looked across the threshold. The pleasantest thought in his mind +was the remembrance of a short conversation which he had had with +Nicholas while they were tying up Mr. Polymathers's old books at the +kitchen-door just as the grey chink in the east filled with rose-light, +and the earliest breeze came over the bog waving the withered grasses. +Dan had said to Nicholas: "Sure I wouldn't be grudgin' you e'er a bit of +good luck, lad." And Nicholas had replied: "And never did."</p> + +<p>After Nicholas's departure many days bad and good rose on Lisconnel, but +few of them brought any tidings of the absent. Letters passed now and +then, laggard and uninstructive as such letters must be, and they grew +rarer and briefer as time went on. Perhaps a dozen years had gone by,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> +when Dan one day received simultaneously an American newspaper and a +parcel. The newspaper was marked with large blue chalk crosses at a +paragraph which related how the degree of D.Sc. had been conferred. +<i>Honoris Causâ</i> upon Mr. Nicholas O'Beirne by the University of +Sarabraxville. And in the parcel, more astonishing still, was a +brown-covered book, lettered on the back: <i>A Treatise on Conic Sections, +by Nicholas O'Beirne</i>. By this time Dan had been left alone at the +forge; but he was courting Mary Ryan, Mick Ryan's daughter, so he +naturally conveyed to her this remarkable news. It produced a profound +impression. Old Paddy her grandfather was with difficulty brought to +realise the fact that "they were after makin' a doctor of young Nicholas +O'Beirne, him that went out to the States the year before the Famine." +And when he had got the idea into his head, it seemed to act like a +swivel-joint, and set him nodding to the tune of: "Well tub-be sure; +glory be to God; young Nicholas O'Beirne."</p> + +<p>"I wish to goodness he'd come over and cure Mick, poor man," said Mick's +wife. "For he hasn't been worth pickin' up off the road ever since he +was bad with the fever last year, and he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> might as well be dhrinkin' so +much ditch-wather as the ould stuff Dr. Carson's givin' him."</p> + +<p>"Ah but it's not the medical doctorin' Nicholas has gone to," said Dan, +the shadow of a shadow crossing his face, "there'd be diff'rint letters +for that." And he proceeded to read out the report of the degree +conferred <i>honoris causâ</i> upon the distinguished young Irishman, Mr. +Nicholas O'Beirne, whose recent contributions to the study of the higher +mathematics had roused so much interest in scientific circles.</p> + +<p>"Ay, true for you, Dan," said Mary; "you don't hear them callin' Dr. +Carson an Honory-causy."</p> + +<p>Dan's shred of Latin had grown rustier than the oldest iron in his +stock, but was not yet utterly worn away. "The manin' of that," he +explained, "would be, <i>be raison of honour</i>, and I should suppose, +they've gave it to him for the sake of what all he's after doin'."</p> + +<p>"Bedad then, Dan," said Mrs. Mick, "some one had a right to be givin' +you an Honory-causy yourself, considherin' the cure you're after makin' +on Mr. Finucane's ould mare, and everybody of the opinion she'd never +stand on four feet again to the ages' ind."</p> + +<p>"Och blathers, ma'am," Dan said, modestly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> "sure anybody wid the sight +of their eyes might aisy enough ha' seen what ailed the crathur. That +was no great comether. And look at what Nicholas is after doin'; he's +wrote a book, no less."</p> + +<p>The "Treatise on Conic Sections" created an even stronger sensation than +the news of the honorary degree, especially among those who had letters +enough to spell out the familiar name on the title-page. Dan's Mary was +not one of these scholars, but she found another page to admire, saying +that the circles "drew in and out of aich other like a lot of +soap-bubbles, had an oncommon tasty look, and so had all them weeny +corners, wid the long bames between, the moral of a chain-harrow, you +couldn't mistake it. Sure it's proud of it anybody might be."</p> + +<p>Probably Nicholas was very proud of this first heir of his invention, +diagrams, and all. Whether it ever had any successors seems doubtful; +certainly none of them arrived at his old home. But his Treatise is +still safely stowed away there in a corner of the dresser. Most likely +it is the only copy of "O'Beirne on Conic Sections" existing in Ireland; +and who would expect to find it lodged in a smoke-stained cabin on the +wild bogland between Duffclane and Lisconnel?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>BOYS' WAGES</h3> + + +<p>One leaden-roofed morning in the winter after his brother Nicholas had +gone to the States, young Dan O'Beirne was in rather low spirits, and +rather out of humour. It was not unnatural that such a mood should +occasionally overtake him, since he had reached apparently a straight +and monotonous tract of road, which would have looked interminable to +the eyes of seventeen had not his household companions been now all +declining folk, whose presence brought under his constant observation +the last stages of "a long journey in December gone." Half a century or +so of smithy work, even with some unlicensed doctoring and illicit +distilling thrown in, was not by any means the future that he would have +liked his oracle to predict for him. And though he forecast it +accurately enough without the intervention of any soothsaying, this no +more helped him to avoid it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> than if he had been an old-world tragical +hero, whose friends were seeking by vain devices to circumvent the +promulgated decrees of his destiny. Dan, indeed, took no steps of that +sort. For him, as for most of us, the skirts of circumstance were as the +meshes of the net in which Fate holds us, and his evil star was an +object of which it seemed very hard to get a good grip. I have always +wondered myself how people set about it. At any rate, Dan continued to +walk under his; that is to say, if it were really bad luck that kept him +at the forge. Upon this point there might be differences of opinion. +Terence Kilfoyle, for instance, who dropped in to escape from a +snow-shower in the course of that morning, would not, evidently, have +taken such a view. For when Dan said something grumblingly about +Lisconnel being "a slack sort of a place, where one didn't get much +chance of doin' anythin' at all;" he replied, "Bedad now, if I'd the +fine business you and your grandfather have to be puttin' me hand to, I +wouldn't call the Queen me aunt."</p> + +<p>In those times the district around our bogland was more thickly +inhabited than it is at present, and the blacksmith's jobs were +proportionately plentier. Nowadays the forge is liable to long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> spells +of silence, but Dan, who as young Dan has been superseded, philosophises +over them, and talks no more about chances. On this occasion his remarks +were overheard by his grandfather, perhaps because the old man had begun +to have thoughts of chances which made him sensitive to signs of +discontent in his assistant. And by and by when Terence had gone, he +said, "Terence said a very sinsible word; a lad might aisy get a worse +start in life, ay indeed he might so, if it was twyste as slack. But +anyhow there's them here that 'ud be hard set to make a shift for +themselves if the two of us was out of it; and I'm apt to be quittin' +before Biddy at all events." To which Dan replied, "Why what talk was +there of quittin'?" and the subject ceased out of the conversation. +During the subsequent silence Dan thought, among other things, that it +was "aisy for his grandfather to be talkin';" but in this he made a +mistake. For old O'Beirne remembered vividly that he had once had his +own restless ambitions, and his chances, too, of realising them, in +times when he did more stirring things than merely forge pike-heads. +Therefore he guessed what lent an unnecessary vehemence to his +grandson's hammering, and if he could have thought of any consolatory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> +remark, he would have made it. But it only occurred to him to say that +the days would soon be len'thenin' now, anyway; and even to himself this +seemed cold comfort. Dan replied, "Och, they're plinty long enough," and +sent a thick swarm of fiery bees flitting up the dark-throated chimney.</p> + +<p>That evening when Dan closed the broad-leaved forge doors, he shut +himself out into a world as black and white as moonlight on turf and +snow could make it. Though the morning's flutter of snow had left but a +meagre sprinkling on that great bogland, the moonbeams touching every +scattered flake, seemed to gather it all up widely in one stark spectral +gleam. Far away towards the horizon this dulled off into a shadowy zone +of mist, where the wind was muttering and moaning to itself, dimly heard +across the hushed floor of the night. Beyond that Dan was aware +wistfully of regions unknown, with all their possibilities fascinating +and mysterious. But he had small scope for speculation about what he +should find when he opened the house door fast by; and in fact he +discovered everything and everybody just as he could have foretold. The +fire-lit room was filled with the busy weaving of the web that ruddy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> +gleams and russet shadows never got finished, swiftly as they glanced, +and overhead the black spaces between the rafters gloomed down like +inlets of a starless sky. There sat his great-grandmother smoking her +dudeen in her nook by the hearth, and her big cloak—a very little of +wizened old woman to a great many heavy, dark-blue folds. There, too, +knitted her grey-haired daughter Bridget, who said, as she did every +evening, "Well, Dan, so you're come in," and would have not much more to +say for herself that night except the Rosary. And his grandfather, who +had come in just before him, was lighting his pipe in the opposite +chimney-corner. A year ago his brother Nicholas would have thrust a +head, all eyes and rumpled hair, into a patch of bright flickerings, to +pore over the tattered arithmetic-book; but by this time his absence had +become a matter of course. The only at all unusual feature was Joe +Denny, the blind fiddler, who had called in on his way home and had a +drop of poteen and a farrel of wholemeal cake. Yet Joe was indeed a +tolerably common incident, and his jokes altered not. He had begun his +parting one, which was to the effect that sorra a man in the counthry of +Connaught could see clearer than himself if the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> night was dark enough, +when Dan's arrival interrupted him, and made him declare, taking out his +fiddle, that 'twould be a poor case if the lad didn't get e'er a tune at +all. Dan was not much in the humour for tunes, but he said, "Ay, Joe, +give us a one, man-alive," and Joe struck up with twangle and squeak.</p> + +<p>He was playing—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Over the hills and far away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over the hills and beyond the say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over the hills and a great way off,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the wind it blew—"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>when a thudding knock on the door seemed to beat down the shriller +sounds and stop the sliding bow. Dan went to see who it was, and found +standing on the threshold a tall, lean old man in a long, ragged coat, +with a thick, knotted blackthorn in his hand. A few hard-frozen granules +pattered in at the opened door, which admitted a glimpse of the moon, +tarnished by a thin drift of scudding cloud.</p> + +<p>"God save all here," said the old man, who was a stranger.</p> + +<p>"Good-evenin' to you kindly, sir," responded old Felix from his fireside +corner; "and wudn't you be steppin' widin?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'm on'y axin' me way to the place below there—Ballybrosna beyond +Duffclane," said the old man; "it's the road I must be steppin', for I'm +more than a thrifle late."</p> + +<p>But he came slowly forward into the room as if lured by the fire, at +which he looked hungrily. He stooped and limped very much, and when he +took off his black caubeen, the sharp gleam of his white hair seemed to +comment coldly on those infirmities.</p> + +<p>"I'm widin a mile or so of it, or maybe less, by now, I should suppose," +he said.</p> + +<p>"Faix, then, it's the long mile," said the fiddler. "Put half a dozen to +it, and you'll be nearer; and bedad it's aisier work doin' that in your +head than on your feet. Be the same token I must be leggin' it, or +they'll consait I'm lost at our place." And he stepped out darkly into +the veiled moonlight.</p> + +<p>"Wirrasthrew and weary on it," the old man said to himself; and then to +the others, "Is it that far as he says?"</p> + +<p>"Ay is it, every inch," said old O'Beirne. "And too long a thramp for +you altogether, sir, if I might make so free."</p> + +<p>"For the matther of that," said the ragged old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> man, proudly, "I've +walked the double of it, and more, times and agin, widout so much as +considherin'. But your road's a bit heavy to-night, wid the snow—and +could."</p> + +<p>"That's the worst of the roads," said the little old woman, peering +suddenly out of her corner; "the longer you walk them, the longer +they'll grow on you, till you begin to think there's no ind to them. And +after that, the best conthrivance is to keep off of them clivir and +clane, the way I do. Then they're no len'th at all."</p> + +<p>"Ah, ma'am, but 'twouldn't be very handy if the young folk took to +thryin' that plan," the old man said. "<i>We</i>'re bound to keep steppin' +out."</p> + +<p>A short silence followed this remark, because the hearers felt uncertain +whether he meant the pronoun for a jest. To evade the difficulty, old +O'Beirne bade Dan fetch a mug for a drop of poteen, and meanwhile said +to the stranger:</p> + +<p>"Sit you down, sir, and take a taste of the fire. Where might you be +thravellin' from this day?"</p> + +<p>"I was livin' over at Innislone," said the old man, sitting down on a +creepy stool.</p> + +<p>"Musha, then, you didn't ever come that far all on ind—sure it's miles +untould."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'Twas the day afore yisterday I quit. Last night I slep' at Sallinbeg, +and this mornin' I met a man who loaned me a grand lift in his cart."</p> + +<p>"I used to know a man lived at Innislone," said old O'Beirne, "be the +name of Brian English. He come by here of an odd while after the stuff."</p> + +<p>"Ay, bedad, and a very dacint ould crathur he was. Meself's one of the +Dermodys—young Christie they call me—but ould Christie that was me +poor father's dead this while back. Thank you kindly, lad," the old man +said to Dan, who now handed him a little delft mug half full of whisky. +"Why, you're nigh as long a fellow as meself. Are you good at the +wrestlin'?"</p> + +<p>"Och, I'm no great things whatever," Dan replied with becoming modesty.</p> + +<p>"There's not many heavy weights in the parish 'ud care to stand up to +me," said this young Christie, holding the mug in a gaunt tremulous +hand. "Faix, it's noways forrard they've been about it since the time I +come near breakin' Rick Tighe's neck. I've noticed that. Begorrah, now, +ivery sowl thought I had him massacred," he said, with a transient gleam +of genuine complacency. "You might have heard tell of it, belike?"</p> + +<p>"It 'ud ha' happint before my recollections,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> sir, maybe," said Dan, +looking at him perplexedly, "if 'twas apt to ha' been a longish while +ago."</p> + +<p>"'Twasn't long to say," said the old man. He drank the spirits +lingeringly, in slow sips, and seemed to sit up straighter as he did so. +Then he set down the empty mug on the table, and said, "<i>Boys' wages</i>."</p> + +<p>But he had scarcely uttered the words when he perceived that he had +thought aloud irrelevantly, and made haste to cover the slip. "I'd +better be gettin' on wid meself," he said, rising, "Thank you, kindly. +That's an iligant fire you have." He looked at it regretfully, but +turned resolutely towards the door, still open, and framing the broad +dim whiteness out away to the bounding curtain of gloom. "It's a grand +thing," he said defiantly, "to have all the world before you."</p> + +<p>The sentiment was not accepted without qualification.</p> + +<p>"That depinds," said old O'Beirne. "Somewhiles I question wud you find +anythin' in it better than a warm corner and a pipe of 'baccy, if you +thramped the whole of it. And you might happen on a dale worse. What do +you say, mother?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p> + +<p>She was knocking ashes out of her pipe-bowl against the wall, and nodded +in assent.</p> + +<p>"It's no place for people that can keep shut of it," she said.</p> + +<p>"If you've ne'er a chance of gettin' into it," said Dan, "I dunno what +great good it does you bein' there afore or behind."</p> + +<p>"Or if you knew there was nothin' left in it you wanted to be goin' +after," said his great-aunt, half to herself.</p> + +<p>"Well, whatever way you look at it," said the strange old man, "I've a +notion I've a right to be gettin' somethin' more out of it be now than +boys' wages. Ay, it's time I was. Boys' wages; the lyin' spalpeen."</p> + +<p>"If you axed me, sir," said old O'Beirne, "I'd say 'twas time somebody +else would be gettin' the wages. Isn't there any childer to be earnin' +for you? Haven't you e'er a son, that you need be thrampin' the counthry +that fashion, let alone talkin' about all the world, wild like?"</p> + +<p>"I've a son, troth have I, if that was all," said the old man, turning +away, angrily.</p> + +<p>"Then it's that much better off than me you are. The only one I had, he +took and died on me, himself, and his poor wife a couple of days<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> after +him—God be good to them—when the lad there wasn't scarce the height of +that stool, and a less size on his brother, that's away now in the +States gettin' all manner of a fine edication. Very dacint poor childer +they always was, too; but it was a bad job."</p> + +<p>"He might ha' done worse agin you than that," said Christie Dermody, "be +the powers he might." He had retreated as far as the door, but now he +faced round, and stood on the edge of the thin snow, leaning his right +shoulder against the post, and looking in at the other old man by the +fire. "He might ha' fooled you for years and years, and made a +laughin'-stock of you wid everybody about the place—and me wid ne'er a +thought of any such a thing—he might so, and bad luck to him.... +'Foostherin' about and consaitin' to be doin' a fair day's work, when +he's the creep of a snail on him, and the stren'th of a rat.' That's +what I heard Tim Reilly sayin' and I goin' home on the Saturday night. +But if I come creepin' after him, the young baste, he'd maybe ha' ráison +to remimber it.... And himself and the wife lettin' on there was nothin' +like me; and he callin' me to come into his room—I heard him plain +enough all the while, no fear, but I wudn't be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> lettin' on. There's +ne'er a hap'orth ailin' him. Troth he may call till he's choked afore +iver I'll come next or nigh him. And sendin' the little girl slutherin' +to say her daddy wanted me. I tould her want might be his master. Sure +they're all the one pack, and the widest width there is in this world +I'll be keepin' between them and me. Shut of them I'll be for good and +all—and I'll make me fortin' yet, and no thanks to him. What talk have +they of ould men? Boys' wages. Good-night to you all."</p> + +<p>To those in the room it seemed as if he dropped away back into the wan +dusk behind him, and next moment they saw him in motion a few paces +distant, limping fast, and gesticulating as though he were still +carrying on his monologue.</p> + +<p>"That old crathur's asthray in his mind, I misdoubt," said old O'Beirne, +"and I wouldn't won'er if he was after gettin' bad thratement among his +own people."</p> + +<p>"Goodness pity him," said his sister Bridget. "It's a cruel perishin' +night, and snowin' thicker. Where'll he get to at all? And carryin' +nought but an old stick. We'd better ha' kep' him."</p> + +<p>"Sure we couldn't ha' stopped him anyhow,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> said the blacksmith, "no +more than one of them flustherin' blasts goin' by. When a body's took up +wid onraisonable notions, you might as well be hammerin' could iron as +offerin' to persuade him diff'rint. But he'll maybe turn in at the +Gallahers'."</p> + +<p>They watched him until the dark imprints of his receding steps in the +thin snow-sheet could no longer be distinguished, and then Dan closed +the door, shutting out the wide world and the fortune seeker. "Things is +quare and conthráry," he said to himself.</p> + +<p>Some two hours afterwards they were all sitting round the fire still. It +was nearly nine o'clock, which is late in Lisconnel, but they found it +hard to detach themselves from the cordial grasp of the warm glow. +Bridget, however, had put by her needles, and begun to tell her beads, +when another knock broke in upon them.</p> + +<p>"He's come back belike," said old O'Beirne; but when Dan opened the +door, the person who stood there, though likewise tall and gaunt and +ragged, had grizzled black hair, and was not more than middle-aged. His +face was hollow-cheeked and drawn, and his eyes glittered while he +shivered and panted. The night had grown wilder as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> the moon sank low, +and the snow went past the door like rapid wafts of ghostly smoke. This +newcomer stumbled into the room without ceremony, as if half blinded, +and said breathlessly—</p> + +<p>"Did any of yous be chance see an ould man goin' this road to-day? An +ould ancient man, somethin' lame; be the name of Christie Dermody?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, sure enough, himself was in it not so long ago," said old O'Beirne. +"If it hadn't been you, 'twas very apt to ha' been him come back."</p> + +<p>In the man's face one trouble seemed to be relieved by another at the +tidings.</p> + +<p>"Glory be to goodness, then, that I've heard tell of him at last," he +said. "But God help the crathur, what's to become of him streelin' about +this freezin' night? The snow's as dhry as mail-dust. Perished he'll be. +Och, he's the terrible man to go do such a thing on us. What way did he +quit? It's me ould father, sir, that's over eighty years of age."</p> + +<p>"And is he after strayin' away on you?" said old O'Beirne.</p> + +<p>"Follyin' him since yisterday mornin' I am," said the other, "when it's +in me bed I should be be rights, for I'm that distroyed wid the could +on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> me chest I've scare a bit of breath in me body. But sure what matter +if I can come be the crathur agin. Is it that a-way he went, did you +notice?"</p> + +<p>"You're bound to wait till the flurry of the win's gone by," said old +O'Beirne, for his visitor pointed out into a shrieking whirl, shrilling +higher and fiercer. "Sorra a minyit you'll lose, for you couldn't stir a +step in that or see a stim. Sit you down a while. What was it set him +rovin'?"</p> + +<p>"Did he say anythin' agin us? Anythin' of bein' thrated bad?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I wouldn't say he seemed altogether satisfied in himself," said +old O'Beirne, remembering his suspicions. "Somethin' he said of bein' +made a fool of, and tould lies to——"</p> + +<p>"And gettin' boys' wages," said Dan.</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay, wirrasthrew, that was the very notion he had, goodness help us. +What will we do at all wid him? You see, sir, me father's a won'erful +proud-minded man; he is that. And a great big man, and as strong as ten +he was, ontil he got rael ould entirely. So it's cruel bad he thinks of +not bein' able for everythin' the way he used to be; and he won't let on +but he is, be no manner of manes he won't. 'Deed no, he sez he's as good +a man as ever he was in his life."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Belike now he's of the opinion the sun doesn't dhrop down out of the +sky of an evenin'," said little old Mrs. O'Beirne, with sarcasm. "What +does the ould body expec'?"</p> + +<p>"I dunno, ma'am, I dunno. Sure it's agin nathur and raison. There's +meself gettin' as grey as a badger, and noways that supple as I was. But +me father's a terrible cliver man. You'd niver get the better of an +argufyment wid him, for he wouldn't listen to a word you'd be sayin'. So +you see the way of it was, the two of us is workin' this great while on +Mr. Blake's lan', that's a dacint man enough; and it might be three year +ago, he sez to me one Saturday night—for be good luck 'twas me and not +me father he'd mostly be payin'—sez he to me, 'Look it here, Ned, it's +the last time I'll be givin' man's wages to your father, for bedad an +infant child 'ud do as much as he any day of the week. So I'll put him +on boys' wages,' he sez, 'that'ill be three shillin's, and every penny +as much as he's worth,' sez he. And sure I knew it was the truth he was +sayin', but 'twould break me father's heart.</p> + +<p>"So nought better could I do on'y to make out 'twas he would be gettin' +the man's wages, and meself the boy's. Diff'rint raisons I conthrived,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> +he said, with some natural pride in the details of his strategy, "but +mostly I let on 'twas because of me bein' such a fool about the horses +they couldn't trust me wid any except the ould ones. Anyway me father +was contint enough; faix, some whiles he seemed a bit set up like, +considherin' he had the pull over me, and he'd be sayin' what at all 'ud +we do without him, and I such an omadhawn. Niver a cross word we had +until last week I got laid up wid this mischancy could and the pain in +me chest, so sorra a fut could I go to me work; and I well knew the +whole thing 'ud come out, if he went when I didn't. Bedad I dhramed it +all the night asleep and awake, till I was fairly moidhered in me head."</p> + +<p>"Tub-be sure," said old O'Beirne, "that's the worst of lettin' on. If +anythin' goes crooked, it's like the bottom bursted out of a sack of +mail; you're carryin' about nothin' at all before you know what's +happint you."</p> + +<p>"Well, we done the best we could, me wife and me, to dispersuade him off +of goin' on Saturday. Bad wid the could too, we said he was; but och not +a fut of him but would go. So Barney McAuliffe was tellin' me wife, when +the men was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> payin' in the yard, me father he ups and says to Mr. Blake:</p> + +<p>"'Beg pardon, sir, but you're after givin' me no more than me son's +money, and it's meself was workin' this week, not him.'</p> + +<p>"And Mr. Blake sez, just goin' off in a hurry, 'What are you talkin' +about, man? Whethen now, you don't suppose I've been payin' you full +wages, that hasn't done a stroke of work worth namin' this half-dozen +year? That'ill have to contint you till Ned's back agin.'</p> + +<p>"And Barney sez my father had ne'er a word out of him, but just went +home dazed like. And me wife sez when he come in, he sits down on the +form be the door, and niver opens his lips. So she knew right well what +ailed him, and she said iverythin' she could think of—how it's +disthroyed we'd be on'y for him now I was laid up, and the won'erful man +he was, and this way and that way. But niver a word he heeded, nor near +the fire he wouldn't come, and had her heart-scalded seein' him sittin' +there in the draught of the door. And I meself was tired callin' him to +come in and spake to me, and I lyin' in bed, but next or nigh me he +niver come, not even for little Maggie that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> always thought a hape +of. And the next mornin' if he wasn't quit out of it early, afore +anybody knew, in the bitter black frost, and a quare threatinin' of +snow. So then as soon as I heard tell, I up wid me and come after him. +Troth, I left the wife frettin' wild, the crathur, thinkin' I'd get me +death; but what else could I do? And now I must be steppin' on again. +Och no, thank you, lad, if I took a dhrop of spirits, I'd be choked wid +coughin'. But you might just set me on the right road."</p> + +<p>"I'll go along wid him," said Dan, aside to his grandfather, "and if I +can bring him, or the both of them, back here, I will. It's my belief +he's as bad as he can stick together."</p> + +<p>So Dan and old Dermody's son went out into the night. A lull in the wind +had come, and the light of the moon, hung near the horizon's rim, +flickered out dimly ever and anon as the edge of the drifting mist +lapped up wave-like and touched her. It was piercingly cold. Ned Dermody +leaned heavily on Dan as they walked, only till he fetched back his +breath, he said, but it was slow in coming. They had not gone many +hundred yards, yet vast tracts of solitude seemed to have folded round +them, before Dan caught sight of something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> that somehow startled and +shocked him—a group of boulders by the road, with a shadow under one of +them strangely like a human form. A few paces further on he became aware +that it really was a man—the old man—sitting huddled up under the big +glimmering stone. Thus far had he carried his forlorn quest after +Fortune, and mutiny against Fate. His snaggy stick lay at a little +distance, a black line on the snow, and the sight of that made Dan's +heart stumble. But Ned Dermody shouted out hoarsely and loud: "Be the +Lord it's himself," and, as Dan afterwards used to tell, "took a flyin' +lep at him, as if he'd a mind to ha' lep over the world."</p> + +<p>"Musha now, and is it there you would be sittin' to catch your death of +could?" he began, in a tone of gleeful reproach, shaking the old man by +the shoulder. "Goodness forgive me for sayin' so, but it's yourself's +the pernicious ould miscreant. Fine thrampin' over the counthry I've had +after you—forby givin' us the greatest fright altogether. Sure I give +you me word the whole of them at home was runnin' in and out of the +house on Sunday mornin' like so many scared rabbits about a bank. And +ne'er a man-jack of them, you persaive, had the wit to find out where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> +you was off to till meself riz out of me bed to go look. And now, +man-alive, git up wid yourself and come along, for it's mortal could +here, and there's tons' weight of snow this instiant minyit ready to +dhrop down on our heads. Come along. Sure it's niver disthressin' +yourself you'd be about ould Blake and his wages? Musha sure Norah and +meself was sayin' on'y on Saturday night that there wasn't many +stookawns like me had fathers to be bringin' them home shillin's every +week as regular as the clock, and givin' prisints to the childer, and +all manner. There's little Maggie frettin' woful to be missin' you out +of it. Don't be keepin' me standin' on me feet, there's a good man, for +it's quare and bad I've been, and the doctor was sayin' he couldn't tell +what ruination mightn't be on me if I didn't mind what I was at. And +here's the dacint lad waitin' to show us the road. We're just comin' +along this instant, boyo. Look-a-daddy, 'twas all a mistake, and we'll +settle it up next week, when we're both workin' agin. Very belike Mr. +Blake didn't rightly know what he was sayin'. Wake up and come along.... +Daddy darlint, don't you hear what I'm tellin' you? It's raisin' your +wages they'll be after Lent, I wouldn't won'er, raisin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> them a shillin' +belike—rael grand it'ill be—God Almighty!"</p> + +<p>He stood up suddenly and looked towards Dan, but at neither him nor +anything else. The moon began to shine clearer in a chink between two +straight leaden bars, and the great white bog seemed to grow wider and +stiller under the strengthening light. The very wind had forsaken them, +and gone off keening into the far distance. It seemed to Dan that even a +flake fluttering down would have been some company, but not a single one +was in the air. He felt himself seized by a nameless panic, such as had +not come over him since he was a small child a dozen years ago.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter at all?" he said futilely to Ned Dermody, knowing +well enough.</p> + +<p>"Gone he is," said Ned, "the life was vexed out of him among us all. +He's gone. And it's follyin' him I'd liefer be, on'y for them crathurs +at home."</p> + +<p>But in another moment he came staggering against Dan, and clutched his +arm, saying wildly: "Ah, lend me a hand—for pity's sake—a hand for a +minyit. Don't let go of me." And he leant such a heavy dead weight on +him that all Dan could do was to let it slip down and down as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> softly as +might be, until the snowy earth took it from him.</p> + +<p>Ned had followed in spite of the crathurs at home.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>CON THE QUARE ONE</h3> + + +<p>Among the unfamiliar faces that show themselves now and then at +Lisconnel, some make no second appearance, never coming our way again, +but passing out of our ken as utterly as if their route lay along a +tangent, or the branch of an hyperbola, or other such unreverting line. +We seldom, it is true, get proof positive, as in the case of the +Dermodys, father and son, that they will no more return. Generally their +doing so any day may be supposed possible as long as anybody remembers +to suppose it. But some come back at more or less regular intervals, +like periodic comets, so that if a certain time elapses without bringing +one of them, the neighbours say they wonder what's took him at all, +while some reappear erratically enough to preclude any calculations upon +the subject. Of this latter class was Con the Quare One, who, after his +first arrival,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> on a summer's evening, now more than a quarter of a +century since, became a rather frequent visitor, usually stopping for a +few days at least, before he resumed his travels. It was conjectured +that these were very extensive, though perhaps less so than Mad Bell's. +But it was even more difficult to obtain a satisfactory report of them +from him than from her. Mrs. M'Gurk said he was "so took up with his own +notions, that he mostly knew no better where he'd been, or what he'd +been doin', than a baste drivin' home from a fair; you might as soon be +axin' questions of one as the other; though when Con chose to give his +mind to it, he knew what he was about as well as anybody else. Sure if +you wanted to know which way he was after comin', as likely as not he'd +talk about nothin' on'y the sorts of clouds he'd been watchin' goin' by +over his head; and 'twould take a cliver body to tell from that what +road he might ha' had under his feet." This incommunicativeness made him +a disappointing guest sometimes by the firesides, where he was finding a +night's lodging; though he might eke out his conversation with a little +twangling on his fiddle, in which the melody would be quite as vague as +his narratives. As for his own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> earlier history, he never gave any clear +account of it, probably having none to give, and the neighbours' +speculations upon this point were somewhat wide of the mark, which was +not surprising, as what stray hints he did let fall could be very +deviously construed. The opinion most commonly received held that he had +"took and run off from home, and he but a gossoon, be raison of doin' +some quare bit of mischief, and had a mind yet to be keepin' out of his +people's way; though, like enough, they weren't throublin' their heads +about him be now;" a theory which was not entirely in accordance with +facts.</p> + +<p>Con was not, I believe, an especially quare one at his first start in +life, begun under the thatch of a little whitewashed cottage, dotted +down among grass-fields beside a clear, brown river, which kept his +mother busy exhorting him and his half-dozen brethren to not be falling +in and drowning themselves on her. Her days were haunted by +apprehensions of that catastrophe, which, however, was not included in +the plot of her life's drama. Con's chosen bugbear was the bridge which +bestrode the river close by, and beneath the arch of which he had once +happened to be while a cart passed overhead. For the lumbering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> rumble +had been an appalling experience, which he shuddered to repeat. Yet he +lacked the moral courage to rouse his elders' derision by an avowal, so +he followed, and did not let on, whenever their wading and dabbling +brought them into the hollow-sounding shade. Despite this daily anxiety, +Con spent his earliest years light-heartedly enough, with no stinting of +pitaties—none at least that reached the childer—and ample scope for +sports and pastimes. But when he was still very small, his grandmother, +lately widowed and on her way to a new abode, stopped a night with her +married daughter, and begged that she might bring home one of the +grandchildren with her, "just to take the could edge off her +lonesomeness," a request which could not well be refused. And Con seemed +the appropriate person to go, as the old woman considered that "the dark +head of hair he had on him was the moral of his poor grandfather's afore +it turned white." Therefore the swiftly running mysteriously murmuring +river flowed away out of his life, and with it vanished all the faces +and voices and comradeship that had made up his world.</p> + +<p>At first he fretted for them rather persistently, but after a time +adapted himself to circumstances,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> and contented himself with the +grass-bordered, hedge-muffled lane, which had become the scene of his +adventures, fraternizing with the reserved fawn-coloured goat and +demonstrative terrier, who alone took an intelligent interest in them. +For his grandmother was satisfied with the sense of having him "playin' +around handy," and could not be counted company.</p> + +<p>But after nearly a twelvemonth had passed, Con seemed one day to be +seized with a fresh fit of homesickness. It was a brilliant late summer +morning, yet to old Mrs. Quin's perplexity, he continued to sit on his +little stool, with his slice of griddle-cake half-crumbled in his lap, +and answered her suggestions that he should finish his breakfast, and +run out to play, by irrelevant requests for his own ould mammy. He +wanted her cruel bad, he said, and there was nothin' ailed him, and he +wouldn't like to look for blackberries along the hedge—or to throw +stones for Bran—or even to be given a whole ha'penny to go buy himself +a grand sugarstick down at the shop—he only wanted his mammy. Such was +his attitude and refrain all that day and the next. After which his +grandmother said to her neighbour, Judy Ahern, that she couldn't tell +what had come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> over the child, and he had her fairly distracted +listening to him.</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Ahern said: "Maybe he might be gettin' somethin'; there's a +terrible dale of sickness about. But he doesn't look very bad to say. +Arrah now, Con avic, why wouldn't you run out and play a bit this lovely +mornin'? Wantin' your mammy? Sure that's foolish talk, and she nobody +can tell how far away this minyit. It's just a notion you have.... +'Deed, ma'am, I dunno, but maybe you'd a right to let him home to her, +or else he might get frettin' and mopin' himself into the fever. He's a +poor little crathur; the face of him this instant isn't the width of a +ha'penny herrin'."</p> + +<p>"And he so continted," said Mrs. Quin, "until he took his fantigue. Rael +quare it is."</p> + +<p>"Most things do be quare and ugly these times," said Mrs. Ahern, +"Goodness help us all. There's poor Mrs. Duff thravellin' off to-morra, +to go stay wid her brother at Gortnakil. Very belike she'd take him +along; and he'd be aisy landed home, once he'd got that far."</p> + +<p>And on the morrow Con did actually set off with Mrs. Duff, feeling half +appeased and half compunctious, as people do when they get what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> they +have clamoured for; sorry a little to lose sight of Bran, staring +open-mouthed after him down the lane; and relieved through all by a +vague sense that he was going whither his heart-strings pulled. If he +had been a more experienced traveller, he might have noticed some signs +that things were, as Judy Ahern had said, out of joint. It was +harvest-time, and the weather was not wet, though dull and chilly, but +nobody was working in the fields. Nothing seemed to move in them, as +they lay deserted, except trails of a white mist that drifted low among +the furrows, where the potato-haulms looked strangely discoloured, +speckled and blackened, as if a shrivelling flame had run through them +all, charring and strewing pale ashes. The air was full of a peculiar +odour, heavy and acrid, the very life-breath of decay. The roads were +deserted too. For miles nobody would be met, and then a small stationary +crowd of people would appear, collected it would seem without any more +purpose than cattle huddled together in a storm, and as dumb as they, +not giving so much as a "fine mornin'" to the passer-by. Other crowds +they fell in with now and again, pacing slowly along, and these always +had a heavy burden carried among them, and sometimes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> women keening. +Once the car-horse shied violently at some dark, long thing, that was +stretched out by the footpath, and Mrs. Duff crossed herself and said, +"God be good to us," and the driver said without looking off his reins: +"He's lyin' there since yisterday, and I seen another above about the +four-roads, and I comin' past this mornin'."</p> + +<p>Con did not give much heed to these incidents; but one scene in his +journey impressed him strongly. It was at the small town where they +slept the night, and it happened while they waited in the broad main +street next morning for their car to pick them up, as Mrs. Duff +travelled by a rather disjointed system of lifts in vehicles that were +going her road. There were few people about, and Con was intensely +admiring a gaudy tea-chest in the window of the shop before which they +stood, when a great roar began to swell up round the corner, with a +lumbering of wheels heard fitfully through it. Presently a large crowd +came struggling into sight; a street full of men, women, and children, +surrounding a blue, red-wheeled cart, piled high with dusty-looking +white sacks. Half-a-dozen dark-uniformed policemen were trying to haul +on the horse, and keep between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> the cart and the crowd, whose shout +generally sounded like: "Divil a fut its to quit—divil a fut." It was a +crowd that looked as if it had somehow got more than its due share of +glittering eyes—in mistake, apparently, for other things.</p> + +<p>As the cart came crawling past where Mrs. Duff and Con stood, a furious +rush so tilted it over that the horse fell, breaking a shaft, and some +of the topmost sacks tumbled off, dropping with dull thuds, like dead +bodies, upon the damp cobblestone pavement. Con saw a little cloud of +white dust rise up over each as it dumped down, and melt away on the +air, making him wonder to himself: "Is it smokin' hot they are?" But in +another moment they were hidden for a while by a wild wave of the crowd, +which threw itself tumultuously upon them. One of the sacks burst, +spilling the soft flour in flakes, and round it the jostling and +writhing grew fiercest. The faces that got nearest to it looked hardly +the whiter for their smears and powdering.</p> + +<p>A young woman, all black eyes and elf locks, with a baby wrapped in her +shawl, crouching low and making a desperate long arm, grasped a covetous +handful, which spirted away wastefully between her clenched fingers. She +moistened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> some of this in a puddle as she knelt, and held the paste to +her baby's mouth. But its head was drooping wearily aside, and its lips +did not move when she touched them. "Ait it up, me heart's jewel," she +said; "ait it up, mother's little bird. 'Deed, then, but you're the +conthráry little toad. It's breakin' me heart you'll be roarin' when +I've ne'er a bit to give you, and sleepin' dead, when I've the chance to +feed you." She was beginning to shake it, but a young man who stood +behind her put his hand on her shoulder, saying: "Whisht, whisht, you +crathur, for God's sake. It's done wid wantin' and cryin', and a good +job for it too, the Lord knows." Then the girl shrieked again and again, +and the people about her said from one to the other: "It's her child's +starved on her." And an old man caught up the little body, and held it +high over his head, shouting, "Boys, boys—look yous at that. There's +the way Henderson's cartin' off the childer's bit of food to make his +fine fortin in England." And the crowd shouted back through a surge of +curses: "Divil a fut will he this day."</p> + +<p>A very little old woman seized hold of an outlying sack and tried to +lift it, a ludicrously impossible feat, at witnessing which a cripple +leaner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> than his crutches laughed boisterously, saying, "Och, good luck +to you, granny. You're makin' a great offer at it entirely. Is it often +you do be liftin' up the Hill of Howth? More power to your elbow." And +the crowd yelled with laughter too.</p> + +<p>At this moment there was a prodigious clatter of hoofs on the stones, +and round the corner whirled a squadron of hussars, all in their blue +and yellow like a flight of macaws, coming to the rescue of Mr. +Henderson's sacks. But Con saw scarcely more than the first confused +onset, for somebody snatched him up and hurried him into a dark passage. +The last sight he had of the fray was of a glossy black horse plunging +frantically back from a cloud of the flour flung into his face, and +rearing higher and higher, until he fell over with a terrific scrambling +crash. Con particularly noticed the white gloves of the rider, and +thought to himself, "He's been grabbin' the flour too." And the women +about him said, "Och, murdher, the baste—the man's apt to be kilt!"</p> + +<p>When Mrs. Duff and Con emerged again all was quiet in the street—two or +three women had even stolen back, and were scraping up the white +patches—and he was driven away on a car for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> what seemed to him a vast +length of time. But at last, as he peered listlessly out on glimpses of +the dreary, strange road caught between the shawled heads of two other +passengers, his eyes suddenly fell on something delightfully familiar. +It was a grey ruined mill which stood by the river, not many hundred +yards from his home. All at once he seemed to be set down in the middle +of his old life as if he had never left it, only with a charming +freshness superadded. A delicious feeling came over him as he watched +the clear, sky-glinting loops unwind themselves in the grass while the +car jogged along. There were the big stones over the edges of which the +brown water broke into dancing crests of crystal bubbles when the river +was full, and the deep pools under the hollow banks where they had seen +the trout that was the size of a young whale, and the twisted wild +cherry tree from beneath which the eddies sometimes twirled away bearing +fleets of frail, snowy petals. And Johnny and Katty and the rest might +all come into view paddling round any corner. When the car stopped at +the gap through which you got into the field just behind his cottage, he +was almost beside himself with joy, as his fellow-travellers, who were +less elated, lifted him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> down and handed him his bundle, and bade him +run straight in to his mother like an iligant child.</p> + +<p>He did run down the steep little footpath at the top of his speed, and +round the corner of the house, and in through the open door. The room +looked very dusk to him coming in from the mellow afternoon sunshine, +and the first thing he noticed was that the fire had gone out. The +hearth was a blackness sprinkled with white ashes, which made him think +of the flour spilt on the dark ground. Next he saw his mother sitting on +a stool by the hearth with her head leaned against the wall, and his +father's old caubeen hanging on its nail above, a very unusual sight at +that hour. Con rushed at her head-foremost, saying, "Och, mammy darlint, +I'm come home this long way, and they was fightin' wid all the soldiers +and spillin' the flour, and his horse rared up on his hind legs till he +fell off his feet. And where's daddy if he isn't workin'? And musha what +for is Nannie and Johnny in bed?" He pulled her shawl because she did +not look round at him, and immediately she dropped down prone on the +floor as heavily and helplessly as he had seen the white sacks fall. She +had in truth been dead for hours, but Con ran out screaming that he was +after killing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> his mammy, and nothing would persuade him otherwise. +Vainly the neighbours averred that "the crathur was starvin' herself +this great while to keep a bit for the childer, let alone her heart +bein' broke frettin' after her poor husband and little Pat, who were +took from her wid the fever, both of them the one day." Con's mind was +shut fast into the dreadful moment when he had pulled her shawl and she +had fallen down, and therein it abode, sorely afflicted, until a spell +of brain fever intervening let it loose into a region of vaguer and more +varied dreams.</p> + +<p>And when he had struggled through this illness, nobody well knew how or +why, he woke up to find his world swept very bare. Father, mother, and +all his brethren, except little Katty, were vanished out of it, and as +it came looming back to him thus depeopled, its aspect was immeasurably +desolate. Nor did his loss end here, for from this time dated the +springing up among his neighbours of a suspicion that he was not all +there, a suspicion which developed into an accepted article of belief, +the more readily, perhaps, because nobody remained for whom such a fact +would have had a personal bitterness, the old grandmother having slipped +away out of her lonesomeness before his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> recovery. It would not be easy +to explain how it was that Con grew up into that privileged and +disfranchised person who is spoken of as "a crathur," and whose +proceedings are more or less exempt from criticism. People often said of +him that he had plenty of sense <i>of his own</i>, and the remark was to some +extent explanatory, as a certain singularity in his way of viewing +things even more than an occasional inconsequence and flightiness in his +sayings and doings tended to establish the reputation for eccentricity +which followed him closely as a shadow, and set an impalpable barrier +between himself and his kind. As he advanced in life this was +strengthened by his increasing fondness for his own society, but he did +not take to his solitary wanderings until after his sister Katty married +young Peter Meehan and emigrated to New York. It was suggested to him +that he should accompany them, but he sat looking meditative for a +while, and then said, "How far might it be from this to the States?"</p> + +<p>"I dunno rightly," said his informant, "but a goodish step it's apt to +be, for people's better than a couple of weeks sailin' there, I'm +tould."</p> + +<p>Con meditated a little more before he put another question. "Would you +be widin hearin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> out there of the folk talkin' foolish?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Why, tub-be sure, man, what 'ud hinder you that you wouldn't hear them +talkin' same as anywheres else?"</p> + +<p>"Bedad, then," said Con, "it seems a long way to be thravellin' to a +counthry as close as that. Sure, if you take out for a stravade over the +bog here, you'll be throubled wid nothin' the len'th of the day on'y the +curlew, or maybe a couple of saygulls skirlin'—raisonable enough. I'll +be apt to stay where I am."</p> + +<p>Con, who was a person of many moods, happened to be in an unusually +cynical one just then; however, he adhered to his resolution, and when +his sister had gone he adopted a life of long tramps. Somebody had given +him an old fiddle, and this he carried with him, though chiefly as a +sort of badge, as his performances were but feeble, and he could turn +his hand to many other things when he found it necessary to do so. His +rovings had gone on for several years before they led him to Lisconnel. +In those days he was a strange, small figure, who wore a coat too large +for him, and a hat set so far back on his head that its brim made a sort +of halo to frame his face, which had a curious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> way of looking fitfully +young and old, with a shining of violet blue eyes and a puckering of +fine-drawn wrinkles. A small boy and a little old ancient man would seem +to change places half a dozen times in the course of a single +conversation. Even his hair was a puzzle, regarded as an indication of +age, because its black had become streaked with white in such a fashion +that its apparent hue varied according to what came uppermost in +accidents of ruffling and smoothing. A neighbour once said of him that +he was the living moral of a little ould lepreehawn that they were after +making a couple of sizes too big by mistake; and my own impression is +that further opportunities for observing specimens of the race would be +likely to bear out this statement.</p> + +<p>The summer evening on which he was first seen at Lisconnel had followed +a very fine day. In the heart of its golden afternoon Mrs. O'Driscoll +trusted her youngest son Terence out on the bog with his brothers and +sisters and some other children, the eldest of whom, Johanna Harvey, the +Ryans' orphan niece, was credited with wit enough to keep the party out +of the holes. They wandered off rather more widely than usual, along the +foot of the hill, lured on by a sprinkling of dainty white<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> mushrooms, +which they found, generally with yells, studded here and there. At last +they sat down on a bank to peel their delicate, pink-quilted buttons, +all of them except Terence, who was not yet of an age to have acquired a +taste for mushrooms. He had been carried most of the way, still he had +toddled further than he was accustomed to do, and his unwonted exertions +led him to curl himself up behind a sun-smitten rock and fall asleep +with a quietness which presently brought upon him the fate of out of +sight out of mind. After a while, however, Johanna did bethink herself +of him, and was just on the point of wondering aloud where little +Terence had gone to, when her cousin Thady turned her thoughts into a +different channel by suddenly saying, "What was there in it before the +beginnin' of everythin'?"</p> + +<p>Thady was a small, anxious-looking child, whose pale and peaky face his +mother often likened regretfully to a hap'orth of soap after a week's +washing. He had spent a surprisingly considerable part of his six years +in metaphysical speculations, and was always disposed to make a personal +grievance of the difficulties in which they constantly landed him. His +tone was now rather<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> peremptory as he repeated, "What was there in it +before the beginnin' of everythin'?"</p> + +<p>"Sure, nothin' at all," said his elder brother Peter, to whom the answer +seemed quite simple and satisfactory. But Johanna looked as if she had +caught sight of some distant object which provoked hard staring.</p> + +<p>"Then what was there before the beginnin' of nothin'?" pursued Thady.</p> + +<p>"Dunno," said Peter, indifferently, "unless it was more nothin'."</p> + +<p>"Sure not at all; that wouldn't be the way of it," Johanna said, +dreamily, yet with decision. "If there was nothin' but nothin' in it, +there'd ha' been apt to not be e'er an anythin' ever. Where'd it ha' +come from? Don't be tellin' the child lies, Peter. Why, for one thing," +she said, her tone sharpening polemically and taking a touch of triumph, +"there was always God Almighty in it, and the Divil. Maybe that's what +you call nothin'."</p> + +<p>Peter evaded this point, saying, "Well, anyway, those times, if there +was just the two of them in it, and no harm to be doin', let alone any +good people to know the differ, it's on'y a quare sort of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> Divil he'd +get the chance of bein'. I wouldn't call him anythin' <i>much</i>."</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't be so very long, you may depind," Johanna pronounced. +"Musha, sure the Divil couldn't stay contint anywhile at all till he'd +take to some manner of ould mischief 'ud soon show you the sort of +crathur he was—it's his nathur. I should suppose the first thing he'd +go do 'ud be makin' all the sorts of hijjis roarin' great bastes and +snakes and riptiles that he could think of, and the disolit black wet +bogs wid the could win' over them fit to cut you in two when you're +sleepin' out at night," said Johanna, whose ten years of life had +brought her into some rough places before her adoption by her Aunt +Lizzie Ryan, "and the workhouses—bad luck to the whole of them—where +there's rats in the cocoa, and mad people frightenin' you, and the cross +matrons, and the pólis, and the say to dhrownd the fishin'-boats in, and +dirty ould naygurs that put dacint people out of their little +places——"</p> + +<p>"If it had been me," said Peter, "I'd ha' been very apt to just hit him +a crack on the head when I noticed what he was at, and bid him lave thim +sort of consthructions alone."</p> + +<p>"I dunno the rights of it entirely," Johanna admitted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>, "but it's a +cruel pity he ever got the chance to be carryin' on the way he's done."</p> + +<p>"Ah, sure it can't be helped now at all events," said Peter, who was for +the time being not inclined to quarrel seriously with the scheme of +things, as he basked on the warm grassy bank, where the wild bees were +humming in the thyme, happily remote from the grim House and the hungry +sea.</p> + +<p>"Belike it can't," said Johanna; "but 'twould be real grand if it could. +Suppose I was out on the hill there some fine evenin', and I not +thinkin' of anythin' in partic'lar, and all of a suddint I'd see a +great, big, ugly, black-lookin' baste of a feller, the size of forty, +skytin' away wid himself along the light of the sky over yonder, where +the sun was about goin' down, and his shadder the len'th of an awful +tall tree slippin' streelin' after him, till it was off over the edge of +the world like, and that same 'ud be just the Divil, that they were +after bundlin' out of it body and bones, the way he wouldn't get +meddlin' and makin' and annoyin' people any more. So wid that I'd take a +race home and be tellin' you all the iligant thing was after happenin'. +And in the middle of it who'd come landin' in but me father and mother, +and little Dan. And then, if it isn't the grand cup of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> tay I'd be +makin' her, ay begorra would I, and a sugarstick to stir it wid."</p> + +<p>Johanna's vision of the millennium was broken in upon querulously by +Thady. "Sure I know all about God Almighty and the Divil," he said +comprehensively, "I was on'y axin' what was in it before the beginnin' +of everythin', and you're not tellin' me that."</p> + +<p>"There's a dale of things little spalpeens like you wouldn't be tould +the rights of at all," said Peter, loftily, being rather annoyed at the +interruption. He would have liked to hear some further details about the +felicity to be inaugurated by that exquisite cup of tea. "Go on +romancin', Han."</p> + +<p>But Johanna, who felt that this assumption of superior knowledge was an +uncandid subterfuge, and yet had not magnanimity enough to disclaim it +on her own part, remained uneasily silent for a moment, and then only +said: "Sure it's time we was gettin' home." This they accordingly +proceeded to do, and had gone most of the distance before it occurred to +anybody that little Terence O'Driscoll was not with them. Then, after a +superficial and unproductive search among the scattered stones and +bushes, they thought it expedient<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> to run back in a fright, and report +that the child had gone and got lost, unless by any odd chance he'd come +home along wid himself.</p> + +<p>Thus it was that when Terence wakened from his nap, he found himself +deserted, and thrown completely upon his own resources. As he had not +been quite three years in amassing these, they were on the whole but +scanty. In fact, he was helplessly unable to realise a world with +nothing in it except endlessly swelling up slopes of furzy grass, no +Molly nor Micky for him to trot after, and to carry him wherever they +were going, whenever he intimated the desirability of that step by +abruptly plumping down on the way. So he set off in a great hurry to +escape from such a wilderness. He still walked with a wobbling stagger, +and his long frock of whity-brown homespun kept on tripping him up, +which retarded his progress. But he was not at all long in mentally +reaching the precincts of a wild panic which rose up and seized him in a +grip never to be quite forgotten, though only a few desperate minutes +ensued before he stumped blindly against Con's legs. It was so +unutterable a relief to have come on somebody who could hear him roar, +that Terence ceased roaring immediately, and let Con pick him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> up +without demur. The appearance of Molly or Micky would, no doubt, have +been more satisfactory, but this stranger man might serve well enough at +a pinch to carry him home, which it was inconceivable that anybody of +such a size could be unable or unwilling to do. As for Con, the +inference he drew from Terence's dimensions was that his family and +friends were probably not far to seek; and he recognised the shrewdness +of the conjecture when he presently espied a shawled figure coming +swiftly towards him over the edge of a slope, with the amber of the +sunset glowing behind her, and her long shadow sliding on far below her, +as if it were in an even greater hurry than herself.</p> + +<p>Mrs. O'Driscoll's head was among the golden sunbeams, but her heart had +gone down to the very bottom of the blackest and deepest hole in the +bog. For towards that dreadful goal she had seen a small form toddling +ever since the other children came home alarmingly late with the news +that Terence had got lost on them, and they couldn't find a bit of him, +high ways or low ways. She was so overjoyed at her rescue that her +delighted gratitude cast a sort of glamour around Con, which never +wholly faded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> away. Ever after the appearance of his queer figure called +up in her mind a dim reminiscence of the moment when she had seen it for +the first time come into view, laden with what she well knew was Terence +sitting bolt upright in a manner that betokened him to have experienced +neither drowning nor any other disaster.</p> + +<p>As Con put the child into her arms, where it seemed to fit into a niche +specially designed for it, he said: "Sure now, ma'am, when I seen him +stumpin' along his lone, and he about the heighth of a sizable boholawn +(ragweed), sez I to meself there was apt to be somebody lookin' after +him. For bedad it seems to me mostwhiles the littler a thing is the more +people there'll be consaitin' they can't get on widout it; and that's +lucky, belike, or else it might aisy get lost entirely, like a +threepenny bit rowled away into a crack. But if you come to considher," +Con said, hurrying on lest his allusion to the coin should be construed +as a hint that he thought of payment for his services, "most people's +lookin' out for somebody, or else somebody's lookin' out for them. It's +on'y a few odd ones like meself that makes no differ here or there. I +won'er now is the raison that it's after losin' ourselves we are in a +manner—I've<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> I've me notions about that. For first I think I dunno if +anythin's rightly lost that nobody's lookin' to find, and then I think I +dunno but you might as well say you couldn't find anythin' you weren't +after losin' and lookin' for, and that's not the truth be no manner of +manes."</p> + +<p>"And you after findin' the child," said Mrs. O'Driscoll.</p> + +<p>"Sure not at all, ma'am," said Con, modestly, deprecating not the +statement but the implied praise. "Small thanks to me for that, when the +woful bawls of it you might have heard a mile o' ground. You could as +aisy ha' missed a little clap of thunder, if a one was be chance comin' +tatterin' along between the furzes, wid the head of it bobbin' up now +and agin, and makin' all the noise it could conthrive. Troth it's the +quare bawls <i>I</i> might be lettin' these times afore the rest of them 'ud +hear me, for if it's lost I am, I'm strayin' a terrible long while; +they're apt to disremimber they ever owned me. I do be thinkin', ma'am, +that if you forgit what you've lost, 'tis maybe all the one thing as if +you'd found it; and after that agin I do be thinkin' maybe 'twould be +liker losin' it twyste over. It's quare the diff'rint notions there is +about most things. And a good job too,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> or else what would you be +considherin' in your mind, when you was thrampin' around? 'Deed now if +you couldn't be supposin' they were this way and that way, and argufyin' +over them wid yourself in your own mind, 'twould be like as if you took +and swallied down a lump of 'baccy instead of chewin' it, and what sort +of benefit or plisure 'ud you git out of that?"</p> + +<p>This was Con's first bit of philosophising at Lisconnel, and it was not +his last by many, as the place became one of his favourite resorts. His +liking for it was perhaps partly due to the fact that its inhabitants +received him on more equal terms than were generally accorded to him +elsewhere; and this again may be largely attributed to the influence of +Mrs. O'Driscoll. For her grateful feelings towards the restorer of +Terence made her loth to recognise any deficiencies in him, and her +neighbours, soon perceiving that she seemed vexed if Con was spoken of +as cracked or crazy or "wantin' a corner," were ready enough to modify +their language, and even their judgment, in accordance with her view. +Still it was convenient to distinguish him from another resident Con, +about whom there were no very striking features. Therefore her little +Rose having been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> heard to say that she was "after seein' Con, not Con +Ryan, but the quare one," they caught up and applied the epithet, which +in Lisconnel is regarded as a safely colourless term, not likely to hurt +the most sensitive feelings.</p> + +<p>Con, on his part, formed the highest opinion of Mrs. O'Driscoll, and +often took counsel with her about perplexing points which had presented +themselves to him in the course of his meditations. In one practical +matter, however, he showed an obstinacy that did not further her in her +wish to uphold him on a footing with quite sensible people. This was his +fancy for adorning the band of his broad-brimmed caubeen with a garnish +of feathers and flowers. Mrs. O'Driscoll disapproved of the freak, +rightly judging that it often created irrevocable first impressions, and +fixed his standing at a glance. In this age and clime the Seven Sages +could hardly maintain among them a reverend aspect, under the frivolity +of a single flaunting blossom, much less the gaudy bunches and fantastic +plumes upon which Con recklessly ventured. So at last, having hinted and +remonstrated ineffectually, she contrived somehow to find time and stuff +among her laborious days and scanty stores, and fashioned for him a +round cloth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> cap of a severely plain design, which she thought would +give no scope for any unseemly appendages. Upon being presented with +this headgear, Con dutifully assumed it, and went about wearing it for a +day or two in a depressed frame of mind. Then he appeared in the morning +at the O'Driscolls', cheered, and crested with a remarkably long +gannet's feather stuck upright in the crown of his cap, through which he +had bored a hole to admit of the insertion. He was resolved to brazen +out the matter, so he presently took off his cap, and twirling it round +with an unconcerned air as he leaned against the door, said to Herself: +"Well, ma'am, what do you think of that?"</p> + +<p>"To tell you just the truth, Con," said Herself, whose countenance had +fallen as she saw the failure of her little plot, "I was thinkin' it +looked a dale better before you cocked that ould gazabo on top of it. +'Deed now it gives you the apparance of a head of cabbage that's +sproutin' up and goin' to seed. Sure you niver see the other lads +trapesin' about wid the like on them."</p> + +<p>Con, who seemed rather cast down by this criticism, was about to reply, +when young Ned Keogh took the cap out of his hand and affected to +examine it closely, saying: "Glory be to goodness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>, what sort of thing +is it at all at all? Bedad it's the won'erful conthrivance—ah, tub-be +sure; <i>I</i> see what it is. He's about growin' a pair of wings for his wit +to fly away wid. But musha good gracious, he needn't ha' throubled +himself to be gettin' them that sizable. Somethin' the bigness of a +hedge-sparrer's, or maybe a weeny white butterfly's, 'ud ha' plinty +stren'th enough for the job, if that was all they had to do." Ned meant +no harm, but his witticisms did not fall in with Con's humour, so he +snatched back the cap and went off affronted, nor did he call at the +O'Driscolls' again for some weeks.</p> + +<p>The next time he came, however, Herself had espied him a bit down the +road, and was standing at the door to receive him with his discarded +caubeen in her hand. "You'd be better wearin' it, Con, after all," she +said, "for the eyes are scorched out of your head under the sun widout +e'er a scrap of brim." And as Con took it, he observed with glee that +she had fastened into the band a dove-coloured kittiwake's wing-feather, +a somewhat cherished possession of her own, which she used to keep over +her best picture on the wall. Thus did she seek to make amends for the +speech about the sprouting cabbage-head,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> which had been weighing +heavily upon her conscience.</p> + +<p>The kittiwake's feather had to weather rain and sunshine for many a year +in Con the Quare One's old caubeen; but it is now on a room-wall again, +the Kilfoyles' this time. Con brought it to Mrs. Kilfoyle one autumn +evening in the year Mrs. O'Driscoll died. It was much longer than usual +since he had wandered into Lisconnel, illness and one thing and another +having detained him in the North for the last twelvemonth and more—all +her blackest days of childless widowhood—so that this was his first +visit since the departure of his earliest friend.</p> + +<p>"Could you be keepin' it somewheres safe for me, ma'am?" he said, +showing the soft grey feather to Mrs. Kilfoyle, who was sitting by the +fire with her sons and her future daughter-in-law, and Ody Rafferty's +aunt, and the Widow M'Gurk. "I'll be wearin' it no more. 'Twas she +herself stuck it in for me, but sure I knew well enough all the while +she'd liefer I wouldn't be goin' about wid such things on me head, and +sorra a bit of me will agin."</p> + +<p>"Whethen now but yourself's the quare man, Con," said Ody Rafferty's +aunt, "to be takin' up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> wid that notion these times, when ne'er a differ +it'ill make to her. There might ha' been some sinse in it, if you'd done +it to plase her, but now you're more than a trifle too late wid that. A +day after the fair you are. Sure she'll never set eyes on you or your +old caubeen agin," she said, as if announcing some unthought-of +discovery of her own, "no matter what ould thrash you might take and +stick in it. You might be wearin' a young haystack on your head for +anythin' she could tell."</p> + +<p>"That may be or mayn't be," said Con. "But at all evints the next body +that goes there out of this countryside 'ill be very apt to bring her +word. Discoorsin' together they'll be of all the news, and as like as +not he—or it might be she—'ill say to her—'I seen Con the Quare One +goin' the road a while back, and he wid ne'er a thraneen of anythin' in +his hat, good or bad; the same way the other boys are; lookin' rael +dacint and sinsible.' Belike she might be axin' after me herself, and +that 'ud put it in the other body's head. Yourself it may be, Moggy. +Faix now, I wouldn't won'er a bit if it was, for there must be a +terrible great age on you these times. Sure you looked to be an ould, +ould woman the first day I ever beheld<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> you, and that's better than a +dozen year ago."</p> + +<p>"Troth then there's plinty of oulder ould people than me, let me tell +you," protested Moggy, who was about ninety, "that you need be settlin' +I'm goin' anywheres next. Musha cock you up. And your own hair turned as +white as sheep's wool on a blackthorn bush."</p> + +<p>She seemed so much put out by Con's statement and inference that young +Thady Kilfoyle, always a good-natured lad, sought to soothe her.</p> + +<p>"Sure there's no settlin' any such a thing, and for the matter of goin', +the young people often enough get their turn as fast as anybody else. +It's meself," he said, "might be sooner than you bringin' news of yous +all, and Con's ould caubeen, and everythin' else to Heaven the way he +sez."</p> + +<p>"I dunno if you've any call to be talkin' that fashion," said the Widdy +M'Gurk, disapprovingly, "as if you could be walkin' permisc-yis into +Heaven widout wid your lave or by your lave. Maybe it isn't there any of +us'ill be bringin' our news."</p> + +<p>"Might you know of e'er a better place then, ma'am?" said Con.</p> + +<p>"Heard you ever the like of that?" said Ody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> Rafferty's aunt, not +unwillingly scandalised, "I should suppose nobody, unless it was a born +haythen, 'ud know of any place better than Heaven."</p> + +<p>"That's where she is then," said Con, stroking his feather. "For the +best place ever was is none too good for her, God knows well."</p> + +<p>"And thrue for you, man," said the Widdy M'Gurk. "But she's one thing, +and we're another. It's not settin' ourselves up we should be to have +the same chances."</p> + +<p>"Ah, well, sure maybe we're none of us too outrageous altogether," said +Mrs. Kilfoyle, looking hopefully round at her company. "And if they can +put up wid us at all at all, they will. We'll get there yet, plase God. +And anyway I'll be takin' good care of your feather, Con. Ay will I so; +same as if it was dropped out of an angel's wing."</p> + +<p>"So good-night to you kindly, ma'am," said he. "I'll be steppin' back to +Laraghmena. I on'y looked in on you to bring you that, and give you news +of Theresa. And I question will I ever set fut agin in Lisconnel."</p> + +<p>He did not, however, leave it quite immediately. A little later, when +Brian Kilfoyle was escorting Norah Finnegan home, they saw him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> sitting +on the bank near the O'Driscolls' roofless cabin. Its mud walls were +fast crumbling into ruin. Already the little window-square had lost its +straight outline, and would soon be as shapeless as any hole burrowed in +a bank. Con sat with his back turned to it until the dusk had muffled up +everything in dimness, and then he stole an armful of turf-sods from the +nearest stack, and groped his way in through the deserted door. The +shadows within were folded so heavily that he could scarcely more than +guess where the hearth had been. One of Con's peculiarities was a +strange horror of a fireless hearth. At the sight of its hoarily +sprinkled blackness he always felt as if he were standing on the verge +of some frightful revelation; a vague reminiscence, no doubt, from the +scene of his life's tragedy, all distinct memory of which had been +blurred away by his illness. Now he piled and crumbled his sods with +practised skill, and set them alight in well-chosen places. But he +stayed only for a minute or so, till the little fluttering flames had +fairly taken a hold, and were sending golden threads running along the +netted fibres. Then he groped his way out again, and returned to his +seat on the bank. Presently, as he watched, he saw a red<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> light +beginning to flicker through window and door, and growing steadier and +stronger. When it was at its brightest, he got up and turned away. +"That's the very way it would be shinin'," he said, "and I comin' along +the road to see Herself and Himself and the childer—God be good to them +all, wherever they may be. And that's the notion of it I'll keep in me +mind."</p> + +<p>And Con the Quare One came no more to Lisconnel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>MAD BELL</h3> + + +<p>Not so very long before the sound of Con the Quare One's fiddle ceased +to enliven Lisconnel any more, Mad Bell's singing had begun to be heard +there occasionally, as it has been at intervals ever since she arrived +with her two housemates, Big Anne and the Dummy, and took up her abode +in the last of the cabins that you pass on the left hand, going towards +Sallinbeg. Perhaps Lisconnel should not reckon her among its residents, +so much of her time is spent on the tramp as an absentee. Still, she +sometimes has tarried with us for a long while, and she is understood to +have some property in the house-furniture, so it seems natural to +consider the place her home.</p> + +<p>From the first it appeared obvious to all that the dementedness which +characterised the little wizened yellow-faced woman was of a much more +pronounced type than Con the Quare One's.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> Any attempt to spare people's +feelings by ignoring the fact would have been very futile, and it was +therefore lucky that the three new-comers, Mad Bell herself included, +were quite content to accept the situation. The neighbours were at first +inclined to commiserate Big Anne, who was pronounced to be "a dacint, +sinsible, poor woman," for the oddities of her household, the +incalculable flightiness of Mad Bell, and the impenetrable silence of +the Dummy. But to their condoling remarks she was wont to reply in +effect—"Ah sure, ma'am, that's the way I'm used to them, the crathurs. +Why, if Mad Bell said anythin' over-sinsible, or poor Winnie said +anythin' at all, it's wond'rin' I'd be what was goin' to happin us +next." And Big Anne evidently looked upon this as an uncomfortable frame +of mind. At first, too, they speculated much about the circumstances +which had brought the curious trio together beneath one thatch, and +found it especially hard to conjecture how the daft little vagrant had +come into possession of sundry tables and chairs. All its members, +however, being incommunicative persons, no satisfactory elucidation of +these points was arrived at in Lisconnel.</p> + +<p>The coalescence of Big Anne's and the Dummy's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> fortunes is a simple +history enough. Anne Fannin, while yet a youngish woman, was left alone +in the world to do for herself in her little wayside cabin. Without a +dowry to recommend her rough-hewn features and large-boned ungainliness, +she never had any suitors, and she found it as much as she could +contrive to make out her single living by means of her "bit of poultry" +and her pig. Nevertheless, when her nearest neighbours—the +Golighers—died, leaving their daughter Winnie, "who had niver got her +speech, the crathur," to live on charity or the rates, what else was a +body to do except take her in? Anne would have put this question to you +with a sincere want of resource. So Winnie Goligher transferred to Anne +Fannin's house, herself and all her worldly goods, which consisted of +the clothes she had on, and a prayer-book, and a lame duck, and +thenceforward the two "got along the best way they could."</p> + +<p>Mad Bell's history has more complications in it. They began one pleasant +April day when she was only a slip of a lass, who had taken a little +place at the Hunts' farm near her home, for the purpose of saving up a +few pounds against her marriage with Richard McBirney. She had been +given an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> unexpected holiday, and was running home across the fresh, +spring-green grass-fields, thinking to take her people by surprise, when +she came to a hedge-gap whence you look down into a steep-banked lane. +And at the foot of the bank Richard McBirney was sitting with his arm +round her sister Lizzie's waist.</p> + +<p>To a dispassionate observer this transference of his attentions might +have seemed a matter of small moment. Most of their acquaintances, for +example, were just as well satisfied that he should court Eliza as +Isabella. But the sight turned all the current of her life awry. For it +set her off rushing away from it across the same sunny green fields, and +she never came home again. Nor ever again would she settle down quietly +anywhere. She had a strong, clear voice and a taste for music, and this +led her to take to singing ballads about the country at markets and +fairs. The harder she was thinking about fickle Richard McBirney, the +louder and shriller she sang. A very few years of such wandering +shrivelled up her plump "pig-beauty," so that in her little sallow, +weather-beaten face her own mother would scarcely have recognised pretty +Isabella Reid. Then, after a long spell of illness in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> Union +infirmary, she began to grow noticeably odder and stranger in her looks +and ways; until at length the children shouted "Mad Bell" as she passed, +and that became her recognised style and title.</p> + +<p>Such, briefly, had been her experience of life, when one September +evening she came by chance to Big Anne and the Dummy's door. She had got +a very bad cold, and felt hardly able to drag herself along between the +berried hedges, and was so hoarse that she could with difficulty ask for +the night's lodging, which they granted without demur. Their times had +been unusually bad of late. In fact, their room was looking several +sizes larger than they were accustomed to see it, because they had sold +any articles of furniture for which "e'er a price at all" could be +obtained. But to whatever accommodation this bareness permitted they +made Mad Bell kindly welcome, the crathur being sick and crazy, and she +stayed with them for three or four days. By that time, finding herself +recovered, she resumed her journey, setting off early in the morning +with the abruptness and absence of circumlocution which, as a rule, +distinguished her proceedings. A friendly nod and grimace she made serve +for announcement<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> of departure and leavetaking all in one. As her +hostesses watched her out of sight down the road, Big Anne said—</p> + +<p>"Well, now, I never seen that quare little body in this counthry before, +and we're very apt to not set eyes on her agin. God be good to us all, +but the likes of her is to be pitied. She's worse off than the two of +us. But bedad, Winnie, if thim hins there don't prisintly take to layin' +a thrifle, it's in a tight houle we'll be ourselves. I dunno what's +bewitchin' them. And the sorra an ould stick have we left in it that man +or mortal 'ud give us the price of a pullet's egg for—and small blame +to him, unless he was as deminted as herself that's quittin'."</p> + +<p>Mad Bell's tramp that day was all along a sequence of lonesome winding +lanes, where few dwellings were dotted among the green and gold of the +fields. The bustle of the harvest, its reaping and binding, was over in +them, and they lay without stir or sound. In some of them the stooks +were still encamped, but some were smooth stubble, empty, except where a +flock of turkeys filled it with dark, bunchy shapes. She walked steadily +on the whole day without any adventure, but when the dew was beginning +to fall through the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> twilight she came to a short, shady reach of lane, +at the end of which stood, in a green nook, a small, prim white cottage +with two peaked windows and a door to match. That, at least, is how it +would under ordinary circumstances have presented itself to a passer-by. +Just then, however, nobody would have noticed anything about it except +the fact that out of the open door thick coils of woolly black smoke +were rolling and rolling, stabbed through every now and again by thrusts +of flame, which even in the lingering daylight gleamed strongly fierce +and red. The house was evidently on fire. As Mad Bell drew nearer, she +became aware of a wheaten-coloured terrier standing in front of it; and +when he saw her he began to bark vehemently. She was used to being +barked at, though not in this way, for howls were interspersed, and it +was clearly meant not for a menace but an appeal. No other live creature +was visible about the place, until she had come quite close to the +surging door, when a small gossoon jumped up out of the ditch on the +opposite side of the road and rushed across to her.</p> + +<p>"What 'ill I do at all, then?" he said, whimperingly, catching hold of +her shawl. "If them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> childer's burnt up widin there, Mr. Wogan 'ill be +in a fine way. It's for killin' the whole of us he'll be. And it wasn't +me set it afire. Sorra the match was I meddlin' wid, I could swear it. I +wasn't out of it any time, gettin' a few ripe berries to pacify them +childer, agin they would be wakin' and roarin', and when I come back, +there it is all a smother of smoke. Divil a thing else was I doin' on'y +mindin' them childer, and not meddlin' wid the matches, and goin' after +a couple of blackberries. And Mr. Wogan himself's away to +Ballymacartrican wid his boxes in the ass-cart. And all of them goin' to +quit out of it to-morra, if it wasn't for them childer bein' burnt up +inside—or maybe it's smothered they are. It's as unhandy as anythin'. +It went afire of itself. And he'll be ragin'."</p> + +<p>He bawled all this louder and louder in competition with the clamour of +the dog, who kept on jumping up at each alternately, and evidently +considered his remarks better entitled to a hearing. But Mad Bell merely +replied, "Whisht gabbin', and hould that," thrusting, as she spoke, her +little handkerchief bundle into his arms. And thereupon, making a sudden +dive, she vanished among the flame-sheathing smoke.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p> + +<p>Scarcely had she disappeared when an empty donkey-cart came round the +turn of the lane, led by a rather dejected-looking middle-aged man, +whose countenance, nevertheless, had for some time back been gradually +clearing up at every wind of the way that brought him nearer to this +particular point of view. But as he caught sight of the black smoke +drifting and rolling, his aspect of reasonable melancholy changed to one +of a despair that could not have been wilder if the reek of hell-mouth +had blown into his face. He dropped the bridle, and hurled himself down +the road like the distracted body that he well might be. For a +twelvemonth ago he had lost his wife and both his elder children in one +week, and his pair of two-year-old twins were now all that stood between +himself and world-wide desolation. At the front door his frantic rush +was met and baffled by a choking puff, which sent him fleeing round in +hopes that entrance might be more possible through the back; and on the +way he came face to face with the wrathful visages of his son and +daughter, whom Mad Bell was carrying in the disregardful manner that +betides a cumbrous load snatched up in a mortal hurry. She had escaped +by the back door.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p> + +<p>If the most radiant of guardian angels, in snowy plumes and golden +tresses, had restored his children to him with a befitting speech, poor +Matthew Wogan could not well have been more joyfully relieved from his +terror than he was when this odd little yellow-faced woman, with a red +handkerchief wisped round her head, and a singed grimness generally +pervading her, handed over to him Minnie and Tom, casually remarking, +"Bedad, it's the big heavy lumps they are." Minnie and Tom both were +crying and coughing loudly, because the smoke had got into their eyes +and throats, which they resented; and when their father returned with +them to the front of the house, this noise was swelled by the gleeful +yap-yapping of the terrier and the voices of a few other people who had +appeared upon the scene—a matronly looking woman and two or three +sun-burnt harvestmen. From Mrs. Massey's observations it could be +gathered that she had been minding the Wogan twins by deputy, and +further that she entertained the gloomiest views about the mental and +moral qualities of her son little Larry, who replied to her +animadversions with over-reaching protestations about matches and +theories of spontaneous combustion. While they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> wrangled in the +background, the young men inspected the conflagration, which proved to +be less extensive than it looked, though undoubtedly serious enough to +have soon put the sleeping children past waking, if rescue had not come. +A heap of blankets and other bedding, that smouldered and blazed near +the front door, was the source of the most stiffling smoke; and when it +had been subdued by many buckets of water, everybody began to drag what +bits of the furniture they could out of harm's way. There was not much, +because, as Wogan explained, he had sent "the marrow of it" to his +sister at Ballymacartrican; and the legs of the largest table were +charred so badly that it collapsed with a crash "the instiant minyit it +set its four feet on the ground," as Mrs. Massey said. However, there +were two smaller ones not much the worse, and three or four chairs, and +a couple of stools, and some pots and pans, and a small clothes-horse, +and a wagging clock, whose round white face glimmered through the dusk +like a fallen moon as it lay flat on the grass. All these things made a +little crowd on the plot of sward by the door.</p> + +<p>"And what will you be doin' wid them now?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> said Mrs. Massey. "There's +my place below you'd be welcome to stand them in as long as you plase. +'Deed would you, sir. The dear knows I'm not throubled wid too many +sticks of furnitur'. That's a very handy-sized washin'-tub Larry's after +carryin' out for you. I was noticin' to-day ours has a lake in it this +long while back that dhrips over everythin'. I must get himself to thry +mend it."</p> + +<p>"That's a <i>lovely</i> table," suddenly said Mad Bell, who had hitherto made +no remarks. "A rael grand one it is," she repeated, in a wistful sort of +way, smoothing the leaf fondly with her hand.</p> + +<p>"And very welcome you'd be to have it in a prisint, ma'am, if you've +e'er a fancy for it; ay, or for the matter of that to the whole lot of +them altogether," said Matthew Wogan, who, with his arms full of the +smoky twins, felt a weight of gratitude which he would gladly have +expressed in deeds. "Little vally there is on them—it's a small thing +after what you're after doin' for us. I wouldn't like to be payin' away +me bit of money from the childer, or else—But if I auctioned them +things off the way I was intindin' it's on'y a thrifle of a few +shillin's they'd be bringin' me. Welcome you are to them, ma'am."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sure what use at all 'ud such a thing be to the likes of her?" put in +Mrs. Massey. "It's on'y annoyed you'd be, woman, wid tables and chairs. +And she thrampin' about, you may depind, wid ne'er a place to be +bringin' them to, if she had them twyste over, let alone any way of +movin' them. It's very convanient we are, just round the turn of the +road."</p> + +<p>"She might take the little cart and the ould ass along," said Matthew +Wogan, looking at his equipage, which was straying towards them +intermittently as the beast grazed the green border of the lane. +"They're no use to me now. Then there'd be nothin' delayin' her that she +couldn't be cleanin' out of it wid them right away—You needn't throuble +yourself to be liftin' the little stool, Mrs. Massey. What wid fire and +water, that'll be no place to sleep in," he said, pointing to the still +smoking door. "The Mahonys 'ud take us in for to-night, and to-morra +early we're off to me sister's and next day to Queenstown. 'Twill be a +grand thing for the childer to be settled near their uncle Tom, that's +doin' right well in New Jersey, in case anythin' happint me. So I'd as +lief be shut of all that collection, supposin' they'd be any benefit to +this crathur."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Saints bless us, but you're givin' away all before you, Mr. Wogan," +said Mrs. Massey, with a discomfited laugh.</p> + +<p>"Have you e'er a house you could be puttin' them in?" one of the +harvestmen asked of Mad Bell.</p> + +<p>"Ay, bedad," she said. And with that she picked up a chair, and dumped +it down into the cart, which had come to a halt at the door.</p> + +<p>This promptitude on her part seemed to settle the question. Without more +ado the rest of the salvage was loaded in, all except the handy-sized +washing-tub, which by means of an adroitly taken up position Mrs. Massey +contrived to have overlooked and left behind, when Mad Bell drove away +with her newly acquired property.</p> + +<p>On through the gloaming she drove, till the white dust flakes gathered +up by the wheels grew damp and fragrant with dew, and till the moonlight +was glimmering among the golden sheaves silverly, and till live embers +were fanned out of the ashes low in the east. The small hours had a +frosty chill, and old Ned's short steps were leisurely, and his halts +for refreshment frequent; still Mad Bell continued to sit with serene +patience. She was retracing her route of the day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> before, but at so much +slower a rate of progress that the sun had been up for more than an hour +when she stopped in front of Big Anne and the Dummy's little house. They +were disturbed at their breakfast by the sound of the arrival, and when +they came to the door, saw their visitor in the act of depositing a +second chair upon the ground beside the cart.</p> + +<p>"Whethen now and is it yourself back agin?" said Big Anne. "And what at +all have you got there?"</p> + +<p>"Inside they're goin'," said Mad Bell, pointing to the cart-load with an +elated air. "It's a dale handier to have some chairs and tables."</p> + +<p>This was a fact which Big Anne might well have admitted, considering +that she had just been squatting on her heels to eat her plate of +stirabout. However, she only continued her perplexed catechism: "Where +at all was you after bringin' them things from, and who might be ownin' +them?"</p> + +<p>"Out of a house burnin' down," said Mad Bell.</p> + +<p>"Och between us and harm. What house is it then? And how did it get +burnin'?"</p> + +<p>"Sure it's aisy enough settin' a house on fire,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> said Mad Bell with a +grin, which to Big Anne who at this time was not familiar with her +manners, looked rather sinisterly significant. "Flarin' up rael strong," +she said, pushing towards her, as if in confirmation of the statement, +the little wooden clothes-horse, whose rails were blackened and charred.</p> + +<p>"Aisy it may be," Big Anne said, looking aghast at it, "but dreadful +divilment it is to do such a thing, wid the misfort'nit people very apt +to lose their lives, let alone everythin' else."</p> + +<p>"There was nobody in it on'y the couple of fat little childer," said Mad +Bell.</p> + +<p>"The saints be among us all, woman," said Big Anne, "what sort of talk +have you? It's not streelin' about the counthry you are, wid them ould +sticks of furnitur', and lavin' the little childer in the house blazin' +up? The Lord pity the crathurs, what 'ud become of them if they was left +thataway? Burnt to cinders be now very belike."</p> + +<p>"Stufficated," said Mad Bell, with a complacent nod.</p> + +<p>Big Anne and the Dummy stared at one another in great horror. The Dummy +could express her feelings only by crossing herself and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> gasping; but +Big Anne spoke volubly: "May God forgive me for openin' me lips to the +likes of you. Och but you're the unnatural wicked woman to go do such a +thing, if you was twyste as cracked and crazy itself. Git along out of +this, yourself and your ould cart, afore the pólis comes after you. Och +the misfort'nit little crathurs. And don't be offerin' to darken our +doors agin wid the ojis sight of you."</p> + +<p>"Gimme a hand wid liftin' in them two tables," said Mad Bell. Whereupon +Big Anne whisked away from her, and banged the door in her face.</p> + +<p>Mad Bell, however, did not appear to be discouraged by this reception. +She finished unloading the cart of all except the tables, which she +found unwieldy single-handed. Then she unharnessed old Neddy, and went +and seated herself on the low wall beside the house. She was seemingly +quite content with the situation. But to the two women indoors it was a +dreadful experience. Their minds were firmly persuaded that the daft +little woman had designedly set fire to some dwelling, and made off with +what household gear she could lay hands on, leaving the hapless children +to perish amid the flames. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> shocked and enraged them that their +premises should be infested by the presence of such a criminal, and that +her ill-gotten goods and chattels should be brought to their very +threshold, not to speak of her outrageous proposal to harbour them under +their roof. Big Anne declared that wid the legs of them chairs and +tables glimpsing through the door, as if they were on'y turned out to be +airin' a bit, she and the Dummy seemed as good as a pair of murderers.</p> + +<p>Every now and then they went to the door and peered out, and the +incendiary always greeted them with cheerful nods. On these occasions +Big Anne sometimes said: "Oh, very well, me good woman. Just you sit +brazenin' there till the patrol comes round this way, and then if I +don't give you in charge as sure as the sun's shinin' crooked over our +heads.—Begone out of that, and take them things out of litterin' about +our place." Or she would remark loudly to her companion: "Just stop a +minyit, Winnie, till I sling me ould shawl over me head, and run down to +the barracks. It's not very long they'll be puttin' her out of it, and +bundlin' her into jail, instead of to be sittin' there, wid ne'er a +spark of shame in her, annoyin' dacint people." But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> neither mode of +address produced any effect. The morning sunbeams still slanted down on +the small pile of furniture, and old Neddy went on munching the blades +off which they were drying the dew, and Mad Bell continued to sit upon +the wall, as if placidly waiting for events.</p> + +<p>Such was the posture of affairs until towards noon, when an outside-car +came trotting quickly down the lane. On one side of it sat a +black-whiskered man in his best clothes, with each hand tightly grasping +a small, fat, wrigglesome child. And the three were Matthew, Tom, and +Minnie Wogan. On catching sight of Mad Bell, he made the driver pull up.</p> + +<p>"Well, ma'am," he called to her, "so you're after gettin' home. Bedad +it's the fine long step you've took th'ould donkey; one while he'd be +doin' it. And you're about gettin' in the few things? Very welcome she +is to the whole of them," he continued to Big Anne, who had now emerged. +"And begorrah nobody else had a better right to any trifle might be +saved out of it. She'll ha' tould you, ma'am, the way the place was set +on fire on me last night—some little divil of a spalpeen playin' wid +matches it seems. But anyhow, there it was in blazes, and me galloppin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> +home like a deminted cow, consaitin' these two imps of the mischief here +would be smotherin' inside it. And, troth, if herself over there hadn't +them fetched out safe into the yard, when it was as much as your life +was worth to put your head in at the door, for the stiflin' of the +smoke. I dunno how she conthrived it. Maybe the crathur isn't altogether +over sinsible," he said in a confidential tone; "but if she'd had all +the wit ever was thought of, she couldn't ha' done better be the +childer. So it's kindly welcome she is to the bits of furniture, and the +ould baste. And dhrivin' on we must be. Good mornin' to yous all."</p> + +<p>Mad Bell listened to this praise with the same equanimity as to Big +Anne's threats and reproaches. But when the car had trotted on, she came +up to her, saying just as before, "Gimme a hand wid liftin' in thim +tables;" and Matthew Wogan, jogging down the long lane, may have caught +the last glimpse of one of them as it vanished in at the doorway.</p> + +<p>Thus it was that Mad Bell came to be domiciled with Big Anne and the +Dummy in the pauses between her wanderings. The arrangement seemed +equitable in view of her substantial contribution to the plenishing of +the house. The donkey-cart,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> likewise, was found very serviceable, +enabling them to turn a penny occasionally by fetching and carrying. And +the coalition worked well upon the whole. But after a few years of such +prosperity that they were seldom without a bit of food in the house, and +sometimes had bacon on Sunday, things took a turn for the worse. Old Ned +died under the burden of his many years, and a sort of murrain among the +fowl cut off several promising pullets in the heyday of their youth. +Then arose difficulties about "rint," while their landlord, who was new +to the property, had a natural zeal for sweeping it clear of encumbering +tenants. And the end of it was that the three women transferred +themselves to Lisconnel, where they became not the least respected of +its inhabitants.</p> + +<p>But these particulars about their antecedents were never learned by the +neighbours there; and the joint ownership of the furniture still +presents itself as one of our unsolved problems. Another of them was +propounded somewhat later, when Mad Bell returned from an unusually long +ramble, during which she had crossed the Liffey by the spacious +O'Connell Bridge, and had heard the boom of the big College bell, and +with her wizened-lemon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> face had half-scared the smallest-sized children +in villages round about Dublin. For she was wearing an elaborately +fantastic piece of headgear, which moved everybody's curiosity so +strongly that it cannot have been for want of wondering if we failed to +find out how she had come thereby. Strangely incongruous it did +undoubtedly look; yet the stages by which it had descended from its +stand in the milliner's show-room and alighted upon the head of the +little wandering-witted tramp, were much fewer than might have been +supposed probable.</p> + +<p>One blustery March morning when Mrs. M'Bean was on her way along by the +low sea-wall to buy a bit of bacon at Donnelly's shop in Kilclone, the +east wind did her the shrewd turn of whisking off her hat and dropping +it into the water. It was a most shabby old black straw, rusty and +battered, and torn, yet Mrs. M'Bean, a labourer's wife, who had nothing +at all handsome about her, seemed to think it worth a serious risk. For +she mounted on the broad wall-top, and thence made so unwary a snatch +that she overbalanced herself and splashed headlong into the heaving +high-tide, where she would very soon have perished beneath the cold +olive-gray swell, had not the brothers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> Denny, fishing for bass hard by, +noticed the perilous accident, and pulled timely to the rescue.</p> + +<p>When they disembarked her, gasping and dripping, at the nearest +landing-place, she was understood to say, "Sure me heart's broke," a +remark which Police-sergeant Young, who formed one of the group gathered +by the disaster, considered sufficient grounds for marching her off to +the handiest J. P. on a charge of attempted suicide. Mrs. M'Bean +vehemently repelled the accusation. She explained that she had said her +heart was broke only "because she had lost her ould hat, and every +thread of a rag on her had been dhrenched and ruinated with the salt +water. How could she go for to do such a sin as destroy herself, she +urged, and she wid a houseful of little childer waitin' for her at home, +the crathurs?" Her arguments proved convincing, and the charge was +summarily dismissed, not without strictures upon Sergeant Young's +excessive zeal, by which he, recking nothing of Talleyrand's maxim, felt +himself puzzled and aggrieved.</p> + +<p>The incident, however, brought some more agreeable consequences to Mrs. +M'Bean, as the J. P.'s ladies, commiserating her half-drowned plight, +sent her that same evening a goodly bundle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> of cast-off clothes, over +which her eyes grew gleefully bright in her careworn face. At one of the +articles included they widened with almost awe. This was an enormous hat +made of white fluffy felt, with vast contorted brims, and great blue +velvet rosettes and streamers. Its fabric was very stout and +substantial, and withal quite new, for its original owner had speedily +found it so stiff and heavy that to wear it gave her a headache and a +crick in her neck. Mrs. M'Bean, for her part, could not entertain the +idea of carrying anything so sumptuous upon her grizzled head; and when +she tried it on her eldest daughter, it totally extinguished and nearly +smothered the child. So she stowed it away in a corner, where it +remained unseen for several weeks.</p> + +<p>But next month, on the afternoon of Easter Day, Mrs. M'Bean had two +visitors over from Ballyhoy: Annie Cassidy, elderly and rather grim, +with her young friend Nelly Walsh.</p> + +<p>"Nelly's bound to be havin' bad luck this year of her life," Annie +observed in the course of conversation, "for not a new stitch has she +put on her to-day, and it Easter. That's an unlucky thing, accordin' to +the sayin'."</p> + +<p>"Ne'er a bit am I afraid of me luck," averred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> Nelly, cheerful and +threadbare, not to say ragged. But Mrs. M'Bean was pricked by a sudden +thought up the ladder to the little attic aloft, whence she creaked down +again, bringing with her the great white hat. "There, Nelly," she said, +"just clap that on your head, and then nobody can pass the remark that +you didn't get the wear of somethin' new, any way."</p> + +<p>Nelly took the hat, which struck her nearly dumb with admiration, but as +she tried to catch a glimpse of it in the shred of looking-glass on the +wall, her delighted expression waxed so eloquent that Mrs. M'Bean was +impelled to say: "You're to keep it, girl alive, if you've e'er a fancy +for it. Sure it's fitter for you than the likes of me, that 'ud look a +quare old scarecrow if I offered to go about in such a thing." She had +not at first intended this generosity, her worldly goods being so few +that she could not lightly part with even a very unpromising possession.</p> + +<p>Nelly, on her side, could hardly believe in her high fortune, when, +after some polite demur, she found herself carrying off the splendid +hat. To wear it on an ordinary walk would have seemed profane, so she +held it under her old shawl all the way home to her cabin on the shore +at the foot of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> the Black Banks, a good step beyond Ballyhoy. But when +she reached the door, she could not forbear the pleasure of making her +entrance in the glory of her new adornment. Her reception was altogether +disappointing. For her mother's and grandmother's voices rose up shrill +and shriller, demanding what at all hijjis gazabo she'd got on her. +Billy, her eldest brother, said: "Musha, she's put a pair of blinkers on +her like an ould horse;" and Larry, his junior, remarked with terse +candour, "Och, the fright." More mortifying still, Joe Tierney, her +sweetheart, who had called to conclude arrangements about the morrow's +holiday, said in a disgusted tone: "Tare and ages! I hope to goodness, +Nelly, you're not intindin' to make that show of yourself at the circus +to-morra. Bedad, I niver seen such a conthrivance; you might as well be +walkin' alongside some sort of deminted musharoon." This rather aptly +described the effect of the huge white brim upon Nelly, who was small +and short of stature; but it hurt her feelings badly.</p> + +<p>The only upholder of the hat was Annie Cassidy, who is fond of +controverting the opinions of other people, and who despises men. She +said: "Don't be lettin' them put you out of consait with it,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> Nelly; it +suits you lovely. Sure if anyone doesn't think your app'arance is good +enough for them, you needn't throuble them wid your company. Circuses, +to my mind, is thrash—to be watchin' folks figurandyin' on a pack of +ould horses' backs. There's a lot of us goin' over to-morra to Rathbeg, +where they've merry-go-rounds you can ride in yourself, and all manner, +if you'd just step down to the Junction station and come along wid us on +the early train."</p> + +<p>"'Deed then I might," said Nelly; not that she had the least intention +of doing any such thing, but because, being somewhat of a belle, she was +unaccustomed to uncomplimentary criticisms and much affronted by them. +Furthermore, for the same reason, she escorted Annie home, and stayed so +long talking, that Joe before she returned had to go off about his +milking, which annoyed him a good deal.</p> + +<p>However, he had quite forgotten his vexation next morning, as he hurried +through his early tasks with a day's pleasuring before him. He worked at +the Kellys', whose land is bounded north and south by the Junction lane +and the sea; and as he walked about the fresh April fields he was in +view of Howth, dark pansy-purple<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> against the eastern amber, confronting +the sweep of the Dublin mountains, outlined in wild hyacinth-coloured +mist, across the dancing silver of the bay. The calves had been fed so +expeditiously that Joe found he could spare time to stop at the starred +bank under the hedge and pick a bunch of primroses, some of which +Nelly's mother would proudly keep in a jam-pot on the window-stool, +while Nelly herself might like to wear a few at the circus, brightening +up her brown-striped shawl.</p> + +<p>But when he was compressing a thick sheaf of the cool soft stalks in one +hard hand, he chanced to look up, and saw what thrilled him with dismay. +Bobbing along over the jagged edge of the wall, a short way down the +lane went a gleaming white object, which he at once recognised as +Nelly's new hat. He ran aghast to look through the gate, and despite +intercepting road-curves and obstructive hedges, the hat it unmistakably +was, making for the Junction station. So Nelly, intending a serious +quarrel, had thrown him over and joined the Rathbeg party. A pleasure, +hoarded in anticipation for many a month, shrivelled into dead leaves +suddenly like fairy gold, as he perceived how certainly this must be the +case.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p> + +<p>His first angry impulse was a resort to Haskin's Public at Portbrendan, +where he might spend his spoilt holiday taking drinks and making bets in +the society of some cronies. What hindered him from immediately acting +upon it was a compunctious forecast of the concern which would prevail +in his family, if he absented himself contrary to expectation. "There's +me mother's never aisy," he reflected, "unless she's persuadin' herself +some of us are kilt on her." This made him resolve to postpone +Portbrendan till after breakfast, and he turned lothfully homewards. As +he passed along the Kellys' yard-wall, he relieved his feelings by +tossing his nosegay over it at the place where he heard the grunting of +their pigs, who on that occasion fared almost as delicately as Marvel's +rose-lined fawn.</p> + +<p>It was early still when he reached his cabin, one in the Walshes' row; +and he sat down listlessly on a bank, to wait for nothing in particular. +Presently Mrs. Walsh, senior, came by with a twinkling can of water. +"Och, there you are, Joe," she said: "Nelly's been lookin' out for you +this good while."</p> + +<p>"Whethen it's quare lookin' out she had," said Joe, "and she took off +wid herself to ould Annie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> Cassidy—bad manners to her for her +interfarin'."</p> + +<p>"What's the lad talkin' about at all?" said Mrs. Walsh, standing amazed; +"Nelly's widin there this instiant of time, readyin' herself up."</p> + +<p>"Maybe you'll tell me," said Joe, "that I didn't see her streelin' down +the Junction lane afore I was lavin' Kellys'."</p> + +<p>"And maybe <i>you</i>'ll tell <i>me</i>," said Nelly's grandmother, "that she +wasn't just now callin' to me they were wantin' wather. It's a fine bawl +she'd ha' had to let out of her, if I was to be hearin' her, and she up +beyond Kellys'."</p> + +<p>"There she was anyway," Joe said, doggedly. "Wouldn't I know that dad +fetched-lookin' ould new caubeen she's stuck on her a mile o' ground?"</p> + +<p>"You great gomeral," said Mrs. Walsh. "If that's all you might aisy +enough ha' seen the big hat goin' the road—but have you the notion it's +growin' on Nelly's head? Why, you omadhawn, you hadn't quit ten minyits +last night, and Nelly was just after gettin' back, when who should come +by but poor Mad Bell. Och now the raggedy objick the crathur was, wid +nothin' over her misfort'nit head but an ould wisp as full of houles as +a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> fishin'-net. So little Larry sez, jokin' like, 'Look here, Nelly,' +sez he, 'you'd a right to be lettin' Mad Bell have a loan of your grand +nappy hat to keep the sun out of her eyes.' But belike Nelly'd took a +turn agin the thing wid the way they'd all been makin' fun of it; for +sez she, 'Will you have it, Bell?' sez she, houldin' it out to her. And +if she did, Mad Bell grabbed it in her two hands—it's not often she'll +have a word for anybody—and no more talk about it, but cocked it on, +and tied it firm under her chin wid the sthramers, as tasty as you +plase. Musha good gracious, to see the len'th she drew the bow out on +aich side of her bit of a yeller face, and the nod she gave her ould +head when she'd got it done. So that's what's gone wid the hat. Goodness +guide us, if she wasn't the poor crazy-witted body she is, 'twould be a +sin to let her go makin' such a show of herself; but sure no one 'ud +think to mind anythin' the likes of the crathur might have on her, the +saints may pity her. Ay, bedad, them kind of quare consthructions do be +fit for nothin' unless Quality and mad people," old Mrs. Walsh +continued, without malice, soliloquising, as Joe had caught up the can, +and was hurrying it with prodigal splashes towards his sweetheart's +door.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p> + +<p>The circus, with its flaring lights and whirl of tinselled prancing +marvels, was so rapturous an experience to Nelly that she had not a +regret for her discarded hat, which at this time was moving on beneath a +soft dappled sky, between greening hedges, westward along quiet roads +and lanes. It found shelter for the night under the ley of a tall +hayrick near Santry, thus ending the first stage of Mad Bell's tramp +home to the wide brown bogland of Lisconnel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>A FLITTING</h3> + + +<p>Among the latest of the strangers that have visited Lisconnel were some +who came at a time when the neighbours stood rather in need of +distraction. For the summer following Mrs. Kilfoyle's death was, between +one thing and another, a drearyish season with us. That little old woman +had left a great gap; and then there were many long spells of gloomy bad +weather, which seemed to beat people's troubles down upon them as the +damp drove the turf-reck back through their smoke-holes into the dark +rooms, where they could scarcely see how dense the blue haze was +growing. Stacey Doyne's marriage also had removed something young and +pleasant, and at times, when the thatch dripped without and within, +neighbours were apt to talk about her in tones of commiseration, and +say, "Sure, her poor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> mother's lost entirely." So that towards autumn +the diversion of some new residents' arrival happened opportunely +enough. It was made possible by the fact that Big Anne had given up her +holding and entered into partnership with the widow M'Gurk, thus leaving +her late abode empty for another tenant, who appeared much sooner than +any one might have anticipated from the aspect of the cabin.</p> + +<p>Except as a fresh topic of conversation, however, the strangers gave +small promise of proving an acquisition to the community. Lisconnel did +not like their appearance by any means, and further acquaintance failed +to modify unfavourable first impressions. These were mainly received in +the course of the day after their arrival, which took place on a night +too black for anything beyond a shadowy counting of heads, and a +perception that the bulk of the new-comers' household stuff had jogged +up on one donkey, and must therefore be small. A portion of Big Anne's +furniture had remained behind her in the cabin, owing to certain arrears +of rent. Her heart was scalded, she said, wid the prices she'd only get +for her early chuckens, and they the weight of the world, if you'd feel +them in your hand; and poor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> Mad Bell, that 'ud mostly bring home a few +odd shillin's wid her, was away since afore last Christmas, and might +never show her face there agin, the crathur; and the poor Dummy gone, +that was great at the knittin' if she got the chance—a bit of narration +which would look funny enough in anybody's rental. Mrs. Quigley, who +went to the door with the offer of a seed of fire, found it shut, and a +voice inside called, "as onmannerly as you plase," "No, we've got +matches;" whereupon another voice, further in the interior, quavered, +"Thank'ee kindly, ma'am." So she departed little wiser than she had +come. But daylight showed that the party consisted of an old man, and +his son, and his son's wife, and her sister, and three small children, +besides some cochin-china fowl, and a black cat with vividly green eyes. +This much was apparent on the surface. Also that the old man was frail, +bent, shrivelled, and civil spoken, that the son was "a big soft gomeral +of a fellow," that both the women were sandily flaxen-haired, with +broad, flat cheeks and light eyes, and that two of the children +resembled them, while the third—a girl a trifle older—was a +dark-haired, disconsolate-looking little thing, "wid her face," Mrs. +Brian said, "not the width of the palm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> of your hand, and the eyes of +her sunk in her head." As for the fowl, there could be no doubt that +their "onnathural, long, fluffety legs were fit to make a body's flesh +creep," and the cat looked "as like an ould divil as anythin' you ever +witnessed, sittin' blinkin' atop of the turf-stack."</p> + +<p>Other less self-evident facts came out by degrees—more slowly than +might have been expected, as the strangers were generally close and +chary of speech. They came from the north, where their affairs had not +prospered—in fact, they had been "sold up and put out of it," as the +young man divulged one day to Brian Kilfoyle. They were a somewhat +intricately connected family, by the name, predominantly, of Patman. The +sister-in-law was Tishy M'Crum, which seemed simple enough, but the two +light-haired boys were Greens, Mrs. Patman having been a widow, while +the little girl was the child of a wife whom Tom Patman had already +buried; for though he looked full young to have embarked upon matrimony +at all, this was his second venture. "And it's a quare comether she must +ha' been after puttin' on him," quoth Mrs. Quigley, "afore he took up +wid herself, that's as ugly as if she was bespoke, and half a dozen year +oulder<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> than the young bosthoon, if she's a minyit." It is true that at +the time when Mrs. Quigley expressed this unflattering opinion she and +her neighbours had been exasperated by an impolite speech of Mrs. +Patman, who had said loudly in their hearing, "Well, for sartin if I'd +had a notion of the blamed little dog-hole he was bringin' us into, +sorra the sole of a fut 'ud I ha' set inside it;" and had then proceeded +to congratulate herself upon having prudently left "all her dacint bits +of furniture up above at her mother's, so that she needn't be bothered +wid cartin' them away out of a place that didn't look to have had ever +e'er a thing in it worth the throuble of movin', not if it stood there +until it dropped to pieces wid dirt." Mrs. Quigley rejoined (to Judy +Ryan) that "it would be a great pity if any people sted in a place that +wasn't good enough for them, supposin' all the while they was used to +anythin' a thraneen better—maybe they might, in coorse, and maybe they +mightn't. It was won'erful to hear the talk some folks had, and they wid +every ould stick they owned an aisy loadin' for Reilly's little ass." +But Judy Ryan, with a flight of sarcastic fancy, hoped that Mrs. Patman +and her family "were about goin' on a visit prisintly to the Lady<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> +Lifftinant, because it was much if they'd find any place else where +there'd be grandeur accordin' to their high-up notions."</p> + +<p>Skirmishes such as this, however, were a symptom rather than a cause of +the Patmans' unpopularity. That sprang from several roots. For one +thing, both the women had harsh, scolding voices, and it was even +chances that if you passed within earshot of their cabin you would hear +them giving tongue. Their objurgations were, as a rule, addressed to the +young man or the old, the latter of whom soon grew into an object of +local compassion as "a harmless, dacint, poor crathur," while his son +came in for the frank-eyed looking-down-upon which is the portion of an +able-bodied man, shrew-ridden through sheer supineness and +"polthroonery." But what Lisconnel often said that it "thought badder +of" was the stepmotherly treatment which seemed to be the lot of the +little girl Katty. Of course the situation was one which, under the +circumstances, would have made people believe in such a state of things +upon the slenderest evidence. Still, even to unprejudiced eyes, it was +clear that Katty's rags were raggeder than those of her small +step-brothers, and that she crept about with the mien of a creature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> +which has conceived reasonable doubts respecting the reception it is +likely to meet in society. When the autumn weather began to grow wintry, +little Katty Patman, "perishin' about out there in the freezin' win'," +became a spectacle which was viewed with indignant sympathy from dark +doorways whence she received many an invitation to step in and be +warmin' herself. Her hostesses opined that she was fairly starved just +for a taste of the fire, and didn't believe she was ever let next or +nigh it in her own place. Often, too, the consideration that she had no +more flesh on her bones than a March chucken led to the bestowal of a +steaming potato or a piece of griddle-bread; but the result of this was +sometimes unsatisfactory to the giver, Katty being apt to dart away with +her refreshments, which she might presently be seen sharing among Bobby +and Stevie, for whom she entertained a strong and apparently +unreciprocated regard.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't go for to be sayin' anythin' to set her agin them," Mrs. +Brian Kilfoyle remarked on some such occasion. "But, goodness forgive +me! I've no likin' for them two little brats. I'd misthrust them."</p> + +<p>"Ah, sure they've no sinse," said Biddy Ryan.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> "Where'd they git it? And +the biggest of them, I'd suppose, under four year ould."</p> + +<p>"Sinse!" said Mrs. Quigley. "Bedad, then, if sinse was all that ailed +them, the pair of them is as 'cute as a couple of young foxes. I mind +on'y a day or so after they'd been in it, I met the laste one on the +road, and I comin' home wid be chance a sugarstick in me basket. So, +just to be makin' friends like, I gave it a bit for itself, and a bit +for the other that I seen comin' along. Well, now, ma'am, if it had took +and ate up the both of the bits, I'd ha' thought ne'er a pin's point of +harm—'twould ha' been nathural enough to the size of it. But I give you +me word, when it seen it couldn't get the two of them swallied down +afore its brother come by, what did it go do but clap the one of them +into a crevice in the wall, and cover it under a blackberry laif. And +wid that down it squats, and begins sayin', 'Creely-crawly +snail—where's the creely-crawly snail I'm after huntin' out of its +houle?'—lettin' on to be lookin' for somethin' creepin' in the grass. +And a while after it come slinkin' back, when it thought nobody was +mindin', to poke the bit out of the wall where I was gatherin' +dandelions under the bank. So while it was fumblin' about,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> missin' the +right crevice, sez I, poppin' up, thinkin' to shame it, 'Maybe the +crawly snail's after aitin' it on you,' sez I. 'Och, yis; I seen it,' +sez the spalpeen, as brazen as brass. 'Gimme 'noder bit instid.' There's +a schemin' young rapscallion for you!"</p> + +<p>"They're too like their mother altogether to plase me," said Judy Ryan. +"The corners of their eyes do be as sharp as if they were cut out wid a +pair of scissors. Not that I'd mind if they'd e'er a sthrake of +good-nathur in them; but I misdoubt they have. The little girl, now, is +as diff'rint as day and night."</p> + +<p>"If <i>she</i> takes after her father, she's a right to want the wit +powerful, misfort'nit little imp," said Mrs. Brian. "For if he isn't a +great stupid gomeral and an ass, just get me one. Why, if he was worth +the dust blowin' along the road, he'd purvint of his own child bein' put +upon."</p> + +<p>"Och, they have him <i>frighted</i>," said Mrs. Quigley, with scornful +emphasis. "They won't let him take an atom of notice of her, they're +that jealous. Sure, if he gets talkin' to her outside the house there, +one of them 'ill let a bawl and send him off to be carryin' in turf or +wather. I've seen it times and agin."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p> + +<p>"If he'd take and sling it about their ears some fine day he'd be doin' +right, and it might larn them to behave themselves," said Judy.</p> + +<p>"But the ould man would disgust you," pursued Mrs. Quigley, "wid the +romancin' he has out of him about his son Tom. You'd suppose, to listen +to him, that the omadhawn's aquil never stepped. He'll deive you wid it +till you're fairly bothered. Troth, he thinks the young fellow's doin' +somethin' out of the way if he just walks down the street, and expec's +everybody to stand watchin' him goin' along. It's surprisin' the foolery +there does be in people."</p> + +<p>"Och, murdher, women alive!" said Ody Rafferty, whose pipe went out at +this moment, "there's no contintin' yous at all. It's too cute they are, +and too foolish they are. Musha, very belike they're not so much off the +common if you'd a thrifle more exparience of them; there's nothin' to +match that for evenin' people. Bedad, now, there's some people <i>I</i> know +so well that I can scarce tell the one from the other."</p> + +<p>Lisconnel, however, generally declined to fall in with Ody's +philosophical views, and the Patmans, whether suspected of excessive +cuteness or folly, remained persistently unpopular. There was only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> one +exception to this rule. The widow M'Gurk has a certain fibre of +perversity in her which sometimes twists itself round unlikely objects, +for no apparent reason save that they are left clear by her neighbours, +and this peculiarity renders her prone upon occasion to undertake the +part of Devil's Advocate. When, therefore, she had once delivered +herself of the opinion that the newcomers were "very dacint folks," she +did not feel called upon to abandon it because it stood alone. As +grounds for it she commonly alleged that they were "rael hard-workin' +and industhrious," which was obviously true enough, since Mrs. Patman +and her sister might constantly be seen tilling their little field with +an energy far beyond the capacity of its late tenant. Her neighbours' +unimpressed rejoinder, "Well, and supposin' they are itself?" did not in +the least disconcert the widdy, nor yet their absence of enthusiasm when +she stated that it was "a sight to behould Tishy M'Crum diggin' over a +bit of ground; she'd lift as much on her spade as any two strong men." +As for little Katty, "she'd never seen anybody doin' anythin' agin the +child; it might happen by nature to be one of those little <i>crowls</i> of +childer that 'ud always look hungry-like and pinin', the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> crathurs, if +you were able to keep feedin' them wid the best as long as the sun was +in the sky." In short, something more than talk was usually needed to +put the widow M'Gurk out of conceit with any notion she had taken up. +Perhaps the comparative aloofness of her hillside cabin helped to +maintain the Patmans at their original high level in her estimation. At +any rate they had not sunk from it by the time that they had been nearly +three months in Lisconnel, and when Mrs. Patman and her sister were on +terms of the very glummest civility with all the other women in the +place. Even towards the widow M'Gurk they were tolerant rather than +expansive. She said "they had done right enough to not be leppin' down +people's throaths."</p> + +<p>One morning not long after Christmas, the widow, being bound on an +errand down below, called in at the Patmans' with a view to possible +commissions. Meal was wanted, and, while Tishy M'Crum stitched up a rent +in the bag, Mrs. M'Gurk noticed where little Katty, who had been "took +bad wid a could these three days," rustled uncomfortably among wisps of +rushes and rags in an obscure corner. Fever made her bold and +self-assertive, for she was wishing nothing less than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> that her daddy +would get her an orange—"An or'nge wid yeller peel round it"—Katty +laid stress upon this point—"like the one her mammy got her a long time +ago. And daddy'd be a good daddy and get her another now. And she'd keep +a bit for Bobby and Stevie and all of them—a big yeller or'nge." +Katty's eyes blazed with excitement as she reiterated these extravagant +desires.</p> + +<p>"She's got an oncommon fancy for a one," said her daddy, looking +wistfully from the child to his wife.</p> + +<p>"They have them down below," suggested the widow, "pence apiece."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Patman's hand was slipping towards her pocket. "If it was just for +wunst," she had begun, when Tishy tweaked her sleeve viciously and +interpolated a rapid whisper, "It wont <i>be</i>; there'll be no ind to it if +you begin humourin' them," so the sentence was badly dislocated. "She'll +do a dale better widout any such thrash," Mrs. Patman concluded, and +walked off to throw sods on the fire.</p> + +<p>Just then the widow became aware that old Joe Patman was grimacing at +her from a corner fast by in a way that might have startled her had she +not been familiar with such modes of beckoning.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> But when she obeyed his +summons, what she saw did astound her outright, for Joe was stooping low +over a leathern pouch which he had drawn from a wall-cranny, and which +seemed to contain marvellous depths of silver money, with here and there +a golden gleam among it, as he warily stirred it up, circling a hurried +forefinger. She had only the briefest glimpse ere he shoved back the +pouch and thrust a sixpence into her hand, muttering, "Git her the +orange—don't be lettin' on for your life."</p> + +<p>As she turned away with a reassuring nod, she perceived that Tishy +M'Crum was standing unexpectedly near, and looking towards them over the +top of the meal-bag. Tishy was bitting off a loose end of thread, which +gave her a determined and ferocious expression, but whether she could +have seen anything or not the widow felt uncertain. She thought not.</p> + +<p>About ten days after this Mrs. M'Gurk was roused at a very early hour by +a thumping on her door. When she opened it she found some difficulty in +recognising her visitor, as the dawn had scarcely done more than dim a +few stars far away in the east, which is an ineffective form of +illumination. "Whethen, now, Joe Patman, is it yourself?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> she said, +peeringly. "And what's brought you out at all afore you can see a step +or a stim? Is the little girl took worse?" For Katty's illness still +continued, and had grown rather serious.</p> + +<p>"Sure, no," said the old man; "Katty's just pretty middlin'. But it's +waitin' I've been the len'th of the mornin', till 'twould turn broad +daylight, before I'd be disturbin' of you, ma'am, to tell you the quare +sort of a joke they're after playin' on me down yonder."</p> + +<p>"Saints above, man, what talk have you of jokin' at this hour of the day +or night?" said Mrs. M'Gurk, feeling the unseasonableness acutely as a +bitter gust came swooping up the slope and indiscriminatingly ruffled +the rime-dusted grass-tufts and her own grizzled locks.</p> + +<p>"Och, bejabbers, it's a great joke they have agin me whatever," said old +Patman, who was shivering much, with cold partly, and partly perhaps +with amusement. "You see the way of it was, last night, no great while +after we'd all gone asleep, I woke up suddint, like as if wid the crake +of a door or somethin', but, whatever it might be, 'twas slipped beyond +me hearin' afore I'd got a hould of me sinses rightly. So I listened a +goodish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> bit, and somehow everythin' seemed unnathural quiet, till I +heard Katty fidgettin', and I went over to see would she take a dhrink +of wather. The Lord presarve us and keep us, ma'am, if all the rest of +them hadn't quit—quit out of it they have, and left us cliver and +clane."</p> + +<p>"Ah, now, don't be romancin' man," said the widow, remonstrantly. "What +in the name of the nation 'ud bewitch any people to go rovin' out of +their house in the middle of the black night, wid the frost thick on the +ground?"</p> + +<p>"Quit they are," said the old man. "Tom's gone, and the wife, and every +man-jack of them. They've took the couple of chuckens I noticed Tishy +killin' of yisterday. Begorrah, I believe they've took Tib the cat, for +ne'er a sign of it I see about the place, that would mostly be sittin' +cocked up atop of the dresser. Goodness guide us, sorra a sowl there is +in the house but the two of us, me and the child, and she's rael bad. +It's a quare ould joke."</p> + +<p>"It 'ud be the joke of a set of ravin' mad people," said the widow.</p> + +<p>"But the best of it is," he went on, "do you mind, ma'am"—he looked +round him suspiciously and lowered his voice—"the leather<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> pouch you +might ha' seen wid me the other day?"</p> + +<p>"Whoo!" said Mrs. M'Gurk, "are they after takin' that on you? Sure, man, +I thought you had it unbeknownst."</p> + +<p>"Aye, it's took," old Patman said, "but how she grabbed it I dunno, +onless, I was thinkin', be any chance you mentioned somethin' about it?"</p> + +<p>"Divil a bit of me did," the widow averred, with truth, which her hearer +accepted. "And how much might you have had in it at all?"</p> + +<p>"Troth, I couldn't be tellin' you," he said; "I never thought to count +it. 'Tis just for a pleasure to meself I keep it. This long while back +I've put ne'er a penny in it, but when we used to be livin' up at +Portnafoyle I'd slip in the odd shillin's now and agin, and sometimes +I'd think 'twould be handy for buryin' me, and other times I'd think I'd +give it to Tom as soon as I'd gathered a thrifle more, on'y some way the +thought of partin' wid it 'ud seem to go agin me, and since poor Tom +made a match with Martha M'Crum 'tis worse agin me it goes. 'Tis that +good-for-nought weasel of a slieveen Tishy's after conthrivin' it on me, +I well know, and bad luck to her," quoth the old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> man, with a sudden +spasm of resentment. "Tom 'ud never play such a thrick—I mane it wasn't +he invinted the joke; he doesn't throuble himself wid much jokin'; he's +too sinsible, and steady, and perspicuous, and oncommon set on me and +the child, all the while. There's no better son in Ireland. Och, but the +rest of them mane no harm wid it; they're just schemin' to dhrop in +prisintly and be risin' a laugh on me."</p> + +<p>Steps which were promptly taken to verify old Joe Patman's strange story +proved it to be correct in every particular. The only fresh fact which +investigations brought to light was the presence of a five-shilling +piece lying on the dresser, where Joe had overlooked it in the early +dusk. All the other inmates, chuckens and cat included, had disappeared, +and with them most of the few movables, the old man and the sick child +being left as forlorn fixtures. Lisconnel at large was neither slow nor +circumlocutory in forming and expressing its opinion as touching the +nature of the joke, a firm belief in which old Joe resolutely opposed to +his troubles as they thickened around him. For no tidings came from the +absentees, nor were any heard of them, while Katty's fever ran so high +that it seemed likely her grandfather would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> be at small further charges +on her account—a prospect which, however financially sound for a +capitalist of five shillings or under, none the less filled his soul +with grief. Then, one night, when Katty was at her worst, a great gale +came rushing and roaring across the bog, and when the day broke it +discovered the Patmans' brown thatch-slope interrupted by a gaping +crevasse, over which a quick-plashing rain-sheet quivered.</p> + +<p>The widow M'Gurk had less spare room than heretofore at her disposal now +that she harboured a co-tenant, with a slight accession of tables and +chairs. Yet she made out a dry corner for the child and her grandfather, +who accepted these quarters in preference to any others, because the +widow, whatever may have been her private views, was prevented by a +mixture of contrariness and magnanimity from joining in the general +denunciation of her former allies, compromising as were the +circumstances under which they had elected to take their departure. In +her society, therefore, he was not obliged to overhear trenchant +criticisms upon his Tom's behaviour, and could dilate, at least +uncontradicted, upon those gifts and graces in the young man, which +recent events had certainly placed in some need of exposition.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p> + +<p>Other disquieting voices there were, however, which he could not dodge, +and they spoke louder every day. For his five shillings were melting, +dwindling—had vanished; and Lisconnel, with the best will in the world, +could ill brook a burden of two incapables more laid upon its winter +penury. No word on the subject had reached the old man's outer ears; but +as Katty struggled slowly and fractiously towards convalescence, it +became clearer in his mind that unless something happened, she must, +when well enough to be moved, seek change of air away at the big House. +Perhaps this prospect was now more constantly before him than even the +thought of Tom's filial virtues, as he sat drearily on the bank by the +widow M'Gurk's door. He might often be seen to shake his head +despondently, and then he was probably saying to himself: "Belike he +thought bad of me, keepin' the bit of money unbeknownst."</p> + +<p>By that time he had abandoned the joke theory, and fixed his hopes upon +the arrival of a letter to explain the mysterious nocturnal flitting, +and say whither they had betaken themselves after passing through +Duffclane, the furthest point to which the detective forces of the +district had tracked the party. Young Dan O'Beirne, whose work brought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> +him daily up from down below to the forge a long way on the road toward +Lisconnel, had safely promised to convey this letter so far whenever it +came; and on many a day the neighbours nodded commiseratingly to one +another as they saw "the ould crathur, goodness may pity him, settin' +off wid himself" in quest of it. The prompt January dusk would have +already fallen before he struggled up the Knockawn, to be greeted by the +widow in the tone of marked congratulation which our friends sometimes +adopt when all reason for it is conspicuously absent: "Well, man alive, +there wouldn't be ere a letter in it this day anyway."</p> + +<p>"Och tub-be sure, not at all," he would answer cheerfully, "I wouldn't +look to there bein' e'er a one sooner than to-morra. I hadn't the notion +of expectin' a letter whatever. 'Twas just for the enjoyment of the bit +of a walk I went."</p> + +<p>"Why tub-be sure it was. But be comin' in, man, for you're fit to dhrop, +and be gettin' your ould brogues dhried. Och man, you're dhrownded +entirely; 'tis a mighty soft evenin' it's turnin' out."</p> + +<p>"And here's Katty lookin' out for you this great while," Big Anne would +say, "she's finely this evenin', glory be to goodness."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<h3>A RETURN.</h3> + + +<p>Affairs were much in this posture, when the widow M'Gurk was one day +perplexed by the occurrence of two small incidents. In the first place, +as she was starting on an expedition to the Town she saw at a little +distance something run across the road which looked uncommonly like the +Patmans' black cat Tib. Lisconnel owns no other cats for which she might +have mistaken it; still, as she was puzzled to think how the creature +should have hidden itself away for more than a fortnight, she concluded +that she had been deceived by some fluttering bird or glancing shadow. +In the next place, she happened in the Town upon one Larry Donnelly, who +in the course of conversation remarked: "So you've that young Patman +back wid yous agin. What took him to be leggin' off wid himself that +way?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And what put that in your head at all?" said the widow. "Light nor +sight we've seen of him, or a one of them, or likely to. It's off out of +the counthry he is belike, and he after robbin' his ould father, that's +niver done talkin' foolish about him, and lavin' his innicent child to +go starvin' into the Union—bad luck to him." She found a free +expression of her sentiments rather refreshing after the restrictions +under which she was placed at home.</p> + +<p>"Well now," said Donnelly, "I'd ha' bet me best brogues I seen that chap +a couple of nights ago streelin' along the road down about our place; +but 'twas darkish enough, and I might aisy be mistook."</p> + +<p>The widow pondered much over this statement on her homeward way, but had +the forbearance to say nothing about it. She was still undecided whether +or no she would communicate it to anybody, when, next morning, on her +way for a can of water, she saw the black cat, unmistakable this time, +run across the road, and, as on the day before, make off over the bog +towards the little river. Widow M'Gurk stood staring after it for a few +minutes, and came to a resolution. Then she looked about her, and was +aware of Andy Sheridan's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> head leaning against his doorpost. Of Andy her +opinion was, as we have seen, rather low, but she could descry no other +person available for her purpose, so she called to him: "Andy, lad, I'm +goin' after me two pullets that's strayed on me; come and be givin' me a +hand." Andy lounged over to her goodnaturedly, and they turned into the +bog, where Ody Rafferty presently joined them. The widow thought her +fowl might be among the broken ground, where the stream runs at the back +of the Knockawn, and the three went in that direction. It was a mild +soft grey morning, and they met with neither stir nor sound, till they +came abruptly upon a grassy hollow, shut in by furzy banks, and fronted +by the running water, and then the widow, who alone had been expecting +the unexpected, uttered a suppressed screech, and said: "Och, boys dear, +goodness gracious guide us!"</p> + +<p>What they saw was the figure of a man in a long great-coat, "crooched +all of a hape" under the bank. Near him were ranged in a row half a +dozen oranges, strikin' up a wonderful golden glow. A small grimy scrap +of paper was spread out near them, covered with several piles of +shillings and pennies, and a silver thimble. Beside these Tib<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> the black +cat sat severely tucked up, apparently dissatisfied, and irked by the +situation. At the widow's exclamation the man raised his head, and was +seen to be Tom Patman, looking haggard and dazed, and as hollow-eyed as +little Katty herself. Widow M'Gurk and Ody and Andy stood in a line +facing him.</p> + +<p>"Whethen now, Tom Patman," said Ody, "and what might <i>you</i> be doin' wid +yourself?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sittin' here," said Tom.</p> + +<p>"Och musha, tell us somethin' we don't know then. Sittin' there you are, +sure enough, but what the mischief are you after, might I politefully +ax? or what you mane <i>by</i> it at all at all?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sittin' here," said Tom again, "and starvin' I am; and sittin' and +starvin' I'll be morebetoken till the ind of me ould life. Sure what +else 'ud I be doin', and meself to thank for it, wid niver a sowl left +belongin' me in the mortal world, nor a place to be goin' to?"</p> + +<p>"Well tub-be sure," said Mrs. M'Gurk, "if that talk doesn't bate all +that iver I heard! And himself after trapesin' off as permisc-yis as an +ould hin that won't sit on her eggs, and lavin' his own flesh and blood +behind him as if they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> were the dust on the road. And then he ups and +gives chat about niver a sowl bein' left him."</p> + +<p>"'Twas Tishy—bad cess to her," said Tom. "Och, but it's the +mischievious ould divil-skins is Tishy M'Crum, and it's herself stirred +up Martha, that wouldn't be too bad altogether if she'd be let alone, +till the two of them had me torminted wid tellin' me th' ould man had +pots of money he'd niver spend as long as he had us to be livin' on; and +that we'd all do a dale better if some of us slipped away aisy widout +risin' a row, and left him for a bit, while we'd be sellin' Martha's +things, and seein' about gettin' into a dacint little place, instid of +the whole of us to be starvin' alive up at Lisconnel, that's nothin' +more than a bog bewitched; and he after lettin' us be sold up, they +said, and all the while ownin' mints of money, so that we'd no call to +be overly partic'lar about lavin' him to make a shift along wid the +child, if 'twas a convanience; on'y he'd be risin' a quare whillabaloo, +if he knew we were goin' off anywheres. Troth, I couldn't tell you all +the gabbin' they had day and night—and showin' me the place he kep' his +bag hidden in, and this way and that way. Och bedad themselves 'ud +persuade<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> the hair on your head it grew wrong side out, if they'd a mind +to it."</p> + +<p>"They might so," said Ody, "supposin' I was great gomeral enough to be +mindin' a word they'd say, or the likes of them." In his subsequent +reports of the interview, Ody always alleged that he had replied: "Aye, +very belike, supposin' it grew on the head of an ass," which was +certainly neater. But Ody Rafferty's repartees, like those of other +people, are occasionally belated in this way.</p> + +<p>"So the ind of it was," Tom went on, "nothin' else 'ud suit them except +gettin' all readied up for us to be slinkin' out in the evenin' late. +Faith, I'd twenty minds in me heart agin quittin' little Katty, and she +that bad. Howane'er they swore black and white that me father'd be +spendin' all manner of money on her when he got us out of it, and we +were to be writin' for them to come after us as soon as we were settled, +and iverythin' agreeable—so I went along. But if I did, ma'am, sure +when they'd got the bits of furniture sold, the on'y notion they had was +to be settin' off to make fortins in the States, and ne'er a word about +Katty and th' ould man. Och they had me disthracted; outrageous they +were; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> that ould thief of the world, Tishy, allowin' me sorra a +penny, so as I mightn't ha' been bound to stop wheriver they was. But +one day they thought they had me asleep in the room-corner, and the two +of them was colloguin' away at the table, so all of suddint Tishy whips +out me poor father's bag, that I knew the look of right well, when he +used to keep his 'baccy in it, and down she slaps it, and it jinglin' +wid money. 'What's that for you?' sez she, and: 'The laws bless us,' sez +Martha, 'is it after takin' that you are? And what's to become of them +crathurs up at Lisconnel?' 'Och blathers,' sez Tishy, 'you needn't be +lettin' on you didn't well know all this while I had it. Sure th'ould +one might ha' plinty more hidden away on us. Anyway, I left them +somethin' to get along wid,' sez she."</p> + +<p>"The five shillin's," said the widow. "Och but that one's a caution."</p> + +<p>"Rael hard-workin' and industhrious she is," observed Andy.</p> + +<p>Tom resumed his narrative: "'Them two'll do as well inside as out,' sez +Tishy. 'I'll just be countin' the bit of silver,' sez she. But bedad I +was fairly past me patience, and up I leps, and I grabbed a hould of the +little bag. Och it's a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> quare fright I gave them that time, and they not +thinkin' I was mindin', rael terrified they were," said Tom, sitting up +more erect, and recalling this rare experience with evident complacency. +"And 'Lave that, you omadhawn,' sez Tishy, wid the look of a divil on +her,' what foolery are you at now?' 'You thievin' miscreant,' sez I to +her, 'it's shankin' off to the pólis I'll be, and layin' a heavy charge +agin you for robbin' and stealin', and you after lavin' the innicent +child there and th' ould man to starve widout a penny to their names,' +sez I. 'Faugh!' sez she, 'for that matter the fever's liker to have took +her off agin now wid no throuble to be starvin', and maybe a good job +too for iverybody.' And 'Be this and be that,' sez I, 'if I thought +there was e'er a fear of it, 'tis wringin' your ugly neck round I'd be +this instiant.' 'Let go of that bag,' sez she, sweepin' up some of the +shillin's that was spilt. 'The pólis,' sez I, 'and a heavy charge, if +there's another word out of your hijjis head.' 'I vow and declare,' sez +Martha, 'I believe 'twould be the chapest thing we could do wid him, to +let him take it and go. Sure he'd be divil a ha'porth more use for an +immigrant than the ould cat there I was ape enough to bring along to +pacify the childer.' So then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> Tishy gave some more impidence, but the +last ind of it was we come to an agreement that I'd take the note and +the silver, and they'd keep what bits of gould was in it, and they'd go +off wid themselves wheriver they plased at all, and I'd thramp straight +back here to be lookin' after the child and th' ould man. Ay, bedad, we +settled it up civil enough. And afore I went Martha handed me out th' +ould thimble, and bid me bring it to Katty. ''Twas her mother's,' sez +she, 'I was keepin' for her; and thick it is wid houles be the same +token; but don't say I'd be robbin' it off her.' And they tould me to +take Tib along, or else they'd be lavin' her to run wild; so I put her +in the basket. Begorrah, I believe Bobby had a notion to be comin' wid +me and the cat, for he was lettin' sorrowful bawls the last thing I +heard of him.</p> + +<p>"So away I come wid the best of me haste; och I knocked the quare +walkin' out of meself entirely. And I stopped at the last big place I +was passin' to get Katty the oranges. And I was thrampin' it all the +night after, till just when there was a sthrake of the mornin' over the +bog, I come into Lisconnel. But och wirra wirra—the roof's off of the +house—och the look of the black<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> houle wid the rafters stickin' thro' +it, and ne'er a breath of smoke, till me heart was sick watchin' to see +might there be an odd one; and the door clap-clappin'. Sure be that I +well knew the child was dead, and me father quit out of it, or maybe +buried himself, and I after lavin' them dyin' and starvin'. So for +'fraid somebody'd be comin' out and tellin' me, off I run away into the +bog, till I was treadin' here in the could wather. And then I tumbled +th' ould cat out of the basket, that was scrawmin' and yowlin' disp'rit, +and I took and slung the basket into the sthrame—there's the handle +among them rushes—and down I sat under the bank. I dunno how many +nights and days it is at all—but here I'll stop; niver a fut I'll stir +to be lookin' for bite or sup, or lettin' on I'm in it—and anybody may +take the bit of money and welcome; I'd as lief be pickin' up the dirt on +the road—for I'll just give me life a chance to ind out of the world's +misery and disolation."</p> + +<p>"Now, may goodness forgive you," said the widow M'Gurk, "it's a poor +case to want the wit. Troth, and yourself's the quare ould +child-desertin', mane-spirited, aisy-frighted slieveen of a young +bosthoon; but what sort of a conthrivance is it you have on you at all +at all be way of a head<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> that you couldn't have the sinse to considher +the roof blowin' off a body's house 'ud be raison enough for them to be +quittin' out of it, and no signs of dyin' in the matter? D'you think the +win' was apt to be waitin' till there happened to be nobody widin, afore +it got scatterin' the thatch? God help us all, you've little to do to be +squattin' there talkin' about disolations and miseries, wid the two of +them this instiant minyit sittin' be the fire up at my place, and sorra +a hand's turn ailin' them, forby Katty's a thrifle conthráry now and +agin, thro' not bein' entirely strong yet."</p> + +<p>"And bedad at that hearin'," reports of the occurrence used to proceed +from this point, "the lep he gathered himself up wid, and the rate he +legged it off—musha, he was over the hill while we were pickin' up his +things for him. And as for th' ould cat that he tripped over, it rowled +three perch of ground before it got a hould of its four feet."</p> + +<p>"Sure we were sittin' there as quite as could be consaived"—the +conclusion of this precipitate rush was thus recounted—"when all of a +suddint we couldn't tell what come bouncin' in at the door, as if it had +been shot out of the inds of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> earth, and had us all jumpin' up and +screechin', till we seen it was on'y Tom Patman, and he in such a takin' +you might suppose he thought somethin' 'ud swally up ould Joe and the +child on him before he could get at them."</p> + +<p>Lisconnel's opinion was divided as to whether Tom would actually have +stayed and starved in his hiding-place had he not been discovered. Mrs. +M'Gurk thought it likely enough. "The cat goin' back and for'ards that +way," she said, "gave her an idee there was somethin' amiss in it, and +that was why she took Andy along. 'Deed and she got a quare turn when +first she spied the chap croochin' under the bank—she couldn't tell but +he might ha' been a corp."</p> + +<p>Brian Kilfoyle's view was: "Divil a much! Sure if he'd had e'er a notion +to be doin' anythin' agin himself, there was plinty of deep bog-houles +handy for him to sling himself into, and have done wid it." Whereupon +Mrs. Sheridan crossed herself and said deprecatingly: "Ah, sure, belike +the crathur wouldn't have the wickedness in him to go do such a thing." +Her husband didn't know but he might. "Them soft sort of fellers 'ud +sometimes stick to anythin' they took into their heads, the same as a +dab of morthar agin a wall."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> And Ody Rafferty supposed the fact of the +matter was, "that if be any odd chance they got a notion of their own, +they mistook it for somebody else's."</p> + +<p>On one point, however, the neighbours, Mrs. M'Gurk not excepted, were +practically unanimous, the utter flagitiousness, namely, of Tishy +M'Crum. There was a tendency to begrudge her the trivial merit of having +voluntarily left behind her the five-shilling piece. For this marred +that perfect symmetry of iniquity which is so pleasant to the eye when +displayed by people of whom we "have no opinion." Only Mrs. Brian said +it was a mercy she had that much good nature in her itself. But even she +added that the fewer of them kind of folks she saw comin' about the +place, the better she'd be pleased, and she hoped they'd got shut of +them for good and all.</p> + +<p>This aspiration seemed the more likely to be fulfilled, when within a +week or so the Patmans heard from the family of Tom's first wife, who +held out prospects of work for himself, and a home for Katty and his +father—a proposal which was gladly accepted. Their departure left as +the single trace of their sojourn in Lisconnel, Tib the cat, which +remained behind, a somewhat unwelcome<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> bequest to the widow M'Gurk. +Indeed, I fear the creature became a source of some annoyance to her, +because Andy Sheridan contracted a habit of addressing it by the name of +Tishy, and bestowing upon it the same laudatory epithets with which the +widow had been wont to justify her admiration for the energetic sisters.</p> + +<p>It was on a hushed February morning that the Patmans finally departed. +The smell of spring was in the air, and filmy silvery mist had begun to +float off the dark bogland in vanishing wreaths, soft and dim as the +frail sloe-blossom, already stolen out over the writhen black branches +up on the ridge. A jewel had been left in the heart of every groundling +trefoil and clover-leaf, and the long rays that twinkled to them were +still just tinged with rose. Here and there a flake of gold seemed to +have lit upon the clump of sombre green furze-bushes, by which +neighbours in a small knot stood watching the three generations of +Patmans dwindle away down the road with its narrow dewy grass-border, +threading the vast sweep of sky-rimmed brown. Father and son walked, +while little Katty bobbed along, balanced in a swaying donkey-pannier. +The widow M'Gurk, who felt a good deal of concern about the destiny<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> of +her late lodgers, hoped "they were goin' to dacint people, for there +wasn't as much sinse among the three of them as you'd put on a fourpenny +bit." And Mrs. Quigley thought "'twould be hard to say which the young +man or ould one was the foolishest; for the blathers ould Joe talked +about Tom, and the gaby Tom made of himself over the child, now that he +had his own way wid her, was past belief."</p> + +<p>"And I can tell you," said Ody Rafferty, "there's folks goin' about that +you'll want all the wits you iver had, and maybe a thrifle tacked on, to +get the better of rightly."</p> + +<p>"Augh, I question will they iver do any great things, goodness help +them," said Mrs. Sheridan. "'Twill be much if he keeps them outside the +House."</p> + +<p>"Well, anyway," said Biddy Ryan, "I'd liefer be in their coats, for +fortin or no fortin, than like them two ugly-tempered women, settin' off +to the dear knows where, after robbin' and plunderin' all before them."</p> + +<p>"Thrue for you, then, Biddy," said Mrs. Brian, turning away from her +wide outlook, "we're none so badly off, when we're stoppin' where we +are, instid of streelin' about wid the notion of such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> black villinies +in our minds. For sure enough," she said, as she faced round towards the +grey-peaked end-walls, and smoke-plumed thatch of Lisconnel, "the +world's a quare place to get thravellin' thro', take it as you will."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>GOOD LUCK</h3> + + +<p>Although Laraghmena is no great distance from Lisconnel as the crow +flies, but little intercourse takes place between the two hamlets. For +the crow's flight would be over a rugged mountain ridge, sinking into a +trackless expanse of bog, which often spreads rough and wet walking +before wayfarers who have to experience it at closer quarters than those +who merely throw down a flapping shadow as they pass. And round by the +road is a good long tramp, not to be lightly undertaken. So it does not +happen half a dozen times in the year, perhaps, that anybody comes from +thence to Lisconnel, and our visits thither are fewer still. The +neighbours say that the people up there do be very poor entirely, and +are wont to use a commiserating tone when speaking of them. But their +knowledge of the locality and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> its inhabitants is by no means intimate, +and would be even less so, were it not that Theresa Joyce and her +brother Mick, the remnant of Mrs. Kilfoyle's family, are now living +there, which makes a connecting link.</p> + +<p>Laraghmena is scattered rather wildly over the slopes of a grey mountain +that shoulders the sea at the point where its foam comes nearest to +Lisconnel. Some of the cabins stand so low along the shore that the +shingle knocks clatteringly at their doors when the tide is full and +rough; and other some are perched so high up on the hillside that they +constantly disappear from view behind a curtain of the pale mists which +haunt its summit, creeping to and fro. When one of these little white +dwellings, with its field-fleck beside it, emerges from the clouds, you +feel as if the slightly improbable had happened, since at such a height +you would have expected nothing but the appropriate rocks and swampy +patches. There was once a French princess who would no doubt have +wondered why on earth any people should choose to live and farm in such +unchancy places. Rather than that she would have ploughed herself up a +little bit of the rich green land which spreads in broad tracts round +about, with sometimes sheep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> nibbling over it, and here and there a few +deer. But the views of this young lady are represented as having been so +far in advance of her age that she seems hardly possible as an +historical personage, and withdraws into the myth-mists. To that region +certainly belongs the ancient chronicle in which we read how the Irish +Nemedians, revolting against the intolerable deal of cream and butter +and wheaten meal exacted from them by their oppressors, the Fomorians, +those ferocious African pirates, emigrated to Hellas, in hope of better +things, but were at last driven back home to escape the heavier yoke of +the Athenians, who compelled them to: "Dig clay in the valleys, and +carry it in leathern bags to the top of the highest mountains, and the +most craggy rocks, in order to form a soil upon those barren places, and +make them fruitful, and able to bear corn." That history should repeat +itself is, of course, to be recognised as merely a commonplace fact; but +a myth reproducing itself in the shape of events happening visibly +before our eyes, is a rarer phenomenon. And it seems to be occurring +whenever a string of Laraghmenians come plodding up their winding +mountain-path under the burden of heavy creels filled with earth, or +oftener with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> slippery brown sea-wrack and leathery weed. For it is in +this way that whatever scanty foothold their starveling crops may find, +has been fashioned and maintained in the stony little fields. Year by +year, as the blustery days of late autumn darken into winter, the +steep-ledged path is wetted all along with sea-water, and bestrewn with +dark trails and tough tawny pods out of the dripping creels, until it +grows as sharply ocean-odorous as the beach, while the many bare feet +are continually toiling slowly up and quickly pattering down it. Yet +their efforts are rewarded by only meagre and stunted growths; so +intractable is the material upon which they are expended. Micky Joyce +has been heard to declare, as he took a despondent bird's-eye view of +his holding, that "you might as well be thryin' to raise crops in the +crevices of the stone walls."</p> + +<p>However, as we were just now shown, these dwellers at Laraghmena have +another resource to fall back upon. In fact, they have nothing less than +the wide sea as a supplement to their bit of land. The queer small boats +hauled up on the strand, and the dark-brown net festooning the rafters, +betoken that, as does also the bit of salt-fish hung against the wall, +pallid and juiceless,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> a shadowy, wraith-like looking viand. But the +bounty of the sea has limits; it does not yield up its stores for +nothing, but takes as well as gives. And it helps itself sometimes on a +liberal scale. Some years ago, for instance, it took poor Thady Joyce +and several of his companions, who had gone off in a couple of luggers +after the herrings. The event is remembered with awe at Laraghmena, +because in that wild March gloaming Con the Quare One had met Thady +himself face to face stepping up the winding path, and had given him +good evening, and asked him how he had got all dripping wet, just at the +very time when the unlucky lad must have been lying drowned miles and +miles from there, among the surges of Galway Bay. Other such toll has +often been levied since then; for the curraghs and pookawns in which +Laraghmena goes to sea are frail craft to cope with the billows come +rolling, maybe, from the fogbanks of Newfoundland, and blasts that have +cooled their breath among hills of ice before they sweep across the +Atlantic. Now and then a boat comes to grief even on the short voyage +made for the purpose of cutting wrack from the shelves of the black-reef +that lies a bit off the shore. So, on the whole, the inhabitants of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> +Laraghmena may be considered to pay dearly for their supplies of fish +and seaweed; and we at Lisconnel, though we live beyond reach of such +things, and have few substitutes for them, are not far wrong in speaking +of the people up there as "rael poor entirely."</p> + +<p>Yet they themselves would not by any means have it supposed that they +"think bad," as they call it, of their fortunes and habitation. On the +contrary, whatever their private opinion may be, they are disposed to +uphold the merits of the place in public, and to prove themselves sudden +and quick in resentment of any outsiders' disparaging criticism. The +most deadly insult that can be offered to a Laraghmenian as such, is an +allusion to the libellous report which has somehow become current to the +effect that his Riverence at Drumroe, the nearest parish, always sends +over a special messenger on Saturday night to remind them of the +morrow's Mass; the innuendo being that Laraghmena's out-of-the-way +situation, and general want of culture, preclude its inhabitants from +knowing the day of the week. This is why an innocent-seeming remark such +as, "Well, boys, it's Tuesday this mornin'," has been known to set +blackthorns whirling wildly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span></p> + +<p>Something of the sort occurred at Sallenmore fair, one day in last +September, when Matt Doyne and Andy Sheridan from Lisconnel fell in with +their acquaintances, Larry Sullivan and Felix Morrough, from Laraghmena. +After they had fought as long as seemed good to them, they exchanged +what news they had. The most important piece was that Larry and Felix +were presently setting off to the States. They were rather urgent in +advising the other two lads to join their party; but Andy said that +everything would go to sticks at home if he was out of it, and Matt +averred that his mother would be of the opinion she was lost and kilt +entirely, if he so much as mentioned any such an idea. "And herself wid +your brother Terence at home to be keepin' her company," objected Felix. +"Sure there's me mother wid ne'er another crathur in the world, you may +say, but meself, and she's never done this last six months persuadin' me +to go along."</p> + +<p>"Then it's the quare woman she must be, bedad," said Matt, "unless it's +yourself's the quare bosthoon on her entirely, and maybe that's liker;" +a rejoinder which brought on a renewal of hostilities.</p> + +<p>Just at this time a spell of fine weather, very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> bright and serene, had +been brooding over Lisconnel. It was the early spring of autumn, when +leaves and berries here and there were taking a blossom-like vividness; +the frost-touched brier-sprays seemed to have found and dipped in the +same red that had dyed the young buds and shoots of April. The air was +so still that the seeded dandelions stood day after day with their fairy +globes unbereft of a single downy dart, like little puffs of vapour +among the grasses. A soft mist rounded off all the bogland, holding in a +drowse the sunbeams that steeped it, and letting them waken to their +full golden glory at the very heart of noon. But one morning the haze +began to thicken and darken on the horizon, as if wafts of murky smoke +were blown through it, and towards evening massy shapes of black clouds +came slowly lifting themselves up, some with outlines curved like bosky +clumps of wood, some ruggedly ledged and angled like a drift of begrimed +icebergs. By sunset the far west was all a sullen gloom veined with +lurid, tawny streaks, and mottled with deeper stains. Old Peter +Sheridan, who is reputed to have "a great eye for the weather," turned +it forebodingly upon the prospect, and said the sky was "the moral for +all the world of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> the back of an ould brindled bull, and he'd never +known any good come of that manner of apparance."</p> + +<p>And true for him. Before sunrise next morning Lisconnel was roused by +the réveille of a crashing thunder-peal, which preluded a violent storm. +It is seldom that one booms and rattles so loudly over our bogland, or +glares with so fierce a flame. Brian Kilfoyle, taking a rapid +observation through his door, said, "Be the powers of smoke, I never +seen the aquil of that. You might think they was after whitewashin' the +whole place wid blindin' fire. Here's out of it, sez I." And he +retreated blinking to his dark corner. At the height of it, even Andy +Sheridan, who is probably our freest thinker, felt secretly relieved to +know that his stepmother and his sisters were saying their prayers. The +arrangement seemed to give him a sense of security without claiming any +concessions from his superior strength of mind. But in the end the +perilous clouds rolled away growling and gleaming towards the mountains +and the sea, leaving only one victim behind—the Quigley's little goat, +who had been struck dead by a lightning flash, to the sorrow of her +owners, and the awe of all Lisconnel in contemplation of the black and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> +white body stretched out still on her wide grazing-ground.</p> + +<p>The storm, however, seemed to have broken up the fair weather, and the +days that followed it were blustery and rainy. On the next of them Larry +Sullivan and Felix Morrough were seen passing through Lisconnel, +evidently equipped for a journey. Larry, who had parted from no near +friends, was apparently in good spirits; but Felix looked so much cast +down that his contemporaries refrained from any references to the days +of the week, and the pair went on their way unmolested amongst the +lengthening shadows. They reported the storm to have been terrific +altogether up at Laraghmena. The Widdy Bourke's thatch was set in a +blaze, "and it was a livin' miracle that the whole of them wasn't +frizzled up like a pan of fryin' herrin's."</p> + +<p>It may have been ten days or so after this that a good many of the +neighbours had dropped in one evening at Mrs. Doyne's. She had been +ailing of late, and old Dan O'Beirne had stepped up from the forge to +prescribe for her, and cheer her with accounts of how finely young Dan +and her daughter Stacey were getting on at their place down below in +Duffclane. The rest of the party<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> had assembled merely for company and +conversation. It included members of nearly all our families—Kilfoyles +and Quigleys and Ryans and Raffertys and the Widdy M'Gurk and Big Anne. +Presently Judy Ryan, who was looking out of the door, had an +announcement to make.</p> + +<p>"Whethen now, and who might yous be when you're at home? There's two +women comin' along the road from Sallinbeg ways, I dunno the looks of at +all, I should say; but the rain's mistin' thick between me and them. +Carryin' bundles they are. If they're not any of the Tinkers we're right +enough. One of them's a little ould body, and the other's a good size +bigger. Strangers they are. Och, mercy on me, have I eyes in me head at +all? How strange she is! Sure it's Theresa Joyce herself. But we haven't +seen her this great while, and who she has along wid her I couldn't be +tellin' you. A feeble sort of crathur she looks to be, accordin' to the +way she's foostherin' along."</p> + +<p>When these two travellers arrived at the Doynes' door, nobody failed to +recognise Theresa Joyce, notwithstanding the estrangement of a long +absence; and she hastened to introduce her unknown companion, who kept a +tight clutch on her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> arm, as if afraid to let go, and looked at nobody's +face, but seemed to listen from one to the other. She was, it appeared, +the widow Morrough from Laraghmena, who had been struck blind by the +lightning in the great storm Friday was a week—the sight of her eyes +clean destroyed with one flash as she was throwing a bit of food to the +fowl at her door. And the last child she had belonging to her set off +the next morning to the States. And now she herself was going into the +Union down at Moynalone, for what else could she be doing, that couldn't +see her hand before her face? So Theresa was bringing her down, and they +thought they might have got as far as Duffclane against night; but the +creature wasn't well used yet to walking in the dark, so they were slow +coming, and they'd hardly do it.</p> + +<p>Such was the outline of Mrs. Morrough's history up to date, and its +rehearsal had at once the effect of arousing a sympathetic bustle about +her, which did not subside until she sat a wet and wayworn guest, in the +most comfortable hearth-corner, and had been provided with a cup of the +tea that Mrs. Doyne had made herself in her character of an invalid. She +now sat on one side of the blind woman, and stirred her tea for her, and +on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> other Dan O'Beirne shook his head in regretful confirmation of +the opinion pronounced by the Drumroe doctor, which was reported to be +that mortal man couldn't do her a thraneen of good. Meanwhile Theresa +Joyce, who was likewise bedrenched and weary, found a seat in the +opposite corner, where her nearest neighbours were Ody Rafferty, and her +niece-in-law, Mrs. Brian Kilfoyle, with her daughter Rose.</p> + +<p>"Well, Theresa, it's the long while since you've stepped over to see +us," Ody said, starting the conversation, "and it's the soft evenin' +you've chose to be comin'. Your shawl's dhreeped. Take it off, and I'll +give it a shake above the fire. Bedad, Theresa, the two of us has been +wearin' the dusty male-bags on our heads since the time I seen you +first. As black as a sloe you was; but now it's liker the blossom it's +turned."</p> + +<p>"And time for it," said Theresa. "Sure I'm over sivinty year of age now, +any way, every day of it—and the long days there was among them, God +knows."</p> + +<p>"But wid all that, ne'er a one of them was long enough for you to be +findin' a man to your mind in it," said Ody. "And I declare to goodness +I dunno but maybe it's the very sinsible woman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> you were for that same. +Sure meself was a great while afore ever I thought of axin' Biddy, and +for anythin' I can tell I might ha' done better if I'd held me tongue a +bit longer and then said nothin', as the sayin' is. I was ould enough to +know me own mind any way. But, musha, for that matter, Rose there 'ill +prisintly be settin' up to think she's ould enough to know hers, and +it's twinty chances if she has as much wit as you."</p> + +<p>"And why would she," said Theresa, "or anybody be wishin' it to her? Oh, +let that alone. There's a dale of diff'rint sorts of wit, and no raison +why one of them shouldn't be as good as another. Look at her +grandmother, me sister Bessy, it's plinty of paice and comfort she had +wid her marryin'."</p> + +<p>This was quite true, as although she had been rather early widowed, and +her only daughter had married an emigrant, her son and his wife had +taken such care of her, and made so much of her, that the neighbours had +never thought of calling her the widdy, a title reserved for a woman +left struggling alone; and she had remained Mrs. Kilfoyle to the end of +her days.</p> + +<p>"And look at the poor crathur there, what she's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> come to," said Ody, +instancing the tragical figure of the widow Morrough.</p> + +<p>"Ah, the saints may pity her," said Theresa. "But the likes of such bad +luck happins few people married or single, thank God."</p> + +<p>"It's a quare unnathural young villin her son must be," said Mrs. Brian, +"to skyte off and lave her that-a-way. Sorra the bit he can be good +for."</p> + +<p>"'Deed, now, Norah woman, that's the very notion is disthressin' me," +said Theresa, "for I dunno but it's after usin' him ill, I am. You see +the way of it was the poor sowl—poor Mrs. Morrough—had the great dread +of the say upon her, be raison of her husband and her father gettin' +dhrowned at the fishin', so she'd always the fear in her mind of the +same thing happ'nin' her couple of boys. Howane'er, the eldest of them +went off to California a good few years back, and was doin' pretty +middlin' well out there the last she heard of him, but that's a long +while ago now; about gettin' married he was. But Felix, the lad she had +at home wid her until the other day, often enough he was bound to be on +the wather, after the fish and the sayweed, if he was to get his livin' +at all. And disthracted she was seem' him goin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> out in their ould boat, +that's laiks enough in her to sink the biggest ship ever set sail, and +herself wid scarce the width to hould a sizable flounder. Sez I to Felix +one wild evenin', when we was argufyin' wid him, that sure the little +loadin' he could be puttin' in her 'ud never be worth losin' his life +for. But sez he to me, the bit of food they'd put in their mouths was +littler agin, and yet they might be losin' their lives for want of it. +And ne'er a word had I to say to that. But one night last winter he was +as nearly lost as anythin' in a squall, and after that his mother would +be tormintin' herself worse than she was before. So she set her heart +entirely on gettin' him to take off to the States, and be out of the way +of fishin' and dhrowndin'. She'd ha' gone wid him herself, on'y they +said she was too ould, and spoilin' his chances she'd be. A long while +it was before he'd hear any talk of it. The whole summer she was +persuadin' him; but at last he made up his mind he would. 'Twas no +notion of his own to be lavin' her, I'll say that for him."</p> + +<p>"Whethen now, but that was as curious a plan as ever I heard tell of for +keepin' a person from dhrowndin'," said Ody; "to be sendin' him off over +the rowlin' says, sailin' goodness can tell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> you how many hunderds and +tousands of miles. What was she dhramin' of at all at all to go do such +a thing?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, but sure it's a diff'rint sort of sailin'," said Theresa. "Why, +they say one of them big stamers 'ud carry a couple of our little boats +along wid her, and you'd scarce notice she had them on board. Terrible +safe they must be if they're that size."</p> + +<p>"And morebetoken," said Mrs. Brian, "there's such a sight of ships +comin' and goin' between this and the States, wouldn't you think that +agin now they'd ha' got a kind of track line, crossin' over, as if it +was a manner of road they was follyin' that nothin's apt to happen them +on, and not sthrayin' about permisc-yis in the storms?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Thrack?</i>" said Ody, shrilly. "Bedad, then, its the quare thrack, and +the quare places it brings them into. D'you know that, for one thing, +they go slap through the Bay of Bisky?"'</p> + +<p>"And is that an ugly bay?" said Mrs. Brian.</p> + +<p>"You may call it that. I wouldn't be sayin' so to herself over there," +said Ody, with much careful mystery. "For it might be on'y discouragin' +the crathur worse than she is already. But it's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> the place where the +Seven Oceans of the World meet. Ay, indeed, ma'am—but don't be lettin' +on to her. I was spakin' to a man who had a brother went through it, and +he said the ragin' and tearin' of them all flowin' together 'ud terrify +the sinses out of King Solomon. They had the great big stamer he was in +whirlin' round and round and round, the same as if it was a float on one +of its own paddlewheels, he couldn't tell how many days and nights. +Thracks, how are you. It's a very ready one there is in it to the bottom +of the say."</p> + +<p>"Still a good few people gets through it safe enough," said Theresa, +"ay, and comes back through it of an odd while."</p> + +<p>"But how many's lost in it that you never hear tell of?" said Ody. "And +besides that, the man I was talkin' to tould me his brother was never +right in his head after the tossin' he got. It's a poor case to be +landin' ravin' mad in a sthrange counthry, supposin' you get there +itself. But me own notion is that if people's well off, they've a right +to stop where they are, and if they're misfort'nit, they've a chance any +way of better bad luck stayin' at home."</p> + +<p>Ody stated his own notion authoritatively, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> Theresa looked depressed +by the dilemma in which it seemed to place the emigrant.</p> + +<p>"'Deed, now, maybe it's a bad turn I'm after doin' the two of them," she +said; "but poor Mrs. Morrough, many a time she sez to me it 'ud be the +greatest comfort to her at all to get quit of the fear she was in +continyal wheniver he went out wid the ould boat. Sure she might be a +bit lonesome, she'd say, but after all what great company was he to her +when half the time she would be drowndin' him under the rowl of the say, +like his poor father and grandfather? And wid the most he could do it's +hard set he was to make what 'ud keep him. So she'd planned she'd be +able to conthrive well enough wid her hins and her spriggin' work, till +Felix could be sendin' her over a thrifle. A very cliver woman she was +at the spriggin'; the handkercher corners she'd work was rael iligant. +Pence a-piece she got for them, and I've known her finish a dozen in +three days.</p> + +<p>"Och, but I got a turn on the Friday mornin' when I stepped down to her +place to see what way they were after the storm, and there she was +sittin' crouched up in a corner, and screechin' to me to know who was +comin' in, and I standin' before her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> eyes in the middle of a sun-bame. +And 'Glory be to God,' sez she, 'that it's yourself, for you'll have the +sinse to give me a hand wid endeavourin' to keep the knowledge of what's +after happenin' me from Felix, the way he won't be purvinted of goin' +to-morra. Sorra a fut would he if he knew aught ailed me; and then sure +he might stay at home for good and all; and dhrownded he'll be, and +meself'ill go deminted.' And sure I thought it was maybe no thing to be +doin', and so I said to her. But it seemed the heart of her was to be +broke altogether if anythin' 'ud hinder him gettin' out of it. And then +I was mindin' the father and grandfather of him, the way they went, and +me brother, poor Thady, and I couldn't tell but I might ha' raison to +think bad of biddin' him stay; and if he did, sure perhaps he couldn't +be keepin' her at all, and she so helpless; it's better able he might be +to help her out in the States. And sorry I'd ha' been to disappoint the +crathur of the first wish she'd took a thought of sittin' in the dark of +her misfortin. So the ind of it was I settled I'd stop wid her for that +day, and thry could we let on there was nothin' amiss when Felix come +in, that was out somewhere since early in the mornin' before the storm +began.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But 'deed now it was the quare conthrivin' we had after he'd come home. +And where'd he been but off down to Drumroe gettin' her an iligant big +taypot for a keepsake? So the sorra a stim of it, in coorse, could she +see; and I done me best biddin' her look at the grand gilt handle, and +the wrathe of pink roses on it, and she'd say the same thing after me; +but sure its noways very aisy to fall into an admiration of a taypot +you've never set eyes on; and I misdoubt the poor lad thought she wasn't +so much plased with it as he expected. And then he'd be walkin' in and +out, and axin' for this and that he was to put in his bundle; and she +could on'y be tellin' him where to look for them, instid of readyin' +them up for him herself. And the pair of socks she'd promised him she +couldn't get to finish—rael fretted she was wid it all. Howsome'er one +way or the other we made a shift, till poor Felix went off in the grey +of the mornin' wid ne'er a notion of anythin'. Sez he to her: 'You'll be +seem' me steppin' in agin one of these days;' and sez she: 'Ay will +I—as sure as I'll see the sun shinin';' so he consaited she was well +enough contint—but the two of them was thinkin' diff'rint things.</p> + +<p>"Ne'er a word of it we said to anybody before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> Felix was gone, or else +somebody 'ud ha' been safe to ha' tould him, for there's plinty of +people couldn't be goin' about widout tellin' everythin' they hear any +more than a wasp could fly widout buzzin' its wings. And then we got the +docther to her, but he couldn't do e'er a hand's turn. Sure what could +anybody do agin the lightnin', that's a sort of miracle, you may say, +unless it was wid another one?"</p> + +<p>"And I dunno has people any call to be settin' themselves up to thry do +them," said Mrs. Brian. "We'd better lave the like to Them that +understands the nathur of such things."</p> + +<p>"Ah, I should suppose we'd a right to be thryin' whativer we get the +chance to," said Theresa, "and that's little enough, the Lord knows. +Plinty of things there is kep' up out of the raich of our meddlin' wid +them."</p> + +<p>"Ay bedad, or else it's the quare regulatin' we'd be givin' them now and +agin—we would so," said Ody, regretfully. "Och, but there's an odd few +good jobs I'd give more than a thrifle to be puttin' me hand to this +minyit if I could get a hould of them."</p> + +<p>"And that's the way it is, I'm afeared, wid the lightnin'-blindin'," +said Theresa. "Howane'er, up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> at Laraghmena we'd ha' done the best we +could for her, if she'd ha' been contint to ha' sted there; we'd ha' +conthrived among us all to keep her well enough. But not a bit of her +would for all we could do or say. She wouldn't be a burden on the +neighbours she said. You see she's proud in her mind, the crathur, +that's what it is, goodness help her."</p> + +<p>"And when a body has that sort of a notion," said Ody, "you might as +aisy crack an egg ind-ways as get it out of their head."</p> + +<p>"So that's the way of it," said Theresa. "But if you could be tellin' me +whether it's wrong I done or right, you know more than meself. Felix 'ud +be for killin' me if he knew, that's sartin, and small blame to him I +was thinkin' part of the while comin' along. For bad work there's apt to +ha' been, sure enough, in anythin' that inds in landin' a body in the +Union."</p> + +<p>The blind woman in her corner across the hearth seemed to have caught +the last word, for she abruptly said, "Ay, ay, it's there I'm goin', and +the first of the Morroughs iver wint on the rates, or the Conroys +aither. But I'm not takin' their name along wid me; troth no; sorra the +Ellen Morrough 'ill they find in it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sure not at all, woman dear," said Theresa. "Why, Mrs. Doyne, it's +great work the two of us had this day comin' along the road, plannin' a +fine name for Mrs. Morrough to have in the Union', for she sez it's none +any dacint poor people own she'll be bringin' into it. So we've settled +she's to be Mrs. Skeffington Yelverton. That's an iligant soundin' one, +isn't it, ma'am?"</p> + +<p>Everybody expressed admiration, and a forlorn glimmer of complacency at +the arrangement passed over even the sorrowful countenance of Mrs. +Skeffington Yelverton herself, as she sat in her ragged old wisp of a +shawl. She was holding under it her grand new delft teapot, whose +beauties she should never see; though by this time much fingering had +made her familiar with the outlines of its raised pink-rose wreath. Then +Theresa Joyce said, "We ought to be steppin' on wid ourselves, if we're +to get to Duffclane before dark. The evenin's took up a bit. I see the +sky there turnin' like goulden glass agin the windy-pane." But the +neighbours protested against their setting forward again; and it was +agreed that they should sleep the night at the Kilfoyles'.</p> + +<p>When this point had been decided, Mrs. Morrough<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> said, "Would that be +the say—the rustlin' I hear outside there?"</p> + +<p>Upon this people looked ruefully at her and at each other, as if the +question had given them a glimpse into the darkness in which she was +sitting.</p> + +<p>"Ah, no, ma'am," said Mrs. Doyne, "that's on'y the sedge-laves in the +win' round the big pool just back of the house. Few days of the year +there is, summer or winter, but they'll be shoosh-sooin' that way. A +dhrary sort of noise it is to my mind. I do be tired listenin' to it in +the night sometimes."</p> + +<p>"Sure there's ne'er a dhrop of say-wather nearer us, ma'am, than the +place you're after quittin' out of," said Judy Ryan, "it's the quare +whillaloo it 'ud have to be risin' before we'd hear it that far."</p> + +<p>"Well, well," said the blind woman, "yous are the very lucky people, I'm +thinkin', all of yous, that see the shinin' of the sun, and live beyond +the sound of the say."</p> + +<p>Her remark was followed by a short silence, during which her hearers +were, perhaps, questing for consolatory rejoinders rather than +congratulating themselves upon their own luckiness. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> was Big Anne who +broke the pause, saying, with the best intentions, "Ah, sure, ma'am +dear, plase God, <i>you</i> won't be so, and <i>we</i> won't be so;" a sentiment +which apparently did not meet with the approval of Ody Rafferty, as he +frowned bushily at her and said in a testy undertone, "Musha, good +gracious, woman, what talk have you out of you at all?"</p> + +<p>Just at this moment sounds, the nature of which could not easily be +mistaken, rose up close by—shouts and laughter and thumps and trampling +of feet. People who ran quickly to the door were in time to see a knot +of youths fall confusedly out of the house over the way—the +Quigleys'—obviously, to judge by their subsequent proceedings, for the +purpose of continuing a scuffle with ampler elbow room. But it was only +for a very brief space that their wrestling and skirmishing among the +puddles held anybody's attention. That was speedily diverted to the far +more extraordinary and astonishing behaviour of their visitor, Mrs. +Morrough. For she suddenly sprang up off her chair, exclaiming, "Saints +above—it's Paddy—that's Paddy's voice—him that I haven't set eyes on +for nine year next Easter—and there's Felix yellin' too! The both of +them's come back, glory be to God!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> And so saying out of the house she +ran, and across the road as straight as a dart, she who not an hour +before had been led gropingly in, and would have put her foot among the +glowing hearth-sods, if her guides had not pulled her away.</p> + +<p>The neighbours could at first look on in only mute amazement, but in any +case the two boys and she were for some time so intricately entangled +that any attempt to elicit any explanation would have been futile. When +at last questions and answers were possible, no very lucid account of +the matter was forthcoming. To the many voices that demanded: "Is it +seein' you are, woman alive? Is it seein' you are?" all Mrs. Morrough +could answer was: "Ay, bedad am I, and as well as iver I done in me +life—praise be to goodness. Sure I dunno what way it was, but me sight +came back to me all of a flash, the same as it went, just the very +minyit I was hearin' the lads shoutin'. Och, Paddy, avic, but you're the +grand man grown; and Felix, och now, to be seein' you agin, and +everythin' else as clear as clear. It's meself's the lucky woman this +day—glory be to God and Mary."</p> + +<p>In short, the marvellous restoration of her sight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> is to this day a +miracle, very freshly in remembrance at Lisconnel and Laraghmena, where +the inhabitants know little about paralysed optic nerves, and might +perhaps continue to wonder none the less even if they knew more. Beside +it the unexpected reappearance of the two young Morroughs seemed almost +a commonplace incident, though Paddy's fine new suit and gold +watch-chain were, indeed, very exceptional things at Lisconnel. His +story ran that he had prospered highly of late out in California, having +made enough to set him up grandly on a good bit of land in the old +country, and give Felix a fair start, and keep the old mother in comfort +all the rest of her life. With which objects in view they had landed at +Queenstown, he and his wife, a girl belonging to very respectable, +decent people in the county Wicklow. "So next mornin', walkin' along the +Quay, who should I see but me gintleman there, and another chap along +with him, and both of them lookin' as wild as if they'd been caught. And +says I to Sally, 'You bet, that's Felix from our place at home;' and +right I was, and just slick in time to stop him goin' on board." Paddy +had then left his wife with her family in Wicklow, where he had seen a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> +promising farm; and he and Felix were now on their way to fetch their +mother thither.</p> + +<p>"And it's in the quare consternation you'd ha' been," said Theresa +Joyce, "if you'd landed up at Laraghmena, and found her quit out of it +the way she was."</p> + +<p>"And that would ha' happint us," said Felix, "if it hadn't been for +young Dan Ryan in there just now passin' the remark that we couldn't +expec' Father Martin to be sendin' us notices all the way to the County +Cork, and supposin' I'd very belike missed the right day for the stamer +be raison of it. For if we hadn't got fightin' and tumblin' out of the +house, you might aisy ha' gone along wid yourselves, and niver known we +were in the place at all. 'Twas great luck entirely."</p> + +<p>Fortune, in truth, had seemingly taken Mrs. Morrough and her affairs +into the highest favour. Even the luck-insurance of a trivial loss was +not wanting to her, as in her hasty exit she had dropped her new teapot, +which broke into many pieces on Mrs. Doyne's floor. So that, as has been +said, she never beheld it in its beauty. But the very skies had cleared +above her head, swept by a waft of wind that scattered the clouds faster +and further than a drift of withered leaves, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> the sinking sun +broadened in splendour before the eyes that had lost sight of him +through ten interminable days. The wet stones on the road glistened like +jewels, and the shallowest pools between them held unfathomed deeps of +blue, when the Morroughs set off for Laraghmena, where they intended to +sleep the night, and bid their friends farewell. "And if it's themselves +won't be in the fine astonishment when they set eyes upon you, woman +dear!" said Theresa Joyce, "for if you'd been twenty year away +thravellin' the world crooked and straight, you couldn't ha' come back a +diff'rinter crathur from what you were, and we settin' out this woeful +mornin'. Little notion you had what was comin' to you, and it all the +while runnin' up your road, so to spake, like the sun racin' the shadows +on a windy day. 'Deed now, I'd be goin' along wid you to hear what +they'll say to it, but I'm ould you see, and ivery step I've thramped I +have the feel of in ivery bone of me body; so I'll stop this night up at +Brian's."</p> + +<p>"And bedad, ma'am, it's well off you are, if you've the feel of nothin' +worse in them," said the querulous voice of old Peter Sheridan, whose +acquaintances describe him as being "terrible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> gathered up with the +rheumatism this great while," so great, in fact, that everybody except +himself has by this time become accustomed to his condition.</p> + +<p>For the most part, however, they were rather pleased faces that watched +the three strangers out of sight, the last long beams from the sunset +making blink the eyes of nearly all Lisconnel. The west dispread its +fiery golden bloom wider every moment as the swelling scarlet disc +wheeled lower, burning with orbed flame a hollow path through the +kindled haze. One laggard cloud, a great, soft nest of snow, drifted +into the heart of it, and out of it again, flushed and glistering, and +sailed on, a radiant shape, to meet and eclipse the misty white +ghost-moon, faint and dim in the east. Far away over the level bog the +light was stealing about in streams like water spilt on a floor.</p> + +<p>"Well now, I declare," said Mrs. Brian, "it does one's heart good to see +a bit of luck like that happenin' to a body."</p> + +<p>"Ay, does it," said Judy Ryan, "the crathur to be gettin' back her sight +just in the right minyit of time to see her son comin' home to her. Sure +now one might take a plisure in plannin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> such a thing, if one had the +managin' of them."</p> + +<p>"Ah, dear, but I wish somebody 'ud be conthrivin' a bit of good luck for +us then," said Mrs. Quigley.</p> + +<p>"Maybe there's plinty more where that's comin' from," suggested Brian +Kilfoyle, hopefully.</p> + +<p>"It's apt to stay there, then," quoth Mrs. Quigley, "for any signs I can +see."</p> + +<p>"Ay, ma'am, that's me own notion," said Peter Sheridan, bitterly; "I'm +thinkin' we'll have to be goin' there, wheriver it is, and lookin' after +it for ourselves, if it's good luck we're a-wantin'."</p> + +<p>"And I dunno what better we could be doin'," said Theresa Joyce, "than +goin' where it is, when we get the chance. Ah, there's the last of the +sun," she said, as a quivering red shaft shot up suddenly, and trembled +away into nothing on the air. "Ay, for sure, he goes down a great way +off out on the bog; the crathur 'ud ha' been plased to see it. 'Deed no, +I dunno anythin' better we could be doin' than goin' after our good +luck."</p> + +<p>So all through that gathering twilight Mrs. Morrough and her two sons +were journeying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> away with their high fortune to Laraghmena. They were +still on the road long after the clear moon had filled the air with +shimmering silver, and sent their shadows stretching darkly far over the +frosted grass. But Lisconnel had gone to seek, for the time being, its +good luck in the land of dreams.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3>Transcriber's Notes</h3> + +<p>This book contains inconsistent use of "'ill" contracted with the +previous word. See <a href="#Page_29">Page 29</a>: "The lads 'ill be" and <a href="#Page_87">Page 87</a>: "the +Union'ill be shut." These have been left as in the original.</p> + +<p>There are also some inconsistent spellings in the dialect that have been +left alone. For instance, iligant and illigant.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Strangers at Lisconnel, by Barlow Jane + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRANGERS AT LISCONNEL *** + +***** This file should be named 18957-h.htm or 18957-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/9/5/18957/ + +Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Ted Garvin and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/18957.txt b/18957.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..55240f3 --- /dev/null +++ b/18957.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7847 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Strangers at Lisconnel, by Barlow Jane + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Strangers at Lisconnel + +Author: Barlow Jane + +Release Date: July 31, 2006 [EBook #18957] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRANGERS AT LISCONNEL *** + + + + +Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Ted Garvin and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +STRANGERS AT LISCONNEL + +_A SECOND SERIES OF IRISH IDYLLS_ + + +BY + +JANE BARLOW + + + + + NEW YORK + DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY + 1895 + + + _Copyright, 1895_, + + by + + Dodd, Mead and Company. + + + + + TO + + M. L. B. + + [Gaelic: Is fada me beo do dhiaigh.] + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +CHAPTER I. + +OUT OF THE WAY 1 + + +CHAPTER II. + +JERRY DUNNE'S BASKET 14 + + +CHAPTER III. + +MRS. KILFOYLE'S CLOAK 31 + + +CHAPTER IV. + +A GOOD TURN 53 + + +CHAPTER V. + +FORECASTS 80 + + +CHAPTER VI. + +A FAIRING 112 + + +CHAPTER VII. + +MR. POLYMATHERS 139 + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +HONORIS CAUSA 168 + + +CHAPTER IX. + +BOYS' WAGES 211 + + +CHAPTER X. + +CON THE QUARE ONE 235 + + +CHAPTER XI. + +MAD BELL 271 + + +CHAPTER XII. + +A FLITTING 303 + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +A RETURN 324 + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +GOOD LUCK 340 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +OUT OF THE WAY + + +To Lisconnel, our very small hamlet in the middle of a wide bogland, the +days that break over the dim blue hill-line, faint and far off, seldom +bring a stranger's face; but then they seldom take a familiar one away, +beyond reach, at any rate of return before nightfall. In fact, there are +few places amid this mortal change to which we may come back after any +reasonable interval with more confidence of finding things just as we +left them, due allowance being made for the inevitable fingering of +Time. We shall find some old people who have aged under it, and some +who, as certain philosophers would hold, have grown younger again. The +latter may be seen just beginning, perhaps, to sit up stiff on a woman's +arm, or starting for a trial crawl over mother earth; and of them we +remark that there is another little Ryan or Quigley; while the former +stay sunning themselves so inertly, or totter about so shakily, that we +notice at once how much old Sheridan, or the Widow Joyce, has failed +since last year. These babies and grandparents often associate a good +deal with one another at the stage when the old body is still capable of +"keepin' an eye on the child," and the child still resorts to all fours +if it wants to get up its highest speed. But this companionship does not +last long in any given case. Very soon the expanding and the contracting +sphere cease to touch closely. On the one hand, the world widens into +more spacious tracts for nimbler and bolder ranging over with all manner +of remarkable things growing and living upon it, to be gathered and +captured, or at least sought and chased, among pools, and hillocks and +swampy places. On the other, it shrinks to within the limits of a few +dwindling furlongs and perches, traversed ever more feebly, until at +length even the nearest stone, on which the warm rays can be basked in, +seems to have moved too far off, and the flicker-haunted nook by the +hearth-fire becomes the end of the whole day's journey. + +Thus the generations, as they succeed one another, wave-like preserve a +well-marked rhythm in their coming and going--play, work, rest--not to +be interrupted by anything less peremptory than death or disablement. +This wag-by-the-wall swings and swings its bobbed pendulum without +pause, but one swing is much like the other, and their background never +varies. Little Pat out stravading of a fine morning on the great +brown-wigged bog, and, it may be hoped, enjoying himself thoroughly, is +taking the same first steps in life as young Pat his father, now busy +cutting turf-sods, and old Pat, his grandfather, idly watching them +burn, with a pipe, if in luck, to keep alight. And the Lisconnel folk, +therefore, because the changes wrought by human agency come to them in +unimposing forms, are strongly impressed by the vast natural +vicissitudes of things which rule their destinies. The melting of season +into season, and year into year, the leaf-like withering and drifting +away of the old from among the fresh springing growths, are ever before +their eyes, and the contemplation steeps them in a sense of the +transitoriness of things good and bad. Even the black soil they tread on +may next year flutter up into a vanishing blue column through a +smoke-hole in somebody's thatch. They carry this sense with a light and +heavy heart. In like manner they make the very most of all unusual +events. They find materials for half-an-hour's talk in the passage by +their doors of one of those rarely coming strangers, who do appear from +time to time, as frequently, indeed, as anybody would expect, having +surveyed the thoroughfare that links us with humanity. For if we follow +it southward, where, like the unvanishing wake of some vessel, it +streaks the level plain, that is lonely as a wide water, but stiller, we +pass by Dan O'Beirne's forge, now neighbourless, and through humble +Duffclane, and on to Ballybrosna, our Town; but we must go many a mile +further to reach anything upon which you would bestow that title. Or, if +we turn northward, we only find it seaming another ample fold of +bogland, outspread far and far beyond Lisconnel before a grey hill-range +begins to rise in slow undulations, crested with furze and broom. Here +we smell turf-smoke again, and see a cabin-row that is Sallinbeg, and +hence the road strikes north-westward in among the mountains, where a +few mottled-faced sheep peer down over it from their smooth green walks, +but do not care to trust their black velvet legs upon it. And then, by +the time that the air has become sea-scented, the road climbs to the +top of a hill, and stops there abruptly, as if it had been travelling +all the while merely to look at the view. The truth is that the funds +for its construction would go no further, and, in consequence, wayfarers +coming along by the shore still have to tread out a path for themselves +across a gap of moorland, if they are bound for Lisconnel. + +You may perceive, therefore, that Lisconnel lies out of the way, on the +route to no places of importance, and as its own ten or a dozen little +houses are, I fear, collectively altogether insignificant, it has small +reason to expect many visitors. The Widow M'Gurk said one day that you +might as well be living at the bottom of the boghole for any company you +got the chance of seeing; but this was an exaggeration. She was vexed +when she made the remark, because Mrs. Dooley, old Dan O'Beirne's +married daughter, then staying at the forge, had promised to come and +inspect a pair of marketable chickens, in anticipation of which Mrs. +M'Gurk had wetted a cup of tea and used up her last handful of wholemeal +for a cake, that Mrs. Dooley, who was in rather affluent circumstances, +might not think them "too poorly off altogether." But, after all, the +hours had slipped blankly by, and nobody had arrived. So the widow had +ruefully put her teapot to sit on the hob until himself came in--for, +properly speaking, she was at this time not yet a widow--and had stepped +down her tussocky slope with her double disappointment to Mrs. Kilfoyle. + +Mrs. Kilfoyle was knitting at her door and not looking out over the bog, +where the flushed light of the sunset drowsed on the black sod in an +almost tangible fire-film. Against it the poppies stood up dark and +opaque, but the large white daisies had caught the wraith of the glow on +their glimmering discs. She had been thinking how not so long ago her +son Thady used to come whistling home to her across the bog when the +shadows stretched their longest. The sunset still came punctually every +evening, but had grown wonderfully lonesome since the kick of a +cross-tempered cart-horse had silenced his whistling and stopped his +home-coming for ever. Thady's whistling had been indifferent, considered +as music, yet it had sounded pleasant in her ears, and Mrs. M'Gurk's +trouble seemed to her not very serious. However, she replied to her +complaint: "Ah, sure, woman dear, like enough she might be here +to-morra." + +"And if she is, she'll be very apt to not get e'er a chuck or a chucken +off of me--not the feather of a one," said Mrs. M'Gurk, resentfully, +"plenty of other things I have to do besides wastin' me time waitin' for +people that don't know their own minds from one minyit to the next, and +makin' a fool of meself star-gazin' along the road, and ne'er a fut +stirrin' on it no more than if it was desolit wildernesses." + +She would not for the world have alluded to her expenditure of more +material resources, and accordingly had to explain her vexation by +putting a fictitious value upon her time, which, in reality, was just +then drearily superabundant. + +"Sure," suggested Mrs. Kilfoyle, "the poor woman maybe was kep' at home +some way, and she wid ivery intintion to be comin'. I declare, now, +you'd whiles think things knew what you was manin' in your mind, and riz +themselves up agin it a' purpose to prevint you, they happen that +conthrary." + +As Mrs. M'Gurk's experience did not dispose her to gainsay this +proposition, and she was nevertheless disinclined to be mollified by it, +she likewise had recourse to generalities, and said: + +"'Deed then it's welcome anybody is to stop away if they're wishful, +hindered or no. Long sorry I'd be to have people disthressin' themselves +streelin' after _me_." And she added, rather inconsistently, the remark +already mentioned: "But the likes of this place I never witnessed. You +might as well be livin' at the bottom of the blackest ould boghoule +there, for e'er a chance you have to be seein' a bit of company." + +"And it's yourself 'ud make the fine sizeable waterask, ma'am," a +high-pitched voice said suddenly from within doors, causing Mrs. M'Gurk +to start and peer into the dark opening behind her, somewhat taken aback +at finding that she had had an unsuspected audience, which is always +more or less of a shock. The first object she descried through the hazy +dusk was the figure of the old woman known to Lisconnel as Ody +Rafferty's aunt, but in fact so related to his father, sitting with her +short black dudeen by the delicate pink and white embers, for the +evening was warm and the fire low. Ody himself was leaning against the +wall, critically examining Brian Kilfoyle's blackthorn, and forming a +poor opinion of it with considerable satisfaction. Not that he bore +Brian any ill-will, but because this is his method of attaining to +contentment with his own possessions. + +"Whethen now and is it yourself that's in it, Ody Rafferty?" said Mrs. +M'Gurk, as she recognised him. "And what talk have you out of you about +waterasks? You're the great man, bedad." + +"Me aunt's lookin' in on Mrs. Kilfoyle, ma'am," said Ody, "be raison of +Brian bein' off to the Town. And right enough you and me knows what's +took him there; and so does Norah Finegan. Och, good luck to the pair of +thim." + +"Coortin'," said his aunt, who preferred to put things briefly and +clearly. "But I was tellin' Mrs. Kilfoyle to not be frettin', for sure +God is good, and they'll be apt to keep her in it all's one." + +"Goodness may pity you, woman," said Mrs. M'Gurk. "Brian 'ud as lief +take and bring home a she _hyenna_, and it ravin' mad, as anybody 'ud +look crooked at his mother, I very well know." + +"Norah's a rael dacint little slip of a girl," Mrs. Kilfoyle said +tranquilly, considering that her son's character needed no certificate. +But the old woman only grunted doubtfully, and said: "Och, is she?" For +she had been a superfluous aunt so long that she found it hard to +believe in anything better than toleration. + +"Talkin' of company," said Ody, to change the subject--which his aunt's +remarks often disposed people to do--"Mad Bell's just after shankin' +back wid herself; she's below colloguin' wid Big Anne. It's a fine long +tramp she's took this time; so if she was in the humour she'd a right to +ha' plinty to be tellin' us." + +"Well, now, I'm glad the crathur's home," said Mrs. Kilfoyle. "It's +lonesome in a manner to think of the little ould bein' rovin' about the +world like a wisp of hay gathered up on the win'; for all, tubbe sure, +it's her own fancy starts her off." + +"I won'er where to she wint this time," said Mrs. M'Gurk. + +"You might as well," said Ody, "be won'erin' where a one of thim +saygulls goes, when it gives a flourish of its ould flippers and away +wid itself head foremost--barrin', in coorse, that Mad Bell's bound to +keep on the dhry land at all ivents. But from Sallinbeg ways she come +this evenin', singin' 'Garry Owen' most powerful--I know that much." + +"Ah, then she might be chance ha' been as far as Laraghmena, and ha' +seen a sight of me brother Mick and Theresa," Mrs. Kilfoyle said, with +wistful interest. For at Lisconnel we still look not a little to the +reports brought by stray travellers for news of absent friends, much as +we did before the days of penny posts and mail trains. And our +geographical lore is vague enough to impede us but slightly in our hopes +of obtaining information from any quarter. Only the probability seems to +be increased if the newcomer arrives from the direction in which our +friend departed. + +"Sure she might so," said Ody. "But niver a tell she'll tell onless she +happens to take the notion in the quare ould head of her. It's just be +the road of humouring her now and agin, and piecin' her odd stories +together, you git e'er a discovery, so to spake, of the places she's +after bein' in." + +The scenes of Mad Bell's wanderings did indeed reveal themselves to her +neighbours confusedly and dispersedly in her fitful and capricious +narrative, like glimpses of a landscape caught through a shifting mist. +As this sometimes distorts the objects that loom within it, so Mad +Bell's statements were occasionally misleading. Once, for example, she +threw the Quigley family into most distracted concern by her accounts of +the terrific "shootin' and murdherin' and massacreein'" she had seen in +progress down away at Glasgannon, where Joe Quigley had taken service +with a strong farmer; these disturbances being in reality nothing more +than a muster of the county militia. + +"But I can tell you how she thravelled a good step of the way home," Ody +now continued, "for she tould me herself. The Tinkers gave her a lift in +their ould cart. Somewheres beyant Rosbride she met wid them; glory be +to goodness 'twasn't any nearer here they were, the ould thieves of sin. +Howane'er, _Mrs. M'Gurk_ belike 'ud be wishful to see thim comin' along. +Fine company they'd be for anybody begorrah. Troth, it's the quare ugly +boghoule she'd find the aquil of thim at the bottom of." + +Mrs. M'Gurk, however, said protestingly, "Och, wirrasthrew, man, don't +be talkin' of the Tinkers. They'd a right to not be let set fut widin +tin mile of any dacint place. Thim or the likes of any such rogues." + +And Mrs. Kilfoyle said, "I'd liefer than a great deal they kep' out of +it. Ne'er a one of the lot of them I ever beheld but had the eyes +rowlin' in his head wid villiny. And the childer, goodness help them, do +be worse than the grown people." + +And Ody Rafferty's aunt said, "Bad cess to the whole of them." + +For in Lisconnel nobody has a good word to say of the Tinkers. + +The tribe and their many delinquencies have even supplied us with a bit +of the proverbial philosophy in which not a little of our local history +is epitomised. The saying, "As pat as thievin' to a tinker" is probably +quoted among us as frequently as any other, except, perhaps, one which +refers to Jerry Dunne's basket. This latter had its origin in a certain +event, not like the former in the long-accumulating observation of +habits and propensities, and to explain it therefore is to write a +chapter of our chronicles. Moreover, the event in question is otherwise +not unimportant from a sociological point of view, because it is very +likely to have been the first morning call ever made at Lisconnel. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +JERRY DUNNE'S BASKET + + +So it is worth while to tell the reason why people at Lisconnel +sometimes respond with irony to a question: "What have I got? Sure, all +that Jerry Dunne had in his basket." The saying is of respectable +antiquity, for it originated while Bessy Joyce, who died a year or so +back, at "a great ould age entirely," was still but a slip of a girl. In +those days her mother used often to say regretfully that she didn't know +when she was well off, like Rody O'Rourke's pigs, quoting a proverb of +obscurer antecedents. When she did so she was generally thinking of the +fine little farm in the county Clare, which they had not long since +exchanged for the poor tiny holding away in the heart of the black bog; +and of how, among the green fields, and thriving beasts, and other good +things of Clonmena, she had allowed her content to be marred by such a +detail as her Bessy's refusal to favour the suit of Jerry Dunne. + +Mrs. Joyce eagerly desired a brilliant alliance for Bessy, who was +rather an important daughter, being the only grown-up girl, and a very +pretty one, among a troop of younger brethren; so it seemed contrary +enough that she wouldn't look the same side of the road as young Jerry, +who was farming prosperously on his own account, and whose family were +old friends and neighbours, and real respectable people, including a +first cousin nothing less than a parish priest. Yet Bessy ran away and +hid herself in as ingeniously unlikely places as a strayed calf whenever +she heard of his approach, and if brought by chance into his society +became most discouragingly deaf and dumb. + +It is true that at the time I speak of Bessy's prospects fully entitled +her to as opulent a match, and no one apparently foresaw how speedily +they would be overcast by her father's improvidence. But Andy Joyce had +an ill-advised predilection for seeing things what he called "dacint and +proper" about him, and it led him into several imprudent acts. For +instance, he built some highly superior sheds in the bawn, to the +bettering, no doubt, of his cattle's condition, but very little to his +own purpose, which he would indeed have served more advantageously by +spending the money they cost him at Moriarty's shebeen. Nor was he left +without due warning of the consequences likely to result from such +courses. The abrupt raising of his rent by fifty per cent, was a broad +hint which most men would have taken; and it did keep Andy quiet, +ruefully, for a season or two. Then, however, having again saved up a +trifle, he could not resist the temptation to drain the swampy corner of +the farthest river-field, which was as kind a bit of land as you could +wish, only for the water lying on it, and in which he afterwards raised +himself a remarkably fine crop of white oats. The sight of them "done +his heart good," he said, exultantly, nothing recking that it was the +last touch of farmer's pride he would ever feel. Yet on the next +quarter-day the Joyces received notice to quit, and their landlord +determined to keep the vacated holding in his own hands; those new sheds +were just the thing for his young stock. Andy, in fact, had done his +best to improve himself off the face of the earth, and he should +therefore have been thankful to retain a foothold, even in a +loose-jointed, rush-roofed cabin away at stony Lisconnel. Whether +thankful or no, there, at any rate, he presently found himself +established with all his family, and the meagre remnant of his hastily +sold-off gear, and the black doors of the "house" seeming to loom ahead +whenever he looked into the murky future. + +The first weeks and months of their new adversity passed slowly and +heavily for the transplanted household, more especially for Andy and his +wife, who had outgrown a love of paddling in bogholes, and had acquired +a habit of wondering "what at all 'ud become of the childer, the +crathurs." One shrill-blasted March morning Andy trudged off to the fair +down below at Duffclane--not that he had any business to transact there, +unless we reckon as such a desire to gain a respite from regretful +boredom. He but partially succeeded in doing this, and returned at dusk +so fagged and dispirited that he had not energy to relate his scraps of +news until he was half through his plate of stirabout. Then he observed +"I seen a couple of boys from home in it." + +"Whethen now, to think of that," said Mrs. Joyce with mournful interest, +"which of them was it?" + +"The one of them was Terence Kilfoyle," said Andy. + +Mrs. Joyce's interest flagged, for young Kilfoyle was merely a +good-looking lad with the name of being rather wild. "Ah sure _he_ might +as well be in one place as another," she said indifferently. "Bessy, +honey, as you're done, just throw the scraps to the white hin where +she's sittin'." + +"He sez he's thinkin' to settle hereabouts," said Andy; "I tould him +he'd a right to go thry his fortin somewhere outlandish, but he didn't +seem to fancy the idee, and small blame to him. A man's bound to get his +heart broke one way or the other anywheres, as far as I can see. I met +Jerry Dunne too." + +"Och and did you indeed?" said Mrs. Joyce, kindling into eagerness +again. + +Jerry had been absent from Clonmena at the time of their flitting, and +they had heard nothing of him since; but she still cherished a flicker +of hope in his connection, which the tidings of his appearance in the +neighbourhood fanned and fed. + +"And he's quit out of it himself," Andy continued, "for the ould uncle +of his he's been stoppin' wid this while back at Duffclane's after dyin' +and lavin' him a fine farm and a hantle of money, and I dunno what all +besides. So it's there he's goin' to live, and he's gave up the ould +place at Clonmena, as well he may, and no loss to him on it, for he sez +himself he niver spent a pinny over it beyont what he'd be druv to, if +he wanted to get e'er a crop out of it at all, and keep things together +in any fashion: he wasn't such a fool." Andy hesitated, as if on the +brink of a painful theme, and resumed with an effort: "He's bought +Magpie and the two two-year-olds off of Peter Martin. Chape enough he +got them, too, though he had to give ten shillin's a head more for them +than Martin ped me." + +"Mavrone, but some people have the luck," said Mrs. Joyce. + +"And Jerry bid me tell you," said Andy, the memory of his lost cattle +still saddening his tone, "that he might be steppin' up here to see you +to-morra or next day." + +At this Mrs. Joyce's face suddenly brightened, as if she had been +summoned to share Jerry Dunne's good luck. She felt almost as if that +had actually happened. For his visit could surely signify nothing else +than that he meant to continue his suit; and under the circumstances, +Bessy's misliking was a piece of folly not to be taken into account. +Besides that, the girl, she thought, looked quite heartened up by the +news. So she replied to her husband: "'Deed then, he'll be very +welcome," and the sparkle was in her eyes all the rest of the evening. + +On the morrow, which was a bright morning with a far-off pale blue sky, +Mrs. Joyce hurried over her readying-up, that she might be prepared for +her possible visitor. She put on her best clothes, and as her wardrobe +had not yet fallen to a level with her fortune, she was able to array +herself in a strong steel-grey mohair gown, a black silk apron with +three rows of velvet ribbon on it besides the binding, a fine small +woollen shawl of very brilliant scarlet and black plaid, with a pinkish +cornelian brooch to pin it at the throat, all surmounted by a snowy +high-caul cap, in those days not yet out of date at Lisconnel, where +fashions lag somewhat. She noticed, well-pleased, Bessy's willingness to +fall in with the suggestion that she should re-arrange her hair and +change her gown after the morning's work was done; and the inference +drawn grew stronger, when, for the first time since their troubles, the +girl began to sing "Moll Dhuv in Glanna" while she coiled up her long +tresses. + +All that forenoon Mrs. Joyce had happy dreams about the mending of the +family fortunes, which would be effected by Bessy's marriage with Jerry +Dunne. When her neighbour, Mrs. Ryan, looked in, she could not forbear +mentioning the expected call, and was further elated because Mrs. Ryan +at once remarked: "Sure, 'twill be Bessy he's after," though she +herself, of course, disclaimed the idea, saying: "Och musha, ma'am, not +at all." The Ryans were tenants who had also been put out of Clonmena, +and they occupied a cabin adjoining the Joyces', these two dwellings, +backed by the slopes of the Knockawn, forming the nucleus of Lisconnel. + +About noon, Paddy, the eldest boy, approached at a hand gallop, +bestriding a donkey which belonged to the gang of men who were still +working on the unfinished road. As soon as the beast reached the +open-work stone wall of the potato-field it resolutely scraped its rider +off, a thing it had been vainly wishing to do all along the fenceless +track. Paddy, however, alighted unconcerned among the clattering stones, +and ran on with his tidings. These were to the effect that he was "after +seein' Jerry Dunne shankin' up from Duffclane ways, a goodish bit below +the indin' of the road, and he wid a great big basket carryin', fit to +hould a young turf-stack." + +The intelligence created an agreeable excitement, which was undoubtedly +heightened by the fact of the basket. "Very belike," said Mrs. Ryan, +"he's bringin' somethin' to you, or it might be Bessy." And while Mrs. +Joyce rejoined deprecatingly: "Ah sure, woman alive, what would the poor +lad be troublin' himself to bring us all this way?" she was really +answering her own question with a dozen flattering conjectures. The +basket must certainly contain _something_, and there were so few by any +means probable things that would not at this pinch have come acceptably +to the Joyces' household, where the heavy pitaty sack grew light with +such alarming rapidity, and the little hoard of corn dwindled, and the +childer's appetites seemed to wax larger day by day. She had not quite +made up her mind, when Jerry arrived, whether she would wish for a bit +of bacon--poor Andy missed an odd taste of it so bad--or for another +couple of hens, which would be uncommonly useful now that her own few +had all left off laying. + +Mrs. Ryan having discreetly withdrawn, Mrs. Joyce stood alone in her +dark doorway to receive her guest, and, through all her flutter of hope, +she felt a bitter twinge of housewifely chagrin at being discovered in +such miserable quarters. The black earth flooring at her threshold +gritted hatefully under her feet, and the gusts whistling through the +many chinks of her rough walls seemed to skirl derisively. She was +nevertheless resolved to put the best possible face upon the situation. + +"Well, Mrs. Joyce, ma'am, and how's yourself this long while?" said +Jerry Dunne, coming up. "Bedad I'm glad to see you so finely, and it's +an iligant place you've got up here." + +"Ah, it's not too bad whatever," said Mrs. Joyce, "on'y 'twas a great +upset on us turnin' out of the ould house at home. Himself had a right +to ha' left things the way he found them, and then it mightn't iver ha' +happened him. But sure, poor man, he niver thought he'd be ruinatin' us +wid his conthrivances. It's God's will. Be steppin' inside to the fire, +Jerry lad; there's a thin feel yet in the win'." + +Jerry, stepping inside, deposited his basket, which did not appear to be +very heavy, rather disregardfully by him on the floor. Mrs. Joyce would +not allow herself to glance in its direction. It struck her that the +young man seemed awkward and flustered, and she considered this a +favourable symptom. + +"And what way's Mr. Joyce?" said Jerry. "He was lookin' grand whin I +seen him yisterday." + +"'Deed, he gits his health middlin' well enough, glory be to goodness," +she said; "somewhiles he'll be frettin' a bit, thinkin' of diff'rent +things, and when I tell him he'd better lave botherin' his head wid +them, he sez he might as aisy bid a blast of win' to not be blowin' +through a houle. Och, Andy's a quare man. He's out and about now +somewheres on the farm." + +Mrs. Joyce put a spaciousness into her tone wholly disproportionate to +their screed of tussocks and boulders; and then paused, hoping that the +next inquiry might relate to Bessy. + +But what young Jerry said was, "You've got a great run, anyway, for the +fowls." + +The irrelevance of the remark disappointed Mrs. Joyce, and she replied a +little tartly: "A great run you may call it, for begorrah our hearts is +broke huntin' after the crathurs, and they strayin' off wid themselves +over the width of the bog there, till you've as much chance of catchin' +them as the sparks flyin' up the chimney." + +"That's unhandy, now," said Jerry. He sat for some moments reflectively +ruffling up his flaxen hair with both hands, and then he said, "Have you +the big white hin yit that you got from me a while ago?" + +"We have so bedad," said Mrs. Joyce, not loth to enlarge upon this +subject. "Sure we made a shift to bring a few of the best chickens we +had along wid us, and sorry we'd ha' been to lose her, and she a +won'erful layer, and after you a-givin' her to us in a prisint that +way." + +"There was some talk that time," said Jerry, "about me and Bessy." + +"Ay, true for you, there was," said Mrs. Joyce, in eager assent, "plinty +of talk." She would have added more, but he was evidently in a hurry to +speak again. + +"Well, there's none now," he said. "Things is diff'rent altogether. If +I'd ha' known, I'd ha' kep' the hin. The fact of the matter is I'm about +gettin' married to Sally Coghlan, that's me poor uncle's wife's niece. +He's after leavin' her what he had saved up. She's a fine figure of a +girl as iver you saw, and as good as gould, and the bit of lan' and the +bit of money had a right to go the one way. So I was thinkin', Mrs. +Joyce, I might as well be takin' home the ould him wid me--things bein' +diff'rent now, and no talk of Bessy. Sally has a great wish for a white +hin, and we've ne'er a one of that sort at our place. I've brought a wad +of hay in the basket meself, for 'fraid yous might be short of it up +here." Jerry gave a kick to the basket, which betrayed the flimsy nature +of its contents by rolling over with a wobble on its side. + +At this critical moment Mrs. Joyce's pride rallied loyally to the rescue +of her dignity and self-respect, proving as effectual as the ice-film +which keeps the bleakest pool unruffled by the wildest storm wing. With +the knell of all her hope clanging harshly in her ears, she smiled +serenely, and said gaily: "Ay bedad, himself was tellin' us somethin' +about it last night. Sure, I'm rael glad to hear tell of your good luck, +and I wish you joy of it. And will you be gettin' married agin +Shrovetide? Och, that's grand. But the white hin now--the on'y thing is +the crathur's been sittin' on a clutch of eggs since Monday week. So +what are we to do at all?" + +"There's hapes of room for the whole of them in the basket, for that +matter," Jerry suggested promptly. + +"Ah, sure, it's distroyed they'd be, jogglin' along, and the crathur +herself 'ud go distracted entirely; sorra a bit of good you'd get of +her. But look here, Mr. Dunne, I've got another out there as like her as +if the both of them had come out of the one egg, and you could be takin' +that instid. It's a lucky thing I didn't set her to sit the way I was +intendin'; on'y I niver could get a clutch gathered for her, be raison +of the lads aitin' up the eggs on me. Sure, I can't keep them from the +little bosthoons when they be hungry." + +"'Twould be all the same thing to me, in coorse, supposin' she was +equally so good," Jerry admitted with caution. + +"Ivery feather she is," said Mrs. Joyce. "I seen her runnin' about there +just this minute; you can be lookin' at her yourself." + +She went towards the door as she spoke, and was somewhat taken aback to +perceive her husband leaning against the wall close outside. How much of +the discussion he might have heard, she could not tell. The white hen +also appeared within easy reach, daintily resplendent under the sunshine +on a background of black turf. And Mrs. Ryan, standing darkly framed in +her doorway, was very certain to be an interested observer of events. +For the moment Mrs. Joyce's uppermost anxiety was to avoid any betrayal +of discomfiture, and she accordingly said in a loud and cheerful tone: + +"Och, and are you there, Andy? Jerry Dunne's wishful for the loan of a +clockin' hin, so I'm about catchin' him the young white one to take home +wid him." + +But, to her intense disgust, Jerry, who had followed her with his +basket, said remonstrantly: "Whethen now, Mrs. Joyce, the way I +understand the matter there's no talk in it of borryin' at all. I'm on'y +takin' her back instid of the ould one, and I question would any +raisonable body stand me out I don't own her be rights. It's an unjust +thing to be spakin' of loans." + +Mrs. Joyce was so dumbfounded by this rebuff that she could only hide +her confusion by displaying an exaggerated activity in the capture of +the hen. + +Her husband, however, said blandly, "Och, don't make yourself onaisy, +man. Loan or no loan, you needn't be under any apperhinsion we'll be +comin' after her wid a basket. Divil a much. Stir yourself, Kitty, and +be clappin' her in under the lid. He's in a hurry to get home to his +sweetheart wid the iligant prisint he's after pickin' up for her. Ay, +that's right, woman alive; give a tie to the bit of string, and then +there's nothin' to be delayin' him." + +After this everybody said good-bye with much politeness and affability, +though withal a certain air of despatch, as if they were conscious of +handling rather perishable goods. And when Jerry was beyond earshot, +Andy, looking after him, remarked, "I niver liked a bone in that +fellow's skin. Himself and his ould basket. The lads 'ill be prisintly +comin' in to their dinners." + +"D'you know where Bessy is?" said Mrs. Joyce, her heart sinking still +lower at the thought of the disappointment, which she had presumably +been helping to prepare for her daughter. + +"When I seen her a while back, she was out there wid the childer, +discoorsin' to Terence Kilfoyle," Andy said contentedly. + +"Musha, good gracious, Terence Kilfoyle, and what's _he_ come after?" +she said in a bitter tone. + +"He stepped up wid a couple of pounds of fresh butter and a dozen of +eggs. He said he minded Bessy havin' a fancy for duck-eggs, and he +thought we mightn't happen to have e'er a one up here. She seemed as +pleased as anythin'. But if you ax _me_, Kitty," he said with a +twinkle, "I've a notion he's come after somethin' more than our ould +hin." + +"He's a great young rogue," said Mrs. Joyce. Yet there was an accent of +relief in her voice, and on her face a reflection of her husband's +smile. + +And Jerry Dunne's basket still occupies its niche in the stores of our +proverbial philosophy. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +MRS. KILFOYLE'S CLOAK + + +The opprobrious proverb already mentioned is not the only permanent mark +of unpopularity that the Tinkers have earned for themselves at +Lisconnel. Their very name has become a term of reproach among us, so +that "an ould tinker" is recognised as an appropriate epithet for any +troublesome beast or disagreeable neighbour. If they were not +case-hardened by long experience, they would surely be mortified +sometimes at the reception with which they meet almost wherever they go. +The approach of the two queer vehicles in which they now generally +travel is watched by displeased eyes all over our countryside, and they +are so to speak lighted on their way by the gleam of suspicious or +resentful glances. And it must be admitted that their evil reputation +has not been bestowed upon them gratuitously. According to Ody Rafferty, +"The like of such a clanjamfry of thievin' drunken miscreants, you +wouldn't aisy get together, if you had a spring-trap set for them at the +Ould Fellow's front door for a month of Sundays. And if himself didn't +do a hard day's work the time he was consthructin' them, he niver done +one in his life, and that's a fac'." But Ody is apt to be particularly +severe in his strictures upon the Tinkers, because he feels an +aggravated form of rivalry existing between him and them. For the +wiliness which is understood to be Ody's forte also pre-eminently +characterises many of the Tinkers' nefarious proceedings, and this makes +it seem to him that they not only set their wits against his, but throw +discredit upon his favourite quality by the glaring moral defects which +they exhibit in conjunction with it. One's pleasure in being described +admiringly as "the ould boyo that's in it," is much diminished when one +hears the same thing said bitterly of some slieveen who has filched a +poor body's meal bag, or run off with a lone widdy woman's fowl. + +Still, although the Tinkers' name has become a by-word among us through +a long series of petty offences rather than any one flagrant crime, +there is a notable misdeed on record against them, which has never been +forgotten in the lapse of many years. It was perpetrated soon after the +death of Mrs. Kilfoyle's mother, the Widow Joyce, an event which is but +dimly recollected now at Lisconnel, as nearly half a century has gone +by. She did not very long survive her husband, and he had left his roots +behind in his little place at Clonmena, where, as we know, he had farmed +not wisely, but too well, and had been put out of it for his pains to +expend his energy upon our oozy black sods and stark-white boulders. But +instead he moped about fretting for his fair green fields and few +proudly-cherished beasts--especially the little old Kerry cow. And at +his funeral the neighbours said: "Ah bedad, poor man, God help him, he +niver held up his head agin from that good day to this." + +When Mrs. Joyce felt that it behoved her to settle her affairs, she +found that the most important possession she had to dispose of was her +large cloak. She had acquired it at the prosperous time of her marriage, +and it was a very superior specimen of its kind, its dark-blue cloth +being superfine, and its ample capes and capacious hood being +double-lined and quilted, and stitched in a way which I cannot pretend +to describe, but which made it a most substantial and handsome garment. +If Mrs. Joyce had been left entirely to her own choice in the matter, I +think she would have bequeathed it to her younger daughter Theresa, +notwithstanding that custom clearly designated Bessy Kilfoyle, the +eldest of the family, as the heiress. For she said to herself that poor +Bessy had her husband and childer to consowl her, any way, but little +Theresa, the crathur, had ne'er such a thing at all, and wouldn't have, +not she, God love her. "And the back of me hand to some I could name." +It seemed to her that to leave the child the cloak would be almost like +keeping a warm wing spread over her in the cold wide world; and there +was no fear that Bessy would take it amiss. + +But Theresa herself protested strongly against such a disposition, +urging for one thing that sure she'd be lost in it entirely if ever she +put it on, a not unfounded objection, as Theresa was several sizes +smaller than Bessy, and even she fell far short of her mother in stature +and portliness. Theresa also said confidently with a sinking heart: "But +sure, anyhow, mother jewel, what matter about it? 'Twill be all gone to +houles and flitters and thraneens, and so it will, plase goodness, +afore there's any talk of anybody else wearin' it except your own ould +self." And she expressed much the same conviction one day to her +next-door neighbour, old Biddy Ryan, to whom she had run in for the loan +of a sup of sour milk, which Mrs. Joyce fancied. To Biddy's sincere +regret she could offer Theresa barely a skimpy noggin of milk, and only +a meagre shred of encouragement; and by way of eking out the latter with +its sorry substitute consolation, she said as she tilted the jug +perpendicularly to extract its last drop: + +"Well, sure, me dear, I do be sayin' me prayers for her every sun goes +over our heads that she might be left wid you this great while yet; +'deed I do so. But ah, acushla, if we could be keepin' people +that-a-way, would there be e'er a funeral iver goin' black on the road +at all at all? I'm thinkin' there's scarce a one livin', and he as ould +and foolish and little-good-for as you plase, but some crathur'ill be +grudgin' him to his grave, that's himself may be all the while wishin' +he was in it. Or, morebetoken, how can we tell what quare ugly misfortin +thim that's took is took out of the road of, that we should be as good +as biddin' thim stay till it comes to ruinate them? So it's prayin' away +I am, honey," said old Biddy, whom Theresa could not help hating heart +sickly. "But like enough the Lord might know better than to be mindin' a +word I say." + +And it seemed that He did; at any way the day soon came when the heavy +blue cloak passed into Mrs. Kilfoyle's possession. + +At that time it was clear, still autumn weather, with just a sprinkle of +frost, white on the wayside grass, like the wraith of belated moonlight, +when the sun rose, and shimmering into rainbow stars by noon. But about +a month later the winter swooped suddenly on Lisconnel: with wild winds +and cold rain that made crystal-silver streaks down the purple of the +great mountain-heads peering in over our bogland. + +So one perishing Saturday Mrs. Kilfoyle made up her mind that she would +wear her warm legacy on the bleak walk to Mass next morning, and +reaching it down from where it was stowed away among the rafters wrapped +in an old sack, she shook it respectfully out of its straight-creased +folds. As she did so she noticed that the binding of the hood had ripped +in one place, and that the lining was fraying out, a mishap which should +be promptly remedied before it spread any further. She was not a very +expert needlewoman, and she thought she had better run over the way to +consult Mrs. O'Driscoll, then a young matron, esteemed the handiest and +most helpful person in Lisconnel. + +"It's the nathur of her to be settin' things straight wherever she +goes," Mrs. Kilfoyle said to herself as she stood in her doorway waiting +for the rain to clear off, and looking across the road to the sodden +roof which sheltered her neighbour's head. It has long been lying low, +vanquished by a trouble which even she could not set to rights, and some +of the older people say that things have gone a little crookeder in +Lisconnel ever since. + +The shower was a vicious one, with the sting of sleet and hail in its +drops, pelted about by gusts that ruffled up the puddles into ripples, +all set on end, like the feathers of a frightened hen. The hens +themselves stood disconsolately sheltering under the bank, mostly on one +leg, as if they preferred to keep up the slightest possible connection +with such a very damp and disagreeable earth. You could not see far in +any direction for the fluttering sheets of mist, and a stranger who had +been coming along the road from Duffclane, stepped out of them abruptly +quite close, to Mrs. Kilfoyle's door, before she knew that there was +anybody near. He was a tall, elderly man, gaunt and grizzled, very +ragged, and so miserable-looking that Mrs. Kilfoyle could have felt +nothing but compassion for him had he not carried over his shoulder a +bunch of shiny cans, which was to her mind as satisfactory a passport as +a ticket-of-leave. For although these were yet rather early days at +Lisconnel, the Tinkers had already begun to establish their reputation. +So when he stopped in front of her and said: "Good-day, ma'am," she only +replied distantly, "It's a hardy mornin'," and hoped he would move on. +But he said: "It's cruel could, ma'am," and continued to stand looking +at her with wide and woful eyes, in which she conjectured--erroneously +as it happened--hunger for warmth or food. Under these circumstances +what could be done by a woman who was conscious of owning a +redly-glowing hearth with a big black pot, fairly well filled, clucking +and bobbing upon it? To possess such wealth as this, and think seriously +of withholding a share from anybody who urges the incontestable claim of +wanting it, is a mood altogether foreign to Lisconnel, where the +responsibilities of property are, no doubt, very imperfectly understood. +Accordingly Mrs. Kilfoyle said to the tattered tramp: "Ah, thin, step +inside and have a couple of hot pitaties." And when he accepted the +invitation without much alacrity, as if he had something else on his +mind, she picked for him out of the steam two of the biggest potatoes, +whose earth-coloured skins, cracking, showed a fair flouriness within; +and she shook a little heap of salt, the only relish she had, on to the +chipped white plate as she handed it to him, saying, "Sit you down be +the fire there, and git a taste of the heat." + +Then she lifted her old shawl over her head, and ran out to see where at +all Brian and Thady were gettin' their deaths on her under the pours of +rain; and as she passed the Keoghs' adjacent door--which was afterwards +the Sheridan's, whence their Larry departed so reluctantly--young Mrs. +Keogh called her to come in and look at "the child," who being a new and +unique possession was liable to develop alarmingly strange symptoms, and +had now "woke up wid his head that hot, you might as well put your hand +on the hob of the grate." Mrs. Kilfoyle stayed only long enough to +suggest, as a possible remedy, a drop of two-milk whey. "But ah sure, +woman dear, where at all 'ud we come by that, wid the crathur of a goat +scarce wettin' the bottom of the pan?" and to draw reassuring omens +from the avidity with which the invalid grabbed at a sugared crust. In +fact, she was less than five minutes out of her house; but when she +returned to it, she found it empty. First she noted with a moderate +thrill of surprise that her visitor had gone away leaving his potatoes +untouched, and next, with a rough shock of dismay, that her cloak no +longer lay on the window seat where she had left it. From that moment +she never felt any real doubts about what had befallen her, though for +some time she kept on trying to conjure them up, and searched wildly +round and round and round her little room, like a distracted bee strayed +into a hollow furze-bush, before she sped over to Mrs. O'Driscoll with +the news of her loss. + +It spread rapidly through Lisconnel, and brought the neighbours together +exclaiming and condoling, though not in great force, as there was a fair +going on down beyant, which nearly all the men and some of the women had +attended. This was accounted cruel unlucky, as it left the place without +any one able-bodied and active enough to go in pursuit of the thief. A +prompt start might have overtaken him, especially as he was said to be +"a thrifle lame-futted," though Mrs. M'Gurk, who had seen him come down +the hill, opined that "'twasn't the sort of lameness 'ud hinder the +miscreant of steppin' out, on'y a quare manner of flourish he had in a +one of his knees, as if he was gatherin' himself up to make an offer at +a grasshopper's lep, and then thinkin' better of it." + +Little Thady Kilfoyle reported that he had met the strange man a bit +down the road, "leggin' it along at a great rate, wid a black rowl of +somethin' under his arm that he looked to be crumplin' up as small as he +could"--the word "crumpling" went acutely to Mrs. Kilfoyle's heart--and +some long-sighted people declared that they could still catch glimpses +of a receding figure through the hovering fog on the way towards +Sallinbeg. + +"I'd think he'd be beyant seein' afore now," said Mrs. Kilfoyle, who +stood in the rain, the disconsolate centre of the group about her door; +all women and children except old Johnny Keogh, who was so bothered and +deaf, that he grasped new situations slowly and feebly, and had now an +impression of somebody's house being on fire. "He must ha' took off wid +himself the instiant me back was turned, for ne'er a crumb had he +touched of the pitaties." + +"Maybe he'd that much shame in him," said Mrs. O'Driscoll. + +"They'd a right to ha' choked him, troth and they had," said Ody +Rafferty's aunt. + +"Is it chokin'?" said young Mrs. M'Gurk, bitterly. "Sure the bigger +thief a body is the more he'll thrive on whatever he gits--you might +think villiny was as good as butter to people's pitaties--you might so. +Shame how are you? Liker he'd ate all he could swally in the last place +he got the chance of layin' his hands on anythin'." + +"Och, woman alive, but it's the fool you were to let him out of your +sight," said Ody Rafferty's aunt. "If it had been me, I'd niver ha' took +me eyes off him, for the look of him on'y goin' by made me flesh creep +upon me bones." + +"'Deed was I," said Mrs. Kilfoyle, sorrowfully, "a fine fool. And vexed +she'd be, real vexed, if she guessed the way it was gone on us, for the +dear knows what dirty ould rapscallions 'ill get the wearin' of it now. +Rael vexed she'd be." + +This speculation was more saddening than the actual loss of the cloak, +though that bereft her wardrobe of far and away its most valuable +property, which should have descended as an heirloom to her little +Katty, who, however, being at present but three months old, lay +sleeping happily unaware of the cloud that had come over her prospects. + +"I wish to goodness a couple of the lads 'ud step home wid themselves +this minit of time," said Mrs. M'Gurk. "They'd come up wid him yet, and +take it off of him ready enough. And smash his ugly head for him if he +would be givin' them any impidence." + +"Aye, and 'twould be a rael charity--the mane baste--or sling him in one +of the boghoules," said the elder Mrs. Keogh, a mild-looking little old +woman. "I'd liefer than nine nine-pennies see thim comin' along. But I'm +afeard it's early for thim yet." + +Everybody's eyes turned, as she spoke, towards the ridge of the +Knockawn, though with no particular expectation of seeing what they +wished upon it. But, behold, just at that moment three figures, blurred +among the grey rain-mists, looming into view. + +"Be the powers," said Mrs. M'Gurk, jubilantly, "it's Ody Rafferty +himself. To your sowls! Now you've a great good chance, ma'am, to be +gettin' it back. He's the boy 'ill leg it over all before him"--for in +those days Ody was lithe and limber--"and it's hard-set the thievin' +Turk 'ill be to get the better of him at a racin' match--Hi--Och." She +had begun to hail him with a call eager and shrill, which broke off in a +strangled croak, like a young cock's unsuccessful effort. "Och, murdher, +murdher, murdher," she said to the bystanders, in a disgusted undertone. +"I'll give you me misfort'nit word thim other two is the polis." + +Now it might seem on the face of things that the arrival of those two +active and stalwart civil servants would have been welcomed as happening +just in the nick of time; yet it argues an alien ignorance to suppose +such a view of the matter by any means possible. The men in invisible +green tunics belonged completely to the category of pitaty-blights, +rint-warnin's, fevers, and the like devastators of life, that dog a man +more or less all through it, but close in on him, a pitiful quarry, when +the bad seasons come and the childer and the old crathurs are starvin' +wid the hunger, and his own heart is broke; therefore to accept +assistance from them in their official capacity would have been a +proceeding most reprehensibly unnatural. To put a private quarrel or +injury into the hands of the peelers were a disloyal making of terms +with the public foe; a condoning of great permanent wrongs for the sake +of a trivial temporary convenience. Lisconnel has never been skilled in +the profitable and ignoble art of utilising its enemies. Not that +anybody was more than vaguely conscious of these sentiments, much less +attempted to express them in set terms. When a policeman appeared there +in an inquiring mood, what people said among themselves was: "Musha cock +him up. I hope he'll get his health till I would be tellin' him," or +words to that effect; while in reply to his questions they made +statements superficially so clear and simple, and essentially so +bewilderingly involved, that the longest experience could do little more +for a constable than teach him the futility of wasting his time in +attempts to disentangle them. + +Thus it was that when Mrs. Kilfoyle saw who Ody's companions were, she +bade a regretful adieu to her hopes of recovering her stolen property. +For how could she set him on the Tinker's felonious track without +apprising them likewise? You might as well try to huroosh one chicken +off a rafter and not scare the couple that were huddled beside it. The +impossibility became more obvious presently as the constables striding +quickly down to where the group of women stood in the rain and wind +with fluttering shawls and flapping cap-borders, said briskly, "Good-day +to you all. Did any of yous happen to see e'er a one of them tinkerin' +people goin' by here this mornin'?" + +It was a moment of strong temptation to everybody, but especially to +Mrs. Kilfoyle, who had in her mind that vivid picture of her precious +cloak receding from her along the wet road, recklessly wisped up in the +grasp of as thankless a thievin' black-hearted slieveen as ever stepped, +and not yet, perhaps, utterly out of reach, though every fleeting +instant carried it nearer to that hopeless point. However, she and her +neighbours stood the test unshaken. Mrs. Ryan rolled her eyes +deliberatively, and said to Mrs. M'Gurk, "The saints bless us, was it +yisterday or the day before, me dear, you said you seen a couple of them +below near ould O'Beirne's?" + +And Mrs. M'Gurk replied, "Ah, sure, not at all, ma'am, glory be to +goodness. I couldn't ha' tould you such a thing, for I wasn't next or +nigh the place. Would it ha' been Ody Rafferty's aunt? She was below +there fetchin' up a bag of male, and bedad she came home that dhreeped, +the crathur, you might ha' thought she'd been after fishin' it up out +of the botthom of one of thim boghoules." + +And Mrs. Kilfoyle heroically hustled her Thady into the house as she saw +him on the brink of beginning loudly to relate his encounter with the +strange man, and desired him to whisht and stay where he was in a manner +so sternly repressive that he actually remained there as if he had been +a pebble dropped into a pool, and not, as usual, a cork to bob up again +immediately. + +Then Mrs. M'Gurk made a bold stroke, designed to shake off the hampering +presence of the professionals, and enable Ody's amateur services to be +utilised while there was yet time. + +"I declare," she said, "now that I think of it, I seen a feller crossin' +the ridge along there a while ago, like as if he was comin' from +Sallinbeg ways, and accordin' to the apparence of him I wouldn't won'er +if he _was_ a one of thim tinker crathurs--carryin' a big clump of cans +he was, at any rate--I noticed the shine of thim. And he couldn't ha' +got any great way yet to spake of, supposin' there was anybody lookin' +to folly after him." + +But Constable Black crushed her hopes as he replied, "Ah, it's nobody +comin' _from_ Sallinbeg that we've anything to say to. There's after +bein' a robbery last night down below at Jerry Dunne's--a shawl as good +as new took, that his wife's ragin' over frantic, along wid a sight of +fowl and other things. And the Tinkers that was settled this long while +in the boreen at the back of his haggard is quit out of it afore +daylight this mornin', every rogue of them. So we'd have more than a +notion where the property's went to if we could tell the road they've +took. We thought like enough some of them might ha' come this way." + +Now Mr. Jerry Dunne was not a popular person in Lisconnel, where he has +even become, as we have seen, proverbial for what we call "ould +naygurliness." So there was a general tendency to say, "The divil's cure +to him," and listen complacently to any details their visitors could +impart. For in his private capacity a policeman, provided that he be +otherwise "a dacint lad," which, to do him justice, is commonly the +case, may join, with a few unobtrusive restrictions, in our neighbourly +gossips; the rule, in fact, being--Free admission except on business. + +Only Mrs. Kilfoyle was so much cast down by her misfortune that she +could not raise herself to the level of an interest in the affairs of +her thrifty suitor, and the babble of voices relating and commenting +sounded as meaningless as the patter of the drops which jumped like +little fishes in the large puddle at their feet. It had spread +considerably before Constable Black said to his comrade-- + +"Well, Daly, we'd better be steppin' home wid ourselves as wise as we +come, as the man said when he'd axed his road of the ould black horse in +the dark lane. There's no good goin' further, for the whole gang of +them's scattered over the counthry agin now like a seedin' thistle in a +high win'." + +"Ay bedad," said Constable Daly, "and be the same token, this win' ud +skin a tanned elephant. It's on'y bogged and drenched we'd git. Look at +what's comin' up over there. That rain's snow on the hills, every could +drop of it; I seen Ben Bawn this mornin' as white as the top of a +musharoon, and it's thickenin' wid sleet here this minute, and so it +is." + +The landscape did indeed frown upon further explorations. In quarters +where the rain had abated it seemed as if the mists had curdled on the +breath of the bitter air, and they lay floating in long white bars and +reefs low on the track of their own shadow, which threw down upon the +sombre bogland deeper stains of gloom. Here and there one caught on the +crest of some grey-bouldered knoll, and was teazed into fleecy threads +that trailed melting instead of tangling. But towards the north the +horizon was all blank, with one vast, smooth slant of slate colour, like +a pent-house roof, which had a sliding motion onwards. + +Ody Rafferty pointed to it and said, "Troth, it's teemin' powerful this +instiant up there in the mountains. 'Twill be much if you land home +afore it's atop of you; for 'twould be the most I could do myself." + +And as the constables departed hastily, most people forgot the stolen +cloak for a while to wonder whether their friends would escape being +entirely drownded on the way back from the fair. + +Mrs. Kilfoyle, however, still stood in deep dejection at her door, and +said, "Och, but she was the great fool to go let the likes of him set +fut widin her house." + +To console her Mrs. O'Driscoll said, "Ah, sure, sorra a fool were you, +woman dear; how would you know the villiny of him? And if you'd turned +the man away widout givin' him e'er a bit, it's bad you'd be thinkin' +of it all the day after." + +And to improve the occasion for her juniors, old Mrs. Keogh added, "Ay, +and morebetoken you'd ha' been committin' a sin." + +But Mrs. Kilfoyle replied with much candour, "'Deed, then, I'd a dale +liefer be after committin' a sin, or a dozen sins, than to have me poor +mother's good cloak thieved away on me, and walkin' wild about the +world." + +As it happened the fate of Mrs. Kilfoyle's cloak was very different from +her forecast. But I do not think that a knowledge of it would have been +consolatory to her by any means. If she had heard of it, she would +probably have said, "The cross of Christ upon us. God be good to the +misfort'nit crathur." For she was not of at all an implacable temper, +and would, under the circumstances, have condoned even the injury that +obliged her to appear at Mass with a flannel petticoat over her head +until the end of her days. Yet she did hold the Tinkers in a perhaps +somewhat too unqualified reprobation. For there are tinkers and tinkers. +Some of them, indeed, are stout and sturdy thieves, veritable birds of +prey, whose rapacity is continually questing for plunder. But some of +them have merely the magpies' and jackdaws' thievish propensity for +picking up what lies temptingly in their way. And some few are so honest +that they pass by as harmlessly as a wedge of high-flying wild duck. And +I have heard it said that to places like Lisconnel their pickings and +stealings have at worst never been so serious a matter as those of +another flock, finer of feather, but not less predacious in their +habits, who roosted, for the most part, a long way off, and made their +collections by deputy. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A GOOD TURN + + +Along the road to Sallinbeg little seemed to be abroad besides foul +weather, but there was a great deal of that. The gusts that came +flapping wide-winged over the bog met the wayfarer with a furious hurtle +and grapple, as if for want of better sport they had concentrated all +their forces upon his sole repulse; and the drops they dashed into his +blinded eyes and against his benumbed hands were as icy as they could be +without ceasing to be wet. Their combined assaults were calculated +feelingly to persuade a man of his uninfluential position in the scheme +of things--his voice in this matter was so tyrannically howled down--or, +if of less philosophic mind, to bring home to him the special +disadvantages of going half-starved and clad in threadbare tatters. This +was the plight of Thady Quinlan as, leaving Lisconnel, soon lapt out of +sight behind him amid the grey web of the rain-mists, he tramped +haltingly away, with Mrs. Kilfoyle's cloak bundled under his arm, and +the dread of pursuit on his mind, and in his heart a great remorse, the +object of which you are perhaps guessing wrongly. But he had also a hope +and a purpose, and is therefore not wholly to be pitied, although the +one did wane until the other looked impossible, as mile after mile +unrolled its drenched and dreary length without bringing him apparently +nearer to his goal. + +All the while, however, he was slowly gaining upon a traveller, who had +taken the same road a few hours earlier, hopelessly and aimlessly, and +even more inadequately equipped than he. It was his sister Judy Quinlan, +from whom he had parted on the worst of terms about three o'clock that +morning. The fact is that the Tinkers' raid upon Jerry Dunne's premises, +although carried out with unusual success, had led, not at all +unusually, to complications when it was time to divide the spoil. Over +Mrs. Dunne's second-best shawl it was that the difficulty arose. Mrs. +Dunne, despite her husband's thrifty turn, owned many shawls, few of +them inferior enough to be worn at all frequently, and she had pinned on +this one three times only during the half-dozen years of her +proprietresship. So it was certainly bitter bad luck that she should by +chance have worn it to Confession on Friday, and got it soaked coming +home, and hung it up in the passage by the back door to dry slowly, +"instead of to be all cockled into gathers wid the heat of the fire +blazin' on it, you stookawn," as she explained with exasperation to +Ellen Roe, her servant-girl, who had officiously suggested the kitchen +hearth. For this precaution proved tragically self-defeating, and put +its object into the very hands of Thady Quinlan and Joe Smith, when, +under cover of the wild, wet night, they forced the feeble lock, and +made a clean sweep of all portable property that lay within easy reach. +The shawl formed the most valuable prize. It was very admirable, indeed, +being of a dappled fawn colour, with an arabesque border of shaded +chocolate and amber; but in the eyes of its new owners its greatest +charm was its weight and thickness. Judy Quinlan declared, pinching a +fold fondly between a finger and thumb, that just the feel of it done +your heart good. Her own shawl was really only a ragged cotton +table-cover, and had, as she often remarked, "no more warmth in it than +an ould dish-clout." I should observe, to make the situation clear, that +the Tinkers' confraternity at this time consisted of Thady Quinlan and +his sister Judy, and their married sister Maggie Smith, with her +husband, and his brother, and his father, and three or four children. +Hence it is obvious that in any dispute which might arise between Judy +and Maggie, the latter was likely to have numbers preponderantly upon +her side. And this was what now actually took place, the place being the +driest end of the un-roofed cabin in Dunne's boreen, where the Tinkers +had for some time past made their camp. + +The screed of thatch still adhering to the wall sheltered their fire of +purloined sods, and it burned steadily and strongly between the blasts +which made its red flame duck and sweel, and sent the white ash-flakes +fluttering. So there was light enough to show how covetous gleams from +the sisters' eyes flashed together on the shawl, of which each held a +corner. And no great wisdom was needed to forecast a storm. Mrs. Smith's +shawl was undeniably better than Judy's by many degrees but she had not +the magnanimity to consider this, even so far as to propose that Judy +should at any rate enjoy the reversion of her own. On the contrary, she +had rapidly planned its division between her two little ragged girls. +Judy, for her part, had set her heart desperately upon the acquisition, +and she deemed it her best policy to say in a tone studiously +matter-of-course: + +"Faix, now, it's glad enough I'll be to get shut of this ould wad that's +on me. Every breath of win' goes thro' it as ready as if it was a +crevice in a wall, fit to freeze you into mortar." + +A very vain device, for her sister promptly rejoined with a sarcastic +laugh and a tightened grip: "Musha moyah, how bad you are entirely. +Don't you wish you may?" which intimated plainly that the shawl was not +to be had uncontested. + +At this crisis Judy had fully expected to be backed up by Thady; but he +naturally taking a more dispassionate view of the matter, recognised +with reluctance the futility of pitting himself singly against three +opponents, two of them better men than he, who was "no great things at +all, let alone havin' one knee quare." Therefore he turned his back upon +the controversy, and feigned unconsciousness of it, instead of bouncing +up and saying with appropriate action, "And I'd like to know who at +all's got a better right to it than herself has?" + +His defection aggrieved her so bitterly, that the fiercest of her wrath +turned upon him; and after a wrangle wherein all the parties concerned +had made liberal use of those "aculeate and proper" words against which +the wary Bacon warns his quarrelling readers, she flounced away into the +darkness of the small hours of the stormy December morning, loudly +avowing her determination never to see a sight of the ugly, dirty, +mane-spirited poltroon, or open her lips to him as long as she had an +eye or a tongue in her head. Jeering laughter followed her exit on a +skirl of sleet-fledged wind. + +She seethed over her anger for many a long mile, to such fierceness was +its flame fed by disappointment and more potent jealousy. For had not +Thady, the only person she cared much about in all the world, turned +against her and sided with Maggie, "who was always a greedy grabbin' +little toad ever since she stood the height of a creepy stool?" It was +an hour or so before daybreak when she sat down to rest under an immense +bulging boulder that loomed dimly on her beside the road a little way +beyond Lisconnel. Then she began to look backwards and forwards. Far +back to the time when her father kept a little shop in Bantry, before he +was stone broke one bad year and took to carrying the remnant of his +stock-in-trade about in a basket as a higgler, which eventually led +other members of his family to wander, less reputably, for their +livelihoods. She remembered that even in those days Thady was always her +ally, and had lamed himself for life by a fall on the road when running +to rescue her from the Hutchinsons' wicked mastiff, who had knocked her +down near their gate, and was standing over her with a growl and a grin +of which she still sometimes dreamed. And again she remembered how once +she had been laid up for a long while with the fever, and had crept out +of the Union infirmary to find that her relations, supposing her dead, +had all "tuk off wid thimselves to the States," and was keening like one +demented over her desertion outside McNeight's public, when what should +come familiarly round the corner but Thady himself, who had stopped +behind, foregoing his assisted passage, because the divil a fut of him +would stir out of it so long as there might be e'er a chance at all of +Judy coming back. Whereupon it recurred vividly to her mind how she had +just called him, among other things, "a great dirty, good-for-nothin' +hulk of a poltroon," and had expressed a hope that she might never again +see sign nor sight of any such a hijjis baste hobblin' anywheres on her +road; to which he had rejoined that she might go to blazes and welcome +for anythin' _he_ had to say agin it, and that bedad a crosser-tempered +ould weasel of a wizened-up ould witch wouldn't be apt to land there in +a hurry. At last, being very tired, she escaped for a while from these +fluctuations of wrath and ruth into a nook of sleep, but the bitter cold +routed her out of it soon after sunrise, and she took the road again, +cramped and numbed, in the teeth of the gusty showers that were still +stalking over the bogland. + +As she went, the hills beyond Sallinbeg rose up frowning before her +through rifts in the cold white fleece trailed and knotted about their +front of harsh purple gloom, on which the streaks and patches of ravines +and fences and fields, with here and there a cabin gleaming, began by +degrees to be traced dimly as if a fragment of the countryside were +reflected on a dark thunder-cloud. But she was now thinking more about +her journey's end than about anything she saw on the way thither--the +bleak many-windowed workhouse at Moynalone that she well knew must be +presently her fate. Since she had thrown herself on her own resources, +three ha'pence was all she could command for ransom from the durance +into which self-preservation assuredly would not forbear to betray her. +Experience gave a dreary definiteness to anticipation. Once again she +would morning by morning awaken in the grim whitewashed ward to all the +old hardness and roughness of existence with a tyrannous restraint and +monotony superadded. She said to herself, it is true, that she might as +well be in one place as another, since she would not have Thady to go +along with anymore--the black-hearted, thievin' miscreant--and if she +had as much wit in her as an ould water-rat, she'd just creep away into +some dry ditch, and be done with the whole of it. Still, as she did come +short of that wisdom, the alternative continued to lie across her path, +a murky shadow, which she could by no means evade nor disperse. + +The invisible sun was low when Judy came to a place where the road +forks, sending one branch to creep across the level bogland towards +Sallinbeg, and one to climb up among the first tilted slopes of the +mountains. Here the Rosbride river comes jostling its way down a rocky +ravine spanned at the mouth by a bridge, past which the swift, brown +stream darts along in a more spacious and smoother channel, bound for +Rosbride Bay. Judy stood for a while and looked down over the parapet at +the swirls of creamy foam that swept under the arch. Then she took out +of her pocket a battered-looking heel of a loaf, and began to munch it. +But before she had half finished it, she tossed the crust away into the +river, being too heartsick to go on eating once the rage of hunger was +subdued. She wished sincerely that she dared fling herself after it, but +she was far too much cowed by cold and weariness to muster the courage +for such a resolve. Perhaps there was not under Irish skies that +December day, a more miserable woman than Judy Quinlan as she stood all +alone in the world on Rosbride bridge, while a black mountain rampart +lifted itself slowly against the shrouded west, and the dusk thickened +on the long, shelterless road, whence eager blasts whistled a summons to +her, nearer and nearer, till they fluttered her rags, and keened about +her ears, and chilled her to the bone. + +Suddenly something heavy and soft seemed to grasp her by the shoulders, +and thence fall around her in long, wide folds, covering her from head +to foot, much as if a small tent had been blown down on her. Of course +she screamed shrilly, and almost in the same breath she saw that Thady +was at her elbow. He had for some little time been stalking her warily, +with the great coat expanded ready to throw over her, and having done +so, was now holding it on with a rough hug. The joy with which he had at +last caught sight of the forlorn, bedraggled figure had overflowed +irrepressibly into this joke, and its successful accomplishment put the +finishing touch to his happiness. As for Judy, if the sun had leaped up +again in a fiery flurry, till the hills and the plain and the river were +all flooded with flushed light, gleaming and glowing, it would have but +dimly symbolised the transfiguration of her world. In the twinkling of +an eye her stark despair was changed into rapturous relief, a miracle +which just at first made the marvellous cloak seem almost a matter of +course. Any good thing might naturally be expected to befall her since +Thady was not estranged and lost to her after all. "Whethen now, and is +it yourself come streelin' along?" she said. "You tuk your time, bedad. +I'm here this half-hour." + +"Sure, I stopped till I would get a thrifle of things together," said +Thady. "And what d'you call that for an ould flitterjig?" + +"It's not too bad," said Judy, stroking down the cape with caressing +fingers. "A grand weight there's in it, to be sure. But where at all did +you come by it? You're not after gettin' it off of thim thievin' +rapscallions of Smiths, anyway?" + +"Thim or the likes of thim--sure not at all," said Thady, loftily. +"'Twas in a house away down below there at Lisconnel. A young woman bid +me step in to ait a pitaty, and, tellin' you the truth, I'd no fancy to +be delayin', for I'd a mistrust in me mind that the polis was follyin'. +The notion I had was to ax her had she seen you goin' by, on'y I wasn't +wishful to be lettin' on I was anythin' to you, in case they come along. +So I thought she might be chance pass the remark herself. But out she +ran, and the first thing I noticed was this consarn lyin' convanient to +me hand in the windy. And wid that I whipped it up and made off. For +anythin' I could tell, I might ha' met me fine gintleman full tilt at +the door; and begorrah, it's as heavy to carry as a pair of fat geese. +Howane'er, I knew it's distressed you were entirely for the want of such +a thing, and bejabers, you've got it now." + +"Troth have I," said Judy, delightedly groping her way about her new +garment. "Rael dacint it was of you to be bringin' it to me, for +perished and lost I did be, and that's no lie. Och but it's the grand +one. Look at the hood there is to it. Sure it's as good as a little +house of your own. You might be out under buckets of wet in it, and +ne'er a tint you'd git whatever." + +"Ay, or, for that matter, takin' a rowl through the river there, and +sorra the harm it 'ud do you wid that on," said Thady, with pride. "But +we'd better be quittin' out o' this," he added, with a shrug and a +shiver, "for the win's tarrible, and there's a shower comin' up on us +yonder as thick as thatch. I was thinkin' you'd maybe had thrampin' +enough for this day. 'Twill be as dark prisintly as the inside of a cow, +and we'd see daylight agin before we come to Moynalone. So we might put +the night over under th'ould bridge. There's a good dry strip along the +one side of it, and the way the rain's dhrivin' we'd git a grand +shelter." + +Judy readily agreed, and they descended the little stony footpath which +led down to the river. Beneath the arch, where Thady's booted steps +reverberated hollowly, they found, as he had said, a broadish strip of +dry ground, for the bridge had allowed the stream ample measure in its +stride. The little platform was bordered by a scattering of stones and +boulders, amongst which the shallow water gurgled. It seemed to Thady +and Judy that their quarters would be very tolerable; but they soon made +a discovery which promised luxury indeed. This was a dead branch, which +lay at one end of the arch, having evidently been floated down the +current, and perhaps hauled out of the water by some thrifty body, who, +however, had made no further use of it. Long ago that must have been, +for it was dried and bleached till it glimmered through the dusk like an +intricate white skeleton. Better fuel no one could desire. Thady made +for it at once with knife and matchbox, and in a few minutes crackling +flames were crunching up the twigs and gnawing at a log. The red light +washed flickering over the wet walls, and was caught on the glancing of +the water as it fled by, rapid and dark. Blue smoke trailed up lazily +against the frame of the arch, blurring gleams of tossed foam as it +melted out into the mist. + +But a fire naturally suggested food, and Judy said ruefully, after +feeling in her empty pocket: "It's starved wid the hunger you'll be, +Thady, and the sorra a taste of anythin' have I in the world. 'Deed now, +if I'd on'y known the way it 'ud be, and I passin' thim houses below in +the boreen a while ago! I seen where there was a big cake of +griddle-bread coolin' itself, laned agin the windy-ledge, and man nor +mortal near it. I might ha' raiched it down as aisy as puttin' me fut to +the ground. But sure I was that knocked about wid one thing and another, +I thought I wouldn't be bothered wid it, so I just left it where it was, +I did so--may God forgive me," she said, with unfeigned contrition. + +Thady, however, did not seem to share in her regrets. He was lifting his +cluster of cans off his shoulders, and extracting from one of them a +bundle tied up in a red handkerchief. "Is it starved you'd have us?" he +said as he untied the first corner. "Starved! How are you?" And he +continued to repeat: "Is it starvin' she said?" while he was undoing the +several knots. When they were all unfastened, the handkerchief was seen +to hold a number of eggs and a fair supply of broken bread. Thady might +well scout the possibility of famishing. "That's somethin' like," he +said, as he saw Judy surveying his stores, "and I've a shillin' +somewheres besides." + +"Glory be!" said Judy, looking as if she could scarcely realise a world +with which they were so much beforehand. + +"And we'll be givin' them a boil in a one of the little saucepans," said +Thady. "Raw eggs do be ugly could brashes, and we've plinty of wather +handy--lashins and lavins of dhrink runnin' on tap there, so to spake." + +Supper was accordingly prepared on these simple lines with much success. +They boiled many eggs and ate them, using their scraps of bread for +plates--an expedient not unknown at far earlier banquets--and they +scooped up water to drink out of the palms of their hands--also in an +old-fashioned manner. But when they had finished Thady gave a +comparatively modern touch to the entertainment by lighting his pipe. He +occupied the nearest place to the fire, in consideration for the +scarecrow-like raggedness of his garments, which now began to weigh upon +Judy's mind amid the comfort of her magnificent wrap. + +"Froze stiff you'll be in thim ould tatters, man alive," she said +despondently. "Sure, you might as well be slingin' yourself round wid +the ould wisps of spiders' webs up over your head for any substance +there is in thim. I won'er, now, could I conthrive to reive the top-cape +off of this. 'Twould be as good that way as a cloak apiece for the two +of us." + +Thady, however, said decidedly: "Blathers, not _at all_. Is it +destroyin' it you'd be after? I'm plinty warm enough." And he rolled the +big red handkerchief which had held the eggs into many folds about his +neck, tucking it down under his coat-collar all round. "There was a +surprisin' hate in it," he said. + +By this time the dusk far and near had gloomed into darkness--the black +beetle had scared away the grey moth. As Thady and Judy sat with their +backs to the curving wall, they caught only fitful glimpses of the +opposite one when any long-fronded flickers of the fire-light waved +across and touched it. More often they fell short, and made quivering +circles shine where they struck the broken water in the mid-stream. +Without, beyond either arch, nothing was distinguishable except glimmers +of white foam shaken and tossing. On the left, looking up the river, it +seemed as if many spectral hands, borne nearer and nearer, came waving +and beckoning out of the night, to pass by and away down the river, +still beckoning and waving, carried further and further, on into the +night again. Every now and then a waft of the wind sighed in on them +along with the river, puffing about the flame and smoke, and blowing +ice-cold in their faces. When it had passed Thady always inquired: "Is +it warm at all, Jude?" and she always answered, drawing "its" folds +together with ostentatious satisfaction: "Och scaldin'." + +But between whiles there was little conversation to interrupt the +monologue of the river, which seemed to find itself many voices under +the bridge. The one unceasing rustle of the main stream was frayed along +its margin into a myriad finer noises of murmuring and plashing, as the +massed foliage on a bough dwindles at its edges into more delicate +traceries of distinct sprays and leaves. Round some stones the water +whispered mysteriously, coiling in and out of gurgling recesses, and +against others it broke with a clear chiming tinkle as if elfin anvils +rang; here it droned on with a bee's hum soft and steady, and here it +chuckled and chirped, bubbling up in sudden little rapids and cascades. +At Judy's feet was a thin flat stone, which rested loosely on the top of +another, and flap-flapped, bobbing up and down as the ripple rose and +fell. Sitting idle in the firelight, warmed and fed to unwonted +contentment, Judy watched it half drowsily for a while. Presently she +said: + +"That's the very way the lid of our ould kettle would be goin' at home +when it was on the boil, and me poor mother 'ud bid us keep an eye on +it--like enough to keep us out of divilmint. Och, but that was a cosy +little room of a could night. D'you mind it, Thady?" + +"Ay, sure," said Thady, "but it's one while ago." + +"It is that. A matter of thirty year and more, anyway, since we owned +the little shop. Sure now I remimber the day they shut it up, and put us +out of it, as plain as if it was on'y this mornin'. Grand we that was +childer thought it, because of somebody givin' us the ind of an ould jar +of sweets out of the windy to pacify us. Bedad the fightin' we had over +it was fit to ha' raised the town. But I grabbed meself a biggish lump +of peppermint twist, and would be slinkin' behind me mother to finish +it, and she talkin' at the door to ould Mrs. McClenaghan, and I heard +her sayin' her heart was broke. So I got wond'rin' to myself if the +raison was maybe that we'd ate it all on her. Och, but it's the quare +foolishness people does be remimberin'!" + +"Belike the raison of that is because it's as plinty as anythin' else +wid thim," said Thady, cynically, "or maybe a trifle plintier." + +"Sure we was on'y brats thim times," said Judy, apologetically. "For +anythin' we could tell we might as well be streelin' about under the +width of the sky like a string of wild duck, as stoppin' at home wid a +roof over our misfort'nit heads. Ould Mrs. McClenaghan next door had a +cloak the same pattern as this," Judy continued, selecting her memories +with better judgment. "But 'twas all tatters at the bottom, not worth a +bawbee to mine." + +And Thady said with interest: "Had she now?" + +"And as for me ould shawl," Judy went on, "it's been a scandal and a +caution this last three or four year; droppin' in bits it is, and small +blame to it. I wish I'd a penny for every mile I've tramped in it. Do +you remimber the joke me mother had about it's bein' a conthrary thing +that people thravellin' 'ud always begin a mile at the wrong ind? She'd +be talkin' that way to hearten up me father; but as often as not he'd +on'y let a roar at her to whisht, he was that discouraged. 'Twas a great +wish he had, poor man, to git her back settled in a little place of her +own before he was took. But 'twas in the big barracks of a Union at +Monaghan----" + +"Well, it's all one to the two of thim now anyway," said Thady, finding +that Judy's reminiscences of their family history did not tend to +enliven his meditations over his pipe. + +"Ah sure, everythin' will be all one to the whole of us, plase God, one +of these days," said Judy, who in her present mood could not easily have +realised the keen contentions and scorching jealousies of the night +before; "and when we get done with the thrampin', 'twill make little +enough differ whether it's one mile we wint or twinty hunderd. On'y I'd +liefer than a good dale thim two had had better luck wid it all. Cruel +put about they were many a time, and wantin' the bit to keep the life in +thim, and it just fretted out of thim in the ind I'm thinkin'. The +thought of it comes agin a body when one's sittin' warm and snug," Judy +said, gazing remorsefully round her shadowy, gusty lodging, and then +into the flames, lighting up a bare earth-patch, and down at the dark +folds that fell about her as she crouched on it. She seemed sunk into a +reverie. But after a while she looked up and said without apparent +relevance: "Heaven be her bed this night, the cratur. Thady, you +heathen, we'd a right to be sayin' the Rosary before we git too stupid +altogether. The eyes of you are droppin' into your head wid sleep this +minnit." + +"And me just after lightin' me pipe," remonstrated Thady. + +"Ah thin, hurry up and finish it," said Judy, betraying by this +injunction an invincible ignorance touching a man's sentiments towards +his last screw of tobacco, "or else I'll be off sound. It's the fine +warmth makes me sleepy. Sure wid this on me sorra a breath of could gits +next or nigh me to be keepin' me awake." + +"Och thin, wait till it's out," said Thady. + +"I will so," said Judy. "Sling another stick on the fire, lad, the way +you won't be perished sittin' there in thim woful ould rags. I've plinty +of prayers I might be sayin' till you're ready." + +But in a little while, Thady, lingering over his pipe, became aware, +somewhat to his relief, that she had gone fast asleep, muffled up to the +chin in her cloak, with her head leaning back against the stone wall. He +sat and looked at her for some moments with an expression partly +complacent and partly compunctious. "Bedad now the crathur was bein' +perished alive before I brought that to her," he said to himself. "Very +apt she was to be gettin' her death. 'Twas great luck I had entirely to +pick it up. It's the hard life the likes of her has whatever thrampin' +around. Ay, glory be to God, 'twas the best good turn iver I done her." + +Just at the time when Thady the Tinker was making these reflections +while the firelight flickered and the waters fleeted under Rosbride +bridge, some mile or so higher up the stream, where the long mountain +slopes are folded closer and steeper about it, a great turmoil had +arisen in a deep hollow among walls of the bare rock. Down one face of +these, a huge glistering slab, the river had for certain thousands of +years been taking a foamy leap; but to-night it happened that the rains, +beating for many days on the mountains, had eaten away the clay setting +which cemented a ponderous lump of rock into a niche immediately over +the fall, and the mass had now crashed down into the channel on the very +verge, blocking all the waterway. This, however, was a door hard to keep +shut, when every affluent rill and runnel out on the broad mountain +shoulders went darting swift and white, so that every minute swelled the +forces gathering pent in the barred passage. As the bridled torrent +seethed and climbed, hissing, behind that barrier, the great stone +tottered and swayed, and before the first foam-crest could overpeer it, +yielded to the weight of waters leaned against it, and rocks and flood, +thunderously roaring, rushed down together. + +The sound of it, dulled into a moan, came through Rosbride bridge, and +Thady, who had grown very drowsy, thought to himself that the wind was +getting up, and that they couldn't have done better than stop where they +were, instead of to be setting off tramping on such a dirty wild night. +God knew where they might have got to. + +The flood that broke away, with wave tumbled over wave, out of the +whirling pool, had not far to race down its stony stairs before it +reached a place with a turbulent floor, where the white mouths of other +two streams foamed into it through rock-rifts, loud-throated on either +hand. Thenceforward the water which had threaded the large boulders in +heavy strands coiled like monstrous braids of snaky locks, rose up and +drew together above their tallest heads into a single obliterating fold, +as it slid on smoothly with only now and then a quiver puckering its +surface, as if it had rolled over some live creature that writhed. Its +mounded solidity made its rapid motion look strange and terrible. Where +circles of thin froth swam round on it slowly, it was as black and white +as a bit of the bog in a snowstorm or under a drift of summer daisies. +At the turn of the ravine's last winding above the bridge, it plucked +away as it passed a small company of fir-trees, that long had dropped +their cones and needles into the river from a coign of vantage on a +jutting crag, and a minute after, anybody who had looked up from beneath +the arch would have seen the glimmering points of foam extinguished like +lights, further and nearer, lost amid the shadowy onsweeping of +something that set all the darkness astir as if it were one vast wing +unfurling. And then for a moment, in the narrow space lit by the fading +fire, he would have known that he was cut off from the world by chaos, +which poised towards him a formless surging front, and stooped and fell. +But as it happened nobody was keeping a watch there. + +What wakened Thady was the clang of his cluster of tinware, which the +wave dashed against the wall behind him. But before he knew this, it had +gathered him up and swung him across with it over to the other side of +the arch. There he caught hold of a twisted ivy-tod and a bough of +mountain-ash, whence he dropped on the bank, and crawled up it out of +reach, commenting in forcible language upon the occurrence, by which he +was still astoundedly bewildered. + +Judy, who was aroused in like manner, had her chance too. For a branch +of the same tree crooked a friendly arm towards her as she was borne +past, and she would have grasped it only that the weight of her heavy +cloth cloak dragged her down. So that instead of returning to dry land +for many a long day's tramp, she went out to sea in company with sundry +wrenched-off boughs, and mats of heather, and bundles of withered +bracken, and other such waifs and strays, none of which were ever again +heard tidings of any more than they were inquired after in the lonely +places they had left. Only for some stormy days the wrecked and sodden +banks of the Rosbride river were haunted by a forlorn-looking object of +a lame tramp, who sought vainly what his despair hoped to find. As he +roamed about in it, he had just one spell of consolation, which he was +often muttering over to himself. It was something he called, "The best +turn, anyway, I iver done the crathur in her life. Little enough, God +knows, little enough, but the best good turn." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +FORECASTS + + +When Mrs. Joyce used in her last days to predict regretfully that her +youngest daughter would never marry, she said a bold word, for at this +time still Theresa's years fell short of twenty, and she was generally +recognised as the prettiest girl to be seen at Mass in the small, ugly +chapel down beyant near Ballybrosna. Some people, it is true, said that +she was "just a fairy of a crathur, and too little for anythin'," and +she was, no doubt, diminutive in size. Nor had she any brilliancy of +colouring to make amends in a humming-bird's fashion for the +insignificance of her proportions, resembling rather, with her dark eyes +and hair, one of those filmy white blossoms which look the paler and +frailer for their knots of ebon stamens, or the delicate moth who shows +fine black pencillings among his pearly down. Still, nobody denied that +she had "an uncommon purty face of her own," and the neighbours, +moreover, always found her "plisant and frindly and gay enough," when +they found her at all. But they remarked among themselves that one +seldom seen e'er a sight of Therasa Joyce these times anywheres about. +They supposed she was took up wid lookin' after her mother, who wasn't +gettin' her health over well this good while back. I think myself that +Theresa's invisibility could be only in part accounted for thus, as the +explanation does not cover the fact that to slip the wrong side of the +dyke, or turn aside among screening hillocks and hollows when she +noticed the approach of her acquaintances, was the course she always +adopted if she could achieve it without hurting anybody's feelings. +Theresa much disliked doing this, as a rule, though she broke it on one +occasion in a way that surprised and puzzled those who knew her best. + +But whether Mrs. Joyce forecast the future rightly or wrongly, she had +certainly an erroneous impression on her mind when, as often happened, +she wound up her disconsolate musings by saying resentfully, "And the +back of me hand to some I could name." If she had proceeded to do so, +she would probably have mentioned persons who had done nothing to bring +about the result she was deploring, and she never thought of connecting +it with the events which had accompanied Ody Rafferty's flitting from +the Three Mile Farm more than a twelvemonth before Denis O'Meara came to +the place. + +Until Ody took up his abode at Lisconnel he had always lived with his +father, who farmed a remote bit of land out towards Lough Glenglas. It +was a holding which had been wrested from the grip of a surrounding bog +by earlier generations of Raffertys, who were a strenuous race; but in +Ody's father's time their energies had taken a turn not conducive to +reclamation, or even to the maintenance of what was already won. All +Ody's many elder brethren--sisters there were none--had run wild, and +ended by running it so far afield that the narrow, whitewashed house, +lonesome and bleak, saw them no more. Its mistress also died, failing, +perhaps, other means of exit--running wild being in her case +impracticable--and finding life impossibly dreary without Ned, the +least-good-for of her sons; and the household was thus reduced to old +Michael Rafferty, and his aunt, and little Ody. These domestic changes, +in conjunction with other untoward chances, sadly hindered farming +operations, and nature made prompt use of the pause. Season by season +the patch of tilled ground seemed to shrink at the wish of the greedy +black land that girdled it about. The outlying fields grew first garish +with golden ragweed and scarlet poppies, and then dull green again with +the brown-knotted rushes and sombre sedge, and all other marish growths, +until the re-annexation was complete, and they once more were +homogeneous part and parcel of the conquering bog. Old Michael used to +trudge heavily round his dwindling territories, which were haunted by +memories of better days. There had been a time when they had actually +"kep' a pair of plough-horses." I believe that he would have fretted his +heart out much sooner than he did if it had not been for Ody, his only +remaining son, "whose aquils," his aunt Moggy sometimes remarked rather +bitterly, "he consaited you wouldn't find plintier in the world than an +apple sittin' on a sloe-bush." As the boy grew up the old man's pride +and pleasure in him were tempered by apprehensions lest he should "take +off wid himself like the other lads." However, Ody never did this nor +anything worse than wax somewhat over-confident and self-opiniated; and +a year or so before his father's death he became associated with Felix +O'Beirne in the management of an illicit still off away in the bog, +which gave him an object in life, and had a sobering and settling effect +upon him. + +He was not more than twenty when his father suddenly died one early +spring morning, and he found himself left responsible for a few acres +well cropped with weeds, and sundry arrears of rent to be extracted from +their produce. Whereupon he resolved to abandon the struggle, and set up +on a less ambitious footing in one of the cabins at Lisconnel. So he got +ready for the move by selling off his little bit of live stock, all +except Rory, the old black pony, who had a very large head and a white +face like a grotesque mask, and with whom he would not have parted on +the most tempting terms. As for his great-aunt Moggy, when she heard of +this arrangement, she resigned herself to her fate, which was obviously +the Union away at Moynalone. What else should become of her, since she +was past field-work, and nobody could expect Ody now to be bothered with +keeping her idle, and he with scarce a penny to his name after settling +with Mr. Nugent. "Ody," she reflected, "didn't mind a thraneen what way +he had things in the house, and didn't care to be keepin' fowls, so what +good 'ud he get out of her at all?" Moggy was a dull and rather +cross-tempered old person, who had grown up in souring shade, and never +had a life of her own to live, nor yet a faculty for slipping smoothly +into other people's. Her slight intercourse with Ody had hitherto +chiefly consisted of quarrels. In fact, only the day before his father's +death, they had fallen out abusively about the broiling of some bacon, +and this seemed to make her destination all the more inevitable. +Therefore Moggy likewise set about her few dismal preparations, +oppressed by a stunned sense that the black hour she had been dreading +most of her life was now just going to strike. + +On the morning of the day Ody was to flit she held a sort of carouse at +her solitary breakfast over the remnant of a pound of tea which she had +saved after the wake. Tea was ten prices fifty years ago, and a very +rare luxury at the Three Mile Farm. As she poured it strong and black +out of the badly broken teapot, the whole one being packed up, she +thought that was the last time she'd ever have the chance again in this +world to be wetting herself a cup of tea, and she thickened it +recklessly with lumps of damp brown sugar, and swung it round in her +cracked saucer to cool, and tried hard to enjoy it. She was still +lingering over it when Ody came into the kitchen, which caused her, poor +soul, instinctively to thrust away the betraying teapot out of sight on +the black hob. + +"What way was you intindin' to go, then, aunt?" said Ody. + +"To Moynalone?" she said, turning to face her future with a deep sinking +of heart. "Sure, I suppose it's trampin' over I'll be." + +"And I won'er how long you think to be doin' it," said Ody--"a matter of +ten mile?" + +"Where's the hurry at all, supposin'?" said his aunt, desperately. + +"Blathers!" said Ody, "there's room in the cart waitin' ready. You'd be +better bundlin' yourself into it than to be sittin' here all the mornin' +delayin' us." + +"'Deed, then, beggars drive as chape as they walk," she said, "and I +might as well be gettin' the lift as far as you can take me." + +The old white-faced pony preferred to pace slowly on the long bog-road, +and, as Ody always respected his whims, the journey barely ended with +the March daylight. The old, sad-visaged woman sat all the while under +her muffling shawl in silent apathy undisturbed, and as during the +latter stages of the drive a blinking drowsiness co-operated with her +want of interest in the scenes through which she jogged, she naturally +looked around her in bewilderment when roused by the jerk of the +stopping cart. She expected to find herself in the streets of Moynalone, +drawn up, probably, at the door of the big Union workhouse. But, instead +of its long rows of casements staring down blankly on her, she saw only +the one mole's-eye window of a tiny whitewashed cabin peering at her +from beneath its thatched eaves, and all about it the great lonely bog +spreading away with never a trace of any town. + +"Och, wirrasthrew, man, what are you after doin' on me?" she said, +beginning to bewail herself querulously. "Sure you haven't brought me to +any place at all. Every hour of the black night it'ill be afore ever +I'll get there now, and the Union'ill be shut, and what's to become of +me then I dunno. You'd a right to ha' tould me----" + +"Blathers!" said her nephew, "git down out of that wid your yawpin'. +D'you want the folk here to think you're a sackful of ould hins? And go +in and be seein' after a bit of fire; it's late enough to be sure. What +fool's talk have you about the Union, and bad luck to it? You'll find +the things for the supper in the inside of the ould churn. Union, +moyah!" + +And old Moggy, alighting with cramped limbs, entered her home at +Lisconnel, feeling blissfully as if she had been _unpacked_ out of a +most horrible nightmare. + +Ody was probably actuated by several unassorted motives in dealing thus +with his superfluous old great-aunt. Pride and pity and perversity and +generosity--all had, no doubt, some influence upon his conduct, while +long use and wont had unawares given her the same sort of hold upon his +affections that was possessed in a much higher degree by Rory, the pony, +whose humours were of course easier to put up with than human foibles. +But the old woman measured his magnanimity by the immensity of the +benefit which it had conferred upon her, and with a strong revulsion of +feeling she formed an opinion of his virtues and talents as exalted +quite as that which she had often secretly jibed at in his father. +Accordingly she sang his praises unweariedly among their new neighbours, +and, as Ody was vain enough not to dislike the echoes which reached him, +he soon began to look upon her with more complacency, so that they +agreed much better than heretofore. She found no small solace, too, +after her long cronyless isolation up at the Three Mile Farm, in the +company of Mrs. Joyce, and Mrs. Keogh, and the other Lisconnel dames. In +short, a kind of Indian summer of content seemed to be setting in for +her. Moggy's mind, however, was of the self-tormenting type, and soon +devised means of marring it. They took the form of apprehensions that +Ody would presently get married, and that thereupon "the wife would put +her out of it." If she had only known, Ody was at this time, as for many +years ensuing, far too much taken up with himself, and Rory, and "the +little consarn away in the bog," to entertain any such project; but as +it was she felt that the event, with all its direful consequences, +perpetually hung over her, and might at any moment bring her new +prosperity to a miserable end. Her impending great-niece-in-law was a +vaguely appalling spectre, who threatened to take the roof from over her +head, and the bit out of her mouth, and turn her adrift to founder +hopelessly on the workhouse doorsteps. But it was not until more than a +year after their settlement at Lisconnel that she endued her bogey with +one definite form, by making up her mind that Ody "was thinkin' of +Theresa Joyce." + +Her reason was that she had one fine evening seen him carrying Theresa's +water-pail for her down the hill, an ordinary act of courtesy enough, +but the sight of which suddenly darkened the world before her foolish +old eyes more dismally than if the golden fleece of the summer sunset +had been smothered under the blackest pall ever woven in cloud-looms. +"Fine colloguin' they're havin' together," she said to herself as she +watched them and their long shadows down the slope, "and he sloppin' the +half of it over the edge instead of mindin' what he's doin'. It's +throwin' me out on the side of the road she'll be." In reality Theresa +was wondering why there would be, a quare black sidimint like, in the +water on some days and not on others; and Ody was explaining the +phenomenon confidently and erroneously on an extemporised theory of his +own. But to old Moggy's fears it seemed quite possible that they might +be fixing the wedding-day. For Theresa Joyce herself she had no manner +of misliking at all, considering her to be "a very dacint plisant-spoken +little girl," but Mrs. Ody Rafferty seemed none the less certain to +evict her without remorse. And Ody's aunt retired to rest that night in +a despondent mood. + +It was just about this time that Denis O'Meara came to stay at Lisconnel +on sick leave. The O'Mearas lived in one of the three cabins which used +to stand near the O'Beirne's forge, but which the great Famine and Fever +year left tenantless for ever after. Their household consisted of the +two infirm old people with their melancholy middle-aged son Tim, and +their sickly grandson, little Joe Egan, who was Denis's cousin. Now +Denis had been wounded in a battle somewhere out in India, and had been +promoted sergeant--"and he but a young boyo so to spake"--and owned four +medals, and stood six foot three in his stockings, and was as fine a +figure of a man as you could wish to see, let alone his gorgeous scarlet +uniform, which was a sight to behold; so if he was not a hero, get me +one, as we say in Lisconnel. But Lisconnel was quite satisfied with him +in that worshipful character, and found it very easy to adopt the +appropriate attitude towards him. For Denis was good-natured and +cheerful and never conceited at all, nor vain when there was anything +more to the purpose for him to be; qualities which have an irresistible +fascination in distinguished personages and make their followers' duty +a pleasure. It was wonderful how his sojourn enlivened everybody, even +his mournful little old grandmother, whose gratification expressed +itself chiefly in regrets that his poor father and mother had not lived +to see the illigant man he'd grown. When she said this to the younger +matrons of Lisconnel, they thought that the crathurs' fate was +commiserable indeed, and earnestly hoped that they themselves would be +spared, plase God, to witness the splendid careers that lay before their +own Denises at present playing among the puddles. But the older ones had +to content themselves with the knowledge that if they had only just so +happened to get the same chances, their own lads would have done the +very same things; a fact which seemed to give them a sort of +hypothetical proprietorship in Denis's glory. His presence brightened up +society as a tall poppy brightens up all a sombre potato-plot, and his +conversation brought strange lands and extraordinary events within one +remove--a single pair of eyes and ears--of everybody's experience. For +many years after "the summer we had Denis O'Meara up here" made a vivid +time-mark in our annals; and I fancy that the stories of some of his +exploits, with their outlines looming large through a mythical +mistiness, still float in our atmosphere. There is at least one legend +relating how a soldier out in the East cut off a mad elephant's head at +a stroke of his sabre, with the hero of which Denis O'Meara could +probably be identified. Altogether he was so exceptionally brilliant a +figure both in himself and in his fortunes, that the interest which he +excited had no element of envy in it, as might have been the case had +emulation seemed less utterly beyond everybody's reach. + +Next to his cousin, Joe Egan, a stunted, starved-looking sprissawn of a +lad, perhaps the most appreciative of his admirers was big Hugh +McInerney, whom people were apt to call an omadhawn. He also was, +comparatively speaking, a stranger at Lisconnel, having come there only +that spring to give John O'Driscoll a hand with the building of his mud +cabin, after which he stayed about doing what odd jobs offered at that +slack season of the year. Now and then he tramped on distillery business +for Felix O'Beirne, and generally acquitted himself in a manner which +appeared worthy of contempt to young Ody Rafferty, who was his companion +on these expeditions. Ody expressed his opinion in unqualified terms, +saying, "Sure it 'ud disgust you to see him moonin' along like an ould +donkey strayed out of a fair." But his senior partner, rather to his +annoyance, persisted in replying, "But, mind you, the chap's no fool." +He had nobody belonging to him at Ballybrosna, whence he came, and some +people said that he had been a workhouse child. + +At the time of Denis O'Meara's arrival, he was darning the widow Joyce's +thatch for her, and "not killin' himself ever the job," as people said, +when they reckoned how many days he had been visible crawling about on +the top of her little house, a conspicuous position in which he looked, +Mrs. Con Ryan remarked, "a quarer great gawk than he did on dry lan'." +He was occupied thus on the first afternoon that Denis walked up there +with some of the other lads, and while they talked to Mrs. Joyce and +Theresa underneath, the thatcher took a leisurely and critical survey of +the scarlet and golden newcomer, from his wonderfully polished boots to +his sleek dark head and fierce moustache. The verdict he pronounced to +himself with unfeigned satisfaction was, "Grandeur's no name for him." +Hugh himself, of large and lumbering frame, had a shag of reddish +flaxen hair, which made thatch-like eaves above his small, light-blue +eyes and high burnt-brick-coloured cheek-bones. He wore whitey-brown +rags. After the rest had gone on and in, he slithered down to the ground +and told Theresa, who was still standing by the door, that she didn't +look the size of a bit of a lady-bird beside the soldier fellow. If +anybody else had made this personal remark, Theresa might have been a +little hurt by it, as she wished herself of more imposing stature; but +sure nobody minded poor Hugh McInerney; at any rate she said, "Aye, he's +a terrible big man, isn't he? Apt to knock the head off himself he'd be +if he was offerin' to come in at our door." + +However, on the very next day Denis contrived to accomplish that feat +without any such accident when he called in at the Joyces' to ask was +his grandmother there--which she was not, nor indeed likely to be. +Failing to find the old woman, he postponed his quest for the present +and stayed talking to Theresa, who, as it happened, was at home; and +then he stopped again outside to help Hugh McInerney by handing him up +some rolls of green-sodded scraws and slippery bundles of rushes. His +long reach made him serviceable here, though his left arm was still +partially disabled by the sabre-cut that had invalided him. The gleam of +the red coat at the Joyces' door had apparently as fascinating an effect +upon Lisconnel as if the place had been inhabited by a population that +bellowed and gobbled its greetings instead of saying, "How's yourself, +lad?" and "It's a grand day, thank God," as it came sauntering up +dispersedly from various quarters. Before many minutes had passed quite +a numerous group were collected, for in these long midsummer days there +is little to be done up here except save the turf, a business which fine +weather makes short work of. In the weeks before the potato-digging, +employment becomes as scarce as the pitaties themselves, and the hours +hang limp and flaccid between the meals which punctuate them with a +plateful of coarse-grained gruel. Therefore to Christy Sheridan and +Terence Kilfoyle, with half a dozen of their neighbours, the sight of +their distinguished visitor was an oasis in a very arid desert, and they +made towards it thirstily. + +By and by the group drifted away from the road before the Joyces' house +into the rough sward behind it; rather literally drifted, as the cause +of the move was the wind, a strong soft west wind which had been blowing +over the bog all the morning in great wide gusts. They seemed to lean +hard against whatever they met, and made standing still an effort, and +devastated conversation by carrying off important fragments of it +uncaught, no matter how loudly one bawled. But the big boulders and +furze-clumps strewn about in a slight depression close by offered seats +and shelter opportunely; so amongst them presently appeared Denis +O'Meara's scarlet tunic, and Theresa Joyce's brown-striped shawl, and +Mrs. Ryan's white-frilled flapping cap, which she said was bein' +fluttered to destruction off her ould head, and Hugh McInerney's +many-rifted caubeen, for he declared that until the flurry of the blast +went down a bit you might as well be lettin' on to thatch the sails +whirlin' of a win'mill. And the rest of the company following suit might +be described in terms of their attire as for the most part sad-coloured +and dilapidated. It was just such a gathering as may be sitting to sun +themselves at Lisconnel this day--if it happens to be a fine summer +one--but with a touch of brilliance, both for eye and ear, added by the +young soldier's presence. They had, however, but fitful gleams to bask +in, for the sky was all feathered over with little silver-white plumes, +which the wind kept ruffling by so fast that the light flickered in and +out continually, as if it had come through a canopy of large slowly +waving leaves. Still, they gossiped beneath it with much satisfaction, +and catechised Denis about his adventures, and told him all the news of +the countryside; and there seemed to be no particular reason why they +should not go on doing so indefinitely. What in the end broke up the +assembly was a slight mishap that befell Theresa Joyce. + +It cannot be denied that Theresa was rather vain about her long black +hair, which she had only of late begun to put up in thick silken coils. +Her mother said you had to take your two hands to a one of them, like as +if you were twisting a big _suggawn_ (hay-rope); and they looked almost +too heavy for her small head, no matter how closely they were wound +about it. A rippling wave, moreover, ran through these tresses, which +were exceedingly soft and fine; so her vanity was perhaps excusable. At +any rate, it led her to fashion herself a small knot of cherry-coloured +ribbon made of a bit that had trimmed the sleeve of her mother's purple +merino gown. It was a _very_ small knot, because most of the bit had got +mildewed lying up, before Theresa grew to concern herself about such +things. But it looked as bright in her hair as a ruddy berry on a dark +foliaged creeper, and she wore it with a pleasure, which was destined to +be brief. For as she sat knitting with the quietly creeping fingers of +an expert in that art, a vagrant gust maliciously whisked off her little +gawd, and tossing it contumeliously on the ground, as if it were not +worth carrying, began to puff it along, skimming over the heather and +tussocks. Denis O'Meara all but rescued it for her, only that Hugh +McInerney--the omadhawn--starting forward at the same time, blundered up +against him, and tumbled with him into a furze-bush. And before they +picked themselves up, the cherry-coloured knot had met its fate in the +shape of the Ryans' black and white kid. She was tethered close by, and +had been apparently absorbed in scratching her forehead with her left +hind foot in a way that said much for the limberness of her youthful +joints. But as the bit of ribbon flirted past her she made a rapid +snatch, and swallowed it at a gulp. Mrs. Ryan stood dismayed at possible +serious consequences to the kid, and Theresa at the certain loss of her +scrap of finery; and everybody else was saying to Hugh McInerney: "Och, +you great omadhawn, why couldn't you keep yourself aisy? He had it safe +enough on'y for you gettin' under his feet"--everybody, that is, except +Denis O'Meara, who said: "Sure now the both of us wasn't mindin' rightly +where we was chargin' to; and the raison of that belike was the nayther +of us thinkin' so much of what we was runnin' after, as of who we was +runnin' for--and small blame to us bedad." + +But Hugh's self-esteem was not restored by the good-natured excuse. He +said: "Truth it is, I'd a right to ha' sted quiet. For the on'y notion I +had was puttin' meself for'ard to be gettin' a hould of it before any of +the others." And he walked off crestfallen to resume his perch on the +thatch. + +As for Theresa, she ignored Denis's pretty speech, and said 'deed now +she remembered her mother had bid her step up and see what way Ody +Rafferty's aunt was that morning. And she, too, withdrew from the group +to make this visit of inquiry. + +As she passed on her way under the place where Hugh was thatching, he +dropped a small handful of rushes on her head to call her attention, and +when she looked up she saw his red-brick-hued face in a wild +tow-coloured halo peering down at her from over the eaves. "I am sorry I +lost it on you," he said. + +"Ah, no matter about it; and it wasn't your fau't more than another's," +said Theresa. + +"You'd ha' had it now," said Hugh, "if it wasn't for the little goat +gettin' the chance to ait it while himself was tumblin' over me. But I'd +as lief have your hair the way it is now. It is the blackest ever I +seen. One might think you'd gathered it out of the middles of them red +poppies there. Stick a couple of them in it, if you want anythin'; but +to my mind it's better widout. On'y if you've the fancy to be tyin' the +bit of red string through it, I'm sorry it was ate." + +Hugh's head drew back, and disappeared from her view; but next moment +she heard him say mournfully: "What am I after doin'? Puttin' me fut +that far down a houle it's caught fast between a couple of rafters. +Firrm it is, begorrah. If I don't mind what I'm at, it's pullin' the +half of their house down, and wranchin' me ankle I'll be before I free +meself." And she saw him struggling cautiously on the roof all the +while she was ascending the slope to Ody Rafferty's door, within which +his aunt was at present a prisoner. + +A reluctant and repining one she was, having been seized with a bad +attack of lumbago at a time when she felt particularly anxious to keep a +vigilant eye upon what occurred in her neighbourhood, instead of being +left dependent upon hearsay for a knowledge of anything happening +outside her four draughty walls. Many a care-infested hour she fretted +away between them. For how could she tell with what insidious steps the +calamity to ensue from Ody's courtship of Theresa Joyce might all the +while be stealing on her? She dared not confide her fears to any +neighbour, nor would she have put much faith in the report of +observation unwhetted thereby; and she lived in daily dread of hearing +the news announced as no mere conjecture or rumour, but a very hard +fact. As the days wore on the idea took possession of her more and more +completely, but she could only wreak her helpless ill-humour by doing +foolish and futile things, such as dilating to Ody upon the imprudence +of getting married, and the undesirable qualities of black-looking slips +of colleens--a simple and ingenious expedient for putting him out of +conceit with all and any of them; while she assumed towards Theresa a +demeanor so glum and repellent that the girl could not attribute it +entirely to the irritability caused by rheumatic twinges, and from one +of her charitably intentioned visits returned with a disconcerted +expression, and a resolve, which she kept, to pay no more. But in fact +Ody was during these weeks even more than usually engrossed by the +affairs of the inobtrusive little manufactory, which he and Felix +O'Beirne superintended away in a retired part of the bog; and not they +alone, but Lisconnel collectively, had been going through some +excitement on this account. This was occasioned by the livelier interest +which the police had recently manifested in that branch of home +industry, stimulated by admonitions from their authorities to the effect +that the hunting down of illicit stills, and confiscation of the +produce, might with advantage be carried on more energetically. Hence +had resulted several appearances in Lisconnel of the constabulary from +Ballybrosna and other stations, and when these occurred Ody was in his +element of wiles and stratagems. More than once he enjoyed the moment of +their visitors' departure on a wild-goose chase, "consaitin' they've got +us be the hind leg this time for sartin;" and long did he chuckle over +the evening when they came and "sat discoorsin' as plisint and aisy as a +rabbit in its houle," by a hearth where there was "enough of the stuff +to float the lot of them lyin' widin six inches of their shiny brogues." +It was, however, thought expedient to guard against a repetition of this +perilous entertainment, and the contraband crocks were transferred to a +still more secluded hiding-place in the queer tiny sod-and-stone shanty +with Hugh McInerney, who had displayed unexpected strategical ability +and presence of mind under late emergencies, now knocked up for himself +in a hollow behind the hill. So old Moggy's fears might have been better +employed. Then about this time, too, a thrill was caused by the +mysterious horseman, who visited the O'Beirnes' forge one night, and got +old Felix to break open for him an immensely strong, small iron box +which he carried. The same box being found next morning lying empty in +the little Lisconnel stream, beside which the horse, "a grand big roan," +was quietly grazing, while his rider was nowhere, nor was ever after +anywhere, to be seen; an incident which gave scope for infinite +speculation at Lisconnel. + +All these things happened before Ody's aunt got about again. By that +time it was well on in August, and the season having been hot and dry, +Lisconnel's oat-patches were already reflecting as if in a mirror, +tarnished somewhat and rusted, the broad golden blaze that had looked +down on them so steadily, and people had begun to think about reaping. +The Ryans' field, indeed, was so ripe by the day of Ballybrosna Big +Fair, that Paddy Ryan commissioned Hugh McInerney to bring him back a +reaping-hook from it. Hugh was going to attend it on business of his +own, and Ody Rafferty had some bulkier commissions to execute in behalf +of his neighbours. But he encountered some difficulties in getting under +way, due to the inopportune devices of old Rory, whom he proposed to +bring with him. Ody had been careful not to put on his best clothes +until he had caught the beast, because, as he remarked, "He well knew +the crathur 'ud be off wid himself hidin' in the unhandiest place the +divil 'ud put in his mind, if he noticed e'er a dacint stitch on him." +Yet despite this precaution, when his master went to look for him after +breakfast, no black pony was in sight. + +"And he that'll be foosterin' everywhere under your feet other whiles, +he's that fond of company," said Ody's aunt, who hobbled out of doors +for the first time to assist in the search. "Belike he's seen you +rubbin' up your brogues, and be raison of that he's took off wid +himself. Bedad, now the big ould head of him is as full of desate as it +can hould." + +"He's a notorious schemer, God forgive him," Ody said, rather sadly, for +it went against the grain with him to admit defects in Rory. + +But his scheming bade fair to prove successful, as Ody after long +hunting stood baffled at the door, with his expedition seemingly +frustrated, when Hugh McInerney passing by reported that he "was after +seein' the baste lanin' gathered up close agin the back of the big stone +above there, wid a continted grin on the ould gob of him that 'ud +frighten you wid the villiny was in it." Whereupon the two young men +went to dislodge him from his fool's paradise, and the three started +together without further delay. + +Till a short way down the road they met old Felix O'Beirne, and with him +Denis O'Meara, at whose heels followed Joe Egan, ragged and small, his +habit being to dog his splendid cousin so persistently that old Mrs. +Byers next door said she wondered "the young chap didn't of an odd +while take him be the two shoulders and sling him over the dyke." + +"So you're off to the fair," said old O'Beirne. "And is it sellin' the +pony you'd be at last? Sure, now, he'll be the pick of the market, +that's sartin." + +"Ah, they'll niver give me me price for him, the naygurs," said Ody. + +"Our Captin-Commandin' here had a right to take him off of you for a +throoper," said old O'Beirne, "and, faix, there wouldn't be his aquil in +the len'th and breadth of the army. What 'ud you offer for him, lad? +Look at the size of the head he has on him, and the onnathural white +face of him that's fit to scare a rigimint before it, if there was +nothin' else." + +"Is it broke bankrupt you'd have me then?" said Denis, "settin' up to be +buyin' meself mounts of that expinsive discripshin?" + +"Musha, good gracious, man, promise him the first thruppinny-bit you +meet floatin' down the river on a grindstone, and you'll be buyin' every +hair in his tail," said the old man. "But come along and don't be +delayin' thim. They're goin' after fairin's for their sweethearts, the +way you'd be yourself if you worn't too great a naygur. Or, maybe, +there isn't anythin' good enough for her to be had in Ballybrosna--is +that the raison of it?" + +Little Joe was beginning to say in a resentful shout: "Naygur +yourself--he and I are goin' to get----" But Denis pulled him on +jocularly by the collar, and the parties went their several ways. + +Ody then said: "Sweethearts is it? He's the quare ould man for talkin'. +Glory be to the great goodness, I'm throubled wid ne'er a one. 'Here's +out of it,' sez I. 'Onnathural,' sez he, musha cock him up, and himself +shoein' ould garrons all the days of his life. Hi along, Rory, jewel!" + +But Hugh said, meditatively, and more than half to himself, which was +rather a habit of his: "Well, now, for the matter of the fairin', it's +just the best len'th of ribbon I can get thim to give me for a shillin'. +Yella it's to be. I wasn't long aither plannin' a way to find out the +colour she'd like. Sure, I gave her a bunch of flowers wid poppies in +it, and daisies, and furze-blossom, and foxglove, and forgit-me-not, and +midowsweet, and sez I to her, which of thim was the finest coloured. +And, sez she, the furze-blossom was, be raison of it bein' the bright +gould all over, that the others had mostly only a spark of somewheres +inside. So it's to be yella. Tellin' you the truth, I'd liefer she +wouldn't be wearin' e'er such a thing at all, anyways not in her hair, +that's a sight purtier just in the big black twists. But, sure, it's the +fancy she has, and morebetoken, I think bad of me lettin' the little +goat swally the weeny bit she had on her. Ay bedad, I'd a right to be +bringin' it to her; and, at all evints, I'd be doin' a foolish thing to +come home widout it, and me not gettin' the bit of fat bacon these six +weeks next Saturday to make up the price. I won'er now what len'th +they'd give you for one shillin'?" + +But Ody, who had not been listening, only said, oracularly: "Och! that's +accordin'," which did not materially assist Hugh's speculations. + +Yellow ribbons were not plentiful at Ballybrosna fair, and Hugh +McInerney had to ask for them vainly at several stalls before he came to +an old-clothes cart, where the proprietress, being hot and cross, took +him aback by replying: "And who ever heard tell of sellin' ribbons be +the len'th, you quare-lookin' stookawn?" + +"Sure it's meself couldn't say but you might; I niver had any call to be +buyin' such a thing before. But a bit that one shillin' 'ud be the +price of is what I'm wishful to be gettin', if it was yella--and beggin' +your pardon, ma'am," Hugh answered with a glib meekness, which mollified +the old woman as much as his not undesigned mention of his shilling. + +So she said, "'Deed, now, I believe I've a splindid yella bit +somewheres, a trifle creased in the folds, that I could make you a +prisint of for a shillin'." And she rummaged, and unrolled before him +interminable coils of vivid dandelion-hued ribbon. "The grand colour of +it couldn't be bet," she said, "in Ireland. You could see it a mile off, +and you wouldn't get the match of it in Dublin under half-a-crown. If +she wouldn't be plased wid that, you've got an odd one to satisfy." + +Ody with Rory came by as she was wrapping it up in paper, and Hugh, +pointing to his purchase with a melancholy air, said, in an aggrieved +tone: "It's a _terrible_ quantity they're about givin' me--yards and +yards--enough to rope round a haystack; and it's an ojis colour. Troth, +now, if she takes the notion to be stickin' the whole of it on top of +the little black head of her, it's an objec' she'll make of herself, she +will so. It's a pity. I'd liefer there hadn't been the half of it." + +"What for then are you gettin' more than enough of whatever it is?" Ody +asked not unreasonably. "Supposin' you wanted any such thrash at all at +all." + +"Ah, sure, I settled in me own mind to be spendin' me shillin' on it, +and that's the way it is," Hugh said resignedly. "Maybe she'll have more +wit, the bit of a crathur; she might never put it on. So now I've on'y +to see after Paddy Ryan's rapin'-hook, and then I'm done. And is it +carryin' them two bags all the way home you'd be? Sure there's plinty of +room for them on the baste." + +"Ay, is there?" said Ody. "But the fac' is Rory's in none too good a +temper this minyit, goodness help him, and he'll be apt to thravel more +contint, the crathur, if he sees he's not the on'y body wid a loadin'." + +"Rax me over the one of them," said Hugh, "I've nought barrin' the bit +of ribbon, and the rapin'-hook 'ill be nothin' to me at all." + +And in this way they plodded back to Lisconnel. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A FAIRING + + +Up at Lisconnel, meanwhile, as the idle hours loitered by, Ody +Rafferty's aunt grew tired of her solitary housekeeping, and late in the +afternoon she made her way down as far as the Joyces'. Here a number of +the neighbours were sitting about in almost the same place where Theresa +had sustained the loss of her cherry-coloured knot. But to-day there +were no rough breezes stirring to bring about such disasters by their +unmannerly pranks. The sun-steeped air was so still that the thick +bushes stood as steady as the boulders, and even the rushes nodded +slightly and stiffly. As the old woman hobbled down the slope she saw +Denis O'Meara's scarlet uniform gleaming martially against a background +of dark broom and hoary rock. Its wearer was, however, very peacefully +employed in pulling the silky floss off the heads of the bog-cotton, +which lay in a great heap before him on a flat-topped boulder, with a +big bunch of many-hued wild flowers beside it. Theresa Joyce, who sat +opposite to him, was pulling bog-cotton too, though less diligently, for +it might have been noticed that she often looked off her work, and +towards the scrap of road that lay within her ken. Joe Egan was at his +cousin's elbow, and a few other lads and lasses made a rough circle. But +old Mrs. Joyce, and old Mrs. Ryan, and old Paddy Ryan, and old Felix +O'Beirne had established themselves on a low grassy bank at a little +distance. It was kept so closely cropped by the Ryans' goat that its +dandelions grew dwarfed and stalkless, and were set flat in the fine +sward like mock suns. All this day the real sun had shone on it so +strongly that the air was aromatic with the odour of its dim-blossomed +herbs, and to touch it was like laying your hand on the warm side of +some sleek-coated beast. Old Paddy said you might think you were sitting +on the back of an ould cow, but his wife rejoined that "you'd have to go +far enough from Lisconnel, worse luck, before you'd get the chance of +doin' such a thing." And she shook her head over the reflection so +regretfully that a matter-of-fact person might have inferred her to have +been formerly much in the habit of enjoying seats on the backs of cows. + +These elders, from where they sat, commanded a comprehensive view of the +crops of Lisconnel, its potatoes and oats, green and gold, meshed in +their grey stone fences, and flecked with obstructive boulders and +laboured cairns. In the middle of the Ryans' neighbouring field there is +a block of quartzite, as big as a small turf-stack, which gleamed +exceedingly white from amongst the deep muffling greenery of the +potato-plants. Mrs. Joyce had been praising their thriving aspect to old +Paddy, who, however, was disposed to express a gloomy view of them. + +"It's too rank they're growin' altogether," he said; "ne'er a big crop +you'll get under that heigth of haulms. 'Heavy thatchin' and light +liftin',' as the sayin' is." + +To Felix O'Beirne the smooth leafy surface recalled a far-off incident +of the War, when the dense foliage of a certain potato-field had +permitted the execution of a curious military manoeuvre. It was one of +old O'Beirne's favourite stories, and he often related it at full +length, but to-day it was cut short by the arrival of Ody Rafferty's +aunt, whom Mrs. Joyce and Mrs. Ryan were prompt to greet, making room +for her between them on the bank with an alacrity which somehow conveyed +an impression of uneasiness lest she should establish herself elsewhere. + +Presently she said: "And what at all is Theresa busy wid over +yonder--and young O'Meara? Is it bogberries they're after pullin'?" + +Mrs. Joyce said: "No, ma'am, it isn't bogberries;" and left further +explanations to Mrs. Ryan, with the air of one who refrains from +self-glorification, but counts upon its being done for her, more +gracefully, by deputy. + +"Sure wasn't he out on the bog the len'th of the day, since early this +mornin', he and little Joe, gadrin' her the bog-cotton?" said Mrs. Ryan. +"The full of a pitaty-creel he brought her. They have it there in a +hape." + +"'Twas because he heard her sayin' last night she wished she had a good +bit of it to stuff the pillow she's makin' me," put in Mrs. Joyce. "Off +he went after it the first thing this mornin'." + +"Whethen now, is that the way of the win'?" said Ody Rafferty's aunt, +with a pleased smile, striking out unfamiliar paths among her wrinkles. +"Troth, but I'm rael glad to hear it. Bedad, it's a grand thing for +little Theresa." + +"He's a very dacint poor lad," Mrs. Joyce said, looking over with pride +at the handsome young sergeant, and thinking that Ody Rafferty's aunt +must have some good nature in her after all, since she was so evidently +glad of their good luck. + +"'Deed but there's not a finer young man in the kingdom of Connaught +this day," said Mrs. Ryan, who could, of course, be frankly laudatory. +"And wid everybody's good word, high and low, and drawin' grand pay, and +the colonel in his rigimint ready to do a turn for him any time, and a +rael steady kind-hearted lad to the back of that. But sure he's after as +nice a little girl as he'd ha' found anywheres, wid all his thravellin', +and as good as gould. He'll be very apt to be spakin' out to her +prisintly, for it's gettin' near his lave's ind, and what for would they +be waitin'? But to my mind it's as good as made up after what he's done +to-day." + +In a little while after this Ody Rafferty's aunt slipped away, and set +off hobbling along the road towards Duffclane. She wanted to intercept +her grand-nephew on his way home and tell him this news. For all day she +had been haunted by an apprehension that Ody meant to return with a +fairing for Theresa, the presentation of which might bring about a +crisis in his courtship very disastrous from her own point of view. Old +Moggy surveyed her world rather steadily at all times from that +particular outlook, finding in her solitary superfluousness little to +deflect her gaze. The disappointment which, on her own theory, these +tidings would bring to Ody did not do so now, and she put her best foot +foremost, animated by the pleasure of telling some new thing, one, +moreover, that threw a reassuring light upon her situation. With even +her amended opinion of the lad she could hardly imagine that he would +have a chance against magnificent Denis O'Meara, whom nobody would have +ever expected to look for a wife in poor little Lisconnel--but you never +could tell, and she felt that it still behoved her to be on her guard +against all possible perils. Therefore she at present thought it +expedient to waylay Ody, and let him know that if he had any notion of +Theresa Joyce, he was a day after the fair. + +Hobbling on bent and breathless, wrapped in her rusty black shawl, with +her shadow flitting far out over the level bog amid the slanted beams, +she looked a not inappropriate messenger of woe, symbolically impotent +and insignificant; a little dark speck in the wide westering light; a +feeble stir of life creeping on the verge of a vast silent solitude; +and full, withal, of baseless fears and futile plots, concerning the +withered shred of existence that remained to her. She was just in the +nick of time, she said to herself, when she saw the trio presently +coming over the top of the hill. Ody was pointing out conciliatingly to +the morose Rory how they'd be at home now nearly in the time he'd be +waggin' his tail; and Hugh McInerney was resolving that he would go on +straight to his own place, and defer the presentation of the ugly yellow +ribbon until to-morrow. All three were hot and fagged and dusty. + +"Well, lad, and what's the best good news wid you?" Ody's aunt said to +him, as they met. + +"Little enough," said Ody. + +"And you comin' out of a fair?" she said. "Bedad now, we make a better +offer at it ourselves up here for the matter of news." + +"What's that at all?" said Ody. + +"Sure amn't I just after hearin' tell of a grand weddin' there's goin' +to be prisintly?" said his aunt, "and that doesn't happen every day of +the year." + +"Och, a weddin'," said Ody. "I was thinkin' maybe there was somethin' +quare at our little place beyant yonder. But as long as it's nothin' +worser than weddin's you're hearin' tell of, I'm contint, if you +listened the two ears off your head." + +"It's Denis O'Meara and Theresa Joyce has made a match of it," said his +aunt, conscious that she was slightly overstating facts; "settled up it +is on'y this evenin'. And the weddin's bound to be before his lave's +out--so there's for you." + +"Sure good luck to the both of thim," said Ody, "Theresa Joyce is a +plisant little bein', I'll say that for her, and divil a bit of harm +there is in O'Meara aither. A fine chap he is for a sodger; not that +they're any great things as far as I can see--just polis a thrifle +smartened up." + +Ody's thoughts were for the moment running on the police, a couple of +whom he had lately espied at a short distance coming across the bog. + +"Well, if you wanted to see the two of thim," said his aunt, raising her +voice as he began to drive Rory on, "there they are, just at the back of +her place, sortin' the stuff he's after gettin' her on the bog. He +brought her the full of the pitaty-creel. Her mother's as plased over it +as anythin', and sot up too, aye is she bedad." + +The old woman was for the time being almost as much disappointed as +relieved by the equanimity with which Ody had received her tidings; yet +if she had but known, they had not failed to produce a strong sensation. +Only she never thought of considering how they might affect that quare +big gawk Hugh McInerney. What did occur to her in his connection as he +begun to trudge alongside her after the pony, was that "he was as ugly +as if he had been bespoke." For Hugh's long tramp under the sultry sun +had scorched him a deeper and more uniform red brick than usual, and his +shock of tow-coloured hair jutting from beneath an unnoticeable round +cap, looked more than ever like thatch over his blinking blue eyes. When +they had gone a few yards in silence he suddenly said musingly-- + +"I dunno why he wouldn't have as good a right to be bringin' her +anythin' she had a fancy for off the bog in a pitaty-creel, as me to be +buyin' her len'ths of hijis-coloured ribbons to make a show of herself +wid. But all the same, I'd as lief he'd let it alone. For some raison or +other I've the wish in me mind I was slingin' the whole of it into one +of thim bog-houles out there--and that 'ud be no thing to go do on +her.... And that was a quare story the ould woman had about thim +gettin' married. Somebody was apt to be makin' a fool of her. Who was it +would be tellin' her I won'er?" + +But old Moggy partly overheard and said: "Thim that knew what they was +talkin' about, supposin' it's any affair of yours." + +So he did the rest of his meditating inaudibly. He said to himself that +he was steppin' home straight--continuing the while to walk in quite the +opposite direction--and that he wouldn't be goin' to the Joyces' place +to-night at all; what 'ud bring him there, and it gettin' so late? But +of course he went there, as surely as a swimming bubble goes over the +cataract's smooth lip, or a fascinated little bird down the snake's +throat. + +For the sensation which he had begun to experience, and which was a +strong one, and strange to him, was nothing less than jealousy. He was +jealous of that pitaty-creel. + +When he came to the place Ody's aunt had told of, he found a group of +young Joyces and Ryans and others gathered among the boulders and bushes +in a circle of which the heap of bog-cotton formed the centre; and a +glance having showed him that it included Denis and Theresa, he sat down +facing them, and said to himself: + +"If I'd known, now, it was bog-cotton she was wantin', I could ha' been +gadrin' her plinty last night after I come home. There's a gran' big +moon these times, wid lashin's and lavin's of light to be gettin' thim +kind of glimmerin' things by. I seen a black place below between the +sthrame of wather and the roadside all waved over white wid it, like as +if it was a fall of snow thryin' could it flutter off away wid itself +agin out of the world. I'd have got her enough to fill a six-fut sack. +What for didn't the crathur tell me?" + +Pursuing these and other such reflections Hugh's attention, which at all +times had a long tether, strayed far afield. He did not hear Denis +O'Meara inquire of him twice whether Ody Rafferty had got his fine price +for the old pony; not yet Peter Ryan rejoin after an interval that he +supposed it was such a big one, anyway, Hugh McInerney couldn't get it +out of his mouth--that was sizable enough. No doubt it was this symptom +of absentmindedness that emboldened Thady Joyce to set about twitching +out of Hugh's pocket the flimsy paper parcel seen protruding from it, a +feat which he achieved undetected, while his surrounding accomplices +nudged one another and whispered: "Och he has it now--whoo-oo he'll do +it." + +Thady conveyed what he had filched to Molly and Nelly Ryan, who +manipulated it for some time amid much giggling; and then Nelly, with +dexterous audacity pinned their handiwork on to the cap of her neighbour +Denis O'Meara, who sat all unawares. Thus it came to pass that when Hugh +was at last roused to a vague sense of tittering all round him, which +reached him much as the clacking chirp of sparrows gets meaninglessly +into our frayed morning dreams, and looking up out of his reverie, +stared about him for an explanation, the first thing his eyes lit on was +Denis's smart cap surmounted by a mass of gaudy yellow ribbon in immense +bows and loops and streamers, flapping and waggling absurdly at every +movement made by their unsuspecting wearer. And the spectacle caught his +breath, and dazzled his sight with a sudden scorching blast of wrath. +For it seemed to him that Denis was not making merely a mock of him and +his fairing, which he thought intrinsically of small amount, but through +it of Theresa herself and her foolish little fancies. And there sat +Theresa looking on, with a quick pink flush, and shining eyes, and a +quiver about her mouth. The next moment Hugh had hurled at the bedizened +cap what he happened to be holding in his hand. And this was Paddy +Ryan's new reaping-hook. + +Thereupon followed a terrible confusion and clamour, which seemed to +fill at a sweep all the spacious drowsy light of the sunsetting. For the +missile had gone surely to its mark, and had not simply knocked off +Denis's cap, but made a shocking gash in his temple, so that there were +only too sufficient reasons for the rising shrieks of "Holy Virgin, he's +murdhered--he's kilt!" Amid all the turmoil, with Denis fallen on the +ground, and Hugh standing staring, and everybody else rushing through +other like crows in a storm, one person alone appeared to act with a +definite purpose, and that was little Joe Egan. The event had made him +like one possessed with rage and despair. To Joe, weakly and timorous +and not over-wise, his valiant, handsome, good-natured soldier cousin +had come as the most splendid apparition that had shined upon him in the +dim course of his fifteen years; and he had spent the past three months +in adoring it very devoutly. So that now to see him laid low suddenly in +this savage fashion was a sight that might well cause a burning thirst +for vengeance upon the miscreant who had dealt the stroke. Joe generally +had to get his revenges wreaked by deputy; and now, as he darted away, +his intention was to find the polis somewhere, and bring them to take up +"that great bastely murdherin' divil, Hugh McInerney," and if by any +means possible get him hung. He attained his object sooner than might +have been expected, as not far down the road a pair of constables were +run into by a small tatterdemalion figure, who, choking and stammering +and writhing in an ague fit of fury, proceeded to inform them that "Big +Hugh McInerney was just after murdherin' Denis O'Meara up above +there--takin' the head off him wid a rapin'-hook," and, further, that +"if they looked in the dirty thief's little place at the fut of the +hill, they'd find that every other stone in the walls of it was nothin' +else but a crock of poteen." + +This was the cause of the police's prompt arrival on the scene, where +nobody resented Joe's action. Denis's injury, though so grave, happily +did not seem to be mortal, in fact, on this occasion young Dan O'Beirne, +albeit scarcely more than a spalpeen, displayed a handiness and resource +about bandaging and other remedies, which foreshadowed his future +reputation throughout the district for knowledgableness in surgery and +medicine. Hugh McInerney was, of course, at once arrested, without any +resistance on his part, or any sympathy from the indignant neighbours. +He appeared to be what old Will Sheridan termed, "fallen into a serious +consternation," and was heard to make only one remark. It was when +people were saying that Theresa Joyce had took a wakeness, and her +brothers had carried her indoors. "Och, the crathur," he said, "and it +might aisy have hit her, very aisy. Miself's the quare divil." + +Once the police and their prisoner had gone, Denis having been brought +into the Ryans' house, a deep and melancholy hush settled down upon +Lisconnel, as if a murky wing had flapped out its brief flare of +excitement. The whole thing had happened so quickly that the rich light +from the west was still bronzing the edges of the flat-ledged furze +boughs, and rosing their white stems, when the little hollow behind the +Joyces' house rested quiet and deserted, with no traces left of the +company lately there assembled, except a litter of silky white +bog-cotton tufts, soon to be swept away by the breeze, and the unchancy +yellow ribbon, which had been torn out of Denis's cap, and lay coiling +among the rough grass, whence, as the dusk thickened, it glinted like +the wraith of a lost sunbeam or a ray from an evil star. + +But that night fell very dark, with a moon so closely veiled that the +flaggers and bulrushes waving their swords and spears fast by, dwindled +into mere rustlings and murmurs--the air was full of them. At the +dimmest hour anybody who had stolen out of a neighbouring door, and +passed between the faintly glimmering white boulders, as if in search of +something lost there, might have seemed only one of the whispering +shadows. And these might have begun so say, "Sorra aught can I do at +all, at all. And ne'er a soul is there to spake a word--all of thim agin +him, and it no fau't of his, when he would be torminted that way. They'd +no call to go play such a thrick on him, and he didn't mane it a' +purpose, I very well know; but the other chap was intindin' to annoy +him, sittin' there wid a great ugly grin on his face. I wish he'd never +come next or nigh Lisconnel." But be that as it may, when the next +morning's light twinkled among the dewy blades, the yellow ribbon had +disappeared. + +After this the days seemed to drag heavily at Lisconnel, where a dulness +and flatness had come over society. Dr. Hamilton had carried off Denis +O'Meara to Ballybrosna, and there was nothing to fill up the blank he +left except speculations about his chances of recovery, and censures +upon Hugh McInerney, monotonously unanimous. In his favour, indeed, no +one seemingly had a word to say. People declared that "they'd never have +thought he'd take and do such a thing, for though he might ha' been a +quare sort of bosthoon, he was always dacint and paiceable." But +cancelled praise is the bitterest of blame; and they added that "it was +rael outrageous of him to go do murdher on the likes of Denis O'Meara, +and no credit to Lisconnel for it to be happenin' him there. Iligant +characters it 'ud be givin' them if he wint back to the rigimint wid his +eyes slashed out of his head, as much as to say he hadn't a fair chance +among us unless he'd come wid his side-arms." + +The neighbours were of opinion, too, that "it was no wonder little +Theresa Joyce had got a bit moped and quiet, after her sweetheart bein' +as good as destroyed before her eyes, and it hard to say if she'd ever +see a sight of him again." + +"It was a misfort'nit thing," Mrs. Con Ryan remarked one day, when the +subject was under discussion, "that young O'Meara hadn't actually spoke +out before it happint thim. 'Twould ha' made her a dale aisier in her +mind now, I wouldn't won'er. Because the way the matter stands, he +might take up wid some diff'rint notion, and just be off wid himself +like a cloud blown out of the sky, and she couldn't be sayin' a word, if +she was ever so sure of what he was intindin'." + +Young Mrs. Keogh, to whom she made the observation, refused to entertain +this view, and replied, "Sorra a fear is there of that. It was aisy to +see he'd ha' gone to the Well of the World's End after her, let alone +steppin' up from the Town, if he's spared to get his health. Ay, he'll +be comin' back for her one of these fine days, sure enough, plase God." + +But the fulfilment of her confident prediction looked several degrees +more doubtful in the light of one of the two pieces of news which Mrs. +Carbery, accompanied by her daughter Rose, conveyed to the Joyces' on a +bright September morning a short while after. Her son had come home with +it from the Town too late the night before. One of them was that Hugh +McInerney, who had been awaiting the assizes in Moynalone Jail, had died +of the fever there on last Friday. There was nothing very surprising in +this event, as Hugh's open-air life could have but ill acclimatised him +to the atmosphere of the unclean little jail; and it was not likely to +be very deeply deplored at Lisconnel, where he had not been known long, +nor, as we have seen, much to his advantage. + +As Mrs. Carbery sat in the three-cornered arm-chair, with the sun-dazzle +off a burnished mug on the dresser shimmering into her eyes, and making +her blink quaintly, she said, with rather severe solemnity, that "she +hoped the young fellow had had time to repint of his sins, or else it +was very apt to be a bad look-out for him, and he after comin' widin a +shavin' of takin' another man's life no time at all ago, so to +spake--ne'er a chance but it would be clear in everybody's +recollection." + +Mrs. Joyce, however, said: "Ah, sure maybe the crathur wasn't intindin' +any such great harm all the while, God be good to him. And, anyway, +where he's gone he'll find plinty ready to be spakin' up for him, and +puttin' the best face they can on the matter." + +"Ay will he," said old Biddy Ryan, who was calling too, "and bedad it's +one great differ there is, be all accounts, between that place and this. +For here if a misfort'nit body does aught amiss, the first notion the +rest of us have, God forgive us, is to be axin' what worser he was +manin', like as if it was some manner of riddle, that there's bound to +be an answer to, if one could find it." + +"'Deed, and I dunno if they haven't very far to look, ma'am," said Mrs. +Carbery, with dignity, "when a chap does his endeavours to take the head +off another man wid a rapin'-hook, ma'am." + +"And _I_ dunno, ma'am, for that matter," said old Biddy, also with +dignity, "if it's any such a great dale better to have one's mind took +up wid invintin' other people's bad intintions than if it was wid one's +own." + +"Ah, well! I wouldn't be thinkin' too bad of poor Hugh McInerney, at all +events," said Mrs. Joyce. "'Twas maybe a sort of accident, for he seemed +a dacint crathur afore that. Och now, to think it's on'y a few odd weeks +since he was creepin' about over our heads up there, mendin' th' ould +thatch! You'd whiles hear him hummin' away, talkin' to himself like some +sort of big bee--and in his grave to-day! But isn't it a lucky thing +that he's lavin' nobody belongin' to him to be breakin' their hearts +frettin' after him? Theresa, child dear, you've ne'er a stim of light to +be workin' in, sittin' there in the corner." + +But Theresa said she had light enough to blind her, and was only +winding a skein, and could see better to do that in the dark. So Mrs. +Carbery passed on to her second piece of news, which, though less +tragical than the first, was not likely to sound very cheerfully in the +ears of some among her audience. It ran that her son Ned was "after +seein' Denis O'Meara down beyant, and that he was doin' finely, next +door to himself again: and that the people in the Town did be sayin' he +was coortin' Mary Anne Neligan, the people's daughter that he was +lodgin' wid--a terrible fortin she was said to have--and that he'd be +very apt to be takin' her along wid him prisintly when his lave was up." +Mrs. Carbery supposed they were none of them ever likely to see him +again up at Lisconnel. And the rest of the neighbours, having heard her +tale, supposed so likewise, and said among themselves that Theresa Joyce +was to be pitied. + +Yet not many days after this, while the early autumn weather was still +soft-aired and mellow-lighted over our blue-misted bogland, where the +leaves and berries were brightening, and even the little frosty-grey +cups on the lichened boulders getting a scarlet thread at the rim, on +one clear, dew-dashed morning, who but Denis O'Meara himself should +come stepping into Lisconnel? The neighbours who saw him go by were glad +to notice that he looked as well as ever he did in his life, and he +greeted them all blithely though briefly, eluding every attempt to +entangle him in conversation, and making very straight for the Widow +Joyce's house, which was by these same observers considered to betoken a +healthy frame of mind. + +Only Mrs. Joyce and Mrs. Kilfoyle were in the little brown room when he +arrived, but they gave him a cordial welcome, and he took a seat from +which he could keep a watch on the door while they talked about +different things. One of these, naturally, was the melancholy end of +Denis's assailant--poor Hugh McInerney--and Mrs. Joyce said it was +little enough they'd have thought a while ago that it would be Denis +who'd come back. "But indeed," she said, "if anythin' had took you, we'd +ha' been in no hurry ever to set eyes on the other unlucky bosthoon." + +Denis said: "Faith, ma'am, I'd give six months' pay the thing had never +happint. Divil a bit of harm I believe there was in poor McInerney; and +I spoke to Dr. Hamilton to spake to Mr. Nugent and the other magistrates +for him; but they said, after what me cousin Joe let out about the +poteen at his place, the polis would be wishful to keep him convanient +to thim for a while; and to be sure, they kep' him too long altogether. +I know, ma'am, young Rafferty and the rest had his shanty pulled down +before the polis come up next day; but they thought they'd git somethin' +out of him. The little jackass ought to ha' held his tongue. It was a +pity, bedad. Hard lines it is on a man to be losin' his life, you may +say, along wid his temper, just be raison of a bit of a joke." + +Still as he looked out into the sunshine he could not help thinking that +he would have had a greater loss of his life than poor Hugh McInerney, +who, it was evident, would always have met with a cold reception from +everybody at the Joyces'. Then he said to Mrs. Joyce: "And how's +Theresa, ma'am?" + +Mrs. Joyce was in the middle of replying that she was grandly, and had +just run over to Mrs. Keogh on a message, when Theresa herself came in. + +Denis jumped up quickly, saying: "Ah, Theresa, it's a great while since +I've seen you." + +But Theresa only lifted her head without turning it, and walked straight +on as if nobody had accosted her. + +"Arrah, now, Theresa darlint, don't you see Denis O'Meara?" said her +mother, puzzled and rather dismayed. + +And then Theresa did turn and look at him. "Yis, I see him," she +said--and, indeed, she might as easily have overlooked the red flame in +a lantern as the tall scarlet lancer in her mother's little +misty-cornered room. "I see him," she said, "and I hate the sight of +him." And thereupon she turned again, and walked out of the door, +leaving a dead silence behind her. + +This was one of the very few harsh sayings that Theresa Joyce has +uttered in the course of her long life, and it came like a shock upon +her hearers. + +Mrs. Joyce at last said blankly: "What at all has took the child?" + +And Bessie Kilfoyle said to Denis, who stood dumbfounded: "But indeed +now, you may be sure there's not a many up here, at any rate, who do +that." + +But he replied: "If _she_ does, it's many enough for me, Mrs. Kilfoyle. +And I won't stop here to be drivin' her out of the house. So I'll say +good-bye to yous kindly, for I'll be off now to Dublin to-morra or next +day." + +"And in coorse," Mrs. Joyce remarked ruefully, after he had departed, +retreading his steps through the bright fresh morning with so +crestfallen a mien that all the neighbours knew things had not run +smoothly, "you couldn't raisonably expec' him to stay here to be hated +the sight of. And indeed, what wid one thing and another, it's none too +good thratement the poor lad's got up at Lisconnel, more's the pity." + +Theresa herself never had any explanation to offer of "why she would be +that cross wid poor Denis O'Meara." Her mother accounted for it by pique +at the Carberys' ill-timed gossip about his imaginary courtship of Mary +Anne Neligan; and Mrs. Kilfoyle was for a while inclined to the same +opinion, until one day by chance she espied in the little old tin box +which contained Theresa's treasures, a roll of bright yellow ribbon +wrapped up very carefully; and thenceforward she silently ceased to hope +that things might all come right yet, if Denis O'Meara came back again +on leave. + +So, although Mrs. Joyce may have drawn wrong inferences, the results +were much as she had foreseen. Theresa never married, and when her +mother died she went to live with her brother Mick at Laraghmena, where +she is living still, notwithstanding that it is so long since all this +happened--since the fine summer when Denis O'Meara was at Lisconnel, and +Hugh McInerney, who luckily left nobody to be breaking their hearts +fretting after him, died in Moynalone Jail. + +The yellow ribbon lies safely in her box, and with it a grimy bit of +paper, brought to her one day by a trusty hand, to which Hugh found out +a way of committing it "before he was took bad entirely." Theresa +herself has never deciphered its wild scrawls, being an unlettered +person, but its bearer read it over to her until she knew it by heart +every word. "For your own self the yella ribin is," the letter ran, "but +don't be wearin' it unless you like it. And I'm sorry the man got hit; +but I do be dhramin' most nights that it's you I'm after rapin' the +little black head off of; and I'd liefer lose me life than think I'd be +after hurtin' a hair of it. But the Divil was busy wid me that evenin'. +And I'm very apt never to get the chance to set fut again out on the big +bog. It 'ud do me heart good to see the sun goin' down in it a great way +off, for this is a quare small place. It's a long while. But sure, to +the end of all the days of me life," it said to her, like an echo +beaten back from the walls of the great abysm, "it's of yourself I'll be +thinkin' off away in contintmint at Lisconnel." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MR. POLYMATHERS + + +It was to an accidental circumstance that Lisconnel owed the prolonged +sojourn there of perhaps the most distinguished scholar who has ever +visited us. For when he arrived at O'Beirne's forge one misty June +evening, the night's lodging only was all he asked or desired. But in +those times, now some fifty years since, we had "a terrible dale of +sickness about in the country," and next morning the stranger was down +with the fever, which, although so mild a case that even Bridget +O'Beirne never gave him over more than twice in the same day, brought +his journey perforce to a halt. At the beginning he was very loth to +believe that he must relinquish his intention of reaching Dublin by a +certain date--the first Monday in July; however, having once recognised +the impossibility of doing so, he showed no haste to quit his quarters, +and his stay with the O'Beirnes lengthened into months as the summer +slipped away. At this time the forge was owned by Felix O'Beirne, +blacksmith, shebeener, and ex-whiteboy, and with him lived his orphan +grandsons, Daniel and Nicholas, his very old, ancient mother, who still +drew enjoyment in whiffs through the stem of her black dudeen, and his +elderly sister, Bridget, who had taken little pleasure in anything since +the redcoats shot her sweetheart in the War. The missing third +generation was represented occasionally when Mrs. Dooley, Felix's +married daughter, came on a visit. It was conjectured among them that +"the fancy the ould gintleman had for larnin' all manner to young +Nicholas continted him to stop." And this may have had something to do +with it, though less, probably, than the vaguer fact that he from the +first "took kindly" to the O'Beirnes, and they to him. His appearance +puzzled them a little. He was of a massive, large-boned frame, such as +nature seems to design for rough uses; but, as Felix remarked, "you +could aisy tell be ivery finger and thumb on him that hard work wasn't +the handle he'd took a hould of the world by." He wore a very long, grey +frieze coat, and a chimney-pot hat so old and tall that it looked as if +it must have grown slowly to its great height. When he took it off he +uncovered a shock of soft white hair, like the wig of a seeded +groundsel, about a face which was furrowed and wrinkled ruggedly enough, +in a different pattern somehow from what is commonly seen at Lisconnel, +where sun and wind have a large share in the process. His baggage +consisted of two bundles, very unequal in size and weight. The contents +of the smaller one were mainly a shirt and three socks, knotted loosely +in a blue cotton handkerchief; the other was done up carefully in +sacking, and he liked to have it under his eye. + +Of course the O'Beirnes' visitor was often talked about among the groups +gathered of an evening, much as they are nowadays, for gossip and poteen +within the broad-leaved forge doors, through which on dark nights the +fire still blinks as far across the bog as the amber of the sunset, or +the rising glow of the golden harvest moon. Even from Felix's first +report it appeared that the stranger was no ordinary person. + +"Won'erful fine discoorse he has out of him, anyway," he told the +neighbours a few nights after the arrival; "ivery now and agin he'll out +wid a word as grand like and big as his Riverence at Mass--goodness +forgive me for sayin' so. Sometimes we've been hardset to tell what he's +drivin' at. But that's the way it is wid thim words that has a power of +manin' in thim. They're apt to bother you a bit when you're used to +spakin plain." + +"Belike it's the fever in his head sets him talkin' oddly," said young +Barney Corcoran. "I mind me brother Joe when he was bad wid it would be +ravin' wild. Sorra the sinsible word there was out of him for the best +part of a week." + +This way of accounting for his guest's fine language rather affronted +Felix, and he consequently said, "Musha now, was there not? And how long +might yourself be under that descripshin of fever?" + +"Ah sure, what 'ud we do at all if poor Barney was took that way?" said +Peter Keogh, "and nobody able to tell was it ravin' he was, or settin' +up to be talkin' raisonable for any differ they could see." + +Barney cleared his throat disconcertedly, and the old man, recalling his +responsibilities as a host, and perhaps not admiring his sarcasm thus +elaborated, said conciliatingly, "Och, he'll do right enough if he niver +raves any worse than Mr. Polymathers. All that ails him is that we want +to git a bit used to his manner of spakin'." + +"Polymathers?" said Peter. + +"To be sure, Polymathers. Did you say it any better than I?" + +"Well, I nivir heard tell of anybody called that way before. It's a +quare she-he soundin' sort of name," said Peter. + +"Faix, then, there may be plinty quarer in it, we niver heard tell of, +if that was all," said Felix. "Anyhow, it's his name, and his people's +afore him. Himself tould me his father was the ouldest of all the +Polymatherses there was in the counthry he came out of--somewheres down +south, I think he said--and the head of the whole of thim forby." + +"Ay, he did so," said Dan. "Sez you to him, there was a dale of water +run down hill since the time there was O'Beirnes blacksmiths in this +part of the counthry; and your father was a one, sez you. And sez he to +you, he couldn't be any manner of manes purtind to be the aquil to what +_his_ father was. And sez you to him, what was he? And sez he, it was +one of the Polymatherses he was, and well known for his larnin' through +the len'th and breadth of the county Sligo. And a name it was, he sez, +any man might be proud of ownin'." + +"Be jabers, himself has the great consait of it, at all ivents," said +Peter. "But he might find people could be tellin' him there's Keoghs as +good as any Polymatherses iver was in it--ivery hair." + +The stranger's patronymic having thus been ascertained, it was desirable +to fix his calling, and, despite his disclaimer of inherited erudition, +several circumstances bespoke him a schoolmaster, even before the +question seemed settled by the first act of his convalescence being an +inquiry into the amount of book-learning which Dan and Nicholas had +amassed during their sixteen and fourteen years. This was not large, +though as much as could be expected, considering that in all Lisconnel +there were not just then, I believe, more than four volumes, one of +which being merely the index to a non-existent _Encyclopaedia_, can +scarcely rank as literature. The boys themselves, and their grandfather, +were deeply interested in the examination, and very anxious that it +should have a creditable result. For learning and the learned have at +all times been held in profound respect among us away on our bogland, +where the devotion to something afar springs perhaps the more abundantly +because so many things are remote. On this occasion Mr. Polymathers +opened his most sizable bundle, and it was seen to be filled with books, +not fewer, doubtless, than a score, in leather bindings, ragged and +battered, and brownly time-stained all over their margins, as if the +river of years had for them run no metaphor, but a russet bog-stream. +They comprised _Homer_, _Virgil_, _Livy_, and other ancients; likewise +two Latin lexicons, which looked extravagant until you observed how each +did but supplement the other's deficiencies, and this so imperfectly +that their owner was still liable to search in vain for words between MO +and NA. + +These, however, were evidently not the most prized portion of Mr. +Polymathers's library, though he displayed them with some complacency, +reading out here and there a sonorous "furrin" phrase, at which his +audience said, "More power," and "Your sowl to glory," and the like. It +was when he handled the shabbiest of the volumes, with broken backs and +edges all curling tatters, that his touch grew caressing. The +lookers-on, contrariwise, thought but poorly of them because they set +up, seemingly, to be illustrated works, and their pictures, mostly of +uninteresting round and three-cornered objects, struck Lisconnel art +critics as very feeble efforts. To be sure Mr. Polymathers called them +_dygrims_, but that was no help to the overtaxed imagination. Only young +Nicholas O'Beirne listened intently to the explanation which he gave of +one of them. Nicholas was a long, thin lad, with melancholy grey eyes +and a square forehead, whose capacity his grandfather had held in some +esteem, since it had been discovered, years ago, that "the spalpeen +could make out an account for four sets of shoes, and half a stone of +three-inch holdfasts, and a dozen of staples, and two gallon of the +crathur, and allow for a hundredweight of ould iron, all in his head, +and right to a farthin'." Now the melancholy eyes darkened and +brightened with excitement as Mr. Polymathers discoursed of right lines +and angles and circles, and expounded the mysterious signification of +certain Ah Bay Says. And he had thenceforward an unweariable pupil in +Nicholas, companied, albeit with less ardent zeal, and at a slower rate +of progress, by his elder brother, Dan. + +More general interest, however, continued to be taken in the stranger's +classical attainments. Everybody--the O'Beirnes themselves, their +neighbours in the cabin-row close by, now long since an untraceable +ruin, and the people of Lisconnel proper, a couple of miles further +on--felt uplifted by the residence among them of a man, who they boasted +would talk Latin to you as soon as look at you. But as we never enjoy +our own happiness fully until it has been looked at through other men's +envious eyes, they could not here remain content with simply possessing +this privilege, or even with dilating upon it to their less favoured +friends down below and down beyant. They longed to make a parade of it, +to give a demonstration of it. And the method of doing so which they +came to consider most desirable was the bringing about of a conversation +in Latin between Mr. Polymathers and Father Rooney, the Parish Priest. +For if that took place they could easily imagine his Reverence riding +home to report in the Town what a wonderful great scholar entirely they +had stopping above at Lisconnel. Moreover, the conversation itself would +be a rael fine thing to have the hearing of. Terence Kilfoyle, for +instance, said that it would be as good as a Play, which, as he had +never seen one, was to entertain unbounded expectations. And at last, +after they had wished the wish for some weeks, a prospect of its +fulfilment came into sight together with Father Rooney's cream-coloured +pony jogging along through the light of a fiery-zoned July sunset, in +which Mr. Polymathers was basking by the O'Beirnes' door. In those days +his Reverence was a youngish man, ruddy, and of a cheerful countenance, +a substantial load for his sturdy nag, and altogether, in his glossy +black cloth, a figure very different from their gaunt, sad-visaged, +shaggily-garbed old guest. He was at the time of Father Rooney's +approach seated on a two-legged, three-legged stool, propped +precariously against the ray-rosed cabin wall, and was teaching Dan and +Nicholas the twelfth proposition of the second book of Euclid. Dan had +not yet grasped it, but it all lay as clear as a sunbeam athwart +Nicholas's brain, and he was fidgeting like an impatient horse at the +slowness of his fellow. + +Several of the neighbours chanced to be about, for the forge saw a good +deal of company in those long empty days before the potato-digging could +begin. They all drew together into a small crowd, and closed in step by +step to watch the first meeting between these two notable persons, much +admiring the deftness with which old O'Beirne secured it by pronouncing +one of the pony's shoes in need of tightening, and the felicitous +opening he made by assuring his Reverence that "divil a bit need he be +mindin' the delay, because Mr. Polymathers there had enough _furrin +languages_ to keep thim all divarted, if the baste owned as many feet as +a forty-legs, wid the shoes droppin' off ivery pair of thim. That was to +say, in coorse, supposin' he got the chance of convarsin' a bit wid +somebody aquil to answerin' him back iligant, the way there wasn't e'er +a one of thim could make an offer at doin' no more than thim little +weevils of chirpin' chuckens." + +Yet the interview turned out disappointingly after all. If such a thing +had not been, of course, exceedingly improbable, one might have fancied +that each scholar stood in awe of the other's reputation, they steered +so clear of all recondite subjects; keeping to the merest commonplaces +about rain and potatoes and turf--which anybody else could have +discussed quite as knowledgably. In vain, whenever there was a promising +pause would the bystanders nudge one another, whispering, hopefully, +"Whist, boys--they'll be sayin' somethin' now." Only the plainest +English followed, and at last, when Father Rooney rode on, his parting +joke, which referred to the difficulty his pony would now find in the +way of becoming a barefooted pilgrim, left for a wonder solemnly +irresponsive faces behind it. + +Michael Ryan said, with a touch of resentment, "Ah, well, one couldn't +maybe expec' it of thim to be throublin' thimselves talkin' fine for the +pack of us, as ignorant as dirt, in the middle of th'ould bog." + +And his wife said, "'Deed, now, I wouldn't won'er meself if the raison +was his Riverence 'ud think bad of usin' his Latin words for anythin' +else on'y prayers and such. It might be somethin' the same as if he went +and took his grand vistments to go dig pitaties in; and that 'ud be a +great sin, God knows." + +But old Felix, who was, as we have seen, a rather touchy person, +construed this suggestion into an implied censure on his own wishes in +the matter, and he said, huffily-- + +"Sorra the talk of sin I see in it at all, ma'am. 'Tis a dale liker they +just couldn't get out wid it convanient offhand. The same way that I'd +aisy enough bate out a shoe on me anvil there, when it's bothered I'd be +if you axed me to make a one promiscuous here of a suddint on the +roadside." + +Mr. Polymathers himself meanwhile was perhaps dimly conscious that he +had disappointed hopes, and failed to rise duly to the occasion; and +this may have been why he slipped indoors, and fetched out a small book +he had never produced before, bound in a dingy greenish blue, with a +white paper label. + +"D'you know what that is, sir?" he questioned, rhetorically, handing it +to Felix O'Beirne. "It's the Calendar, let me tell you, of the College +of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, _juxta_ Dublin. There's a print of +the Front of the Buildings attached to the fly-leaf. I'm after pickin' +it up this spring at Moynalone. 'Twas new the year before last, and +comprises a dale of information relative to terms, examinations, fees, +and so forth." + +"Begor, then, it looks to be a wide house," said Felix, confining +himself to the picture as a comprehensible point. "It's apt to be an +oncommon fine place, sir, I should suppose." + +"You may say that, me man," said Mr. Polymathers, emphatically. "Not its +match in the kingdom of Ireland. The home of literature and the haunt +of science. And it's there I'll be, plase God, next October." + +"Musha, and will you be thravellin' that far--to Dublin?" said Felix. + +"Ay will I, and would have gone last month on'y for the fever delayin' +me till after the midsummer entrance. Me savin's amount to somethin' +over thirty pound, so I may venture on the step, and prisint meself at +the Michaelmas term. In short," said Mr. Polymathers, re-poising himself +upon his rickety stool, "I might describe myself as an unmatriculated +candidate undergraduate of the University of Dublin." + +"And what at all now would that be, sir, if I might be axin'?" said +Felix, humbly, after the awe-stricken pause which followed Mr. +Polymathers's proclamation of his style and title. + +"It's a necessary preliminary," said Mr. Polymathers, "to proceeding to +the Degree of _Baccalaureatus in Artibus_, or _In Artibus +Baccalaureatus_--the _ordo verborum_ is, I take it, immaterial, to judge +by the transposition of initials in the case of ----." + +"Faix, but it's the fine Latin you can be discoorsin' now, and his +Riverence half-ways home," said Felix reproachfully. + +Mr. Polymathers, glancing round a circle of deeply impressed faces, felt +that his prestige was restored, and even began to enjoy a foretaste of +the triumph, which had been one part of his dream through the long +laborious years. But he was puzzled how to bring the full grandeur of +his design clearly before this uninstructed audience, and after +reflecting for a while in quest of concise yet adequate definitions, he +launched out into an eloquent description of the ceremonial observed in +conferring degrees at Dublin University. It may be surmised that many of +the details were due to his own fondly brooding fancy. For not only did +the highest learning in the land crowd the Hall in their academic robes, +but the Lord Lieutenant himself took a prominent part in the +proceedings, which were enlivened by military music and thunderous +salutes. Mr. Polymathers nearly toppled off his tricky stool more than +once without noticing it in his excitement as he rehearsed these +splendid scenes, declaiming with great unction the formulas long since +learned by all his heart, especially _Ego, auctoritate mihi concessa_, +and the rest, until he came to his peroration: "And all this pomp and +ceremony, mind yous, to the honour and glory of science and fine +scholarship. It's a grand occasion, lads; it's an object any man might +be proud to give----" Here he pulled himself up, warned by an unusually +violent lurch that his theme was running away with him. But having by no +means worked off his enthusiasm, he expended some of it, as a schoolboy +might have done, in throwing a small bit of turf at a stately white hen, +who just then sailed across the dark doorway, like a little frigate +under the most crowded canvas. She immediately took flight with +floundering screeches, which drowned what the old man was muttering to +himself. However, it was only "_Admitto te--admitto te_." + +After these revelations Mr. Polymathers was looked up to more than ever, +as one not only endowed with rare gifts, but destined by their means to +scale heights of hardly realisable exaltation. "Be all accounts there +was no knowin' what he mightn't rise to be at Dublin College," the +neighbours said. They also often remarked that it was "a surprisin' +thing to see a great scholar like him spendin' his time over taichin' +thim two young O'Beirnes." If the speaker happened to be afflicted with +a twinge of envy about those educational advantages, he was apt to say +"thim two young bosthoons" or "gomerals." But Dan and Nicholas were +not, in fact, any such thing. Nicholas, indeed, quickly proved himself +possessed of what Mr. Polymathers called "a downright astonishin' +facility at the mathematics," far out-stripping Dan, not quite to Dan's +satisfaction, as he had always enjoyed the pre-eminence conferred by +superior physical strength and a practical turn of mind. So well pleased +was the old man with his eager pupil that he would have liked to do his +teaching, "nothing for reward," but his host's hospitality, and his own +ambition, would not permit this. Now and then he rather puzzled Nicholas +by an apologetic tone in answering questions about his University +career. And once at the end of a lesson he said, as if to himself: "May +goodness forgive me if I'm takin' what he'd have done better with. But +sure he's young--he's plenty of chances yet." However, as the time for +his departure drew on, all his misgivings, if such he had, seemed to +vanish away, and his thoughts became very apt to journey off blissfully +to Dublin in the middle of the most interesting problems. Nicholas had +to wait till they came back. + +Mr. Polymathers left Lisconnel on a fine autumn morning, when the air +was so still that the flashing and twinkling of the many dewdrops seemed +to make quite a stir in it. The sky was as clear as any one of them, and +in the golden light the wavering columns of blue smoke rose with curves +softly transparent. He started with a buoyant step, as well he might, +since he was setting out on the enterprise into which he had put all the +spirit of his youth. He felt some regret at parting from his Lisconnel +friends, but his plans and prospects were naturally very pre-occupying, +whereas they had the ampler leisure of the left-behind to deplore his +flitting, which seemed likely enough to be for good. Nearly four years, +he had explained, must elapse before the crowning height of the B. A. +Degree could be won, and it was only just possible that he might manage +to tramp back on a visit meanwhile, during some Long Vacation. This +doubtful chance was cold comfort for that ardent scholar Nicholas +O'Beirne, who grieved more than anybody else. Most ruefully did he help +Dan to carry the candidate undergraduate's library as far as the Town; +nor could he take more than a downcast pleasure in Mr. Polymathers's +farewell gift to him of the raggedest _Euclid_. And as he stood +watching the car out of sight, his eyes were as wistful as if a door +briefly opened on glimpses of radiant vistas had been inexorably barred +in his face. + +Yet after all Mr. Polymathers's absence was not to be measured by years +or months. One evening on the threshold of December, Lisconnel was lying +roofed over by a massy livid-black cloud, which came lumbering up and up +interminably, and which the weatherwise estimated to contain as much +snow as would smother the width of the world. The north wind moaned and +keened dismally under the toil of wafting on this portentous load, and +its breath was bitingly sharp, so that when the lads came in from the +forge, their grandfather said, "Ah, Dan, shut over the door, for there's +a blast sweepin' through it 'ud freeze ten rigiments as stiff as +staties." We usually take a large view of things at Lisconnel. Dan went +to carry out this order, but instead of doing so he suddenly shouted: +"Murdher alive! Here's Mr. Polymathers." + +Through the grey gloaming came a Mr. Polymathers, very different from +what he had been on that brilliant, hopeful morning only a few weeks +ago, when he had stepped lightly, and held his head up as if he were +looking a friendly fortune in the face. Now his feet stumbled and +dragged as he fared slowly against the wind's blustering, with his eyes +on the ground, and his movements seemingly guided more by the weight of +the bundle he carried than by his own will. Before he came within even +loud shouting distance, everybody felt a presentiment of disaster; but +he had not spoken a word to justify or discredit it by the time he got +indoors. + +"Musha, and so it's yourself, sir," old Felix then repeated, in a +congratulatory tone. "Ah, but it's a hardy evenin', and it's perished +you are, sir. Come in be the fire." + +"Ay, I'm back," Mr. Polymathers said slowly, after a hesitating pause, +as if the remark had been interpreted to him by some second person, "I +was bringin' the books, thinkin' the lad might use them--he's young +enough. But I'm not come to stop on you," he added, speaking faster, +"on'y just for this night. Early to-morra I must be off to Ardnacreagh, +and try for the taichin' there again. 'Twas on'y on account of bringin' +the books I came this way. I'll be on the road quite early." + +His insistence on this point made, somehow, a very melancholy +impression on Felix; but he replied jovially: "Is it to-morra? Bedad +then, sir, don't you wish you may slip off on us that soon, and we after +gettin' a hould of you agin? What fools we are. Not if you was as +slithery, ivery inch of you, as a wather-eel." + +The wraith of a relieved smile at this came over Mr. Polymathers's face; +still it looked so grey and withered, and his eyes were so sunken, and +his large, bony hands so shaky, that all with one consent refrained from +questions which they were agog to ask; and when Mrs. Keogh by and by +dropped in, and being an inquisitive and not very quick-witted person, +said, "Saints among us--it's Mr. Polymathers. And how's yourself, sir? +And are you bringing home the grand Degree?" though they all listened +eagerly for the reply, they wished she had held her tongue. + +"The divil a Degree, ma'am," said Mr. Polymathers, "and niver will." + +There was a short silence, and then he turned round on his stool--it was +the same from which he had made his boast in the summer sunset, but Dan +had meanwhile mended its broken leg with the handle of a worn-bladed +spade. "I've given up," he said to them. "I no longer entertain the +project of becomin' a graduate, or for the matter of that an +undergraduate of Dublin University; and if I'd done right, I'd niver +have taken up such an idea. I've put it out of me head. But it's been in +me mind a great while--a terrible long while." + +"Look you here, Mr. Polymathers, sir, are you after gittin' any bad +thratment from any people up in thim places?" said Felix, who always +liked better to lay a grievance on some human and possibly breakable +head than to believe it the work of the vengeance-baffling demon +bad-luck. + +"Not at all, not at all," said Mr. Polymathers, when the question +reached him. "I've nothin' to complain of. They're very respectable +people in Dublin, and it's a fine city. But me head's a bit giddy yet +wid the drivin' they have in the streets, that makes one stupid. I mind +there was a car tatterin' along, and I crossin' over the College Green, +had me down on the stones, on'y a dacint lad gript a hould of me, and +whirled me inside the College gates. There I was before I rightly knew +anythin' had happened me, and I after spendin' the best part of me life +gettin' to it. 'Twasn't the way I thought it 'ud be.... But the College +is as grand as any notion I had of it; on'y since I've seen it, 'tis +like a drame to me that ever I set fut in it, just a sort of drame.... +Great ancient places the squares are; I walked round the whole of them +before I found the Hall. A couple of chaps in uniform like came axin' me +me business, but I tould them fast enough that I was a candidate--ah, +goodness help me.... And the Hall's a spacious and splendid apartment. +On'y it was strange, now, to see it full of nothin' but young fellows, +scarce oulder than the two lads there. I might, sure enough, have known +the way it 'ud be, if I'd come to considher, but somehow it seemed to +put me out, as if I'd no call to be there at all. There was one of them +began pricin' me ould hat, and another of them tripped him up against a +black marble construction with a pair of angels atop of it, that there +is on the wall--sure they were just spalpeens. But I'll give you me +word, when they called me up to the examiner's table, there was a young +gintleman sittin' at it in his black gown and his cap wid the +tassel--bound to be one of the College Fellows, and ivery sort of a fine +scholar--and for all the age there was on him he might ha' been me son +or me grandson. + +"So he handed me over a little black _Virgil_ wid the page opened where +I was to exhibit me acquaintance wid the text. It was merely a bit of +an oration of Queen Dido's that I've known ivery line of these forty +years as well as I know me own name, and better. And what came over me +is more than I can tell, but the minute I took the book in me hand, it +seemed to me as if ivery atom of sinse and manin' slipped out of the +words, or out of me head--I couldn't say which, and I just stood starin' +at them and starin', till iverythin' else got whirlin' round about me, +fit to shake the panes out of the big windows, and the pictures off the +walls.... Belike himself persaived I was flusthered, for, 'Take your +time,' sez he; and after a while they stood steady enough. But, the Lord +be good to me--sorra a syllable of the sinse come back. And be that I +well knew it was all up wid me; and I was thinkin' me father's son had +no business to be standin' there makin' a show of meself in the middle +of Trinity College. So the lad in the cap said again, 'Take your time, +sir, take your time.' But I said to him, 'God help me, sir, I've taken +very nigh all I'll get, for I declare to you, lad, I'm over seventy +years of age. But as for your time, sir,' I said, 'I'll be wastin' no +more of it.' And wid that I put down the book, and out I wint. I mind +the sun in the square nearly dazzled the eyes out of me fool's head. I +niver seen it blazin' brighter--and there was a big bell somewhere +boomin' away, as if they'd set the heart of the world tollin'; it's +ringin' in me ears yet.... And a couple of days after that I quit out of +Dublin, and I've been trampin' back to this counthry, takin' me time, as +he said--there's no hurry now about anythin'. So that was the ind of me +University Degree." + +"I just wish I could git discoorsin' wid that young feller," said old +Felix, vindictively, "himself and his tassel in his cap." + +"Sure, man, 'twas no fault of his," said Mr. Polymathers, "and I can +live widout a Degree, if that's all. Me betters did before me. To tell +you the truth, I've thought often enough as I was comin' along now, that +I dunno how at all I'd have had the face to meet me poor father one of +these days, and I cocked up with a _Baccalaureatus in Artibus_, and he +wid not so much as a dacint stone over his grave to commemorate his +name, that was the most illusthrious Polymath in the county Sligo, wid +more larnin' in the tip of his ear than ever I got into me ould skull. +Never a hap'orth of good was I at anythin' except the trifle of +mathematics, but he was as great at the Classics.... I used to humbug +meself somewhiles lettin' on I hankered after it because it would ha' +gratified him maybe to hear of the event. But little I ever done to +plase him, God forgive me. Let alone goin' and makin' an ould fool of +meself up at Trinity College.... 'Twas a terrible upset to him when I +turned again the Priesthood, after he had the money saved up for the +seminary and all. Words about it we had, and the ind of it was he put it +all into me brother Ned's little farm. Ned had no more fancy for larnin' +than the bastes of the field. A trifle of it would ha' come in very +handy sometimes for buyin' me books; howane'er it was not to be.... And +the books there--I on'y brought them along to lave wid you for the +youngest lad--ay, Nicholas. He has a head on his shoulders for the +mathematics, I can tell you; he might do something yet, if he got his +chances. They're no use to me now, and I'd as lief be shut of the sight +of them. And to-morra I'll be off to Ardnacreagh." + +So the gaunt old man talked on, groping his way out of hesitating +pauses, and straying into dreamy meditations, as if he sometimes forgot +his story, and sometimes its hearers. They did not know what a +life-wreck it outlined, but they saw and surmised enough to make them +think of him as "the crathur," and speak to him with more deference +than if he had returned in a radiant glow of success, symbolised as some +of them had anticipated, by scarlet robes as splendid, at least, as +Father Rooney's at High Mass. And Felix O'Beirne took occasion of a +madly skirling gust to say, "Listen now to that, sir, and don't be +talkin' wild of thravellin' off to-morra. If I might be sayin' so, you'd +a dale better stay quiet where you are this minyit. And as for taichin', +sure it's proud and thankful the two boyos 'ud be for e'er a bit more. +There's Nicholas mopin' about like an ould hin that's lost her chuckens +iver since you quit." + +Mr. Polymathers did stop quiet--very quiet--but he taught the boys no +more. In fact, he did nothing except sit all day staring into the fire, +as if he had lost something in it. Once after Nicholas had sat looking +very hard at him for a long time with the ragged _Euclid_ ostentatiously +open at a crux, he seemed to rouse up, and putting out a hand for the +book, began an explanation. But it died away unfinished in an aimless +muttering, which both shocked and saddened Nicholas, and the experiment +was not repeated. Then towards Christmas time all the neighbours were +saying that Mr. Polymathers was greatly failed to what he had been. And +Bridget O'Beirne reported that you might as well be argufyin' wid a +scutty wren to swally down the full of the ducks' dish as persuadin' him +to take a raisonable bite and sup. Dr. Hamilton from the Dispensary, who +was consulted on the case, "consaited," Bridget told inquirers, "that he +might be after gettin' a sort of stroke like unbeknownst;" but her own +opinion was that "he had, so to spake, lost the knot off his thread, and +'twould be much if he didn't slip away out of it on them, afore they +seen e'er another green laif on the bushes." + +It was, at any rate, more than happened. One snowy afternoon, when he +had been busy for some time "scrawmin' a manner of letter," which +related, he said, to the disposition of his property, Mr. Polymathers +grew so much worse that Dan and Nicholas ran off for the Doctor and the +Priest, and before their arrival could possibly be expected, it became +evident that he could not wait to receive them. Bridget O'Beirne, +deploring the hap by his bed in the small room off the kitchen, thought +a few minutes before he went that she heard him murmuring something +coherent, and she called to little Rosy Corcoran, "Child alive--me +head's bothered--come in here and listen, can you make out at all what +he's sayin'?" + +Rosy came reluctantly and listened. "I think," she whispered, "it's some +sort of prayers like what his Riverence sez." + +"Ah, then, glory be to God for that itself," said Bridget, "there might +be a good chance for him after all." + +But she had been misinformed. The words Mr. Polymathers was muttering +over and over to himself were: _Admitto te--admitto te_. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +HONORIS CAUSA + + +The evening of the day after Mr. Polymathers died was a very wild +black-and-white one out of doors all round Lisconnel, yet, +notwithstanding the flakes in the air and under foot, the O'Beirnes had +received some company. Not at a wake, however the purpose of their +assembly was to discuss a serious business matter, upon which old Felix +O'Beirne wished for friendly counsel. Hence his contemporary, old Paddy +Ryan, had prodded little round craters in the snow with his thick stick +all along the good step of bleak road which lay between his house and +the forge, and with him had come on the same errand Terence Kilfoyle, +who, although of so much junior standing, was esteemed as a man of +notably shrewd sense and judgment. But then neither he nor the +neighbours knew how often he took and gave Bessie Kilfoyle's advice. +These two were present by express invitation, but another pair of +guests, the Dooleys, would never have been asked for the sake of their +opinion, which they were indeed encouraged to keep to themselves, and +appeared at this domestic crisis merely by virtue of family ties. Old +Felix had always thought little of his daughter Maggie's mental powers, +and less ever since her marriage with Peter Dooley, who kept a shop in +the Town, and could be described as "an ould gombeen man," if one wished +to regard him from an unfavourable point of view, which his +father-in-law not uncommonly did. He had been heard to say of Peter that +"the chap was that smooth-spoken you might think he was after swallyin' +a one of his own graisy dipts, on'y he'd liefer be chaitin' some poor +body over the sellin' of it"--a perhaps not inexcusable preference. As +for Peter, he contemplated humanity with a jovial cynicism, and rather +enjoyed the society of the old blacksmith, despite the gruff sarcasms +which sometimes made their womenkind turn the conversation +apprehensively. _He_ had been heard to say of Felix that "It was aisy +work runnin' down other people's business, and small blame to th' ould +man if he had a fancy for a light job now and agin, when he would be +tired poundin' th' ould iron at a profit you couldn't see to pick up +widout a strong pair of spectacles." Proximity had brought to the +consultation Mrs. Carbery and Tim O'Meara from adjacent doors; and they, +with old ancient Mrs. O'Beirne and her daughter and the two lads, formed +quite a large party about the fire. The business to be brought before +them was Mr. Polymathers's Will. + +Now, lest it should be thought that unseemly haste was displayed in +attending to this affair while Mr. Polymathers still lay in the little +next room, I must explain that for special reasons the nature of the +funeral arrangements depended upon the result of the conference; and how +deeply important such a point would be considered at Lisconnel I need +remind no one who has occasionally been perplexed by our propensity for +the pinching and scraping which takes toll of a life-long penury, that a +brief show of pomp may invest the last scene of all. This propensity is +not seldom misconstrued into the outcome of a mere personal vanity, +whereas it has its root in the worthier sentiment of veneration for our +Kind. Ould Pat Murphy, who has subsisted all his life upon an +insufficiency of pitaties, and inhabited a largish sty, never loses the +sense that he owes something better to himself in his character of a +human being, and he takes painful steps to ensure the ultimate discharge +of the debt. One of these days he who has hitherto come and gone in +unimposing guise shall be borne, on wheels if possible--but here I +mention grandeur never even dreamed of up at remote Lisconnel--in +unwonted state, certain to draw the gaze of every passer-by. But as if +with a fine touch of courtesy, he so times his assertion of dignity that +none of his fellows shall thereby be abashed nor envy-bitten. No ragged +wayfarer shall wish to change places with him as he passes solemnly +along, nor grudge him the unshared splendour of his sombre equipage; not +even if it display the crowning glory of woolly black plumes to waggle +over his head. Accordingly, when Pat has died on his humble bed, which +is as likely as not just earth tempered with straw, under his rifted +thatch, through which he may perhaps see the stars glimmer with nothing +except the smoke-haze and gathering mists between, he is conveyed thence +with whatever pomp and circumstance his savings permit, and all his +neighbours feel that the right thing has been done. + +It is true that Mr. Polymathers had given no sign of any such sentiment. +When discreetly sounded on the subject during his last days, he had +replied: "Ah! man, it's very immaterial," in a tone of indifference as +unmistakable as the phrase was ambiguous. And from this fact, coupled +with his written instructions, it might, one would have thought, safely +have been inferred that he desired no costly magnificence at his +obsequies. Yet the point was obscured in his late host's mind by a thick +cloud of doubts and scruples. + +Mr. Polymathers had died surprisingly rich, not less than twenty-five +pounds, seven shillings and threepence having been counted awestrickenly +out of his leathern pouch. The ground rents of all Lisconnel did not +reach to such a figure. It had been larger still before his disastrous +expedition to the University; but it had never undergone any diminution +so long as he abode under Felix O'Beirne's roof. On the first Saturday +after his convalescence he had inquired, pouch in hand: "And what might +be the amount of me pecuniary debt to you, sir?" And old O'Beirne had +replied: "And you spendin' your time puttin' the heighth of larnin' into +the two lads' heads! Bedad, sir, it's debt the other way round, +supposin' there was to be any talk about it." The same little scene, +dwindled at last into a mere form and ceremony, had taken place on +every succeeding Saturday. Not that Mr. Polymathers did not feel he had +grounds for more than merely formal demur. But he was then facing the +steep hill of his ambition, and had sometimes to stoop as he climbed. + +But now, when he had turned back baffled, and all his climbing was done, +old Felix had no engrossing object to blunt a sense of many scruples +that must be removed before he himself or his family could with honour +derive profit from the event; as they would do if Mr. Polymathers's +instructions were carried out. For by that document, which he had +finished drawing up only just in time, all his property was left +unreservedly to Nicholas O'Beirne, with the injunction that as little of +it as possible might be expended upon "the burying." Of course it was an +extraordinary thing that such a piece of good fortune should befall, +such a number of pounds accrue to, anybody at all; but apart from this +there seemed to be nothing very strange in the bequest. Everybody knew +that Mr. Polymathers had entertained "a great opinion entirely" of +Nicholas' abilities. Time and again he had said that the lad would be +heard of in the world if he got his chance of some good teaching. And he +once more expressed the same conviction, only at fuller length and in +finer language, in the composition which had been the last effort of his +wearied brain. "It would give me," he wrote, "the utmost satisfaction to +think that the legacy may eventually smooth his path to the attainment +of those University distinctions which have eluded my own grasp." And +almost his latest moment of consciousness had been pervaded by a faint +thrill of pleased pride at the turn of the sentence as he read it over. +This high style was not, however, maintained throughout, and the purport +could not be misunderstood. Furthermore, everybody knew that he had said +he had not a relation belonging to him in this world; and that being so, +it was natural enough for him to make a promising and favorite pupil his +heir. At first sight, therefore, no difficulties presented themselves; +but old Felix slept upon the matter, and by morning grave doubts had +risen in his mind. The gist of them was that "If they took and grabbed +the ould gintleman's bit of money, and he after dyin' all his lone up +among them there, wid ne'er a one of his own folks near him to see he +had his rights, it might look ugly enough agin them, and set some people +passin' remarks he'd be long sorry to have made on him, or any of his +name;" and that for the precluding of such animadversions it might +behove them to provide "a buryin'" not merely decent but "very +respectable whatever," and to expend the remainder of Mr. Polymathers's +personality upon a headstone for his grave, and Masses for his soul. To +set against these apprehensions were Mr. Polymathers's wishes and +Nicholas's interests; and the longer the old man balanced them in his +mind, the more perplexing became their tremulous poise. So at last, +goaded by the urgent necessity for a prompt decision, he turned to seek +it among his neighbours. He could not forbear a hope that their voices +might be convincingly in favour of giving Nicholas his chances; still +his strongest feeling was that it would be a relief to get the matter +settled one way or the other. + +Very different in its degree of intensity was the interest with which +his grandson Nicholas looked forward to the issue. The question to be +decided seemed to him of almost as vital importance as if it were: +Whether or no the sun should rise again next morning. For him at least, +it depended upon that whether his world should loom back again in a +dreary blankness, or waken lit with new and wondrous gleams. Nicholas's +thirst for knowledge and love of learning were much more essentially +part and parcel of him than his hands and eyes, and had so far found +little except dreams and desires to thrive upon. Even before the +memorable summer evening when the gaunt old man in the curious big hat +had asked for the night's lodging, which lengthened into a season's +sojourn, he had often wandered among visions of places where there were +as many books as anybody could read--a dozen maybe--and some people in +it with a power of book-learning--as much perhaps as his Reverence or +the Doctor--only neither priest nor quality, but just neighbours whom he +could question about anything that came into his head, as he used to +question his grandfather, and Paddy Ryan, and Terence Kilfoyle, until he +got tired of being asked, in reply: "Musha good gracious, and who could +be tellin' you that?" an answer which had repeatedly left him a +discouraged atom of bewilderment, symbolically environed by our +wide-spreading bog. Since Mr. Polymathers's visit, these visions had +grown clearer, but not under any rays of hope. His initiation into the +elements of mathematics had pointed out the road along which he should +travel, but had simultaneously revealed all its obstacles, +insurmountable for him solitary and unequipped. In those days his mind +was constantly fumbling at some insoluble problem with the sense of +frustration that one has who gropes vainly in the dark, well knowing how +a single unattainable match-flare would put what he is seeking into his +hands. And no brighter prospect seemed to lie before him anywhere in his +future. + +So when he suddenly learned that Mr. Polymathers had left all his +money--sums and sums--to be spent on "getting schooling for Nicholas +O'Beirne;" and when the sums and sums were actually counted out on the +table, he felt as if a door into enchanted regions had majestically +opened in a blank wall. That night he went to bed in a state of joyous +excitement, only dashed by some pangs of self-reproach for being unable +to feel more sorrow at the flickering out of his poor old teacher's dim +life. He had to frame excuses for himself by recollecting how his +great-aunt Bridget had said, "Ah, sure the crathur's better off, God +knows. What else 'ud he do, and the heart of him broke, but quit out of +it, if he got the chance? Ay, bedad, some people have the quare good +luck." + +And when he got up with his happiness still fresh and strange in the +morning, there was his grandfather declaring "he didn't know if they'd +have a right to touch the bit of money at all; it might be no thing to +go do; schoolin' or no schoolin', he wouldn't be givin' people any call +to say the O'Beirnes were after playin' a dirty thrick." At this +Nicholas's experience was like that of a desert traveller who should see +a mirage of palms and pools grow swiftly before his delighted eyes into +a substantial oasis, and then anon, or ever he could approach it, +shimmer back, with all its sheen and shade, into mocking illusion again. +For thus did it fare with his hopes as his grandfather talked of +renouncing Mr. Polymathers's bequest. Moreover, the grounds which the +old man alleged forbade his grandson, lothfully though he listened, to +utter a word of protest, and even made him half ashamed of his vehement +longing to do so. Nicholas had been an O'Beirne for but fourteen years, +yet he had already entered upon his inheritance of family pride. Only he +could not bring himself to believe that the honour of his house called +for so prodigious a sacrifice; and he could have urged a dozen arguments +against it, if some other person had been the legatee. As it was, all +that delicacy would permit him to do for himself was to give piteously +inadequate expression to his sentiments in casual remarks about the +grandeur of getting a bit of learning, and the difficulty of +understanding some things out of one's own head. Altogether that day was +the longest and the most anxious that he had ever spent. + +Dan also, though his fortunes were not involved to the same extent as +his younger brother's, was not easy in his mind. All day he had been +thinking rather badly of himself, and suspecting that other people +thought worse of him than he deserved, and the reflection was depressing +and irritating. The news of the legacy certainly had not given him +unmixed pleasure, as he felt that it ought to have done; but at the same +time he was aware that he neither grudged nor envied Nicholas his good +fortune, and that this unamiable frame of mind would nevertheless +probably be ascribed to him, if he betrayed any dissatisfaction or +disapproval. The truth was that he could not help feeling some +mortification at the way in which both Mr. Polymathers and his +grandfather assumed the forge to be his destiny and portion in life. Dan +did not by any means despise it: he took an interest in the work, and a +pride in the fact that farmers sent their horses thither from beyond the +Town, so well reputed was old Felix O'Beirne's shoeing. But it did not +follow that he wanted to be a blacksmith all his days. Even if he had +done so, he was sixteen, and consequently of an age to resent any +prescribed calling, especially since he knew that the selection here had +been made as the result of an unfavourable comparison of his abilities +with those of another person. "Dan is no fool, mind you," Mr. +Polymathers had said once. "But for intellect you need never name him on +the same day of the month as Nicholas," a verdict which fell with a +slight shock upon Dan, accustomed to the precedence given by two years' +seniority, superior strength, and a more practical turn of mind. What +was far more serious, however, Dan secretly cherished an ambition of his +own. It took the form of thinking that it would be a wonderfully fine +thing if he could ever get to learn the doctoring, and be able to drive +about on a car like Dr. Hamilton, with a name and a remedy for +everybody's ailment. A particularly fine thing it seemed to understand +the construction of bones and joints, a knowledge which would put it in +his power to prevent people from coming to such grief as, for instance, +poor Matt Haloran down at Duffclane, who must limp on a crooked leg to +the end of his days, because the man who pulled in his dislocated ankle +for him had made a botch of it, through not knowing rightly what he was +about. Dan had been much impressed, too, by several cases where a few +drops of brown stuff out of a bottle had put people to sleep when +various aches and pains had long hindered them from closing an eye, a +result which the neighbours were occasionally disposed to view with +mistrust, as rather probably wrought through the agency of "some quare +ould pishtrogues (charms)," but which to Dan's mind proved the +possession of a skill as enviable as it was beneficent. Beside it +hammering out horseshoes appeared a tedious and aimless pursuit, and he +sometimes thumped away in a very vague dream of one of these days +finding himself more congenially employed. Now, however, it was +perfectly clear to him that if Nicholas "took off wid himself to get +scholarship," his own portion must be to stick to the anvil. For +otherwise supposing his grandfather got past his work, or anything else +happened him, there would be nobody left to look after Dan's great-aunt, +who was not very old, and his great-grandmother, who was such a +wonderful age entirely that no one could say how much longer she mighn't +live. Even the wildest of dreams are not quite easy to scare away, and +it was this chiefly that marred his content with Mr. Polymathers's +testamentary dispositions. Still, when he heard his grandfather's +doubts, and saw his brother's downcast looks, he became almost as +anxious as Nicholas himself that the neighbours might talk away the old +man's scruples and allow the will to stand. + +Thus there were many eager hopes and fears lodged that evening in the +O'Beirnes' living-room, which was all throbbing with fire-light, as the +neighbours began to drop in talking out of the dark. People are apt to +speak loudly when they get their breath after a battle with snowy +blasts; and the sound of voices came strangely into the stillness close +by, where there was only a cold glimmer of candle-light, and nobody +conversing, unless we count old Bridget O'Beirne, who had slipped in to +repeat a few prayers, and say to herself with a sort of grudging +wistfulness that everybody else was getting away. Then she came back to +her world again, and mended the crumbling red-hot bank with sods out of +her apron, and shovelled up the snow-balls shaken off their visitors' +clogged brogues, that they might not melt into mud patches on the floor. + +To Dan and Nicholas, looking on from opposite corners, it seemed a long +while before anything to the purpose was said. Everybody had to comment +upon the snow, and Paddy Ryan's remark was that "if it kep' on at it +that-a-way, they'd be hard enough set to get through the dhrifts be the +day of the buryin'." This caused Mrs. Carbery to remember how she "had +been at a one up in the County Cavan, where the gate into the +buryin'-ground was all blocked up, so that the whole of them had to lep +over what would be be rights a ten-fut wall. And if they did, the half +of them plumped up to their necks in a soft place on the other side, and +came as near losin' their lives as could be thought. Bedad now, they +were comical to behould, goodness forgive her for sayin' so, all bawlin' +and flounderin' about like a flock of sheep stuck in a bog, on'y it was +a white bog and black sheep, as she minded Tom Ennis, that was a quare +codger, sayin' at the time." And this again started old O'Beirne upon +reminiscences of remarkable buryings which had come under his own +observation. + +"Comical it may have been," he said, "but I'll bet you me best brogues +ne'er a one of yous ever witnessed a quarer buryin' than a one I seen +down in the south some ould ages ago, when I was a slip of a lad. But +I'll maybe ha' tould you the story, ma'am--about the flood in the +Tullaroe River?" + +"Was that the time it riz up suddint and dhrownded the crathur that was +diggin' the grave?" said Mrs. Carbery. + +"Sure not at all: that happint up at Lough Gortragh, and this I'm +talkin' about was in the Tullaroe River, a dale souther of the Lough. +Outrageous it does be in the wet saisons. So one harvest day, when it +was flowin' over all before it, there was a walkin' funeral about +crossin' at the ford. The way of it was, they were after hangin' a lad +up at the jail. In those days it's very ready they were wid the hangin', +and in a hurry over it too sometimes. Howane'er the frinds of this lad +had got lave to be buryin' him dacint after he would be hanged; and me +poor father, and meself, and plinty of other people were follyin'. Till +they come to the ford, and when they seen the manner the wather was +runnin' wild, the bearers had a notion to be turnin' back; but they made +up their minds, and on they wint. And as sure as they did, one of the +lads must needs slip his fut, and they right in the middle of the river, +and down wid the whole lot of thim, like a stook of oats in a gale of +win'; 'twas twinty wonders e'er a man of thim ever got his feet under +him agin. Faix, now the yell every sowl let you might ha' heard +anywheres at all; for some of thim was thinkin' the misfort'nit body was +apt to be swep' away and mortally dhrowned to the back of bein' hung; +and some of thim wasn't thinkin' any such a thing. But as for the +coffin, I'll give you me word if it didn't take and set off wid itself +floatin' away bobbin' along atop of the wather as light now, as if it +was a lafe dhropped down from the boughs archin' over our heads--and +wasn't that cur'ous enough? And as quare as anythin' it was to behould +the people all peltin' along be the two wet banks of the river as hard +as they could dhrive, and thrippin' theirselves up over the roots of the +trees, and slitherin' into the pools, wid the coffin just skimmin' and +swimmin' away down the sthrame ahead of them, as aisy and plisant as if +it was a bit of a pookawn. You might ha' sworn there was ne'er a nothin' +in it, to look at it. And he they were after hangin' a fine big man, +'ud weigh every ounce of fourteen stone. I tould you it was a quare +thing. So where it would be sailin' to nobody could say; very belike out +into the bay below. But sure when it come where the river runs past th' +ould church, the strong current that was racin' under it just gave a +sort of lap round wid it, and washed it clane up on the flat stones at +the gate goin' into the buryin'-ground, and left it lyin' there, same as +if the lads had set it down off their shoulders. Bedad now it was a very +lucky thing it so happint there was none of the polis or red coats +about, be raison of their gettin' notice the buryin' was somewhere +else--oncommon lucky." + +"It's as quare as the rest of it," said Peter Dooley, who had heard the +story before, "that nobody among them had had the wit to put a few +brickbats in it, or some good big lumps of heavy stones. Stones is +plinty, and chape enough." + +"They're things you haven't the sellin' of then, I'll go bail," said old +Felix. He spoke in resentment of the interruption, but Mr. Dooley took +the speech as a flattering tribute to his business capacity, and +acknowledged it with a good-humoured smirk. + +So Bridget might have spared herself the uneasiness which made her say +hurriedly to her brother: "If you was lookin' for Mr. Polymathers's bit +of writin', Felix, I left it lyin' convanient to you under the plate +there on the table." + +"Oh, ay, bedad, that's what's been botherin' me," said the old man, +reachin' for it, "I dunno rightly what to say to it. But sure any of +yous that like can be readin' it, and see what he sez for yourselves." + +Reading was not a question simply of liking with all members of the +company; but everybody could hold the paper and look wise, and if he +were none the more so afterwards, that may have been only because he +knew the contents of it beforehand. When it was Peter Dooley's turn he +examined the signature closely, and said, "But what name's this he's put +to it? 'John Campion' I see, but divil a sign of any Polymathers." + +"Ah, that was another thing was botherin' me, too," said old O'Beirne, +rather dejectedly, "a little while ago, when Dr. Hamilton was comin' to +see him. For th' ould gintleman tould him Campion was his name; and it +appairs Polymathers is some discripshin of thrade, and not rightly +called to anybody at all. So I was thinkin' he was maybe annoyed wid +our callin' him out of his name all the while; but he said all that +ailed it was it was a dale too good for him; and better plased he seemed +we would keep on wid it. Oh ay, 'John Campion's' right enough." + +"I niver heard of any such a thrade as polymatherin'," said his +son-in-law; "would it be anythin' in the pedlarin' line?" + +"Is it pedlarin'?" said old O'Beirne, "and he that took up wid larnin' +and litherature he couldn't ha' tould you the price of a pinny loaf. +Faix, man, if I was Maggie I'd just put a good dab of strong glue in +your place behind the counter down-below, and stick you standing steady +in it, for buyin' and sellin's all the notion you have in your head here +or there. Pedlarin', sez he." + +"Well, at all events," said Peter Dooley, unperturbed, "he's got +together a dacint little fortin one way or the other. Maybe he didn't +come by it any worser; but sure that's no great odds now. And plain +enough he sez the young chap there's to have it--that's all the one +thing wid yourself. But, anyhow, I dunno who could aisy conthrive to be +takin' it off you, and he lavin' no one belongin' to him. You have it +safe enough. Grab all you can, and keep a hould of it when you've got +it, sez I. But you're safe enough, no fear." + +Nicholas, watching his grandfather's face from his corner, would have +given ten years of his life to throttle his uncle's reassuring speech +midway. + +"There's no mistake, I should say, about what he was intendin'," said +Terence Kilfoyle, in whose hands the paper was by this time; "and who'd +be apt to know better than himself what he had in his mind so long as he +was right in his head." + +"And if he wasn't, it's little likely he'd be to ha' got that written. +Hard enough work it is, accordin' to what I can see, even when a body +has all his wits to the fore," said old Paddy Ryan, whose acquaintances +did as a rule get more out of breath over a letter than over a wrestling +match or the recapture of an active pig. + +"Mad people do be surprisin' cute some whiles, mind you," said Mrs. +Carbery. "There was a deminted body used to be up at our place--Daft +Jimmy they called him--and if you axed him the time of day he'd tell you +to the minyit, exacter than any clock that ever sthruck, and he belike +not widin a mile of e'er a one." + +"It seems a sight of money to be layin' out on larnin'," pursued old +Paddy; "I dunno where you'd be gettin' the vally of it that-a-way, +onless he was larnin' everythin' twyste over, same as you put two coats +of whitewash on a wall if you're after mixin' a drop more than you want. +You might do it then." + +His friends' arguments and illustrations had apparently a depressing +effect upon old Felix, and he said with impatience, "Weary on it, +man-alive! Sure there's no doubt about what he was manin', at all at +all. The question is, have we any call to be takin' him at his word, and +spendin' it away from aught 'ud do him a benefit--the buryin' and Masses +and such?" + +"That might be a diff'rint thing," said Mrs. Carbery. + +"I'd scarce think it," said Terence Kilfoyle, "considherin' he'll say no +more to make it so. The job's out of his hand, and 'ill stay the way he +left it." + +"He might ha' changed his mind afore now, for anythin' we can tell," +said Mrs. Carbery. + +"'Deed, then, he might so, the poor man, Heaven be his bed," said Mrs. +Dooley. + +"You could ax the priest about it," Tim O'Meara said diffidently, out of +the melancholy muteness which it was his habit to maintain. + +"That's as much as to say it should go for Masses," said old Felix, +clutching at any shred of definite opinion, "for it's on'y in the nathur +of things his Riverence 'ud be recommindin' thim." + +But Tim shrank away from the shadow of responsibility, protesting, "Och, +not at all, not at all. I wasn't as much as sayin' anythin'." + +The old man tossed up his chin disgustedly, and meditated gloomily +during a brief pause. + +"There's no denyin'," he said then, "that poor Mr. Polymathers had a +won'erful great opinion of himself over there." He nodded towards +Nicholas's corner, and used this periphrasis with a sense that he had +taken a precaution against perilously arousing the boy's vanity. "Times +and agin last summer he was sayin' to me the lad 'ud do credit to us yet +if he had his chances. A pity it 'ud be, he said, if he didn't iver git +to school, or maybe College itself. And gave him his books and all. But +sure, I dunno would that make it look any the better for us if we was to +be grabbin' his bit of money, and we the on'y people he had to see he +got fairity after he was gone. Ne'er a word have I agin schoolin' and +College if there would be no doubtin' over the matter; but there's some +things you can't stand too clear of, like the heels of a kickin' horse. +It might have a quare, bad apparance, rael mane; and long sorry I'd be +for that. What 'ud you say, now?" + +He looked slowly round the flickering room, but met with no response +from old or young; all silent, from his mother, asleep in her +elbow-chair by the hearth, to his grandson Nicholas, very wide awake, in +a nook beyond her. Then his eyes travelled across to the opposite +corner, and as they lit there upon his other grandson, he specialised +his question into, "What 'ud _you_ say, Dan?" + +Dan, thus abruptly called upon, was intensely conscious that two eyes +shining out of the shadow over against him had fixed him with an +unwavering gaze. And it is hard to say how he would have answered their +urging if at the same moment Mr. Dooley at his elbow had not been loudly +whispering to Mrs. Dooley-- + +"Colleges? Sure that's just talk he has be way of an excuse for keepin' +it. A great notion he has of spendin' it on Colleges. He knows better, +bedad." + +Mr. Dooley, who was rather like several sorts of rodent animals in the +face, wore a smile at his own penetration. + +"I dunno but it might look ugly," Dan suddenly said. + +He was staring straight before him, yet he knew somehow, as if by a +sixth sense, that the shining eyes opposite ceased their watch with an +angry flash; and he had scarcely spoken before he would have given +anything to call back his irrevocable speech. + +His grandfather's puzzled will closed on the opinion with a vice-like +grip, as if at a touch given to a powerful spring. Indecision was with +him an unwonted mood, from which it was an irresistible relief to +escape, even at some cost. And nobody who knew him could suppose that +his mind, once made up, would alter. + +"Begorrah, Dan, I believe it's true for you," he said. "'Twould be no +thing to go do, and divil a bit of me 'ill do it. Whatever's over from +the buryin' and bit of a grave-stone may go for Masses; sorra a penny of +it a one of the O'Beirnes 'ill touch." + +So Nicholas lost his chances, which seems a pity when one considers how, +for the sake of bringing them to him, old Mr. Polymathers, dazed and +enfeebled and hope-bereft, came tramping on that long, long journey, day +after weary day, under the scowling wintry sky, and against the +ruffling blasts, back again across the breadth of Ireland. The road was +all strewn for him with the wreckage of his shattered dream, and the one +gleam of consolation that lighted him on the way had been the thought +that his savings might now give a help to the lad up at Lisconnel. This +had often been in his mind when he set off, shivering in the bleak +morning, and when he stopped to shift his over-heavy bundle, and when he +roused himself painfully from the bewildering lethargies that fell upon +him. But he had reckoned without the pride of the O'Beirnes. + +It was a pity, too, that the affair should have led to an estrangement +between the two brothers, which set in as tacitly as a black frost, for +neither of them ever said a word to the other about Dan's intervention. +This silence left him in the thorny grip of misgivings as to the motives +with which Nicholas might be charging him. That he had done it on +purpose to spoil Nicholas's chances out of spite was one of these. And +although Dan knew very well that he had spoken from an altogether +different impulse, he was conscious of having had feelings which seemed +to give him a cruelly clear insight into the possible workings of +Nicholas's mind. "Consaitin' that it was because I was invyin' him, +that's what he's thinkin' agin me," he said to himself as the days went +by, and he perceived, or fancied, that Nicholas in his disconsolate +moping about had no other aim than to keep away from wherever Dan might +be. + +But Dan's unhappiness took an acuter phase in a fortnight or so, when +Nicholas began to resume his mathematical studies. There lies just +opposite the O'Beirnes' front door a low turf bank, gently sloping, and +mostly clothed with short, fine grass, but liable to be cut into brown +squares, if sods are wanted for roofing a shed, or for spreading a green +layer of scraws under new thatch. This had been done on a rather large +scale in the past autumn, and the boys had been in the habit of +utilising the smooth, bare patches as tablets whereon to trace with +pointed sticks, or any handy implements borrowed from the forge, the +figures and diagrams occurring in Mr. Polymathers's scientific lectures. +Nicholas now, albeit he had buried both teacher and hope, began once +more to draw his circles and triangles and polygons on the soft mould, +as it grew damply and darkly through the wearing snow coverlid. +Sometimes in the excitement of demonstrating involved relations between +AB's and BC's he would for a while forget his disappointment almost as +completely as he did the wet-winged winds that had been flapping and +wheeling about the house ever since the thaw set in. His obliviousness +could not, however, ensure him against the effects of cold shower-baths, +and before long his geometrical drawing was done to the accompaniment of +a hollow-sounding cough, which made Dan remember a time some years ago +when Nicholas had been so seriously ill with pleurisy that voices had +said at their door, "Ah, the crathur, he'll scarce last the night. Dr. +Hamilton has no opinion of him at all. 'Deed, now, his poor +grandfather's to be pitied, losin' such a fine young lad." And he also +remembered having occasionally heard his great-aunt say that Nicholas +took after his poor mother, and would never comb a grey head. Now, +therefore, the figure of Nicholas sitting out on the bank in a vibrating +mist of rain, with his feet in a puddle, and his hair flickering in damp +strands about his thin face, became for Dan an ominous and saddening +spectacle. + +But while he was ruefully contemplating it one day, a happy idea struck +him. He would get Nicholas some clean white paper to draw his _dygrims_ +on. "And then belike he'd be contint to sit in be the fire, instead of +to be catchin' his death scrawmin' out there in the mud under teems of +rain." Grand writing-paper was to be had at Isaac Tarpey's, down in +Ballybrosna, and Dan at this time happened to be in possession of a +whole shilling, which he dedicated more than willingly to the purchase. + +Isaac Tarpey presided over the Ballybrosna Post-office, which was in +some respects a singularly complete establishment, as not only was the +raw material for a letter kept in stock there, but the letter itself +could, for a consideration, be written on the premises by the postmaster +in person. It is true that Isaac did not supply more than the barest +necessaries of scribes, the bread and water, so to speak, of stationery, +the very plainest pens and paper and ink. He kept his ink in a single +moderate-sized jar, out of which he measured penn'orths and ha'p'orths +into the various receptacles brought by customers who came to demand "a +sup" or "a drain." On these sales his profits were certainly enormous, +not less than cent. per cent., but then the consumption of that article +was extremely small in Ballybrosna. It took a long while to reach the +sediment at the bottom of the jar, and Isaac's letter-writing, done at +the rate of thruppence a-piece, probably was a more lucrative branch of +his business, though the correspondence of the Town was not large enough +to put his services in frequent requisition. Partly on this account, and +partly because he was by nature a strong conservative, Mr. Tarpey set +his face sternly against the spread of education. He was distressed by +the appearance of any symptoms of it among the neighbouring youth, even +when it took the form of an inquiry for his limp paper and skewer-like +pens. In fact, the diffusion of penmanship was what he most seriously +deprecated and discountenanced. "The Lord knows," his main argument ran, +"the foolery them spalpeens 'ill be gabbin' permiscuis would sicken you, +widout givin' them the chance to be sittin' down aisy and invintin' it." +His wife once suggested that "the crathurs might be more sinsible like, +when they were takin' time to considher themselves." But Isaac said, +"Pigs may fly." + +At the time when Dan came for his paper the office was occupied by Norah +Fottrell, engaged in dictating a letter to her sweetheart, Stevie Flynn, +away in Manchester. The composition still looked discouragingly brief, +despite Isaac's big, flourishing hand, yet Norah's ideas had already +run so short that she was staring in quest of more up among the cobwebby +rafters over her head. + +"You might say," she said, after a pause, "that I hope he's gettin' his +health where he is." + +"I've said that twyste before," Isaac objected severely. + +"Och, murdher, have you?" said Norah, reverting to the rafters with a +distracted gaze. + +"Couldn't you tell him the price your father got for the last baste he +sould?" said Isaac. + +"Bedad, I might so," said Norah; "'twas on'y thirty shillin', but it 'ud +take up a good bit of room. And look-a, Mr. Tarpey, couldn't we lave the +rest of the page clane? As like as not the bosthoon wouldn't be +botherin' his head spellin' out the half of it." + +The adoption of this course expedited Norah's love-letter to a happy +close. But when Dan took her place at the counter Isaac assured him, not +without satisfaction, that "they were cliver and clane run out of all +their writin' paper, barrin' it might be a sort of butt-ind of loose +sheets left litterin' at the bottom of the drawer, and they that thick +wid dust you could be plantin' pitaties in them, forby gettin' mildewed +lyin' up in the damp so long." + +It was not so much compunction at Dan's disappointed countenance as an +irresistible hankering after a good bargain that ultimately led the +postmaster to sweep this uninviting remnant together, and fix upon it +the price of sixpence. The charge was exorbitant, considering the small +quantity and damaged state of the goods, yet Dan carried off his little +packet quite contentedly, announcing that he would step over again for +another sixpenn'orth next week, when, as Isaac reluctantly admitted, a +fresh supply of stationery would have arrived. + +As Dan left the office he passed an unknown gentleman, tall, with a +shrewd sallow face, dark, peaked beard, and alert grey eyes, who had +been leaning against the door while the bargain was struck. The stranger +was Mr. Alfred B. Willett, of New York, a wealthy engineer, who on his +way home from Europe had been visiting his friend Dr. Hamilton of +Ballybrosna. His curiosity now was roused by Dan's evident eagerness to +acquire materials for the drawing of diagrams, the pursuit striking him +as so strangely incongruous with the aspect of the brown-faced stalwart +ragged youth, that he stepped inside when the place was empty to make +inquiries on the subject. The post-master's information was to the +effect that "the O'Beirnes above at the forge had always had the name of +bein' very dacint respectable people up to then, and he'd never before +seen any of the young ones settin' themselves up to be askin' after such +things. He hoped it mightn't be a sign that the old man was goin' +foolish, and lettin' the lads get past his control. But sure enough we +must all of us put up wid growin' good for nothin' sometime, unless we +happint to ha' never been worth anythin' to begin wid. And he wished he +had a penny ped him for every one of that sort he'd met in the coorse of +his life." + +This cynical disquisition was not very enlightening. However next week +when Dan slipped over again for his second sixpenn'orth, Mr. Willett it +chanced was there too, having called to report on the excessive +thickness and other undesirable peculiarities of some ink lately +supplied to him. It had been, in fact, composed of "the sidimint" +artfully diluted with a drop of vinegar; but Isaac Tarpey said it was +"thick wid the stren'th was in it," and set about uncorking his fresh +jar with an affronted air, when his customer persisted in pointing out +that its adhesive properties were less valuable in ink than in glue. +Meanwhile Mr. Willett fell into a conversation with Dan, which ended in +his engaging the lad to accompany him as guide on a shooting expedition +next day. The arrangement turned out satisfactorily, and was repeated +more than once, with the consequence that Dan and the stranger talked +about many things in the course of several long tramps, until one +evening the latter, sitting on a stone wall after a steep pull uphill, +made Dan an offer which caused the most familiar objects to seem unreal, +because a marvellous dream was coming true among them. For Mr. Willett +proposed to take Dan home with him, and have him taught whatever he most +wished to learn. "You're a smart lad, Dan," he said, "and I reckon +you'll make more of that in the States than in this country." + +"Ah! the doctorin'," said Dan, turning as red as the young sorrel +leaves, and letting his darling wish slip out in his surprise as +involuntarily as he would have blinked at a flash of lightning. But next +moment he remembered Nicholas, and fell silent; Nicholas, who had not +looked him in the face since that snowy evening weeks ago. The dream +seemed to stop coming true. + +"There's no need to make up your mind in a hurry," said Mr. Willett, +"you can be thinking it over between this and Monday." + +Dan did think it over deeply that night and the next day and the day +after. He thought how fine, if rather fearful, it would be to go on such +a journey; and what a splendid thing to learn the doctoring business, +and some day come home again able to cure everybody of anything that +ailed them. "For out in the States, like enough, they had all manner of +contrivances the people over here had never taught Dr. Hamilton," whose +skill was occasionally baffled. He imagined the neighbours' surprise +when he came driving up on his car; if possible he would be driving a +little blue-roan mare like Farmer Finucane's Rosemary, with whom he had +made friends in the course of many shoeings. He thought he would be +sorry to miss seeing them all for so long; and yet it would certainly be +very pleasant, in a way, to get to a place where things were a bit +different sometimes, not like here where when you were getting up in the +morning you knew what was bound to be happening all day just as well as +you did when you were going to bed that night. And next he thought that +such days would be coming to Nicholas, while he himself was away seeing +and learning "all manner of everything;" and that if he had held his +tongue that time, maybe Nicholas would have got his chance with Mr. +Polymathers's money, instead of its all being spent away on nothing. And +he thought that it wasn't his fault, for what else could he say when he +was asked all of a minute, except the first thing that came into his +head? And he wondered how it would be if anything happened to his +grandfather. Nicholas wasn't over-strong, and too young altogether +besides. And then he thought again that Mr. Willett was cleverer than +anybody he had ever seen, and more good-natured; it was a pleasure to go +about with him; and people were great fools to give up their chances. +Maybe Nicholas might get another some day. And maybe Mr. Polymathers had +been mistaken in thinking that he was the one best worth teaching. + +All these things Dan thought, and the result of his cogitations was that +on the Monday he stole a sheaf of Nicholas's most complicated +cobweb-like diagrams from their hiding-place in the wall, and brought +them with him when he went by appointment to meet his patron off beyond +Knockfinny. And when Mr. Willett said to him: "Well, Dan, what about the +States and the doctoring?" he replied inconsequently by holding out the +sheets of paper with the explanation: "It's me brother, Nicholas, sir, +does be doin' them mostly out of his own head." + +Mr. Willett looked at them for some minutes with interested +ejaculations. "Upon my word," he then said, "if these were done out of +his own head, he must have about as much mathematics located in it by +nature as a spider." + +"Aren't they good for anythin' at all then, sir?" said Dan, not knowing +exactly what he hoped and feared. + +"Good? They're astonishing," said Mr. Willett. He asked some questions +about Nicholas's age, schooling, and so forth; after which he said: "You +must take me to see this brother of yours, Dan. I expect he'll have got +to come right along with us." + +But Dan stared round and round the spacious brown-purple floor they were +standing on, and after a far-off flight of wild fowl, and up at the sky, +where the clouds travel without let or hindrance, before he answered +hesitatingly: "The two of us couldn't ever both go, sir. How could we +be lavin' the forge and all on me ould grandfather? And Nicholas never +makes any great hand of the work." + +"Ah! is that the way the land lies?" said Mr. Willett, as if half +impatient, and half amused, but not best pleased. He looked hard at Dan, +and thought he saw how matters stood, "You've no mind to leave the old +grandfather and the rest of the concern, but you think it would be more +in the other lad's line." + +As a matter of fact Dan was at that particular moment feeling strongly +how easily he could have reconciled himself to the separation, and how +entirely it would be the making of him to do so. But he did not gainsay +Mr. Willett's statement. To himself he said, "He's a right to have his +chances; and the one of us is bound to stop in it"--a mode of expressing +his sentiments which showed that he had much need of culture; and aloud: +"Nicholas always had a powerful wish to be gettin' some larnin'; and I'm +a fool to him at the geomethry anyway." + +The upshot of it all was that when some six weeks later Mr. Alfred B. +Willett sailed for New York, Nicholas O'Beirne accompanied him, and Dan +O'Beirne remained at Lisconnel. It was on a gleamful April day that they +set out, with soft gusts roaming all around, as if they had come from +very far off, and were eagerly exploring the strange places, and many +light clouds flitting by swiftly above, as if they had a long journey +before them, and were in a joyous flurry over it. Dan spent the +slow-paced hours in the forge, where he hammered loud and long, and +seldom looked across the threshold. The pleasantest thought in his mind +was the remembrance of a short conversation which he had had with +Nicholas while they were tying up Mr. Polymathers's old books at the +kitchen-door just as the grey chink in the east filled with rose-light, +and the earliest breeze came over the bog waving the withered grasses. +Dan had said to Nicholas: "Sure I wouldn't be grudgin' you e'er a bit of +good luck, lad." And Nicholas had replied: "And never did." + +After Nicholas's departure many days bad and good rose on Lisconnel, but +few of them brought any tidings of the absent. Letters passed now and +then, laggard and uninstructive as such letters must be, and they grew +rarer and briefer as time went on. Perhaps a dozen years had gone by, +when Dan one day received simultaneously an American newspaper and a +parcel. The newspaper was marked with large blue chalk crosses at a +paragraph which related how the degree of D.Sc. had been conferred. +_Honoris Causa_ upon Mr. Nicholas O'Beirne by the University of +Sarabraxville. And in the parcel, more astonishing still, was a +brown-covered book, lettered on the back: _A Treatise on Conic Sections, +by Nicholas O'Beirne_. By this time Dan had been left alone at the +forge; but he was courting Mary Ryan, Mick Ryan's daughter, so he +naturally conveyed to her this remarkable news. It produced a profound +impression. Old Paddy her grandfather was with difficulty brought to +realise the fact that "they were after makin' a doctor of young Nicholas +O'Beirne, him that went out to the States the year before the Famine." +And when he had got the idea into his head, it seemed to act like a +swivel-joint, and set him nodding to the tune of: "Well tub-be sure; +glory be to God; young Nicholas O'Beirne." + +"I wish to goodness he'd come over and cure Mick, poor man," said Mick's +wife. "For he hasn't been worth pickin' up off the road ever since he +was bad with the fever last year, and he might as well be dhrinkin' so +much ditch-wather as the ould stuff Dr. Carson's givin' him." + +"Ah but it's not the medical doctorin' Nicholas has gone to," said Dan, +the shadow of a shadow crossing his face, "there'd be diff'rint letters +for that." And he proceeded to read out the report of the degree +conferred _honoris causa_ upon the distinguished young Irishman, Mr. +Nicholas O'Beirne, whose recent contributions to the study of the higher +mathematics had roused so much interest in scientific circles. + +"Ay, true for you, Dan," said Mary; "you don't hear them callin' Dr. +Carson an Honory-causy." + +Dan's shred of Latin had grown rustier than the oldest iron in his +stock, but was not yet utterly worn away. "The manin' of that," he +explained, "would be, _be raison of honour_, and I should suppose, +they've gave it to him for the sake of what all he's after doin'." + +"Bedad then, Dan," said Mrs. Mick, "some one had a right to be givin' +you an Honory-causy yourself, considherin' the cure you're after makin' +on Mr. Finucane's ould mare, and everybody of the opinion she'd never +stand on four feet again to the ages' ind." + +"Och blathers, ma'am," Dan said, modestly, "sure anybody wid the sight +of their eyes might aisy enough ha' seen what ailed the crathur. That +was no great comether. And look at what Nicholas is after doin'; he's +wrote a book, no less." + +The "Treatise on Conic Sections" created an even stronger sensation than +the news of the honorary degree, especially among those who had letters +enough to spell out the familiar name on the title-page. Dan's Mary was +not one of these scholars, but she found another page to admire, saying +that the circles "drew in and out of aich other like a lot of +soap-bubbles, had an oncommon tasty look, and so had all them weeny +corners, wid the long bames between, the moral of a chain-harrow, you +couldn't mistake it. Sure it's proud of it anybody might be." + +Probably Nicholas was very proud of this first heir of his invention, +diagrams, and all. Whether it ever had any successors seems doubtful; +certainly none of them arrived at his old home. But his Treatise is +still safely stowed away there in a corner of the dresser. Most likely +it is the only copy of "O'Beirne on Conic Sections" existing in Ireland; +and who would expect to find it lodged in a smoke-stained cabin on the +wild bogland between Duffclane and Lisconnel? + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +BOYS' WAGES + + +One leaden-roofed morning in the winter after his brother Nicholas had +gone to the States, young Dan O'Beirne was in rather low spirits, and +rather out of humour. It was not unnatural that such a mood should +occasionally overtake him, since he had reached apparently a straight +and monotonous tract of road, which would have looked interminable to +the eyes of seventeen had not his household companions been now all +declining folk, whose presence brought under his constant observation +the last stages of "a long journey in December gone." Half a century or +so of smithy work, even with some unlicensed doctoring and illicit +distilling thrown in, was not by any means the future that he would have +liked his oracle to predict for him. And though he forecast it +accurately enough without the intervention of any soothsaying, this no +more helped him to avoid it than if he had been an old-world tragical +hero, whose friends were seeking by vain devices to circumvent the +promulgated decrees of his destiny. Dan, indeed, took no steps of that +sort. For him, as for most of us, the skirts of circumstance were as the +meshes of the net in which Fate holds us, and his evil star was an +object of which it seemed very hard to get a good grip. I have always +wondered myself how people set about it. At any rate, Dan continued to +walk under his; that is to say, if it were really bad luck that kept him +at the forge. Upon this point there might be differences of opinion. +Terence Kilfoyle, for instance, who dropped in to escape from a +snow-shower in the course of that morning, would not, evidently, have +taken such a view. For when Dan said something grumblingly about +Lisconnel being "a slack sort of a place, where one didn't get much +chance of doin' anythin' at all;" he replied, "Bedad now, if I'd the +fine business you and your grandfather have to be puttin' me hand to, I +wouldn't call the Queen me aunt." + +In those times the district around our bogland was more thickly +inhabited than it is at present, and the blacksmith's jobs were +proportionately plentier. Nowadays the forge is liable to long spells +of silence, but Dan, who as young Dan has been superseded, philosophises +over them, and talks no more about chances. On this occasion his remarks +were overheard by his grandfather, perhaps because the old man had begun +to have thoughts of chances which made him sensitive to signs of +discontent in his assistant. And by and by when Terence had gone, he +said, "Terence said a very sinsible word; a lad might aisy get a worse +start in life, ay indeed he might so, if it was twyste as slack. But +anyhow there's them here that 'ud be hard set to make a shift for +themselves if the two of us was out of it; and I'm apt to be quittin' +before Biddy at all events." To which Dan replied, "Why what talk was +there of quittin'?" and the subject ceased out of the conversation. +During the subsequent silence Dan thought, among other things, that it +was "aisy for his grandfather to be talkin';" but in this he made a +mistake. For old O'Beirne remembered vividly that he had once had his +own restless ambitions, and his chances, too, of realising them, in +times when he did more stirring things than merely forge pike-heads. +Therefore he guessed what lent an unnecessary vehemence to his +grandson's hammering, and if he could have thought of any consolatory +remark, he would have made it. But it only occurred to him to say that +the days would soon be len'thenin' now, anyway; and even to himself this +seemed cold comfort. Dan replied, "Och, they're plinty long enough," and +sent a thick swarm of fiery bees flitting up the dark-throated chimney. + +That evening when Dan closed the broad-leaved forge doors, he shut +himself out into a world as black and white as moonlight on turf and +snow could make it. Though the morning's flutter of snow had left but a +meagre sprinkling on that great bogland, the moonbeams touching every +scattered flake, seemed to gather it all up widely in one stark spectral +gleam. Far away towards the horizon this dulled off into a shadowy zone +of mist, where the wind was muttering and moaning to itself, dimly heard +across the hushed floor of the night. Beyond that Dan was aware +wistfully of regions unknown, with all their possibilities fascinating +and mysterious. But he had small scope for speculation about what he +should find when he opened the house door fast by; and in fact he +discovered everything and everybody just as he could have foretold. The +fire-lit room was filled with the busy weaving of the web that ruddy +gleams and russet shadows never got finished, swiftly as they glanced, +and overhead the black spaces between the rafters gloomed down like +inlets of a starless sky. There sat his great-grandmother smoking her +dudeen in her nook by the hearth, and her big cloak--a very little of +wizened old woman to a great many heavy, dark-blue folds. There, too, +knitted her grey-haired daughter Bridget, who said, as she did every +evening, "Well, Dan, so you're come in," and would have not much more to +say for herself that night except the Rosary. And his grandfather, who +had come in just before him, was lighting his pipe in the opposite +chimney-corner. A year ago his brother Nicholas would have thrust a +head, all eyes and rumpled hair, into a patch of bright flickerings, to +pore over the tattered arithmetic-book; but by this time his absence had +become a matter of course. The only at all unusual feature was Joe +Denny, the blind fiddler, who had called in on his way home and had a +drop of poteen and a farrel of wholemeal cake. Yet Joe was indeed a +tolerably common incident, and his jokes altered not. He had begun his +parting one, which was to the effect that sorra a man in the counthry of +Connaught could see clearer than himself if the night was dark enough, +when Dan's arrival interrupted him, and made him declare, taking out his +fiddle, that 'twould be a poor case if the lad didn't get e'er a tune at +all. Dan was not much in the humour for tunes, but he said, "Ay, Joe, +give us a one, man-alive," and Joe struck up with twangle and squeak. + +He was playing-- + + "Over the hills and far away, + Over the hills and beyond the say, + Over the hills and a great way off, + And the wind it blew--" + +when a thudding knock on the door seemed to beat down the shriller +sounds and stop the sliding bow. Dan went to see who it was, and found +standing on the threshold a tall, lean old man in a long, ragged coat, +with a thick, knotted blackthorn in his hand. A few hard-frozen granules +pattered in at the opened door, which admitted a glimpse of the moon, +tarnished by a thin drift of scudding cloud. + +"God save all here," said the old man, who was a stranger. + +"Good-evenin' to you kindly, sir," responded old Felix from his fireside +corner; "and wudn't you be steppin' widin?" + +"I'm on'y axin' me way to the place below there--Ballybrosna beyond +Duffclane," said the old man; "it's the road I must be steppin', for I'm +more than a thrifle late." + +But he came slowly forward into the room as if lured by the fire, at +which he looked hungrily. He stooped and limped very much, and when he +took off his black caubeen, the sharp gleam of his white hair seemed to +comment coldly on those infirmities. + +"I'm widin a mile or so of it, or maybe less, by now, I should suppose," +he said. + +"Faix, then, it's the long mile," said the fiddler. "Put half a dozen to +it, and you'll be nearer; and bedad it's aisier work doin' that in your +head than on your feet. Be the same token I must be leggin' it, or +they'll consait I'm lost at our place." And he stepped out darkly into +the veiled moonlight. + +"Wirrasthrew and weary on it," the old man said to himself; and then to +the others, "Is it that far as he says?" + +"Ay is it, every inch," said old O'Beirne. "And too long a thramp for +you altogether, sir, if I might make so free." + +"For the matther of that," said the ragged old man, proudly, "I've +walked the double of it, and more, times and agin, widout so much as +considherin'. But your road's a bit heavy to-night, wid the snow--and +could." + +"That's the worst of the roads," said the little old woman, peering +suddenly out of her corner; "the longer you walk them, the longer +they'll grow on you, till you begin to think there's no ind to them. And +after that, the best conthrivance is to keep off of them clivir and +clane, the way I do. Then they're no len'th at all." + +"Ah, ma'am, but 'twouldn't be very handy if the young folk took to +thryin' that plan," the old man said. "_We_'re bound to keep steppin' +out." + +A short silence followed this remark, because the hearers felt uncertain +whether he meant the pronoun for a jest. To evade the difficulty, old +O'Beirne bade Dan fetch a mug for a drop of poteen, and meanwhile said +to the stranger: + +"Sit you down, sir, and take a taste of the fire. Where might you be +thravellin' from this day?" + +"I was livin' over at Innislone," said the old man, sitting down on a +creepy stool. + +"Musha, then, you didn't ever come that far all on ind--sure it's miles +untould." + +"'Twas the day afore yisterday I quit. Last night I slep' at Sallinbeg, +and this mornin' I met a man who loaned me a grand lift in his cart." + +"I used to know a man lived at Innislone," said old O'Beirne, "be the +name of Brian English. He come by here of an odd while after the stuff." + +"Ay, bedad, and a very dacint ould crathur he was. Meself's one of the +Dermodys--young Christie they call me--but ould Christie that was me +poor father's dead this while back. Thank you kindly, lad," the old man +said to Dan, who now handed him a little delft mug half full of whisky. +"Why, you're nigh as long a fellow as meself. Are you good at the +wrestlin'?" + +"Och, I'm no great things whatever," Dan replied with becoming modesty. + +"There's not many heavy weights in the parish 'ud care to stand up to +me," said this young Christie, holding the mug in a gaunt tremulous +hand. "Faix, it's noways forrard they've been about it since the time I +come near breakin' Rick Tighe's neck. I've noticed that. Begorrah, now, +ivery sowl thought I had him massacred," he said, with a transient gleam +of genuine complacency. "You might have heard tell of it, belike?" + +"It 'ud ha' happint before my recollections, sir, maybe," said Dan, +looking at him perplexedly, "if 'twas apt to ha' been a longish while +ago." + +"'Twasn't long to say," said the old man. He drank the spirits +lingeringly, in slow sips, and seemed to sit up straighter as he did so. +Then he set down the empty mug on the table, and said, "_Boys' wages_." + +But he had scarcely uttered the words when he perceived that he had +thought aloud irrelevantly, and made haste to cover the slip. "I'd +better be gettin' on wid meself," he said, rising, "Thank you, kindly. +That's an iligant fire you have." He looked at it regretfully, but +turned resolutely towards the door, still open, and framing the broad +dim whiteness out away to the bounding curtain of gloom. "It's a grand +thing," he said defiantly, "to have all the world before you." + +The sentiment was not accepted without qualification. + +"That depinds," said old O'Beirne. "Somewhiles I question wud you find +anythin' in it better than a warm corner and a pipe of 'baccy, if you +thramped the whole of it. And you might happen on a dale worse. What do +you say, mother?" + +She was knocking ashes out of her pipe-bowl against the wall, and nodded +in assent. + +"It's no place for people that can keep shut of it," she said. + +"If you've ne'er a chance of gettin' into it," said Dan, "I dunno what +great good it does you bein' there afore or behind." + +"Or if you knew there was nothin' left in it you wanted to be goin' +after," said his great-aunt, half to herself. + +"Well, whatever way you look at it," said the strange old man, "I've a +notion I've a right to be gettin' somethin' more out of it be now than +boys' wages. Ay, it's time I was. Boys' wages; the lyin' spalpeen." + +"If you axed me, sir," said old O'Beirne, "I'd say 'twas time somebody +else would be gettin' the wages. Isn't there any childer to be earnin' +for you? Haven't you e'er a son, that you need be thrampin' the counthry +that fashion, let alone talkin' about all the world, wild like?" + +"I've a son, troth have I, if that was all," said the old man, turning +away, angrily. + +"Then it's that much better off than me you are. The only one I had, he +took and died on me, himself, and his poor wife a couple of days after +him--God be good to them--when the lad there wasn't scarce the height of +that stool, and a less size on his brother, that's away now in the +States gettin' all manner of a fine edication. Very dacint poor childer +they always was, too; but it was a bad job." + +"He might ha' done worse agin you than that," said Christie Dermody, "be +the powers he might." He had retreated as far as the door, but now he +faced round, and stood on the edge of the thin snow, leaning his right +shoulder against the post, and looking in at the other old man by the +fire. "He might ha' fooled you for years and years, and made a +laughin'-stock of you wid everybody about the place--and me wid ne'er a +thought of any such a thing--he might so, and bad luck to him.... +'Foostherin' about and consaitin' to be doin' a fair day's work, when +he's the creep of a snail on him, and the stren'th of a rat.' That's +what I heard Tim Reilly sayin' and I goin' home on the Saturday night. +But if I come creepin' after him, the young baste, he'd maybe ha' raison +to remimber it.... And himself and the wife lettin' on there was nothin' +like me; and he callin' me to come into his room--I heard him plain +enough all the while, no fear, but I wudn't be lettin' on. There's +ne'er a hap'orth ailin' him. Troth he may call till he's choked afore +iver I'll come next or nigh him. And sendin' the little girl slutherin' +to say her daddy wanted me. I tould her want might be his master. Sure +they're all the one pack, and the widest width there is in this world +I'll be keepin' between them and me. Shut of them I'll be for good and +all--and I'll make me fortin' yet, and no thanks to him. What talk have +they of ould men? Boys' wages. Good-night to you all." + +To those in the room it seemed as if he dropped away back into the wan +dusk behind him, and next moment they saw him in motion a few paces +distant, limping fast, and gesticulating as though he were still +carrying on his monologue. + +"That old crathur's asthray in his mind, I misdoubt," said old O'Beirne, +"and I wouldn't won'er if he was after gettin' bad thratement among his +own people." + +"Goodness pity him," said his sister Bridget. "It's a cruel perishin' +night, and snowin' thicker. Where'll he get to at all? And carryin' +nought but an old stick. We'd better ha' kep' him." + +"Sure we couldn't ha' stopped him anyhow," said the blacksmith, "no +more than one of them flustherin' blasts goin' by. When a body's took up +wid onraisonable notions, you might as well be hammerin' could iron as +offerin' to persuade him diff'rint. But he'll maybe turn in at the +Gallahers'." + +They watched him until the dark imprints of his receding steps in the +thin snow-sheet could no longer be distinguished, and then Dan closed +the door, shutting out the wide world and the fortune seeker. "Things is +quare and conthrary," he said to himself. + +Some two hours afterwards they were all sitting round the fire still. It +was nearly nine o'clock, which is late in Lisconnel, but they found it +hard to detach themselves from the cordial grasp of the warm glow. +Bridget, however, had put by her needles, and begun to tell her beads, +when another knock broke in upon them. + +"He's come back belike," said old O'Beirne; but when Dan opened the +door, the person who stood there, though likewise tall and gaunt and +ragged, had grizzled black hair, and was not more than middle-aged. His +face was hollow-cheeked and drawn, and his eyes glittered while he +shivered and panted. The night had grown wilder as the moon sank low, +and the snow went past the door like rapid wafts of ghostly smoke. This +newcomer stumbled into the room without ceremony, as if half blinded, +and said breathlessly-- + +"Did any of yous be chance see an ould man goin' this road to-day? An +ould ancient man, somethin' lame; be the name of Christie Dermody?" + +"Ay, sure enough, himself was in it not so long ago," said old O'Beirne. +"If it hadn't been you, 'twas very apt to ha' been him come back." + +In the man's face one trouble seemed to be relieved by another at the +tidings. + +"Glory be to goodness, then, that I've heard tell of him at last," he +said. "But God help the crathur, what's to become of him streelin' about +this freezin' night? The snow's as dhry as mail-dust. Perished he'll be. +Och, he's the terrible man to go do such a thing on us. What way did he +quit? It's me ould father, sir, that's over eighty years of age." + +"And is he after strayin' away on you?" said old O'Beirne. + +"Follyin' him since yisterday mornin' I am," said the other, "when it's +in me bed I should be be rights, for I'm that distroyed wid the could +on me chest I've scare a bit of breath in me body. But sure what matter +if I can come be the crathur agin. Is it that a-way he went, did you +notice?" + +"You're bound to wait till the flurry of the win's gone by," said old +O'Beirne, for his visitor pointed out into a shrieking whirl, shrilling +higher and fiercer. "Sorra a minyit you'll lose, for you couldn't stir a +step in that or see a stim. Sit you down a while. What was it set him +rovin'?" + +"Did he say anythin' agin us? Anythin' of bein' thrated bad?" + +"Well, I wouldn't say he seemed altogether satisfied in himself," said +old O'Beirne, remembering his suspicions. "Somethin' he said of bein' +made a fool of, and tould lies to----" + +"And gettin' boys' wages," said Dan. + +"Ay, ay, wirrasthrew, that was the very notion he had, goodness help us. +What will we do at all wid him? You see, sir, me father's a won'erful +proud-minded man; he is that. And a great big man, and as strong as ten +he was, ontil he got rael ould entirely. So it's cruel bad he thinks of +not bein' able for everythin' the way he used to be; and he won't let on +but he is, be no manner of manes he won't. 'Deed no, he sez he's as good +a man as ever he was in his life." + +"Belike now he's of the opinion the sun doesn't dhrop down out of the +sky of an evenin'," said little old Mrs. O'Beirne, with sarcasm. "What +does the ould body expec'?" + +"I dunno, ma'am, I dunno. Sure it's agin nathur and raison. There's +meself gettin' as grey as a badger, and noways that supple as I was. But +me father's a terrible cliver man. You'd niver get the better of an +argufyment wid him, for he wouldn't listen to a word you'd be sayin'. So +you see the way of it was, the two of us is workin' this great while on +Mr. Blake's lan', that's a dacint man enough; and it might be three year +ago, he sez to me one Saturday night--for be good luck 'twas me and not +me father he'd mostly be payin'--sez he to me, 'Look it here, Ned, it's +the last time I'll be givin' man's wages to your father, for bedad an +infant child 'ud do as much as he any day of the week. So I'll put him +on boys' wages,' he sez, 'that'ill be three shillin's, and every penny +as much as he's worth,' sez he. And sure I knew it was the truth he was +sayin', but 'twould break me father's heart. + +"So nought better could I do on'y to make out 'twas he would be gettin' +the man's wages, and meself the boy's. Diff'rint raisons I conthrived," +he said, with some natural pride in the details of his strategy, "but +mostly I let on 'twas because of me bein' such a fool about the horses +they couldn't trust me wid any except the ould ones. Anyway me father +was contint enough; faix, some whiles he seemed a bit set up like, +considherin' he had the pull over me, and he'd be sayin' what at all 'ud +we do without him, and I such an omadhawn. Niver a cross word we had +until last week I got laid up wid this mischancy could and the pain in +me chest, so sorra a fut could I go to me work; and I well knew the +whole thing 'ud come out, if he went when I didn't. Bedad I dhramed it +all the night asleep and awake, till I was fairly moidhered in me head." + +"Tub-be sure," said old O'Beirne, "that's the worst of lettin' on. If +anythin' goes crooked, it's like the bottom bursted out of a sack of +mail; you're carryin' about nothin' at all before you know what's +happint you." + +"Well, we done the best we could, me wife and me, to dispersuade him off +of goin' on Saturday. Bad wid the could too, we said he was; but och not +a fut of him but would go. So Barney McAuliffe was tellin' me wife, when +the men was payin' in the yard, me father he ups and says to Mr. Blake: + +"'Beg pardon, sir, but you're after givin' me no more than me son's +money, and it's meself was workin' this week, not him.' + +"And Mr. Blake sez, just goin' off in a hurry, 'What are you talkin' +about, man? Whethen now, you don't suppose I've been payin' you full +wages, that hasn't done a stroke of work worth namin' this half-dozen +year? That'ill have to contint you till Ned's back agin.' + +"And Barney sez my father had ne'er a word out of him, but just went +home dazed like. And me wife sez when he come in, he sits down on the +form be the door, and niver opens his lips. So she knew right well what +ailed him, and she said iverythin' she could think of--how it's +disthroyed we'd be on'y for him now I was laid up, and the won'erful man +he was, and this way and that way. But niver a word he heeded, nor near +the fire he wouldn't come, and had her heart-scalded seein' him sittin' +there in the draught of the door. And I meself was tired callin' him to +come in and spake to me, and I lyin' in bed, but next or nigh me he +niver come, not even for little Maggie that he always thought a hape +of. And the next mornin' if he wasn't quit out of it early, afore +anybody knew, in the bitter black frost, and a quare threatinin' of +snow. So then as soon as I heard tell, I up wid me and come after him. +Troth, I left the wife frettin' wild, the crathur, thinkin' I'd get me +death; but what else could I do? And now I must be steppin' on again. +Och no, thank you, lad, if I took a dhrop of spirits, I'd be choked wid +coughin'. But you might just set me on the right road." + +"I'll go along wid him," said Dan, aside to his grandfather, "and if I +can bring him, or the both of them, back here, I will. It's my belief +he's as bad as he can stick together." + +So Dan and old Dermody's son went out into the night. A lull in the wind +had come, and the light of the moon, hung near the horizon's rim, +flickered out dimly ever and anon as the edge of the drifting mist +lapped up wave-like and touched her. It was piercingly cold. Ned Dermody +leaned heavily on Dan as they walked, only till he fetched back his +breath, he said, but it was slow in coming. They had not gone many +hundred yards, yet vast tracts of solitude seemed to have folded round +them, before Dan caught sight of something that somehow startled and +shocked him--a group of boulders by the road, with a shadow under one of +them strangely like a human form. A few paces further on he became aware +that it really was a man--the old man--sitting huddled up under the big +glimmering stone. Thus far had he carried his forlorn quest after +Fortune, and mutiny against Fate. His snaggy stick lay at a little +distance, a black line on the snow, and the sight of that made Dan's +heart stumble. But Ned Dermody shouted out hoarsely and loud: "Be the +Lord it's himself," and, as Dan afterwards used to tell, "took a flyin' +lep at him, as if he'd a mind to ha' lep over the world." + +"Musha now, and is it there you would be sittin' to catch your death of +could?" he began, in a tone of gleeful reproach, shaking the old man by +the shoulder. "Goodness forgive me for sayin' so, but it's yourself's +the pernicious ould miscreant. Fine thrampin' over the counthry I've had +after you--forby givin' us the greatest fright altogether. Sure I give +you me word the whole of them at home was runnin' in and out of the +house on Sunday mornin' like so many scared rabbits about a bank. And +ne'er a man-jack of them, you persaive, had the wit to find out where +you was off to till meself riz out of me bed to go look. And now, +man-alive, git up wid yourself and come along, for it's mortal could +here, and there's tons' weight of snow this instiant minyit ready to +dhrop down on our heads. Come along. Sure it's niver disthressin' +yourself you'd be about ould Blake and his wages? Musha sure Norah and +meself was sayin' on'y on Saturday night that there wasn't many +stookawns like me had fathers to be bringin' them home shillin's every +week as regular as the clock, and givin' prisints to the childer, and +all manner. There's little Maggie frettin' woful to be missin' you out +of it. Don't be keepin' me standin' on me feet, there's a good man, for +it's quare and bad I've been, and the doctor was sayin' he couldn't tell +what ruination mightn't be on me if I didn't mind what I was at. And +here's the dacint lad waitin' to show us the road. We're just comin' +along this instant, boyo. Look-a-daddy, 'twas all a mistake, and we'll +settle it up next week, when we're both workin' agin. Very belike Mr. +Blake didn't rightly know what he was sayin'. Wake up and come along.... +Daddy darlint, don't you hear what I'm tellin' you? It's raisin' your +wages they'll be after Lent, I wouldn't won'er, raisin' them a shillin' +belike--rael grand it'ill be--God Almighty!" + +He stood up suddenly and looked towards Dan, but at neither him nor +anything else. The moon began to shine clearer in a chink between two +straight leaden bars, and the great white bog seemed to grow wider and +stiller under the strengthening light. The very wind had forsaken them, +and gone off keening into the far distance. It seemed to Dan that even a +flake fluttering down would have been some company, but not a single one +was in the air. He felt himself seized by a nameless panic, such as had +not come over him since he was a small child a dozen years ago. + +"What's the matter at all?" he said futilely to Ned Dermody, knowing +well enough. + +"Gone he is," said Ned, "the life was vexed out of him among us all. +He's gone. And it's follyin' him I'd liefer be, on'y for them crathurs +at home." + +But in another moment he came staggering against Dan, and clutched his +arm, saying wildly: "Ah, lend me a hand--for pity's sake--a hand for a +minyit. Don't let go of me." And he leant such a heavy dead weight on +him that all Dan could do was to let it slip down and down as softly as +might be, until the snowy earth took it from him. + +Ned had followed in spite of the crathurs at home. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +CON THE QUARE ONE + + +Among the unfamiliar faces that show themselves now and then at +Lisconnel, some make no second appearance, never coming our way again, +but passing out of our ken as utterly as if their route lay along a +tangent, or the branch of an hyperbola, or other such unreverting line. +We seldom, it is true, get proof positive, as in the case of the +Dermodys, father and son, that they will no more return. Generally their +doing so any day may be supposed possible as long as anybody remembers +to suppose it. But some come back at more or less regular intervals, +like periodic comets, so that if a certain time elapses without bringing +one of them, the neighbours say they wonder what's took him at all, +while some reappear erratically enough to preclude any calculations upon +the subject. Of this latter class was Con the Quare One, who, after his +first arrival, on a summer's evening, now more than a quarter of a +century since, became a rather frequent visitor, usually stopping for a +few days at least, before he resumed his travels. It was conjectured +that these were very extensive, though perhaps less so than Mad Bell's. +But it was even more difficult to obtain a satisfactory report of them +from him than from her. Mrs. M'Gurk said he was "so took up with his own +notions, that he mostly knew no better where he'd been, or what he'd +been doin', than a baste drivin' home from a fair; you might as soon be +axin' questions of one as the other; though when Con chose to give his +mind to it, he knew what he was about as well as anybody else. Sure if +you wanted to know which way he was after comin', as likely as not he'd +talk about nothin' on'y the sorts of clouds he'd been watchin' goin' by +over his head; and 'twould take a cliver body to tell from that what +road he might ha' had under his feet." This incommunicativeness made him +a disappointing guest sometimes by the firesides, where he was finding a +night's lodging; though he might eke out his conversation with a little +twangling on his fiddle, in which the melody would be quite as vague as +his narratives. As for his own earlier history, he never gave any clear +account of it, probably having none to give, and the neighbours' +speculations upon this point were somewhat wide of the mark, which was +not surprising, as what stray hints he did let fall could be very +deviously construed. The opinion most commonly received held that he had +"took and run off from home, and he but a gossoon, be raison of doin' +some quare bit of mischief, and had a mind yet to be keepin' out of his +people's way; though, like enough, they weren't throublin' their heads +about him be now;" a theory which was not entirely in accordance with +facts. + +Con was not, I believe, an especially quare one at his first start in +life, begun under the thatch of a little whitewashed cottage, dotted +down among grass-fields beside a clear, brown river, which kept his +mother busy exhorting him and his half-dozen brethren to not be falling +in and drowning themselves on her. Her days were haunted by +apprehensions of that catastrophe, which, however, was not included in +the plot of her life's drama. Con's chosen bugbear was the bridge which +bestrode the river close by, and beneath the arch of which he had once +happened to be while a cart passed overhead. For the lumbering rumble +had been an appalling experience, which he shuddered to repeat. Yet he +lacked the moral courage to rouse his elders' derision by an avowal, so +he followed, and did not let on, whenever their wading and dabbling +brought them into the hollow-sounding shade. Despite this daily anxiety, +Con spent his earliest years light-heartedly enough, with no stinting of +pitaties--none at least that reached the childer--and ample scope for +sports and pastimes. But when he was still very small, his grandmother, +lately widowed and on her way to a new abode, stopped a night with her +married daughter, and begged that she might bring home one of the +grandchildren with her, "just to take the could edge off her +lonesomeness," a request which could not well be refused. And Con seemed +the appropriate person to go, as the old woman considered that "the dark +head of hair he had on him was the moral of his poor grandfather's afore +it turned white." Therefore the swiftly running mysteriously murmuring +river flowed away out of his life, and with it vanished all the faces +and voices and comradeship that had made up his world. + +At first he fretted for them rather persistently, but after a time +adapted himself to circumstances, and contented himself with the +grass-bordered, hedge-muffled lane, which had become the scene of his +adventures, fraternizing with the reserved fawn-coloured goat and +demonstrative terrier, who alone took an intelligent interest in them. +For his grandmother was satisfied with the sense of having him "playin' +around handy," and could not be counted company. + +But after nearly a twelvemonth had passed, Con seemed one day to be +seized with a fresh fit of homesickness. It was a brilliant late summer +morning, yet to old Mrs. Quin's perplexity, he continued to sit on his +little stool, with his slice of griddle-cake half-crumbled in his lap, +and answered her suggestions that he should finish his breakfast, and +run out to play, by irrelevant requests for his own ould mammy. He +wanted her cruel bad, he said, and there was nothin' ailed him, and he +wouldn't like to look for blackberries along the hedge--or to throw +stones for Bran--or even to be given a whole ha'penny to go buy himself +a grand sugarstick down at the shop--he only wanted his mammy. Such was +his attitude and refrain all that day and the next. After which his +grandmother said to her neighbour, Judy Ahern, that she couldn't tell +what had come over the child, and he had her fairly distracted +listening to him. + +And Mrs. Ahern said: "Maybe he might be gettin' somethin'; there's a +terrible dale of sickness about. But he doesn't look very bad to say. +Arrah now, Con avic, why wouldn't you run out and play a bit this lovely +mornin'? Wantin' your mammy? Sure that's foolish talk, and she nobody +can tell how far away this minyit. It's just a notion you have.... +'Deed, ma'am, I dunno, but maybe you'd a right to let him home to her, +or else he might get frettin' and mopin' himself into the fever. He's a +poor little crathur; the face of him this instant isn't the width of a +ha'penny herrin'." + +"And he so continted," said Mrs. Quin, "until he took his fantigue. Rael +quare it is." + +"Most things do be quare and ugly these times," said Mrs. Ahern, +"Goodness help us all. There's poor Mrs. Duff thravellin' off to-morra, +to go stay wid her brother at Gortnakil. Very belike she'd take him +along; and he'd be aisy landed home, once he'd got that far." + +And on the morrow Con did actually set off with Mrs. Duff, feeling half +appeased and half compunctious, as people do when they get what they +have clamoured for; sorry a little to lose sight of Bran, staring +open-mouthed after him down the lane; and relieved through all by a +vague sense that he was going whither his heart-strings pulled. If he +had been a more experienced traveller, he might have noticed some signs +that things were, as Judy Ahern had said, out of joint. It was +harvest-time, and the weather was not wet, though dull and chilly, but +nobody was working in the fields. Nothing seemed to move in them, as +they lay deserted, except trails of a white mist that drifted low among +the furrows, where the potato-haulms looked strangely discoloured, +speckled and blackened, as if a shrivelling flame had run through them +all, charring and strewing pale ashes. The air was full of a peculiar +odour, heavy and acrid, the very life-breath of decay. The roads were +deserted too. For miles nobody would be met, and then a small stationary +crowd of people would appear, collected it would seem without any more +purpose than cattle huddled together in a storm, and as dumb as they, +not giving so much as a "fine mornin'" to the passer-by. Other crowds +they fell in with now and again, pacing slowly along, and these always +had a heavy burden carried among them, and sometimes women keening. +Once the car-horse shied violently at some dark, long thing, that was +stretched out by the footpath, and Mrs. Duff crossed herself and said, +"God be good to us," and the driver said without looking off his reins: +"He's lyin' there since yisterday, and I seen another above about the +four-roads, and I comin' past this mornin'." + +Con did not give much heed to these incidents; but one scene in his +journey impressed him strongly. It was at the small town where they +slept the night, and it happened while they waited in the broad main +street next morning for their car to pick them up, as Mrs. Duff +travelled by a rather disjointed system of lifts in vehicles that were +going her road. There were few people about, and Con was intensely +admiring a gaudy tea-chest in the window of the shop before which they +stood, when a great roar began to swell up round the corner, with a +lumbering of wheels heard fitfully through it. Presently a large crowd +came struggling into sight; a street full of men, women, and children, +surrounding a blue, red-wheeled cart, piled high with dusty-looking +white sacks. Half-a-dozen dark-uniformed policemen were trying to haul +on the horse, and keep between the cart and the crowd, whose shout +generally sounded like: "Divil a fut its to quit--divil a fut." It was a +crowd that looked as if it had somehow got more than its due share of +glittering eyes--in mistake, apparently, for other things. + +As the cart came crawling past where Mrs. Duff and Con stood, a furious +rush so tilted it over that the horse fell, breaking a shaft, and some +of the topmost sacks tumbled off, dropping with dull thuds, like dead +bodies, upon the damp cobblestone pavement. Con saw a little cloud of +white dust rise up over each as it dumped down, and melt away on the +air, making him wonder to himself: "Is it smokin' hot they are?" But in +another moment they were hidden for a while by a wild wave of the crowd, +which threw itself tumultuously upon them. One of the sacks burst, +spilling the soft flour in flakes, and round it the jostling and +writhing grew fiercest. The faces that got nearest to it looked hardly +the whiter for their smears and powdering. + +A young woman, all black eyes and elf locks, with a baby wrapped in her +shawl, crouching low and making a desperate long arm, grasped a covetous +handful, which spirted away wastefully between her clenched fingers. She +moistened some of this in a puddle as she knelt, and held the paste to +her baby's mouth. But its head was drooping wearily aside, and its lips +did not move when she touched them. "Ait it up, me heart's jewel," she +said; "ait it up, mother's little bird. 'Deed, then, but you're the +conthrary little toad. It's breakin' me heart you'll be roarin' when +I've ne'er a bit to give you, and sleepin' dead, when I've the chance to +feed you." She was beginning to shake it, but a young man who stood +behind her put his hand on her shoulder, saying: "Whisht, whisht, you +crathur, for God's sake. It's done wid wantin' and cryin', and a good +job for it too, the Lord knows." Then the girl shrieked again and again, +and the people about her said from one to the other: "It's her child's +starved on her." And an old man caught up the little body, and held it +high over his head, shouting, "Boys, boys--look yous at that. There's +the way Henderson's cartin' off the childer's bit of food to make his +fine fortin in England." And the crowd shouted back through a surge of +curses: "Divil a fut will he this day." + +A very little old woman seized hold of an outlying sack and tried to +lift it, a ludicrously impossible feat, at witnessing which a cripple +leaner than his crutches laughed boisterously, saying, "Och, good luck +to you, granny. You're makin' a great offer at it entirely. Is it often +you do be liftin' up the Hill of Howth? More power to your elbow." And +the crowd yelled with laughter too. + +At this moment there was a prodigious clatter of hoofs on the stones, +and round the corner whirled a squadron of hussars, all in their blue +and yellow like a flight of macaws, coming to the rescue of Mr. +Henderson's sacks. But Con saw scarcely more than the first confused +onset, for somebody snatched him up and hurried him into a dark passage. +The last sight he had of the fray was of a glossy black horse plunging +frantically back from a cloud of the flour flung into his face, and +rearing higher and higher, until he fell over with a terrific scrambling +crash. Con particularly noticed the white gloves of the rider, and +thought to himself, "He's been grabbin' the flour too." And the women +about him said, "Och, murdher, the baste--the man's apt to be kilt!" + +When Mrs. Duff and Con emerged again all was quiet in the street--two or +three women had even stolen back, and were scraping up the white +patches--and he was driven away on a car for what seemed to him a vast +length of time. But at last, as he peered listlessly out on glimpses of +the dreary, strange road caught between the shawled heads of two other +passengers, his eyes suddenly fell on something delightfully familiar. +It was a grey ruined mill which stood by the river, not many hundred +yards from his home. All at once he seemed to be set down in the middle +of his old life as if he had never left it, only with a charming +freshness superadded. A delicious feeling came over him as he watched +the clear, sky-glinting loops unwind themselves in the grass while the +car jogged along. There were the big stones over the edges of which the +brown water broke into dancing crests of crystal bubbles when the river +was full, and the deep pools under the hollow banks where they had seen +the trout that was the size of a young whale, and the twisted wild +cherry tree from beneath which the eddies sometimes twirled away bearing +fleets of frail, snowy petals. And Johnny and Katty and the rest might +all come into view paddling round any corner. When the car stopped at +the gap through which you got into the field just behind his cottage, he +was almost beside himself with joy, as his fellow-travellers, who were +less elated, lifted him down and handed him his bundle, and bade him +run straight in to his mother like an iligant child. + +He did run down the steep little footpath at the top of his speed, and +round the corner of the house, and in through the open door. The room +looked very dusk to him coming in from the mellow afternoon sunshine, +and the first thing he noticed was that the fire had gone out. The +hearth was a blackness sprinkled with white ashes, which made him think +of the flour spilt on the dark ground. Next he saw his mother sitting on +a stool by the hearth with her head leaned against the wall, and his +father's old caubeen hanging on its nail above, a very unusual sight at +that hour. Con rushed at her head-foremost, saying, "Och, mammy darlint, +I'm come home this long way, and they was fightin' wid all the soldiers +and spillin' the flour, and his horse rared up on his hind legs till he +fell off his feet. And where's daddy if he isn't workin'? And musha what +for is Nannie and Johnny in bed?" He pulled her shawl because she did +not look round at him, and immediately she dropped down prone on the +floor as heavily and helplessly as he had seen the white sacks fall. She +had in truth been dead for hours, but Con ran out screaming that he was +after killing his mammy, and nothing would persuade him otherwise. +Vainly the neighbours averred that "the crathur was starvin' herself +this great while to keep a bit for the childer, let alone her heart +bein' broke frettin' after her poor husband and little Pat, who were +took from her wid the fever, both of them the one day." Con's mind was +shut fast into the dreadful moment when he had pulled her shawl and she +had fallen down, and therein it abode, sorely afflicted, until a spell +of brain fever intervening let it loose into a region of vaguer and more +varied dreams. + +And when he had struggled through this illness, nobody well knew how or +why, he woke up to find his world swept very bare. Father, mother, and +all his brethren, except little Katty, were vanished out of it, and as +it came looming back to him thus depeopled, its aspect was immeasurably +desolate. Nor did his loss end here, for from this time dated the +springing up among his neighbours of a suspicion that he was not all +there, a suspicion which developed into an accepted article of belief, +the more readily, perhaps, because nobody remained for whom such a fact +would have had a personal bitterness, the old grandmother having slipped +away out of her lonesomeness before his recovery. It would not be easy +to explain how it was that Con grew up into that privileged and +disfranchised person who is spoken of as "a crathur," and whose +proceedings are more or less exempt from criticism. People often said of +him that he had plenty of sense _of his own_, and the remark was to some +extent explanatory, as a certain singularity in his way of viewing +things even more than an occasional inconsequence and flightiness in his +sayings and doings tended to establish the reputation for eccentricity +which followed him closely as a shadow, and set an impalpable barrier +between himself and his kind. As he advanced in life this was +strengthened by his increasing fondness for his own society, but he did +not take to his solitary wanderings until after his sister Katty married +young Peter Meehan and emigrated to New York. It was suggested to him +that he should accompany them, but he sat looking meditative for a +while, and then said, "How far might it be from this to the States?" + +"I dunno rightly," said his informant, "but a goodish step it's apt to +be, for people's better than a couple of weeks sailin' there, I'm +tould." + +Con meditated a little more before he put another question. "Would you +be widin hearin' out there of the folk talkin' foolish?" he inquired. + +"Why, tub-be sure, man, what 'ud hinder you that you wouldn't hear them +talkin' same as anywheres else?" + +"Bedad, then," said Con, "it seems a long way to be thravellin' to a +counthry as close as that. Sure, if you take out for a stravade over the +bog here, you'll be throubled wid nothin' the len'th of the day on'y the +curlew, or maybe a couple of saygulls skirlin'--raisonable enough. I'll +be apt to stay where I am." + +Con, who was a person of many moods, happened to be in an unusually +cynical one just then; however, he adhered to his resolution, and when +his sister had gone he adopted a life of long tramps. Somebody had given +him an old fiddle, and this he carried with him, though chiefly as a +sort of badge, as his performances were but feeble, and he could turn +his hand to many other things when he found it necessary to do so. His +rovings had gone on for several years before they led him to Lisconnel. +In those days he was a strange, small figure, who wore a coat too large +for him, and a hat set so far back on his head that its brim made a sort +of halo to frame his face, which had a curious way of looking fitfully +young and old, with a shining of violet blue eyes and a puckering of +fine-drawn wrinkles. A small boy and a little old ancient man would seem +to change places half a dozen times in the course of a single +conversation. Even his hair was a puzzle, regarded as an indication of +age, because its black had become streaked with white in such a fashion +that its apparent hue varied according to what came uppermost in +accidents of ruffling and smoothing. A neighbour once said of him that +he was the living moral of a little ould lepreehawn that they were after +making a couple of sizes too big by mistake; and my own impression is +that further opportunities for observing specimens of the race would be +likely to bear out this statement. + +The summer evening on which he was first seen at Lisconnel had followed +a very fine day. In the heart of its golden afternoon Mrs. O'Driscoll +trusted her youngest son Terence out on the bog with his brothers and +sisters and some other children, the eldest of whom, Johanna Harvey, the +Ryans' orphan niece, was credited with wit enough to keep the party out +of the holes. They wandered off rather more widely than usual, along the +foot of the hill, lured on by a sprinkling of dainty white mushrooms, +which they found, generally with yells, studded here and there. At last +they sat down on a bank to peel their delicate, pink-quilted buttons, +all of them except Terence, who was not yet of an age to have acquired a +taste for mushrooms. He had been carried most of the way, still he had +toddled further than he was accustomed to do, and his unwonted exertions +led him to curl himself up behind a sun-smitten rock and fall asleep +with a quietness which presently brought upon him the fate of out of +sight out of mind. After a while, however, Johanna did bethink herself +of him, and was just on the point of wondering aloud where little +Terence had gone to, when her cousin Thady turned her thoughts into a +different channel by suddenly saying, "What was there in it before the +beginnin' of everythin'?" + +Thady was a small, anxious-looking child, whose pale and peaky face his +mother often likened regretfully to a hap'orth of soap after a week's +washing. He had spent a surprisingly considerable part of his six years +in metaphysical speculations, and was always disposed to make a personal +grievance of the difficulties in which they constantly landed him. His +tone was now rather peremptory as he repeated, "What was there in it +before the beginnin' of everythin'?" + +"Sure, nothin' at all," said his elder brother Peter, to whom the answer +seemed quite simple and satisfactory. But Johanna looked as if she had +caught sight of some distant object which provoked hard staring. + +"Then what was there before the beginnin' of nothin'?" pursued Thady. + +"Dunno," said Peter, indifferently, "unless it was more nothin'." + +"Sure not at all; that wouldn't be the way of it," Johanna said, +dreamily, yet with decision. "If there was nothin' but nothin' in it, +there'd ha' been apt to not be e'er an anythin' ever. Where'd it ha' +come from? Don't be tellin' the child lies, Peter. Why, for one thing," +she said, her tone sharpening polemically and taking a touch of triumph, +"there was always God Almighty in it, and the Divil. Maybe that's what +you call nothin'." + +Peter evaded this point, saying, "Well, anyway, those times, if there +was just the two of them in it, and no harm to be doin', let alone any +good people to know the differ, it's on'y a quare sort of Divil he'd +get the chance of bein'. I wouldn't call him anythin' _much_." + +"He wouldn't be so very long, you may depind," Johanna pronounced. +"Musha, sure the Divil couldn't stay contint anywhile at all till he'd +take to some manner of ould mischief 'ud soon show you the sort of +crathur he was--it's his nathur. I should suppose the first thing he'd +go do 'ud be makin' all the sorts of hijjis roarin' great bastes and +snakes and riptiles that he could think of, and the disolit black wet +bogs wid the could win' over them fit to cut you in two when you're +sleepin' out at night," said Johanna, whose ten years of life had +brought her into some rough places before her adoption by her Aunt +Lizzie Ryan, "and the workhouses--bad luck to the whole of them--where +there's rats in the cocoa, and mad people frightenin' you, and the cross +matrons, and the polis, and the say to dhrownd the fishin'-boats in, and +dirty ould naygurs that put dacint people out of their little +places----" + +"If it had been me," said Peter, "I'd ha' been very apt to just hit him +a crack on the head when I noticed what he was at, and bid him lave thim +sort of consthructions alone." + +"I dunno the rights of it entirely," Johanna admitted, "but it's a +cruel pity he ever got the chance to be carryin' on the way he's done." + +"Ah, sure it can't be helped now at all events," said Peter, who was for +the time being not inclined to quarrel seriously with the scheme of +things, as he basked on the warm grassy bank, where the wild bees were +humming in the thyme, happily remote from the grim House and the hungry +sea. + +"Belike it can't," said Johanna; "but 'twould be real grand if it could. +Suppose I was out on the hill there some fine evenin', and I not +thinkin' of anythin' in partic'lar, and all of a suddint I'd see a +great, big, ugly, black-lookin' baste of a feller, the size of forty, +skytin' away wid himself along the light of the sky over yonder, where +the sun was about goin' down, and his shadder the len'th of an awful +tall tree slippin' streelin' after him, till it was off over the edge of +the world like, and that same 'ud be just the Divil, that they were +after bundlin' out of it body and bones, the way he wouldn't get +meddlin' and makin' and annoyin' people any more. So wid that I'd take a +race home and be tellin' you all the iligant thing was after happenin'. +And in the middle of it who'd come landin' in but me father and mother, +and little Dan. And then, if it isn't the grand cup of tay I'd be +makin' her, ay begorra would I, and a sugarstick to stir it wid." + +Johanna's vision of the millennium was broken in upon querulously by +Thady. "Sure I know all about God Almighty and the Divil," he said +comprehensively, "I was on'y axin' what was in it before the beginnin' +of everythin', and you're not tellin' me that." + +"There's a dale of things little spalpeens like you wouldn't be tould +the rights of at all," said Peter, loftily, being rather annoyed at the +interruption. He would have liked to hear some further details about the +felicity to be inaugurated by that exquisite cup of tea. "Go on +romancin', Han." + +But Johanna, who felt that this assumption of superior knowledge was an +uncandid subterfuge, and yet had not magnanimity enough to disclaim it +on her own part, remained uneasily silent for a moment, and then only +said: "Sure it's time we was gettin' home." This they accordingly +proceeded to do, and had gone most of the distance before it occurred to +anybody that little Terence O'Driscoll was not with them. Then, after a +superficial and unproductive search among the scattered stones and +bushes, they thought it expedient to run back in a fright, and report +that the child had gone and got lost, unless by any odd chance he'd come +home along wid himself. + +Thus it was that when Terence wakened from his nap, he found himself +deserted, and thrown completely upon his own resources. As he had not +been quite three years in amassing these, they were on the whole but +scanty. In fact, he was helplessly unable to realise a world with +nothing in it except endlessly swelling up slopes of furzy grass, no +Molly nor Micky for him to trot after, and to carry him wherever they +were going, whenever he intimated the desirability of that step by +abruptly plumping down on the way. So he set off in a great hurry to +escape from such a wilderness. He still walked with a wobbling stagger, +and his long frock of whity-brown homespun kept on tripping him up, +which retarded his progress. But he was not at all long in mentally +reaching the precincts of a wild panic which rose up and seized him in a +grip never to be quite forgotten, though only a few desperate minutes +ensued before he stumped blindly against Con's legs. It was so +unutterable a relief to have come on somebody who could hear him roar, +that Terence ceased roaring immediately, and let Con pick him up +without demur. The appearance of Molly or Micky would, no doubt, have +been more satisfactory, but this stranger man might serve well enough at +a pinch to carry him home, which it was inconceivable that anybody of +such a size could be unable or unwilling to do. As for Con, the +inference he drew from Terence's dimensions was that his family and +friends were probably not far to seek; and he recognised the shrewdness +of the conjecture when he presently espied a shawled figure coming +swiftly towards him over the edge of a slope, with the amber of the +sunset glowing behind her, and her long shadow sliding on far below her, +as if it were in an even greater hurry than herself. + +Mrs. O'Driscoll's head was among the golden sunbeams, but her heart had +gone down to the very bottom of the blackest and deepest hole in the +bog. For towards that dreadful goal she had seen a small form toddling +ever since the other children came home alarmingly late with the news +that Terence had got lost on them, and they couldn't find a bit of him, +high ways or low ways. She was so overjoyed at her rescue that her +delighted gratitude cast a sort of glamour around Con, which never +wholly faded away. Ever after the appearance of his queer figure called +up in her mind a dim reminiscence of the moment when she had seen it for +the first time come into view, laden with what she well knew was Terence +sitting bolt upright in a manner that betokened him to have experienced +neither drowning nor any other disaster. + +As Con put the child into her arms, where it seemed to fit into a niche +specially designed for it, he said: "Sure now, ma'am, when I seen him +stumpin' along his lone, and he about the heighth of a sizable boholawn +(ragweed), sez I to meself there was apt to be somebody lookin' after +him. For bedad it seems to me mostwhiles the littler a thing is the more +people there'll be consaitin' they can't get on widout it; and that's +lucky, belike, or else it might aisy get lost entirely, like a +threepenny bit rowled away into a crack. But if you come to considher," +Con said, hurrying on lest his allusion to the coin should be construed +as a hint that he thought of payment for his services, "most people's +lookin' out for somebody, or else somebody's lookin' out for them. It's +on'y a few odd ones like meself that makes no differ here or there. I +won'er now is the raison that it's after losin' ourselves we are in a +manner--I've I've me notions about that. For first I think I dunno if +anythin's rightly lost that nobody's lookin' to find, and then I think I +dunno but you might as well say you couldn't find anythin' you weren't +after losin' and lookin' for, and that's not the truth be no manner of +manes." + +"And you after findin' the child," said Mrs. O'Driscoll. + +"Sure not at all, ma'am," said Con, modestly, deprecating not the +statement but the implied praise. "Small thanks to me for that, when the +woful bawls of it you might have heard a mile o' ground. You could as +aisy ha' missed a little clap of thunder, if a one was be chance comin' +tatterin' along between the furzes, wid the head of it bobbin' up now +and agin, and makin' all the noise it could conthrive. Troth it's the +quare bawls _I_ might be lettin' these times afore the rest of them 'ud +hear me, for if it's lost I am, I'm strayin' a terrible long while; +they're apt to disremimber they ever owned me. I do be thinkin', ma'am, +that if you forgit what you've lost, 'tis maybe all the one thing as if +you'd found it; and after that agin I do be thinkin' maybe 'twould be +liker losin' it twyste over. It's quare the diff'rint notions there is +about most things. And a good job too, or else what would you be +considherin' in your mind, when you was thrampin' around? 'Deed now if +you couldn't be supposin' they were this way and that way, and argufyin' +over them wid yourself in your own mind, 'twould be like as if you took +and swallied down a lump of 'baccy instead of chewin' it, and what sort +of benefit or plisure 'ud you git out of that?" + +This was Con's first bit of philosophising at Lisconnel, and it was not +his last by many, as the place became one of his favourite resorts. His +liking for it was perhaps partly due to the fact that its inhabitants +received him on more equal terms than were generally accorded to him +elsewhere; and this again may be largely attributed to the influence of +Mrs. O'Driscoll. For her grateful feelings towards the restorer of +Terence made her loth to recognise any deficiencies in him, and her +neighbours, soon perceiving that she seemed vexed if Con was spoken of +as cracked or crazy or "wantin' a corner," were ready enough to modify +their language, and even their judgment, in accordance with her view. +Still it was convenient to distinguish him from another resident Con, +about whom there were no very striking features. Therefore her little +Rose having been heard to say that she was "after seein' Con, not Con +Ryan, but the quare one," they caught up and applied the epithet, which +in Lisconnel is regarded as a safely colourless term, not likely to hurt +the most sensitive feelings. + +Con, on his part, formed the highest opinion of Mrs. O'Driscoll, and +often took counsel with her about perplexing points which had presented +themselves to him in the course of his meditations. In one practical +matter, however, he showed an obstinacy that did not further her in her +wish to uphold him on a footing with quite sensible people. This was his +fancy for adorning the band of his broad-brimmed caubeen with a garnish +of feathers and flowers. Mrs. O'Driscoll disapproved of the freak, +rightly judging that it often created irrevocable first impressions, and +fixed his standing at a glance. In this age and clime the Seven Sages +could hardly maintain among them a reverend aspect, under the frivolity +of a single flaunting blossom, much less the gaudy bunches and fantastic +plumes upon which Con recklessly ventured. So at last, having hinted and +remonstrated ineffectually, she contrived somehow to find time and stuff +among her laborious days and scanty stores, and fashioned for him a +round cloth cap of a severely plain design, which she thought would +give no scope for any unseemly appendages. Upon being presented with +this headgear, Con dutifully assumed it, and went about wearing it for a +day or two in a depressed frame of mind. Then he appeared in the morning +at the O'Driscolls', cheered, and crested with a remarkably long +gannet's feather stuck upright in the crown of his cap, through which he +had bored a hole to admit of the insertion. He was resolved to brazen +out the matter, so he presently took off his cap, and twirling it round +with an unconcerned air as he leaned against the door, said to Herself: +"Well, ma'am, what do you think of that?" + +"To tell you just the truth, Con," said Herself, whose countenance had +fallen as she saw the failure of her little plot, "I was thinkin' it +looked a dale better before you cocked that ould gazabo on top of it. +'Deed now it gives you the apparance of a head of cabbage that's +sproutin' up and goin' to seed. Sure you niver see the other lads +trapesin' about wid the like on them." + +Con, who seemed rather cast down by this criticism, was about to reply, +when young Ned Keogh took the cap out of his hand and affected to +examine it closely, saying: "Glory be to goodness, what sort of thing +is it at all at all? Bedad it's the won'erful conthrivance--ah, tub-be +sure; _I_ see what it is. He's about growin' a pair of wings for his wit +to fly away wid. But musha good gracious, he needn't ha' throubled +himself to be gettin' them that sizable. Somethin' the bigness of a +hedge-sparrer's, or maybe a weeny white butterfly's, 'ud ha' plinty +stren'th enough for the job, if that was all they had to do." Ned meant +no harm, but his witticisms did not fall in with Con's humour, so he +snatched back the cap and went off affronted, nor did he call at the +O'Driscolls' again for some weeks. + +The next time he came, however, Herself had espied him a bit down the +road, and was standing at the door to receive him with his discarded +caubeen in her hand. "You'd be better wearin' it, Con, after all," she +said, "for the eyes are scorched out of your head under the sun widout +e'er a scrap of brim." And as Con took it, he observed with glee that +she had fastened into the band a dove-coloured kittiwake's wing-feather, +a somewhat cherished possession of her own, which she used to keep over +her best picture on the wall. Thus did she seek to make amends for the +speech about the sprouting cabbage-head, which had been weighing +heavily upon her conscience. + +The kittiwake's feather had to weather rain and sunshine for many a year +in Con the Quare One's old caubeen; but it is now on a room-wall again, +the Kilfoyles' this time. Con brought it to Mrs. Kilfoyle one autumn +evening in the year Mrs. O'Driscoll died. It was much longer than usual +since he had wandered into Lisconnel, illness and one thing and another +having detained him in the North for the last twelvemonth and more--all +her blackest days of childless widowhood--so that this was his first +visit since the departure of his earliest friend. + +"Could you be keepin' it somewheres safe for me, ma'am?" he said, +showing the soft grey feather to Mrs. Kilfoyle, who was sitting by the +fire with her sons and her future daughter-in-law, and Ody Rafferty's +aunt, and the Widow M'Gurk. "I'll be wearin' it no more. 'Twas she +herself stuck it in for me, but sure I knew well enough all the while +she'd liefer I wouldn't be goin' about wid such things on me head, and +sorra a bit of me will agin." + +"Whethen now but yourself's the quare man, Con," said Ody Rafferty's +aunt, "to be takin' up wid that notion these times, when ne'er a differ +it'ill make to her. There might ha' been some sinse in it, if you'd done +it to plase her, but now you're more than a trifle too late wid that. A +day after the fair you are. Sure she'll never set eyes on you or your +old caubeen agin," she said, as if announcing some unthought-of +discovery of her own, "no matter what ould thrash you might take and +stick in it. You might be wearin' a young haystack on your head for +anythin' she could tell." + +"That may be or mayn't be," said Con. "But at all evints the next body +that goes there out of this countryside 'ill be very apt to bring her +word. Discoorsin' together they'll be of all the news, and as like as +not he--or it might be she--'ill say to her--'I seen Con the Quare One +goin' the road a while back, and he wid ne'er a thraneen of anythin' in +his hat, good or bad; the same way the other boys are; lookin' rael +dacint and sinsible.' Belike she might be axin' after me herself, and +that 'ud put it in the other body's head. Yourself it may be, Moggy. +Faix now, I wouldn't won'er a bit if it was, for there must be a +terrible great age on you these times. Sure you looked to be an ould, +ould woman the first day I ever beheld you, and that's better than a +dozen year ago." + +"Troth then there's plinty of oulder ould people than me, let me tell +you," protested Moggy, who was about ninety, "that you need be settlin' +I'm goin' anywheres next. Musha cock you up. And your own hair turned as +white as sheep's wool on a blackthorn bush." + +She seemed so much put out by Con's statement and inference that young +Thady Kilfoyle, always a good-natured lad, sought to soothe her. + +"Sure there's no settlin' any such a thing, and for the matter of goin', +the young people often enough get their turn as fast as anybody else. +It's meself," he said, "might be sooner than you bringin' news of yous +all, and Con's ould caubeen, and everythin' else to Heaven the way he +sez." + +"I dunno if you've any call to be talkin' that fashion," said the Widdy +M'Gurk, disapprovingly, "as if you could be walkin' permisc-yis into +Heaven widout wid your lave or by your lave. Maybe it isn't there any of +us'ill be bringin' our news." + +"Might you know of e'er a better place then, ma'am?" said Con. + +"Heard you ever the like of that?" said Ody Rafferty's aunt, not +unwillingly scandalised, "I should suppose nobody, unless it was a born +haythen, 'ud know of any place better than Heaven." + +"That's where she is then," said Con, stroking his feather. "For the +best place ever was is none too good for her, God knows well." + +"And thrue for you, man," said the Widdy M'Gurk. "But she's one thing, +and we're another. It's not settin' ourselves up we should be to have +the same chances." + +"Ah, well, sure maybe we're none of us too outrageous altogether," said +Mrs. Kilfoyle, looking hopefully round at her company. "And if they can +put up wid us at all at all, they will. We'll get there yet, plase God. +And anyway I'll be takin' good care of your feather, Con. Ay will I so; +same as if it was dropped out of an angel's wing." + +"So good-night to you kindly, ma'am," said he. "I'll be steppin' back to +Laraghmena. I on'y looked in on you to bring you that, and give you news +of Theresa. And I question will I ever set fut agin in Lisconnel." + +He did not, however, leave it quite immediately. A little later, when +Brian Kilfoyle was escorting Norah Finnegan home, they saw him sitting +on the bank near the O'Driscolls' roofless cabin. Its mud walls were +fast crumbling into ruin. Already the little window-square had lost its +straight outline, and would soon be as shapeless as any hole burrowed in +a bank. Con sat with his back turned to it until the dusk had muffled up +everything in dimness, and then he stole an armful of turf-sods from the +nearest stack, and groped his way in through the deserted door. The +shadows within were folded so heavily that he could scarcely more than +guess where the hearth had been. One of Con's peculiarities was a +strange horror of a fireless hearth. At the sight of its hoarily +sprinkled blackness he always felt as if he were standing on the verge +of some frightful revelation; a vague reminiscence, no doubt, from the +scene of his life's tragedy, all distinct memory of which had been +blurred away by his illness. Now he piled and crumbled his sods with +practised skill, and set them alight in well-chosen places. But he +stayed only for a minute or so, till the little fluttering flames had +fairly taken a hold, and were sending golden threads running along the +netted fibres. Then he groped his way out again, and returned to his +seat on the bank. Presently, as he watched, he saw a red light +beginning to flicker through window and door, and growing steadier and +stronger. When it was at its brightest, he got up and turned away. +"That's the very way it would be shinin'," he said, "and I comin' along +the road to see Herself and Himself and the childer--God be good to them +all, wherever they may be. And that's the notion of it I'll keep in me +mind." + +And Con the Quare One came no more to Lisconnel. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +MAD BELL + + +Not so very long before the sound of Con the Quare One's fiddle ceased +to enliven Lisconnel any more, Mad Bell's singing had begun to be heard +there occasionally, as it has been at intervals ever since she arrived +with her two housemates, Big Anne and the Dummy, and took up her abode +in the last of the cabins that you pass on the left hand, going towards +Sallinbeg. Perhaps Lisconnel should not reckon her among its residents, +so much of her time is spent on the tramp as an absentee. Still, she +sometimes has tarried with us for a long while, and she is understood to +have some property in the house-furniture, so it seems natural to +consider the place her home. + +From the first it appeared obvious to all that the dementedness which +characterised the little wizened yellow-faced woman was of a much more +pronounced type than Con the Quare One's. Any attempt to spare people's +feelings by ignoring the fact would have been very futile, and it was +therefore lucky that the three new-comers, Mad Bell herself included, +were quite content to accept the situation. The neighbours were at first +inclined to commiserate Big Anne, who was pronounced to be "a dacint, +sinsible, poor woman," for the oddities of her household, the +incalculable flightiness of Mad Bell, and the impenetrable silence of +the Dummy. But to their condoling remarks she was wont to reply in +effect--"Ah sure, ma'am, that's the way I'm used to them, the crathurs. +Why, if Mad Bell said anythin' over-sinsible, or poor Winnie said +anythin' at all, it's wond'rin' I'd be what was goin' to happin us +next." And Big Anne evidently looked upon this as an uncomfortable frame +of mind. At first, too, they speculated much about the circumstances +which had brought the curious trio together beneath one thatch, and +found it especially hard to conjecture how the daft little vagrant had +come into possession of sundry tables and chairs. All its members, +however, being incommunicative persons, no satisfactory elucidation of +these points was arrived at in Lisconnel. + +The coalescence of Big Anne's and the Dummy's fortunes is a simple +history enough. Anne Fannin, while yet a youngish woman, was left alone +in the world to do for herself in her little wayside cabin. Without a +dowry to recommend her rough-hewn features and large-boned ungainliness, +she never had any suitors, and she found it as much as she could +contrive to make out her single living by means of her "bit of poultry" +and her pig. Nevertheless, when her nearest neighbours--the +Golighers--died, leaving their daughter Winnie, "who had niver got her +speech, the crathur," to live on charity or the rates, what else was a +body to do except take her in? Anne would have put this question to you +with a sincere want of resource. So Winnie Goligher transferred to Anne +Fannin's house, herself and all her worldly goods, which consisted of +the clothes she had on, and a prayer-book, and a lame duck, and +thenceforward the two "got along the best way they could." + +Mad Bell's history has more complications in it. They began one pleasant +April day when she was only a slip of a lass, who had taken a little +place at the Hunts' farm near her home, for the purpose of saving up a +few pounds against her marriage with Richard McBirney. She had been +given an unexpected holiday, and was running home across the fresh, +spring-green grass-fields, thinking to take her people by surprise, when +she came to a hedge-gap whence you look down into a steep-banked lane. +And at the foot of the bank Richard McBirney was sitting with his arm +round her sister Lizzie's waist. + +To a dispassionate observer this transference of his attentions might +have seemed a matter of small moment. Most of their acquaintances, for +example, were just as well satisfied that he should court Eliza as +Isabella. But the sight turned all the current of her life awry. For it +set her off rushing away from it across the same sunny green fields, and +she never came home again. Nor ever again would she settle down quietly +anywhere. She had a strong, clear voice and a taste for music, and this +led her to take to singing ballads about the country at markets and +fairs. The harder she was thinking about fickle Richard McBirney, the +louder and shriller she sang. A very few years of such wandering +shrivelled up her plump "pig-beauty," so that in her little sallow, +weather-beaten face her own mother would scarcely have recognised pretty +Isabella Reid. Then, after a long spell of illness in a Union +infirmary, she began to grow noticeably odder and stranger in her looks +and ways; until at length the children shouted "Mad Bell" as she passed, +and that became her recognised style and title. + +Such, briefly, had been her experience of life, when one September +evening she came by chance to Big Anne and the Dummy's door. She had got +a very bad cold, and felt hardly able to drag herself along between the +berried hedges, and was so hoarse that she could with difficulty ask for +the night's lodging, which they granted without demur. Their times had +been unusually bad of late. In fact, their room was looking several +sizes larger than they were accustomed to see it, because they had sold +any articles of furniture for which "e'er a price at all" could be +obtained. But to whatever accommodation this bareness permitted they +made Mad Bell kindly welcome, the crathur being sick and crazy, and she +stayed with them for three or four days. By that time, finding herself +recovered, she resumed her journey, setting off early in the morning +with the abruptness and absence of circumlocution which, as a rule, +distinguished her proceedings. A friendly nod and grimace she made serve +for announcement of departure and leavetaking all in one. As her +hostesses watched her out of sight down the road, Big Anne said-- + +"Well, now, I never seen that quare little body in this counthry before, +and we're very apt to not set eyes on her agin. God be good to us all, +but the likes of her is to be pitied. She's worse off than the two of +us. But bedad, Winnie, if thim hins there don't prisintly take to layin' +a thrifle, it's in a tight houle we'll be ourselves. I dunno what's +bewitchin' them. And the sorra an ould stick have we left in it that man +or mortal 'ud give us the price of a pullet's egg for--and small blame +to him, unless he was as deminted as herself that's quittin'." + +Mad Bell's tramp that day was all along a sequence of lonesome winding +lanes, where few dwellings were dotted among the green and gold of the +fields. The bustle of the harvest, its reaping and binding, was over in +them, and they lay without stir or sound. In some of them the stooks +were still encamped, but some were smooth stubble, empty, except where a +flock of turkeys filled it with dark, bunchy shapes. She walked steadily +on the whole day without any adventure, but when the dew was beginning +to fall through the twilight she came to a short, shady reach of lane, +at the end of which stood, in a green nook, a small, prim white cottage +with two peaked windows and a door to match. That, at least, is how it +would under ordinary circumstances have presented itself to a passer-by. +Just then, however, nobody would have noticed anything about it except +the fact that out of the open door thick coils of woolly black smoke +were rolling and rolling, stabbed through every now and again by thrusts +of flame, which even in the lingering daylight gleamed strongly fierce +and red. The house was evidently on fire. As Mad Bell drew nearer, she +became aware of a wheaten-coloured terrier standing in front of it; and +when he saw her he began to bark vehemently. She was used to being +barked at, though not in this way, for howls were interspersed, and it +was clearly meant not for a menace but an appeal. No other live creature +was visible about the place, until she had come quite close to the +surging door, when a small gossoon jumped up out of the ditch on the +opposite side of the road and rushed across to her. + +"What 'ill I do at all, then?" he said, whimperingly, catching hold of +her shawl. "If them childer's burnt up widin there, Mr. Wogan 'ill be +in a fine way. It's for killin' the whole of us he'll be. And it wasn't +me set it afire. Sorra the match was I meddlin' wid, I could swear it. I +wasn't out of it any time, gettin' a few ripe berries to pacify them +childer, agin they would be wakin' and roarin', and when I come back, +there it is all a smother of smoke. Divil a thing else was I doin' on'y +mindin' them childer, and not meddlin' wid the matches, and goin' after +a couple of blackberries. And Mr. Wogan himself's away to +Ballymacartrican wid his boxes in the ass-cart. And all of them goin' to +quit out of it to-morra, if it wasn't for them childer bein' burnt up +inside--or maybe it's smothered they are. It's as unhandy as anythin'. +It went afire of itself. And he'll be ragin'." + +He bawled all this louder and louder in competition with the clamour of +the dog, who kept on jumping up at each alternately, and evidently +considered his remarks better entitled to a hearing. But Mad Bell merely +replied, "Whisht gabbin', and hould that," thrusting, as she spoke, her +little handkerchief bundle into his arms. And thereupon, making a sudden +dive, she vanished among the flame-sheathing smoke. + +Scarcely had she disappeared when an empty donkey-cart came round the +turn of the lane, led by a rather dejected-looking middle-aged man, +whose countenance, nevertheless, had for some time back been gradually +clearing up at every wind of the way that brought him nearer to this +particular point of view. But as he caught sight of the black smoke +drifting and rolling, his aspect of reasonable melancholy changed to one +of a despair that could not have been wilder if the reek of hell-mouth +had blown into his face. He dropped the bridle, and hurled himself down +the road like the distracted body that he well might be. For a +twelvemonth ago he had lost his wife and both his elder children in one +week, and his pair of two-year-old twins were now all that stood between +himself and world-wide desolation. At the front door his frantic rush +was met and baffled by a choking puff, which sent him fleeing round in +hopes that entrance might be more possible through the back; and on the +way he came face to face with the wrathful visages of his son and +daughter, whom Mad Bell was carrying in the disregardful manner that +betides a cumbrous load snatched up in a mortal hurry. She had escaped +by the back door. + +If the most radiant of guardian angels, in snowy plumes and golden +tresses, had restored his children to him with a befitting speech, poor +Matthew Wogan could not well have been more joyfully relieved from his +terror than he was when this odd little yellow-faced woman, with a red +handkerchief wisped round her head, and a singed grimness generally +pervading her, handed over to him Minnie and Tom, casually remarking, +"Bedad, it's the big heavy lumps they are." Minnie and Tom both were +crying and coughing loudly, because the smoke had got into their eyes +and throats, which they resented; and when their father returned with +them to the front of the house, this noise was swelled by the gleeful +yap-yapping of the terrier and the voices of a few other people who had +appeared upon the scene--a matronly looking woman and two or three +sun-burnt harvestmen. From Mrs. Massey's observations it could be +gathered that she had been minding the Wogan twins by deputy, and +further that she entertained the gloomiest views about the mental and +moral qualities of her son little Larry, who replied to her +animadversions with over-reaching protestations about matches and +theories of spontaneous combustion. While they wrangled in the +background, the young men inspected the conflagration, which proved to +be less extensive than it looked, though undoubtedly serious enough to +have soon put the sleeping children past waking, if rescue had not come. +A heap of blankets and other bedding, that smouldered and blazed near +the front door, was the source of the most stiffling smoke; and when it +had been subdued by many buckets of water, everybody began to drag what +bits of the furniture they could out of harm's way. There was not much, +because, as Wogan explained, he had sent "the marrow of it" to his +sister at Ballymacartrican; and the legs of the largest table were +charred so badly that it collapsed with a crash "the instiant minyit it +set its four feet on the ground," as Mrs. Massey said. However, there +were two smaller ones not much the worse, and three or four chairs, and +a couple of stools, and some pots and pans, and a small clothes-horse, +and a wagging clock, whose round white face glimmered through the dusk +like a fallen moon as it lay flat on the grass. All these things made a +little crowd on the plot of sward by the door. + +"And what will you be doin' wid them now?" said Mrs. Massey. "There's +my place below you'd be welcome to stand them in as long as you plase. +'Deed would you, sir. The dear knows I'm not throubled wid too many +sticks of furnitur'. That's a very handy-sized washin'-tub Larry's after +carryin' out for you. I was noticin' to-day ours has a lake in it this +long while back that dhrips over everythin'. I must get himself to thry +mend it." + +"That's a _lovely_ table," suddenly said Mad Bell, who had hitherto made +no remarks. "A rael grand one it is," she repeated, in a wistful sort of +way, smoothing the leaf fondly with her hand. + +"And very welcome you'd be to have it in a prisint, ma'am, if you've +e'er a fancy for it; ay, or for the matter of that to the whole lot of +them altogether," said Matthew Wogan, who, with his arms full of the +smoky twins, felt a weight of gratitude which he would gladly have +expressed in deeds. "Little vally there is on them--it's a small thing +after what you're after doin' for us. I wouldn't like to be payin' away +me bit of money from the childer, or else--But if I auctioned them +things off the way I was intindin' it's on'y a thrifle of a few +shillin's they'd be bringin' me. Welcome you are to them, ma'am." + +"Sure what use at all 'ud such a thing be to the likes of her?" put in +Mrs. Massey. "It's on'y annoyed you'd be, woman, wid tables and chairs. +And she thrampin' about, you may depind, wid ne'er a place to be +bringin' them to, if she had them twyste over, let alone any way of +movin' them. It's very convanient we are, just round the turn of the +road." + +"She might take the little cart and the ould ass along," said Matthew +Wogan, looking at his equipage, which was straying towards them +intermittently as the beast grazed the green border of the lane. +"They're no use to me now. Then there'd be nothin' delayin' her that she +couldn't be cleanin' out of it wid them right away--You needn't throuble +yourself to be liftin' the little stool, Mrs. Massey. What wid fire and +water, that'll be no place to sleep in," he said, pointing to the still +smoking door. "The Mahonys 'ud take us in for to-night, and to-morra +early we're off to me sister's and next day to Queenstown. 'Twill be a +grand thing for the childer to be settled near their uncle Tom, that's +doin' right well in New Jersey, in case anythin' happint me. So I'd as +lief be shut of all that collection, supposin' they'd be any benefit to +this crathur." + +"Saints bless us, but you're givin' away all before you, Mr. Wogan," +said Mrs. Massey, with a discomfited laugh. + +"Have you e'er a house you could be puttin' them in?" one of the +harvestmen asked of Mad Bell. + +"Ay, bedad," she said. And with that she picked up a chair, and dumped +it down into the cart, which had come to a halt at the door. + +This promptitude on her part seemed to settle the question. Without more +ado the rest of the salvage was loaded in, all except the handy-sized +washing-tub, which by means of an adroitly taken up position Mrs. Massey +contrived to have overlooked and left behind, when Mad Bell drove away +with her newly acquired property. + +On through the gloaming she drove, till the white dust flakes gathered +up by the wheels grew damp and fragrant with dew, and till the moonlight +was glimmering among the golden sheaves silverly, and till live embers +were fanned out of the ashes low in the east. The small hours had a +frosty chill, and old Ned's short steps were leisurely, and his halts +for refreshment frequent; still Mad Bell continued to sit with serene +patience. She was retracing her route of the day before, but at so much +slower a rate of progress that the sun had been up for more than an hour +when she stopped in front of Big Anne and the Dummy's little house. They +were disturbed at their breakfast by the sound of the arrival, and when +they came to the door, saw their visitor in the act of depositing a +second chair upon the ground beside the cart. + +"Whethen now and is it yourself back agin?" said Big Anne. "And what at +all have you got there?" + +"Inside they're goin'," said Mad Bell, pointing to the cart-load with an +elated air. "It's a dale handier to have some chairs and tables." + +This was a fact which Big Anne might well have admitted, considering +that she had just been squatting on her heels to eat her plate of +stirabout. However, she only continued her perplexed catechism: "Where +at all was you after bringin' them things from, and who might be ownin' +them?" + +"Out of a house burnin' down," said Mad Bell. + +"Och between us and harm. What house is it then? And how did it get +burnin'?" + +"Sure it's aisy enough settin' a house on fire," said Mad Bell with a +grin, which to Big Anne who at this time was not familiar with her +manners, looked rather sinisterly significant. "Flarin' up rael strong," +she said, pushing towards her, as if in confirmation of the statement, +the little wooden clothes-horse, whose rails were blackened and charred. + +"Aisy it may be," Big Anne said, looking aghast at it, "but dreadful +divilment it is to do such a thing, wid the misfort'nit people very apt +to lose their lives, let alone everythin' else." + +"There was nobody in it on'y the couple of fat little childer," said Mad +Bell. + +"The saints be among us all, woman," said Big Anne, "what sort of talk +have you? It's not streelin' about the counthry you are, wid them ould +sticks of furnitur', and lavin' the little childer in the house blazin' +up? The Lord pity the crathurs, what 'ud become of them if they was left +thataway? Burnt to cinders be now very belike." + +"Stufficated," said Mad Bell, with a complacent nod. + +Big Anne and the Dummy stared at one another in great horror. The Dummy +could express her feelings only by crossing herself and gasping; but +Big Anne spoke volubly: "May God forgive me for openin' me lips to the +likes of you. Och but you're the unnatural wicked woman to go do such a +thing, if you was twyste as cracked and crazy itself. Git along out of +this, yourself and your ould cart, afore the polis comes after you. Och +the misfort'nit little crathurs. And don't be offerin' to darken our +doors agin wid the ojis sight of you." + +"Gimme a hand wid liftin' in them two tables," said Mad Bell. Whereupon +Big Anne whisked away from her, and banged the door in her face. + +Mad Bell, however, did not appear to be discouraged by this reception. +She finished unloading the cart of all except the tables, which she +found unwieldy single-handed. Then she unharnessed old Neddy, and went +and seated herself on the low wall beside the house. She was seemingly +quite content with the situation. But to the two women indoors it was a +dreadful experience. Their minds were firmly persuaded that the daft +little woman had designedly set fire to some dwelling, and made off with +what household gear she could lay hands on, leaving the hapless children +to perish amid the flames. It shocked and enraged them that their +premises should be infested by the presence of such a criminal, and that +her ill-gotten goods and chattels should be brought to their very +threshold, not to speak of her outrageous proposal to harbour them under +their roof. Big Anne declared that wid the legs of them chairs and +tables glimpsing through the door, as if they were on'y turned out to be +airin' a bit, she and the Dummy seemed as good as a pair of murderers. + +Every now and then they went to the door and peered out, and the +incendiary always greeted them with cheerful nods. On these occasions +Big Anne sometimes said: "Oh, very well, me good woman. Just you sit +brazenin' there till the patrol comes round this way, and then if I +don't give you in charge as sure as the sun's shinin' crooked over our +heads.--Begone out of that, and take them things out of litterin' about +our place." Or she would remark loudly to her companion: "Just stop a +minyit, Winnie, till I sling me ould shawl over me head, and run down to +the barracks. It's not very long they'll be puttin' her out of it, and +bundlin' her into jail, instead of to be sittin' there, wid ne'er a +spark of shame in her, annoyin' dacint people." But neither mode of +address produced any effect. The morning sunbeams still slanted down on +the small pile of furniture, and old Neddy went on munching the blades +off which they were drying the dew, and Mad Bell continued to sit upon +the wall, as if placidly waiting for events. + +Such was the posture of affairs until towards noon, when an outside-car +came trotting quickly down the lane. On one side of it sat a +black-whiskered man in his best clothes, with each hand tightly grasping +a small, fat, wrigglesome child. And the three were Matthew, Tom, and +Minnie Wogan. On catching sight of Mad Bell, he made the driver pull up. + +"Well, ma'am," he called to her, "so you're after gettin' home. Bedad +it's the fine long step you've took th'ould donkey; one while he'd be +doin' it. And you're about gettin' in the few things? Very welcome she +is to the whole of them," he continued to Big Anne, who had now emerged. +"And begorrah nobody else had a better right to any trifle might be +saved out of it. She'll ha' tould you, ma'am, the way the place was set +on fire on me last night--some little divil of a spalpeen playin' wid +matches it seems. But anyhow, there it was in blazes, and me galloppin' +home like a deminted cow, consaitin' these two imps of the mischief here +would be smotherin' inside it. And, troth, if herself over there hadn't +them fetched out safe into the yard, when it was as much as your life +was worth to put your head in at the door, for the stiflin' of the +smoke. I dunno how she conthrived it. Maybe the crathur isn't altogether +over sinsible," he said in a confidential tone; "but if she'd had all +the wit ever was thought of, she couldn't ha' done better be the +childer. So it's kindly welcome she is to the bits of furniture, and the +ould baste. And dhrivin' on we must be. Good mornin' to yous all." + +Mad Bell listened to this praise with the same equanimity as to Big +Anne's threats and reproaches. But when the car had trotted on, she came +up to her, saying just as before, "Gimme a hand wid liftin' in thim +tables;" and Matthew Wogan, jogging down the long lane, may have caught +the last glimpse of one of them as it vanished in at the doorway. + +Thus it was that Mad Bell came to be domiciled with Big Anne and the +Dummy in the pauses between her wanderings. The arrangement seemed +equitable in view of her substantial contribution to the plenishing of +the house. The donkey-cart, likewise, was found very serviceable, +enabling them to turn a penny occasionally by fetching and carrying. And +the coalition worked well upon the whole. But after a few years of such +prosperity that they were seldom without a bit of food in the house, and +sometimes had bacon on Sunday, things took a turn for the worse. Old Ned +died under the burden of his many years, and a sort of murrain among the +fowl cut off several promising pullets in the heyday of their youth. +Then arose difficulties about "rint," while their landlord, who was new +to the property, had a natural zeal for sweeping it clear of encumbering +tenants. And the end of it was that the three women transferred +themselves to Lisconnel, where they became not the least respected of +its inhabitants. + +But these particulars about their antecedents were never learned by the +neighbours there; and the joint ownership of the furniture still +presents itself as one of our unsolved problems. Another of them was +propounded somewhat later, when Mad Bell returned from an unusually long +ramble, during which she had crossed the Liffey by the spacious +O'Connell Bridge, and had heard the boom of the big College bell, and +with her wizened-lemon face had half-scared the smallest-sized children +in villages round about Dublin. For she was wearing an elaborately +fantastic piece of headgear, which moved everybody's curiosity so +strongly that it cannot have been for want of wondering if we failed to +find out how she had come thereby. Strangely incongruous it did +undoubtedly look; yet the stages by which it had descended from its +stand in the milliner's show-room and alighted upon the head of the +little wandering-witted tramp, were much fewer than might have been +supposed probable. + +One blustery March morning when Mrs. M'Bean was on her way along by the +low sea-wall to buy a bit of bacon at Donnelly's shop in Kilclone, the +east wind did her the shrewd turn of whisking off her hat and dropping +it into the water. It was a most shabby old black straw, rusty and +battered, and torn, yet Mrs. M'Bean, a labourer's wife, who had nothing +at all handsome about her, seemed to think it worth a serious risk. For +she mounted on the broad wall-top, and thence made so unwary a snatch +that she overbalanced herself and splashed headlong into the heaving +high-tide, where she would very soon have perished beneath the cold +olive-gray swell, had not the brothers Denny, fishing for bass hard by, +noticed the perilous accident, and pulled timely to the rescue. + +When they disembarked her, gasping and dripping, at the nearest +landing-place, she was understood to say, "Sure me heart's broke," a +remark which Police-sergeant Young, who formed one of the group gathered +by the disaster, considered sufficient grounds for marching her off to +the handiest J. P. on a charge of attempted suicide. Mrs. M'Bean +vehemently repelled the accusation. She explained that she had said her +heart was broke only "because she had lost her ould hat, and every +thread of a rag on her had been dhrenched and ruinated with the salt +water. How could she go for to do such a sin as destroy herself, she +urged, and she wid a houseful of little childer waitin' for her at home, +the crathurs?" Her arguments proved convincing, and the charge was +summarily dismissed, not without strictures upon Sergeant Young's +excessive zeal, by which he, recking nothing of Talleyrand's maxim, felt +himself puzzled and aggrieved. + +The incident, however, brought some more agreeable consequences to Mrs. +M'Bean, as the J. P.'s ladies, commiserating her half-drowned plight, +sent her that same evening a goodly bundle of cast-off clothes, over +which her eyes grew gleefully bright in her careworn face. At one of the +articles included they widened with almost awe. This was an enormous hat +made of white fluffy felt, with vast contorted brims, and great blue +velvet rosettes and streamers. Its fabric was very stout and +substantial, and withal quite new, for its original owner had speedily +found it so stiff and heavy that to wear it gave her a headache and a +crick in her neck. Mrs. M'Bean, for her part, could not entertain the +idea of carrying anything so sumptuous upon her grizzled head; and when +she tried it on her eldest daughter, it totally extinguished and nearly +smothered the child. So she stowed it away in a corner, where it +remained unseen for several weeks. + +But next month, on the afternoon of Easter Day, Mrs. M'Bean had two +visitors over from Ballyhoy: Annie Cassidy, elderly and rather grim, +with her young friend Nelly Walsh. + +"Nelly's bound to be havin' bad luck this year of her life," Annie +observed in the course of conversation, "for not a new stitch has she +put on her to-day, and it Easter. That's an unlucky thing, accordin' to +the sayin'." + +"Ne'er a bit am I afraid of me luck," averred Nelly, cheerful and +threadbare, not to say ragged. But Mrs. M'Bean was pricked by a sudden +thought up the ladder to the little attic aloft, whence she creaked down +again, bringing with her the great white hat. "There, Nelly," she said, +"just clap that on your head, and then nobody can pass the remark that +you didn't get the wear of somethin' new, any way." + +Nelly took the hat, which struck her nearly dumb with admiration, but as +she tried to catch a glimpse of it in the shred of looking-glass on the +wall, her delighted expression waxed so eloquent that Mrs. M'Bean was +impelled to say: "You're to keep it, girl alive, if you've e'er a fancy +for it. Sure it's fitter for you than the likes of me, that 'ud look a +quare old scarecrow if I offered to go about in such a thing." She had +not at first intended this generosity, her worldly goods being so few +that she could not lightly part with even a very unpromising possession. + +Nelly, on her side, could hardly believe in her high fortune, when, +after some polite demur, she found herself carrying off the splendid +hat. To wear it on an ordinary walk would have seemed profane, so she +held it under her old shawl all the way home to her cabin on the shore +at the foot of the Black Banks, a good step beyond Ballyhoy. But when +she reached the door, she could not forbear the pleasure of making her +entrance in the glory of her new adornment. Her reception was altogether +disappointing. For her mother's and grandmother's voices rose up shrill +and shriller, demanding what at all hijjis gazabo she'd got on her. +Billy, her eldest brother, said: "Musha, she's put a pair of blinkers on +her like an ould horse;" and Larry, his junior, remarked with terse +candour, "Och, the fright." More mortifying still, Joe Tierney, her +sweetheart, who had called to conclude arrangements about the morrow's +holiday, said in a disgusted tone: "Tare and ages! I hope to goodness, +Nelly, you're not intindin' to make that show of yourself at the circus +to-morra. Bedad, I niver seen such a conthrivance; you might as well be +walkin' alongside some sort of deminted musharoon." This rather aptly +described the effect of the huge white brim upon Nelly, who was small +and short of stature; but it hurt her feelings badly. + +The only upholder of the hat was Annie Cassidy, who is fond of +controverting the opinions of other people, and who despises men. She +said: "Don't be lettin' them put you out of consait with it, Nelly; it +suits you lovely. Sure if anyone doesn't think your app'arance is good +enough for them, you needn't throuble them wid your company. Circuses, +to my mind, is thrash--to be watchin' folks figurandyin' on a pack of +ould horses' backs. There's a lot of us goin' over to-morra to Rathbeg, +where they've merry-go-rounds you can ride in yourself, and all manner, +if you'd just step down to the Junction station and come along wid us on +the early train." + +"'Deed then I might," said Nelly; not that she had the least intention +of doing any such thing, but because, being somewhat of a belle, she was +unaccustomed to uncomplimentary criticisms and much affronted by them. +Furthermore, for the same reason, she escorted Annie home, and stayed so +long talking, that Joe before she returned had to go off about his +milking, which annoyed him a good deal. + +However, he had quite forgotten his vexation next morning, as he hurried +through his early tasks with a day's pleasuring before him. He worked at +the Kellys', whose land is bounded north and south by the Junction lane +and the sea; and as he walked about the fresh April fields he was in +view of Howth, dark pansy-purple against the eastern amber, confronting +the sweep of the Dublin mountains, outlined in wild hyacinth-coloured +mist, across the dancing silver of the bay. The calves had been fed so +expeditiously that Joe found he could spare time to stop at the starred +bank under the hedge and pick a bunch of primroses, some of which +Nelly's mother would proudly keep in a jam-pot on the window-stool, +while Nelly herself might like to wear a few at the circus, brightening +up her brown-striped shawl. + +But when he was compressing a thick sheaf of the cool soft stalks in one +hard hand, he chanced to look up, and saw what thrilled him with dismay. +Bobbing along over the jagged edge of the wall, a short way down the +lane went a gleaming white object, which he at once recognised as +Nelly's new hat. He ran aghast to look through the gate, and despite +intercepting road-curves and obstructive hedges, the hat it unmistakably +was, making for the Junction station. So Nelly, intending a serious +quarrel, had thrown him over and joined the Rathbeg party. A pleasure, +hoarded in anticipation for many a month, shrivelled into dead leaves +suddenly like fairy gold, as he perceived how certainly this must be the +case. + +His first angry impulse was a resort to Haskin's Public at Portbrendan, +where he might spend his spoilt holiday taking drinks and making bets in +the society of some cronies. What hindered him from immediately acting +upon it was a compunctious forecast of the concern which would prevail +in his family, if he absented himself contrary to expectation. "There's +me mother's never aisy," he reflected, "unless she's persuadin' herself +some of us are kilt on her." This made him resolve to postpone +Portbrendan till after breakfast, and he turned lothfully homewards. As +he passed along the Kellys' yard-wall, he relieved his feelings by +tossing his nosegay over it at the place where he heard the grunting of +their pigs, who on that occasion fared almost as delicately as Marvel's +rose-lined fawn. + +It was early still when he reached his cabin, one in the Walshes' row; +and he sat down listlessly on a bank, to wait for nothing in particular. +Presently Mrs. Walsh, senior, came by with a twinkling can of water. +"Och, there you are, Joe," she said: "Nelly's been lookin' out for you +this good while." + +"Whethen it's quare lookin' out she had," said Joe, "and she took off +wid herself to ould Annie Cassidy--bad manners to her for her +interfarin'." + +"What's the lad talkin' about at all?" said Mrs. Walsh, standing amazed; +"Nelly's widin there this instiant of time, readyin' herself up." + +"Maybe you'll tell me," said Joe, "that I didn't see her streelin' down +the Junction lane afore I was lavin' Kellys'." + +"And maybe _you_'ll tell _me_," said Nelly's grandmother, "that she +wasn't just now callin' to me they were wantin' wather. It's a fine bawl +she'd ha' had to let out of her, if I was to be hearin' her, and she up +beyond Kellys'." + +"There she was anyway," Joe said, doggedly. "Wouldn't I know that dad +fetched-lookin' ould new caubeen she's stuck on her a mile o' ground?" + +"You great gomeral," said Mrs. Walsh. "If that's all you might aisy +enough ha' seen the big hat goin' the road--but have you the notion it's +growin' on Nelly's head? Why, you omadhawn, you hadn't quit ten minyits +last night, and Nelly was just after gettin' back, when who should come +by but poor Mad Bell. Och now the raggedy objick the crathur was, wid +nothin' over her misfort'nit head but an ould wisp as full of houles as +a fishin'-net. So little Larry sez, jokin' like, 'Look here, Nelly,' +sez he, 'you'd a right to be lettin' Mad Bell have a loan of your grand +nappy hat to keep the sun out of her eyes.' But belike Nelly'd took a +turn agin the thing wid the way they'd all been makin' fun of it; for +sez she, 'Will you have it, Bell?' sez she, houldin' it out to her. And +if she did, Mad Bell grabbed it in her two hands--it's not often she'll +have a word for anybody--and no more talk about it, but cocked it on, +and tied it firm under her chin wid the sthramers, as tasty as you +plase. Musha good gracious, to see the len'th she drew the bow out on +aich side of her bit of a yeller face, and the nod she gave her ould +head when she'd got it done. So that's what's gone wid the hat. Goodness +guide us, if she wasn't the poor crazy-witted body she is, 'twould be a +sin to let her go makin' such a show of herself; but sure no one 'ud +think to mind anythin' the likes of the crathur might have on her, the +saints may pity her. Ay, bedad, them kind of quare consthructions do be +fit for nothin' unless Quality and mad people," old Mrs. Walsh +continued, without malice, soliloquising, as Joe had caught up the can, +and was hurrying it with prodigal splashes towards his sweetheart's +door. + +The circus, with its flaring lights and whirl of tinselled prancing +marvels, was so rapturous an experience to Nelly that she had not a +regret for her discarded hat, which at this time was moving on beneath a +soft dappled sky, between greening hedges, westward along quiet roads +and lanes. It found shelter for the night under the ley of a tall +hayrick near Santry, thus ending the first stage of Mad Bell's tramp +home to the wide brown bogland of Lisconnel. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A FLITTING + + +Among the latest of the strangers that have visited Lisconnel were some +who came at a time when the neighbours stood rather in need of +distraction. For the summer following Mrs. Kilfoyle's death was, between +one thing and another, a drearyish season with us. That little old woman +had left a great gap; and then there were many long spells of gloomy bad +weather, which seemed to beat people's troubles down upon them as the +damp drove the turf-reck back through their smoke-holes into the dark +rooms, where they could scarcely see how dense the blue haze was +growing. Stacey Doyne's marriage also had removed something young and +pleasant, and at times, when the thatch dripped without and within, +neighbours were apt to talk about her in tones of commiseration, and +say, "Sure, her poor mother's lost entirely." So that towards autumn +the diversion of some new residents' arrival happened opportunely +enough. It was made possible by the fact that Big Anne had given up her +holding and entered into partnership with the widow M'Gurk, thus leaving +her late abode empty for another tenant, who appeared much sooner than +any one might have anticipated from the aspect of the cabin. + +Except as a fresh topic of conversation, however, the strangers gave +small promise of proving an acquisition to the community. Lisconnel did +not like their appearance by any means, and further acquaintance failed +to modify unfavourable first impressions. These were mainly received in +the course of the day after their arrival, which took place on a night +too black for anything beyond a shadowy counting of heads, and a +perception that the bulk of the new-comers' household stuff had jogged +up on one donkey, and must therefore be small. A portion of Big Anne's +furniture had remained behind her in the cabin, owing to certain arrears +of rent. Her heart was scalded, she said, wid the prices she'd only get +for her early chuckens, and they the weight of the world, if you'd feel +them in your hand; and poor Mad Bell, that 'ud mostly bring home a few +odd shillin's wid her, was away since afore last Christmas, and might +never show her face there agin, the crathur; and the poor Dummy gone, +that was great at the knittin' if she got the chance--a bit of narration +which would look funny enough in anybody's rental. Mrs. Quigley, who +went to the door with the offer of a seed of fire, found it shut, and a +voice inside called, "as onmannerly as you plase," "No, we've got +matches;" whereupon another voice, further in the interior, quavered, +"Thank'ee kindly, ma'am." So she departed little wiser than she had +come. But daylight showed that the party consisted of an old man, and +his son, and his son's wife, and her sister, and three small children, +besides some cochin-china fowl, and a black cat with vividly green eyes. +This much was apparent on the surface. Also that the old man was frail, +bent, shrivelled, and civil spoken, that the son was "a big soft gomeral +of a fellow," that both the women were sandily flaxen-haired, with +broad, flat cheeks and light eyes, and that two of the children +resembled them, while the third--a girl a trifle older--was a +dark-haired, disconsolate-looking little thing, "wid her face," Mrs. +Brian said, "not the width of the palm of your hand, and the eyes of +her sunk in her head." As for the fowl, there could be no doubt that +their "onnathural, long, fluffety legs were fit to make a body's flesh +creep," and the cat looked "as like an ould divil as anythin' you ever +witnessed, sittin' blinkin' atop of the turf-stack." + +Other less self-evident facts came out by degrees--more slowly than +might have been expected, as the strangers were generally close and +chary of speech. They came from the north, where their affairs had not +prospered--in fact, they had been "sold up and put out of it," as the +young man divulged one day to Brian Kilfoyle. They were a somewhat +intricately connected family, by the name, predominantly, of Patman. The +sister-in-law was Tishy M'Crum, which seemed simple enough, but the two +light-haired boys were Greens, Mrs. Patman having been a widow, while +the little girl was the child of a wife whom Tom Patman had already +buried; for though he looked full young to have embarked upon matrimony +at all, this was his second venture. "And it's a quare comether she must +ha' been after puttin' on him," quoth Mrs. Quigley, "afore he took up +wid herself, that's as ugly as if she was bespoke, and half a dozen year +oulder than the young bosthoon, if she's a minyit." It is true that at +the time when Mrs. Quigley expressed this unflattering opinion she and +her neighbours had been exasperated by an impolite speech of Mrs. +Patman, who had said loudly in their hearing, "Well, for sartin if I'd +had a notion of the blamed little dog-hole he was bringin' us into, +sorra the sole of a fut 'ud I ha' set inside it;" and had then proceeded +to congratulate herself upon having prudently left "all her dacint bits +of furniture up above at her mother's, so that she needn't be bothered +wid cartin' them away out of a place that didn't look to have had ever +e'er a thing in it worth the throuble of movin', not if it stood there +until it dropped to pieces wid dirt." Mrs. Quigley rejoined (to Judy +Ryan) that "it would be a great pity if any people sted in a place that +wasn't good enough for them, supposin' all the while they was used to +anythin' a thraneen better--maybe they might, in coorse, and maybe they +mightn't. It was won'erful to hear the talk some folks had, and they wid +every ould stick they owned an aisy loadin' for Reilly's little ass." +But Judy Ryan, with a flight of sarcastic fancy, hoped that Mrs. Patman +and her family "were about goin' on a visit prisintly to the Lady +Lifftinant, because it was much if they'd find any place else where +there'd be grandeur accordin' to their high-up notions." + +Skirmishes such as this, however, were a symptom rather than a cause of +the Patmans' unpopularity. That sprang from several roots. For one +thing, both the women had harsh, scolding voices, and it was even +chances that if you passed within earshot of their cabin you would hear +them giving tongue. Their objurgations were, as a rule, addressed to the +young man or the old, the latter of whom soon grew into an object of +local compassion as "a harmless, dacint, poor crathur," while his son +came in for the frank-eyed looking-down-upon which is the portion of an +able-bodied man, shrew-ridden through sheer supineness and +"polthroonery." But what Lisconnel often said that it "thought badder +of" was the stepmotherly treatment which seemed to be the lot of the +little girl Katty. Of course the situation was one which, under the +circumstances, would have made people believe in such a state of things +upon the slenderest evidence. Still, even to unprejudiced eyes, it was +clear that Katty's rags were raggeder than those of her small +step-brothers, and that she crept about with the mien of a creature +which has conceived reasonable doubts respecting the reception it is +likely to meet in society. When the autumn weather began to grow wintry, +little Katty Patman, "perishin' about out there in the freezin' win'," +became a spectacle which was viewed with indignant sympathy from dark +doorways whence she received many an invitation to step in and be +warmin' herself. Her hostesses opined that she was fairly starved just +for a taste of the fire, and didn't believe she was ever let next or +nigh it in her own place. Often, too, the consideration that she had no +more flesh on her bones than a March chucken led to the bestowal of a +steaming potato or a piece of griddle-bread; but the result of this was +sometimes unsatisfactory to the giver, Katty being apt to dart away with +her refreshments, which she might presently be seen sharing among Bobby +and Stevie, for whom she entertained a strong and apparently +unreciprocated regard. + +"I wouldn't go for to be sayin' anythin' to set her agin them," Mrs. +Brian Kilfoyle remarked on some such occasion. "But, goodness forgive +me! I've no likin' for them two little brats. I'd misthrust them." + +"Ah, sure they've no sinse," said Biddy Ryan. "Where'd they git it? And +the biggest of them, I'd suppose, under four year ould." + +"Sinse!" said Mrs. Quigley. "Bedad, then, if sinse was all that ailed +them, the pair of them is as 'cute as a couple of young foxes. I mind +on'y a day or so after they'd been in it, I met the laste one on the +road, and I comin' home wid be chance a sugarstick in me basket. So, +just to be makin' friends like, I gave it a bit for itself, and a bit +for the other that I seen comin' along. Well, now, ma'am, if it had took +and ate up the both of the bits, I'd ha' thought ne'er a pin's point of +harm--'twould ha' been nathural enough to the size of it. But I give you +me word, when it seen it couldn't get the two of them swallied down +afore its brother come by, what did it go do but clap the one of them +into a crevice in the wall, and cover it under a blackberry laif. And +wid that down it squats, and begins sayin', 'Creely-crawly +snail--where's the creely-crawly snail I'm after huntin' out of its +houle?'--lettin' on to be lookin' for somethin' creepin' in the grass. +And a while after it come slinkin' back, when it thought nobody was +mindin', to poke the bit out of the wall where I was gatherin' +dandelions under the bank. So while it was fumblin' about, missin' the +right crevice, sez I, poppin' up, thinkin' to shame it, 'Maybe the +crawly snail's after aitin' it on you,' sez I. 'Och, yis; I seen it,' +sez the spalpeen, as brazen as brass. 'Gimme 'noder bit instid.' There's +a schemin' young rapscallion for you!" + +"They're too like their mother altogether to plase me," said Judy Ryan. +"The corners of their eyes do be as sharp as if they were cut out wid a +pair of scissors. Not that I'd mind if they'd e'er a sthrake of +good-nathur in them; but I misdoubt they have. The little girl, now, is +as diff'rint as day and night." + +"If _she_ takes after her father, she's a right to want the wit +powerful, misfort'nit little imp," said Mrs. Brian. "For if he isn't a +great stupid gomeral and an ass, just get me one. Why, if he was worth +the dust blowin' along the road, he'd purvint of his own child bein' put +upon." + +"Och, they have him _frighted_," said Mrs. Quigley, with scornful +emphasis. "They won't let him take an atom of notice of her, they're +that jealous. Sure, if he gets talkin' to her outside the house there, +one of them 'ill let a bawl and send him off to be carryin' in turf or +wather. I've seen it times and agin." + +"If he'd take and sling it about their ears some fine day he'd be doin' +right, and it might larn them to behave themselves," said Judy. + +"But the ould man would disgust you," pursued Mrs. Quigley, "wid the +romancin' he has out of him about his son Tom. You'd suppose, to listen +to him, that the omadhawn's aquil never stepped. He'll deive you wid it +till you're fairly bothered. Troth, he thinks the young fellow's doin' +somethin' out of the way if he just walks down the street, and expec's +everybody to stand watchin' him goin' along. It's surprisin' the foolery +there does be in people." + +"Och, murdher, women alive!" said Ody Rafferty, whose pipe went out at +this moment, "there's no contintin' yous at all. It's too cute they are, +and too foolish they are. Musha, very belike they're not so much off the +common if you'd a thrifle more exparience of them; there's nothin' to +match that for evenin' people. Bedad, now, there's some people _I_ know +so well that I can scarce tell the one from the other." + +Lisconnel, however, generally declined to fall in with Ody's +philosophical views, and the Patmans, whether suspected of excessive +cuteness or folly, remained persistently unpopular. There was only one +exception to this rule. The widow M'Gurk has a certain fibre of +perversity in her which sometimes twists itself round unlikely objects, +for no apparent reason save that they are left clear by her neighbours, +and this peculiarity renders her prone upon occasion to undertake the +part of Devil's Advocate. When, therefore, she had once delivered +herself of the opinion that the newcomers were "very dacint folks," she +did not feel called upon to abandon it because it stood alone. As +grounds for it she commonly alleged that they were "rael hard-workin' +and industhrious," which was obviously true enough, since Mrs. Patman +and her sister might constantly be seen tilling their little field with +an energy far beyond the capacity of its late tenant. Her neighbours' +unimpressed rejoinder, "Well, and supposin' they are itself?" did not in +the least disconcert the widdy, nor yet their absence of enthusiasm when +she stated that it was "a sight to behould Tishy M'Crum diggin' over a +bit of ground; she'd lift as much on her spade as any two strong men." +As for little Katty, "she'd never seen anybody doin' anythin' agin the +child; it might happen by nature to be one of those little _crowls_ of +childer that 'ud always look hungry-like and pinin', the crathurs, if +you were able to keep feedin' them wid the best as long as the sun was +in the sky." In short, something more than talk was usually needed to +put the widow M'Gurk out of conceit with any notion she had taken up. +Perhaps the comparative aloofness of her hillside cabin helped to +maintain the Patmans at their original high level in her estimation. At +any rate they had not sunk from it by the time that they had been nearly +three months in Lisconnel, and when Mrs. Patman and her sister were on +terms of the very glummest civility with all the other women in the +place. Even towards the widow M'Gurk they were tolerant rather than +expansive. She said "they had done right enough to not be leppin' down +people's throaths." + +One morning not long after Christmas, the widow, being bound on an +errand down below, called in at the Patmans' with a view to possible +commissions. Meal was wanted, and, while Tishy M'Crum stitched up a rent +in the bag, Mrs. M'Gurk noticed where little Katty, who had been "took +bad wid a could these three days," rustled uncomfortably among wisps of +rushes and rags in an obscure corner. Fever made her bold and +self-assertive, for she was wishing nothing less than that her daddy +would get her an orange--"An or'nge wid yeller peel round it"--Katty +laid stress upon this point--"like the one her mammy got her a long time +ago. And daddy'd be a good daddy and get her another now. And she'd keep +a bit for Bobby and Stevie and all of them--a big yeller or'nge." +Katty's eyes blazed with excitement as she reiterated these extravagant +desires. + +"She's got an oncommon fancy for a one," said her daddy, looking +wistfully from the child to his wife. + +"They have them down below," suggested the widow, "pence apiece." + +Mrs. Patman's hand was slipping towards her pocket. "If it was just for +wunst," she had begun, when Tishy tweaked her sleeve viciously and +interpolated a rapid whisper, "It wont _be_; there'll be no ind to it if +you begin humourin' them," so the sentence was badly dislocated. "She'll +do a dale better widout any such thrash," Mrs. Patman concluded, and +walked off to throw sods on the fire. + +Just then the widow became aware that old Joe Patman was grimacing at +her from a corner fast by in a way that might have startled her had she +not been familiar with such modes of beckoning. But when she obeyed his +summons, what she saw did astound her outright, for Joe was stooping low +over a leathern pouch which he had drawn from a wall-cranny, and which +seemed to contain marvellous depths of silver money, with here and there +a golden gleam among it, as he warily stirred it up, circling a hurried +forefinger. She had only the briefest glimpse ere he shoved back the +pouch and thrust a sixpence into her hand, muttering, "Git her the +orange--don't be lettin' on for your life." + +As she turned away with a reassuring nod, she perceived that Tishy +M'Crum was standing unexpectedly near, and looking towards them over the +top of the meal-bag. Tishy was bitting off a loose end of thread, which +gave her a determined and ferocious expression, but whether she could +have seen anything or not the widow felt uncertain. She thought not. + +About ten days after this Mrs. M'Gurk was roused at a very early hour by +a thumping on her door. When she opened it she found some difficulty in +recognising her visitor, as the dawn had scarcely done more than dim a +few stars far away in the east, which is an ineffective form of +illumination. "Whethen, now, Joe Patman, is it yourself?" she said, +peeringly. "And what's brought you out at all afore you can see a step +or a stim? Is the little girl took worse?" For Katty's illness still +continued, and had grown rather serious. + +"Sure, no," said the old man; "Katty's just pretty middlin'. But it's +waitin' I've been the len'th of the mornin', till 'twould turn broad +daylight, before I'd be disturbin' of you, ma'am, to tell you the quare +sort of a joke they're after playin' on me down yonder." + +"Saints above, man, what talk have you of jokin' at this hour of the day +or night?" said Mrs. M'Gurk, feeling the unseasonableness acutely as a +bitter gust came swooping up the slope and indiscriminatingly ruffled +the rime-dusted grass-tufts and her own grizzled locks. + +"Och, bejabbers, it's a great joke they have agin me whatever," said old +Patman, who was shivering much, with cold partly, and partly perhaps +with amusement. "You see the way of it was, last night, no great while +after we'd all gone asleep, I woke up suddint, like as if wid the crake +of a door or somethin', but, whatever it might be, 'twas slipped beyond +me hearin' afore I'd got a hould of me sinses rightly. So I listened a +goodish bit, and somehow everythin' seemed unnathural quiet, till I +heard Katty fidgettin', and I went over to see would she take a dhrink +of wather. The Lord presarve us and keep us, ma'am, if all the rest of +them hadn't quit--quit out of it they have, and left us cliver and +clane." + +"Ah, now, don't be romancin' man," said the widow, remonstrantly. "What +in the name of the nation 'ud bewitch any people to go rovin' out of +their house in the middle of the black night, wid the frost thick on the +ground?" + +"Quit they are," said the old man. "Tom's gone, and the wife, and every +man-jack of them. They've took the couple of chuckens I noticed Tishy +killin' of yisterday. Begorrah, I believe they've took Tib the cat, for +ne'er a sign of it I see about the place, that would mostly be sittin' +cocked up atop of the dresser. Goodness guide us, sorra a sowl there is +in the house but the two of us, me and the child, and she's rael bad. +It's a quare ould joke." + +"It 'ud be the joke of a set of ravin' mad people," said the widow. + +"But the best of it is," he went on, "do you mind, ma'am"--he looked +round him suspiciously and lowered his voice--"the leather pouch you +might ha' seen wid me the other day?" + +"Whoo!" said Mrs. M'Gurk, "are they after takin' that on you? Sure, man, +I thought you had it unbeknownst." + +"Aye, it's took," old Patman said, "but how she grabbed it I dunno, +onless, I was thinkin', be any chance you mentioned somethin' about it?" + +"Divil a bit of me did," the widow averred, with truth, which her hearer +accepted. "And how much might you have had in it at all?" + +"Troth, I couldn't be tellin' you," he said; "I never thought to count +it. 'Tis just for a pleasure to meself I keep it. This long while back +I've put ne'er a penny in it, but when we used to be livin' up at +Portnafoyle I'd slip in the odd shillin's now and agin, and sometimes +I'd think 'twould be handy for buryin' me, and other times I'd think I'd +give it to Tom as soon as I'd gathered a thrifle more, on'y some way the +thought of partin' wid it 'ud seem to go agin me, and since poor Tom +made a match with Martha M'Crum 'tis worse agin me it goes. 'Tis that +good-for-nought weasel of a slieveen Tishy's after conthrivin' it on me, +I well know, and bad luck to her," quoth the old man, with a sudden +spasm of resentment. "Tom 'ud never play such a thrick--I mane it wasn't +he invinted the joke; he doesn't throuble himself wid much jokin'; he's +too sinsible, and steady, and perspicuous, and oncommon set on me and +the child, all the while. There's no better son in Ireland. Och, but the +rest of them mane no harm wid it; they're just schemin' to dhrop in +prisintly and be risin' a laugh on me." + +Steps which were promptly taken to verify old Joe Patman's strange story +proved it to be correct in every particular. The only fresh fact which +investigations brought to light was the presence of a five-shilling +piece lying on the dresser, where Joe had overlooked it in the early +dusk. All the other inmates, chuckens and cat included, had disappeared, +and with them most of the few movables, the old man and the sick child +being left as forlorn fixtures. Lisconnel at large was neither slow nor +circumlocutory in forming and expressing its opinion as touching the +nature of the joke, a firm belief in which old Joe resolutely opposed to +his troubles as they thickened around him. For no tidings came from the +absentees, nor were any heard of them, while Katty's fever ran so high +that it seemed likely her grandfather would be at small further charges +on her account--a prospect which, however financially sound for a +capitalist of five shillings or under, none the less filled his soul +with grief. Then, one night, when Katty was at her worst, a great gale +came rushing and roaring across the bog, and when the day broke it +discovered the Patmans' brown thatch-slope interrupted by a gaping +crevasse, over which a quick-plashing rain-sheet quivered. + +The widow M'Gurk had less spare room than heretofore at her disposal now +that she harboured a co-tenant, with a slight accession of tables and +chairs. Yet she made out a dry corner for the child and her grandfather, +who accepted these quarters in preference to any others, because the +widow, whatever may have been her private views, was prevented by a +mixture of contrariness and magnanimity from joining in the general +denunciation of her former allies, compromising as were the +circumstances under which they had elected to take their departure. In +her society, therefore, he was not obliged to overhear trenchant +criticisms upon his Tom's behaviour, and could dilate, at least +uncontradicted, upon those gifts and graces in the young man, which +recent events had certainly placed in some need of exposition. + +Other disquieting voices there were, however, which he could not dodge, +and they spoke louder every day. For his five shillings were melting, +dwindling--had vanished; and Lisconnel, with the best will in the world, +could ill brook a burden of two incapables more laid upon its winter +penury. No word on the subject had reached the old man's outer ears; but +as Katty struggled slowly and fractiously towards convalescence, it +became clearer in his mind that unless something happened, she must, +when well enough to be moved, seek change of air away at the big House. +Perhaps this prospect was now more constantly before him than even the +thought of Tom's filial virtues, as he sat drearily on the bank by the +widow M'Gurk's door. He might often be seen to shake his head +despondently, and then he was probably saying to himself: "Belike he +thought bad of me, keepin' the bit of money unbeknownst." + +By that time he had abandoned the joke theory, and fixed his hopes upon +the arrival of a letter to explain the mysterious nocturnal flitting, +and say whither they had betaken themselves after passing through +Duffclane, the furthest point to which the detective forces of the +district had tracked the party. Young Dan O'Beirne, whose work brought +him daily up from down below to the forge a long way on the road toward +Lisconnel, had safely promised to convey this letter so far whenever it +came; and on many a day the neighbours nodded commiseratingly to one +another as they saw "the ould crathur, goodness may pity him, settin' +off wid himself" in quest of it. The prompt January dusk would have +already fallen before he struggled up the Knockawn, to be greeted by the +widow in the tone of marked congratulation which our friends sometimes +adopt when all reason for it is conspicuously absent: "Well, man alive, +there wouldn't be ere a letter in it this day anyway." + +"Och tub-be sure, not at all," he would answer cheerfully, "I wouldn't +look to there bein' e'er a one sooner than to-morra. I hadn't the notion +of expectin' a letter whatever. 'Twas just for the enjoyment of the bit +of a walk I went." + +"Why tub-be sure it was. But be comin' in, man, for you're fit to dhrop, +and be gettin' your ould brogues dhried. Och man, you're dhrownded +entirely; 'tis a mighty soft evenin' it's turnin' out." + +"And here's Katty lookin' out for you this great while," Big Anne would +say, "she's finely this evenin', glory be to goodness." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +A RETURN. + + +Affairs were much in this posture, when the widow M'Gurk was one day +perplexed by the occurrence of two small incidents. In the first place, +as she was starting on an expedition to the Town she saw at a little +distance something run across the road which looked uncommonly like the +Patmans' black cat Tib. Lisconnel owns no other cats for which she might +have mistaken it; still, as she was puzzled to think how the creature +should have hidden itself away for more than a fortnight, she concluded +that she had been deceived by some fluttering bird or glancing shadow. +In the next place, she happened in the Town upon one Larry Donnelly, who +in the course of conversation remarked: "So you've that young Patman +back wid yous agin. What took him to be leggin' off wid himself that +way?" + +"And what put that in your head at all?" said the widow. "Light nor +sight we've seen of him, or a one of them, or likely to. It's off out of +the counthry he is belike, and he after robbin' his ould father, that's +niver done talkin' foolish about him, and lavin' his innicent child to +go starvin' into the Union--bad luck to him." She found a free +expression of her sentiments rather refreshing after the restrictions +under which she was placed at home. + +"Well now," said Donnelly, "I'd ha' bet me best brogues I seen that chap +a couple of nights ago streelin' along the road down about our place; +but 'twas darkish enough, and I might aisy be mistook." + +The widow pondered much over this statement on her homeward way, but had +the forbearance to say nothing about it. She was still undecided whether +or no she would communicate it to anybody, when, next morning, on her +way for a can of water, she saw the black cat, unmistakable this time, +run across the road, and, as on the day before, make off over the bog +towards the little river. Widow M'Gurk stood staring after it for a few +minutes, and came to a resolution. Then she looked about her, and was +aware of Andy Sheridan's head leaning against his doorpost. Of Andy her +opinion was, as we have seen, rather low, but she could descry no other +person available for her purpose, so she called to him: "Andy, lad, I'm +goin' after me two pullets that's strayed on me; come and be givin' me a +hand." Andy lounged over to her goodnaturedly, and they turned into the +bog, where Ody Rafferty presently joined them. The widow thought her +fowl might be among the broken ground, where the stream runs at the back +of the Knockawn, and the three went in that direction. It was a mild +soft grey morning, and they met with neither stir nor sound, till they +came abruptly upon a grassy hollow, shut in by furzy banks, and fronted +by the running water, and then the widow, who alone had been expecting +the unexpected, uttered a suppressed screech, and said: "Och, boys dear, +goodness gracious guide us!" + +What they saw was the figure of a man in a long great-coat, "crooched +all of a hape" under the bank. Near him were ranged in a row half a +dozen oranges, strikin' up a wonderful golden glow. A small grimy scrap +of paper was spread out near them, covered with several piles of +shillings and pennies, and a silver thimble. Beside these Tib the black +cat sat severely tucked up, apparently dissatisfied, and irked by the +situation. At the widow's exclamation the man raised his head, and was +seen to be Tom Patman, looking haggard and dazed, and as hollow-eyed as +little Katty herself. Widow M'Gurk and Ody and Andy stood in a line +facing him. + +"Whethen now, Tom Patman," said Ody, "and what might _you_ be doin' wid +yourself?" + +"I'm sittin' here," said Tom. + +"Och musha, tell us somethin' we don't know then. Sittin' there you are, +sure enough, but what the mischief are you after, might I politefully +ax? or what you mane _by_ it at all at all?" + +"I'm sittin' here," said Tom again, "and starvin' I am; and sittin' and +starvin' I'll be morebetoken till the ind of me ould life. Sure what +else 'ud I be doin', and meself to thank for it, wid niver a sowl left +belongin' me in the mortal world, nor a place to be goin' to?" + +"Well tub-be sure," said Mrs. M'Gurk, "if that talk doesn't bate all +that iver I heard! And himself after trapesin' off as permisc-yis as an +ould hin that won't sit on her eggs, and lavin' his own flesh and blood +behind him as if they were the dust on the road. And then he ups and +gives chat about niver a sowl bein' left him." + +"'Twas Tishy--bad cess to her," said Tom. "Och, but it's the +mischievious ould divil-skins is Tishy M'Crum, and it's herself stirred +up Martha, that wouldn't be too bad altogether if she'd be let alone, +till the two of them had me torminted wid tellin' me th' ould man had +pots of money he'd niver spend as long as he had us to be livin' on; and +that we'd all do a dale better if some of us slipped away aisy widout +risin' a row, and left him for a bit, while we'd be sellin' Martha's +things, and seein' about gettin' into a dacint little place, instid of +the whole of us to be starvin' alive up at Lisconnel, that's nothin' +more than a bog bewitched; and he after lettin' us be sold up, they +said, and all the while ownin' mints of money, so that we'd no call to +be overly partic'lar about lavin' him to make a shift along wid the +child, if 'twas a convanience; on'y he'd be risin' a quare whillabaloo, +if he knew we were goin' off anywheres. Troth, I couldn't tell you all +the gabbin' they had day and night--and showin' me the place he kep' his +bag hidden in, and this way and that way. Och bedad themselves 'ud +persuade the hair on your head it grew wrong side out, if they'd a mind +to it." + +"They might so," said Ody, "supposin' I was great gomeral enough to be +mindin' a word they'd say, or the likes of them." In his subsequent +reports of the interview, Ody always alleged that he had replied: "Aye, +very belike, supposin' it grew on the head of an ass," which was +certainly neater. But Ody Rafferty's repartees, like those of other +people, are occasionally belated in this way. + +"So the ind of it was," Tom went on, "nothin' else 'ud suit them except +gettin' all readied up for us to be slinkin' out in the evenin' late. +Faith, I'd twenty minds in me heart agin quittin' little Katty, and she +that bad. Howane'er they swore black and white that me father'd be +spendin' all manner of money on her when he got us out of it, and we +were to be writin' for them to come after us as soon as we were settled, +and iverythin' agreeable--so I went along. But if I did, ma'am, sure +when they'd got the bits of furniture sold, the on'y notion they had was +to be settin' off to make fortins in the States, and ne'er a word about +Katty and th' ould man. Och they had me disthracted; outrageous they +were; and that ould thief of the world, Tishy, allowin' me sorra a +penny, so as I mightn't ha' been bound to stop wheriver they was. But +one day they thought they had me asleep in the room-corner, and the two +of them was colloguin' away at the table, so all of suddint Tishy whips +out me poor father's bag, that I knew the look of right well, when he +used to keep his 'baccy in it, and down she slaps it, and it jinglin' +wid money. 'What's that for you?' sez she, and: 'The laws bless us,' sez +Martha, 'is it after takin' that you are? And what's to become of them +crathurs up at Lisconnel?' 'Och blathers,' sez Tishy, 'you needn't be +lettin' on you didn't well know all this while I had it. Sure th'ould +one might ha' plinty more hidden away on us. Anyway, I left them +somethin' to get along wid,' sez she." + +"The five shillin's," said the widow. "Och but that one's a caution." + +"Rael hard-workin' and industhrious she is," observed Andy. + +Tom resumed his narrative: "'Them two'll do as well inside as out,' sez +Tishy. 'I'll just be countin' the bit of silver,' sez she. But bedad I +was fairly past me patience, and up I leps, and I grabbed a hould of the +little bag. Och it's a quare fright I gave them that time, and they not +thinkin' I was mindin', rael terrified they were," said Tom, sitting up +more erect, and recalling this rare experience with evident complacency. +"And 'Lave that, you omadhawn,' sez Tishy, wid the look of a divil on +her,' what foolery are you at now?' 'You thievin' miscreant,' sez I to +her, 'it's shankin' off to the polis I'll be, and layin' a heavy charge +agin you for robbin' and stealin', and you after lavin' the innicent +child there and th' ould man to starve widout a penny to their names,' +sez I. 'Faugh!' sez she, 'for that matter the fever's liker to have took +her off agin now wid no throuble to be starvin', and maybe a good job +too for iverybody.' And 'Be this and be that,' sez I, 'if I thought +there was e'er a fear of it, 'tis wringin' your ugly neck round I'd be +this instiant.' 'Let go of that bag,' sez she, sweepin' up some of the +shillin's that was spilt. 'The polis,' sez I, 'and a heavy charge, if +there's another word out of your hijjis head.' 'I vow and declare,' sez +Martha, 'I believe 'twould be the chapest thing we could do wid him, to +let him take it and go. Sure he'd be divil a ha'porth more use for an +immigrant than the ould cat there I was ape enough to bring along to +pacify the childer.' So then Tishy gave some more impidence, but the +last ind of it was we come to an agreement that I'd take the note and +the silver, and they'd keep what bits of gould was in it, and they'd go +off wid themselves wheriver they plased at all, and I'd thramp straight +back here to be lookin' after the child and th' ould man. Ay, bedad, we +settled it up civil enough. And afore I went Martha handed me out th' +ould thimble, and bid me bring it to Katty. ''Twas her mother's,' sez +she, 'I was keepin' for her; and thick it is wid houles be the same +token; but don't say I'd be robbin' it off her.' And they tould me to +take Tib along, or else they'd be lavin' her to run wild; so I put her +in the basket. Begorrah, I believe Bobby had a notion to be comin' wid +me and the cat, for he was lettin' sorrowful bawls the last thing I +heard of him. + +"So away I come wid the best of me haste; och I knocked the quare +walkin' out of meself entirely. And I stopped at the last big place I +was passin' to get Katty the oranges. And I was thrampin' it all the +night after, till just when there was a sthrake of the mornin' over the +bog, I come into Lisconnel. But och wirra wirra--the roof's off of the +house--och the look of the black houle wid the rafters stickin' thro' +it, and ne'er a breath of smoke, till me heart was sick watchin' to see +might there be an odd one; and the door clap-clappin'. Sure be that I +well knew the child was dead, and me father quit out of it, or maybe +buried himself, and I after lavin' them dyin' and starvin'. So for +'fraid somebody'd be comin' out and tellin' me, off I run away into the +bog, till I was treadin' here in the could wather. And then I tumbled +th' ould cat out of the basket, that was scrawmin' and yowlin' disp'rit, +and I took and slung the basket into the sthrame--there's the handle +among them rushes--and down I sat under the bank. I dunno how many +nights and days it is at all--but here I'll stop; niver a fut I'll stir +to be lookin' for bite or sup, or lettin' on I'm in it--and anybody may +take the bit of money and welcome; I'd as lief be pickin' up the dirt on +the road--for I'll just give me life a chance to ind out of the world's +misery and disolation." + +"Now, may goodness forgive you," said the widow M'Gurk, "it's a poor +case to want the wit. Troth, and yourself's the quare ould +child-desertin', mane-spirited, aisy-frighted slieveen of a young +bosthoon; but what sort of a conthrivance is it you have on you at all +at all be way of a head that you couldn't have the sinse to considher +the roof blowin' off a body's house 'ud be raison enough for them to be +quittin' out of it, and no signs of dyin' in the matter? D'you think the +win' was apt to be waitin' till there happened to be nobody widin, afore +it got scatterin' the thatch? God help us all, you've little to do to be +squattin' there talkin' about disolations and miseries, wid the two of +them this instiant minyit sittin' be the fire up at my place, and sorra +a hand's turn ailin' them, forby Katty's a thrifle conthrary now and +agin, thro' not bein' entirely strong yet." + +"And bedad at that hearin'," reports of the occurrence used to proceed +from this point, "the lep he gathered himself up wid, and the rate he +legged it off--musha, he was over the hill while we were pickin' up his +things for him. And as for th' ould cat that he tripped over, it rowled +three perch of ground before it got a hould of its four feet." + +"Sure we were sittin' there as quite as could be consaived"--the +conclusion of this precipitate rush was thus recounted--"when all of a +suddint we couldn't tell what come bouncin' in at the door, as if it had +been shot out of the inds of the earth, and had us all jumpin' up and +screechin', till we seen it was on'y Tom Patman, and he in such a takin' +you might suppose he thought somethin' 'ud swally up ould Joe and the +child on him before he could get at them." + +Lisconnel's opinion was divided as to whether Tom would actually have +stayed and starved in his hiding-place had he not been discovered. Mrs. +M'Gurk thought it likely enough. "The cat goin' back and for'ards that +way," she said, "gave her an idee there was somethin' amiss in it, and +that was why she took Andy along. 'Deed and she got a quare turn when +first she spied the chap croochin' under the bank--she couldn't tell but +he might ha' been a corp." + +Brian Kilfoyle's view was: "Divil a much! Sure if he'd had e'er a notion +to be doin' anythin' agin himself, there was plinty of deep bog-houles +handy for him to sling himself into, and have done wid it." Whereupon +Mrs. Sheridan crossed herself and said deprecatingly: "Ah, sure, belike +the crathur wouldn't have the wickedness in him to go do such a thing." +Her husband didn't know but he might. "Them soft sort of fellers 'ud +sometimes stick to anythin' they took into their heads, the same as a +dab of morthar agin a wall." And Ody Rafferty supposed the fact of the +matter was, "that if be any odd chance they got a notion of their own, +they mistook it for somebody else's." + +On one point, however, the neighbours, Mrs. M'Gurk not excepted, were +practically unanimous, the utter flagitiousness, namely, of Tishy +M'Crum. There was a tendency to begrudge her the trivial merit of having +voluntarily left behind her the five-shilling piece. For this marred +that perfect symmetry of iniquity which is so pleasant to the eye when +displayed by people of whom we "have no opinion." Only Mrs. Brian said +it was a mercy she had that much good nature in her itself. But even she +added that the fewer of them kind of folks she saw comin' about the +place, the better she'd be pleased, and she hoped they'd got shut of +them for good and all. + +This aspiration seemed the more likely to be fulfilled, when within a +week or so the Patmans heard from the family of Tom's first wife, who +held out prospects of work for himself, and a home for Katty and his +father--a proposal which was gladly accepted. Their departure left as +the single trace of their sojourn in Lisconnel, Tib the cat, which +remained behind, a somewhat unwelcome bequest to the widow M'Gurk. +Indeed, I fear the creature became a source of some annoyance to her, +because Andy Sheridan contracted a habit of addressing it by the name of +Tishy, and bestowing upon it the same laudatory epithets with which the +widow had been wont to justify her admiration for the energetic sisters. + +It was on a hushed February morning that the Patmans finally departed. +The smell of spring was in the air, and filmy silvery mist had begun to +float off the dark bogland in vanishing wreaths, soft and dim as the +frail sloe-blossom, already stolen out over the writhen black branches +up on the ridge. A jewel had been left in the heart of every groundling +trefoil and clover-leaf, and the long rays that twinkled to them were +still just tinged with rose. Here and there a flake of gold seemed to +have lit upon the clump of sombre green furze-bushes, by which +neighbours in a small knot stood watching the three generations of +Patmans dwindle away down the road with its narrow dewy grass-border, +threading the vast sweep of sky-rimmed brown. Father and son walked, +while little Katty bobbed along, balanced in a swaying donkey-pannier. +The widow M'Gurk, who felt a good deal of concern about the destiny of +her late lodgers, hoped "they were goin' to dacint people, for there +wasn't as much sinse among the three of them as you'd put on a fourpenny +bit." And Mrs. Quigley thought "'twould be hard to say which the young +man or ould one was the foolishest; for the blathers ould Joe talked +about Tom, and the gaby Tom made of himself over the child, now that he +had his own way wid her, was past belief." + +"And I can tell you," said Ody Rafferty, "there's folks goin' about that +you'll want all the wits you iver had, and maybe a thrifle tacked on, to +get the better of rightly." + +"Augh, I question will they iver do any great things, goodness help +them," said Mrs. Sheridan. "'Twill be much if he keeps them outside the +House." + +"Well, anyway," said Biddy Ryan, "I'd liefer be in their coats, for +fortin or no fortin, than like them two ugly-tempered women, settin' off +to the dear knows where, after robbin' and plunderin' all before them." + +"Thrue for you, then, Biddy," said Mrs. Brian, turning away from her +wide outlook, "we're none so badly off, when we're stoppin' where we +are, instid of streelin' about wid the notion of such black villinies +in our minds. For sure enough," she said, as she faced round towards the +grey-peaked end-walls, and smoke-plumed thatch of Lisconnel, "the +world's a quare place to get thravellin' thro', take it as you will." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +GOOD LUCK + + +Although Laraghmena is no great distance from Lisconnel as the crow +flies, but little intercourse takes place between the two hamlets. For +the crow's flight would be over a rugged mountain ridge, sinking into a +trackless expanse of bog, which often spreads rough and wet walking +before wayfarers who have to experience it at closer quarters than those +who merely throw down a flapping shadow as they pass. And round by the +road is a good long tramp, not to be lightly undertaken. So it does not +happen half a dozen times in the year, perhaps, that anybody comes from +thence to Lisconnel, and our visits thither are fewer still. The +neighbours say that the people up there do be very poor entirely, and +are wont to use a commiserating tone when speaking of them. But their +knowledge of the locality and its inhabitants is by no means intimate, +and would be even less so, were it not that Theresa Joyce and her +brother Mick, the remnant of Mrs. Kilfoyle's family, are now living +there, which makes a connecting link. + +Laraghmena is scattered rather wildly over the slopes of a grey mountain +that shoulders the sea at the point where its foam comes nearest to +Lisconnel. Some of the cabins stand so low along the shore that the +shingle knocks clatteringly at their doors when the tide is full and +rough; and other some are perched so high up on the hillside that they +constantly disappear from view behind a curtain of the pale mists which +haunt its summit, creeping to and fro. When one of these little white +dwellings, with its field-fleck beside it, emerges from the clouds, you +feel as if the slightly improbable had happened, since at such a height +you would have expected nothing but the appropriate rocks and swampy +patches. There was once a French princess who would no doubt have +wondered why on earth any people should choose to live and farm in such +unchancy places. Rather than that she would have ploughed herself up a +little bit of the rich green land which spreads in broad tracts round +about, with sometimes sheep nibbling over it, and here and there a few +deer. But the views of this young lady are represented as having been so +far in advance of her age that she seems hardly possible as an +historical personage, and withdraws into the myth-mists. To that region +certainly belongs the ancient chronicle in which we read how the Irish +Nemedians, revolting against the intolerable deal of cream and butter +and wheaten meal exacted from them by their oppressors, the Fomorians, +those ferocious African pirates, emigrated to Hellas, in hope of better +things, but were at last driven back home to escape the heavier yoke of +the Athenians, who compelled them to: "Dig clay in the valleys, and +carry it in leathern bags to the top of the highest mountains, and the +most craggy rocks, in order to form a soil upon those barren places, and +make them fruitful, and able to bear corn." That history should repeat +itself is, of course, to be recognised as merely a commonplace fact; but +a myth reproducing itself in the shape of events happening visibly +before our eyes, is a rarer phenomenon. And it seems to be occurring +whenever a string of Laraghmenians come plodding up their winding +mountain-path under the burden of heavy creels filled with earth, or +oftener with slippery brown sea-wrack and leathery weed. For it is in +this way that whatever scanty foothold their starveling crops may find, +has been fashioned and maintained in the stony little fields. Year by +year, as the blustery days of late autumn darken into winter, the +steep-ledged path is wetted all along with sea-water, and bestrewn with +dark trails and tough tawny pods out of the dripping creels, until it +grows as sharply ocean-odorous as the beach, while the many bare feet +are continually toiling slowly up and quickly pattering down it. Yet +their efforts are rewarded by only meagre and stunted growths; so +intractable is the material upon which they are expended. Micky Joyce +has been heard to declare, as he took a despondent bird's-eye view of +his holding, that "you might as well be thryin' to raise crops in the +crevices of the stone walls." + +However, as we were just now shown, these dwellers at Laraghmena have +another resource to fall back upon. In fact, they have nothing less than +the wide sea as a supplement to their bit of land. The queer small boats +hauled up on the strand, and the dark-brown net festooning the rafters, +betoken that, as does also the bit of salt-fish hung against the wall, +pallid and juiceless, a shadowy, wraith-like looking viand. But the +bounty of the sea has limits; it does not yield up its stores for +nothing, but takes as well as gives. And it helps itself sometimes on a +liberal scale. Some years ago, for instance, it took poor Thady Joyce +and several of his companions, who had gone off in a couple of luggers +after the herrings. The event is remembered with awe at Laraghmena, +because in that wild March gloaming Con the Quare One had met Thady +himself face to face stepping up the winding path, and had given him +good evening, and asked him how he had got all dripping wet, just at the +very time when the unlucky lad must have been lying drowned miles and +miles from there, among the surges of Galway Bay. Other such toll has +often been levied since then; for the curraghs and pookawns in which +Laraghmena goes to sea are frail craft to cope with the billows come +rolling, maybe, from the fogbanks of Newfoundland, and blasts that have +cooled their breath among hills of ice before they sweep across the +Atlantic. Now and then a boat comes to grief even on the short voyage +made for the purpose of cutting wrack from the shelves of the black-reef +that lies a bit off the shore. So, on the whole, the inhabitants of +Laraghmena may be considered to pay dearly for their supplies of fish +and seaweed; and we at Lisconnel, though we live beyond reach of such +things, and have few substitutes for them, are not far wrong in speaking +of the people up there as "rael poor entirely." + +Yet they themselves would not by any means have it supposed that they +"think bad," as they call it, of their fortunes and habitation. On the +contrary, whatever their private opinion may be, they are disposed to +uphold the merits of the place in public, and to prove themselves sudden +and quick in resentment of any outsiders' disparaging criticism. The +most deadly insult that can be offered to a Laraghmenian as such, is an +allusion to the libellous report which has somehow become current to the +effect that his Riverence at Drumroe, the nearest parish, always sends +over a special messenger on Saturday night to remind them of the +morrow's Mass; the innuendo being that Laraghmena's out-of-the-way +situation, and general want of culture, preclude its inhabitants from +knowing the day of the week. This is why an innocent-seeming remark such +as, "Well, boys, it's Tuesday this mornin'," has been known to set +blackthorns whirling wildly. + +Something of the sort occurred at Sallenmore fair, one day in last +September, when Matt Doyne and Andy Sheridan from Lisconnel fell in with +their acquaintances, Larry Sullivan and Felix Morrough, from Laraghmena. +After they had fought as long as seemed good to them, they exchanged +what news they had. The most important piece was that Larry and Felix +were presently setting off to the States. They were rather urgent in +advising the other two lads to join their party; but Andy said that +everything would go to sticks at home if he was out of it, and Matt +averred that his mother would be of the opinion she was lost and kilt +entirely, if he so much as mentioned any such an idea. "And herself wid +your brother Terence at home to be keepin' her company," objected Felix. +"Sure there's me mother wid ne'er another crathur in the world, you may +say, but meself, and she's never done this last six months persuadin' me +to go along." + +"Then it's the quare woman she must be, bedad," said Matt, "unless it's +yourself's the quare bosthoon on her entirely, and maybe that's liker;" +a rejoinder which brought on a renewal of hostilities. + +Just at this time a spell of fine weather, very bright and serene, had +been brooding over Lisconnel. It was the early spring of autumn, when +leaves and berries here and there were taking a blossom-like vividness; +the frost-touched brier-sprays seemed to have found and dipped in the +same red that had dyed the young buds and shoots of April. The air was +so still that the seeded dandelions stood day after day with their fairy +globes unbereft of a single downy dart, like little puffs of vapour +among the grasses. A soft mist rounded off all the bogland, holding in a +drowse the sunbeams that steeped it, and letting them waken to their +full golden glory at the very heart of noon. But one morning the haze +began to thicken and darken on the horizon, as if wafts of murky smoke +were blown through it, and towards evening massy shapes of black clouds +came slowly lifting themselves up, some with outlines curved like bosky +clumps of wood, some ruggedly ledged and angled like a drift of begrimed +icebergs. By sunset the far west was all a sullen gloom veined with +lurid, tawny streaks, and mottled with deeper stains. Old Peter +Sheridan, who is reputed to have "a great eye for the weather," turned +it forebodingly upon the prospect, and said the sky was "the moral for +all the world of the back of an ould brindled bull, and he'd never +known any good come of that manner of apparance." + +And true for him. Before sunrise next morning Lisconnel was roused by +the reveille of a crashing thunder-peal, which preluded a violent storm. +It is seldom that one booms and rattles so loudly over our bogland, or +glares with so fierce a flame. Brian Kilfoyle, taking a rapid +observation through his door, said, "Be the powers of smoke, I never +seen the aquil of that. You might think they was after whitewashin' the +whole place wid blindin' fire. Here's out of it, sez I." And he +retreated blinking to his dark corner. At the height of it, even Andy +Sheridan, who is probably our freest thinker, felt secretly relieved to +know that his stepmother and his sisters were saying their prayers. The +arrangement seemed to give him a sense of security without claiming any +concessions from his superior strength of mind. But in the end the +perilous clouds rolled away growling and gleaming towards the mountains +and the sea, leaving only one victim behind--the Quigley's little goat, +who had been struck dead by a lightning flash, to the sorrow of her +owners, and the awe of all Lisconnel in contemplation of the black and +white body stretched out still on her wide grazing-ground. + +The storm, however, seemed to have broken up the fair weather, and the +days that followed it were blustery and rainy. On the next of them Larry +Sullivan and Felix Morrough were seen passing through Lisconnel, +evidently equipped for a journey. Larry, who had parted from no near +friends, was apparently in good spirits; but Felix looked so much cast +down that his contemporaries refrained from any references to the days +of the week, and the pair went on their way unmolested amongst the +lengthening shadows. They reported the storm to have been terrific +altogether up at Laraghmena. The Widdy Bourke's thatch was set in a +blaze, "and it was a livin' miracle that the whole of them wasn't +frizzled up like a pan of fryin' herrin's." + +It may have been ten days or so after this that a good many of the +neighbours had dropped in one evening at Mrs. Doyne's. She had been +ailing of late, and old Dan O'Beirne had stepped up from the forge to +prescribe for her, and cheer her with accounts of how finely young Dan +and her daughter Stacey were getting on at their place down below in +Duffclane. The rest of the party had assembled merely for company and +conversation. It included members of nearly all our families--Kilfoyles +and Quigleys and Ryans and Raffertys and the Widdy M'Gurk and Big Anne. +Presently Judy Ryan, who was looking out of the door, had an +announcement to make. + +"Whethen now, and who might yous be when you're at home? There's two +women comin' along the road from Sallinbeg ways, I dunno the looks of at +all, I should say; but the rain's mistin' thick between me and them. +Carryin' bundles they are. If they're not any of the Tinkers we're right +enough. One of them's a little ould body, and the other's a good size +bigger. Strangers they are. Och, mercy on me, have I eyes in me head at +all? How strange she is! Sure it's Theresa Joyce herself. But we haven't +seen her this great while, and who she has along wid her I couldn't be +tellin' you. A feeble sort of crathur she looks to be, accordin' to the +way she's foostherin' along." + +When these two travellers arrived at the Doynes' door, nobody failed to +recognise Theresa Joyce, notwithstanding the estrangement of a long +absence; and she hastened to introduce her unknown companion, who kept a +tight clutch on her arm, as if afraid to let go, and looked at nobody's +face, but seemed to listen from one to the other. She was, it appeared, +the widow Morrough from Laraghmena, who had been struck blind by the +lightning in the great storm Friday was a week--the sight of her eyes +clean destroyed with one flash as she was throwing a bit of food to the +fowl at her door. And the last child she had belonging to her set off +the next morning to the States. And now she herself was going into the +Union down at Moynalone, for what else could she be doing, that couldn't +see her hand before her face? So Theresa was bringing her down, and they +thought they might have got as far as Duffclane against night; but the +creature wasn't well used yet to walking in the dark, so they were slow +coming, and they'd hardly do it. + +Such was the outline of Mrs. Morrough's history up to date, and its +rehearsal had at once the effect of arousing a sympathetic bustle about +her, which did not subside until she sat a wet and wayworn guest, in the +most comfortable hearth-corner, and had been provided with a cup of the +tea that Mrs. Doyne had made herself in her character of an invalid. She +now sat on one side of the blind woman, and stirred her tea for her, and +on the other Dan O'Beirne shook his head in regretful confirmation of +the opinion pronounced by the Drumroe doctor, which was reported to be +that mortal man couldn't do her a thraneen of good. Meanwhile Theresa +Joyce, who was likewise bedrenched and weary, found a seat in the +opposite corner, where her nearest neighbours were Ody Rafferty, and her +niece-in-law, Mrs. Brian Kilfoyle, with her daughter Rose. + +"Well, Theresa, it's the long while since you've stepped over to see +us," Ody said, starting the conversation, "and it's the soft evenin' +you've chose to be comin'. Your shawl's dhreeped. Take it off, and I'll +give it a shake above the fire. Bedad, Theresa, the two of us has been +wearin' the dusty male-bags on our heads since the time I seen you +first. As black as a sloe you was; but now it's liker the blossom it's +turned." + +"And time for it," said Theresa. "Sure I'm over sivinty year of age now, +any way, every day of it--and the long days there was among them, God +knows." + +"But wid all that, ne'er a one of them was long enough for you to be +findin' a man to your mind in it," said Ody. "And I declare to goodness +I dunno but maybe it's the very sinsible woman you were for that same. +Sure meself was a great while afore ever I thought of axin' Biddy, and +for anythin' I can tell I might ha' done better if I'd held me tongue a +bit longer and then said nothin', as the sayin' is. I was ould enough to +know me own mind any way. But, musha, for that matter, Rose there 'ill +prisintly be settin' up to think she's ould enough to know hers, and +it's twinty chances if she has as much wit as you." + +"And why would she," said Theresa, "or anybody be wishin' it to her? Oh, +let that alone. There's a dale of diff'rint sorts of wit, and no raison +why one of them shouldn't be as good as another. Look at her +grandmother, me sister Bessy, it's plinty of paice and comfort she had +wid her marryin'." + +This was quite true, as although she had been rather early widowed, and +her only daughter had married an emigrant, her son and his wife had +taken such care of her, and made so much of her, that the neighbours had +never thought of calling her the widdy, a title reserved for a woman +left struggling alone; and she had remained Mrs. Kilfoyle to the end of +her days. + +"And look at the poor crathur there, what she's come to," said Ody, +instancing the tragical figure of the widow Morrough. + +"Ah, the saints may pity her," said Theresa. "But the likes of such bad +luck happins few people married or single, thank God." + +"It's a quare unnathural young villin her son must be," said Mrs. Brian, +"to skyte off and lave her that-a-way. Sorra the bit he can be good +for." + +"'Deed, now, Norah woman, that's the very notion is disthressin' me," +said Theresa, "for I dunno but it's after usin' him ill, I am. You see +the way of it was the poor sowl--poor Mrs. Morrough--had the great dread +of the say upon her, be raison of her husband and her father gettin' +dhrowned at the fishin', so she'd always the fear in her mind of the +same thing happ'nin' her couple of boys. Howane'er, the eldest of them +went off to California a good few years back, and was doin' pretty +middlin' well out there the last she heard of him, but that's a long +while ago now; about gettin' married he was. But Felix, the lad she had +at home wid her until the other day, often enough he was bound to be on +the wather, after the fish and the sayweed, if he was to get his livin' +at all. And disthracted she was seem' him goin' out in their ould boat, +that's laiks enough in her to sink the biggest ship ever set sail, and +herself wid scarce the width to hould a sizable flounder. Sez I to Felix +one wild evenin', when we was argufyin' wid him, that sure the little +loadin' he could be puttin' in her 'ud never be worth losin' his life +for. But sez he to me, the bit of food they'd put in their mouths was +littler agin, and yet they might be losin' their lives for want of it. +And ne'er a word had I to say to that. But one night last winter he was +as nearly lost as anythin' in a squall, and after that his mother would +be tormintin' herself worse than she was before. So she set her heart +entirely on gettin' him to take off to the States, and be out of the way +of fishin' and dhrowndin'. She'd ha' gone wid him herself, on'y they +said she was too ould, and spoilin' his chances she'd be. A long while +it was before he'd hear any talk of it. The whole summer she was +persuadin' him; but at last he made up his mind he would. 'Twas no +notion of his own to be lavin' her, I'll say that for him." + +"Whethen now, but that was as curious a plan as ever I heard tell of for +keepin' a person from dhrowndin'," said Ody; "to be sendin' him off over +the rowlin' says, sailin' goodness can tell you how many hunderds and +tousands of miles. What was she dhramin' of at all at all to go do such +a thing?" + +"Ah, but sure it's a diff'rint sort of sailin'," said Theresa. "Why, +they say one of them big stamers 'ud carry a couple of our little boats +along wid her, and you'd scarce notice she had them on board. Terrible +safe they must be if they're that size." + +"And morebetoken," said Mrs. Brian, "there's such a sight of ships +comin' and goin' between this and the States, wouldn't you think that +agin now they'd ha' got a kind of track line, crossin' over, as if it +was a manner of road they was follyin' that nothin's apt to happen them +on, and not sthrayin' about permisc-yis in the storms?" + +"_Thrack?_" said Ody, shrilly. "Bedad, then, its the quare thrack, and +the quare places it brings them into. D'you know that, for one thing, +they go slap through the Bay of Bisky?"' + +"And is that an ugly bay?" said Mrs. Brian. + +"You may call it that. I wouldn't be sayin' so to herself over there," +said Ody, with much careful mystery. "For it might be on'y discouragin' +the crathur worse than she is already. But it's the place where the +Seven Oceans of the World meet. Ay, indeed, ma'am--but don't be lettin' +on to her. I was spakin' to a man who had a brother went through it, and +he said the ragin' and tearin' of them all flowin' together 'ud terrify +the sinses out of King Solomon. They had the great big stamer he was in +whirlin' round and round and round, the same as if it was a float on one +of its own paddlewheels, he couldn't tell how many days and nights. +Thracks, how are you. It's a very ready one there is in it to the bottom +of the say." + +"Still a good few people gets through it safe enough," said Theresa, +"ay, and comes back through it of an odd while." + +"But how many's lost in it that you never hear tell of?" said Ody. "And +besides that, the man I was talkin' to tould me his brother was never +right in his head after the tossin' he got. It's a poor case to be +landin' ravin' mad in a sthrange counthry, supposin' you get there +itself. But me own notion is that if people's well off, they've a right +to stop where they are, and if they're misfort'nit, they've a chance any +way of better bad luck stayin' at home." + +Ody stated his own notion authoritatively, and Theresa looked depressed +by the dilemma in which it seemed to place the emigrant. + +"'Deed, now, maybe it's a bad turn I'm after doin' the two of them," she +said; "but poor Mrs. Morrough, many a time she sez to me it 'ud be the +greatest comfort to her at all to get quit of the fear she was in +continyal wheniver he went out wid the ould boat. Sure she might be a +bit lonesome, she'd say, but after all what great company was he to her +when half the time she would be drowndin' him under the rowl of the say, +like his poor father and grandfather? And wid the most he could do it's +hard set he was to make what 'ud keep him. So she'd planned she'd be +able to conthrive well enough wid her hins and her spriggin' work, till +Felix could be sendin' her over a thrifle. A very cliver woman she was +at the spriggin'; the handkercher corners she'd work was rael iligant. +Pence a-piece she got for them, and I've known her finish a dozen in +three days. + +"Och, but I got a turn on the Friday mornin' when I stepped down to her +place to see what way they were after the storm, and there she was +sittin' crouched up in a corner, and screechin' to me to know who was +comin' in, and I standin' before her eyes in the middle of a sun-bame. +And 'Glory be to God,' sez she, 'that it's yourself, for you'll have the +sinse to give me a hand wid endeavourin' to keep the knowledge of what's +after happenin' me from Felix, the way he won't be purvinted of goin' +to-morra. Sorra a fut would he if he knew aught ailed me; and then sure +he might stay at home for good and all; and dhrownded he'll be, and +meself'ill go deminted.' And sure I thought it was maybe no thing to be +doin', and so I said to her. But it seemed the heart of her was to be +broke altogether if anythin' 'ud hinder him gettin' out of it. And then +I was mindin' the father and grandfather of him, the way they went, and +me brother, poor Thady, and I couldn't tell but I might ha' raison to +think bad of biddin' him stay; and if he did, sure perhaps he couldn't +be keepin' her at all, and she so helpless; it's better able he might be +to help her out in the States. And sorry I'd ha' been to disappoint the +crathur of the first wish she'd took a thought of sittin' in the dark of +her misfortin. So the ind of it was I settled I'd stop wid her for that +day, and thry could we let on there was nothin' amiss when Felix come +in, that was out somewhere since early in the mornin' before the storm +began. + +"But 'deed now it was the quare conthrivin' we had after he'd come home. +And where'd he been but off down to Drumroe gettin' her an iligant big +taypot for a keepsake? So the sorra a stim of it, in coorse, could she +see; and I done me best biddin' her look at the grand gilt handle, and +the wrathe of pink roses on it, and she'd say the same thing after me; +but sure its noways very aisy to fall into an admiration of a taypot +you've never set eyes on; and I misdoubt the poor lad thought she wasn't +so much plased with it as he expected. And then he'd be walkin' in and +out, and axin' for this and that he was to put in his bundle; and she +could on'y be tellin' him where to look for them, instid of readyin' +them up for him herself. And the pair of socks she'd promised him she +couldn't get to finish--rael fretted she was wid it all. Howsome'er one +way or the other we made a shift, till poor Felix went off in the grey +of the mornin' wid ne'er a notion of anythin'. Sez he to her: 'You'll be +seem' me steppin' in agin one of these days;' and sez she: 'Ay will +I--as sure as I'll see the sun shinin';' so he consaited she was well +enough contint--but the two of them was thinkin' diff'rint things. + +"Ne'er a word of it we said to anybody before Felix was gone, or else +somebody 'ud ha' been safe to ha' tould him, for there's plinty of +people couldn't be goin' about widout tellin' everythin' they hear any +more than a wasp could fly widout buzzin' its wings. And then we got the +docther to her, but he couldn't do e'er a hand's turn. Sure what could +anybody do agin the lightnin', that's a sort of miracle, you may say, +unless it was wid another one?" + +"And I dunno has people any call to be settin' themselves up to thry do +them," said Mrs. Brian. "We'd better lave the like to Them that +understands the nathur of such things." + +"Ah, I should suppose we'd a right to be thryin' whativer we get the +chance to," said Theresa, "and that's little enough, the Lord knows. +Plinty of things there is kep' up out of the raich of our meddlin' wid +them." + +"Ay bedad, or else it's the quare regulatin' we'd be givin' them now and +agin--we would so," said Ody, regretfully. "Och, but there's an odd few +good jobs I'd give more than a thrifle to be puttin' me hand to this +minyit if I could get a hould of them." + +"And that's the way it is, I'm afeared, wid the lightnin'-blindin'," +said Theresa. "Howane'er, up at Laraghmena we'd ha' done the best we +could for her, if she'd ha' been contint to ha' sted there; we'd ha' +conthrived among us all to keep her well enough. But not a bit of her +would for all we could do or say. She wouldn't be a burden on the +neighbours she said. You see she's proud in her mind, the crathur, +that's what it is, goodness help her." + +"And when a body has that sort of a notion," said Ody, "you might as +aisy crack an egg ind-ways as get it out of their head." + +"So that's the way of it," said Theresa. "But if you could be tellin' me +whether it's wrong I done or right, you know more than meself. Felix 'ud +be for killin' me if he knew, that's sartin, and small blame to him I +was thinkin' part of the while comin' along. For bad work there's apt to +ha' been, sure enough, in anythin' that inds in landin' a body in the +Union." + +The blind woman in her corner across the hearth seemed to have caught +the last word, for she abruptly said, "Ay, ay, it's there I'm goin', and +the first of the Morroughs iver wint on the rates, or the Conroys +aither. But I'm not takin' their name along wid me; troth no; sorra the +Ellen Morrough 'ill they find in it." + +"Sure not at all, woman dear," said Theresa. "Why, Mrs. Doyne, it's +great work the two of us had this day comin' along the road, plannin' a +fine name for Mrs. Morrough to have in the Union', for she sez it's none +any dacint poor people own she'll be bringin' into it. So we've settled +she's to be Mrs. Skeffington Yelverton. That's an iligant soundin' one, +isn't it, ma'am?" + +Everybody expressed admiration, and a forlorn glimmer of complacency at +the arrangement passed over even the sorrowful countenance of Mrs. +Skeffington Yelverton herself, as she sat in her ragged old wisp of a +shawl. She was holding under it her grand new delft teapot, whose +beauties she should never see; though by this time much fingering had +made her familiar with the outlines of its raised pink-rose wreath. Then +Theresa Joyce said, "We ought to be steppin' on wid ourselves, if we're +to get to Duffclane before dark. The evenin's took up a bit. I see the +sky there turnin' like goulden glass agin the windy-pane." But the +neighbours protested against their setting forward again; and it was +agreed that they should sleep the night at the Kilfoyles'. + +When this point had been decided, Mrs. Morrough said, "Would that be +the say--the rustlin' I hear outside there?" + +Upon this people looked ruefully at her and at each other, as if the +question had given them a glimpse into the darkness in which she was +sitting. + +"Ah, no, ma'am," said Mrs. Doyne, "that's on'y the sedge-laves in the +win' round the big pool just back of the house. Few days of the year +there is, summer or winter, but they'll be shoosh-sooin' that way. A +dhrary sort of noise it is to my mind. I do be tired listenin' to it in +the night sometimes." + +"Sure there's ne'er a dhrop of say-wather nearer us, ma'am, than the +place you're after quittin' out of," said Judy Ryan, "it's the quare +whillaloo it 'ud have to be risin' before we'd hear it that far." + +"Well, well," said the blind woman, "yous are the very lucky people, I'm +thinkin', all of yous, that see the shinin' of the sun, and live beyond +the sound of the say." + +Her remark was followed by a short silence, during which her hearers +were, perhaps, questing for consolatory rejoinders rather than +congratulating themselves upon their own luckiness. It was Big Anne who +broke the pause, saying, with the best intentions, "Ah, sure, ma'am +dear, plase God, _you_ won't be so, and _we_ won't be so;" a sentiment +which apparently did not meet with the approval of Ody Rafferty, as he +frowned bushily at her and said in a testy undertone, "Musha, good +gracious, woman, what talk have you out of you at all?" + +Just at this moment sounds, the nature of which could not easily be +mistaken, rose up close by--shouts and laughter and thumps and trampling +of feet. People who ran quickly to the door were in time to see a knot +of youths fall confusedly out of the house over the way--the +Quigleys'--obviously, to judge by their subsequent proceedings, for the +purpose of continuing a scuffle with ampler elbow room. But it was only +for a very brief space that their wrestling and skirmishing among the +puddles held anybody's attention. That was speedily diverted to the far +more extraordinary and astonishing behaviour of their visitor, Mrs. +Morrough. For she suddenly sprang up off her chair, exclaiming, "Saints +above--it's Paddy--that's Paddy's voice--him that I haven't set eyes on +for nine year next Easter--and there's Felix yellin' too! The both of +them's come back, glory be to God!" And so saying out of the house she +ran, and across the road as straight as a dart, she who not an hour +before had been led gropingly in, and would have put her foot among the +glowing hearth-sods, if her guides had not pulled her away. + +The neighbours could at first look on in only mute amazement, but in any +case the two boys and she were for some time so intricately entangled +that any attempt to elicit any explanation would have been futile. When +at last questions and answers were possible, no very lucid account of +the matter was forthcoming. To the many voices that demanded: "Is it +seein' you are, woman alive? Is it seein' you are?" all Mrs. Morrough +could answer was: "Ay, bedad am I, and as well as iver I done in me +life--praise be to goodness. Sure I dunno what way it was, but me sight +came back to me all of a flash, the same as it went, just the very +minyit I was hearin' the lads shoutin'. Och, Paddy, avic, but you're the +grand man grown; and Felix, och now, to be seein' you agin, and +everythin' else as clear as clear. It's meself's the lucky woman this +day--glory be to God and Mary." + +In short, the marvellous restoration of her sight is to this day a +miracle, very freshly in remembrance at Lisconnel and Laraghmena, where +the inhabitants know little about paralysed optic nerves, and might +perhaps continue to wonder none the less even if they knew more. Beside +it the unexpected reappearance of the two young Morroughs seemed almost +a commonplace incident, though Paddy's fine new suit and gold +watch-chain were, indeed, very exceptional things at Lisconnel. His +story ran that he had prospered highly of late out in California, having +made enough to set him up grandly on a good bit of land in the old +country, and give Felix a fair start, and keep the old mother in comfort +all the rest of her life. With which objects in view they had landed at +Queenstown, he and his wife, a girl belonging to very respectable, +decent people in the county Wicklow. "So next mornin', walkin' along the +Quay, who should I see but me gintleman there, and another chap along +with him, and both of them lookin' as wild as if they'd been caught. And +says I to Sally, 'You bet, that's Felix from our place at home;' and +right I was, and just slick in time to stop him goin' on board." Paddy +had then left his wife with her family in Wicklow, where he had seen a +promising farm; and he and Felix were now on their way to fetch their +mother thither. + +"And it's in the quare consternation you'd ha' been," said Theresa +Joyce, "if you'd landed up at Laraghmena, and found her quit out of it +the way she was." + +"And that would ha' happint us," said Felix, "if it hadn't been for +young Dan Ryan in there just now passin' the remark that we couldn't +expec' Father Martin to be sendin' us notices all the way to the County +Cork, and supposin' I'd very belike missed the right day for the stamer +be raison of it. For if we hadn't got fightin' and tumblin' out of the +house, you might aisy ha' gone along wid yourselves, and niver known we +were in the place at all. 'Twas great luck entirely." + +Fortune, in truth, had seemingly taken Mrs. Morrough and her affairs +into the highest favour. Even the luck-insurance of a trivial loss was +not wanting to her, as in her hasty exit she had dropped her new teapot, +which broke into many pieces on Mrs. Doyne's floor. So that, as has been +said, she never beheld it in its beauty. But the very skies had cleared +above her head, swept by a waft of wind that scattered the clouds faster +and further than a drift of withered leaves, and the sinking sun +broadened in splendour before the eyes that had lost sight of him +through ten interminable days. The wet stones on the road glistened like +jewels, and the shallowest pools between them held unfathomed deeps of +blue, when the Morroughs set off for Laraghmena, where they intended to +sleep the night, and bid their friends farewell. "And if it's themselves +won't be in the fine astonishment when they set eyes upon you, woman +dear!" said Theresa Joyce, "for if you'd been twenty year away +thravellin' the world crooked and straight, you couldn't ha' come back a +diff'rinter crathur from what you were, and we settin' out this woeful +mornin'. Little notion you had what was comin' to you, and it all the +while runnin' up your road, so to spake, like the sun racin' the shadows +on a windy day. 'Deed now, I'd be goin' along wid you to hear what +they'll say to it, but I'm ould you see, and ivery step I've thramped I +have the feel of in ivery bone of me body; so I'll stop this night up at +Brian's." + +"And bedad, ma'am, it's well off you are, if you've the feel of nothin' +worse in them," said the querulous voice of old Peter Sheridan, whose +acquaintances describe him as being "terrible gathered up with the +rheumatism this great while," so great, in fact, that everybody except +himself has by this time become accustomed to his condition. + +For the most part, however, they were rather pleased faces that watched +the three strangers out of sight, the last long beams from the sunset +making blink the eyes of nearly all Lisconnel. The west dispread its +fiery golden bloom wider every moment as the swelling scarlet disc +wheeled lower, burning with orbed flame a hollow path through the +kindled haze. One laggard cloud, a great, soft nest of snow, drifted +into the heart of it, and out of it again, flushed and glistering, and +sailed on, a radiant shape, to meet and eclipse the misty white +ghost-moon, faint and dim in the east. Far away over the level bog the +light was stealing about in streams like water spilt on a floor. + +"Well now, I declare," said Mrs. Brian, "it does one's heart good to see +a bit of luck like that happenin' to a body." + +"Ay, does it," said Judy Ryan, "the crathur to be gettin' back her sight +just in the right minyit of time to see her son comin' home to her. Sure +now one might take a plisure in plannin' such a thing, if one had the +managin' of them." + +"Ah, dear, but I wish somebody 'ud be conthrivin' a bit of good luck for +us then," said Mrs. Quigley. + +"Maybe there's plinty more where that's comin' from," suggested Brian +Kilfoyle, hopefully. + +"It's apt to stay there, then," quoth Mrs. Quigley, "for any signs I can +see." + +"Ay, ma'am, that's me own notion," said Peter Sheridan, bitterly; "I'm +thinkin' we'll have to be goin' there, wheriver it is, and lookin' after +it for ourselves, if it's good luck we're a-wantin'." + +"And I dunno what better we could be doin'," said Theresa Joyce, "than +goin' where it is, when we get the chance. Ah, there's the last of the +sun," she said, as a quivering red shaft shot up suddenly, and trembled +away into nothing on the air. "Ay, for sure, he goes down a great way +off out on the bog; the crathur 'ud ha' been plased to see it. 'Deed no, +I dunno anythin' better we could be doin' than goin' after our good +luck." + +So all through that gathering twilight Mrs. Morrough and her two sons +were journeying away with their high fortune to Laraghmena. They were +still on the road long after the clear moon had filled the air with +shimmering silver, and sent their shadows stretching darkly far over the +frosted grass. But Lisconnel had gone to seek, for the time being, its +good luck in the land of dreams. + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +This book contains inconsistent use of "'ill" contracted with the +previous word. See Page 29: "The lads 'ill be" and Page 87: "the +Union'ill be shut." These have been left as in the original. + +There are also some inconsistent spellings in the dialect that have been +left alone. For instance, iligant and illigant. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Strangers at Lisconnel, by Barlow Jane + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRANGERS AT LISCONNEL *** + +***** This file should be named 18957.txt or 18957.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/9/5/18957/ + +Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Ted Garvin and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/18957.zip b/18957.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a2bb6c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/18957.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a786468 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #18957 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18957) |